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He had the blackest eyes - the devil's eyes.
Traditionally, a cheap and easy way to show that a character is evil is the use of coloured contact lenses in live action, or coloured or glowing eyes in animation. Since the 1990s, however, a new trend has emerged - the Black Eyes of Evil.
These days, when someone is possessed by demons, dabbling in the dark arts, psychically dominated by evil aliens, or gone evil in some other way, their eyes will go perfectly black with no whites at all.
Presumably this perfect blackness indicates the purity of the evil within them and their total lack of humanity. Even if a person's eyes are weirdly coloured, there is still a possibility of human connection, but if his/her eyes are gaping wells of nothingness...
One interesting feature of this trope is that these black eyes will return to their normal state if the demon is exorcised/psychic link is broken/etc.
Alternately, a character's face can be shadowed in such a way that their eyes are completely hidden, or at most reflecting back a glint. Typically, these characters don't actually have black eyes and it's a temporary thing. This version can show up in characters who aren't the ultimate evil, merely sinister or mysterious.
This can be surprisingly hard to tell apart from normal eyes in photos, because if a person has normal-colored eyes that happen to be deep-set or narrow to the point of looking squinty, then there won't be that much light hitting their sclera from most angles. It's easier to pick up on when the actor is in motion, and a lot more obvious in drawn art.
This is a subtrope of Uh-Oh Eyes, which, in turn, is a subtrope of Technicolor Eyes. These are also a specific type of Monochromatic Eyes; sometimes related to Prophet Eyes, which can also be used to indicate a supernatural or evil character, as well as Mind-Control Eyes, which are dull and flat-colored.
Truth in Television, though without the evil connotations, as scleral lenses worn by persons with light sensitivity will render a person's eyes completely black.
Contrast with Black Bead Eyes, where the eyes are simply black dots done as an artistic style. Compare Black Eyes of Crazy, where black sclera plus technicolor irises equals Ax Crazy. Compare also Excessive Evil Eyeshadow.
Examples:
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Anime and Manga
- Higurashi No Naku Koro Ni for the (former) page image, of course. The eyes change depending on the media, though. The anime goes for cat eyes, as do the sound novels. The manga artists change between this trope and cat eyes.
- Ken Akamatsu, rare in most anime and manga, which opt for Red Eyes, Take Warning, prefers black eyes to make his characters in Mahou Sensei Negima! look scary. He's also quite fond of Black Eyes of Crazy, too.
- Evangeline, in particular, does this whenever she wants to scare people.
- Negi does it too, once his Black Magic kicks in.
- And Tsukuyomi fits both tropes at once.
- Risotto Nero, the leader of the rogue Squadra Esecuzioni of the Passione gang in Part 5 of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, has these.
- Lilith (a.k.a. Giant Naked Rei) develops this in End of Evangelion. Prior to that, in episode 23, Armisael had developed a Rei-like protrusion at one end, which also had Black Eyes of Evil.
- Combining Dou (anger) and Sei (calmness) ki in Kenichi: The Mightiest Disciple causes severe damage to the body, which notably causes a temporary blackening of the eyes. One of Ryuto's eyes is now permanently black and he is also wheelchair bound because of this technique. Shou Kanou's right eye also turned black and he implied that the damage wouldn't be as severe in his case. It's unknown if this is actually true or not.
- In the manga version of The Big O, Beck gets this after attacking Roger with the Gigadeus and getting blown away by a Chrome Buster. It's especially creepy as the chapter is structured in such a way that it's hard to tell if it's All Just a Dream or not (the imagery is trippy for the series), and the part with Beck's eyes turning black is just a line and a full shot of Beck's head taking up a whole page. The last page. Which you have to turn the page for. And comes out of nowhere, but was hinted at as Beck kept asking Roger what Big O was showing him.
- In Fairy Tail, when Gemini takes the form of a human, sometimes, one or both of its eyes transform back into Gemini's original solid black eye. Although not particularly disturbing on Gemini itself, when the eye is on a human...man, it's scary! In the anime, in the scene when Gemini is posing as Gray cackling evilly and transforming into Lucy, Gray's transformation face could qualify as a Nightmare Face.
- Bleach
- Most hollows will have black sclera. Anyone that undergoes hollowfication will develop black sclera when doning a hollow's mask. Hollows that are powerful enough to regain their higher reason (Arrancar) tend to be more complicated that the more mindlessly evil hollow mooks. Shinigami that have been hollowfied (Vaizards, Ichigo, Ginjou) will also display black sclera when using their hollow powers. It's a sign they're using evil power, but in the case of the Vizards and Ichigo, they've learned to harness that evil for good.
- Aizen's chrysalis stage of his One-Winged Angel form resulted in jet black eyes - no irises, no pupils, not even any visible eye sockets. Nothing. Just black eye shapes on top of a flat face-like surface that didn't even look like it could have eyes (it had no nose or mouth or ears, for example).
- Tsukishima has black eyes in the manga, as opposed to the anime's brown eyes: they make him even creepier than he already is. As Nodt, Tsukishima's Vandenreich counterpart as far as masters of Mind Rape go, has black eyes as well, and yes, they're just as creepy as Tsukishima's if not more so.
- A variant of this trope: all of Satou Kenetsu's villainous characters always have very black eyeliner. Example.
- In Naruto, Naruto's inner darkness has a constant Slasher Smile and eyes that are completely black.
- The Tales Of Symphonia OVA gives us Kvar. Once thought to be permanently squinty-eyed, Kvar was shown in the OVA to have red pupils in his otherwise wholly-black eyes. With that combination, it's no surprise that Kvar is one of the most despicable villains shown in Symphonia.
- Evil Twins in Oto x Maho have Black Eyes of Evil.
- Jaki from Gamaran has Mismatched Eyes: one is normal, the other is black with a white iris. Later, Ryuho Kibe's sclerae turns black when he uses Juugan, a battle drug.
- All of the vampires in Shiki have black sclera and red eyes when their Horror Hunger takes over. The older vampires, namely Shizuru and Sunako, take this further and have solid black eyes. They still have pupils and what not, you just can't see them unless they glow.
- Alluka Zoldyck from Hunter × Hunter gets this when she turns into Nanika.
- Yu-Gi-Oh 5Ds:
- The Dark Signers from the anime.
- Kiryu from the manga.
- Downplayed in Mahoraba. The Occult Research Club President has almost entirely black eyes, with just a sliver of white at the outer edges. They still signify her Evil nature, which is more a case of being unholy than malicious.
Comic Books
- Baron Soontir Fel was, after Vader's death, the best Imperial pilot. He's not evil, though, and the solid black eyes only show up in one panel, when his eyes are in shadow. But it's a panel where he looks very sinister.
- General Carvin, who, in a B-plot in those comics, is part of the Imperial Tribune, which briefly ruled the Empire after ousting Sate Pestage, and served to command and obstruct Ysanne Isard until she dealt with them, was always, always◊ shown with shadowed eyes...until Isard's plans culminated, the other two tribune members were killed, and he was brought before her◊, beaten and bloody, but defiant enough to tell her he wouldn't be her plaything, and she smiled and told him he might become all manner of things once he reached the Lusankya facility.
- Dream, a.k.a. Morpheus, eponymous protagonist of the Neil Gaiman comic Sandman, also has completely black eyes, in which, at times, pinpricks of light like distant stars can be seen, as it is said that, by staring into his eyes, you can see the vast emptiness of eternity. He isn't evil, however, or not a typical villain at least, but he can be uncaring (to the point of cruelty) and takes very long to forgive a perceived slight.
- Marvel Comics The Sentry as The Void
Film
- The vampires from 30 Days of Night.
- During the first exploration of Carl Stargher's mind in The Cell, he manifests as a pale king with gaping black voids in place of eyes.
- In The Covenant , the four members of the eponymous covenant as well as the villain, a descendant of a covenant member, all get these at some point in the film. Subverted for the four members, who are all "good guys". Played straight for the villain.
- In Finding Nemo, when Bruce the shark gets the taste of blood, his pupils grow to the point where his eyeballs become completly black, like that of a real shark. Up until this point, he lacks irises, but the pupils are surrounded by white, like a common animated character.
- Pinhead and the rest of the cenobites from Hellraiser movies always have either black, shark-like eyes or more subdued black eyes with white sclera, depending on the director and makeup artist.
- Possibly one of the earliest examples in film was in The Mummy's Hand (1940), in which the mummy's eyes are completely black - an effect achieved by laboriously painting over the film in post-production.
- In Krull, when the Seer is killed and replaced with a doppelganger, his duplicate has pure black eyes (not as much of a giveaway as you might think, since he usually keeps his eyes closed).
- Another creature from the same film, this one a female shapeshifter, is a subversion of sorts, as she finds herself unwilling to go through with her mission of killing the main character and gets quite a sympathetic speech before the Big Bad eliminates her for her betrayal.
- In Push, whenever the evil pusher uses his powers, his pupils stretch so his eyes turn entirely black. The good pusher, by comparison, will only stretch her pupils so the irises are barely visible.
- Though technically literature at one time, the script of Stephen King's Storm Of The Century — sold in book form, before it was made into the film it was designed to be (and likely afterward, depending on the director) — had a Big Bad whose eyes, upon possessing others, turned swirly black.
- In X: The Man with X-Ray Eyes, as the main character continues using the x-ray eyedrops, his eyes begin changing colour: at first, they're only silver irises on black, but by the end of the film, they're entirely black.
- The Dark Queen in MirrorMask sports pitch-black eyes, as does her daughter. When Helena is used as a replacement for the Princess and given an appropriate makeover, her eyes turn black as well.
- Although it seems to take a while after the onset of zombification, the titular Zombie Strippers eventually develop pure-black eyes. Their flesh also begins to rot and their fingers turn black and sharpen into claws. Because the virus in the film affects men and women differently, this only seems to happen to female zombies.
- You know the thing about a shark, he's got... lifeless eyes, black eyes, like a doll's eye.
- In the 2009 Sherlock Holmes film, a temporary version is used when Lord Blackwood is talking to Holmes in his cell. He's standing just out of the light, so that the areas around his eyes are completely shadowed and all that is visible is the evil glint.
- In Ink (2009), the Key Master Incubus has eyes that are pure black and they occasionally flare white with interest.
- In Oliver Stone's Nixon, CIA director Richard Helms' eyes appear to turn completely black for a second due to a coincidentally-timed light reflection, right after Nixon muses that there are things worse than death, and right before Nixon continues that there's such a thing as evil. Needless to say, Helms' real-life relatives had some issues with that scene. Although Helms definitely was a ruthless bastard in real life, implying he was a soulless force of pure evil may have been pushing it. The scene was removed for the theatrical release and only viewable in the Director's Cut.
- In From Hell, when Sir William Gull realizes he has been found out as Jack the Ripper by Inspector Abberline, his eyes turn black as he goes berserk and attacks the Inspector. Seeing as Sir Gull is a normal (if deranged) human being, this seems to be just for shock value. Possibly a reference to the comic, when during his death Sir Gull has a long out-of-body-experience that carries him all over the world and across time.
- The first Halloween 1978 has a quote that directly details the antagonist's eyes - and this is before Michael Myers dons that mask, which has nothing more than the two black, gaping, deathly holes for eyes.
- Shivers the Clown from the Fear of Clowns duology has a disorder that causes his eyes to appear almost completely black.
- Bennings-Thing had pitch black eyes.
- This is commonly used in fannon and fan art involving Jed.
- Katherine Ross' doppelganger in The Stepford Wives (they're supposed to be empty eye sockets, but there was a minor Special Effects Failure).
Literature
Live-Action TV
- In Smallville, whoever is possessed by Bizarro gets black eyes. Also occasionally the case for Brainiac's or Darkseid's victims.
- Babylon 5 was one of the first to use this trope, although the characteristic came from the Vorlons, which until the end of the Old Ones Myth Arc were generally viewed as the good guys, if misguided. When telepath Lyta Alexander makes psychic contact with the Big Bad Shadows, her eyes turn pure black, but return to normal when contact is broken. After prolonged contact, she also began to weep black tears.
- Battlestar Galactica has this occur in a deleted scene of the episode "The Farm". Starbuck has a nightmare where she sees Anders with black eyes. Consdiering what he is revealed to be, it is interesting.
- Being Human has the vampires using all-black eyes as a Game Face.
- Buffy the Vampire Slayer
- This seems to be one of the standard side effects of using powerful Black Magic, as primal energy fills up the body of the caster and then is released through the spell. When the black eyes don't fade after the spell is done, something's generally wrong.
- When Willow goes overboard with magic, she gets these, most notably in her Dark Willow phase. In season seven, she gets these when she invokes powerful magic. They fade when the spell in question ends. Interestingly, she also becomes a Jerkass while she is using such magic. In one scene, while using a powerful barrier spell to stop a demon, she tells the woman she is protecting to stop whining. After the demon leaves, she apologizes.
- Catherine Madison, the first witch actually seen on the show, got these as she casts a powerful spell. As does her daughter, Amy.
- Oz's eyes turn solid black as part of his transformation into a werewolf and are usually one of the first things to change. Black eyes are not a standard werewolf trait per se though, as Veruca's turn bright blue.
- Caleb's eyes turn black when he is merged with the First, which also turns his blood an oily black.
- Carnivàle: Brother Justin, Henry Scudder, and Sofie all have obsidian orbs when they tap into their innate evil.
- Demons in Charmed sometimes sported these. The Source of All Evil adds licks of hellfire in them for effect.
- Beings possessed by the Nexus or the Hollow also sport black eyes, though these powers are technically neutral (in the same way that an Eldritch Abomination doesn't care about the struggles of morality).
- Doctor Who:
- In "Tooth and Claw", the Werewolf virus' host body had completely black eyes when human.
- In the 2008 Christmas special, the Femme Fatale gains pure black eyes when the Cybermen forcibly "upgrade" her to be their new Cyberking (noun/gender agreement notwithstanding). As befits the trope, her eyes return to their normal colour when The Doctor talks her into looking as a human at what she has become, leading her to suicide explosively and take the Cybermen with her.
- In Farscape, the mysterious representative of the Ancients (nicknamed "Einstein" by Crichton) appears to others as a tall, impeccably-dressed human with pitch-black eyes. However, Einstein and the Ancients remain neutral throughout the series.
- On an episode of A Haunting, a devil or demon is shown to look like a regular man, except for the black eyes...which made the actor look [bleep]ing scary.
- In Heroes, Maya's eyes turn pure black with tar-like tears running down her face when her powers activate. While she's not really evil, her ability—to kill everyone around in a matter of about a minute using what amounts to some sort of psychic poison—is.
- Kamen Rider Kuuga. When protagonist, Yuusuke Godai, first receives visions of his Ultimate Form, Ultimate Kuuga, the coloring of his eyes are pitch-black, symbolizing the risk of his becoming evil should he transform into Ultimate Kuuga. In the penultimate episode, Yuusuke does, in fact, transform to Ultimate Kuuga, but due to his self-control, manages to retain the red-eye coloring of his normal Mighty Form. The risk of slipping into 'Black-Eyed Ultimate Kuuga' is not entirely eliminated, however, and Yuusuke, in fact, tells his partner, Ichijou, to shoot him should it happen.
- It's not presented as evil (at least insofar as stealing a person's soul and free will is presented as "not evil"; the show's basically taken the route of "types of magic aren't evil, it's what you do with them"), but whenever a Confessor uses her power in the Legend of the Seeker TV series, there is a close up of her eyes (and the eyes of her victim) turning pure black for a few moments. Can somebody confirm whether this is also the case in the original books?
- There's no mention of eyes changing when the Confessor power is used in the book, but Emperor Jagang's eyes are noted as being black and swirly portals...or something. Point is, they're weird eyes and he's bad.
- In Lexx, solid black eyes represent possession by His Divine Shadow.
- Sapphire And Steel: This happened to Sapphire when she was channeling the Darkness in the second serial.
- In Sanctuary, when Nikola Tesla's plans to rebuild the vampire species go awry, all of his former patients who have been killed turn into vampires way before schedule and exhibit completely black eyes.
- The obscure (but apparently cult-ish) 1988 SF-horror miniseries Something Is Out There, starring ex-Bond Girl Maryam D'Abo. Those who are being controlled by the evil alien cannibal parasite are shown to have pure black eyes.
- Most of the lower-ranking demons from Supernatural, although more powerful demons with yellow, or white eyes have also been seen. Cross Road Demons have red eyes.
- Sam Winchester can get these when using his powers to telekinetically drive demons out of their human hosts. Justified since getting the power to do that requires drinking demon blood...
- In Season 8, a demon named Abaddon appears. While she does have black eyes, she is also a Hell Knight and unbelievably powerful.
- Not quite the same thing, but a body modification-centric episode of Taboo featured a man injecting black tattoo ink into the whites of his eyes.
- Shortly after his resurrection, Owen Harper of Torchwood experienced moments when The Grim Reaper possessed his body: during these moments, his eyes would turn black and he would start chanting "I shall walk the Earth and my hunger will know no bounds."
- In True Blood, people under Maryann's control have totally black eyeballs.
- Windom Earle gets this for a brief moment in Twin Peaks.
- In one of the most effective applications of this trope, The X-Files had the black oil.
- It was also used with the surprisingly sympathetic Monster of the Week in the episode "Hunger".
- Averted with Henry Fitzroy in Blood Ties, whose eyes go black for his Game Face and during hypnosis, as he is a Friendly Neighborhood Vampire (more or less).
- The BBC's Jekyll uses this as one of the warning signs that Hyde is about to show up, and they're one of the few cosmetic changes made to show the difference between the main character's two personalities.
Music
- "Blackest Eyes" by Porcupine Tree is a song about serial killers with the lyrics "Swim with me into your blackest eyes".
- 2D from Gorillaz has these, although this case would be some sort of subversion, since he's generally nice and often a source of comic relief. Also, the trope is justified, because they're apparently not really black eyes, but eight-ball fractures, caused by having them dented into 2D's eye sockets, which gave him his nickname (2 Dents).
- "Spectrum" by Zedd features a music video that shows a woman (presumably from outer space) with pitch black eyes who falls in love with a man from Earth. They have a romantic relationship and wear sunglasses in order to hide the uncannily human alien woman's black eyes from the public. Here, watch it for yourself.
Tabletop Games
- Dark Fantasy and Modern Horror roleplaying games from the 1990s onwards love this trope, from Old World of Darkness to the German game Arcane Codex (where this is actually a trait buyable at character creation called "Eyes of Hell" that indicates the character is a half-breed who has demonic blood).
- The Excrucians of Nobilis have a variant on this. Falling stars drift through their otherwise-black eyes.
- This was a symptom (along with greasy black tears) of the Phyrexian oil in Time Spiral. Naturally, the people living in black-aligned places got the worst of it.
- Used with the Night Lords of the Warhammer 40000 'verse. Each original member of the Legion has enormous pupils, along with irises and scleræ that are totally black. It gives them nearly perfect night vision: bright lights can cause tissue damage to their eyes along the lines of Tears of Blood. Justified, since the Legion recruited all of its members from its homeworld of Nostramo, where the human population lived in thousands of years of isolation and adapted to Nostamo's state of perpetual darkness note Almost the entire population were also Eerie Pale Skinned Brunettes, for the same reason. Within canon, the trope was Zig Zagged (being the only army in the Imperium who extensively utilized terror tactics), but played straight after their Primarch declared "Then Let Me Be Evil".
- In Magic: The Gathering The vampires of Innistrad - most notably, Sorin Markov has black sclera and golden irises.◊
Toys
- Karzahni from BIONICLE was first described as having empty, black eyes. Later, a book illustration gave him brightly glowing yellow eyes (and took other liberties with his colors), and his eventual figure sported red eyes. The change is somewhat justified in the figure's case, as it represented his mutated form, which didn't look anything like what his original description suggested. There's also the fact that Karzahni constantly rebuilds himself, so he may have possibly changed his eyes...
Video Games
- Artwork of the American/European style of Dr. Robotnik usually depicts him with no eyes at all, with two pitch black eye-sockets instead.◊
- In Chrono Cross, the boss "Hell Orcha" has black eyes with red pupils.
- A few of the character designs for the mutant enemies in Destroy All Humans! feature black eyes.
- When Kreia unveils herself as a Sith Lord in Knights of the Old Republic II, her eyes turn from milky white to pitch black.
- The Sith Emperor has pitch-black eyes from birth. It is a sign of his great evil and power. Vector Hyllis also has completely black eyes, though, while he is part of the Imperial Agent's entourage, he's not evil so much as following Blue and Orange Morality.
- Inverted with the Asari, Liara, from Mass Effect. If you choose to have her as your romance partner, her eyes will turn black while you're having a roll in the sack with her. Her eyes also turn black when activating telepathic linking powers - something observed in another Asari, Shiala, an Asari Commando, who links with your character during the Feros mission.
- If you look closely, they aren't solid black, but have faint star-like lights in them.
- Played straight when Morinth does it - that an Asari's eyes turn black just before sex has a whole new effect when the Asari in question is an Ardat-Yakshi.
- Master Albert combines this with Red Eyes, Take Warning. No, really.
- Mitsuo Kubo from Persona 4, a really creepy loner whose most prominent feature is his black fish eyes. He eventually killed resident Sadist Teacher Mr. Morooka over a grudge and attempted to claim the murders currently taking place in Inaba.
- In The Suffering: Ties That Bind, the Creeper has black, doll-like eyes.
- Jak's Superpowered Evil Side has these, as do Daxter's and Skyheed's.
- Chaos Havan in The Reconstruction.
- The character creator in City of Heroes gives a few faces with black eyes as an option.
- X-COM. A seemingly human housewife has these in the E3 2010 trailer.
- In the Civilization 4 mod Rise of Mankind, the leaderhead for Richleiu has, inexplicably, completely black eyes. While likely just a glitch, or an incomplete design, it does make him fairly creepy.
- Oh Crap, it's the Proto Badger◊!
- Subverted with the Lady of the Forest from Dragon Age: Origins. Although she possesses pitch-black eyes, she is not evil, only inhuman. In fact, she wishes to end the curse that has been placed upon the werewolves of the Brecilian Forest, even though doing so will require her death.
- M. Bison from Street Fighter has all black eyes, except for the irises (normally black), which are white.
- That was in his early designs. Averted afterwards, when his eyes were changed to be completely white.
- In Embric Of Wulfhammers Castle, this afflicts all those who drink the demonic scotch. It also afflicts Ecinacea, due to her having been replaced by an Eldritch Abomination.
- If you are trying to reach the happy ending in Afraid Of Monsters, you have to fight your Doppelgänger, who has completly black eyes.
- The Alice Clones from Esp Ra De and the Espgaluda series
- Ōkami subverts this. Ammy is the hero, but has pitch black eyes.
- Can become terrifying if you look at her face when using the "Realistic Wolf" karmic transformer.
- In Sonic Adventure 2, the big ghosts from the Death Chamber stage have a pair of black eyes which blinks every few seconds. When you hit them once, however, they will turn into the creepy, yellow-eyed, slasher smiling ghosts.
- The Outsider, the resident Eldritch Abomination of Dishonored has completely black eyes. However, he's not so much evil as simply a disinterested entity who enjoys observing humanity and the chaos they can create, occasionally granting powers to rare individuals that gain his interest.
Webcomics
- Celesto Morgan from Dominic Deegan has a case of this whenever he uses his dark Seer powers.
- Found on Captain Vole of Girl Genius, an ex-Jagerkin (no, we're not sure how that works either) who is hell-bent on killing any Heterodyne that comes his way, including Agatha.
- Bloody Mary from Flipside has these, though she does still have visible pupils, allowing us to somewhat connect with her as she transforms into The Woobie.
- All the titular characters in Goblins have this, whether hero or villain.
- Zimmy from Gunnerkrigg Court is initially presented as this: she's antagonistic and seems to have dark holes where her eyes should be. However, subsequent chapters make her The Woobie. Dark Is Not Evil, indeed. Also, it turns out she does have eyes: they're just perpetually/stylistically covered by black gunk.
- Despite being a benevolent entity, Caprice from A Miracle of Science gets totally black eyes and the Voice of the Legion when Mars is talking.
- Babi Rusa, a cannibal hag, has all black eyes, in Witchprickers. Interestingly, the comic's hero, Ilemauzer the bat, also has black eyes at first.
- In Pumpkin Flower, all Mancers have black eyes, including the main character.
- Subverted in Homestuck. Sollux winds up with these after a duel with Eridan goes badly, but he's actually much more relaxed now that he doesn't have to deal with his psychic powers anymore. As a half-ghost in the farthest ring, he has one eye that's solid black, and the other that's solid white, to indicate he's not entirely alive or dead.
- This was used in El Goonish Shive as part of the effects to show a particularly intense Death Glare.
- It's also present on both Lord Tedd and Tedd when he activates his gauntlet.
- A Tale Of Fiction: Sneaky's eyes are always black, no matter how much shapeshifting he does. Subverted, though, because he's a nice guy and the protagonist. While shapeshifted into human form, he usually wears sunglasses to blend in.
- In Sam and Fuzzy, the heavy metal band Noosehead (which has 15 members) has several members with monochromatic Black Eyes of Evil. This includes their front man, Sidney "the Sicko", and main guitarist, Nicole. As it turns out, when they end up taking the stage during the "roadies" arc, they are a subversion: all of them are really nice (if a little eccentric) people who treat the heavy metal life as a job.
- S.S.D.D: Robert. While not evil, he admits his eyes make people feel ill and scare children.
- In Last Res0rt black eyes with red irises are an undeniable sign of being a Djinni-si, or "dead inside". Vampires are capable of hiding their "dead" eyes though. Also a bit of YMMV on whether that automatically makes one evil too.
- Spina Cage has a race of human eating faeries with completely blacked out eyes.
- In Our Little Adventure, kobolds would be cute if their eyes weren't large, black, soulless eye sockets.
- Moon Crest 24: (Averted) Derek has what are basically black circles for his eyes with no sclera to speak of, but is far from evil.
Web Original
- The Lovercraftian ZALGO edits, which originated on Something Awful.
- The Dark Queen's true form in Sailor Nothing.
- The SCP Foundation presents SCP-899: shrieking, black-eyed, bloodstained ghost children in a forest.
- But they also avert the trope with SCP-134: a harmless young girl whose black eyes happen to be vistas into an uncharted region of space. SCP personnel have actually been reprimanded for getting too attached to "Stella".
- In the Foundation's sister site, The Wanderers Library, they're alleged to be a symbiotic pairing of a spirit and a child that had a near-death experience.
- Malachite from Suburban Knights.
Western Animation
- Feathers McGraw, the sinister penguin in The Wrong Trousers, has solid black eyes. Interestingly, his eyes are entirely natural.
- During a hallucination sequence in the Watchmen tie-in feature, Tales of the Black Freighter, the mariner's eyes turn an inky black.
- This is likely one of the things that makes the pink elephants in Dumbo so disturbing. Not only are their eyes black, they appear to be empty sockets.
- The Marvelous Misadventures Of Flapjack had this cat...yeah.
- Subverted in Teen Titans. Aqualad's eyes are solid black, but he's a good guy. When under the influence of evil mind control, his eyes turn red.
- Subverted with Stitch from Lilo & Stitch. While he isn't evil, he is pretty nasty.
- Subverted with Jake in Adventure Time. He's not evil, usually...When he thought he was evil, his eyes went swirly.
- The Joker from The New Batman Adventures.
- In Green Lantern The Animated Series, Anti-Monitor Aya has these.
Real Life
- Not so much "real" life, but a popular urban legend/modern day campfire tale: people have reported encounters with "black-eyed kids" (also known as "black-eyed beings" and "black-eyed children", or just BEK), which are pretty much exactly what you would expect—creepy kids with pure black eyes who are said to mean humans no good at all. The original BEK tale can be found here.
- Aniridia. You lack an iris, the colored portion of your eye. As a result, you can't see very well, if at all.
- Hyphema, better known as an "eight ball hemorrhage", where blood pools inside the eye and blacks out one's vision.
- In 2007 the first case of scleral tattooing was reported. This procedure makes it possible to tattoo the whites of your eyes black. Possible side effects include: a permanent black eye as the ink migrates into tissue surrounding the eyeball, terrible headaches, blurry vision, seeing black specks (basically floaters made of ink), extreme light sensitivity, glaucoma and even blindness.
- On a non-squicky note, it's a matter of light, shadow, and positioning to appear to have Black Eyes of Evil, if only for a moment, with both eyelids and eyebrows shadowing the eyes themselves. This can look creepy, especially in non-flash photographs.
- Roméo Dallaire, Four Star Badass of the Canadian Forces mission in Rwanda, described the genocidal Interahamwe militia as having eyes so black, no light could be seen in them (or something along those effects) - Black Eyes of Evil, indeed
- Ever look at a shark's eyes?
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