Yellow Eyes of Sneakiness

They don't just look that way because of the reddish lighting here...

"We were trapped. There he stood, between us and the alley. Scut Farkus staring out at us with his yellow eyes. He had yellow eyes! So help me, God, yellow eyes!"

— Adult Ralphie, A Christmas Story

In fiction, when a character has yellow eyes, commonly the sclera, but can be the iris, it usually denotes that a character has a rather unscrupulous nature. Sure signs that a character cannot be trusted or is a bit of a Jerkass.

Historically, this is probably inspired by canines, felines, rodents, reptiles, toads, and birds of prey, which can have amber, yellow, gold, or orange irises, and are associated with being conniving, clever, and wise. Also reptiles and toads are sometimes associated with villainy, and can have yellow eyes. Ironically in these animals what you're usually seeing are larger irises which were probably mistaken for a yellow sclera. In particular, the visual itself might be related to the reflective eyes of many animals in the dark, which explains the particular bright palette in contrast with dark or dim figures.

A variant of this trope is a sneaky or crafty character with yellow or light-yellow eyes that have green or yellow green centers to them. Sometimes, the green-centered yellow eyes are used to accentuate the character’s sneakyness, craftiness, meanness, and/or evil in relation to non-green-centered yellow eyes or to distinguish them as the crafty or evil ones within works made up of largely or mostly yellow eyed characters. Non-green-centered yellow, gold, or amber eyes are more apt to be portrayed as normal or least less decidedly crafty or evil and are more apt to show up on good and ostensibly good characters.

In Real Life, yellow and brown in the sclerae or the cornea, not the iris, in human beings is unhealthy. It's usually a symptom of allergies or liver disease — yellow sclerae are a typical symptom of jaundice.

Compare Supernatural Gold Eyes, Black Eyes of Crazy and Red Eyes, Take Warning (the former two are commonly paired with this trope).

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• FLCL: Haruko Haruhara has yellow eyes. She slyly manipulates people and hides her true identity, goals and personality throughout the series.
• Ryuk from Death Note has yellow eyes and technically causes everything in the series because it's fun.
• Medusa of Soul Eater has these, which besides underlining her snake theme also reference her Manipulative Bastard nature, not to mention the horrendous treatment of her child, Crona.
• To some extent, Hikaru and Kaoru from Ouran High School Host Club (Irises) However, they're more cheeky than anything.
• Kagerou Daze:
  • Kuroha's◊ eyes are a bright yellow. He also happens to be completely and utterly insane and possessed by one of Azami's snakes, for bonus points. Contrast Konoha,◊ the Sleepy Head Gentle Giant with light pink eyes.
  • Shuuya Kano also fits this category very well with his cat-like yellow eyes and sly, sometimes even vindictive tendencies.
• Rurouni Kenshin has Saitou, who has naturally (but not supernatural) gold eyes, tying into his history with The Shinsengumi, known as the "Wolves of Mibu". He's also quite the Manipulative Bastard.
• Un-Go has the character Inga who has yellow sclera. This probably has something to do with the fact he's a demon. Inga is also of Ambiguous Gender because they switch between male and female forms. Inga also seems to be a Psychopathic Man Child.
• In Attack on Titan, the lead spy has amber eyes. Though they claim to only be acting in a friendly manner to gain trust, they've long since genuinely started to care and their deceptions lead to a complete mental breakdown when the guilt becomes too much.
• Hisoka in the 2011 anime adaptation of Hunter × Hunter has thin eyes with small golden irises. He is the series's resident flamboyant Monster Clown but frequently makes a habit of outright bald-faced lying when it suits him and setting traps with his special Bungee Gum powers in the middle of battle. The audience is given insight to Hisoka's thoughts at times, which often reveal the lengths he is willing to go to simultaneously avoid unnecessary trouble and to best situate himself so he can fulfill his never-ending desire to fight skilled opponents.
• In Texhnolyze, both Kano and Ran have yellow eyes. Kano is a Manipulative Bastard, while Ran just doesn't want to talk about what she knows.
• The titular protagonist of Don't Toy with Me, Miss Nagatoro plays with this around. She has stark amber eyes highlighted by her dark complexion and hair, which denote the unscrupulous manner in which she conducts herself. However, she's markedly more susceptible to kindness than what the trope suggests, and her "conniving" quite often backfires on her.
• Ayakashi Triangle: Soga is an (normally) intimidating ninja with narrow yellow eyes.
• Moriarty the Patriot: Joining William and Louis as the only characters to have a non-natural eye color, Milverton's yellow eyes underscore his horrid personality and conniving blackmailing ways. It also makes him look more like a snake when he compares himself to the the serpent in the Garden of Eden tempting humans to evil.

Asian Animation

• Mechamato:
  • The Cone Konchos have yellow scleras. They construct a pool in the middle of a busy road and are violently destructive when provoked.
  • Amazeey has yellow eyes, and he likes setting up dangerous and elaborate mazes to confuse and trap others.
  • Paintasso has yellow asymmetical eyes and a perpetual sly grin. He steals paintings and tries to kidnap a child.
  • Apayapi is Payapi's enhanced form, and while the latter has Innocent Blue Eyes, his eyes turn yellow upon revealing his true colors.

Comic Books

• The Legend of Wonder Woman (2016): Priscilla Rich, otherwise known as Cheetah, is a conniving amoral murderous Rich Bitch who has gleefully allied herself with the Nazis and has yellow eyes. This ties in to the traditional association with cats, even though she only picked up the attributes that would lead to her becoming the Cheetah in the final issue prior to the series cancellation.

Fan Works

• In Child of the Storm, Harry occasionally has Supernatural Gold Eyes (usually when about to do something big/in a bad mood/in the mood to make an impression), they gain this connotation in the sequel. While he's a hero through and through, if a somewhat sour one at times, he exceptionally sneaky, gifted with the Batman Gambit, increasingly unscrupulous when he believes it necessary, and a highly talented manipulator - even of his friends. He's not overly comfortable with it, though.
• Dufayel, the Big Bad of Old West, is a fox with golden eyes that sparkle with intelligence. He's also a Faux Affably Evil business man who does anything he can in order to harvest the grand gold deposit underneath the town of Mud, both with legal and non-legal means.
• Double subverted in Cabinet Man [COMPLETE Evil!Spottedleaf MAP]. Spottedleaf has yellow eyes. In life they meant nothing, but in death they start being played straight. She manipulates and indirectly murders many cats.
• The Legend of Genji: Malik has bright amber eyes and is introduced as a shady person from Genji's past that Genji is hesitant to get involved with. In his first scene, he talks Genji into helping him out with a "job" that later turns out be smuggling illegal goods for a terrorist group.

Films — Animation

• Disney uses this trope a lot:
  • Big Hero 6: The villain Yokai is a Mad Scientist who wears a mask with yellow eyepieces.
  • Cinderella: Lady Tremaine has yellow scleras in the scene where she takes the key to Cinderella's bedroom and closes the door before locking it. And her minion Lucifer the mean, sneaky cat has yellow sclerae by default.
  • The Great Mouse Detective: The main villain of the movie, Professor Ratigan, has yellow sclerae (as pictured above), and has an Evil Plan to take over a kingdom.
  • Hercules: The main villain Hades, his minions, Pain and Panic, and Nessus have yellow sclerae.
  • The Little Mermaid (1989): Flotsam and Jetsam, the eel minions of the main villain Ursula, have yellow sclerae. To be more precise, each of them has one eye with a decidedly yellow sclera, while the other eye is much closer to white. When Ursula is scrying through their eyes, the "white" eye also turns yellow, and glows.
  • The Lion King (1994): The lions in the franchise have yellow sclerae by default, but the only one who plays this trope is Scar, who exemplifies it by being sneaky, crafty, and the main villain. Scar pairs his yellow slerae with green irises. The hyenas also have yellow sclerae and are pretty awful and sneaky in general.
    • The Lion King II: Simba's Pride: Zira has yellow sclerae paired with red irises and is pretty abusive and hateful, thinking that lions are intrinsically better than other animals.
  • The Jungle Book: Shere Khan, the main villain, and Kaa, the secondary villain have yellow sclerae .
  • Mulan: Shan Yu, the leader of the Huns, has yellow irises.
  • Sleeping Beauty: The main villain Maleficent has yellow sclerae as do her goons.
  • Wreck-It Ralph: Turbo has yellow sclerae and he coined the term "going Turbo" when he tried to take over other games out of jealousy.
• The Adventures of the American Rabbit: Rodney, the lead Jackal, has these kind of eyes, which shows how menacing he is, as he threatened to cook Rob (as "rabbit stew") in his metal helmet, which he calls a kettle.
• Fantastic Mr. Fox: In the original book by Roald Dahl, the eyes of Mr. Fox are just black spots on white sclera but in the animated version he actually has irises. The color of Mrs. Fox's eyes is blue, while Mr. Fox has yellow eyes that emphasize his sneaky nature. With a little Fridge Logic involved, this can even turn into a spoiler: Ash Fox struggles to get his father to notice him, while his cousin Kristofferson gets constant praise from Mr. Fox. In the end, Ash manages to save the day rather impressively... and his eyes are the same greenish yellow his father has, whereas Kristofferson has light blue eyes!
• Rise of the Guardians: Pitch, the Boogeyman, has yellow eyes that glow a bit in the darkness of his lair.
• Ruber from Quest for Camelot has light yellow scleras alongside his small green irises.
• In The Bad Guys (2022), the devilishly charming Mr. Wolf, leader of the titular gang of thieves, has yellow scleras that immediately tell you the guy means trouble, until he reforms, then they just look cartoonishly adorable. Mr. Piranha has yellow eyes also, but they convey that he's batshit insane rather than sneakiness.

Films — Live-Action

• A Christmas Story: Although never shown, the narrator swears that neighborhood bully Scut Farkus had yellow eyes.
• Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019): Rodan has yellow eyes, which is a huge contrast to his charred volcanic skin and they highlight his mischievously vile expressions that bring out more of his Hot-Blooded attitude.
• The Hobbit: Smaug's flame-colored eyes also fit with how much of a cunning psychopath he is, being capable of inflicting psychological warfare.
• Spider-Man Trilogy: Norman Osborn/The Green Goblin. His costume has demonic golden yellow lenses, that alongside the demented teeth base, make him look like an evil demon, which is emphasized in the scene where he terrorizes Aunt May, who mentions his eyes while in hospital.
• Star Wars: Dark Lords of the Sith often use lie in order to get what they want. For example, Palpatine is cunning enough to start a war and became a leader of both sides. Almost all adepts of the Dark Side have yellow eyes.
  • The Clone Wars TV series have a minor recurring Super Tactical Droid villain Kraken, who covertly aids Dooku and Palpatine whether it be sending a crazed Tup who executed Order 66 too early to Dooku, make Rush Clovis look like a powerful Separatist, or have Dooku himself at the Republic’s capital so his master can do a Sith ritual in an attempt to break Yoda’s spirit.
• Two characters in X-Men
  • Mystique. In many ways, given she's so sneaky that can change to regular white eyes.
  • Toad's eyes, and with frog-like irises.

Literature

• In Good Omens, the demon Crowley habitually takes the form of a louche and cool young man in his mid-20s, but has to wear sunglasses to conceal his eyes - which are reptilian rather than human, yellow-gold with a vertical slitted pupil. He is a demon, the embodiment of all things wily, crafty and untrustworthy, and is implied to be the serpent in the Garden of Eden.
• The Berenstain Bears has an odd Double-Subversion. In ...and the Green-Eyed Monster, the eponymous monster representing Sister Bear's envy has yellow eyes.
• Amusing example in The Children of Man, where yellow eyes are the mark of one who can use yellow magic, the magic of art, illusion, and manipulation.
• Author Simon R. Green uses this trope a lot in his fantasy series, having a particular fondness for ascribing "eyes as yellow as urine" to beings that are undead, demonic, unspeakably-vile, or all three at once.
• Foxface from The Hunger Games. Her mutt-version is noted to have amber eyes.
• Lord Foul in The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant has glowing yellow eyes that are described as resembling fangs and are his only consistently visible feature. Though Foul never directly lies, he's very good at deceiving and manipulating people regardless; indeed, his motivation for not lying has nothing to do with any sort of respect for the truth and is more about asserting his own intellectual superiority over his enemies, proving that he doesn't need to lie in order to trick them.
• War Minister Gorig from the Magic: The Gathering novel Time Streams has eyes "as slim and yellow as wedges of lemon", and he is quickly established as a manipulative and untrustworthy figure, working to keep his boss, the archangel Radiant, isolated in her increasingly fortified palace while he conducts the business of rooting out Phyrexian infiltrators, of which he is one.

Live-Action TV

• The Big Bad of Legion (2017), Amal Farouk the Shadow King, is a villainous telepath who sometimes invokes this by appearing as a grotesque monster with gold irises, leading to his getting the nickname "Devil with the Yellow Eyes."
• Star Trek: The Next Generation: Data's Evil Twin Lore is a Manipulative Bastard and an Omnicidal Maniac with yellow eyes. Subversed with Data himself, who is a kind and honest person.
• Supernatural: Azazel, better known as the Yellow-Eyed Demon after his rare peepers, is one of the most intelligent beings in the entire Supernatural universe, he kept everyone guessing right up until it was too late do anything. Asmodeus and Dagon, two of Azazel's three fellow Princes of Hell who are signified by the same swirling yellow eyes, also have some degree of sneakiness of their own.

Tabletop Games

• The Space Wolves of Warhammer 40,000 acquire wolf-like traits from their chapter's gene-seed, such as lengthened canines and yellow eyes. Most people would have trouble believing a mob of Boisterous Bruiser, werewolf Space Vikings could be subtle in any way... and the Space Wolves are in no hurry to correct them. They're Blood Knights who would prefer an honorable battle, but they also know how to fight dirty, and when to play up their "barbarian" reputation to get people to underestimate them (their original function was to be the Space Marine's version of State Sec and hunt down those Legions that might turn traitor). There's a reason their leader Logan Grimnar ends up in charge of most wars he's involved in, even when he's not officially in command.

Video Games

• Animal Crossing: Roscoe, a Grumpy horse villager, gets yellow eyes when he gets angry or intense enough to narrow them.
• GLaDOS from the Portal-series has one bright yellow "eye" on the front of her chassis. She's murdered every scientist in Aperture and forces the surviving humans to preform tests for her. She's also a compulsive liar and a Deadpan Snarker of the finest variety.
• In BlazBlue, Hazama/Yuuki Terumi sports these when he actually opens up his eyes. This is one of the signs in Continuum Shift that foreshadow his villainy.
• In Touhou Project, resident liar and (spell)thief Marisa Kirisame has yellow eyes, as does the very "youkai-like youkai" Yukari Yakumo (when they're not purple).
• Criminal Case: World Edition has yellow irises on many suspects in the Oceania region, including Baxter Fraser and Veronica Salter. They are all assassins who underwent genetic treatment. Subverted in Baxter's case, as he wants nothing to do with that life.
• Far Cry 4 features Amita, one of the two leaders of the Golden Path. She is a Himalayan woman with amber eyes, and despite appearing to have noble intentions, she's an Unscrupulous Hero who turns Fallen Hero in her ending if you bring her to power, converting Kyrat into a drug country and forcibly conscripting child soldiers. Those eyes should've tipped Ajay off Amita is not a nice person.
• Kirby: Meta Knight has yellow eyes underneath his mask. He's also very stealthy and a skilled swordsman, as well as an Anti-Hero in his most heroic moments.
  • There's also Magolor from Kirby's Return to Dream Land, who has similar yellow eyes. In his debut, it's the first clue to his true nature.
  • Hyness in Kirby Star Allies has beady yellow eyes glowing underneath his hood. Once you knock it off his face in his boss fight, though, they are revealed with a yellow scleras with light blue swirls.
• In the intro to Mario Power Tennis Wario and Waluigi's eyes turn yellow during moments of ill intent, something not seen anywhere else in the series.
• Ridley, the draconic antagonist in the Metroid franchise has completely yellow eyes, and though he is crafty, murderous might be a better descriptor. In Super Metroid his eyes appear before the rest of his body becomes visible.
• The Gerudo in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time are a tribe of Desert Bandits with yellow and amber eyes who also have a habit of kidnapping innocent Hylians, while their king, Ganondorf, is a Sorcerous Overlord who wants to Take Over the World. Subverted by the time of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, however, where they keep the eye color but have dropped both the thievery and the loyalty to Ganon.
• In RuneScape, the Mahjarrat all have black sclerae and red irises... except Sliske, who has yellow irises for no apparent reason but this trope. "How do you know you can trust me? That's simple. You can't."
• The many incarnations of Xehanort, the Big Bad of the Kingdom Hearts series' "Dark Seeker Saga", are all known for having yellow irises. The Heartless, who are usually the main enemy type in those games, also commonly have solid yellow Glowing Eyes.
• Big the Cat from the Sonic the Hedgehog series inverts this. His unusual beady, yellow eyes look more dopey than anything, highlighting his Kindhearted Simpleton nature.
• Sir Jasper from Dragon Quest XI, who serves alongside Sir Hendrik and under King Carnelian in the Heliodorians' attempts to capture or kill the Luminary. Compared with the rough but still mostly chivalrous Hendrik (who has blue eyes), he uses more underhanded and deceptive schemes to try and nab the Luminary, such as tricking Doge Rotondo into believing the Luminary is the one who cursed his son into losing his voice. Also unlike Carnelian and Hendrik, Jasper is genuinely evil. While Carnelian was only pursuing the Luminary because he was possessed by Mordegon, and Hendrik was merely obeying "Carnelian's" orders, Jasper knowingly and willingly went along with Mordegon's plan to destroy Yggdrasil because he was tired of being Always Second Best to Hendrik.

Webcomics

• The entire troll race of Homestuck have yellow sclera. As a whole they are significantly more blood-thirsty than humans, and deceit and murder are a huge part of their lives. However, the unsavory aspects of their culture turn out to be the result of an Eldritch Abomination socially engineering it to be horrible - before that, they were peaceful, making it a subversion.
• Partially subverted in Girl Genius with Dimo. He's a Jaeger, who don't have the best reputation due to their Undying Loyalty to the Heterodynes, and is a bloodthirsty killer when he needs to be. But he is loyal to Agatha, since she's a Heterodyne, which makes him a protagonist. And although none of the Jaegers are particularly intelligent, he's one of the more cunning of the ones we've met.
• Tiger from Consolers has yellow eyes, and is a sneaky Jerkass.

Western Animation

• Many in the Fire Nation from Avatar: The Last Airbender fit this trope; Princess Azula in particular plays this trope deadly straight.
• Ratty from Mr. Bogus, which is appropriate, befitting his conniving nature.
• Socrates from Adventures from the Book of Virtues has these, to show that while he may be seem rather sneaky, he is actually shown to have a good heart because of his hidden innocence.
• Ben 10: Ultimate Alien: Zombozo is redesigned with yellow eyes when he returns for the first time since the Original Series, and is he ever sneaky and nasty...
• Final Space: Invictus, though its eye color in its true form and when it's possessing others is purple, exhibits yellow eyes in its disembodied devil-face astral form which has a red theme.
• Plankton from Spongebob Squarepants, despite having only one eye, would actually also count for this, as he is often scheming to steal the Krabby Patty secret formula.
  • Squidward on his... sneakier days.
• Wile E. Coyote from Chuck Jones' Looney Tunes has yellow eyes compared to the Road Runner's ivory white eyes, since he is always coming up with sneaky schemes to catch the Road Runner, although without any success.
• Tom Cat from MGM's Tom and Jerry has yellow eyes in his early cartoons compared to those of Jerry Mouse, often scheming against the mouse. The yellowness would disappear by the time of the Cinemascope cartoons, but reinstated in all modern depictions after that.
• The foxes in The Foxbusters have yellow eyes, to denote that they are always scheming to catch the chickens on the farm.
• Super Mario Bros. (DiC): In all three cartoons, sneaky Card-Carrying Villain King Koopa has these. He is constantly drawing up schemes, some with his Koopa Kids in the latter two series.
• My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic:
  • Discord, the mischievous spirit of chaos and disharmony, sports these with googly red pupils to go with them.
  • Garble, the one teenage dragon most hostile to ponies and Spike's nemesis, has yellow sclera and tiny pupils. Yellow eyes is a trait shared by some other dragons, but certainly not all.
• Many of the villains and jerks in 101 Dalmatians: The Series had yellow eyes, including Swamp Rat and one of his henchmen, Cydne (who also happens to be a snake), Cruella De Vil (which is odd, since in the original movie she had white eyes), as well as most of her family of De Vils. Mooch also had yellow eyes to show off how much a Jerk Jock he is. Interestingly, Spot the chicken has large yellow eyes, despite being part of the main cast, as well as Sergeant Tibs the cat (yellow scleras with green pupils) who is the Colonel's most loyal rank member.
• When Bill Cipher possesses people on Gravity Falls, they gain glowing yellow sclerae and slit pupils. Oddly, Bill himself has a slit pupil, but his sclera is white.
• Courage the Cowardly Dog:
  • Katz from has a pair of yellow eyes that help enhance his Obviously Evil appearance.
  • As does one-shot villain Fusilli.
• In the earlier seasons of Batman: The Animated Series, the Joker has yellow sclerae, possibly a side-effect of the acciden that made him into the Joker. The later seasons gave him jet-black sclerae with white pupils.
• She-Ra: Princess of Power: If ever a background object, particularly a blue one, suddenly shows a pair of these, it's a safe bet it's actually Horde Spy Imp.
• She-Ra and the Princesses of Power has Double Trouble, an elf-like shapeshifter with yellow eyes and a penchant for causing chaos and discord among people.
• In Muzzy in Gondoland, Corvax, the Evil Chancellor who serves as the main antagonist, has yellow eyes along with his green skin.
• Xyber 9: New Dawn: Evil Overlord Machestro has copper irises with slit pupils, as well as yellow sclerae. The rank and file Machina soldiers also have yellow sclerae, though all other parts of their eyes are normal.
• The U.S. Acres segments of Garfield and Friends gave Gort yellow eyes as one of the ways it made Orson's three bullying older brothers more distinguishable than their counterparts in the original comic strip.

Real Life

• Many animals have yellow, gold, or amber eyes, and unsurprisingly, many of these animals are the types that people stereotype as malevolent. Snakes, foxes, cats, and certain dogs have this quality.
  • With domestic dogs, it depends. Weimaraners, despite having yellow eyes, are rarely portrayed as evil.
  • Birds of prey and gulls very often have yellow eyes as well, but they subvert it as they're rarely portrayed as evil.
• Not so much yellow per se, but some people in real life with very light brown eyes, especially in the right lighting, might appear to have caramel or golden irises. Also, some people actually have amber eyes. As mentioned above, too, yellow sclera are decidedly unhealthy in humans and can indicate a few different types of illnesses.

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