History Main / AmbiguouslyBrown

* Oerba Yun Fang from ''FinalFantasyXIII''. She's definitely darker than the rest of the party, apart from Sazh Katzroy. However, her sandals and makeup suggest an Egyptian influence while her sari denotes... Not to mention that Hollywood Cockney/Australian accent, and the 'Oerba' part of her name denotes some sort of connection to ''[[RedHeadedHero Vanille]].''

** Jecht. His son being a blond, blue eyed [[strike:Asian]] Zanarkandian doesn't help. Tidus's hair is dyed (he has brown hair as a child in flashbacks) but that doesn't explain how much darker his dad is than him.

* The Rocket siblings from ''RocketPower''. Their skin tone is on a similar level as their tan Hispanic friends, and it doesn't appear to be a suntan, however their dad is white.

* Kaolla Su from ''LoveHina''. Her origins aren't revealed until towards the final chapters. Keitaro even nicknamed her "Hindu Girl" under the assumption she was from India.
---> '''Keitaro''': You girls from India are pretty liberal, aren't you?
---> '''Su''': I'm not from India.
---> '''Keitaro''': Oh... really? Where do you come from then?
---> '''Su''': That's a secret! ^^

** In the main cast, there's Usopp, who also has kinky black hair and drawn lips (which most characters lack), so he may be intended to be outright black.

* Gary Dourdan: psh, got me

--> -- '''[[ThatGuyWithTheGlasses Nostalgia Chick]]'''

* Bhile we're on ''FinalFantasy'', Minwu from ''FinalFantasyII''. Also the ''hero'', Firion.

* Friday, the eponymous protagonist of the RobertAHeinlein novel, is some shade of brown. Justified in that she's an ''ArtificialHuman'', genetically engineered with with genes from around the world. Her mentor even remarks that she couldn't be racist, as she'd be shooting herself in the foot.

* Noah, Justin, Katie, Courtney, and season three newcomer Sierra from ''TotalDramaIsland'' all have tan skin, making it somewhat interesting when fanfiction writers try to give them last names. Sadie can be counted as Ambiguously Asian.

* The kind-of asian Emily on ''{{Pretty Little Liars}}'' dates the sort of black Maya behind her maybe hispanic boyfriend's back.

* Gina Bellman. She was born in New Zealand to English-born Jewish parents of Russian and Polish origin. However, this has what made her character as a conwoman on ''{{Leverage}}'' work so well, she's been able to play Indian, American, English, German, and a handful of other nationalities so well.

** Aroe form [[ptitle2gli7wce?]], she's either this or UnfortunateImplications.

** Aroe form [[{{ptitle2gli7wce?}} Black and White]], she's either this or UnfortunateImplications.

* {{Pokemon}}:
** [[http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Dahlia Dahlia]] from {{Pokemon}} Platinum, HeartGold, and SoulSilver.

* ''{{Pokemon}}:
** [[http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Dahlia Dahlia]] from {{Pokemon}} Platinum.

* Yoruichi from ''{{Bleach}}'', pictured above. The EditWar over her ethnicity at TheOtherWiki was to the point that they finally threw their hands up and described her as "dark-skinned". The newest anime ending featured her as a singer with an impressive afro, which just adds to the speculation.
** It's indicated in the manga that nobles are born in the Soul Society (and thus can remember their birthdays), so she and her ancestors may not be from any human region.

* Jack Rakan of ''MahouSenseiNegima''. Justified as he seems to be from the Magic World.

* ''OnePiece'' has a few characters like this - the main cast alone has Usopp, who also has kinky black hair and drawn lips (which most characters lack), so he may be intended to be outright black. Other characters falling into this include Kuma, Mr. 5, and Nojiko.
** There's also Robin as a borderline example, whose skin looks slightly darker than most of the other Straw Hats but looks slightly tanned at most.

** Going strictly by Oda's official colorations, characters like Robin, Usopp, and Aokiji aren't drawn as being any more particularly dark than say, Luffy. The "darkness" of characters who apply seem to be more of the designers of the anime taking liberties. [[WordOfGod Oda stated in the SBS]] that if the if the Strawhats lived in the real world Usopp ''would'' be from Africa, but Robin would be from ''Russia''.

* Tyranno Kenzan from [[YuGiOhGX Yu-Gi-Oh GX]], who has light brown skin and black dreadlocks.

** ...but not anybody from the Millennium World.
*** Well, that's because they're all certified Egyptian. [[CaptainObvious Because it's in Egypt.]]

* Subverted with main character Mist from ''{{Knights}}'', which plays on the difficulties of being of African heritage in an overwhelmingly white medieval community.

* Maria from ''SayonaraZetsubouSensei''. She's an illegal immigrant, but her country of origin was never specified. It's possibly intentional, since the series has another character who's also a generic foreigner (of [[PhenotypeStereotype a different variety]]).
** Considering her brown skin color, hispanicized real name, illegal immigrant status, war-torn past, lack of formal education, and stereotypically genki personality, along with the fact that she's still supposed to be from "Asia", it is most likely that she is actually ''Filipina'', which would make sense considering the historical relationship and geographical proximity between the Philippines and Japan.

* BakuganBattleBrawlers has Julie Makimoto. A girl from EagleLand who has dark skin tone(and white hair). While her build and face seems to imply African, when compared to Komba (who is ''confirmed'' African) and considering her last name is Japanese, it's surprisingly open to interpretation.
* Villetta Nu of ''CodeGeass''. Presumably she is part-white since she's Britannian nobility, but as for what the ''other'' part is...go fish.
** To be precise, she's a knight of honor, which is a title that she earned for herself, rather than being born into nobility, which doesn't mean that she's necesarily even half Britannian. She seeks to (and eventually does) become an actual noble, whose nobility is applied to her family, too.
** Couldn't she just be Brazilian? Its part of Britannia.

**Goemon was portrayed with tan skin early on for the original manga series and the pilot, had pale skin for the first TV series, and then went tan again for the first ''Lupin'' movie, ''The Secret of Mamo'', which was based on the original manga art. The second TV series returned to the pale tone, and he has kept it ever since. The argument would be because Goemon's nationality (Japanese) is the only one known of the gang and so it makes him stand out more ethnically. ''Except''...

* Averted with Claudia Lasalle and Edgar Lasalle from ''{{Macross}}''. Both are ''extremely'' dark-skinned, leaving no doubt that they're black.
* Almost all the characters in HareToGuu have dark skin. Infact lighter skin characters are a little rare in the series. {{Justified}} as it takes in a Jungle, likely somewhere in South Asia.
* Heiji Hattori from DetectiveConan has a dark skin tone. It is made clear he is from Osaka, but other characters from that area don't share his skin tone.

* Western artist Kevin J. Taylor also loves this trope as colorized or not, there are only ''two'' racially distinct characters, Blue (White) and Jesse James (Black with tan-tipped dreadlocks.) His main character, Girl/Jaliera Dane, originally looked Pacific Islander then possibly Mexican then almost the complexion of DCAU Lex Luthor during a cameo and finally/temporarily Indian for a special based on the Kama Sutra. Girl's friend, Jill is even ''more'' ambiguous as she's got green eyes, apparently natural orange-caramel skin, matching straight hair and while narrating her story, mentions the races of the men she's with without identifying herself with one or the other. Lastly, Marty (a girl) is similar to [[XMen Storm]] with shorter, but still white hair.

* In ''Little Men'' by [[LittleWomen Louisa May Alcott]], the character Dan is described with black eyes, black hair (if I recall), and, at several points where his skin is mentioned, brown skin. But it's unclear as to whether this is racial, tanned, or just dirty. Everyone else in the book seems to be Caucasian (several are specifically blond Germans) except for a Black cook[[hottip:*:and, given some hints in the narrative, possibly another Black character in the background]], but Dan just seems like the odd boy out.
** In past centuries, people who were swarthy but still unambiguously European in ancestry were referred to, without any apparent irony, as "black."
* Friday, the eponymous protagonist of the Heinlein novel, is some shade of brown. Justified in that she's an ''ArtificialHuman'', genetically engineered with with genes from around the world. Her mentor even remarks that she couldn't be racist, as she'd be shooting herself in the foot.
* In Vernor Vinge's ''Fire Upon the Deep,'' all humans living in the Beyond are said to descend from Nyjora, one of ancient Earth's colonies. They are all described as being black-haired and brown-skinned, but it's anyone's guess which ethnicity (if any recognizable to us today) formed the original colonists of Nyjora. Pham Nuwen's red hair and slanted eyes engender much comment, as he's obviously a different race.

** The same actress is legitimately Ambiguously Brown in the AmyPoehler TV series ''ParksAndRecreation'' where she plays the role of Anne and no reference is made about her race (she even dates 2 white men on the show with no reference to race issues made). There is an Indian male Tom Haverford, who makes many references to his race and having changed his name from an Indian one to Haverford. There is also a SassyBlackWoman on the show whose race is referred to. Also April mentions in one episode that she is half-Puerto Rican (like her actress), deadpanning "that's why I'm so lively and colorful."
* ''{{Trauma}}'' hung kind of a weird lampshade on this one in an episode concerning the ethnicity of Cliff Curtis' character, Rabbit.
--->'''Marisa''': My cousin saw you on the news and she thinks you're super hot. And Mexican.
--->'''Rabbit''': Not Mexican.
--->'''Marisa''': He's not Mexican. (On the phone) Ugh, don't make me ask him that. (Back to Rabbit.) OK, so what are you then?
--->'''Rabbit''': I'm, uh, not going tonight.
**Curtis is Maori but, while there are Maori Americans out there, the numbers are vanishingly small. He has played characters of Hispanic (including Mexican) and Arabic origin so it seems like the show isn't sure what to do with him.
** In a later episode his father is also Ambiguously Brown while Rabbit as a child (flashback) looks more Ambiguously White. Go figure.

* [[http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Dahlia Dahlia]] from {{Pokemon}} Platinum.
** Just like the mangas and anime, Brock. His skin is a bit lighter in HGSS though.
*** He was never dark skinned in [[http://archives.bulbagarden.net/media/upload/c/c7/Brock_RGBY.png the]] [[http://archives.bulbagarden.net/media/upload/a/aa/FireRed_LeafGreen_Brock.png games]].
* Ashley Williams from MassEffect.
** Several other characters too, including Ambassador Udina and Captain Anderson. MassEffect seems to take InTheFutureHumansWillBeOneRace as canon.

* Jecht from ''FinalFantasyX''. His son being a blond, blue eyed [[strike:Asian]] person from Zanarkand doesn't help.
** Partymember Wakka counts as well.
*** Actually, the fandom is pretty much agreed that Wakka is Polynesian (or... the Spiran equivalent)
** Tidus's hair is dyed (he has brown hair as a child in flashbacks) but that doesn't explain how much darker his dad is than him.
*** Probably because of his mother looking very north-european/american.
** But while we're on ''FinalFantasy'', '''[[FinalFantasyII Minwu]]'''. Also the ''hero'', Firion.

**To be specific, 'Oerba' is the name of their hometown, so that's more a regional affiliation. "Yun Fang" is Fang's personal name--but that doesn't necessarily clear things up, considering she's [[LesYay ambiguously]] [[RomanticTwoGirlFriendship hetero-life-partnered]] with Oerba ''Dia Vanille''. What the heck ''would'' be the ethnic make-up of a place with such varied nomenclature as Yun Fang and Dia Vanille?

** Chell of ''{{Portal}}'' is similar, since she has a tanned skin tone, dark hair and blue gray eyes, and the person she was modeled after, Alesia Glidewell, is of Brazilian and Japanese descent.
* First-time players of ''TheLegendOfZeldaTheWindWaker'' often started out believing that [[DarkSkinnedBlonde Tetra]] must be a Gerudo with pointy ears, due to her being dark-skinned and a female pirate. However, it's confirmed latter in the game that she's Hylian. She's the only character with Hylian ancestry in the game with dark skin like that, not even the other members of her crew or her own mother come close to match her tan.
**It might just be a tan...if she didn't seem to get a lighter skin tone when [[YouShouldKnowThisAlready she is revealed to be Zelda.]] Likewise, Sheik's skin tone is somewhat tanned while Zelda is white, white, white. So...whenever Zelda needs a disguise, she turns brown?

* Devdan/Danved in ''FireEmblem 9 & 10'' has been identified by some players as the first black character in the series. It's not clear that he was meant that way.

*The SCV from ''{{Starcraft}}''. It doesn't help that [[http://classic.battle.net/images/battle/scc/terran/pix/SCV1.jpg the picture's damn tiny]], but he is kind of dark-ish looking. And, since he's a manual laborer, this example is yet another of the several dozen on this page that has UnfortunateImplications.
**Possibly intentional, since the Terrans are, after all, the DeepSouth InSPACE.
**Blizzard caught on quick by in a Terran mission in Brood War giving us a civilian unit [[CowboyBebopAtHisComputer (which hadn't existed before the expansion pack)]]: a white guy with a similar voice to the SCV and whose dialogue leads us to believe he volunteers to be one... [[CowboyBebopAtHisComputer (And was not recycling the SCV's sounds or anything.)]]

* Denny, from ''HarvestMoon: Island of Happiness''. Is he black, or just tan from fishing so much? Who knows.

* Both Zak and Magnifi Gramarye from the ''AceAttorney'' series. Made more ambiguous by the fact that Magnifi's daughter is clearly white, and his grandchildren (one of whom is Zak's child) are even whiter.
** Ken Dingling, AKA Acro, is also hard to pin down.

** While ''YggdraUnion'''s cast tends to have easy-to-identify "[[FantasyCounterpartCulture ethnicity]]", Ortega is a notable offender; it's hard to tell whether he's supposed to be black or Hispanic. For the English version, he is cast as an unflatteringly stereotypical Mexican, complete with a whiny voice that doesn't fit his BoisterousBruiser personality and appearance.
* Dudley from {{Street Fighter}}'s nationality is English, but his racial makeup is far less distinct.
** More than likely, Dudley is Black British, as there are over 1 million Black people in the UK and many of the top Heavyweight boxers to come from the UK(David Haye and Lennox Lewis specifically) have been Black. In fact, the only British Heavyweight that wasn't Black to win the world title was Bob Fitzsimmons.

** To add to the absurdity, the webcomic is in black and white. Gary is drawn white as milk; we can only tell he's non-Caucasian from [[http://www.picturesforsadchildren.com/index.php?comicID=226 context]].

** Durkon shares a skin-tone with the presumably Hispanic Phil Rodriguez. Sabine's colour is due in part to her being a shapeshifter.
**Dwarves are traditionally dark-skinned in DungeonsAndDragons, on which Order of the Stick is based.
***I thought they were all [[OurDwarvesAreAllTheSame Scottish or Norse]].

* In a variation on this trope, [[NoNameGiven {...}]] from ''HannaIsNotABoysName'' is ambiguously Asianish. He has almond-shaped eyes, black hair, high cheekbones, a nose that looks a little Asian if you want it to, and a sentimental attachment to paper cranes. He's also, at present, [[TheUndead green]]. If he ''is'' Asian, he'd be an InscrutableOriental too...
** There's also Casimiro, who definitely fits. He is noticeably brown, which is weird for a vampire since all the other specimens thus far have been portrayed as pale white.
*** WordOfGod has Cas claiming that he was just sporting a "nice tan" before he died. Considering his Italian origins, this seems to make sense.

* Alex from ''TotallySpies''

* Noah, Justin, Katie, Courtney, and season three newcomer Sierra from ''TotalDramaIsland'' all have tan skin. (making it somewhat interesting when fanfiction writers try to give them last names).
** Sadie can be counted as Ambiguously Asian.

* Prince Naveen from ThePrincessAndTheFrog, who hails from the racially ambiguous country of Maldonia. He has dark olive skin, curly hair, a LanternJawOfJustice, an Indian name, a Brazilian voice actor, and a Spanish/French/Middle Eastern accent. He is now whatever race offends you the most. In fact, Disney probably made him racially ambiguous to cover their asses. Because no matter what they did with the prince they would be criticized. He's white? The black heroine's submitting to a white man! He's black? Disney hates interracial marriages! So, apparently, Disney made him ''everything'' other than black or white...
**His face characters at the Theme Parks are along the lines of Indian, Middle Eastern, and Latino while the ice skaters are more like Greek and Italian. This hasn't stopped people from picking one out of the bunch and using him as "proof" that he is one or the other.
** In the actual movie, Facilier alludes to him being the product of two completely different royal families (possibly from different countries), which just raises all kinds of other possibilities.

* Bonnie Rockwaller in ''KimPossible''. It's implied she's just a white tanning addict based on her vanity and her family members. By that note, The Seniors (Sr. and Jr.) are darker than Caucasians and have Spanish accents, but are only stated to be from "Europe". Junior is ''canonically'' a tanning addict; in his first scene he's under a tanning lamp the size of a hot air balloon.
** The Seniors could be from Spain.
** I wouldn't really say Bonnie isn't implied to be Hispanic either.
* The ''XMenEvolution'' incarnation of Amanda Sefton was brown-skinned, and her also-brown family implied to be generically foreign. In the comics she's a blonde white European birthed by a Roma (though we never meet her father).
** Amanda's father in the appears to be of African decent while her mother looks . . . I don't know, Ambiguously Olive? A browner shade of green maybe? Your guess is as good as mine.

** A lot of characters are like this in the series. Heck, even [[{{Wolverine}} Wolverine's]] [[OppositeSexClone ''clone'']] is like this.
*Good luck telling what most of the many {{Race Lift}}ed characters in ''TheSpectacularSpiderMan'' are supposed to be (except for Ned and King Kong, who are clearly Asian.)
** {{Race Lift}}ed Liz Allan is at least part Latina, though her exact background is somewhat complicated (to explain why she has a typically Caucasian last name despite her ethnicity and slight Puerto Rican accent).
* Melissa (and her dad Eric) and, oddly, Josie, from ''HomeMovies''.
** Probably because Josie is adopted.

** The same goes for ''BatmanTheAnimatedSeries''' version of Two-Face, who looks very much like a black man. Apparently, he was supposed to be Italian-American and appears to be based on actor Humphrey Bogart.

* In ''MoralOrel'', Mr. Figurelli and his family are... italian? Greek? No, Italians are white so.. maybe 1/4 Arab? (Contrast the Jews for Jesus, who are the closest thing to a different religion that exists in the town, being ex Jewish Christians and still doing Jewish stuff out of habbit, but their skin happens to be white.)

* In ''{{Gargoyles}}'', when the main characters are temporarily turned into humans, Goliath becomes AmbiguouslyBrown. This is because the gargoyles' human forms were [[InkSuitActor designed to resemble their voice actors]], but it wouldn't have made sense to make Goliath African-American like KeithDavid, since the rest of his clan were caucasian.

* [[{{Coraline}} Wybie.]] Good, lord, ''Wybie.'' He turns out to be African-American, as evidenced by his grandmother and a line from a deleted scene ("Your grandma's Black, right?"), but before TheReveal it's pretty hard to tell.

* Actually a lot more common than you think. The American idea of "race" has been shaped by the immigration of people from geographically dispersed regions (Northern Europe, Western Africa, and occasionally Eastern Asia). If you walked from one of these regions to another you'd run into tons of people with skin colors that don't fit clearly into our concept of race.
** People from the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIS CIS]] countries often get this as well, particularly the Central Asian republics. It may come from the assumption that all CIS nationalities are Russian and/or Slavic, which generally lumps them in with "white", or the fact that those nationalities have immigrated to other countries rather than the United States, and are unfamiliar to Americans.

* Vin Diesel: usually plays Latinos, actually just half-black, half-Italian.
** ...and since Latinos can be any mix of white, black, and Native American, that's not very far off.

*Jessica Szohr: see above
** Half-Black, half-Hungarian, if {{IMDB}} is to be believed.

*UglyBetty-era Vanessa Williams to some. The blue eyes throw a lot of people off. Yes, some black people have blue eyes. Really.

* Keisha Castle-Hughes has a Maori mother and an English-Australian father. She has played a Maori girl in ''WhaleRider'', the Virgin Mary in ''[[TheBible The Nativity Story]]'', and is an Iranian woman in an upcoming movie, ''Mona's Dream''. For the most part, though, she plays Maori characters but her ethnicity is kind of ambiguous.

* Gina Bellman. She was born in New Zealand to English-born Jewish parents of Russian and Polish origin. However, this has what made her character as a conwoman on [[Leverage]] work so well, she's been able to play Indian, American, English, German, and a handful of other nationalities so well.
* [[{{Queen}} Freddie Mercury]] (born Farrokh Bulsara) was born in Zanibar, to British-Indian parents.

* ''QuestionableContent'' falls into this partly because [[GenericCuteness the art style]] makes everyone look Caucasian-ish and partly because its darker-skinned characters are generally no darker than the image up there. Some characters have non-Western ''names'', like Amir and Dr. Buenvenida, but they still look just sort of generically brown.

* Subverted with Yul Brynner, who only ''looked'' AmbiguouslyBrown. For a while he even let people believe that he was half-Japanese. In fact, both his parents were Russian. (He ''was'' one-thirty-second Mongolian on his father's side, but that hardly counts.)

** The same actress is legitimately Ambiguously Brown in the AmyPoehler TV series ''ParksAndRecreation'' where she plays the role of Anne and no reference is made about her race (she even dates 2 white men on the show with no reference to race issues made). There is an Indian male Tom Haverford, who makes many references to his race and having changed his name from an Indian one to Haverford. There is also a SassyBlackWoman on the show whose race is referred to.

* Subverted with Yul Brynner, who only ''looked'' AmbiguouslyBrown. For a while he even let people believe that he was half-Japanese. In fact, both his parents were Russian. (He ''was'' one-thirty-second Mongolian on his father's side, but that hardly counts.)

*** He was never dark skinned in [[http://archives.bulbagarden.net/media/upload/c/c7/Brock_RGBY.png]] [[http://archives.bulbagarden.net/media/upload/a/aa/FireRed_LeafGreen_Brock.png games]].

* Subverted with Yul Brynner, who only ''looked'' AmbiguouslyBrown. For a while he even let people believe that he was half-Japanese. In fact, both his parents were Russian.