Is Eye Scream being used too broadly?

I've been thinking about this a lot, and going over the description for Eye Scream, I'm wondering how many examples of the trope are "character's eye(s) being put through irreversible—or at least Gross-Up Close-Up—pain" vs. how many are "character's eye(s) at some point not being totally 100% safe, even if it's just something like trying to look away from a bright light/getting watery from a bad smell/so on." The video examples have some unambiguous cases of the former: the Gory Discretion Shot of the warden's eye being fished out with the Borrowed Biometric Bypass in Demolition Man, Spongebob with the monkey wrench, and any other video in which the eye is directly pecked at or burned. However, around two-thirds of the examples are the latter: the Team Fortress 2 example (since it's just about practicing aim on the right side of someone's body, and the Demoman has an eyepatch anyway), the Watermelon Stevens blocking Malachite's eyesight rather than doing any actual damage, the Minority Report one where it's just about the eyes being replaced (with no focus on the painful methods, just the surgeon being a Nightmare Fetishist), Obi-Wan vs. the samurai (can't even tell where there's any focus on any eye piercing), Barefoot Gen where it's just general Body Horror from Hiroshima...you get the idea.

I'm likely going to do a wick check anyway, since I vaguely remember seeing it be used this way as a Pothole Magnet (which it's actually listed as), but I'm wondering if this is just an anomaly for Anatomy Agony? Take Groin Attack, for example: that attracts a lot of potholes too, but I think that could reasonably get a pass since most uses I've seen involve the attack being a form of the quickest spite imaginable, despite the chances for more elaborate/erratic groin pain (I've definitely seen stupid things like, being flung off a platform and landing on a metal pole groin-first); the most misuse I've seen is for when it's really meant to be Crippling Castration. On the other hand, many Death Tropes have the similar problem of teetering close to PSOC, Boom, Headshot! and Off with His Head! in particular, though I don't think this is quite as extreme (and the former is meant to be a video-game trope about the head being the center of mass, so it's a bit more complicated).

Edited by Coachpill on Apr 16th 2024 at 11:32:02 AM

Yeahhhh, I feel like there's plenty of variants available here when it comes to "eyes being hurt", but minor or inconsequential damage is a bit much.

I mean I figure the trope's broad, yet at the same time, attacking somebody through one or both of their eyes is definitely an obvious and abrasively upfront example though.

The root of the trope's commonality is that, compared to other body parts, it's very easy to do serious or irreparable harm to an eye, and they're arguably a human's most important sensory organ (along with our skin). So I'm not convinced there's an actual problem here.

I get that, but I feel like not just any eye problems should be included. "Eye damage" is absolutely a trope, but "eyes being messed with in an inconsequential way" doesn't seem to be. Kind of like how bricks being hard isn't really a trope, but the effect of the hardness often is (Bowel-Breaking Bricks, Broken-Window Warning). I might just be looking too deep into the trope but IDK