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Dark They Were, and Golden-Eyed
— Title of a The Martian Chronicles story

It's said that eyes are the windows to the soul, and in fiction, their color is often the first way to hint at a character's true nature. In particular, characters who have gold and yellow-colored eyes tend to have some form of supernatural origin or powers that place them above normal humans.

In the West, this tends to appear on supernatural characters who have feline or lupine traits, so, understandably, they're often accompanied by werewolf-like powers. In Japan, this probably traces back to legends of kitsune (foxes) and their naturally golden eyes. It was said that a human possessed by a fox would gain gold eyes, and that a child born to a fox and a human would possess them as well. Because kitsune were also shapeshifters, this often shows up when characters change their forms, as the first indicator they are shapeshifting.

It is also found around the world in many other contexts: in tales of genies, witches, and other mythological beings, where they cannot hide their golden or two-tone eye colors in animal form.

In the sorting algorithm of "Uh-Oh" Eyes, gold eyes fall one step below Red Eyes, Take Warning, since it's entirely possible for the character to just be a trickster rather than evil. Gold eyes are also harder to distinguish from "normal"-colored eyes, and hence can add more of an element of surprise if The Reveal shows a character to be something other than what they initially appear to be.

A subtrope of Technicolor Eyes and Mark of the Supernatural. Compare Yellow Eyes of Sneakiness. Has less to do with GoldenEye than you'd think.

It should be noted that this trope is NOT for characters who just have eyes of this color, but rather for when the color actually indicates the character is supernatural in nature. Please do not add characters who just happen to have eyes of this color without the proper reason behind it. If there are only mundane characters who have this eye color in the work (that aren't mistaken for supernatural because of it), the work does not use this trope.


Examples:

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    Anime & Manga 
  • Morgan Le Fay, the shape shifting fairy from the Ah! My Goddess movie, is shown with golden eyes. In the manga, Hild and Lind can both manifest these as part of their Game Face. It indicates that they are drawing on their full power rather than holding back as they usually do.
  • In Angelic Layer, the Angel, Blanche, has yellow eyes, and her operator's partner's Angel, Shirahime, has red eyes. Both are some of the hardest opponents in the series, and two of three Angels to use Hyper Mode (in the manga, only Blanche can use it).
  • ARIA: Cait Sith qualifies here, being the King of Cats and all that.
  • The Armored Titan, from Attack on Titan, matches this with Glowing Eyes of Doom, for striking effect. Reiner is notably the only character with amber eyes, easily written off as brown eyes since he's the reliable Team Dad. However, it's one of the early hints of his true nature.
  • The Kowloon Children in Black Blood Brothers have gold irises and black scleras, as well as pointy ears and claws, making them seem more feral.
  • Black Butler: All shinigami have gold/green eyes, such that it can be used as proof that someone is a current or former "god of death;" all of them are fairly neutral, but are also shown to be very powerful when crossed. Sebastian has caramel-colored eyes, close enough to brown that most characters don't remark on it but just off enough to remind the audience that he's different, and Claude Faustus from the second season of the anime has them as well. However, when Sebastian goes all out, his eyes turn magenta.
  • Black Clover:
    • Yuno has amber eyes and was born blessed with tremendous amounts of mana and powerful magic.
    • Licht has gold eyes and is a powerful elf mage who wields rare Light Magic.
  • Bleach has a couple of characters that fit the symbolism of golden eyes:
    • Yoruichi and Komamura have golden eyes, reflecting their animal-connections. Yoruichi spends a lot of time transformed into the form of a black cat and Komamura is an anthropomorphic wolf.
    • Hollows are human spirits who have lost their hearts and thus are often ruled by their desires and instincts. Hollows and Vizards (Shinigami with Hollow powers) using their masks usually have yellow eyes surrounded by black.
    • Arrancar aren't supposed to have a second resureccion. Ulquiorra does. Not only is why a mystery, but the form changes the nature of his reiatsu so that it feels different to normal reiatsu. Unsurprisingly, his eyes change from green to gold to reflect the added mystery of this second form.
  • Yukito, Sakura's crush in Cardcaptor Sakura, has golden eyes behind his glasses and silver hair. These eyes are the first indication that there is more to him than he appears. Yue, his true form, has silver eyes. The same applies to his counterpart, Ruby Moon.
  • Ceres, the eponymous character of Ceres, Celestial Legend has gold eyes, and is a Tennyo, a type of Asian fairy. Whereas Aya, her descendant/alter-ego, does not.
  • Chainsaw Man: Makima, as the Control Devil, is incredibly powerful with strange golden eyes.
  • Chrno/Chrono in Chrono Crusade has golden eyes while in his demon form, although, when he's in his more common, human-like form, they're red. He's not evil, but obviously supernatural, and does have a bad temper when provoked.
  • In Claymore, the titular "Silver-Eyed Witches" have them change color (and form Hellish Pupils) when they release a certain amount of their power. On occasion, a Claymore who's really pushing it will combine this with iris-only Glowing Eyes of Doom.
    • Likewise, the demons they hunt (and have been implanted with) always have golden eyes.
  • Code Geass:
  • Darker than Black: The aptly named Amber. Her remuneration is getting younger, and she has a limited ability to see the future.
  • In Delicious in Dungeon, Touden siblings Falin and Laios have gold colored eyes. Both of them are capable of using magic.
  • In Devilman Lady, Jun's eyes changing from brown to gold signal her transformation into a Devilman.
  • Guilmon from Digimon Tamers has a right to have yellow eyes, as he's a one-of-a-kind, fan-made Digimon, goes feral when sensing danger, and carries an uber-destructive computer virus inside himself.
  • Krad of D.N.Angel is a case of Curtains Match the Window and is most definitely not human or a good guy.
  • Dragon Ball Z:
    • Zarbon, Frieza's Bishōnen right-hand man, has gold-colored eyes. He's able to shapeshift into a single second form, which resembles a large, wrinkly, reptilian ogre.
    • GT also features Super Saiyan 4, which is preceeded by a transformation into a Super Oozaru form and has golden eyes once it's completed.
    • Broly has these in his Wrathful state in Dragon Ball Super: Broly.
  • Excel♡Saga:
    • Il Palazzo has yellow cat's eyes and though he's mostly just played as eccentric and crazy throughout most of the anime, in the manga, he's eventually shown to possess the power of teleportation, among other (far stranger) abilities.
    • In the manga version, Doctor Kabapu has the same eyes, which hints at the fact that they're both from a long-lost ancient civilization.
  • In the anime adaptation of From the New World, village leader Shisei Kaburagi has golden Exotic Eye Designs.
  • Fruits Basket:
    • Ayame Sohma has golden eyes, which is justified as he's possessed by the spirit of the Snake from the Eastern Zodiac.
    • Kisa Sohma, who's possessed by the spirit of the Tiger, also has golden eyes as well as golden hair. Unfortunately for her, being a Japanese girl with such unusual eye and hair colors leads her to be bullied at school.
  • Played with in the manga version of Fullmetal Alchemist and its direct adaptation Brotherhood. Van Hohenheim and his sons Edward and Alphonse Elric have golden eyes. This isn't supernatural in and of itself; however, it is an ethnic trait related to their heritage, and considering that this ethnicity has been supposedly extinct for hundreds of years, it serves as a clue to Van Hohenheim's immortality and Ed and Al's true origins.
  • Tasuki of Fushigi Yuugi, who is initially portrayed with more of a wolf motif. The kitsune qualities and shapeshifting are trademarks of his comrade, Chichiri.
  • Yuki Nagato from Haruhi Suzumiya has golden-brown eyes, which lends into her being a Humanoid Data User Interface but more importantly that even when compared to her counterparts (Ryoko Asakura and Emiri Kimidori are Curtains Match the Window with blue and green hair and eyes respectively), she's an incredibly powerful Humanoid Data User Interface.
  • Seine from Hekikai No Aion has greenish-gold eyes and is a 300-year-old immortal girl who controls a black snake, who lives within her body called Aion.
  • Hilda in Horus: Prince of the Sun, due to her deal with Grunwald. However, she seems to retain them after Grunwald's defeat.
  • Inuyasha: The known dog-Youkai of the show all have golden eyes: Inuyasha, Sesshoumaru, and Sesshoumaru's mother.
  • In the manga version of Kamisama Kiss Tomoe has these (the anime changed them to purple). Of course, he's a Kitsune so it should come as no surprise he has them.
  • Saralegui from Kyo Kara Maoh!. He wears purple-tinted glasses to cover them, because having Gold Eyes means he's part of a very-near extinct race (that was sealed away) with extraordinary powers. His eyes glow blue whenever he's giving someone a 'hint', aka trying to possess them to do his bidding.
  • Lyrical Nanoha:
  • Ruri Hoshino in Martian Successor Nadesico has these as part of her implied kinda-sorta Artificial Human background and general Mysterious Waif-iness.
  • In Mao, Nanoka's eyes turn gold whenever she uses her non-human abilities.
  • Similarly, for Coco of Mermaid Melody Pichi Pichi Pitch, yellow eyes are just a racial trait, as mermaids are Colour-Coded for Your Convenience and those from different countries tend to have themed hair and eye colours. However, a Double Subversion occurs when this is used as a warning with orange-eyed Man Behind the Man Sara: she's a mermaid princess too.
  • In Mobile Suit Gundam 00, the eyes of Innovators and their Artificial Human counterparts, the Innovades shine gold and exhibit a moving weblike pattern when utilizing their quantum brainwaves. Curiously, the Human Reform League's Super Soldiers don't display this, despite also using quantum brainwaves. However, their eyes are a darker, more mundane gold by default, without the glowing.
  • Both Mikoto and Reito of My-HiME have these, and while it's not too unusual for that world (where the heroine has red hair and purple eyes), later, it turns out that they are a Laser Guided Tyke Bomb and the object of Demonic Possession respectively, as well as serving as an early clue that they're brother and sister.
  • Naruto:
    • Naruto himself acquires these later on — when in Sage mode, his eyes turn golden, although they're slitted sideways. However, this has more to do with his affinity for toads, instead of the fox inside him.
    • Also Orochimaru, true to his snake-like appearance and nature.
  • The Natsume family from Natsume's Book of Friends seem to have this; both main character Takashi and his deceased grandmother Reiko had these (they're both very powerful in the seeing Youkai department). At least one, and possibly both of them, were bullied with the name "Kitsune eyes" due to this.
  • Hawk-Eye Mihawk from One Piece has golden-orange eyes like a raptor's, and while he's not a Devil Fruit user, there's something... off about him and his abilities, as if he's been tainted with death.
  • The adopted Nightray brothers, Gilbert and Vincent, in PandoraHearts. Gilbert is a Baskerville, and almost became Glen's next host, while Vincent combines this with Red Eyes, Take Warning due to his heterochromia. Both cause distortions in the world around them, due to having a connection to the power of the Abyss.
  • In Pet Shop of Horrors, Count D has one golden eye, and his grandfather has both eyes being golden.
  • Mytho from Princess Tutu has golden eyes. He's not evil, but he is supernatural — he's the Prince from a fairytale.
  • Eiko Magami from Project A-Ko has amber-colored eyes. Her weirdness is evident right off the bat.
  • Puella Magi Madoka Magica: Madoka's eyes turn from pink to gold when she ascends to godhood. In this case, it indicates that she's especially supernatural (the other magic-using characters have Curtains Match the Window eye colors).
  • Rurouni Kenshin:
    • Whenever Kenshin goes into "Battousai Mode", his eyes take on a yellowish hue, in contrast to their usual violet color, and at one point, this tells Kaoru what's going on instantly.
    • His rival, Saito Hajime, however, is always shown with these. The historical, real person of Saito had brown eyes, but in Rurouni Kenshin, these are used to tie him to The Shinsengumi, who were commonly referred to as the "Wolves of Mibu".
  • Sailor Moon:
    • Sailor Galaxia (Big Bad) has gold eyes to match her theme as the Golden Queen. Like several of the examples here, she's not evil so much as possessed.
    • In the opposite direction, Helios (gentle priest) has gold eyes, possibly to represent his position as guardian of the Golden Crystal in the anime version, while Mamoru has it in the manga.
    • Naoko originally planned Minako's blue eyes to turn golden when transformed.
  • In Saint Seiya: The Lost Canvas, golden eyes (and hair) are the trademark of Hypnos and his children, the Dream Gods. They're all pretty much supernatural — and evil, with Hypnos serving as one of the primary antagonists of the manga's first half (arguably the Big Bad for good part of it).
  • Saiyuki:
    • In the manga, beings with golden eyes are labelled as heretics and are seen as dangerous enough for the Powers That Be to lock them up or, at the very least, shackle them. Son Goku, War Prince Nataku, and War Prince Homura all have golden eyes, though, in the latter's case, only one of them is golden.
    • In the manga, Hakkai's youkai form has one golden eye, the other being a false one.
    • In the manga, the people Hazel brought back from the dead have yellow eyes. They are perfectly normal and nice people post-resurrection unless you happened to be a youkai.
  • Tiara's One-Winged Angel form in Shamanic Princess has golden eyes with a black circumference in the middle.
  • Medusa of Soul Eater has these, likely to underline her connection to snakes. Death the Kid's eyes are not this, as in fact it is his hair which indicates his true nature.
  • Sword Art Online:
    • Kirito's eyes will turn from dark grey to bright yellow in moments when his determination is at its peak such as in the moments before felling Heathcliff, breaking through the World Tree's guardians, or landing a decisive blow on Death Gun.
    • Fanatio Synthesis Two has yellow eyes, as befits someone whose main element is light.
  • Tenchi Muyo!:
    • Ryoko has golden eyes, tying into the demonic/supernatural aspect of her character. Her name is even stated to mean "spirit caller" at one point.
    • Ryo-Ohki also has yellow eyes, both in her cabbit and humanoid forms.
  • Viral in Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann. Word of God says he's a cat/shark hybrid, so it makes sense.
  • Texhnolyze: While anime basically avoids unrealistic hair and eye colours, Ran and Kano have yellow eyes. Ran is a Seer and Kano is a wannabe god.
  • When Bu-ling of Tokyo Mew Mew transforms into Mew Pudding, her eyes turn golden.
  • CLAMP's series Tsubasa -RESERVoir CHRoNiCLE-:
    • A vampires' eyes go gold and slitted when they use their powers. One Doujinshi has that world's version of Fuuma comment on this by saying that he and his sort-of-love-interest Kamui "match" now, prompting Kamui to throw him across the room. In the series proper, Fai's remaining eye turns from blue to gold when he becomes a vampire.
    • Fai also goes a little further with this trope when he gives up his remaining magic in Nihon to pay for Kurogane's artificial arm and his remaining eye turns from blue to permanent gold. It's his magic-less eye color and indicates his full transformation into a vampire.
  • Miyu from Vampire Princess Miyu originally had brown eyes, but once she became a vampire, they became gold. She can still use magic to revert hem to their original brown to mix better with the crowd.
  • The heroine of the anime version of Witchblade gets these (with black scleras) when she accesses the eponymous Artifact of Doom's power.
  • The wolves of Wolf's Rain all have amber/golden eyes in human form — except for Kiba, whose human form has pale blue eyes to denote his Chosen One status.
  • Fuuma's eyes in X/1999 are gold colored, and it's only after the Wham Episode that we realize what this was hinting at. In the anime series, they're red, because the Spoiler Opening gave away the wham of the Wham Episode right in the first episode.
  • The Seiryuu in Yona of the Dawn who wield the power of the dragon's eyes. The current one Shin-ah usually hides them behind his mask.
  • Yu-Gi-Oh!
    • Judai (Jaden) in Yu-Gi-Oh! GX gets golden eyes when his power as Haou/Supreme King awakens.
    • Divine and Kiryu from Yu-Gi-Oh! 5Ds. A psychic and Dark Signer, respectively. Divine's also a Manipulative Bastard, while Kiryu's just plain nuts.
    • In Yu Gi Oh ARCV, the Big Bad Zarc has these. They reflect his series-standard ability to talk with Duel spirits. Yuya's eyes also turn this color when he is possessed by Zarc.
  • Yoko Kurama in YuYu Hakusho is a red-haired, green eyed young man in his human form, but as soon as he turns into his white-haired pretty boy alter ego, his eyes change color. Naturally enough, he's a kitsune.
    • Also, you know that Itsuki isn't exactly a human psychic because of this trope and also because of his hair color. He's nowhere near a kitsune, though; he's a shadow demon called a yaminade.
    • While possessed by his demon ancestor, Yusuke's eye color changes from their usual brown color to a gold color, at least in the anime.
    • The creepy Elder Toguro. Though all his eyes represent is his demonic nature.
  • Zatch Bell! himself has wide, saucepan-sized yellow eyes, although, being a demon, it might be excusable. It might be more to indicate his affinity, Lightning, as not all the Demons have Golden Eyes. Then again, it could be something else...

    Comic Books 
  • Lioness in ATOM has yellow eyes thanks to her non-human heritage.
  • ElfQuest:
    • Timmorn Yellow-Eyes has, obviously, yellow eyes, which he got from his father, who was a wolf, his mother being an elfin shapechanger, making him basically a half-elf half-wolf whose form can fluctuate.
    • Rayek's is one of the few very magical Sun Folk. He possesses paralyzing and levitation powers and later flight.
  • The main character of the indie comic book Finder has yellow eyes. He could be considered something of a trickster, being a nomadic "ninja do-gooder" in a largely city-bound world. (He also has an as-of-yet-unexplained Healing Factor.)
  • The Flash:
    • Superhero Bart Allen (Impulse/Kid Flash II) has naturally golden eyes; this, along with his wild auburn hair, serves as a character marker. He's a bit of a devil-may-care type (hence the codename), but his heart's undoubtedly in the right place.
    • Probably inherited from his evil ancestor, Professor Zoom, arch-nemesis of the Flash family. The critical difference in depiction is their personalities (physically, they have the exact same eyes, which is very unsettling, but that's it). Bart's joyful and friendly demeanour makes them bright like sunshine; Thawne is the exact opposite: his eyes burning like a raging wildfire — to the point where they sometimes turn reddish-orange. Bart's eyes can also turn into that fiery-orange color as well, but only under extreme rage or stress — it's a signifier that he isn't playing around anymore.
    • His Evil Twin, Inertia. Thad can pull off some stunning impressions of Bart's emotional body language (and that includes the famed Puppy-Dog Eyes as well) when the situation calls for it, but his eyes usually default to a sinister glow, as seen here.
  • The Incredible Hulk:
    • The Guilt Hulk, one of Bruce Banner's many alternate personalities, and a purely malevolent one at that.
    • The non-Banner Red Hulks as well, partly because it's part of their "demonic" look, and partly because of their association with fire.
  • Lucifer in Lucifer has golden eyes, maybe the most justified case conceivable, as he's about as human as every star in creation put together.
  • The manipulative and often malevolent personification of Desire from The Sandman (1989) is described as having "eyes tawny and sharp as yellow wine."
  • Spider-Man villainess Paper Doll, a Loony Fan of celebrity Bobby Carr, has yellow pupils that are probably there just to make her extra creepy. Her main super-powers are the ability to flatten out her body, blend into her surroundings, "compress" her foes by enveloping them with herself, and administering lethal paper-cuts strong enough to slice through Spidey's webbing.
  • In Violine, Francois has these to indicate his mind reading powers. Violine has violet ones in contrast.
  • Wonder Woman:
    • Cheetah is often drawn with gold eyes to reflect the deal that she made for her power.
    • Wonder Woman (Rebirth): Circe has started opting for eerie bright yellow eyes as a subtle indicator of her immense power.
  • Shapeshifter Mystique of the X-Men series is often shown with yellow eyes. So is her son Nightcrawler. Sabretooth is sometimes drawn with them as well.

    Fan Works 
  • Abraxas (Hrodvitnon): The newborn Manda has amber-gold eyes. The "supernatural" part becomes more relevant due to the hints that he might be Dr. Serizawa reincarnated.
  • In The Butcher Bird, Captain Grigori Vinci acquires these after implanting himself with the King's Heart, a biological augmentation he designed, and which he needed to recover from an Eye Scream delivered by Eustass Kid.
  • Kurosaki Karin gets these in the Bleach fanfic Chasing The Moon whenever she uses her bankai's ultimate technique. The same thing happens with her sister, Kurosaki Yuzu, except with her, it's an example of Red Eyes, Take Warning.
  • In Child of the Storm, Harry's eyes start flashing gold when he gets angry and do so with increasing frequency as the story goes on. At first, it appears to be either his Asgardian powers kicking or the Phoenix Force, but eventually resolves into being a sign that he's using his Psychic Powers. Either way, you want to step lightly around him when he does it. Especially as it's occasionally accompanied by 'a dangerous double harmonic' even Harry himself finds rather unnerving, indicating that he doesn't have any conscious control over it (until the sequel, when he learns to use it at will as an intimidation tool).
    • Once he fully embraces his powers in Chapter 60, they glow gold whenever he's about to do something big with his psychic abilities, though it's indicated that they don't necessarily have to and works as a sort of excess energy. Then, as he gets increasingly powerful in the sequel, they start burning golden-white, which generally means that he's about to try very hard to kill you.
  • Harry inherited those in Dark Dynasty, as his father is the Dark One. They slightly glow when he uses magic, too.
  • Creepy Child Aura from Daughter of the Sun (ShoutFinder), who possesses a lot of knowledge and has the ability to see the future, is described as having pale gold eyes.
  • In The Dragon That Will Pierce the Heavens, a One Piece and Fairy Tail crossover, protagonist Hikari's eyes turn gold with reptilian slit pupils whenever she's upset or tapping into her Dragon Slayer abilities. This is normally a sign for her crew to either calm her down or get out of the way.
  • In The Fable of Joyful Wing, the wolf king and queen both have golden eyes no matter what form they're taking, marking them as spirits instead of ordinary animals or humans.
  • Fate of the Clans:
    • The Servants Tamamo and Okada have amber eyes. Tamamo was also formerly the goddess Amaterasu. Having all nine tails would classify her as a Beast. The Servant Kiyohime's eyes are yellow.
    • Mikoto is the only King with amber eyes.
    • When Cú Chulainn goes off the deep end, the Servant's red irises have turned to a dull and lifeless yellow. This makes him look dead.
  • Kainatrol from Futari Wa Pretty Cure Blue Moon. She's got the animalistic connection (her Mind Control powers are based upon the concept of an animal tamer), she likes to be on top of things, and, sympathetic backstory or not, she's the most evil of the Quirky Miniboss Squad. Since everyone on Earth (known as the Land of Legends) has their Curtains Match the Window, naturally, Seira has yellow eyes, too, as does Kore by virtue of being Kainatrol's identical twin; neither is evil or even devious, however.
  • The Faux Affably Evil serpent Damballa in the Horseshoes and Hand Grenades sidestory Month of Sundays sports this in his human form. Damballa also shows hints of him being a Reality Warper due to him transforming the Narumi Detective Agency into a large circus tent, transforms three Kamen Riders into evil dolls and summons a "never-ending box of popcorn" to watch the festivities.
  • In In the Cards, one of the numerous fan retellings of the story of Baldur's Gate in written form, both the protagonist Zaerini and the antagonist Sarevok have golden eyes. This hints at their being siblings and mortal children of the god Bhaal and appears to be based on Sarevok's glowing yellow/gold eyes in the game (which both characters get here as Glowing Eyes of Doom).
  • In The Keys Stand Alone: The Soft World, Paul develops these after being struck by several bolts of lightning. They signify that he can now see magic and power sources. Eventually he learns to turn them on and off at will, which is fine with him because having “power sight” on all the time is incredibly distracting, and fine with the others because they make him look creepy.
  • In A Knight's Tale as Inquisitor, it is known that Flemeth and her daughters sport burning, golden-eyes with a dragon's pupil.
    • After surviving the Mind Rape Nightmare Sequence inflicted on her by the Envy Demon to steal her body, Arturia begins sporting burning, glowing golden eyes with a dragon's pupil in the center. This leads to the Inquisition coming to the conclusion that she's one of Flemeth's daughters.
  • Minato Arisato in A Necromancer's Wild Card has these instead of his regular gray eyes after he's resurrected by Eucliwood Hellscythe. He isn't sure why his eye color changed, though.
  • Ashley McFly of Pretty Cure Perfume Preppy has slightly grayish-yellow eyes, which turn bright yellow with slitted cat-ish pupils when she becomes Leather Ashes.
  • In Rising of the Sleeping Soldier, the fact that Alucard's eyes are as blonde as his hair is cited as being unusual once Motoyasu notices them. Alucard immediately starts to worry that this would give away his Dhampyr nature, unsure how Melromarc would react to a vampire in their midst or if they even have them. he quickly covers it up by pointing out that unusual eye-color could be expected due genetics in alternate worlds, citing the King's purple eyes as an example.
  • Seventh Endmost Vision: while eyes are a general motif of the series, only one character has gold in their eyes- the Big Bad. Lucrecia has a bizarre, Duality Motif version of this; the eye she stole from Ifalna has white clamping down on the naturally green pupil and the sclera turning gold, while her natural eye has the pupil turning gold while the sclera turns a hard, marble white. She only unveils it when she's ready to fight Barret. Interestingly, because the character has The Big Bad Wolf Animal Motif, the gold also harkens to the lupine descriptions above.
  • Subverted in A Soul's Songbook: Out of Print, a fanfic of Soul Eater. As mentioned above, the shinigami of Soul Eater have Eyes of Gold, and, well, if you are a naturally amber-eyed human with dark hair, there are Unfortunate Implications involved in that. One of New London's gangsters (who also falls into a completely different spelling of such) is a former sex slave of such coloring, but is completely human.
  • Throw Away Your Mask: Akechi is immediately suspicious of Tsuyoshi because of his gold eyes that resemble those of shadows or the Velvet attendants, and he takes it as a clue that Tsuyoshi shouldn't be trusted.
  • In Ultimate Re-Imaginings, Joey's eyes turn amber because of his pyro kinesis activating. Or at least that's what he thought. As it is later revealed, he was really born with them and the brown eye color was fake.
  • People with golden eyes are extremely rare in Midgard in Warriors of the World and are highly skilled and talented in anything they choose to do. When activated by the person being in utmost danger, they give the person superhuman reflexes and a Healing Factor at the cost of heavy strain on the human body, which may lead to death by overexertion.

    Film — Animated 
  • The Punch Monkeys in The Croods: A New Age flicker their eyes a supernatural gold before kidnapping Grug, Guy, And Phil.
  • Queen Tara, a Mother Nature-like figure who oversees the balance between growth and rot, from Epic (2013).
  • The Coachman from Pinocchio, who works to turn boys into donkeys, apparently has large, bulging yellow eyes. They're most noticeable during the scene in which he says "They'll never come back... as BOYS!"
  • Grings Kodai, the villain from Pokémon: Zoroark: Master of Illusions, has huge golden-yellow eyes, which serve to hint at his Psychic Powers which enable him to see into the future.
  • The evil witch Madame Mim from The Sword in the Stone has yellow eyes and is the archrival of Merlin.

    Film — Live-Action 
  • As the various news groups gather for a melee in Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues, Mac Tannon shows up and turns into a "were-hyena". The first clue he's about to transform is the camera zooming in on his eyes as they turn mostly yellow.
  • Angel Heart: At the end when Cypher/Satan is telling the truth to Harry/Johnny, for a brief shot, his eyes change to yellow, at the point when he says that his soul belongs to him. A scene later, a baby is also seen with the same yellow eyes.
  • The Beaning: In this short film where the death of baseball player Ray Chapman is cast as a Human Sacrifice, the eyes of the catcher are shown as a demonic yellow as he waits for the fatal pitch.
  • The Dark Side of the Moon (1990): Whenever someone is possessed by the devil, their eyes are always glowing bright yellow.
  • In Daybreakers, gold eyes are one of symptoms of vampirism.
  • In the live-action Death Note Series, characters with Shinigami eyes have their eyes show up yellow when they use this power.
  • Dog Soldiers: In the initial stages of their transformation, humans turning into werewolves have bright yellow eyes.
  • In Evil Dead (2013), the Deadites cause their victim's eyes to turn yellow during possession.
  • When Regan is possessed by Pazuzu in The Exorcist, her eyes become yellow.
  • Godzilla, the massive, radioactive, mutant King of the Monsters, has orange-golden eyes in Godzilla (2014). It also provides some distinct Color Contrast against his charcoal grey hide.
  • Appears in the credits sequence of GoldenEye (but not the film itself; the title Kill Sat is so named because the plaque that turns it on has an amber-like stone).
  • Let Me In:
    • Abby has yellow eyes when she shows her creepy, true vampire face. Depending on the lighting conditions, her eyes can also look bluish-white. Her voice will then also sound much more demonic. This is how Owen realized that his girlfriend is a vampire.
    • In some scenes Owen looks through a telescope or peeplock, and the light that is reflected back on his eyes makes them look yellow, as yellow as Abby's vampire eyes. This is a possible Foreshadowing that Owen's future fate could be to be turned into a vampire by Abby.
  • The Hobbit: Smaug's eyes are changed from the book's Red Eyes, Take Warning to a fiery-looking gold color, reflecting his magical (and pyromaniacal) nature.
  • Howl (2015): The werewolves have these. In the infected Jenny, these seem to manifest around the same time that she loses her human identity and turns deadly feral.
  • Stinger and his daughter from Jupiter Ascending both have these, although they only appear gold for a moment when they do so. They appear to be from their partial bee DNA, apparently.
  • In The Last Witch Hunter, when witches perform magic, there's something like a second pupil opening in their normal one and it's gold rather than black.
  • Barbossa from Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl; his eyes look normal enough in the next two films, presumably since he's no longer under the curse.
  • In Priest (2011), the vampire bad-guy Black Hat sports a fetching pair of yellow-gold eyes.
  • In The Shadow Lamont's eyes are gold whenever he is in his "Shadow" persona, or using his psychic powers.
  • In Six Gun Savior, Zathera's zombies have glowing yellow eyes.
  • Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country features a golden-eyed alien that really is a shapeshifter.
  • Star Wars: Any character deeply immersed in the Dark Side of the Force gains "Sith eyes". The irises become yellow-gold lined with red, the whites bloodshot, and their pupils small and reptilian. Some examples:
    • Anakin Skywalker develops these in Episode III, coinciding with his descent into evil. He also briefly gained in Star Wars: The Clone Wars after getting corrupted into joining the Son in Mortis. In extended works it suggests that even as a cyborg his eyes are this way under his helmet.
    • Palpatine/Darth Sidious is always in control of his emotions, so they don't turn yellow unless he either wants them to or is about to kill you anyway. His eyes are also quite bright compared to his Dark Side-twisted face, so in Revenge of the Sith this has the very creepy effect of making his eyes look bizarrely wide.
    • Darth Maul was forged to be a weapon of hate and, as such, has sickly yellow eyes all the time.
    • Dooku/Darth Tyranus is supposed to be a gentlemanly figure, and tends to avoid fully immersing himself in the Dark Side. As such, he is never shown (in the movies) as having "Sith Eyes". In the TV series, however, there are a small handful of occasions where he taps very deeply into the Dark Side, yellow eyes and all.
  • Heimdall, the Asgardian sentry from the live-action Thor film. Justified, seeing as how he's a sufficiently advanced alien and a God.
  • Tintin in the Thunderbirds live-action film has these when she uses her psychic powers. Her evil uncle, who has the same powers, falls under Red Eyes, Take Warning.
  • In The Wolfman (2010), werewolves' eyes turn gold as part of their transformation.
  • In the film Wolf (Mike Nichols), yellow eyes are a sign that a character is turning into a werewolf.
  • Mystique and Toad from X-Men. Also, Nightcrawler from the sequel and Beast in the prequel when he uses a "cure" made out of Mystique's genes that gives him blue skin/fur and gold eyes. X-Men: Apocalypse has them in Jean Grey once she unleashes the Phoenix Force.

    Literature 
  • In the Allie Beckstrom book Magic to the Bone, Zayvion has brown eyes with flecks of gold — until he leaves the magic grid, whereupon they are brown. When he drives back, his eyes turn pure gold with only flecks of brown.
  • In the world of Black Jewels, the three long-lived races have gold eyes. Most often described are those of Daemon Sadi, who is described from the start as resembling felines'.
  • Abaddon of Black Legion has gold eyes. He claims that it's because he's been staring in the light of Astronomicon (supernatural navigation beacon) for too long.
  • In The Blue Sword and its prequels, the eyes of people with kelar turn gold when they get angry or use their magic (the two occasions are often related). Also, when they fall in love. And it's dangerous to look in their eyes when they're gold, unless you have the kelar yourself. Kinda awkward for lovers without it.
  • The Camp Half-Blood Series:
    • Percy Jackson and the Olympians:
      • Luke's irises turn gold after his body is possessed by Kronos.
      • Hyperion, Titan of Light and the East, also has golden eyes, but his burn bright "like miniature suns".
    • The Heroes of Olympus:
      • Hazel has gold eyes to reflect the fact she represents the "power of wealth and riches" side of her father Pluto's powers.
      • Jason's eyes temporarily turn gold when he almost dies from observing Hera's true form.
      • Percy's, Jason's, and Leo's eyes turn gold when being possessed by the eidolons.
  • In The Child Thief, staying on Avalon long enough to absorb the magic in the food etc. would cause one's eyes to turn golden.
  • In Coyote Blue, Coyote, Anubis, and their 'children' (Sam and Minty Fresh, respectively) all have golden eyes to denote their supernaturality.
  • Within The Destroyer, golden eyes are used almost universally to hint that someone is Korean (almost always narrated with a note that Koreans are the only Asian race with golden eyes), usually right before it's revealed they have some connection to the mystic art of Sinanju.
  • In the Detective Inspector Chen series:
    • Demonic vice cop Zhu Irzh has gold eyes.
    • Another character has yellow eyes when in natural lighting, but under fluorescent lights they turn gold. (And she wasn't wearing contacts.)
  • Ultimately subverted in Doctrine of Labyrinths. Felix starts the story as the only person he or anyone else knows with a yellow eye, and he's such a powerful wizard that most superstitious people are afraid of his eyes (the other being blue of either the creepy or occult variety). Turns out where his mother comes from, people just have yellow eyes.
  • Lizzy of Domina has these. In this book, it's not an impossible eye color, but it is noted as odd, and no one is quite sure if it comes from the toy maker. Although she does have supernatural powers (though it hasn't been revealed exactly what powers), she does subvert the "predatory" aspect.
  • All Undrae and other castrylls in The Dragon DelaSangre have emerald green eyes. It's the only physical trait the shapeshifters can’t conceal.
  • Raistlin Majere from the Dragonlance series has gold eyes with hourglass-shaped pupils. They're a curse applied to him by the Wizards' Conclave because they thought he lacked sympathy; they cause him to see the effects of time on everything and everyone.
  • In Draw One in the Dark, the yellow eyes show that the police officer is the same as the shape-shifting lions that aided their escape.
  • In the tie-in books to Forgotten Realms, Gromph Baenre, Archmage of the drow city Menzoberranzan, used to have gold eyes himself. It came to help when he identified his first daughter, who had the same eye color. And when I say "used to have," he had to replace them for a new pair.
  • Fox Demon Cultivation Manual: The Divine Emperor Yan Song has golden eyes, and so does his nephew Yan Bei.
  • A. J. Crowley from Good Omens has yellow eyes, which he usually hides behind sunglasses. Crowley's eyes are explicitly intended to be snakelike rather than feline or lupine. This is because Crowley was the snake in the Garden of Eden. Yes, that snake.
  • In the Hamish X trilogy, Hamish actually has said eyes because he is a cyborg.
  • The Hands of the Emperor: In a world with only natural eye-colors, one of the emperor of Astandalas' many titles is the Lion-Eyed for the golden eyes that run in the family due to their distant deific ancestry. True to form, the last emperor Artorin Damara has inherited the golden eyes and is both venerated as a physical god and also is an extremely powerful mage.
  • Subverted in The Haunting: the protagonist, suspected of being a wizard, has golden eyes, just like his magical uncle. It turns out to be the not golden eyed sister who has magic.
  • The villain in Dennis Wheatley's The Haunting of Toby Jugg is a satanist with yellow eyes.
  • Jirel of Joiry has yellow eyes, sometimes said to be "blazing".
  • Journey to Chaos: Kasile's golden eye color reflects her divine heritage.
  • Shapeshifters in the Kate Daniels universe have their eyes change from human to animal when they're upset or losing control. Kate often refers to Curran's eyes as molten gold or fiery yellow when he's angry.
  • Major characters in two of Caitlin R. Kiernan's novels have eyes of gold. Though to be perfectly accurate, they are both described as having yellow eyes and not gold.
    • Narcissa Snow in Low Red Moon, as well as the child she helped to birth (or is she?), Emmie Silvey.
    • Emmie appears in the related follow-up novel, Daughter of Hounds, which also describes the ghul as occasionally possessing this eye colour (which is not unreasonable, as they are fairly canine in appearance).
  • The Locked Tomb: Implied with Gideon, whose eyes "like gold coins" are repeatedly remarked on and who is inexplicably, unnaturally durable. As an infant, she was unaffected by a nerve gas attack that killed the other 200 people in the area, which was frightening and inexplicable even to the mages who learned of it.
    • It's revealed in later books that she has them because she's the daughter of the Emperor of the Nine Houses, whose original eye color was gold. Given that the Emperor is the most powerful necromancer in the Nine Houses and has a plethora of powers even beyond that, it's implied he may have passed some of his abilities down to Gideon.
  • In the Magic by the Numbers book Master of the Five Magics, the "sorcerer's eye" is a mysterious magical item in the form of a crystal sphere, in which a single closed eye is seen to float unsupported. When in use, the eye within the sphere opens, revealing its golden iris.
  • In the Malus Darkblade series, among the Dark Elves, gold or brass-coloured eyes are seen as a sign of Khaine's favour. Malus tells T'zarkan to give him a pair so he can enter Har Ganeth without arousing suspicion (since those considered to lack Khaine's favour in that city tend to end up as a sacrifice to him).
  • In Mercy Thompson, when a werewolf starts to change from human to wolf, the eyes are one of the first body parts to change. Watching their eyes is one way to tell who's in control in there. Since most wolves have yellow eyes, most of the werewolves' eyes will brighten to gold. One character has blue eyes in wolf form, and her eyes turn from brown to blue when her wolf starts to come out.
  • The alien children in The Midwich Cuckoos.
  • Earl Shackleford, the effective head of Monster Hunter International, normally has blue eyes, but the emergence of his werewolf form changes them to gold.
  • In Moonflowers, Ned Song is cursed into the form of a white wolf. Most humans mistake him for a wolfdog because the Hunter's curse is so powerful, and are constantly unnerved by his yellow eyes. The Lady of Scales, a Chinese spirit who helps Ned out later on, has a face veil that obscures everything but her red face-paint and her golden eyes.
  • Weaker vampires in Necroscope have yellow eyes. Of course, weak vampires are still a real danger to ordinary humans, too. However, this shows that these vampires are not very powerful compared to those who have red eyes.
  • Aidan in A Net of Dawn and Bones has amber eyes, described by Church as "scary, scary eyes", inherited from his Fallen Angel father Aariel. He originally had brown eyes until his Traumatic Superpower Awakening.
  • In The Neverending Story, the Childlike Empress has golden eyes and is called by the title Golden-Eyed Commander of Wishes.
  • Realm of the Elderlings: The Fool from The Tawny Man starts out as an albino, but gradually turns gold. Not just his eyes, his hair and skin as well.
  • Release That Witch: When Ashes awakened to her magical Super-Strength ability, she gained distinctive, glowing yellow eyes.
  • In the Saga of Recluce series of books, humans have many physical markers that hint at particular powers. Extremely powerful chaos mages (mostly fire-users) have gold eyes.
  • Scarlett Undercover: The Children of Iblis have gold rings around their irises, though it's ambiguous whether or not they're supernatural.
  • Naturally enough, possessed by Gold-Eye from Shade's Children. In his case, they only indicate his supernatural ability — precognitive power — rather than any sinister nature.
  • The Shadowhunter Chronicles:
    • Werewolves sometimes have blue eyes when they transform into their wolfish form. However, this is not always the case. Most werewolves in their transformed form have yellow, yellow-green, orange or gold eyes.
    • Magnus Bane, who is a warlock (they're always half demonic), has yellow-green eyes that look like the eyes of cats.
    • James Herondale is a shadowhunter who is a quarter demonic. For this reason, he also has special, demonic powers that other shadowhunters do not have. And he has golden eyes.
  • In The Sharing Knife, the Lakewalkers have metallic eye colors running the gamut between silver and gold. This is a marker of their magical heritage, their descent from the sorcerer-kings who first loosed malices on the world.
  • The Silerian Trilogy: People who have gold eyes (and often, though not always, red hair) are gifted by the goddess Dar, gaining fire magic as Guardians. Mirabar is a main character with them who's also a redhead. We later meet Cheylan, a gold-eyed man too. The waterlords though have been hunting down and murdering them for years to prevent powerful enemies with opposing magic, so few are left. Both Mirabar and Cheylan end up having children who will rule a free Sileria in the future.
  • The Children of the Forest in A Song of Ice and Fire are described having large, golden cat-eyes. Subverted in that this is the most common color; the especially special Children are born with red or green eyes, and possess the greensight.
  • The all-powerful Tyke-Bomb in Sourcery has gold eyes. They even start turning brown when he begins a Heel–Face Turn.
  • In the Space Wolf novel Wolf's Honour, having your eyes turn golden is the first physical sign that you are turning into a wolf-like creature, the wulfen.
  • Star Wars Legends: As with the movies, it's common with Sith characters. Jacen Solo is a notable example, after he became Darth Caedus.
  • The Swampling King: The magical Windwalkers who created the Peaks have gold eyes, like an eagle, which are impossible to mistake for anything else. The fact that a swampling has Windwalker eyes is a huge deal that overturns centuries of religious dogma... which is why the church works to cover it up.
  • The Sword of Truth novels featured a creature called a screeling; hideously efficient killing machines, they were all but invincible unless you happened to have very dangerous magic on hand. They had golden eyes, so prominent that there was, in fact, a poem about them.
  • In Tea with the Black Dragon, Mayland Long is a dragon in human form. His eyes appear some shade of brown most of the time, with golden highlights or occasionally shining completely golden at key moments.
  • Titania in Terra Mirum Chronicles, fitting a queen of the Fae.
  • In "The Terrible Old Man", the titular character is seen to have yellow eyes by a man who makes the fatal mistake of trying to rob him. His exact abilities are left unseen, but he's capable of doing something to three assailants that leaves their corpses looking like they were brutalized by an entire pirate crew, and might have the spirits of such a crew in glass jars on his desk...
  • The Twilight Saga:
    • The Cullens and all vegetarian vampires in the series have gold-colored eyes when they've recently eaten and black when they are hungry. Less finicky vampires don't.
    • In Breaking Dawn, it is said that 'true' werewolves (called Children of the Moon) are distinguishable from the shape-shifters by having "yellow" eyes.
  • Under the Pendulum Sun: The Fae Queen Mab has distinctive golden eyes that the narration frequently compares to an Ominous Owl's.
  • In Warm Bodies, Julie's eyes turn from blue to gold after she and R cure his zombieism though The Power of Love.
  • Wayward Children: The Master, Vampire Monarch of the Moors, has unique Jack-o'-lantern orange eyes. They and his blood-red lips are the only bits of colour on his body, and the first things Jack and Jill notice on seeing him.
  • Whateley Universe: Cat Fight: Saber, a were-sabertooth-cat mutant had her pupils change from blue to a "golden yellow":
    A color Megan had seen before, in wolves, dogs, domestic cats, and certain large predatory cats.
  • Perrin in The Wheel of Time series gets yellow eyes after awakening his Wolfbrother powers. He comes to be known as Goldeneyes in honor of this trait, and it's taken as a good luck sign by his followers, and as a mark of evil by his enemies.
  • Sam in the Wolves of Mercy Falls Series has golden eyes in both human and wolf form. They have absolutely nothing to do with him being a werewolf; he was born a normal boy with golden eyes but was targeted by werewolves because of them.

    Live-Action TV 
  • In the Hallmark miniseries The 10th Kingdom, Wolf's eyes change to a feral yellowish-gold when his animalistic side comes out.
  • In Season 2 of American Gods, Bast, the Egyptian goddess of cats and protection, has golden eyes both in cat and human form, although her role is so small and her appearance so short that her eye color is essentially a Freeze-Frame Bonus.
  • All vampires in Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel have gold eyes when in Game Face.
    • Buffy herself has (quite different) gold eyes when the gang use an enjoining spell to infuse her with all their combined abilities.
  • The angel in Constantine (2014) has strikingly golden eyes.
  • In the Death Note drama, the Shinigami eyes are portrayed as gold. In the anime, they were red.
  • Doctor Who:
    • "Survival": People under the malign influence of the Cheetah Planet acquired golden, cat-like eyes. This included the Master and Ace. The Master's subsequent incarnation (in the TV Movie) had golden Glowing Eyes of Doom, which may have been related to this, or his being a CGI snake for a while, or something else.
    • "The Battle of Ranskoor Av Kolos": The Ux, a pair of powerful Reality Warpers, have their eyes glow golden when they use their powers.
  • The Fades has the Fade Polus and his followers. This signifies both that they have powers beyond those of normal Fades and that the characters have pronounced animalistic sides, as the source of these powers is eating human flesh.
  • Forever Knight: The vampires have shining gold eyes in vamp-face.
  • In Kamen Rider Den-O, every time Ryotaro is possessed by Kintaros, his eyes become yellow.
  • The titular character of Merlin (2008) has blue eyes, but they glow gold when he does magic, as do those of anyone who uses magic, including Morgana, Morgause, Gaius, Alice and creatures such as the Manticore and the Dragon.
  • When Yuki gives a Revealing Hug to Alex on MythQuest, she reveals her identity as the Japanese snow demon Yuki-Onna by showing these.
  • Once Upon a Time: Red Riding Hood gains gold eyes when in or transforming into wolf form.
  • In Penny Dreadful, Frankenstein's Monster, aka "Caliban" or "John Clare", has golden irises. This is probably an allusion to the original novel's reference to the Creature having yellow eyes, although that was probably implying jaundiced whites instead.
  • In Sanctuary, Henry's eyes turning yellow is one of the first indications that his transformation into a werewolf has been triggered and are usually the very last to disappear when he changes back. On one occasion, he manages to tap into his werewolf side and use its strength to escape a holding cell. He remains completely human throughout this, except for a glowing pair of these.
  • In Smallville, the super strong and highly bloodthirsty Phantom Zone escapee Aldar has gold eyes.
  • In Stargate SG-1 and sequels, gold eyes are a sign of the Goa'uld.
  • Supernatural:
    • The appropriately named Big Bad "Yellow Eyes", otherwise known as Azazel or the Demon. Also notably, in that he is (for a long time) the only demon known to have yellow eyes.
      • In Season 12, it's revealed that yellow eyes are the mark of a Prince of Hell. The first demons to be created after Lilith, made to act as generals of Hell's armies. Azazel was just one of four, and the others are fully alive, if retired.
    • In certain light, Gabriel's eyes are a light golden/amber color as well. Being that he's an all-powerful Archangel and spent time as the trickster god Loki, Richard Speight Jr..'s natural eye color worked wonderfully.
    • One of Azazel's "Special Children" Jake's eyes briefly flash yellow when he comes into his power. Given that Azazel fed the children his blood when they were infants, this makes perfect sense.
    • Kevin Tran, the prophet introduced in Season 7, also has eyes that glow yellow when his prophet abilities kick in.
  • Teen Wolf:
    • The default eye color werewolves have when they change is gold. Eyes that glow blue are a sign that the werewolf possessing them has killed an innocent, except for Alphas, whose eyes are always red whether they have killed or not.
    • Shapeshifters, such as kitsune, tend to have fiery, red-golden eyes when using their powers.
  • The Wheel of Time (2021): Perrin's eyes turn gold when his beastial power wells up.
  • The Witcher (2019): Geralt and some of the other witchers have golden eyes because he they are mutants. Geralt's are the most prominent because he was mutated the most.
  • Wolfblood: When any Wolfblood gets close to transforming into a wolf their eyes turn yellow and their veins turn black.
  • The X-Files: In "Squeeze" and "Tooms", the liver-eating mutant Eugene Victor Tooms' eyes sometimes turn a bright yellow-green (the color of bile, appropriately).

    Myth and Legend 
  • Shape-shifters in legend, especially Genies, witches, and the like, are frequently tipped off by golden (or two-tone) eyes, which they cannot hide even in animal form. Mythical creatures with Deadly Gaze may have golden eyes as well. Shapeshifter Mystique from X-Men probably got her golden eyes from this variant of the tradition, making this Trope possibly Older Than Print.
  • The Celtic Púca/Pooka stands out as a notable example. A shapeshifting hobgoblin, one of The Fair Folk, Pookas can take on any number of animal forms, but their eyes are always a telltale colour, typically goat-yellow. Far less commonly, they are said to have otherworldly red, green, or blue eyes instead of yellow.
  • In Classical Mythology, Circe and her niece Medea had Golden Eyes. They were the daughter and granddaughter, respectively, of the Greek god of the Sun, Helios. His children were often associated with sorcery, and apparently they all inherited his flashing eyes.If this indeed was an inheritable trait, then one could speculate that Aeetes (Helios' son and Medea's father, of Golden Fleece fame), Pasiphae (Helios' daughter and Medea's aunt, Minotaur's mother) and Ariadne (Pasiphae's daughter) had Golden Eyes as well.

    Tabletop Games 

  • Castle Falkenstein: Dragons in game are shapeshifters and can take on human form, but when they do, they will still have golden, slit-pupiled eyes.
  • Dungeons & Dragons:
    • 3.5 edition, or at least the Forgotten Realms campaign setting, mentions yellow eyes as a sign of celestial (angelic) descent, which usually corresponds to good alignments.
    • 4E extends gold eyes (along with red ones) to the Dragonborn and Tiefling player races, with no indication of their Character Alignment (although Tieflings are generally considered a "dark" race)
  • Exalted:
    • Harmonious Jade picked up a set after taking the Second Breath as a Solar. (Before then, she had some absolutely gorgeous shining blue eyes.)
    • Also, all Sidereal Exalted Chosen of Journeys get yellow eyes as a sign of their station. With starry sky inside the iris, stars themselves tinted yellow as well.
  • Magic: The Gathering: Vampires of Innistrad's Markov line have, in a variation, golden sclera and black everything else.
  • Warhammer 40,000:
    • As a Space Wolf inches closer to being overtaken by the Curse of the Wulfen and degenerating into a feral monster, his eyes turn a shade of gold.
    • Abaddon the Despoiler, Warmaster of Chaos, has golden eyes from staring into the Astronomican for too long.

    Video Games 
  • In Agarest Senki, Lavinia of the third generation party members sports these, along with being a dark-skinned redHead, to showcase the fact that she's a Non-Human Humanoid Hybrid who takes after her dark elf parent. If the protagonist, Thoma, chooses her to be his wife, then Duran, the protagonist of the fourth generation, inherits them from her.
  • ANNO: Mutationem: Amok, a supernatural being of mass destruction that's from Another Dimension possesses golden glowing eyes. Ann also gets these whenever she activates her Super Mode.
  • The Little Sisters in the BioShock games have these as a side effect of the ADAM slug in their bodies. Their eyes return to normal when it's removed.
  • Borderlands: Lilith has golden irises which glow when she triggers her Siren powers. It's not clear if the golden eyes are precisely due to being a Siren, though, as Maya, Commandant Steele, and Angel all have blue eyes.
  • Diablo III:
    • The Demon Hunter sports a glowing pair of these when she has a hood on, signifiying someone who has stared into the soul of a demon without going mad.
    • The mortal Tyrael sports a pair of these, signifying his former angelic status.
    • Leah also sports a very creepy pair of these after her body is taken over by Diablo as the Prime Evil.
  • In contrast to most other demons in the Disgaea series, Fenrich the werewolf has gold eyes.
  • Divinity: Original Sin II: Malady, a unique elf-demon hybrid who acts as an Aloof Ally to the player characters, has gold eyes and powers unlike any other character in the game.
  • In the original Doom games, whenever you pick up an invulnerability sphere or use the god mode cheat, the Marine's eyes turn solid gold.
  • Both Morrigan and her mother, "The Witch of the Wilds", Flemeth have gold eyes in Dragon Age: Origins. Morrigan being a powerful mage like her mother and Flemeth heavily implied to not even be human. They also both happen to be shapeshifters with Flemeth able to take the form of a high dragon. Flemeth's other known daughter has the same eyes. Dragon Age: Inquisition introduces another group of people with gold eyes. Abelas and his followers are ancient elves who guard a temple venerating Mythal, the elven goddess of love, motherhood, and justice. They all have the exact same eye color as Flemeth and her daughters. Given later revelations about Flemeth, it appears that gold eyes indicate a person with a direct connection to Mythal.
  • Elden Ring: Golden eyes are a sign that one possesses 'grace', a sort of ambiguous divine patronage and guidance under the Golden Order. It's pretty common, given the Golden Order previously dominated the whole continent — it's hard to tell without ripping the textures from the game, but many basic enemies and bosses have at least a sliver of gold in their eyes. The Tarnished are notable in that their grace was revoked long ago, so their eyes are no longer golden (although you can still make them such in the character creator). For some reason, even avowed heretics such as Rykard and the Godskin Cultists still have gold eyes.
  • The Elder Scrolls
  • EXTRAPOWER: Attack of Darkforce: Kurogane gains these if she accepts Mayard's offer to save her life in exchange for swearing herself to him. With his power now her own, her brown eyes turn golden when she unleashes transcendental attacks.
  • Fate Series:
    • Fate/stay night:
      • In the "Heaven's Feel" route of the game, when Saber is possessed by Sakura, she gains these as part of her Superpowered Evil Side.
      • In the Fate/Zero novels, she gains similar golden eyes after her extreme despair and duress defeating Berserker/Lancelot and being meters away from her goal (seen in the last image here). It is implied to be a result of her dragon side flaring up due to stress.
    • Caster, Tamamo-no-Mae from Fate/EXTRA, Fate/Grand Order and Fate/Extella series has her trademark golden eyes. This is because she is a Kitsune, precisely the one from the famous legend of the Nine-Tailed Fox from Japanese Mythology. She is also revealed to be divine incarnation and the aspect of the Sun Goddess, Amaterasu, herself, which made her eyes even more of symbolic representation of what she is.
  • Fear & Hunger: Termina: O'saa, a Yellow Mage with advanced knowledge of magic and who is in service to the malevolent New God Nas'hrah, has distinct golden eyes.
  • Final Fantasy:
    • Ultimecia in Final Fantasy VIII has gold eyes in addition to her various Power Tattoos and other physical signs of being a Sorceress. Edea, who inherits Ultimecia's powers and is possessed by her, also has gold eyes while in possession of her Sorceress Powers. Does not happen to Rinoa when controlled by Adel or Ultimecia, however.
    • Chaos in Dirge of Cerberus has yellow/gold eyes. It noticeably picks out the demon from Vincent, and tells the player that a major level up in power terms just happened.
    • Adelle from Final Fantasy Tactics A2 has yellow/golden eyes, and she was part of "The Gifted, a group of people with extraordinary powers such as living for a long time. It is unknown if her yellow eyes have to do with the Gifted or not.
    • Final Fantasy XIII-2: Combines this with Prophet Eyes; whenever Yeul and/or Serah have a vision, their eyes glow gold with the symbol of Etro over the pupil for the duration.
  • Fire Emblem:
    • Micaiah from Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn has gold eyes. She is known for her ability to predict future events, and later turns out to be descended from the Heron Tribe and the true Apostle of the Begnion Empire. And the avatar of a goddess of chaos.
    • In Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade, every morph Nergal creates has gold eyes, along with other common unusual — for the series — traits like jet-black hair, which hints at their inhuman nature.
      Leila: His eyes glow golden... You can't miss them. They seem... inhuman.
  • Vampires in Gaia Online have yellow eyes when they're about to do something badass; otherwise, they're pale gray with Hellish Pupils. Psycho for Hire Zhivago apparently has this effect going constantly.
  • Everything from Gears of War when infected by Imulsion. When something is completely black, has golden eyes and explodes after death, you know that something is wrong...
  • In Genshin Impact, the Geo Archon Rex Lapis who rules over Liyue is rumored to shapeshift into several forms — a young boy, a woman or a huge dragon, but he always has distinctive amber eyes. Said amber eyes are one of the hints pointing at Zhongli being Rex Lapis assuming a human identity.
  • In a cross of this and Electronic Eyes, the title character of GoldenEye: Rogue Agent has a cybernetic yellow eye.
  • Golden Sun:
    • In Golden Sun: The Lost Age, yellow eyes are apparently normal in Lemuria, a city-state of Adepts with extraordinary longevity. One of the NPCs in Madra talks about Piers's eyes during his imprisonment there.
    • This trope is far more pronounced at the very end of Golden Sun: Dark Dawn. Matthew's eyes glow golden while he and Sveta are Sharing a Body, and after the Apollo Lens goes off all of the beastmen in the blast zone have Supernatural Gold Everything.
  • The character Slayer from Guilty Gear XX has golden eyes. This makes sense, since he is a vampire.
  • Brandon Heat of Gungrave, while, during his mortal life, he had light brown eyes and black hair, after being murdered and later resurrected as the necrolizer called Grave, he has yellow eyes and silver hair.
  • Nageki from Hatoful Boyfriend has bright yellow eyes in his human portrait, unlike his actual form as a dark-eyed mourning dove. He turns out to be a ghost.
  • Mackenzie Hunt in Havenfall Is for Lovers has green eyes which turn bright gold when her true nature as a werewolf is showing.
  • Yuuichi Komura from Hiiro no Kakera has them. Not surprising considering he is descended from a Kitsune.
  • Honkai Impact 3rd: Sirin, Honkai cataclysm incarnate, has gold-orange eyes with Exotic Eye Designs. After the events of Chapter 11-EX, Kiana herself gains a right gold-orange eye as a symbol of her Herrscher power, minus Sirin's pupils.
  • Graves from Hustle Cat has heterochromia, with his left eye being gold. He wasn't born with it; his eye changed colour from blue to gold when he first transformed into a facsimile of his cat, who had heterochromia.
  • Juniper's Knot: The girl has golden eyes and green hair to signify her nature as a powerful demon, in contrast to the human boy who is rather plain and has hair and eyes found in ordinary humans.
  • Kingdom Hearts:
    • Golden eyes are associated with The Heartless and, by extension, the power of darkness — the only Heartless not to have yellow eyes are the small number that don't have visible faces.
    • Due to his extensive delving into the darkness, every incarnation of Xehanort has them, as do his Co-Dragons Saïx and Xigbar. In their case, the eyes are a sign that they've been infected with Xehanort's darkness, turning them into yet more hosts. This happens to several others in Kingdom Hearts III.
    • Vanitas has these under his mask due to being Made of Evil, and so does Ventus when Vanitas possesses him.
  • Shamir Shamazzle in King's Quest VI: Heir Today, Gone Tomorrow has golden eyes, in all of his many forms. This helps the player identify him... just in case the various strangers encouraging the protagonist to do strange/dangerous/crazy things weren't obvious enough.
  • Dark Jedi in the Knights of the Old Republic series, especially Darth Revan, have yellow eyes (see the Star Wars example under Film, above). The player character can have them as well, if she/he goes over to the Dark Side. There's an awesome, but understated, moment where you get a close-up of them while you and Bastilla are tricking the Republic. This was influenced by Emperor Palpatine, who also gained them when his face became corrupted by the Dark Side (in some continuities).
  • Lands of Lore has a scene where the shapeshifting main villain masquerades as one of the player's allies. The only way to detect her (except trial and error) is by her eyes, which stay yellow regardless of form.
  • Ahri the Nine-Tailed Fox from League of Legends has golden eyes and is a Korean-styled gumiho to be precise.
  • The Legend of Heroes - Trails:
    • Trails in the Sky: Joshua's eyes are gold, and his combat prowess was in part due to Weissman using him as a guinea pig in his research into Stigmas.
    • Trails from Zero: Tio's eyes weren't gold at birth but turned that way after being experimented on by the D∴G Cult.
    • Trails of Cold Steel: In the final battle of Cold Steel III, Rean has these eyes instead of his normal red in his Super Mode. It's a sign that he's completely lost control of his powers.
  • Avalon, the Big Bad of Legaia II: Duel Saga, has these. Originally known as simply "Gold Eyes" in his first appearance, you later learn that he is a Star Shaper, a being who can manipulate the Source Forge, the beacon of creation. He is also a Mystic, and wields the Origin Igohl, the Supreme Origin said to be of (nearly) infinite power.
  • Antasma has these in Mario & Luigi: Dream Team, as do many of the ghosts in Luigi's Mansion. Of course, neither are the kind of character whose eyes need to be used as a way to tell that they're evil, the rest of their appearance makes it blatantly obvious regardless.
  • In the Mass Effect games, one can identify Harbinger, the first, biggest, and most powerful Reaper by the fact that his "eyes" are gold instead of red. In addition, the Collectors he controls erupt with glowing golden eyes, along with taking on a skin texture resembling golden magma, when he possesses them.
  • Several monsters in Miitopia briefly display gold eyes when using their magical attacks. Some examples include the MP-draining ability or the Dark Lord's face-stealing attack.
  • Pokémon:
  • In Promise of Wizard, Snow and White's golden eyes indicate the great amount of power the twins have as the oldest wizards in the entire game, literally thousands of years old.
  • In Quest for Glory IV, all vampires have pupil-less golden eyes.
  • In the Resident Evil franchise, every seemingly human entity with gold/yellow eyes is revealed to be a high-level mutant that can take on a human disguise.
  • Shin Megami Tensei has a few examples:
    • In Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne, the Demi-Fiend's eyes change from grayish to gold when he's given demonic powers, and they begin to glow (and his body darken) when he unleashes powerful physical attacks (most likely, this would happen with spells as well, but they all use the same generic casting animation, so...). His eyes get bumped up a rank to red if the player makes it all the way through the Labyrinth of Amala and has the Old Man in the Wheelchair unlock the full extent of his demonic power at the cost of his human soul.
    • Nanashi gets these in the Massacre ending of Shin Megami Tensei IV: Apocalypse. They're the same color as YHVH's faces, signifying that he's replaced him as Creator God.
    • In Shin Megami Tensei V, when the protagonist fuses with Aogami to become a Nahobino, his eyes turn gold to match Aogami's.
    • In Digital Devil Saga, the main playable characters get the glowing version these when in Berserk state aka when they lose control of their Atma demons. However, in the Junkyard golden or at least yellow eyes are fairly common due to all the residents having Technicolor Eyes.
    • Persona:
      • Velvet Room assistants Elizabeth, Theodore, Margaret, Justine, and Caroline are Ambiguously Human siblings of enigmatic origin who all have golden eyes and immense supernatural power.
      • In Persona 2, Big Bad Nyarlathotep tends to go for gold eyes and a slit pupils when he's in human form. The Shadow Selves avert this by having Red Eyes, Take Warning.
      • In Persona 3, secondary antagonist Takaya Sakaki is a fairly powerful Persona user who's the only human character to have gold eyes.
      • In Persona 4 all Shadow Selves have gold eyes in their human form, as do humans possessed by their Shadows. Additionally, all of the main character's Personas have gold eyes, assuming they're visible.
      • Persona 5: The main characters temporarily get golden eyes when they awaken their Personas. This comes in addition to the Shadow Selves and Personas who play this trope exactly as they did in the previous entry. The sequel, Persona 5 Strikers, is the same.
  • Poet from pop'n music has bright yellow eyes (golden orange in her alternate colors). This is rather unusual, as her, ah, supernatural origin would be pretty obvious without it.
  • All the full blooded elves in Sable's Grimoire have golden eyes, with a variety of eye colours being one of the differences between them and the half-elves that appear.
  • The Sims:
    • In The Sims 2, werewolves have yellow eyes; interestingly, so do plant-sims.
    • In The Sims 3, werewolves have golden eyes.
  • In the Soul Series, Zasalamel's left eye is golden, and this never changes through any of his reincarnations, including his skeletal One-Winged Angel form Abyss. This is because his gold eye contains his soul.
  • Okabe's gold eyes in Steins;Gate seem to have something to do with his "Reading Steiner," the unique ability to retain his original memories when the past gets rewritten. All other strange events in the show are science-based, but this one thing is left unexplained and is apparently magical.
  • It's never directly commented on, but Alvin and Jude are the only two characters in Tales of Xillia with gold eyes. This makes it an inversion of the trope, as both Jude and Alvin are of Elympion descent.
  • The vampire Arcueid in Tsukihime has red eyes, but she's more of a ditzy good girl than anything else. When they turn gold, however, it's time to run. When her irises turn gold and the scleras of her eyes turn red, you're already dead. If her eyes returns to being red, but her hair grows out and her attitude becomes cold and haughty, that's a very bad news: her Superpowered Evil Side, Archetype Earth, has taken over, and she possesses the same power Arcueid had before she started losing her strength.
  • Dlanor A. Knox from Umineko: When They Cry has these. She's the High Inquisitor of the Eiserne Jungfrau, the 7th District Repentance Agency of the Great Court of Heaven, whose job it is to hunt down "heretics". She uses two swords, the Red Key and the Blue Key, which allows her to use Red and Blue truths.
  • In the case of the Action Girl, Mandana, from Unavowed, they serve as the most immediately obvious sign that she a Half-Human Hybrid, with her father being a Genie, sorry, Jinn.
  • Warcraft:
    • The universe features the night elves who normally have completely silver eyes (entirely silver, as they have no visible pupils). Those who had golden eyes were considered to be destined for great things, the most notable being Illidan Stormrage and Queen Azshara. Ironically enough, both of them ended up as villains.
    • Nonetheless, in World of Warcraft, it's divided along gender lines: male Night Elves have golden eyes, female Night Elves have silver eyes, and that's that. The encyclopedia on the website mentions that, in truth, supernatural gold eyes are merely a sign of druidic potential, and as the druids only recently opened their ranks to women, they are more common in males...which really makes no sense when you think about it.
    • And then there's druids. Malfurion Stormrage, the twin brother of Illidan, was born with silver eyes, but while practicing druidism over many centuries, his eyes turned gold, as seen here.
    • And despite their potential for it, neither Azshara nor Illidan became druids. Illidan started on that path, but his own impatience and disdain for it (druids at the time were not greatly appreciated in Night Elf society) caused Cenarius to deem him unworthy of personal tutelage. Being ordered to learn from Malfurion, who was also still an apprentice at the time, was the last straw for Illidan.
    • Paladins were depicted having gold glowing eyes in Warcraft II, but this visual motif didn't stick around in the series aside from particular moments of individual ones having the power of The Light in them...which is to say, when they're particularly powerful.
  • Sho Minamimoto from The World Ends with You, fitting the bill of the trope as a delightfully power-hungry sociopath who shapeshifts into a lion.
  • In Xenogears, Artificial Human Emeralda Kasim has green hair and gold eyes.
  • Gulcasa and Emilia in Yggdra Union and its spinoffs have golden and bright yellow eyes respectively. They're the descendants of a demon god.

    Webcomics 
  • Black Mage of 8-Bit Theater, like Richard, is a psychotic wizard. His eyes are the only part of his face not obscured by his hat, which is a very good thing.
  • In The Adventures of Dr. McNinja, Sparklelord the anthropomorphic magic unicorn has featureless golden eyes, with no irises or pupils. The first time he's shown in this form, they're more "yellow Glowing Eyes", later more like "orbs of gold". When he appears as a regular unicorn in a dream, perhaps his original form before he was "corrupted", he has more normal eyes. In his form as a motorcycle, the headlights get treated rather like glowing gold eyes, too.
  • Vector of Castoff has glowing yellow eyes that inexplicably terrify anyone who looks into them. No one knows what he is, but his appearance and powers indicate he is an Anthropomorphic Personification of fear.
  • The four main characters' of Cry 'Havoc' eyes change to golden when they transform into werewolves. Their eyes also fluctuate between their natural color and yellow when in human form and stressed or excited.
  • Din of Galebound has green eyes, mostly, but his pupils are ringed with gold—a sign of his Magician heritage. When angered (or, occasionally, at will), his eyes will glow gold.
  • In Inverloch, Lei'ella, Kayn'dar, and other "Severed" elves have white hair and golden eyes. This is an inversion: instead of being powerful or tricksters, Severed elves are mortal and can't use magic, essentially being Brought Down to Normal.
  • Richard from Looking for Group has yellow/gold eyes and is probably one of the most powerful, destructive, and evil warlocks/beings/forces in the comic's entire world and/or universe. He's also insane. And undead. And hundreds of years old.
  • Lovely Lovecraft: Noyes has golden eyes, an unusual trait hinting at his true identity as the Outer God Nyarlathotep.
  • Miho and later Yuki is shown to have them in MegaTokyo, so supernatural that they can even occasionally override the fact that MegaTokyo is a black-and-white comic. They indicate Magical Girl status.
  • Mieruko-chan: Miko has yellow eyes and has developed the ability to see spirits that are Invisible to Normals.
  • Neko: The Cat: We briefly see Michiko from her father's point of view as she attacks him with an axe, showing her with bright golden, catlike eyes even though earlier her eyes were black. This implies that Michiko's actions are more heavily influenced by her stepmother and her cursed cats than she realized.
  • Laurin Shattersmith in The Order of the Stick usually has black eyes, like everyone else in the comic, but they turn bright gold when she uses her Psychic Powers.
  • In Pandect, Aces (animals who have been given human bodies and minds) have yellow eyes if their animal species has them. The protagonist, Prince Fleance, is a melanistic leopard and has gold eyes with slit pupils in human form.
  • In Plume, guardian spirit Corrick has glowing gold eyes, which flash even brighter when he's using his powers.
  • In Satan and Me, Satan's irises are orange and yellow or gold.
  • The Woman in White of Sleepless Domain has an example unusual even for this trope: gold pupils, white irises, and gold edges. She's strongly implied to be The Founder, aka the source of the Magical Girls' powers.
  • Slightly Damned:
    • Rhea has yellow gold colored eyes and is a descendant of the earth guardian Moku the snake and can use extremely powerful magic when she is reconnected to the bloodline. According to her evil dad Moonshade she inherited her eyes from her mother which he refers to as "eyes like the sun".
    • Some demons have yellow or orange colored eyes and they are all naturally magical beings, in fact yellow seems to be one of the most common demon eye colors next to red.
  • Werewolves in Sorcery 101 have yellow eyes. It is also suspected to be the case in Strange Someone.
  • The Sword Interval: Protagonist Fall Barros was Touched By the Big Bad when she was twelve, and left abnormal in ways not fully understood yet, the most visible sign being her glowing golden eyes. It turns out that she's the latest Harbinger, and was actually born with the golden eyes and superpowers. Her memories were altered so she wouldn't remember she had them before the age of twelve, as was her last family photo. All Harbingers have the golden eyes. Fall's immediate predecessor in the position, Mikhail Ivanov, had eyes gone completely golden and looked like he wasn't quite human anymore by the time he died.
  • In Tower of God, some characters may have golden eyes just because there are characters with so many kinds of appearances around, but some of the most significant characters also have golden eyes.
    • There are two golden-eyed main characters, Twenty-Fifth Bam and Rachel. A certain mystical connotation is there, as both are Irregulars, beings that broke into the Tower from outside, and their preceding Irregulars left a less than positive impression. Bam seems ordinary at first, but much of the story revolves around revealing how special he is, including magical talents that break the normal rules, and a special destiny. Rachel... continues to be ordinary in spite of all this.
    • King Jahad as well as his apparent illegitimate son Wangnan have golden eyes, and Jahad is, unsurprisingly, an extremely significant and mysterious figure in the Tower.
  • In Trapped, vampires’ eyes tend to glow bright yellow when they’re exposed to blood.
  • In Undead Friend, when a ghost "reverses" and takes a sold human form, they all have gold eyes no matter what color they were when they were alive, showing they are still dead and not human.
  • In Wilde Life, Clifford (an animal-person with a wolf form) has golden irises, which also glow in the dark. Oscar actually never noticed them until Eliza points them out, noting that many animal-people have "wild eyes" like his.

    Web Original 
  • The Crew of the Copper-Colored Cupids: The first thing Pythe notices about Mandragora-257 in his debut in the story The Resurrection of the Wellsians is the strange golden glow of his eyes, presumably a side-effect of Mandragora's alchemical pursuits. The glowing golden eyes remain a tell-tale sign of Mandragora's identity after he starts body-hopping following the destruction of his original body.
  • Dream SMP: Karl has bright golden eyes and is able to time travel.
  • RWBY:
    • Cinder Fall naturally possesses golden eyes. However, whenever she uses her power, her eyes begin to glow like golden fire, and it's often a sign she's about to do something extremely evil with her abilities, or intimidate people into doing her bidding. To emphasise this, the camera often zooms in on her eyes just before they begin to glow. Her affinity lies with fire because her Semblance gives her the ability to superheat anything. Her eyes gain this ability after stealing just half of the Fall Maiden's legendary magical power, making it a sign she's using magic. Although Maidens can use all Elemental Powers, they often gravitate to one element in particular; Cinder heavily favours fire magic.
    • When Oscar grants Ozpin control of his body, his eyes briefly flash gold. During the control period, Oscar eyes periodically flash gold and are consistently gold whenever his reflection is seen, such as when he is staring into his drink. When Hazel, who has a deep grudge against Ozpin, is trying to kill Oscar for being Ozpin's latest host, witnessing Oscar's eyes flash gold immediately informs him that Ozpin has resurfaced in control of Oscar's body.
  • In Void Domain, Rex Zagan one of the seventy-two pillars of Hell has golden eyes.

    Western Animation 
  • In Angel's Friends, Sulfus and Kabale have these and are notorious trickster devils.
  • In Avatar: The Last Airbender and its Sequel Series The Legend of Korra, it is common for anyone of the Fire Nation royal family to have vibrantly golden eyes. Thanks to Superpowerful Genetics, their family tends to produce powerful firebenders; it doesn't hurt that their ancestry includes a previous Avatar.
  • Takanuva, Toa of Light has yellow eyes in BIONICLE: Mask of Light, representing his light-based powers. His first toy also came with yellow eyes, though later incarnations changed them to lime green.
  • In the Gravity Falls episode "Sock Opera", Dipper's corneas turn a dull yellow and his normally-circular pupils stretch into slender ovoids when he becomes the victim of a Demonic Possession.
  • The Legend of Vox Machina: Doubling with Mind-Control Eyes. Sylas' Red Eyes, Take Warning glow gold when he magically persuades Uriel against sending troops to investigate Whitestone, and when he paralyzes Vax. His targets’ eyes glow the same way.
  • Timber Wolf from the Legion of Super Heroes cartoon series has these eyes (gold sclera, red pupils) as a result of his father's experiments on him that turned him into a werewolf-like being. They turn red when he's using his enhanced senses but start running when they become bloodshot. His eye colour when he was human remains unknown.
  • Sunil Nevla the mongoose from Littlest Pet Shop (2012) has these; he can even hypnotise people with them.
  • The Owl House:
    • Eda has bright gold eyes and is considered to be the most powerful witch on the Boiling Isles. She inherited them from her father, who was the greatest Palisman carver alive prior to his retirement.
    • Amity, Edric, and Emira Blight all have gold eyes and are considred prodigies in their repective magic schools. They inherited it from their father Alador, said to be the greatest Abomination maker of the era.
    • Luz's eyes are normally brown, but they turn gold during the finale when she's basically ascended to Physical Godhood thanks to being infused with power from the Titan.
  • Transformers: Prime,
    • Almost every Transformer has either blue or red eyes, depending on their faction, though they can change if they're under the influence of a special fuel. The exception seems to Predaking, who has golden eyes. Seeing how he's a miracle of science, a being cloned from the ancient remains of Predacon bones, he may fall under this trope.
    • There's also Nemesis Prime, another miracle of Science, this one built by humans using a few salvaged Transformer parts and energon.
    • Breakdown's an interesting case as he's one of the only characters who has golden colored optics yet isn't of any different origin. However when he's salvaged and reworked into CYLAS the trope is played straight with the golden eyes in particular being given a lot more emphasis to show how unnatural and disturbing the beast is, especially with one of the eyes being crude patch job.
  • Stella from Winx Club, who has sun-based powers and her color motifs are mostly yellow and orange. She also has gold hair to match.

 
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Alternative Title(s): Eyes Of Gold, Supernatural Eyes Of Gold, Supernatural Golden Eyes

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The Owl House Finale

After her supposed death, Luz is brought back with a severe power upgrade to face Belos in his final form.

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