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Purple Eyes, also known as "violet", "lavender/lilac" or "amethyst" (depending on the shade) are very, very rare in real life, and in fiction generally mean that a character is very special, rare, unique, and/or somehow possessed of strange or mysterious talents or heritage. These connotations mean that it's mostly possessed by characters that are either key to the plot, or need to stand out from the background. It is also a popular Mary Sue eye color for the same reasons.
Albinos in fiction are also likely to have these, though being albino is generally special in its own way as the condition is quite rare. Due to their rarity in real life, purple eyes are a type of Technicolor Eyes.
Compare Graceful Ladies Like Purple, Purple Is Powerful, Supernatural Is Purple.
It should be noted that trope is NOT just for characters who have eyes of this color, but when the color actually indicates the character is special somehow. Please do not add characters who just happen to have eyes of this color without the proper reason behind it.
Examples
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Anime and Manga
- As depicted above, certain Code Geass characters, specifically the Royal Family of Brittania has unique variants of purple eyes. The purple eyes are in fact a trait of the Royal Family.
- Shinigami Asato Tsuzuki from Descendants Of Darkness. Interestingly not a Variant Visage; they really are purple, with the implication Tsuzuki was shunned in his hometown by supersitious people.
- Kouta Otoyama, the "chosen one of the Universe", in Stellvia of the Universe.
- Tama-chan, the quiet, innocent, yet super-skilled kendo girl from Bamboo Blade.
- Sunako Nakahara, the female lead of The Wallflower, has these as a sign of her... um... difference.
- Ruki from Digimon Tamers has purple eyes along with red hair. Considering she is the team badass she fits the trope.
- Genjo Sanzo from Saiyuki has violet eyes which have been described as both like those of a god and a youkai. Appropriately enough, he was a god, specifically the nephew of the Bosatsu of Mercy in his previous life.
- In Fullmetal Alchemist, while all the homunculi except for Gluttony, Sloth, Wrath and Pride have red eyes, in Brotherhood, Envy and Pride have purple eyes; the latter originally has black eyes which turn purple after he eats Gluttony.
- Mai Minase, who shares some mysterious connection with The World in .hack//Liminality.
- Kamui in the X1999 manga has blueish purple eyes (they are hazel in the anime for some reason) and certainly fits the 'very special and mysteriously Badass' criteria.
- Florian from the manga Gorgeous Carat has amethyst eyes that are commented on quite frequently, and are pretty much the sole reason so many people lust after him.
- Nodoka Miyazaki in Mahou Sensei Negima!, in going with her violet motif and hair color, contrasting the lead heroine's lighter blue and green. Having darker and more mysterious eyes may be some metaphor for inner strength or a type of enigmatic, hidden bravery, since she (despite being seen as meek otherwise) often enters such a state when pulling her hair away.
- Suigetsu and Hidan from Naruto, who are certainly special (one can turn into water, and the other is immortal respectively), but go against the trope by both being rather violent, with the first being something of a Blood Knight and the other flat-out Ax Crazy.
- The Rinnegan, the strongest of the eye based powers in the series, are bluish purple. They were possessed by the Sage of the Six Paths, let you use any element, let you use the Six Paths of Pain powers (gravity blasts, energy absorbing, soul ripping, Summon Magic, turn into a cyborg, and heal), can raise the dead, and by combining with the Heretic Statue's chakra receivers can allow you to control anyone, including the Tailed Beasts..... wow. Super Power Lottery anyone?
- When the Pretear manga was made into an anime, Sasame went from having blond hair and brown eyes to white hair and purple eyes. Considering the connotations of both tropes, it was probably an intentional hint that in this version Sasame would betray the knights.
- Pet Shop Of Horrors: Count D's father, and one half of the Count's own. As the Count is the mysterious protagonist descended from a powerful like and runs a unique pet shop that sells supernatural pets, well, he certainly ticks all the boxes.
- Michiru from Uta Kata has purple eyes, which match her hair, underlining her mysterious aura.
- Bleach: Yumichika has wisteria-coloured eyes. Zanpakutou represent their shinigami's true nature and his hates the colour of wisteria-purple which itself raises questions about Yumichika's true personality. A straight example of this trope, his true strength and nature is a mystery. Superficially narcissistic, he's hiding the fact he's sacrificing everything he is to adhere to his division's martial philosophy. The very few times his true abilities have been used, he's won in a single strike, meaning his full strength has never been tested or even acknowledged. And he's working hard to keep it that way.
- In RG Veda, purple eyes are a sign of demon heritage, which is why Yasha Kujaku doesn't trust him, and he tends to get a bad welcome among people.
- Shoukei of The Twelve Kingdoms has violet eyes, which go well with her blue hair and suited her when she was a princess. Because these colours are not as rare in her world, her appearance went unremarked when she had to live among peasants.
- Takashiro-sensei in Bible Black has purple eyes with red hair, and is a magic user with great significance to the backstory.
- Tomoe from Kamisama Kiss has them. Since he's a Kitsune he kind of qualifies as special and mysterious.
- Chaos from Heaven's Lost Property has distinctly purple eyes and as time goes on she just keeps on becoming more and more alien when compared to the other angeloids. Also another thing to note is that when other angeloids fight seriously their eyes turn red however Chaos' eyes stays the same color and the only thing that change is the pattern on then.
Comic Books
- Tempest, the former Aqualad, young partner of DC Comics' Aquaman. His eye color was actually a plot point for a while, since it hints at his genetic ancestry, and it was considered a bad omen around that same time.
- In Sword of Sorcery featuring Amethyst, Princess Amaya's blonde hair and purple eyes indicate that she is Royal Blood of House Amethyst.
Fan Fiction
- Ricki Sunflare from For Good, as a green-skinned alien, possesses prominent violet eyes. She is depicted as the wunderkind of the cadets and performs a Sherlock Scan on the protagonist.
- The enigmatic Fringe woman Zomega also has one violet eye - her other eye was lost and replaced with a cybernetic red eye. She is half human, but her eye color is actually one of her human traits, as her alien heritage possesses red eyes.
- Wei Ming in the Azula Trilogy has dark purple eyes. Like Princess Yue's white hair in the show, the unusual color is the result of having been touched by a spirit. Her natural eye-color was green.
- Zack is often given violet eyes in fanfics, most likely due to the non-canon OVA Last Order. He fits, in that he's The Ace and one of the strongest people in the world without having been the product of prenatal experiment, but his canon eye color is blue. His theme on the Crisis Core soundtrack is even called Sky Blue Eyes.
Literature
- Purple eyes in A Song of Ice and Fire are a sign of Valyrian ancestry in general and associated with the royal Targaryen family. The Targaryens go so far as resort to Brother-Sister Incest to preserve this trait. Word Of God has stated that purple Valyrian eyes resemble Elizabeth Taylor's.
- The lead character of Dean Koontz's Twilight Eyes, oddly enough.
- Emily Starr by L.M. Montgomery)in the cycle of Emily books has purplish-grey eyes and she's more than a little odd.
Her Anne of Green Gables books have an in-universe example: Anne writes a story in which one of the ridiculously beautiful heroines has purple eyes; she says she never heard of anyone actually having them but wanted something out-of-the ordinary.
- Members of House l'Envers in Jacqueline Carey's Kushiel's Legacy novels, particularly Queen Ysandre. Something of a twist in that every member of House l'Envers comes under suspicion at some point, whether deserved or not.
- In Roald Dahl's The Witches movie, all Witches have violet eyes. In the book, it was the witches' pupils that were unusual, with rainbow-like colors appearing in them.
- Underland humans are basically a race of albinos, so this trope is justified here.
- Purple eyes have very dark connotations in House of Many Ways. Offspring between a lubbock (an evil, magical creature that can change its size and is purple with the body of a man, fuzzy wings and the grotesque head of an insect, which either tears people apart or lays its eggs inside them depending on the season) and a female human are distinguishable often only by their purple eyes and violent tempers.
- A young man known only as 'Red' in the Philip Marlowe novel Farewell, My Lovely has violet eyes. Marlowe describes them as 'the eyes you never see, that you only read about'.
- The people of the Human Empire capital world of Mithra (including the Villain Protagonist, among others) in Yulia Latynina's Inhuman tend to have violet eyes, because of their incredibly bright sun; apparently it greatly reduces light sensitivity, which allows the character to carry out an over-the-top version of Perp Sweating.
- A major plot point in the Through Violet Eyes series, where purple eyes are genetically linked to the ability to communicate with the dead. The book-jargon even calls these people "Violets".
- Aurelia Cotta, mother of Caesar, is described in the Masters Of Rome series as having not dark blue eyes but purple making her a "living, breathing omen". Like maybe the woman destined to be the mother of the greatest Roman of all time?
- Female protag Arianna from the Stravaganza book series has violet eyes, as does the Duchessa of Bellezza. For a while Lucien believes it must be a common trait in Talia.
- The book Violet Eyes is named for the eyes of the protagonists, Angel Eastland and Michael Vallant.
- Titus Groan, the hero of the Gormenghast trilogy, has violet eyes.
- The Tough Guide To Fantasyland, in its dissertation on colour-coding in Fantasyland eye colour, says people with violet eyes may be royalty, or just destined to lead "uncomfortably interesting lives".
- The ruling Queens in the Septimus Heap series mostly have violet eyes. It is very distressing to Princess Jenna that her eyes never turn green to match her (adopted) brothers'.
- The Black Jewels trilogy has a brief mention of Alexandra Angelline's eyes being the color of Purple Dusk Jewels. Unusually, such an eye color does not mark her as anything special or heroic.
- The title character in The Legend Of Drizzt by R. A. Salvatore has lavender eyes, which represents the fact that he's a living subversion of his entire race.
- In Death series: Innocent In Death has a little girl named Rayleen Straffo, who is noted to have these kind of eyes a few times. This turns out to be Foreshadowing for the fact that she's the murderer the police are looking for.
- The Last Dove: Adrian is able to identify Bria as Queen Vasi's daughter because of this.
- In The Vampire Chronicles, Daniel Molloy (the interview) has violet eyes, but little is made of this.
Live-Action TV
- In Tin Man, the Queen's lavender eyes are her best-known feature. So much to the point that when the Mystic Man mentioned that DG's mother had "lavender eyes", both Cain and Glitch are left with their jaws on the floor.
- The Vorta of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, complete with the vision problems associated with Real Life albinism. As the Vorta are genetically engineered Henchmen Race, this was by design.
Animated Movies
Tabletop Games
- Drizzt from the Forgotten Realms setting of Dungeons & Dragons has purple eyes - and even the drow, whose eyes are usually a sinister red, think it's a strange color.
- Given a dark twist in Warhammer 40000, where violet eyes are seen as a minor mutation, casting a shroud of suspicion over any purple-eyed character. In addition, the planet Cadia, a planet where the entire population takes to The Spartan Way, is known for a large percentage of its population having violet eyes. In spite of this, Cadia and its military forces are recognized around the Imperium as consummate examples of the Imperial Guard.
- It turns out the purple eyes of the Cadians is a side effect of living on a planet right next to the Eye of Terror, a Negative Space Wedgie from which the forces of Chaos launch attacks against the physical universe.
- In the primary world of Pathfinder, Golarion, the Azlanti were a now-extinct race of humans with distinctive dark purple eyes. The Azlanti were in every way superior to average humans - mechanically, this means they got a bonus to every stat, as opposed to the standard bonus to one stat normal humans get. In addition, they constructed a magnificent empire and made great advances in both mechanical and magical invention, though they did have a little help.
Video Games
- Yoshiya "Joshua" Kiryu from The World Ends With You. Looking at his status, the specialness of violet eyes is probably justified.
- A certain character in Xenogears has purple eyes. This is an important plot point. Whoever is being 'possessed' by Miang tends to get purple hair and eyes.
- Taigong Wang from Warriors Orochi has a bewitching pair
 . As he's a mystic and demi-god, it's probably justified.
- Rose, the heroine of Sword Of Mana, is the only character in the game with eyes this color. She's The Messiah and The Chosen One.
- Damas from Jak and Daxter has purple eyes. While appearing only in Jak 3, he had a major role and he ruled Haven before Baron Praxis. And he's Jak's long-lost father.
- Maya Amano has these, to some extent. They appear to be more pink than purple. This is likely symbolism for the fact that everyone on the party thinks of her like a 'goddess' and the portrayed Maia is purple.
- Purple eyes in the Golden Sun series seem to be unique to Jupiter adepts (purple is the color associated with the wind element— if they don't have purple eyes, expect purple hair). Ivan, his sister Hama, and his daughter Karis all have them. Sheba consistantly has them in game, but they're consistantly green in official artwork. Their true color is hotly debated.
- Final Fantasy II has main antagonist The Emperor, with very pretty purple eyes (he's always had them, but considering the graphical format of the game, it's been hard to tell until Dissidia). In both games he is a very powerful sorcerer and chessmaster, so it fits the trope...but it's also likely to have been chosen simply because of how well it goes with the rest of his mostly-golden-with-purple-accents character design.
- Charme the Thief in Recettear combines this with Curtains Match the Window (and possibly You Gotta Have Blue Hair). In keeping with other examples she's royalty.
- In Tales Of Graces, people possessed by the Big Bad Energy Being usually have one red eye. When Asbel is possessed, his eye turns purple instead, signifying that Lambda has become dormant, and is on the way to a Heel Face Turn.
- Karliah from The Elder Scrolls V Skyrim has purple eyes, whereas all other dunmer in the game have red eyes. Her ancestry might be the reason, as she's the granddaughter of Queen Barenziah.
Visual Novels
- Sakura Matou in Fate/stay night. This is revealed to be because of the "conditioning" imposed upon her by Zouken in order to make her into the successor of the Matou brand of magecraft.
- All the test subjects in Shuffle Ygdrassil project. And the daughter of one of them.
- Several characters in Hakuouki have purple eyes, most notably Hijikata Toshizo, for whom purple is a signature color. Other examples include Yamazaki Susumu (who is a ninja, or at least styled after one), Shiranui Kyo (who is an oni), and Kimigiku (who is both).
Webcomics
- Sorcery 101 deconstructs the Mary Sue stereotype when it becomes a plot point by making purple eyes a sign of magic potential. A human with too much power to be normal but not enough to be a mage will have purple eyes, giving them extraordinary focus and the ability to learn very quickly. This essentially allows them to be good at everything. However, without proper training their magic lashes out at them, causing headaches and seizures, and their talents often lead to arrogance ranging from just being stuck up to an outright god complex.
- This trope is taken to a whole other level in FreakAngels where not only do the twelve Midwich Cuckoos style psychic main characters have purple eyes, but about half of them also have purple hair (including one who had purple hair before going bald, thanks to a little drugfest one time...
- In El Goonish Shive, Nioi has them and by extension so does Kaoli. Nioi is the only character seen to travel between universes and pulled off a Deus ex Machina with her saving of Grace.
Web Original
- Fey has these as part of her otherworldly Sidhe beauty.
Western Animation
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