Follow TV Tropes

Following

Glowing Eyes

Go To

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Aang_in_the_Avatar_State_3433.png
You can see the power in his eyes.

Glowing eyes are a character designer's shorthand for power. Want to show that someone is about to unleash a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown? Give them Glowing Eyes of Doom. Has a robotic creature been activated? Better turn on their Glowing Mechanical Eyes. We all know that Power Glows; presumably since eyes are the windows of the soul, glowing eyes are a good way to show off someone's Life Energy. May be an indication that someone's just triggered their Super Mode. This trope is famous enough Memetic Mutation over it occurred.

This is a Super-Trope of:

Other related tropes:

But not all glowing eyes are necessarily one of these.


Examples

    open/close all folders 

    Anime & Manga 
  • In Fullmetal Alchemist, Alphonse Elric is forced to exist for several years as Animated Armor. The eyes glow to show that he's "in there". During the few instances when his consciousness is separated from the armor, or he is possessed by another force, the eyes cease to glow.
  • Interviews with Monster Girls: Hikari gets these in any sort of flash photography. Takahashi speculates that vampires have the same additional reflective membrane in their eyes that most wildlife with nightvision have, leading to this effect. That said, she's a Friendly Neighborhood Vampire, and there's no suggestion that she's in any way evil.
  • K: In the last episode of season 1, Rikio's sunglasses come off and his eyes glow as he uses his powers. None of the other Clansmen and Kings, Red or otherwise, show this, although some (e.g. the Silver King) glow all over. Though, Kusanagi could be hiding it under his Cool Shades, like Rikio.

    Art 
  • Laser Kiwi flag: The kiwi's eyes are glowing green as it shoots out lasers.

    Audio Plays 
  • The Sandman (2020): Both covers for Act I and Act III focus on the powerful immortal Morpheus, and feature his trademark eyes that glow like stars as centerpieces.

    Comic Books 

    Fan Fiction 
  • In All Your Base are Belong to Her, Dawn's eyes glow emerald whenever she activates her link to the Stargate Network. In an effort to maintain a low profile, she obtains a pair of designer sunglasses to wear whenever she's forced to do so in a public situation.
  • Child of the Storm:
    • Doctor Strange tends to have these when he wants to appear more eldritch and otherworldly.
    • Harry's eyes have been known to glow gold and Thor's have been known to glow electric blue/white. In both cases it is a very good idea to start running.
  • RainbowDoubleDash's Lunaverse: The cultists in Nightmares Yet to Come have glowing golden eyes, though not all the time, allowing their members to pass for normal.
  • Winter notes in RWBY: Scars that Ruby's unnaturally silver eyes have a slight glow to them. This hints at the special powers Ruby wields.

    Film — Animated 
  • Hotel Transylvania: A "zing" between two people is signaled by a faint pink glow washing across their eyes.
  • One of The Twelve Tasks of Asterix involves being able to resist the hypnotic gaze of Iris the magician, who has glowing eyebeams he can switch on like car headlamps. Iris tries to hypnotize Asterix into believing he's a boar, but keeps getting distracted by the Gaul's comments about his eyes. ("How do you do that?", "Can you make them light up one at a time?" and "They must be handy for reading in bed.") Eventually, Iris becomes so confused he ends up hypnotizing himself.

    Film — Live-Action 
  • In Descendants and its sequels and spinoffs, Mal's magic manifests by having her eyes glow green.
  • In Ghostbusters II, a possessed character finds this trope handy for walking down a corridor with the lights out.
  • In The Incredible Hulk (2008), Bruce Banner sports these when he transforms into the title character.
  • The MonsterVerse Godzilla's eyes glow blue whenever he charges his atomic breath.
  • In The Scribbler, the main character — who suffers from a Split Personality — uses an experimental electroshock device (the "Siamese Burn") to systematically erase her excess personalities. Trouble is, it also causes blackouts — during which she upgrades the device with whatever scrap electronics she can find. By film's end, using the device gives the user near-superhuman powers, of which Glowing Eyes are but a side effect.
  • In Warcraft (2016), whenever a magic user casts a spell, their eyes glow in appropriate color.

    Literature 
  • Hattie & Hudson: Hudson's yellow eye's glow at night.
  • InCryptid: Johrlac eyes turn white when they actively use their telepathy. Sarah says it's due to some unknown bioluminescent compound in their Bizarre Alien Biology.
  • Iron Widow: When people are actively channeling their qi, their eyes and meridian lines glow with the colour of their primary element.
  • Many creatures shown in Liv in the Future have eyes that glow for reasons unknown: cats, rats, dogs...
  • Lone Huntress: Centuries of microevolution have resulted in Gaians possessing eyes that glow in times of stress. As a result, people attempting to stare down Lisa tend to quickly back down when her counter-stare begins to shine. The ironic twist: Lisa is an introverted amazon convinced that No Guy Wants an Amazon, and suffering from extreme social ineptitude. Her eyes are glowing because she's terrified of human interaction.

    Live-Action TV 
  • Doctor Who: In "Planet of the Daleks", the animals surround the fire with glowing eyes. The eyes go out when the people frighten them off.
  • In Helix, Doctor Hiroshi Hatake hides glowing silver irises behind brown-tinted contacts, suggesting Professor Guinea Pig hobbyism apart from the unregulated viral research Arctic Biosystems is conducting.
  • In Jupiter's Legacy, Chloe's eyes glow when she uses her powers.
  • In Sapphire and Steel, Sapphire's eyes glow bright blue when she's using her powers. Interestingly, the same is not true of Steel, or indeed any of their colleagues.
  • Smallville:
    • Doctor Fate gets glowing golden eyes during this transformation sequence and dimmer red eyes in other times.
    • Clark's eyes tend to flash red when he's using his heat vision or blue when he's using his X-Ray vision.
  • The Twilight Zone (1985): In the final scene of "Crazy as a Soup Sandwich", Nino Lancaster's eyes glow, revealing that he is the master of demons.

    Music 
  • Creatures of the Night:
    • The original 1982 cover had all four members of KISS with glowing eyes.
    • The video for "I Love It Loud" ends with a group of kids who have been hypnotized (due to watching the video) all having glowing eyes and walking outside in a zombie-like fashion. The band is also shown to be like this in the last shot.
  • Some of the kids in the video for Bonnie Tyler's "Total Eclipse of the Heart"', literalizing the hook "Turn around bright eyes."

    Pinball 
  • Higher-end versions of the AC/DC pinball have the Underworld, a mini-playfield that is shaped like a flaming head with glowing white LED eyes.

    Tabletop Games 
  • Dungeons & Dragons:
    • A topaz dragon's pupils fade with age, until their eyes becoming glowing, fiery orbs with no visible divisions.
    • The eyes of magma and smoke drakes glow like burning embers.
    • A sunwyrm's eyes seep with seemingly liquid light.
  • Magic: The Gathering: Old Stickfingers' eyes, however many they happen to be at any given moment, glow with a pale green fire.

    Toys 

    Video Games 
  • Mass Effect:
    • Mass Effect 2:
      • When Samara is using her biotics in some cutscenes her eyes will glow blue.
      • All quarians get glowing eyes that can be seen through their faceplate, though it's possible that they've always had them but you couldn't see them through the opaque faceplates that you saw in the first game.
    • Mass Effect 3:
      • The synthesis ending gives glowing eyes to everyone in the galaxy.
      • A faint blue glow is added to the iris any time a biotic uses their powers.
  • The Glukkons from the Oddworld series have glowing eyes. It's explained that Glukkons developed them after shutting themselves away, so they didn't have to see the moon with the Mudokon pawprint on it, which opens a whole 'nother can of fish...
  • Prayer of the Faithless: As the Hollow Shell passive indicates, "A Manna's eyes glow with arcane strength", and that glow is red.
  • Puyo Puyo: Starting with 20th Anniversary, Sig's red eye will glow when he uses his Hydrangea spell, which is notably also the only time he uses his red arm for any of his attacks, further hinting at his partial demon heritage.
  • In RuneScape, there is a whole set of auras that produce the purely cosmetic effect of glowing eyes in your choice of black, orange, white, red, purple, yellow, blue, or green.
  • Warcraft:
    • Warcraft II: The Paladins have glowing yellowish-orange eyes.
    • Warcraft III: The Priests have growing blue eyes as well, presumably because they're high elves.
    • World of Warcraft sure loves its glowing eyes. A lot. Lots of races have glowing eyes. (See also Glowing Eyelights of Undeath and Glowing Eyes of Doom.)
      • All members of the Draenei race have glowing blue (or white, depending on the artist) eyes. Their fellow Eredar who made a Deal with the Devil to turn into demons have their eyes turn glowing yellow as well as gaining red skin and Spikes of Villainy.
      • Male Night Elves have glowing golden eyes and female Night Elves have glowing silver eyes in-game. In the original cinematic for World of Warcraft, a night elf's eyes reflect light like a cat's, not glow. This makes sense, as the night elves live up to their name by living where it's always night. Still, almost all official art shows their eyes as glowing like in the game graphics, which also makes them like the other elves, below.
      • In the Burning Crusade expansion, Blood Elves had their eyes retconned from ghostly white to glowing green eyes that are a side-effect of their addiction to demonic magic. High Elves also had their eyes changed from white to glowing Blue. This was probably related to Color-Coded Characters.
      • For all races, several headpieces (usually tier set headgear) confers glowing eyes, especially Rogue and Warlock sets, but found in the odd Paladin and Hunter sets too. The exceedingly odd hunter Tier 6 Gronnstalker set, is covered in glowing, moving eyes. [1] (Click on the screenshot.)
      • The Death Knight Hero Class has glowing blue eyes, to signify their reanimation by the Scourge. If you play a race that already has glowing eyes, the Death Knight eyes will overwrite them.
      • Virtually all the epic mounts in the game have glowing eyes, even the common ones that can be purchased. How did all these beasts of burden get these glowing eyes? No one in-universe seems to notice or care.
      • The five (six counting Malygos) Dragon Aspects all have glowing eyes. Once they lose their Titan gifted powers at the end of Cataclysm, after Deathwing's death, the four remaining Aspects lose their eye glows. In a cinematic, too, so it's definitely not a model quirk.

    Webcomics 
  • Aurora (2019):
    • These are a common feature of gods, whose incarnations' eyes tend to glow a solid, undifferentiated color; Vash's eyes glow blue, for instance, while Tahraim's glow white and the storm god Tynan and the fire god Caliban have yellow ones.
    • Alinua's eyes glow green when she uses her life magic.
  • Homestuck: The eyes of the dragon Pyralspite glowed a deep red, which Mindfang compared to "a sun concentr8ted into a small jewel". The light was so intense that locking gazes with it temporarily blinded Mindfang and permanently burnt out her more sensitive eye.
  • Impure Blood: Dara has glowing eyes normally hidden by Opaque Lenses. They can glow red as well as blue, when she's annoyed.
  • Marooned: If a Mindstone chooses you, you get these, along with Power Makes Your Hair Grow and Power Dyes Your Hair.
  • Off-White: The White Spirits have glowing blue eyes and the Black Spirits have glowing red eyes.
  • Outsider: When Loroi capable of psychokinesis use their powers, their irises glow.
  • Plume: Corrick's eyes glow golden with magic all the time, but truly flash when he uses his powers.

    Web Animation 
  • Meta Runner: Tari's eyes glow blue whenever she warps into a video game and, to a lesser extent, whenever she uses her UI vision. She and Evelyn also have glowing eyes on their Hidden Heroes avatars, respectively purple and orange.

    Web Originals 
  • Glowing eyes on its own is a popular memetic shorthand for portraying...well, exactly what the description says. Especially if it's humorously for an rather mundane situation or trigger for it that the subject apparently would disagree with the label of mundanity. In particular, it has become associated with cryptocurrency fans under the name "laser eyes".
  • There is a DeviantArt user called "delta7447" who is fond of these, often adding them for no reason except to show off his OCs' power, but was willing to parody their use in "Nothing Like The Sun", where the main character's constantly glowing eyes are an annoyance because she cannot turn them off, even though she is otherwise all-powerful.
  • Mage Life: Every magical being of enough power or skill eventually gains a pair.
  • Whateley Universe: Mystery Woman, mentioned in Steel Ribbon, has "glowing green eyes".
  • Worm: The only visible indication of Codex's power — besides the brain damage and amnesia — is the glowing eyes of her victims.

    Western Animation 
  • American Dragon: Jake Long: The Oracle Twins Kara and Sara get glowing yellow eyes whenever they see the future.
  • Avatar: The Last Airbender provides the page image. The glowing eyes of the Avatar State represent all of the previous incarnations of the Avatar and the Avatar Spirit focusing their energy through the current Avatar's body.
  • Gargoyles' eyes glow red or white when they come out of stone sleep. It's Glowing Eyes of Doom when they're making threat displays.
  • Inhumanoids: The titular Inhumanoids' eyes will sometimes glow when they are attacking, and it's a legitimately terrifying image. The ones who do it the most are Tendril and D'compose.
  • The Life and Times of Juniper Lee has two cases of this for the protagonist:
    • "Adventures in Babysitting" shows Juniper gaining her powers accompanied by this. Her little brother Ray Ray gets these when some of the power is accidentally transferred to him too.
    • In "Out of the Past", when trying to defeat the ex-protector Kai Yee, both June and her grandma tap into the natural magic of the realm of the Magical Elders for a power boost.
    • There's also the time when the Monster of the Week makes evil photocopies of June and her friends. Cue the green Glowing Eyes whenever them being evil is pointed out.
  • The Lion Guard: Whenever Ono the Keenest of Sight sees something, his eyes get a glowing yellow shimmer. Anga also has the same power, only her shimmer is purple.
  • My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic:
    • The Mane Six get these whenever they use the Elements of Harmony.
    • Princess Luna will occasionally have glowing silver eyes as well, usually when she's being especially spooky or dramatic. It's Glowing Eyes of Doom if she's angry.
    • In the My Little Pony: Equestria Girls spin-off, Sunset Shimmer gets glowing eyes whenever she uses her Touch Telepathy powers.
  • Ninjago: When the Ninja reach their full potential, their eyes glow.
  • The Owl House: There are several cases of characters eyes beginning to glow whenever they are about to pull off a particularly impressive bit of magic (most commonly seen with Willow). While the cause is never actually explained in-series, Word of God states that it's the result of their bile sacs reacting to emotional outbursts and is basically the magical equivalent of an adrenaline rush.
  • Star vs. the Forces of Evil: When channeling especially powerful magic (such as to overpower Toffee's Anti-Magic prison in "Storm the Castle" and to cast magic without her wand in "My New Wand!"), Star Butterfly's eyes glow bright blue, as do her heart-shaped Blush Stickers.
  • Star Wars: The Clone Wars: The Nightbrothers, Darth Maul's kin, all have golden irises that glow in the dark.
  • Winx Club: Bloom's eyes glow amber when she uses her strongest powers.

 
Feedback

Video Example(s):

Top

The Apotheosis

The ground itself tears away and floats toward the enormous Apotheosis as light shines behind her, in order to demonstrate how divine and powerful she is. Notably, the Apotheosis doesn't even appear to be trying to do this; she's just that powerful.

How well does it match the trope?

4.83 (12 votes)

Example of:

Main / ChunkyUpdraft

Media sources:

Report