Red hair has and probably always will be a marker of "special" in fiction, especially fantasy, whether or not it's currently popular or picked on in real life. A couple ginger jokes hardly balance him playing the hardest song in all existence when his lute was three strings short.
Lol. True, though it's rare for
male protagonists to have it (women are another story). You're right that his hair isn't one of the things he's bullied for. It's more because of his being poor, and young for his level of skill, and because some people are jealous of him being so much better than they are at things.
Whenever there's a prodigy type character who is a genius and good at everything but is bullied by stupider people, I'll admit I think of them as sort of a "nerd's secret fantasy" character.
Even the combination of everything but the sparkling isn't original, and as much as I hate Twlight, Meyer did manage to add that tiny thing which makes her vampires unique.
Now I never read Twilight, so I always thought the sparkling was a joke. You mean they really, literally sparkle? As in, they've been sprinkled with glitter? Or is it more like polished glass?
But why does that make them special? I mean, I could write a story about elves and have them be standard issue, tree-living elves, just like the ones in Tolkien or D and D or whatever, but make them green. How does that add anything?