Eye-Dentity Giveaway

I spy, in your little eyes, something is not quite right here.^{(Top to bottom)}Princess Cadance, "Princess Cadance", Queen Chrysalis of the Changelings

"That is not Lord Eddard's daughter. Arya had her father's eyes, the grey eyes of the Starks. A girl her age might let her hair grow long, add inches to her height, see her chest fill out, but she could not change the color of her eyes. That's Sansa's little friend, the steward's girl. Jeyne, that was her name. Jeyne Poole."

— Theon Greyjoy, A Dance with Dragons Reek II

Fiction tends to tie quite a bit related to a character to the design of their eyes. They could use eye color to implicitly communicate something about a character, or use the eyes' shape to show a character's attitude. The eyes are, after all, the Windows of the Soul, and thus they are used often to communicate so much about a character at a glance alone.

However, sometimes this is taken a step further, and instead of giving away information about the character, the eyes instead give away the character themselves to the audience. It could be a character in disguise, whose eyes remain the same. It could be two (or more) characters sharing headspace, and the eyes denote who's in control. What's important is that the eyes themselves are the dead giveaway as to who someone really is at a glance.

This is more than just "this character has visually-distinct eyes from everyone else", although that may be something that is used to invoke this trope down the line. What matters is that a character isn't who they say they are. An imposter will always leave a hint or two, but it's only a case of this trope when it's the color or design of the eyes themselves that are one of, if not the only hint that a character is someone else.

Oftentimes, this is more done for the audience's benefit, so they can take one look at a character and know who they really are if it's meant to be known to them, but sometimes the characters in the story will notice the sudden change in a person's eyes and recognize that someone else is in control or that they're an imposter. And as this is more of a visual trope, it is naturally more common in visual media.

Heavy overlap with Eyes Are Mental, although that trope is specific to shapeshifters who can't disguise their eye color. A Sub-Trope of Eye Colour Change, and may also be one for Red Right Hand if the character is an antagonist, and even further if they have red eyes when they take over, then it overlaps with Red Eyes, Take Warning. Overlaps slightly with Mind-Control Eyes. May also overlap with Good Eyes, Evil Eyes if two beings in one body that are on opposite ends of the moral spectrum have distinct designs. Similar to Morphic Resonance, which is when characters transform into things that resemble them as people, whereas here, the eyes are the only link to their usual identity or appearance. See also Eye Motifs when eyes are symbolic of certain themes, but not dead giveaways for characters themselves. Not to be confused with Eyes Never Lie, as that is when a character's eye movements give away their intentions. Also don’t confuse with Wingding Eyes, when the character’s eyes take on a cartoon shape to reveal their inner state.

As this may be a dead giveaway to a mystery character's identity, particularly if it's used as part of a reveal, beware of unmarked spoilers ahead.

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess (2016): Roo the cat recognizes Wolf Link by his eyes. Rusl almost makes the same connection, but dismisses it as impossible.
• Mobile Suit Gundam: The Origin: Char Aznable almost constantly wears Cool Shades, and later a Cool Mask, claiming cosmic rays have made them sensitive to light. This is to hide the fact he has blue eyes which doesn't match up with documentation saying that the real Char has brown eyes, as the man behind the mask and glasses is Casval Deikun.
• Pokémon: The Series: The shapeshifting Pokémon Ditto can transform into anything and anyone it sees with its move "Transform". In the games, this allows it to mimic other Pokémon perfectly. However, in the anime, despite otherwise perfectly resembling its target, it will often retain its small dotted eyes and long thin mouth, even if the Pokémon it is attempting to mimic is more expressive, particularly if it is attempting to copy from memory rather than being face-to-face with the original.
• Yu-Gi-Oh!:
  • There are a number of physical differences between Yugi Muto and the entity that resides in the Millennium Puzzle, although he and Yugi look mostly the same. The two most apparent, however, are that the entity's Anime Hair has some additional golden spikes and that his eyes, in contrast to naive Yugi's round and wide eyes◊, are narrow and angular, befitting his colder and more malicious personality.
  • Subverted with Bakura, another character with an alternate personality sealed in a millennium item who sometimes comes out to wreak havoc. Both characters' eyes are angular, but normal Bakura is wide-eyed, and Dark Bakura's are more narrow. This makes it much harder to tell who's in control at a given moment, as Dark Bakura will often pretend flawlessly to be his normal counterpart with no one else being any the wiser.
  • Anyone under the control of Marik Ishtar through the Millennium Rod will gain empty Mind-Control Eyes. Sometimes they also have a glowing Millennium Eye symbol on their heads, such as Strings, Arkana, and the Exodia Hunter, though when Marik wants to be subtle, he can have the eye hidden, as he does with both Bandit Keith and Tea Gardener/Anzu Mazaki.
  • Subverted by Tristan in the Virtual World arc. Even though he falls under the control of the Big 5, his eyes remain exactly the same.
  • Yu-Gi-Oh! GX: Judai/Jaden's eyes are normally a shade of brown, but whenever his Superpowered Evil Side is in control, his eyes become Supernatural Gold Eyes.

Comic Books

• Superman: Birthright: As an Adaptational Explanation, Superman's Clark Kenting works not so much because the glasses hide his face, but because the lenses diffuse the unnaturally vivid shade of blue of his eyes, which give away his alien heritage.

Fan Works

• The Apprentice, the Student, and the Charlatan:
  • Envy is a Living Shadow who can shapeshift into anyone she chooses when she's not possessing them anyway. In both instances, shapeshifting and possession, her red eyes are her dead giveaway Envy shapeshifts into Rarity at one point to emotionally manipulate and drive a wedge between Nova Shine and Twilight Sparkle, yet, even though she wears Rarity's shape, Nova notices her red eyes but doesn't react given the situation she confronts him in. Come the sequel, Envy taunts him over the fact that he never realized who she really was, given the pony Nova thought she was didn't have red eyes at all up until her supposed Face–Heel Turn.
  • Bright Gleam's eyes are normally green, but after she allows Harmonia to take over in desperation as she's attacked by Envy, her eyes turn white when she's under Harmonia's influence.
• Nine Days Down: Twilight realizes that Cretes has been possessed by Tartarus when the bull turns to look at her and she sees that his eyes have become pure black except for a thin ring of flame — exactly like the not-Sun that hangs in Tartarus' black sky.
• Dungeon Keeper Ami: Bodies that are under the Demonic Possession of a Keeper are indicated by the glowing Red Eyes, Take Warning.
• The Palaververse: Moonlight Palaver: When the Fire Queen does a Demonic Possession on a dragon delegate in order to communicate, the delegate's eyes change into Fireball Eyeballs:
  His eyes opened, and they were pure fire.
• The Season's My Reason: In "Precious Circuit", Mr. Sandman is able to tell Yui and Katrina apart by looking at their eyes; Yui has purple eyes, while Katrina has brown eyes.
• Throw Away Your Mask: While recovering from the shock of seemingly running into Akira, Akechi's suspicions are set off by Akira-lookalike Tsuyoshi's yellow eyes and immediately pins him as supernatural.

Films — Animation

• Beauty and the Beast: The only similar trait between the Beast and his original human form is his blue eyes. When the Beast is transformed back at the end of the film, Belle doesn't truly recognize him until she looks into his eyes.
• Megamind: The disguise watch that Minion sends Megamind at the beginning of the movie changes everything about a person to look like the one they're copying.... except their eyes. When Megamind is disguising himself as Bernard, the Warden, or Metroman, his eyes remain a bright green. The same goes for when Minion uses the watch: the character's eyes will turn brown if they weren't already.
• The Princess and the Frog: Whenever Prince Naveen's pompous butler Lawrence physically impersonates him (via wearing Dr. Facilier's dark magical talisman that allows him to become an exact clone of Naveen), his blue eyes appear in place of Naveen's brown ones.

Films — Live-Action

• Alice in Wonderland: At one point in the film, the Mad Hatter (who has been taken prisoner by the Red Queen and sentenced to death) walks out into the courtyard, his hands bound, and lays his head on a chopping block. After keeping his hat on, at his insistence, the camera closes in on his face the moment before the axe comes down on his neck, and we see him grinning, whilst his eyes are turquoise instead of their normal green, and with oval-shaped slits for pupils. Right as the axe comes down, instead of cutting through flesh and severing his head, the Hatter's entire body vanishes, except for his hat, which floats into the air until it reaches the Red Queen's balcony — and then, below the hat appears the head of the Cheshire Cat himself, who used his shapeshifting powers to impersonate the Hatter, whilst setting him free to instigate an uprising against the Queen.
• Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning has a sequence in which an IMF agent wearing a Latex Perfection disguise is moving around on the same train as the person she's disguised as. One way for the audience to keep track of which is which is that the original has blue eyes and the disguised agent has brown eyes (although there are also other more obvious signs, like the differences in their outfits).
• Pokémon Detective Pikachu: Ms. Norman, Howard Clifford's personal assistant, is revealed to be a genetically-enhanced Ditto when she takes off her sunglasses, revealing Ditto's signature Black Bead Eyes.
• The Princess Bride: Downplayed. When the Dread Pirate Roberts asks Buttercup to talk about Westley, she mentions his eyes "like the sea after a storm". Looking at Roberts' similar-looking eyes while she says this, her voice falters. But it takes him saying "As you wish" for her to actually realize Roberts IS Westley.
• Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country: No matter which form she takes, Martia the shapeshifter keeps her eye color.
• Who Framed Roger Rabbit: Also takes the form of a Wham Shot, as Judge Doom is revealed to be a toon. His dummy eyes pop out, and he turns to reveal drawn red eyes, not only revealing his true identity as a toon but that HE was the one who killed Eddie's brother, causing Eddie to hate toons.
• X-Men: At several points through the movie, a character is revealed to the audience to be the shapeshifter Mystique in disguise when the character's eyes change to gold. At the very end, the X-Men themselves learn Mystique's current identity in-story the same way, when a television news report on Senator Robert Kelly's return to Congress catches his eyes briefly flashing gold on-camera.

Literature

• In The Black Gryphon, Urtho sees that his great enemy Ma'ar has reshaped his entire body to make it strong and beautiful, but his eyes are the same, still green and shrewd. In his later incarnations the spirit who was Ma'ar continues to remake the bodies he snatches but learns how to change the eyes too.
• Discworld: The nature of one's eyes cannot be changed through magic or shapeshifting. This is often the only clue to the nature of the gods when they go about in disguise; the Lady's eyes, for instance, are always a startling green, while Destiny's are black pits dusted with faint lights.
• In Dr. Franklin's Island, two castaway girls are forced into a Slow Transformation. Miranda, changing faster, is a twisted wreck when the doctors take her away from Semi, who thinks that by that point the only part of her still recognizably Miranda is her eyes - though those have changed as well by the time Semi sees her again as a bird monster. Semi becomes a Nearly Normal Animal mostly resembling a small manta ray, but she retains brown human-looking eyes, although her myopia is corrected.
• Good Omens: Crowley is a demon who caused a little trouble in the Garden of Eden with an apple. Given human form and a roving commission to make trouble in the human world, he found the invention of sunglasses to be a relief. As his eyes are a disconcerting serpentine yellow with vertical pupils.
• Goosebumps: In My Hairiest Adventure, Larry is quick to realize that the dog he met is actually his friend Lily when he notices that it has her distinctive heterochromia.
• Krabat: The evil sorcerer is missing his right eye and, although he can turn into different animals, these always have only their left eye.
• The Mermaid: Amelia can transform between a mermaid and a human woman. As a mermaid, her face is shaped differently, she has sharp teeth and claws, and her whole body is covered in scales, but her grey eyes always look the same, whichever form she's in.
• The Moomins: When Moomintroll is turned into a strange creature due to hiding in the Hobgoblin's Hat (a magical hat that transforms things), Moominmama recognises him due to his eyes remaining the same.
• The Pendragon Adventure: Subverted by Saint Dane. While it initially seems like Saint Dane can't hide his Icy Blue Eyes when shapeshifting, he later hides them perfectly, indicating that he was just inducing Glamour Failure to mess with Bobby.
• A Song of Ice and Fire: Jeyne Poole is forced to impersonate Arya Stark and marry Ramsay Bolton in Arya's stead to secure the loyalty of the North. Theon Greyjoy immediately realizes the deception because Jeyne's eyes are brown while Arya's are grey. However, played with in that everyone knows it's a deception, because the real Arya Stark is unaccounted for, last being seen in King's Landing at the time of Ned Stark's execution, and so no one can come out with the truth because there is no other proof. Thus the falsehood serves both the Boltons' and Lannisters' purposes.
• The Stormlight Archive: Shallan Davar's many personae sometimes shift her eye color depending on who's in control. Shallan, for instance, has blue eyes, as does Radiant, the better to blend in with lighteyed members of society and to verify that she is a member of the Knights Radiant. Veil's eyes, meanwhile, are brown, and allow her to get in with fellow darkeyes.
• Time Streams: Gorig is repeatedly described as having eyes so yellow that they resemble wedges of lemon. When Gorig reveals his true form as a Phyrexian demon at the climax of the book, his lemon-wedge eyes are carried over from his human disguise, allowing Barrin — who had never met Gorig — to recognize him from Urza's description of the man.
• Warrior Cats: In the seventh arc, The Broken Code, the spirit of Ashfur uses the opportunity of Bramblestar losing a life to take over his empty body between lives and pretend to be him. In Veil of Shadows, when he loses his temper, Bristlefrost notices that his eyes look blue for a second — the impostor's natural eye color — rather than Bramblestar's amber. This helped confirm the identity of the impostor to readers, and fans tend to include a bit of blue in the eyes when illustrating scenes from the arc.

Live-Action TV

• Game of Thrones: Zig-zagged with warging. When someone wargs into a person or creature, the warg's eyes will go white for the duration of their control, but the controlled being's eyes will go white for a few moments as the warg takes over, before returning to their normal eye color.
• Supergirl: In the first half of Season 1, Hank Henshaw's eyes glowed red a few times, indicating he might not be entirely human. While early viewers believed Hank already had his comic book identity of the villainous Cyborg Superman, "Human for a Day" revealed this to be a Red Herring — Hank actually wasn't Hank at all, but J'onn J'onzz/Martian Manhunter in disguise. This is now considered a Late-Arrival Spoiler.

Myths & Religion

• Norse Mythology: Odin Borson can turn into various animals (his favorites are ravens and wolves), but, like him, they are easily identifiable by his missing eye.
• In European folklore, witches and werewolves could sometimes be recognized in their animal form because they still had their human eyes (though more often the sign was something else, such as lacking tails).

Tabletop Games

• Dungeon: Issue #21, adventure "The Chest of the Aloeids". The goddess Athena, no matter what form she assumes, will always be given away by her grey eyes.
• Pokémon Trading Card Game: One of the expansions includes cards of Ditto mimicking various Pokémon. They all have in common Ditto's wide mouth and dotty eyes.

Video Games

• The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim: All vampires have glowing eyes, visible to the player-character. It's implied that these are only visible to dovahkiin, because vampires who look normal enough and maintain a low enough profile are able to flawlessly blend into society. For example, despite the fact that she has lived for a very long time, only the player-character and a few select others seem to be aware that Solitude's court wizard Sybille Stentor is a vampire, albeit a benevolent one who hates the more savage varieties.
• Five Nights at Freddy's: Sister Location: When the player meets Circus Baby, she has bright green eyes as a notable part of her design. In the backstory scenes, however, her eyes are instead a bright blue, and it's Elizabeth Afton who has the green eyes. This is the evidence that, after scooping Elizabeth, the animatronic became possessed by the little girl.
• Inazuma Eleven GO: Even before Ishido Shuuji was revealed to be Gouenji Shuuya, the identical eyes were used as Foreshadowing.
• Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep: Terra has bright blue eyes, but once Master Xehanort pulls a Grand Theft Me, his eyes turn bright gold. The same thing happens to his friend Ventus when his Evil Counterpart Vanitas takes over.
• Shantae: Shantae's animal transformation all retain her normal eyes, alongside a few additional traits in certain forms.
• Super Mario Odyssey: When Mario is controlling something, they gain his eyes (along with his mustache and hat).
• Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World: The protagonist Emil Castagnier has an aggressive Split Personality that takes control during battle after he became a Knight of Ratatosk, which is revealed to be the real Ratatosk's dormant personality. Which personality is in control can be distinguished between Emil's eye colors, with Emil having green eyes and Ratatosk Mode Emil having red eyes. This becomes plot-relevant later on, as it's shown that while the personalities can take on the other's voice, they can't change their eye color to match. When Ratatosk takes on Emil's voice to talk to Marta, his back is turned to the screen and when he turns around, we see that his eye color is still red. When Emil pretends that Ratatosk has taken over, he does take on his voice, but his eye color remains green, signifying to the player that it's actually Emil in control.
• The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt: The shapeshifter Dudu is missing an eye, and as a result every form he takes also has a closed eye with a scar over it.
• Xenoblade Chronicles 3: When the main cast gain their Ouroboros powers, they sport a glowing Ouroboros symbol in their left eye. This plays into the events that kick off Chapter 5 where it was revealed that Mio and her doppelganger Moebius M had engaged in a "Freaky Friday" Flip after Mio seemingly dies due to her lifespan running out at the end of Chapter 4. While Noah first realizes the switch when M repeats a conversation Mio had with him, Moebius N, not wanting to believe that M had died while in Mio's body, could no longer deny the facts when he sees that M's left eye sports the Ouroboros symbol along with the Moebius one.

Visual Novels

• Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc: Compared to her fashion magazines, where they're much larger and more expressive, Junko Enoshima is introduced with distinctively thin, almond-shaped eyes. She explains that the difference in appearance is because her pictures were photoshopped. As revealed in the final trial, the real Junko really does look exactly like the magazines. The "Junko" everyone met at the start was actually her twin sister, Mukuro Ikusaba.
• Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Justice For All: Ini Miney normally has her eyes closed, but are shown to be identical to her sister Mimi's distinct Tsurime Eyes when they open. This hints towards her actually being Mimi in disguise.

Web Animation

• RWBY:
  • One of Neopolitan's giveaways (besides her muteness) is that her eyes will sometimes change to pink, brown, or cream shades when she blinks. However, this appears to be deliberate as she shows no difficulty in disguising her eye color and may be doing it to taunt her opponents.
  • Done to Neo by the Curious Cat in Volume 9, who pulls a Grand Theft Me on Neo and her eyes change to have bright blue sclera and white catlike pupils. Once the gang is able to yank the cat out of her, her eyes return to normal.

Webcomics

• Dabbler of Grrl Power is a succubus who can take many appearances thanks to her glamour, but she tends to keep her blue eye and green eye.

Web Videos

• In PopCross Studios' two-part Multiverse Tales episode known as "Battle for the Beast World" (set in the world of Tayruns Adventures And Beast Chronicling), what prompts former demon hunter Sterling Engeal to realize that the Overseer Astra who he and his friend Alexis Jones have been manipulated into fighting by the Beast World's Big Bad, Ulitus, isn't entirely evil is when he looks into her Supernatural Gold Eyes and realizes that they're the same colour as the eyes of his thought-to-be-dead girlfriend, Diamos, the daughter of Lucifer himself, who apparently gave her life in a Heroic Sacrifice to kill her father and destroy his demonic army six years ago. By the end of the battle, when Ulitus is defeated, Astra reveals via her shapeshifting abilities that she is Diamos — or, more precisely, Diamos was an identity that Astra assumed in order to fight alongside Sterling and Alexis when she grew interested in them all those years ago.
• Yu-Gi-Oh! The Abridged Series: In contrast to how their duel went in the anime, Tea loses her duel to Crump in the Virtual World arc. As such, when Crump takes over her body, LK edits Tea's eyes to always be empty Mind-Control Eyes to show that Crump's the one in control. Despite this, no one notices the change. This lasts until Crump and Marik meet in her head and Marik kicks him out.

Western Animation

• Adventure Time: Any vessel that the Lich possesses gains his Glowing Eyelights of Undeath. He eventually ceases to use direct possessions once he realizes how easily this gives him away.
• The Amazing World of Gumball: In "The Stink", Gumball and Darwin get lost in the woods and are chased by what they think is a "Stink Ape", who just so happens to have the same yellow sclera and red irises as their missing teacher, whom the boys sent out to locate. When the creature catches up with them, it's revealed to have been Mr. Small the whole time.
• Around the World with Willy Fog: Transfer is a Master of Disguise (Latex Perfection level — he can copy any size, species, age, height, and gender, and fool even those who know the person he impersonates very well). So the audience can identify him, his eye will glow every time he's on-screen no matter what disguise he's using.
• Ben 10: Alien Force: All of Ben's aliens share his green eye color (when their eyes are visible, at least), including appearances of ten-year-old Ben's aliens in Ultimate Alien and Omniverse that originally did not. In the finale, Gwen identifies Swampfire as Ben via his green eyes rather than his Evil Twin Albedo's red.
• In Code Lyoko, people who are possessed, or simply created, by XANA will often have their eyes flickering and their pupils replaced with the XANA logo.
• Codename: Kids Next Door: Played with. In the episode "Operation: P.O.O.L.", Sector V discovers Numbuh Four's pool leads to an alternate universe of identical evil doppelgangers, and multiple times the doppelgangers try to take the original's place. Both Numbuh One and Numbuh Four are able to immediately tell they weren't talking to Lizzie and Numbuh Three by looking into their eyes, with Numbuh Four even pointing out that Negative Numbuh Three's eyes look "mean" compared to her counterpart. However, the artstyle gives everyone Black Bead Eyes no matter which side they're on, so the audience themselves can't tell the difference.
• Danny Phantom: Whenever a ghost overshadows someone, their eyes turn the same color as the ghost's. So anyone overshadowed by Danny in ghost form, for example, gets his green eyes.
• Gravity Falls: When Bill Cipher possesses a human, their eyes change to yellow sclera with black slits for pupils. In "The Last Mabelcorn", Ford begs Dipper to look at his pupils as proof that he's not possessed by Bill, while in "Dipper and Mabel vs. The Future", Bill is able to trick Mabel into making the deal that releases Weirdmageddon because he was hiding in Blendin Blandin, who wears opaque glasses. When Blendin takes them off to reveal his eyes, Mabel has a horrified moment of What Have I Done before getting put to sleep.
• My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic: On occasion, when the shapeshifter Queen Chrysalis takes on another form, the only sign of her true identity is that it retains her distinctive blue-green eyes with concentric sclerae and slit pupils, or at least briefly flashes that color.
  • "A Canterlot Wedding, Part 1": When Queen Chrysalis, who has disguised herself as Princess Cadance, reveals herself to and banishes Twilight, Cadance's pink eyes briefly flash Chrysalis' vivid blue-green.
  • "The Cutie Re-Mark Part 2": The Chrysalis of an alternate universe actually weaponizes this by disguising herself as Applejack, who herself has green eyes. This allows her to flawlessly disguise herself and infiltrate the AU!Zecora's secret camp in the Everfree Forest with no suspicion.
  • "Frenemies": Zigzagged. When in her cragadile, goat, and ophiotaurus forms, Chrysalis retains her distinctive eyes. While this is absent in her ursa form, several of its component stars shine the same color as her eyes. Her roc and monkey forms don't bear any signs of this, however.
• She-Ra and the Princesses of Power: Double Trouble can disguise themselves perfectly, but they sometimes shift back to their regular lizard eyes when they blink, giving them away.
• Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends: The Chameleon's eyes flash to indicate that it's him wearing whatever shape he's in.
• Steven Universe: In "A Single Pale Rose," Steven is going through Pearl's memories to unravel the mystery of Pink Diamond's death. He sees his mother Rose Quartz seemingly at the moment she shattered Pink Diamond, with her bangs covering her eyes. But then she looks up, revealing that her eyes are Pearl's. It turns out that "Rose Quartz" was actually the secret identity of Pink Diamond, who had Pearl shapeshift to look like Rose and pretend to shatter her, so she could leave behind her old life as Pink Diamond and become Rose Quartz permanently.
• Superfriends: Jayna maintains her purple eyes no matter the form she takes.

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