Blindfolded Vision

You could say she's... cross eyed! Oh-hohoho!

"Without the distraction of sight, you will feel the midi-chlorians in your bloodstream. Every part of your body is your eyes."

— Obi-Wan Kenobi, Darths & Droids

The self-imposed version of being a Blind Seer or Blind Weaponmaster. A sighted character who has blindfolded vision can see just as well, if not better than if that character wasn’t blindfolded. The reasons for this vary, a mentor teaching the student that Your Eyes Can Deceive You may take it to the next level, invoking Disability Superpower and complementing it with Charles Atlas training to grant Super-Senses, freeing the student from the tyranny of sight. Another possibility is the character's Psychic Powers and Third Eye are enhanced with sensory deprivation, or the blindfold is itself a powerful artifact that confers sight beyond sight a la X-Ray Vision.

Perhaps the most terrifying option is that the blindfold is a self-imposed handicap to keep an eye-related power under control. When the blindfold comes off, people fall down. Most importantly, Blindfold Vision provides copious quantities of cool.

---

Examples:

Anime & Manga

• In Basilisk, ninja Hyoma keeps his eyes closed at all times because he possesses the Dojitsu, an ability that could kill anyone he makes eye contact with. He taught disciple Gennosuke to also fight without his eyes.
• Galatea from Claymore has such incredible talent at sensing yoma energy that she earned the title "God-Eye". When she abandoned The Organization and went into hiding, the biggest thing she did to change her appearance was to slash her own eyes. Her sensor powers only increased after this, letting her see even better than she could when she still had eyes.
• Himuro Hikaru of Dragon Drive does this in the second half of the manga.
• Aria from Fairy Tail uses the Power Limiter variant but gets Curb Stomped regardless.
• Goblin Slayer: Sword Maiden is blind and covers up her damaged eyes with a blindfold. She has little trouble getting around because she has Aura Vision.
• Gojo, sorcerer teacher in Jujutsu Kaisen wears a blindfold most of the time. He can see completely fine with it on because according to the fanbook, his "Six Eyes" ability gives him Aura Vision which lets him see cursed energy in high detail. Without his blindfold he would get tired easily. His alternate form of eye wear, his sunglasses, act as a blindfold too. If ordinary people put his sunglasses on, they would only see pitch blackness.
• Musuko ga Kawaikute Shikataganai Mazoku no Hahaoya: Demon shop owner Alice is almost always shown wearing a blindfold. She explains to Teresa that it's because of her sound abilities. They allow her a near 360-degree range of vision, but using them and her eyes at the same time makes her dizzy, so the blindfold helps. The downside is she can't read while wearing it, which resulted, on at least one occasion, in Alice sitting on a bench with a wet paint sign on it.
• In a filler episode of the Naruto Fourth Ninja War, Kakashi is temporarily blinded but is able to fight hand-to-hand by listening to the movements of his Eternal Rival and friend Guy. The moment the baddies are defeated, his eyesight returns. No explanation is given as to why he lost it or why it came back.
• Many of the humanoid youkai from Natsume's Book of Friends wear paper masks which cover their eyes and Sasago keeps her eyes bandaged.
• Kaede the ninja in Negima! Magister Negi Magi wears one while taking down a dragon. Then again, she rarely uses them in the first place.
• In Pokémon: Lucario and the Mystery of Mew, Lucario can see without his eyes thanks to Aura. This comes in handy when he gets sand in his eyes.
• Ragnarok the Animation: The party wizard has a blindfold on "to see the truth" relying instead on hearing/second sight to fight. She later wears it on her arm to remind her that the "truth" she believed was actually a deception by her master.
• Koyo Aoba from Reborn! (2004) has completely blacked out sunglasses that function as a Power Limiter, but only manages to fight Ryohei to a draw.
• Saint Seiya's Virgo Shaka deliberately keeps his eyes closed at all times to make his already huge Cosmo even more powerful.
• There is a competitor in the Genkai Tournament Arc of YuYu Hakusho that wears a helmet to block out most of his senses to improve his ability to see mystical auras. It is ultimately used against him in his defeat.

Asian Animation

• In the opening of the 3000 Whys of Blue Cat season Living Olympics, Naughty wears a blindfold over his eyes while playing a soccer match. The blindfold doesn't prevent him from scoring an awesome soccer goal.

Comic Books

• Nightwing blindfolds Robin (Tim Drake) for a training exercise where they balance on top of a train and keep track of their location while they chat and exercise. Dick has no trouble with the exercise but Tim is unamused when they get jumped and have to fight off their attackers blindfolded and trying not to fall off a moving train or accidentally kill their attackers, mostly because Dick thinks it's fun.
• The Veni-Yan monks in Bone wear hoods that cover their faces, allowing them to concentrate on their Dreaming Eye - giving them the ability to locate things without them being in sight.
• Cyclops of the X-Men has edged into this on occasion, usually after losing his visor in circumstances where "blast everything in sight" is not a viable option. Notable examples include the occasion when he beat up six men with his eyes shut... while counting every step he took so he could find his way back to his fallen glasses, and his first confrontation with Cassandra Nova.
• Blindshot from Top 10 is a "Zen taxi driver" in a city where Everyone Is a Super, and he drives blindfolded.
• Wonder Woman:
  • Wonder Woman (1987): Diana wears a blindfold for her duel with Medusa, and after Medusa removes it she blinds herself to continue the fight. Due to the strength of her other senses, she's still able to fight and react faster and better than even most of the JLA.
  • Wonder Woman (2006):
    • Genocide has a mask covered in spikes over her eyes.
    • The Amazon archer Philomela wears a blindfold at all times.
  • Wonder Woman 600: In the Ivan Reis, Oclair Albert and Rod Reis collaboration Diana fights Medusa with her eyes closed.
  • Wonder Woman: Black and Gold: When dealing with the titular opponent in "A God With No Name", Diana obstructs her vision with a piece of cloth.

Fan Works

• In The Apprentice, the Student, and the Charlatan, Nova Shine demonstrates the effects of energy sensing by blindfolding himself in a practice duel with Twilight Sparkle. His eyes can't see, but his energy sense can, and he is able to dance around any spell Twilight throws or trap she sets until she is able to blind his sense.
• In Codex Equus, Prince Crimson Star, Golden Scepter's eighth demi-divine son, would take to wearing a blindfold in battle after he was blinded saving a classmate from a runaway carriage in his youth. He would develop magical senses to "see" to make up for his handicap, and after Ascending to demi-Alicornhood, he would start using pegasus magic to detect and avoid weather-related hazards while flying, and Earth pony magic to guide himself by sensing vibrations through the ground.
• Fate of the Clans: The mask Cú Chulainn Alter wears has no way to see through it but this doesn't stop him from kicking ass. Mikoto wonders if the reason it's worn is symbolic.

Films — Live-Action

• Bird Box. While outside, the survivors walk around blindfolded to avoid the gaze of the unseen monsters who can drive you insane just by looking at them. Malorie is shown training the children to navigate by echolocation, so they're capable of getting around blindfolded. Tom likewise demonstrates this when fighting the unhinged people, managing to take down three of them just from hearing where their voices are coming from. However after he's wounded, he takes the blindfold off as the only sure way of killing the others before they get to Malorie and the children.
• Ty Webb in Caddyshack demonstrates this with a blindfolded golf shot across water onto the tee. Danny Noonan, the protagonist, then attempts the same shot and hits into the water.
• In the sudden death round of DodgeBall: A True Underdog Story.
  Cotton McKnight: In 23 years of broadcasting I thought I'd seen it all, folks. But it looks like Peter LaFleur has actually blindfolded himself.
  Pepper Brooks: He will not be able to see very well, Cotton.
• The unnamed witch in Hawk the Slayer always wears a blindfold marked with a symbolic 'third eye', though she's not a Blind Seer except of the Vagueness Is Coming kind. She is used to track down the other members of their group however.
• Star Wars:
  • A New Hope has Obi-Wan putting a helmet with the blast-shield down on Luke to teach him to see with the Force.
  • The EU also has the Miraluka, who have exceptional talent to see through the Force but are born without eyes.
  • In Attack of the Clones, we see Yoda teaching some Jedi younglings the same thing.

Literature

• In Dishonored The Return Of Daud, it is revealed the Sisters of the Oracular Order wear blindfolds and see prophecies into the future, but they aren't blind. They wear blindfolds that obscure their vision from distractions, but the materials are thin enough that they can be seen through if needed.
• Paul Atreides at the end of Dune Messiah. He was able to see in the present by using the ability to look (a very short distance) into the future.
• In Fate/strange Fake, True Archer wears a cloth over his face so that the "works of man never again enter [his] sight." He has no trouble moving around or fighting.
• The seeresses of Kell in David Eddings' The Malloreon must be blindfolded at all times. Removing the blindfold also robs them of all their powers.
  • The prequel, The Belgariad, contains Relg's First Time in the Sun, and the only way he can really see during the day is to keep himself blindfolded.
• Spook in the final book of the Mistborn trilogy. Roughly two years of using his Super Sense powers non-stop had actually warped his body such that he needed it to simply function during the day because his vision was just that good. He isn't even rendered blind, he can see through the tiny holes in the fabric and still assemble a picture with better vision than normal people.
• Near the end of Neuromancer, taciturn ninja Hideo gets blinded by Rivera blasting him in the face with laser vision. Hideo then calmly states that Rivera will not be able to fool him with his projected hologram illusions anymore while retracing his steps to pick up his bow and arrow.
  Case: "Hideo'll get him...even blind?"
  3Jane: "When I was a child, we loved to blindfold him. He put arrows through the pips in playing cards at ten meters."
• Hierophant from A Practical Guide to Evil wears a blindfold over his magical Glass Eyes. It does not obstruct his vision in any way (nor does the back of his head, for that matter).
• The titular character in The Wonderful Story Of Henry Sugar And Six More was taught to see through things by a guy who did this for a living.

Live-Action TV

• In American Horror Story: Coven, Cordelia loses "The Sight" when her eyes are restored. In an attempt to regain the power, she stabs them out with a knife. It doesn't work.
• Angel
  • The villain of the episode "Blind Date" is a blind female assassin. According to her Wolfram & Hart dossier, she wasn't born blind; she blinded herself at age 21 and spent five years in India studying with cave-dwelling monks.
  • "Quickening" has a human psychic ninja assassin who is telekinetic and fights with a blindfold. ... and he's taken down like a chump by a gaggle of vampires during his Big Entrance.
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Giles does this to Buffy while training her to fight in the dark.
  Buffy: Okay, you're just doing this to take funny pictures of me.
• In an episode of Power Rangers in Space called "Always a Chance", former Black Ranger Adam Park returns to help train the current Black Ranger, Carlos, after he accidentally hit and injured a teammate. The culmination of the training is a blind fight sequence, which only serves to shake Carlos' confidence further, and he storms off.
• Star Trek: The Next Generation:
  • In the episode "Lower Decks", Worf tells Ensign Sito that she can enter an advanced class by passing a test that involved fighting blind. After getting knocked down several times, she refuses to continue and tells Worf the test is unfair. Worf tells her she passed, and Sito realizes the test was never real, just Worf's way of nudging her into responding to an unfair dressing down earlier from Captain Picard (which itself was a test).
  • Also, Will Riker has been fighting with his father Kyle Riker in a sport called anbo-jyutsu, which involves both combatants wearing helmets with opaque visors and using a staff that has a proximity sensor on one end (kind of like a theremin), which a trained practitioner could use to track their opponent.
• An episode of Ultraman Leo deals with the fast-moving Alien Flip with Doppelgänger Spin abilities, which Leo must train himself to defeat by hearing the true Flip's footsteps. In the inevitable Ultra-vs-kaiju battle, Leo's mentor and trainer, Dan Moroboshi "helps" him out by spraying foam covering Leo's eyes, so that he can concentrate on hearing Flip's movements and counter-attack. It works, and Leo defeats the alien in no time.

Tabletop Games

• Dungeons & Dragons:
  • There is a magic blindfold that gives you 120ft blindsight.
  • Also, there is a feat/skill for warriors that allows them to fight blindfolded at half the penalties they would normally suffer. It doesn't seem like an advantage at first, but to put it another way, in total darkness, a fighter with this feat would be a lot deadlier than those without it.
  • Zariel, before she became a Fallen Angel and ruler of Avernus, was an Archangel who always wore a blindfold that didn't interfere with her powerful True Sight.
• Exalted: The Perfection of the Visionary Warrior. With this ultimate technique in melee combat, the Sidereal wraps a prayer strip around his eyes, which begin to bleed under the magic of the blindfold. The character takes damage and loses physical sight, but he is now able to see the immediate future of the battlefield. This allows him to defend against attacks that have not happened yet and attack during opponents' future openings.
  • The Sidereals really love this one. In Glories: Maidens, a blindfold that lets you see magic, immaterial spirits, and get a very rough estimate of their power level.
• Some characters in Iron Kingdoms have their eyes covered, such as The Harbinger of Menoth (a high-priestess of sorts) and Lylyth (a blindfolded archer).
• In Pathfinder an Oracle can be Cursed with Clouded Vision, limiting the range he can see but gaining darkvision and later blindsight.

Toys

• Gogo's Crazy Bones: Boy's bio says that he is very good at running blindfolded and never falls over. His special ability is "Sensory Space Radar", suggesting he uses that to see through the blindfold.

Video Games

• The Edutainment Game Troggle Trouble Math has enemies like this on the sixth level.
• In Bloons Tower Defense 5, one of the upgrades for the Dart Monkey allows them to target camouflaged Bloons and slightly increases their range. When purchased, the monkey puts on a blindfold.
• In Gems of War, the Priestesses of Whitehelm go into battle despite wearing blindfolds. So do Dryads, who presumably have some sort of nature sense.
• Guild Wars Ritualists are also blindfolded (or at least, have their eyes covered), to gain a better sense of surrounding spirits.
  • Starting head armor for the Revenant class (added to Guild Wars 2 in Heart of Thorns) is a choice of blindfold, explained as helping the Revenant focus on whichever spirit they happen to be channeling. It doesn't appear to interfere with normal vision, and Revenant characters can replace their blindfold with a regular helmet without interfering with their class abilities.
• Guilty Gear's Zato-1 gave up his sight to gain a beast made out of his shadow. The ass-kicking he gave people seems to be unblinded. It appears that Eddie, the beast, does the seeing for him. When Zato-1 dies and Eddie takes over his corpse, this is specifically the case.
• Kingdom Hearts: Riku wears a blindfold during Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 Days and part of Kingdom Hearts II to suppress the darkness inside of him. He manages to be an excellent fighter regardless, and in some scenes acts like he can still see normally.
• Kreia from Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords actually is blind but it's self-imposed: she could fix her eyes any time she wanted, but feels she sees better without them.
  • Visas Marr is also blind, but it's because her entire race, the Miraluka, have atrophied eyes and "see" using the Force.
• Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance subverts this when Raiden loses an eye and his Solid Eye System heads up display in the prologue chapter - he comes into the game proper wearing a blindfold over his former eye. Turns out that the blindfold is a mesh of nanomachine cameras hooked directly into his optic nerve giving him much better resolution than his former eye and also has integrated Heads-Up-Display, millimeter scanner, and telescopic vision features.
• In Mortal Kombat 11's Krypt mode, the player can find Kenshi's Blindfold. Putting on the blindfold lets the player see secrets such as breakable walls and invisible treasure chests. There are two downsides: first, wearing the blindfold gradually consumes Soul Fragments (which are also used as a currency in other areas of the game), and second, ghosts will occasionally jump out and attack you.
• Any NetHack character with telepathy can be one of these. In fact, intrinsic telepathy only works when you're somehow blinded as if the developer team was trying to invoke this trope.
  • Playing blindfolded even became an unofficial Self-Imposed Challenge, the "Zen conduct". It is very, very hard to pull off.
• In NieR: Automata, the YoRHa androids' standard equipment include black cloth wrappings that go over the eyes of field operatives, and mouth veils for Bridge Bunnies (A2, a rogue model, has no eye covering, and wears tattered clothing by comparison). Game fluff indicates the fabric actually serves as deceptively high-tech visors of sorts, but symbolically, it represents the fact that the field operatives are "blind" to the truth, and that the operators cannot speak the truth, as they are all unaware of the conspiracy behind the Robot War they are fighting, save A2.
• The Pokémon Uxie has the power to wipe the memory of anyone who looks into its eyes. As such, it keeps its eyes closed, being able to see things anyway given its psychic abilities.

• Subverted with Percy the Incongruous in Ratchet & Clank Future: A Crack in Time, who tried to fight in the Battleplex with a blindfold on, only to be killed in eleven seconds after falling into a pool of molten lava.
• Flameslinger in Skylanders wears one of these. At one point he dramatically removes it, only to reveal a second blindfold beneath it.
• Jerec from Star Wars: Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II is much the same. No eyes, but he's such a strong dark Jedi that this doesn't slow him down at all. The Extended Universe explains that like the later Visas he's a Miraluka, who see with The Force.
• Illidan Stormrage, an Anti-Hero/Well-Intentioned Extremist/Big Bad from the Warcraft universe, has no eyes - a blindfold covers both the burned-out sockets where they were seared away. Nonetheless, he has magical vision that is actually superior to the naked eye, is quite happy with his new ability, and even appears to have a sense of humor about it - one of his default responses in the campaign is "I'm blind, not deaf."
  • He also states in the opening cutscene of The Frozen Throne, "Now my blind eyes see what others cannot!".
  • It is revealed in extra material that the other demon hunters, seeking to emulate Illidan's life, ritualistically bind a demon's soul into a knife and slice their eyes out with it to gain a magic-o-vision like him. Ouch. They also use the demon's soul to fuel their magic. While this is, in general, Cursed with Awesome: it comes with the major downside of having a demon whispering to you in your head. Demons, even the mostly harmless ones, are extremely annoying.
  • On the bright side, the Illidan novel reveals they actually could use their magic to see like they used to, if they wanted.
  • In World of Warcraft, one of the items on Illidan's loot table is his blindfold.
  • Similarly, in the novels, the Highborne Lord Xavius traded his eyes for magic crystals which can see magical energies and other things normal eyes can't.
  • As of Legion, Demon Hunters are now a playable class, complete with (optional) blindfolds to cover their burned-out eyes. Also comes with the ability to shoot laser beams out of your eyes.
• The demon Sabe from Wonderful World either subverts this or exaggerates it depending on how you see it: he can see and wears a blindfold, but the blindfold makes no difference since his eyes were cut out, and he can see without eyes.

Visual Novels

• Rider from Fate/stay night wears a blindfold which is stated in the Status sheets to seal all properties of her eyes, including vision, so she relies on her other senses for everything. It works well enough that her blindness isn't noticeable at all.
• Tsukihime: Satsujinki, what Shiki might become in the future, has to bandage his eyes because his Mystic Eyes are so powerful his glasses don't work anymore. He can assassinate Dead Apostles in seconds.

Webcomics

• Chloe from Angel Down can navigate without assistance and even shoot with some accuracy despite always wearing a blindfold.
• In Dominic Deegan Sigfried currently.
  • Also the infernomancer in the beginning, later on the blindfold was revealed to have inward spikes.
• Drowtales:
  • Male Kyorl'solenurn warriors who accompany a female Warden tend to work blindfolded to rely entirely on their Aura Vision.
  • Shan'naal even fires a bow while blindfolded... of course, said bow has an eye.
  • Kyorl inquisitors (like the one on the page picture) are basically magic radars on legs. Wearing blindfolds keeps them from being distracted by sight.
• Bare-Fisted Monk Thaco in Goblins gains a blindfold that slightly obstructs his vision but highlights incoming attacks just before they happen.
• Homestuck: Terezi alchemizes a red scarf to tie around her eyes in order to regain the powers she lost when Aranea healed her blindness and Gamzee's influence dulled her other senses.
• The Order of the Stick's Sangwaan wears a blindfold at all times. Her job is to act as Azure City's Enemy-Detecting Radar by way of True Seeing, providing detailed intelligence on incoming enemy forces, and detecting invisibility. Sadly, she is too slow to use her power to see Xykon's Draco Lich until he was right in front of her, and so is killed by being thrown off into the distance.
• Dame Madeline Goodlaw from Rusty and Co. closes her eyes whenever she is actively fighting someone. There are a number of theories as to exactly why she does this, ranging from divine guidance to disliking the sight of blood.
  • And when we meet her co-worker Derek the Cleric, he turns out to do the same thing. We still don't know why.
• In Those Destined, members of the most powerful seer order wear blindfolds. They're also those who react the most to the heroine's Chosen One aura.

Web Original

• Spoofed by Spoony when reviewing the old FMV shooter Microcosm. After getting frustrated with the game's Nintendo Hard-ness, he takes a page from Star Wars and blindfolds himself. Amusingly enough, doing nothing but dodging while blindfolded actually worked for him.

Western Animation

• In the Avatar: The Last Airbender episode "The Runaway," Aang invokes this trope because he's learning seismic sense from Toph so he uses his headband as a blindfold.
• In G.I. Joe, Jinx was trained by a blind martial artist, so she fights better with her blindfold on than with it off. When she's not wearing her blindfold, her commanding officer(s) tend to yell at her to open her eyes.
• The Penguins of Madagascar episode "Hidden" begins with the penguins training to fight blindfolded. The only one to fail was Kowalski, who, being The Smart Guy, was unable to turn off his brain and use his instincts. He eventually gets it right after all the others are taken by mysterious captors hidden in the reptile house. They turn out to be friendly chameleons, who were too shy to invite the others to their housewarming party.
• Samurai Jack does this, when Jack is nearly killed by three blind archers with superhuman accuracy guarding a wish-granting well. Cue flashback to Jack as a young man learning to fight a group of monks based on hearing alone. After blindfolding himself and spending a minute or two listening to the forest, he's ready to 'fight on their level'.
• In The Spectacular Spider-Man, Spidey blindfolds himself when fighting Mysterio so he can properly dodge what the Spider-Sense warns him about and ignore the illusions.
• Spoofed in SpongeBob SquarePants, when SpongeBob was forced to learn to drive blindfolded and succeeded, but was unable to drive without it.
• Used by Leo in an episode of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2003) when he's attacked by a squad of Foot Tech ninjas wearing stealth armor. Realising his eyes won't help him against invisible enemies, he adjusts his bandanna so it covers his eyes and relies on the sound of their footsteps to figure out where they're coming from, and is able to defeat them.

Real Life

• Real Life martial artists sometimes do this in close contact combat training, working by sense of touch. A youtube search for "blindfolded chi sao" brings up numerous examples.
• Various orientation exercises done through sensory deprivation are standard practice for personal development coaches' lessons. Blocking one or more senses will force a person to more fully explore their others, in particular in the absence of sight and sound which we rely on for navigation and touch which we use for movement.
• Driving or doing other things while blindfolded is a standard magician's trick, though sometimes (especially the knife-throwing trick) it's simply done using a fake blindfold (and in the knife-throwing case, fake knives).
  • For example, Kuda Bux
  • According to David Frost's Book of the World's Worst Decisions, on April 13, 1977, some chick named Yvonne Whittlesham who billed herself as "The Psychic Escapologist" decided to celebrate the Queen's Silver Jubilee with a 60 MPH "Blindfold Dash" using an iron blindfold. She crashed into a barn after about four hundred yards.
• If the part of the brain that handles the conscious experience of seeing is damaged, but the rest of the system is intact, something called blindsight results: a blind person who is able to "see" obstacles in their path, objects being thrown at them, guess with higher than random accuracy what is being 'shown' them, and other parts of vision handled by intact parts of the brain.

---