Red Eyes Take Warning / Literature

• The Amityville Horror. The youngest child, 5 year-old Missy, had repeated encounters with a pig-like demonic creature with red glowing eyes whom she called Jodie.
• Area 51: The Airlia all have red eyes, and sure enough, they're bad guys.
• The Doorway and the Deep: The ice crawler that attacks the boat Lottie and co. are in has red eyes.
• Isaac Asimov:
  • "Reason": When Donovan insults QT's god, the robot's eyes turn a deeper red and the narration tells us that the tension between them increases. It is as if the robot was angered by the heresy.
  • "Robbie": Mrs Weston is disturbed by Robbie's Glowing Mechanical Eyes, but Gloria and Mr Weston disagree with her assessment.
• The Infected of An Outcast in Another World have glowing red eyes which brighten when they come across as enemy –- which is anything that breathes –- or when the Infection spreads further in their bodies. Considering their horribly mutated forms, it’s by far the least-horrifying thing about them.
• Beowulf: The monster Grendel is described as having glowing red eyes: "on fagne flor feond treddode,/eode yrremod; him of eagum stod/ligge gelicost leoht unfæger" ("Across the decorated floor the fiend trod, went enraged in mind; there stood in his eyes a foul light most like to flame").
• Bored of the Rings, a parody of The Lord of the Rings: the Black Riders have "perfectly normal red glowing fires" where their eyes should have been.
• Inverted in The Children of Man. In this setting, red eyes mark you as a Tereskan, an order of healer-mages who are one of the primary forces of good in the setting.
• The Chronicles of Prydain novel The High King. Gwythaints, the bird servants of the Dark Lord Arawn, have blood-red eyes.
• Mayor Oculon of City of Devils has... well, is a giant red eye. With tentacles.
• In "Cold Snap", Diabolical Mastermind Derek Leech's Rolls Royce has a customized hood ornament with rubies for eyes.
• In Robert E. Howard's Conan the Barbarian stories "Shadows In Zamboula" and "Queen of the Black Coast", villainous Evil Sorcerers have red eyes.
• Michael Moorcock's Corum: The Queen of the Swords''. Prince Gaynor the Damned, an evil champion of Chaos, has dead red eyes that blaze in terror and agony.
• The Cosmere:
  • Voidbringers in The Stormlight Archive are alleged to have red eyes, and we see at least one form of Voidbringer, a thunderclast, with glowing red eyes. Furthermore, in Words of Radiance, the Parshendi's eyes turn red when they transform into Voidbringers.
  • In Shadows for Silence in the Forests of Hell, the shades normally drift away from humans and are mostly harmless unless you manage to walk right into one despite them drifting away. But break the Simple Rules (don't move too fast at night, don't kindle fire, and never draw blood), and their eyes light up red as they enrage. If that happens, if there is a nearby safe place enclosed by silver, run there. Otherwise, your ass is toast.
• H. P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos story The Haunter of the Dark. The titular monster has a red, three-lobed, burning eye.
• Those possessed by demons in Dance of the Butterfly will show a red coloring to their eyes.
• The Death Dealer from Frank Frazetta, is depicted with either red eyes or completely white depending on whether he's about to fight a strong foe or not. The books based on the character artwork, are about the Barbarian Hero, Gath of Baal who's already superhumanly mighty before he becomes the bearer of the Horned Helm which makes him the avatar of the evil god of death.
• For most of the first book in the Deptford Mice trilogy, all anyone ever sees of Big Bad Jupiter are his fiery red eyes emerging from the blackness of the portal where he dwells, located in the sewers of London.
• The plus-sized Tyrannosaurus rex in Dinoverse, who Mike names "Moriarty", is first seen with eyes that seem to glow red, though Mike thinks it's a trick of the sunset or a reflection of the blood at the dinosaur's feet.
• Subverted in the web-novel Domina. A lot of the demons have red eyes, but since it's optional, they almost certainly chose them to invoke this trope for intimidation.
• Dracula has red eyes. His houseguest, Jonathan, being British, does not comment on this.
• Dragontales, a collection of Dungeons & Dragons-related stories from the creators of Dragon magazine.
  • In "Out of the Eons'', a Gardner F. Fox "Niall of the Far Travels" short story, the evil deity Adonair has wide fire-red eyes.
  • "Black Lotus Moon". The huge guardian monster in Garilon's tower has large, saucer-shaped eyes with red irises like clots of blood.
• Empire of the Vampire: Vampires and palebloods who have freshly fed will have their eyes redden, often to the point of completely colouring their whites. This also happens whenever Silversaints smoke sanctus.
• The villainous Steerpike of Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast series has dark red eyes.
• In "Green Tea" by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu, the demonic monkey that pursues Reverend Jennings has eyes that glow from within with a "faint but deep red light". Indeed the first thing Jennings notices when he first sees the monkey are its eyes, appearing as two "tiny discs of red" hovering in the darkness.
• Lord Voldemort from the Harry Potter books has red eyes with slits for pupils, like a snake's eyes (although not in the films of the books, except the first, which actually gets it right).
  • Red eyes seem to imply evil thoughts/feelings. Young Tom Riddle's eyes gleam red briefly at a moment when he is extremely greedy, and later, when he has started turning into Voldemort, his eyes become bloody-looking — they ultimately end up staying pure red after he splits his soul seven times. Also, when Ron is being psychologically tortured by Riddle!Harry-and-Hermione from the horcrux, his eyes flash red for just a second...before he ignores them and shuts them up for good.
  • Notice the formidable chiasmus at the end of Goblet of Fire. Voldemort has red eyes and uses a green Death Ray. Harry Potter has good green eyes, and uses the good red ray (remember the color-coding of laser beams in the original Star Wars trilogy).
• In Heart of Steel, Alistair's mechanical eye normally glows blue, but when he is angry it glows red.
• Mentioned a lot in The House of Night. The Red Fledglings and Vampires have red eyes when they've just fed from a human or when they're seriously pissed off. The Raven Mockers also have red eyes.
• The Shrike from the Hyperion Cantos is a 3-meter-tall Nigh Invulnerable being made of lethally sharp blades. It has multifaceted red-glowing eyes and most times it shows up, it's to carry someone off to be impaled on a gigantic thorn tree where they will live forever in agony.
• King of the Dinosaurs: Tyrannosaurus rex: Illustrations of the T. rex portray it as having red eyes.
• In the League of Magi stories, Rose Cross has red eyes as a symptom of her albinism. She's not quite evil, but she's definitely scary.
• In R.A. Salvatore's The Legend of Drizzt, the drow have deep red eyes. This trope is carried even further in that Drizzt, one of only two good drow seen in the series, has lavender eyes.
• In the Malazan Book of the Fallen, Silchas Ruin is said to be a "red-eyed nightmare". Depending on the point of view, he is either a villain with good intentions, or a heroic man with bad publicity, but either way his red eyes are what ticks people off that he's dangerous. They are variously described as lifeless, reptilian, unnerving, cold and dead.
• In the original picture book of Mars Needs Moms, Milo's mom (and Milo himself) have bright orange-red eyes. It doesn't mean anything but it does make The Reveal of Mom's face a little unnerving.
• The short story "Nitimandrey & the Cabinetmaker's Vision in Ares'' magazine Special Edition #1 (Summer 1983). When King Nitimandrey and the cabinet maker enter the cave beneath the fifth peak of Mount Nanda-pe, they find large numbers of bats with red Glowing Eyes watching them. The evil bats are eventually commanded to attack the pair and almost kill them before they finally escape.
• Two examples in Old Scores:
  • Per tradition, all vampires' eyes glow red as a combative or predatory reflex.
  • The first, telling sign of a blood glutton^note A vampire who has fed on other vampires is permanently bloody sclera.
• Ares from the Percy Jackson and the Olympians books actually has fire where his eyes should be. Hestia also has fire for eyes, but she is an aversion for this trope, as she is actually one of the kindest gods in the series.
• Peter Pan. Captain Hook had light blue eyes, but when he was angry, they would flash red.
• Dean Koontz's Phantoms. When appearing to Jeeter and Kale in the cave, several of the monstrous forms that the incredibly evil Ancient Enemy takes have red eyes.
• A Piece in the Game of Gods: Maelyne, when reminded of her recent loss:
  My eyes remained fixed on this giant glowing woman, and I could see her own anger and frustration. Then, something dawned on me. “They killed your champion…”
  
  “Yes,” Maelyne said, her glowing eyes flashing red for a moment and making me instinctively step back.
• In The Price by Neil Gaiman, the main character realizes that the creature coming for them is the Devil because it has red eyes. While he's looking through night vision goggles.
• Princesses of the Pizza Parlor: In Episode 2, when Princess Rosalind is enraged and gets Glowing Eyes of Doom:
  Princess Rosalind's eyes glowed brightest, in a deep bloody scarlet.
• In Quest for Fire a primitive cannibal warrior has eyes that gloe red in the firelight.
• In Race to the Sun all monsters that Nizhoni can see have red eyes, at least for her monster-hunting senses. Which is helpful, as they are shape-shifters.
• In the Rainbow Magic series, Storm the Lightning Fairy's book has an extra-mean goblin with red eyes. He shoots lightning at the girls with the power of the Lightning Feather.
• Redwall: The Bloodwrath is a state of berserker rage that mostly affects badgers, causing their eyes to glow red as they seek to brutally murder their hated enemy. Lady Cregga Rose Eyes was so named because her eyes were so bloodshot as to be always red, leading to her going blind at the end of her life as Badger Lady of Salamandastron.
• In the Animated Adaptation of Rikki Tikki Tavi, Rikki has them whenever he's around the cobras or when feeling angered, annoyed or suspicious.
• Hannibal Lecter of The Silence of the Lambs is depicted with maroon (brownish-red) eyes in the books.
• A Song of Ice and Fire:
  • Melisandre, who's an Evil Redhead as well.
  • Ghost the albino Direwolf has red eyes, noted to be different from Melisandre's, resembling more the blood-red eyes of the weirwood Old Gods. And he's definitely capable of taking off limbs if so inclined.
  • Much like Sauron below, Euron Greyjoy uses a red eye with a black pupil as his personal crest, and given his brother Aeron's description of his "bloodeye", his hidden left eye may be red, though his nephew Theon seems to believe it is black.
• In the Sonja Blue series, red eyes are one of the symptoms of vampirism, which makes sunglasses very popular with the vampires—hence the title of the first book of the series, Sunglasses After Dark.
• In Space Glass, the Marauder has these, and is the second most powerful member of the Extragalactic Enthusiasts.
• The Star Trek: The Next Generation novel The Devil's Heart depicts Captain Picard with red eyes while holding the titular Artifact of Doom on the cover.
• Star Wars Legends:
  • The Thrawn Trilogy: Grand Admiral Thrawn, a nonhuman Chiss who also had blue skin, had solid red eyes that were often said to be glowing. Even when he's solidly the antagonist, he is less evil and more ruthless.
  • Darth Bane also had red eyes due to his immersion in the Dark Side of The Force. It's a Sith occupational hazard.
  • Ysanne Isard actually had heterochromia, one eye being red, the other eye being blue. She's the head of Imperial Intelligence and decidedly evil.
  • The same series has the much more minor villain Zekka Thyne, who has red eyes and Hellish Pupils.
  • And it has two characters who each have a glowing red prosthetic eye. Neither of them are villains. One, Booster Terrick, is a smuggler who does not approve of the pilot his daughter fell in love with. The other, Ton Phanan, is an incredibly sarcastic ex-doctor hiding the fact that his extensive cybernetics cannot replace the future he lost.
• Lung Tien Lien from the Temeraire series is an aristocratic albino Dragon Lady with blood red eyes. She also happens to be a twenty-odd ton Lady Dragon with a fearsome sonic attack for a breath weapon.
• Lin Carter's "Thongor of Lemuria" stories:
  • The Grakk, a scaly flying lizard-like monster of the jungles of Chush, has cruel, scarlet eyes.
  • The Dragon-Kings, who were the previous rulers of Lemuria before the humans came, have slitted red eyes. They were extremely evil and had great knowledge of sorcery and necromancy.
  • The Gunth, extremely strong beastmen who lived in jungles, had gleaming red eyes.
• Tolkien's Legendarium:
  • The Hobbit:
    • When the evil wargs tree the party, they are described as having shining red eyes.
    • The very evil dragon Smaug has red eyes which emit searchlight-like beams.
  • The Lord of the Rings:
    • The Big Bad Sauron, while not red-eyed himself, uses a red eye on a black field as his symbol.
    • In The Two Towers, the Mûmak (giant elephant) who tramples the Ithilien Rangers and men of Harad is said to have raging small red eyes.
    • In The Return of the King chapter "The Scouring of the Shire," Saruman's evil agent Wormtongue has red eyes.
  • According to Unfinished Tales of Númenor and Middle-earth, the Drúedain's eyes glow red when they're angry. They aren't evil, but they are Badass Natives and it's strongly hinted whenever they show up that you don't want to be on their bad side.
• George R. R. Martin's Haviland Tuf short story "A Beast for Norn". The ironfangs of the planet Lyronica are giant vicious wolf-like creatures with huge teeth and sunken red eyes.
• In the Twilight novel series, the vampires who drink only human blood have red eyes.
• In Vampire Academy, Strigoi have red rings around their pupils. Seeing red eyes glowing in the dark alerts dhampir guardians to expect an attack.
• When Warren the 13th is in the boiler room of the hotel, we see a bunch of creepy red eyes glowering at him. Subverted when it turns out that the monster they belong to, Sketchy, is very friendly and means no harm at all.
• The monstrous alien in John W. Campbell's novella "Who Goes There?" has three red eyes.
• Michael Stackpole's Wolf & Raven short story "Fair Game". The cyberdog that Selene Reece sends after Wolfgang Kies has eyes that look like red starbursts.
• One of the villains from Madeleine L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time is called simply... the Man With Red Eyes.

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