"Guys, I think her eyeballs are literally turning into little flames here."
— Notte, Dragalia Lost
Eyes filled with fire is a very strong image and a good way to convey that a character is demonic, possessed by demons, comically overreacting, really pissed off, very determined about something, or in just a really excited mood.
Don't really expect the fire to actually affect things, unless this crosses over with Heat Vision.
This could be the next step after Red Eyes, Take Warning, if you don't heed the warning.
Compare Glowing Eyes, Hellish Pupils, Wingding Eyes, Burning with Anger, Infernal Background.
Contrast Ocular Gushers.
Not to be confused with "Eyes of Flame".
Examples:
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Advertising
- In the UK 2002 Federation Against Copyright Theft PIF "The Pirates are out to get you", fire is seen briefly in the demonic blacksmith's eyes during a sudden zoom-in shot of the blacksmith.
Anime & Manga
- Black★Rock Shooter is a girl dressed in black with a giant cannon, a katana, and a blue flame burning in her left eye. Everything else is unique to whatever adaptation you happen to be witnessing.
- Bleach: Tenken is shown to have flames for eyeballs under his helmet.
- Blue Exorcist: Rin has these when fighting Amaimon, showing he entered his demonic state.
- Chako gets a Rousing Speech in Cosplay Complex, and her eyes do this.
- Dragon Ball Super: In the first episode, Chi-Chi gets these then Roshi recommends buying dirty movies with Goku's 100,000,000 Zeni.
- JoJo's Bizarre Adventure
- Phantom Blood: Jonathan Joestar demonstrates this trait in the opening of the anime, as a Call-Forward to his AU counterpart Johnny's "dark determination".
- Stone Ocean: Jolyne gains small flames in her eyes in the first chapter when she's determined to save Ermes. Weather Report also has dark flames cloud his eyes upon regaining his memories, and with it his determination to kill Pucci. Both of these instances would retroactively be shown as examples of Dark Determination introduced in Steel Ball Run.
- Steel Ball Run: Johnny Joestar has a "dark determination" to his eyes when he can't afford to lose at any cost, which is represented as black fire clouding his pupils. Other characters have also demonstrated this trait, such as Gyro when he becomes determined to defeat Ringo, and Ringo during a flashback when he shoots his would-be rapist as a child.
- The Dark Determination phenomenon returns in JoJolion, with Josuke, Mamezuku, and Kaato experiencing it.
- Rock Lee in Naruto, of the excited kind. The first time Choji was called fat in the manga his eyes were on fire too.
- In One Piece, Sanji has his only visible eye burning with fire whenever he's really Burning with Anger.
- In Ouran High School Host Club, the female customers gets flaming eyes when they're really fired up about something — usually a particularly adorable Moe moment involving the hosts. It turns into a somewhat bizarre plot-point during the episodes starring Ritsu Kasanoda, a young Yakuza Boss whose icy glare normally freezes anyone who comes near him. He winds up being Sweet on Polly Oliver, causing all the girls to get fired up about the perceived Yaoi romance, and even when he turns his icy glare on them, their fiery intensity melts it on the spot. "Don't underestimate the flames of MOE!"
- In one episode of Pokémon: The Series, Ash unknowingly messes up Jesse's hair with a flame attack, causing her to swear vengenance on him. Meowth and James note that she has fire in her eyes... and then point out that she has fire in her hair too.
- Pretty Cure:
- HappinessCharge Pretty Cure!: In Episode 6, Ribbon's pupils become fireballs when she gets fed up with Hime's Bratty Food Demands.
- Star★Twinkle Pretty Cure: Terumi's eyes become fireballs when her daughter Hikaru motivates her to write a manga.
- Tropical-Rouge! Pretty Cure: The inside of Asuka's eyes become fire when she scolds Laura.
- Delicious Party♡Pretty Cure: Ran's eyes turn into fireballs when Yui correctly guesses the secret ingredient of her broth (kelp).
- Ranma ½: Ryoga's eyes go entirely pink-red and glow with similar-coloured energy to his attack & aura when he's channeling a particularly powerful (or Perfected) Shi Shi Hokodan. More like Glowing Eyes of Doom, but overlaps with this because it represents the emotion too.
- In SD Gundam Force, this is how we know Captain Gundam's Soul Drive is working. Bakunetsumaru does it once in a hilarious fit of righteous fury, and Captain, Zero, and Baku do it at the same time at the end of the final battle.
- In one episode of Sgt. Frog, Momoka's pupils turn into flames when she imagines using the next day's outing with Fuyuki as a chance to get close to him, but they turn into tiny rainclouds when Fuyuki mentions it's supposed to rain the next day.
- In Spy X Family, a spark of fire appears in the iris of Anya's eyes when Damian responds to her smug smile by threatening to bully her every day at school.
- In Tamagotchi, this will occasionally happen to angry or pumped-up characters. In the very first episode, Mametchi does this when he notices the controller on the video game console being handed out as the race's winning prize resembles Gotchiman's Gotchi Beam weapon and wants to win it.
- Crosses over with Playing with Fire for Lunatic in Tiger & Bunny — and as Episode 16 confirms, the fire from his eyes can literally cause injury.
- Usagi-chan de Cue!! has the shapely Mimika get cuddly-snuggly with Haru on his bed. Miku comes by with groceries, and sees them together in that compromising position. Fortunately, Miku realizes that Mimika has the long ears, fluffy tail, and simple mind of a bunny rabbit. However, when Mimika gleefully resumes rubbing and cuddling Haru, Miku's eyes burst aflame with jealousy.
- Video Girl Ai: In episode 3 of the anime, right before Ai spends all of Youta's immediate cash on a crane game.
Asian Animation
- In BoBoiBoy, fittingly for his element, BoBoiBoy Fire's eyes turn into flames when he's particularly angry.
- In Season 5 episode 22 of Happy Heroes, Headmaster Tele's eyes turn into flames when he gets mad at Careless S. for accidentally destroying the Superstar School building with his weapon.
- In Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf, sometimes characters who get angry will have flames in their eyes.
- In the Simple Samosa episode "Sumo Momo", Samosa's eyes turn into flames when the wrestler Sumo Momo manages to give him enough of a whopping to crack the tip on his head.
Fanfiction
- Evil Calvin gets these in Retro Chill after being pounced on by Hobbes.
- In Neither a Bird nor a Plane, it's Deku!, Mister Mxyzptlk's eyes light on fire when Izuku refuses to play with him. Mxyzptlk then declares that Izuku has no choice.
- RealityCheck's Nyxverse: Princess Celestia gets these along with a flaming mane in Chapter 7 of Alicornundrum, when she goes into a Mama Bear-induced Unstoppable Rage directed at Lord Blueblood for attempting to set up an Arranged Marriage between his son, Prince Blueblood, and recently-crowned Princess Twilight Sparkle (her most beloved student, mind).
- The Mountain and the Wolf: The Khornate half of the resurrected Gregor Clegane is described as having burning coals for eyes. The Wolf is unimpressed and threatens to gouge them out again.
- Top of the Line (Editor-Bug): When Tak sees that Zim has managed to sneak his way into the SIR Unit tournament, fires light up in her eyes, hot enough to melt the snow cone she's holding.
Film — Live-Action
- In Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, Will Ferrell's eyes burst into flame when his hair is insulted.
- Godzilla does this in Godzilla: Final Wars after being freed from frozen slumber.
- In Space Jam, Lola has fire in her eyes when Bugs calls her "doll".
Literature
- Discworld: The Wee Free Men: Early on, Tiffany runs into grimhounds, which have fiery eyes and razors for teeth. She manages to defeat a group of them by luring them out of the Queen's realm, which leads to exactly what you expect would happen if an animal actually had flaming eyeballs.
- Everworld: Hephaistos is described as having literal fire in his eyes.
- The fire jinn in Fancy Apartments, Tisa, has flaming eyes and hair when she's in jinn mode.
- In Fengshen Yanyi, the cannibal taoist Ma Yuan has a very unsettling appearence, being several feet tall with a skin like a melon/gourd, having sharp teeth and flames coming out of his eyes, ears and nostrils.
- In the Nightside series, Merlin Satanspawn has no actual eyeballs, instead having flames in their place. Whenever he appears, John mentions that they say he has his father's eyes...
- Percy Jackson and the Olympians:
- Ares, god of war, has eyes like miniature nuclear explosions because he's a representation of violence, war and rage; he normally wears sunglasses to cover them up.
- Hestia, the goddess of the hearth fire and the home, also has flames for eyes, but hers are described as much warmer and less creepy.
- The titan Hyperion has eyes like the Sun itself. Fitting, since he is Titan of Light and the original ruler of the Sun.
- In Fiona Patton's Tales of the Branion Realm series, the royal family of an alternate Britain has literally fiery eyes, the flames growing brighter as one gets closer to the throne and culminating in the sovereign who is known as the Vessel of the Living Flame, the sacred avatar of a fire god.
- In The War Gods, when a person becomes a wild wizard, he or she is marked forever by having their eyes become covered in multicolor fire.
- Ba'alzamon in The Wheel of Time has fire appear in his eyes and mouth at random intervals, as a side effect of overuse of the True Power.
Live-Action TV
- Ghost Riders in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. get these, precluded by the hosts getting Glowing Eyes of Doom before they burn away.
- Doctor Who: In "42", those possessed by the living sun get eyes like this, bright enough to burn anyone exposed to them to ashes and a mark on the wall.
- Journey to the West (1996): Whenever Sun Wukong activcates his iconic "Fire-Eye" abilities to look through walls or scan for demon disguises, his cornea turns into fiery orbs.
Myths & Religion
- The Bible: Jesus Christ is described in the Book of Revelation as having "eyes like flames of fire".
- A fragmentary surviving song devoted to the Armenian pagan god Vahagn said that "his eyes, they were as suns". As a god he was associated with fire, as well as storms and dragon-slaying.
Tabletop Games
- Arduin:
- Red wraiths, a type of skeletal undead, have dancing red-black flames for eyes.
- Star dragon eyes are described as twin suns of raging crimson flames.
Toys
- The website TeeTurtle sells reversible octopus plushies
that have two different facial expressions. One style is the "fire eyes" version, which has an angry face on one side and an angrier face with fiery eyes on the other.
Video Games
- Cooking Mama does this in all of her games whenever you fail a task.
- In Cthulhu Saves the World, when the optional boss Fire Whale gets Driven to Madness, its eyes (and mouth) become flaming.
- In Diablo III all the Prime Evils have this. In the previous games, their eyes glowed but didn't seem to be actual fire.
- Flonne of Disgaea: Hour of Darkness gets ticked off (or particularly enthusiastic), and her eyes turn into fireballs.
- Anders' eyes burn with a Faux Flame when he is feeling particularly angry in Dragon Age II. It is a sign of his possession by the Warden's other companion, Justice, who has turned into a demon of Vengeance under his influence.
- In the intro to Final Fight 2, Haggar briefly gets these, which then form the "2" on the title screen logo.
- Fire Emblem Heroes: The Rokkr Remnant accessories give any unit an appearance of a flaming eyeball, with a different color for every weapon type, which can be given as a reward in Sieges.
- Metroid:
- All the Space Pirates, including the Phazon-mutated Elite Pirates have this in the first Metroid Prime.
- Ridley had this in his first appearance Metroid Prime 3: Corruption.
- In MySims Agents, Chef Gino gets these over the theft of his maps that lead to where he gets his ingredients.
- The "fired-up" version is seen in a few missions in the Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan series.
- Pikmin 4: The icon for "pup drive" (Oatchi's Experience Points) is Oatchi's face with flaming eyes.
- Rune Factory 4 has this as one of Vishnal's expressions.
- Super Mario Bros.:
- Super Mario RPG: Exor's "face" on the hilt burns, not counting the two larger ones. Also counts as Glowing Eyes of Doom.
- Mario Strikers - Battle League: The Hyper Strikes do a three-panel zoom in on the character's face as their eyes light up with determination.
- Though not seen clearly, Illidan's eyes in World of Warcraft were burned out and replaced with flames as part of Sargeras' "gift". They are hidden by a blindfold, though the glow can still be seen. In Warcraft III, his Metamorphosis ultimate ability's icon shows him without a blindfold, with burning eyes. In Legion, you can create a Demon Hunter with the traditional blindfold, or you can forgo the blindfold and let the world see the felfire burning in otherwise hollow eye sockets.
Web Animation
- Whenever one of the four maidens in RWBY use their power, flames form around their eyes.
- In Silver Quill's "After the Fact: Amending Fences", Starlight Glimmer gets burning eyeballs after Silver Quill dashes out and leaves her to pay a restaurant bill of 1500 bits.
- Used in Extra Credits, especially in Extra History. One example here.
Web Comics
- In El Goonish Shive, Ellen has them here and Susan has them here.
- While he normally has blank white eyes, Kankri Vantas from Homestuck gets these when he thinks his friend Porrim is trying to "mother" him.
- In Weak Hero, when Gerard realises that he missed out on a pizza, he grabs Rowan by the shoulder and compels him silently with fire in his eyes to be invited next time. Particularly humorous since Gerard's eyes are always covered by his hair.
Web Original
- In Lioden, a number of decors create the appearance of fire coming out of a lion's eyes, often with other visual effects as well. Hellfire Eyes is the only one that causes the trope with no other effects.
Western Animation
- Big City Greens: In "Winter Greens", Remy gets these when he dares Vasquez to take him down, which in turn causes him to come to his senses.
- Codename: Kids Next Door:
- Numbuh Three in has a tendency to get like this when she gets angry enough.
- Numbuh 86 (a.k.a. Fanny) as well does this from time to time, which comes as no surprise.
Numbuh 86! TOOOOOOOTS? - In the DC Animated Universe, whenever Darkseid's eyes burn, it likely means he is about to use his omega effect.
- Final Space: In "The Hidden Light", Gary gets these while madly ranting upon learning that he's in the same hideout as the man who created KVN, the thing he despises the most.
Gary: Quinn... I've finally found him. The Father of Beelzebub. This house... must be cleansed with... FIRE! We gotta burn it to the ground, Quinn! We gotta BURN IT TO THE GROUND!
- Parodied in an episode of The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy. After Grim gets fireballs in his eyes, Billy lampshades it and Grim starts screaming while telling him to put them out.
- In Infinity Train, the Steward has blue flame coming out of its eye sockets. Behind the mask is a tube generating the flame.
- Kaeloo:
- In one episode, this happens to Kaeloo when Mr. Cat makes fun of her lisp.
- In "Let's Play Trap-Trap", this happens to Quack Quack several times over the course of the episode since he's being deprived of yogurt by Kaeloo, which is making him angry and slowly driving him insane.
- The Loud House: "You know what happens when you make Lola MAAAAD!"
- In "For Bros About to Rock", Lincoln did this when Luna inadvertently embarrassed him in public by pairing him with a girl who happened to be there. He also managed to melt the ice that was in his pants at that time.
- In OK K.O.! Let's Be Heroes episode "Plaza Prom", R.M.S.'s eyes are engulfed in flames as he's enraged over Brandon embellishing his cover-up story about having a proper date to the Plaza Prom.
- The Ren & Stimpy Show:
- Ren sometimes gets these when he's really angry.
- Also Anthony's Dad from the episode "A Visit To Anthony" after he believes the duo hurt his son and threatens them, it's actually the fireplace reflected in his glasses.
- The Simpsons has Marge get these in "Some Enchanted Evening" while impatiently waiting for Homer to come home as Dr. Marvin Monroe's advice to leave him goes through her head.
- Steven Universe: Obsidian, the powerful fusion of Steven, Garnet, Amethyst and Pearl, has molten lava for all four of her eyes.
- Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2012) features these from the turtles when they are angry due to the series's heavy reliance on anime-esque expressions. They mostly come from Raphael.
- In Teen Titans (2003), Raven did this once in the episode "Fear Itself".
