Talk:Quasimodo's mother/@comment-4678095-20111214032436/@comment-4720572-20111231004435

Well, I think he looks like that because he's a ginger, it's a genetic birth defect that causes someone to have a lack of pigmentation in his skin among other things. It causes red hair, light eyes (from gray to emerald) and pale skin. This gene can be suppressive up to 6 generations later, making it that people without any physical qualities of this gene still bare a child that has it.

I believe he was also like this in the novel (not sure) but they went with this (perhaps somewhat far-fetched) design choice to hide his gypsy heritage so he wouldn't make the connection between the gypsies and himself and vice versa.