Eye Lights Out

aka: Lights Off Their Eyes

Optimus was like a nightlight for children across the world.... one that just burned out. Again.

Whenever a being, mechanical, magical or meaty, has Glowing Eyes of Doom (or just glowing eyes, Doom Sold Separately) these will flicker and fade out whenever they die. Much like a candle guttering on the last of its wick, death can turn off the literal light in someone's eyes. If the being also has natural Power Crystals in their body (or as the eyes themselves), these too will fade out.

The standard justification for having glowing eyes in the first place is that these eyes are not detecting by ambient light, so the death of the owner also terminates whatever biological, mystical, or electronic process makes them light up. It probably has more to do with the Rule of Cool.

Speaking of, since most beings capable of lighting up their peepers aren't human, you can expect that if one is Not Quite Dead they won't just have their eyes open, but blaze brightly.

Related to No Ontological Inertia, and when objects that the person has linked to their Life Energy (which also glows) fades out or breaks at their death. Glowing Mechanical Eyes are a prerequesite for the robotic version. Not at all related to By the Lights of Their Eyes. Nor when you See the Whites of Their Eyes. Compare Volcanic Veins, where the veins stop glowing once the character dies.

This is a death trope. Spoilers ahoy.

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Examples:

Anime and Manga

• Both times Kuma dies in Afro Samurai (once in the first series, once in Resurrection), his one cyborg eye goes offline.
• Code Geass: When C.C. shoots Mao, the Geass sigil in his eyes can be seen dimming.
• After Cell crushes Android #16's head in Dragon Ball Z, a piece of circuitry with a bright green light falls out, and slowly dims to black, signaling that he is irreparably dead.
• In Fullmetal Alchemist, whenever Alphonse's soul is "unconscious", or being pulled over to the Gate, his eye-lights go out.
• Mobile Suit Gundam 00:
  • The 0 Gundam does this after it is impaled on Exia's GN Sword in the finale of complete with the entire mobile suit going limp before it explodes.
  • In the first season, the entire face mask on Howard Mason's flag goes dark when it is turned into a pin cushion by the Throne Zwei's GN Fangs.
• Neon Genesis Evangelion:
  • Neon Genesis Evangelion's Unit 01. Its eyes tend go out when it runs out of power or the pilot's synchronization is interrupted by something. Although if the pilot's in sufficiently deep shit, it's probably going to get right back up with the eyes lighting up again. Especially noticeable in End of Evangelion when Unit 01 simply turns off while hovering in mid-air to represent that Shinji hitting his Despair Event Horizon resulted in him losing his chance of fighting back for good.
  • Rebuild of Evangelion does it a little differently. When Unit 01 runs out of power, the green parts of its armor fade out along with the eye. Makes sense as the armor is the only part that actually requires power. Similarly, while the dummy plug-controlled Unit 01 is strangling Unit 03, Unit 03's eyes are shown flickering before Unit 01 breaks its neck with sheer strength. Right before Unit 01 punches Unit 03's head so hard it explodes, Unit 03's face is shown once again with the eye still flickering but much dimmer.

• In Pokémon: The Series, Staryu and Starmie's cores blink and stop glowing when they're KOed.
• Downplayed variation in Transformers: Cybertron - a similar effect indicates unconsciousness in a Transformer (which is actually very serious in a series where visible armour damage and/or visible short circuits indicate significant damage, and many attacks are successful but have no visible effect).

Films — Animated

• In the film version of The Last Unicorn, King Haggard at first sees a forest-scape in Lady Amalthea's eyes. After a while in her human form, this image fades to the normal human reflection, hinting at the death of the unicorn inside.

• Optimus Prime in the 1986 Transformers: The Movie has his eyes go from glowing blue to black when he dies
• WALL•E's EVE's eyes turn off when she's in sleep mode, leaving her face a black screen, and AUTO's single red eye goes off when he's deactivated.

Films — Live-Action

• In 2001: A Space Odyssey, the single glowing red light that represents HAL 9000 turns off when he's deactivated for good.
• B.OB from The Black Hole, does a different version where the 'lid' of his Tin-Can Robot closes over his eyes. It might have been played straight originally, as the eyes were meant to be computer screen, but they couldn't get them to work during filming, so the robots had fake cartoon eyes attached, as if put there by the designers to make them look more personable.
• C.H.U.D.: The eyes of the C.H.U.D.s stops glowing when they get killed.
• Godzilla:
  • Kiryu's (AKA Mechagodzilla 3) eyes stop glowing in Godzilla: Tokyo S.O.S. after he sinks into the bottom of the ocean with Godzilla during a Heroic Sacrifice.
  • Similarly in Godzilla (1998) when the mutant lizard is finally felled there is one last shot of its eye as it slowly dims and closes to the sound of falling rain.
  • In Godzilla (2014), when the male Muto dies, we get a close up on his eyes to emphasize with this trope that he is dead.

• The Matrix. After Trinity removes the Agents' bug from Neo's body, it returns to its mini-robot form, which has a small red light. After she drops it out of the car, it falls to the ground and its red light goes out.
• Spoofed in Scary Movie 3. A woman is hit by a car and ends with the engine block through her body. When she dies, the car's lights go out.
• Star Wars
  • The Empire Strikes Back: C-3P0's eyes go out when he's blasted apart by the stormtrooper. Notably, after Chewbacca repairs Threepio, his lights were still out, and he complained about not being able to see. When Chewie fixes that, they come on again.
  • Rogue One: Happens when K-2SO finally collapses after being blasted several dozen times by stormtroopers in the process of holding them off to protect Jyn and Cassian.
• Terminator:
  • The Terminator: The sign that the Terminator is finally destroyed after it is crushed in a hydraulic press is its red eyes going out.
  • In Terminator 2: Judgment Day, when the Terminator suffers its Disney Death we see a close-up of its exposed mechanical eye going out, but in its next scene, there's a faint, pulsing glow in the eye, as it reboots and activates its back-up power source. When it dies for real we see it from the point-of-view of said eyes as they shut off.
  • In Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, the T-850's blink off at the very end of the movie following his Heroic Sacrifice to save John and Kate, and as the nukes fly and Judgment Day begins.
• Several times in the Transformers Film Series. Transformers: Revenge of The Fallen in particular has a gut-wrenching repeat of Optimus' eyes fading out. We know he'll come back, but you can't help but feel your gut clench when Mecha Jesus dies protecting a human.

Literature

• Golems in Discworld have glowing eyes that go out when they're inactive.
• Marvin in So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish, after reading God's Final Message To His Creation:
  The lights went out in his eyes for absolutely the very last time ever.
• The short story Ieia features a deity trapped in a statue, with glowing amber eyes as the only sign of life. The statue's owner, who doesn't believe in the supernatural, thinks she's imagining the glow. When the deity proves its existence in the course of committing a Heroic Sacrifice, the owner is so overcome with reverence that she barely notices the eyes have gone dim.
• Star Wars Legends:
  • In The Thrawn Trilogy, the glow in Grand Admiral Thrawn's eyes go out right after his Final Speech.
  • Subverted by Ton Phanan in the X-Wing Series. Even after he dies, his mechanical eye is still powered and glows redly, and Face finds himself wondering what it's seeing.
• When Ba'alzamon in The Wheel of Time dies, the flames that constantly come out of his eyes (and mouth) go out... leaving burnt out sockets (and mouth) behind.

Live-Action TV

• In BattleBots's 2018 competition, Kraken has a pair of eyes with bright lights within them. Appropriately, when it suffered a mechanical failure in its debut battle, the lights started to flicker and dim, then went out completely as the referee did the knockout countdown.
• The Centurions in Battlestar Galactica. Not only do they have the Cyber Cyclops roaming red eye, but it goes out when the 'bot is destroyed.

• A strange variant happens with the Goa'uld in Stargate SG-1. Since their eyes aren't always glowing, and only do so when they choose, they don't fade when they die like in most cases of this trope. Instead, the eyes flash once and then fade before they die, accompanied by the special Goa'uld eye-flash sound effect.
  • There's a particularly good example of this in "Double Jeopardy", when Teal'C's robot duplicate shoots Cronus in the back several times with a staff weapon - his eyes flash in time with the energy blasts hitting them, then light up one last time and slowly fade as he expires.
  • The genetically-engineered Goa'uld Kull Warriors wear full-body armor, including helmets with blue lights over the eyes. When the warrior dies, the lights fade out. (The armor seems to sense the brain activity of the wearer, to know when they want to fire their weapons or when they die.)
• A slight variation in Star Trek: The Next Generation. Data and his identical brother Lore have amber irises. In Lore's final episode when Data deactivates him for good his pupils shrink until they disappear, leaving his eyes blank and sightless.
• Supernatural
  • In the episode episode "What Is And What Should Never Be", the djinn's glowing blue eyes fade before he collapses dead.
  • In a variation in "All Hell Breaks Loose Part Two", when the Yellow-Eyed Demon is killed the yellow fades from his hosts eyes, leaving the normal eyes of his dead host.
• Happens to the robot in the pilot episode of The Tick (2001) immediately before he says "Gravity Is a Harsh Mistress".
• Tokusou Sentai Dekaranger The Movie: Volger's eye lights go out when he's defeated... then he gets back up.
• Ultra Series
  • Many of the series' kaiju have their eyes go dark after being defeated, sometimes with their eyes shutting, sometimes without.
  • Jirass, after Ultraman kills him with a punch to the gut. He falls to the floor after bleeding profusely from the mouth, and then his eyes dim.
  • Ultraman after Zetton defeated him. In fact, as he begun to pass out, his eyes actually flashed in tune with the blinking of his colour timer, then went out simultaneously when his colour timer stopped blinking.
  • Ultraseven after his crucifixion at the hands of the Guts aliens.
  • Ultraman Jack after Alien Knackle crucified him.
  • Ultraman Ace after he gets tag-teamed by Doragory and Metron Jr.

Music

• The music video for "Links 2 3 4" by Rammstein shows a colony of ants fighting back against attacking beetles. When the beetles' green eye lights go out, the ants celebrate their victory.
• Bright Eyes, a song by Simon & Garfunkel for the 1978 film version of Watership Down includes the lyrics:
  Bright eyes,
  Burning like fire.
  Bright eyes,
  How can you close and fail?
  How can the light that burned so bright
  Suddenly burn so pale?

Theme Parks

• In the final scene of Transformers: The Ride at the Universal Studios parks, Megatron is shown dying after his body briefly sparks, and then his red eyes go out.

Video Games

• In Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon, the trope is averted during normal gameplay. You can examine AC wrecks and notice that they're still emitting lights. However, the trope is played straight in several cutscenes.
  • A downplayed example after the boss fight against IB-01 CEL 240, 621 is ambushed by V.II Snail with Stun Needle. As the AC slumps down from the paralysis, you can see that the lights are fading out, prompting the capture and re-education by Arquebus.
  • Played straight for dramatic effects on all the three endings' bosses to signify their demise.
    • In "Liberator of Rubicon" ending, after you defeat Walter's IB-C03 HAL 826, he charges his Coral Rifle and aims at 621, only to relent, and the camera cuts from explosions of Xylem to HAL's head part to show his lights fading out.
    • A more solemn example in "Fires of Raven" ending, where you're presented with the remains of Ayre's IB-07 SOL 644, with the camera cuts to the head part to focus on Ayre's fading lights. The Closure Satellite follows suit, with the core light and laser cannon shutting down before being pushed away by the advancing Xylem.
    • In "Alecta Iacta Est" ending, with the IB-07 SOL 644 destroyed and ALLMIND uttering its last words, Ayre ensures that they'll pull the trigger themselves, and the scene cuts to ALLMIND's slumping head, complete with the green lights going out.
• The Big Daddies in BioShock exhibit this, their visors shutting off once they die.
• Breed features humans going to war against the "Breed", a hostile alien race who seems entirely mechanical, with glowing blue eyes and assorted glowing electronic appendages attached to their body. When killed, not only does the Breed's eyes goes out, but also every component on them.
• Castlevania
  • Castlevania: Judgment: The Time Reaper's purple eyes are the last thing you see of him, then they burn out.
  • The blue light in the titan's eyes fade as it is destroyed in Castlevania: Lords of Shadow.
• All the R-Y model robots in Chrono Trigger (including party member Robo) have their eyes turn off when knocked out.
• A variation in the intro of Dawn of War II, the eye lenses of a space marine's Power Armor fade as he dies.
• Exos in Destiny have glowing eyes. When Cayde-6 dies in Destiny 2: Forsaken.'', his eyelights go out.
• In Final Fantasy XI, Dynamis Statues have glowing eyes which not only fade when destroyed, but may restore HP or MP to everyone depending on the color (Blue for HP, Green for MP, while Red eyes do nothing).
• God of War Ragnarök: The boss fight against Heimdall ends with Kratos choking the Aesir god to death. The moment he dies is marked by his glowing neon eyes going completely dull and dark.
• Hagane: The ending has Hagane's own eye lights go out as he deactivates, shortly after completing his mission.
• The protagonist of Limbo's eyes go out upon death, leaving him a black silhouette.
• Little Wheel: All light is depicted as white, both from robot eyes and other pieces of technology. When the power to the world is cut, all lights go out. The robots fall into a deep sleep as their eyes become dim.
• Mass Effect
  • In Mass Effect 2, shortly before the Collector General's death, the light in its eyes go out as Harbinger releases control.
  • In the first game, if you pay careful attention to geth corpses (that weren't incinerated, frozen, melted, or turned into clouds of ionized gas) you'll find that after about ten seconds, their flashbulb heads begin to dim and eventually go out. It also happens to Saren, showing just how far he's been implanted with Reaper tech. Shortly afterwards the eyes light back up as Sovereign takes control of his corpse.
  • Geth eyelights don't seem to switch off automatically. In Mass Effect 3 Legion's lights continue to glow when he's dead, at least while the camera is on him. The sinister red glow of a Reaper's firing chamber does go out, though.
• Raiden's visor does this in Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots. But it later turns out he's Not Quite Dead.
• Metroid
  • In Metroid Prime, Space Pirates' eyes appear to be on fire; when killed, they go out. This is most noticable when the Omega Pirate is killed, and falls on you.
  • Metroid Dread has this happen to Samus at the end of the game when Raven Beak is choking her to death. When Samus's body gives out, the light from her visor fades. The light quickly returns however when Samus's Metroid powers kick into overdrive.
• In the intro for Mortal Kombat: Deception, Quan Chi and Shang Tsung "defeat" Raiden, whose eyes lose their glow shortly afterwards. He recovers soon after in time to take on the new Big Bad, Onaga.
• In Neverwinter Nights 2: Mask of the Betrayer, Myrkul's eyes go out if his spirit is devoured by the player or a certain companion.
• In Planescape: Torment, if Nordom (the modron) dies, the eyes of his portrait go black.
• Happens to each of the Colossi in Shadow of the Colossus. If you decide to come back to their remains, the glowing eyes are still gone.
• In Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, the Big Bad Ensemble's cores fade away as they're dying in the Golden Ending.
• Tyranny: Bleden Mark's eyes stop glowing as he dies, as his entire body disintegrates into shadows.
• In Worlds of Ultima: The Savage Empire, the automaton Yunapotli is invulnerable ... until his power source is destroyed. The cutscene shows him fallen to his knees with his glowing eyes fading out.
• Undertale.
  • Used for Rule of Symbolism While Sans's eye lights going out doesn't signify his literal death, it does accompany the moments where, as some players have put it, "Sans stops being Sans."
  • Also used when Mettaton's power runs out at the end of his fight. Alphys even sort of mentions it, stating "...Thank GOD, it's just the batteries."
• In Warcraft III, after Grom kills Mannoroth, he collapses, and his red eyes stop glowing.
• World of Warcraft.
  • When Arthas/the Lich King dies, his Glowing Eyelights of Undeath go out. Promptly followed by various other signs such as rolling eyes, going limp/his arm releasing its grip on his father's ghost and eyes rolling back into his skull. Although in this case, the reason the eyes stop glowing is presumably because Ner'zhul is no longer possessing him. The glow stopping and death aren't directly connected.
  • The Draenei race, who have glowing blue eyes, instantly fade with an audible hum the moment they die.

Webcomics

• This comic by Baldstache subverts, discusses, and plays this trope for laughs. An anthropomorphic street lamp realizes that his bulb is burning out and thinks he's dying... only to remain alive after the bulb burns out. The street lamp admits that he assumed the bulb was tied to his sentience.
• While not technically dead, the androids in Commander Kitty even have a little "power out" effect when their eyes turn off, leaving them dull and blank. Averted for practical reasons when Zenith actually does apparently die; the author was originally going to play it straight, but realized drawing just the characters eyes would be lazy, so he had her eyes provide illumination.
• Girl Genius: When Tarvek disables and shuts off the clank that believes itself to be and possesses the memories of his dead sister Anevka her softly glowing blue eyes go dark.

Western Animation

• Subverted in Archer where it appears that Barry has finally died and his Glowing Mechanical Eyes turn off. A few seconds later, one of them turns back on and Barry starts cackling.

• A clone commando's glowing blue visor fades after Hunter chokes him out in the fourteenth episode of Star Wars: The Bad Batch.

Real Life

• This is actually more Truth in Television than people realize. There are species of animal (such as pink-eyed guinea pigs) whose eyes really do fade to a dull brown the moment they die.
• A few humanoid robots have glowing eyes which obviously shut down when being inactive or broken.

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