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Eye color means many different things in fiction. Sometimes, they mean someone is special, or has powers, or perhaps just innocent. One of the common uses of eye color is to indicate a person's elemental affinity. The actual colour correspondence to elements varies depending on the work as different colours align with the elements depending on the work. It's more important that the colour lines up In-Universe than to any out of universe list.
This trope is frequently paired with its Sister Trope, Elemental Hair.
Also, compare Color-Coded for Your Convenience, Color-Coded Elements, Technicolor Eyes, and Elemental Powers.
Examples
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Anime and Manga
- Mizore, the Ice Woman of Rosario + Vampire, has ice powers and blue eyes. Interestingly, she can also control other people's water magic.
- Magic Knight Rayearth colors our heroines' eyes (and hair) after their elements. Hikaru's are red, Umi's are blue, and Fuu's are green. Fuu's hair may be yellow, but yellow has represented wind in other media, so no complaints there.
- Zelman Clock from Black Blood Brothers has red eyes and is a pyrokinetic.
- Shana from Shakugan no Shana has flaming red eyes when in full Flame Haze mode.
- Guardian Of The Sacred Spirit has Prince Chagum, who carries the egg of a benevolent water spirit. He also has a noble, innocent personality typical of blue eyes.
- Several characters in Mahou Sensei Negima! have this:
- Evangeline uses ice magic, and has very cold blue eyes; however, the OVAs change it to s sky blue color.
- Chao uses fire magic and has red eyes in the OVA and reddish brown in the manga.
- Anya is a fire user and gets red eyes in the manga (however, she is a greeneyed redhead in the OVAs).
- Kotaro floats between black and purple eyes, but both colors correspond to his shadow magic.
- Saint Seiya gives Hyoga, An Ice Person, blue eyes. Strangely averted in the Manga with Aquarius Camus who, despite being An Ice Person as well, had red eyes.
- In Bleach, Hitsugaya has blue eyes of the "piercing, icy" variety, which fit well with his ice powers.
- Reinforce Zwei of Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha has the bluest eyes of the series, emphasizing the childlike innocence of the character, as well as her magical nature (the first Unison Device created since the days of Ancient Belka) and her affinity to ice.
- November 11 from Darker than Black has very light blue eyes that can most definitely be described as "icy". This is appropriate, since he's a sociopath with ice powers.
- At very least the Inner Senshi in the manga of Sailor Moon, the Materials Collection makes note that when they transform their eyes (among other things) change. Mercury goes from deep blue to a light blue, Mars from purple to a bright red, Jupiter from (what seems to be) a hazel to green and lastly, Venus who changes from a blue that matches her uniform as Sailor V, to bright gold.
Literature
- The Branion series by Fiona Patton combines this with a variant of Fireball Eyeballs. It focuses on a royal family who channels a fire god, the Living Flame, and has fiery eyes. When an opposing religion based loosely on Catholicism takes religious champions, they have white light in their eyes. Characters in one book are heretics to the Flame trying to give the other three Elemental Powers their own avatars, and their eyes swim with light as well — gray for Wind, blue for Sea and green for Oaks.
Toys
- BIONICLE certainly attempted to do this by associating eye colours with specific elements, but failed mainly in its inconsistency - the eye colour arrangement was changed in 2004 with only Ice (ice-blue) remaining the same, and again in 2006-2007 when all characters were given green or orange (or later blue) eyes regardless.
Video Games
Webcomics
Western Animation
- In Avatar The Last Airbender, people from the elemental nations (and thus what element they can bend), for the most part, have their eye colors Color-Coded for Your Convenience. Blue for the Water Tribe, green or brown for the Earth Kingdom (Toph has Prophet Eyes), gold or amber for the Fire Nation (at least, their royal family: Ty Lee has gray eyes, but isn't a bender), and gray for the Air Nomads.
- The Legend of Korra breaks from its predecessor's elemental eye color coding with the residents of Republic City, a mecca of multiculturalism and mixed marriages. The firebender on the pro-bending team the Rabbiroos has green eyes, for instance; and a metalbending cop from the first episode has amber eyes. Most of the main characters still play this trope straight, though.
- Linka on Captain Planet and the Planeteers, who possesses the power of wind, has blue eyes.
- Stella, Flora, and Aisha from Winx Club have eye colors pertaining to their elements, Sun, Plants (or Earth, to some extent), and Water/Fluids, respectively. And also Icy, with control over ice.
- Takanuva, Toa of Light has yellow eyes in Bionicle: Mask of Light, representing his light-based powers. His first toy also came with yellow eyes, though later incarnations changed them to lime green.
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