All of this got me thinking about the genetics of skin colour. I remember years ago reading that it was predominantly controlled by 4 genes.
So, if that is the case in this world, we would probably be able to come up with any sort of population we wanted and have it make sense on a genetics level.
I'm probably in the minority here, but I hope they are able to do this for all characters. I was pleased when we had a tall Moiraine, as that seemed to indicate they weren't going with the "somehow, all the short pale people moved to the area that would become Cairhien about a thousand years ago". The Aiel are the only people that it really makes sense for, and even then, it isn't important, other than the "Rand looks like an Aiel" which is hardly a major plot point that can't be dropped.
I would have thought that the 5000+ years of harmony and paradise would have made it unlikely that segregated populations existed by the end of the Age of Legends
As long as the core of the character and meaningful-to-the-story character descriptions are kept in tact, Anything goes. This is an adaptation of a giant story.
I love this art! I think it's interesting that she chose an image of Nynaeve from the early part of the story (Two Rivers dress, staff) and one from the mid/late series of Egwene (Silks and stole.) I'm interested to see Nynaeve's evolution from country woman to Aes Sedai.
I really agree that the amount of racism is probably overestimated. I know that the WoT subreddit actually got brigaded (they knew, because they were bombarded with pretty horrible posts from people who'd never posted there prior to the casting announcement). And all of the posts that were genuinely racist (e.g. the hateful rage and desire for the show to crash and burn over this) were downvoted very heavily. What remain is mostly posts ranging from hyped to neutral, actual discussions about descriptions, or at worst some surprise or annoyance of them not looking like some people thought (same as with any casting).
That paints a much more positive picture of the fandom than reading on Facebook, or any place where the community doesn't self-moderate, so any troll can post racist stuff and it'll sit there unless a proper admin removes it.