Eyes Never Lie

"Then one day Strangefolk arrived in the town.
They came in camouflage, hidden behind dark glasses, but no one noticed them: they only saw shadows.
You see, without the Truth of the Eyes, the Happyfolk were blind."

— Gorillaz, "Fire Coming Out of The Monkey's Head"

If you think they're lying, watch their eyes. In fiction, characters watching the eyes of a speaker can (metaphorically) look into the soul of the speaker, which will give insight into what they're thinking. At the very least, it can betray some level of emotion, and usually allow you to see through deception.

The expectation is that the character will be unable to make eye contact, or maintain it for long, if they're lying — and works often do run with this. The significant silence after the demand where the character can't look the target in the eye and the silence stretches out... cue the target storming out of the room or scene cut.

When it is subverted by the liar being confident enough to look 'em in the eyes, it'll often make the person being lied to even more upset.

Truth in Television: when people see something that they really like/want, their pupils dilate. For example, a family member, loved one, potential mate, precious jewels, etc. Involuntary eye movements can give a clue about a person's mood or what they may be thinking. Hence the cultural custom of asking people to look into your eyes when you think that they may be lying, and why keeping eye contact is considered in many cultures to be a sign of politeness and honesty. However, be aware that too much eye contact can also be a sign of lying, usually by overcompensating for the urge to look away.

Eye Contact as Proof invokes this trope by asking someone to look them in the eyes as a means of proving they're telling the truth. This trope also explains why people wishing to be mysterious or subversive often hid their eyes with a Coat, Hat, Mask or Conspicuous Trenchcoat getup, Eye-Obscuring Hat, or Sinister Shades.

Please note, this trope is NOT when a character's eyes give away that they are an imposter or a shapeshifter. That's Eye-Dentity Giveaway.

Compare Traitor Shot where the true nature of a character is revealed by a close-up on their face and eyes. Also compare Wingding Eyes, when the eyes take a cartoon shape.

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Examples

Anime And Manga

• Black Lagoon. Yakuza enforcer Ginji Matsuzaki comments that Revy's eyes are those of a rabid dog. Revy scoffs... but recognises that she and Ginji are the same.
• Death Parade uses a wealth of Eye Tropes, and this is no exception. Episode 9’s One-Shot Character is a weary detective who says he can understand someone’s nature just by looking into their eyes. This is how he deduces that Decim isn’t lying about his situation, and that the other guest he’s with is a murderer.
• Asahi's biggest tell in My Monster Secret, and the reason he can't tell a decent lie.
• Played for laughs in Rage of Bahamut: Genesis by Favaro. When he tries to convince Amira that he is telling the truth, he always says "Are these the eyes of a liar?" while keeping a serious face. Then this strategy always fails as his mouth suddenly forms to a wide grin without him knowing, resulting in him getting slapped or punched in the face. In one episode, he delivers his aforementioned question to Amira in order to convince her again that he is not lying. However, he covers his face with two fishes, and with two "fish eyes" perfectly aligned with his own.

Comic Books

• Superman: Secret Origin: Lois is able tell someone's true integrity by looking into their eyes. It's what tells her that Luthor is not the philanthropist he makes himself out to be, that Superman can, in fact, be trusted, and even that there's more to Clark Kent than he's letting on.

Fan Works

• Code Prime: This is how Lelouch was able to determine that Bumblebee was not a specialized Knightmare Frame, but a Mechanical Lifeform by observing how his eyes moved and shifted during his fight with the Lancelot.
• In Pokémon Reset Bloodlines, Belladonna was able to see through Hilda when she tried to pass off as Aurora just by looking her into the eyes, even though Hilda's disguise was physically perfect. She calls it "a love thing".

Film — Animation

• Invoked in Arlo the Alligator Boy during the "Something's Missing" number, when Arlo asks Ansel to look into his eyes and truly recognize him as his son. It doubles as Family Eye Resemblance, as both Arlo and Ansel share an oval eye shape instead of the traditional Sphere Eyes, making the trope come to a more logical example.
  Arlo: Won't you look in my eyes? In the moment we're together?
• The Beast’s eyes in Beauty and the Beast were the only body part unaffected by the curse. According to animator Glen Keane, this was to remind the audience there was a young man trapped inside the body of that monster. They also make Belle realize the transformed prince is the same man she fell in love with.
  Belle: It is you!
• In Robin Hood (1973), Maid Marian realizes one of the archery contestants is her love in disguise after a brief Held Gaze.

Film — Live Action

• Atomic Blonde. French spy Delphine tells British spy Lorraine that she can tell in her eyes when she's telling the truth. Lorraine responds that she'll need to fix that before it gets her killed.
• Blade Runner: Replicants don't have human-normal eye reactions to emotion provoking situations. Rather than helping them lie, the lack of reaction is a vulnerability, marking them as a replicant.
• In The Island (2005), after the duo escape from the cloning organ facility they once believed to be their sanctuary and home, while watching TV the heroine is somehow able to tell two identical (both played by Ewan McGregor) characters apart using her ability to tell when one is lying.
• Judge Dredd (1995). Dredd has been arrested for murder with all the evidence against him. His mentor Chief Justice Fargo goes to see him to ask if he did it. The only thing Dredd does is ask (repeatedly) if Fargo believes the accusation. In the end Fargo says, "I just wanted to see it in your eyes."
• The Negotiator — Danny Roman (Samuel L. Jackson) delivers a lecture on facial cues, specifically touching on the tendency of the eyes to look toward the upper left when accessing memory and to the upper right when accessing imagination and making something up. He's rather disconcerted shortly afterward, however, when he tries to use eye cues on an Internal Affairs cop who he believes can clear him, and can see that the guy honestly believes that Roman is guilty of what he's being accused of.
• Queen of Outer Space. When asked if she believes the men from Earth Come In Peace, Motiya says their eyes indicate they're telling the truth. Given that the man in question was eyeing her hungrily, they no doubt were.
• Noah from A Safe Place (1971) is a believer in this trope. She tells Fred that his eyes shine with love, that her father's eyes were flat and dead, and that her brother's eyes went on and off like a Christmas tree. She worries that she is incapable of love, because when she looks in the mirror, her eyes are like her father's.
• SAS: Rise of the Black Swan. Members of the Lewis family, who are high-functioning psychopaths, quickly identify Tom Buckingham as akin to themselves when they get a good look at his eyes.
• In V for Vendetta, main character Evie can distinguish propaganda cover stories from actual news because the news anchor "Blinks when she knows a story's false".
• War (2007): FBI agent John Crawford is obsessed with catching Rogue, an assassin known for changing his face with Magic Plastic Surgery, because he killed his partner Lone. When he encounters Rogue in his new face three years later, he claims to recognize him as "the eyes are the one thing the surgeons can't change." The Twist Ending reveals that Rogue is actually his partner Lone, who did a Kill and Replace on the real Rogue. When Crawford refuses to believe this, Lone does an Ironic Echo of Crawford's earlier comment.

Literature

• Alpha and Omega: Multiple characters believe the Islamic Madhi is the real deal and not an imposter due to the simultaneously powerful, confused and uneasy look in his eyes, which reminds them of Chaim, the newfound Jewish Messiah.
• In the first Artemis Fowl, Root shows two arguing psychiatrists footage of Artemis claiming he can escape the LEP time-stop field, which is supposedly impossible. They put aside their differences and ask to be shown the footage again, zoomed in on Artemis's eyes. They conclude that either he's telling the truth or he's absolutely convinced he is.
• Averted in The Day of the Jackal with the title character. The OAS terrorist leader who hires the Jackal to kill the President of France notes the Jackal's Icy Gray Eyes and is bothered by how he can't read the man from his eyes like he can with other people.
• Discworld:
  • Night Watch plays with the trope: it's noted that unwavering eye contact can make a confident liar stick out.
  • In a broader sense, it's often noted that nothing, not even gods in mortal guise, can hide their eyes, which are often very obviously not human, such as being pools of bright green or black pits with stars inside.
• The Golden Hamster Saga: When Professor Fleischkopf first looks at Freddy, his gaze is so cold and sinister that Freddy involuntarily snarls. Sure enough, Fleischkopf turns out to be an Evilutionary Biologist who dissects live hamsters' brains.
• Harry Potter:
  • In Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban: Harry doesn't believe Sirius Black about his parents' murder until Black, in tears, looks Harry in the eyes and tells him the exact details.
  • Throughout the series, Legilimancy is a type of magic that enable a wizard to read another person's thoughts and intentions, and thus detect if they are lying. This magic almost always needs eye contact to be effective, and the easiest way to resist it is by breaking eye contact. This actually works against Harry at first in an earlier book when he is determined to keep looking into Snape's eyes to try to seem honest. Once he learns about Legilimency, however, he avoids eye contact.
• King Arthur and His Knights of the Round Table: Ragnell's eyes show her suffering; when Gawain sees this, he is able to momentarily overcome his revulsion to kiss her.
• Murder on the Orient Express: Poirot sensed that Ratchett was bad news from the look in his eyes, and when the man tries to hire him as a bodyguard, Poirot rejects the offer on the grounds that he doesn't like his face. His assessment turns out to have been correct after Ratchett is found dead and Poirot finds out who he really is.
• A Discussed Trope in Requiem for an Assassin. John Rain insists on a personal meeting with the man holding his friend hostage, saying he wants to look in his eyes and see if he's telling the truth about You Said You Would Let Them Go. His actual reason is to gather intelligence on his opponent, as well as assessing him personally.
  “Are you satisfied?” Hilger asked, as though reading my thoughts. [snip] “With having looked in my eyes. Trusting me to let Dox go when this is done.”
  “No. I don’t trust you to do that. But I learned something else from your eyes.”
  “Yeah? What’s that?”
  From his tone, I knew he was concerned that I might have picked up some piece of information he didn’t want me to have. Why else would I have insisted on a meeting? Trusting someone because of what you see in his eyes is a load of shit, although the latest bozo in the White House claimed to have managed a view of Vladimir Putin’s soul that way. And it was clear after what happened in Góc Saigon that I wasn’t going to kill him. What else could I have been after, if not information?
  I took a deep breath, then let it go. “I learned I don’t have a choice.”
• Ryn, the main character of The One Who Eats Monsters, looks like a cute sixteen-year-old girl. But she's the oldest and most dangerous monster in the world, and her eyes are black with irises made of blue flame. Any human who sees them instantly knows that she is incredibly dangerous. Her eyes can't lie, because she's hunted humans as long as there have been humans, and it is instinctual for us to fear them.

Live-Action TV

• Gibbs, the main character of NCIS, was actually introduced back on that series' predecessor show JAG while investigating lead character Harmon Rabb, and even back then, was pretty much an infallible human lie detector. If you lie while Gibbs is looking you in the eye, he'll know.
  Harm: How long you been doing this, Gunny?
  Gibbs: Seventeen years.
  Harm: And can you tell if someone's lying to you by looking in their eyes?
  Gibbs: Yes I can.
  Harm: Then why don't you just ask me, Gunny? Why don't you just ask me?
  Gibbs: *pause* Would you kill for your brother?
  Harm: *makes Oh, Crap! face*
• Lie to Me: Dr. Cal Lightman and the rest of the Lightman Group use microexpressions (a minute form of facial movements) and body language to determine whether or not someone is telling the truth. Cal, Gillian, and Loker studied for years to learn it. Torres is a "natural", one of something like 5% of the population who has the ability to spot deception.
• In Stargate SG-1, Bra'tac demonstrated on several occasions the ability to almost perfectly tell if someone was lying by looking deep into their eyes. Even when the person in question has convinced their closest friends and lie detectors, Bra'tac is not fooled.
• In the episode "Folsom Prison Blues" (S02, Ep19) of Supernatural, Dean asks his lawyer to look in his eyes and decide if he is guilty.
• Deep Space Nine. In "Sons of Mogh", Worf worries that he's lost his touch when he fails to register the Meaningful Look another Klingon gives him, showing his intent to kill Worf.
• Arrow
  • In "Trust But Verify", Oliver Queen has disguised himself as one of the balaclava-wearing mercenaries on Lian-Yu. Their commander recognizes him despite the balaclava, and he implies that as Oliver is still a marooned billionaire playboy (rather than the hardened killer he'll become in later years) his eyes gave him away among all the other hardened killers.
  • In "Streets of Fire", Malcolm Merlyn reunites with his daughter Thea, who's not happy to find her supervillain father is Not Quite Dead.
    Thea: I'll shoot you. I will!
    Malcolm: I can see it in your eyes. My eyes. They're just like mine. Both of them filled with pain and anger, because those we loved were ripped from us.
  • In "The Climb", Oliver Queen discovers his sister Thea has been lying to him about not being in contact with Malcolm Merlyn, but he insists on this trope when Thea falls under suspicion of having killed Sara Lance. It's presented as Oliver refusing to accept reality and no-one else in Team Arrow buys it. Ironically it turns out Thea was brainwashed by Malcolm to kill Sara and have no memory of it, so Thea really does think she's telling the truth.
• Grimm has a unique variation of this. Wesen across the series have a form of involuntary emotional transformation that is invisible to humans but visible to Grimms. Many times, only a Wesen's eyes change and they don't even realize it themselves, giving themselves away even though they didn't fully change.

Music

• Eagles "Lyin' Eyes:
  I thought by now you'd realize
  There ain't no way to hide your lyin eyes
• Saro's "Dan Tes Yeux" only has one line of lyric, which translates to, "What you thinking, I read it in your eyes."
  "Ce que tu penses, je le lis dans tes yeux"

Tabletop Games

• Subverted in Legend of the Five Rings — one of the Scorpion samurai mentions that lying with their eyes is one of the first things the youth learn in his clan.

Video Games

• Fire Emblem
  • In Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade, Wallace declares Lyn trustworthy and joins her cause after getting one good look of her eyes.
    Wallace: I've been a knight for 30 years, and there is one thing I learned. A person with eyes as bright and true as yours is no deceiver.
  • In Fire Emblem: Three Houses, the 3D models for characters are surprisingly expressive. When confronted on inconsistencies in her story, Flayn in particular will look to the side, refusing to make eye contact.
• Guilty Gear -STRIVE-: In Bridget's Arcade Mode, Goldlewis expresses doubt about Bridget's hesitant insistence on being called a boy, noting that "it ain't what your eyes are saying." to her. He's completely accurate, as Bridget comes out as a trans girl with full confidence later on, and both Goldlewis and Ky express support.
• The tie-in comic for the "Junkenstein's Revenge" mode of Overwatch implies this in a flashback to the titular organization's Glory Days - although Cassidy makes it appear as though he's unfazed by the story of Junkenstein that Reinhardt has told the group, Reinhardt himself accuses him of hiding "behind a tough guy act" while claiming that "I can see the fear in your eyes." Complicating matters is the fact that Reinhardt had called him by his fake name "McCree" earlier - it's left ambiguous whether Cassidy was panicking over Reinhardt's story actually being scary, or whether he worried that Reinhardt would find out his true name and out him as a liar to the rest of the room.
• In The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, Zant was passed over as king of the Twili in favor of another. This spurred him into staging a coup and usurping the throne. After he's defeated by Link, Midna tells him the reason no one would name Zant king was because they saw his Lust for power in his eyes. The Twili had been banished into the Twilight Realm because their ancestor's king had a similar power lust and drove his people to invade the Sacred Realm, and the Twili would not let history repeat.

Visual Novels

• In Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney, Apollo uses his bracelet to see through Machi's eyeglasses during a trial to determine that he's lying.
• In The Great Ace Attorney, Ryunosuke's eyes tend to give away any thought he has on his mind for good or bad. It happens often enough that other characters such as Susato comments on it. This is why Lord van Zieks fixates and trusts Ryunosuke almost immediately, despite their own misgivings, because his eyes remind Lord van Zieks of his beloved deceased brother's eyes ... as well as the man who had killed him.

Web Comics

• In The Order of the Stick this becomes a plot point. Blind Pete, who is missing his eyes, is able to betray Haley because she relies upon this to sense motivations.
• Unsounded: When people look Duane in the eye, his Appearance Is in the Eye of the Beholder disguise falters and they see the undead body underneath. Justified because he's a painfully honest man who feels guilty about the lie; later, Consummate Liar Sette gives him some tips on maintaining the façade.

Web Original

• While the Nanny in The New Narnia takes on various forms, the one consistency between forms (aside from all of them being female) is that her eyes remain the same; one blue, the other brown.

Western Animation

• Adventure Time: At the beginning of the "Stakes" arc, Finn and Jake are questioning Marceline after hearing about a nearby vampire attack. Marceline tells Finn to look her in the eyes when she says it wasn't her. However, a recent dream has Marceline doubting herself, which Finn picks up on
  Marceline: Look into my eyes, man. I didn't do it.
  Finn: (after prolonged eye contact) To be honest, it looks like you're not sure if you did it.
• Code Name Kids Next Door: In Operation: P.O.O.L. when Numbah One and Numbah Four meet Eizzil and Negative Numbah Three respectively, they both look into their eyes, and immediately recognize that they’re not Lizzie or Positive Numbah Three respectively. It’s especially noticeable for Numbah Four, as they all thought that he was the "dumb one".
• Subverted in The Emperor's New Groove. Pacha refuses to make a deal with Kuzco unless he looks him in the eye and means it. He fails to notice that Kuzco is playing him for a sucker until he's hanging above a chasm.
• The Loud House: "Snow News Day" deals with Lincoln and the Action News Team getting a story on an abominable snowman attacking Royal Woods. Said "snowman" turns out to be Liam's sheep Roxanne, whom he was able to recognize because her baby blue eyes were the only feature that remained the same when her fleece overgrew.
  Liam: I recognize those baby blues anywhere!
• Subverted in The Simpsons.
  Homer: Look me in the eye boy, and tell me you didn't do it.
  Bart: I didn't do it.
  Homer: Why you little...! (throttling Bart) How dare you look me in the eye and lie like that!

Real Life

• While not foolproof by any means, eye movements and how someone looks at you can often be an indicator if they are lying to you or not. However, skillful liars can control this to an extent. It should be noted that many people, knowing the stereotype of liars being unable to maintain eye contact, will do the opposite, and actually make more eye contact when they're lying. The best way to spot when someone's lying is to be alert for a change in behaviour, rather than any specific action on its own.
• Inverted for autistic and many other neurodivergent people, who often have trouble getting people to trust them precisely because of difficulty maintaining eye contact, amongst other problems with body language (and, especially with older people on the spectrum, are often trained to maintain eye contact, no matter how uncomfortable it makes them).
• Judges in 12th Century China are said to have worn glasses with smoky quartz lenses during trials. This was to hide their expressions during questioning.

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