The Grand Unified Appearance Trope Clean-up:

That sounds good to me.

I agree. That's a cut request I wouldn't approve.

I'm bad, and that's good. I will never be good, and that's not bad. There's no one I'd rather be than me.

Either redirect or a disambiguation.

edited 21st Feb '13 12:12:42 PM by SeptimusHeap

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman

Here's a very rough draft for a useful notes page on heterochromia.

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Heterochromia iridis is a difference in coloration in the iris of the eyes. It comes in two forms:

• Complete heterochromia, in which two irises are different colors.
• Partial heterochromia, in which one iris has a section that doesn't match the rest of the iris.

Heterochromia can be inherited, result from disease, or be caused by injury, and is generally harmless on its own. Though common in some species of animals, including cats, it affects less than one tenth of one percent of the U.S. population. This rarity means that by The Law of Conservation of Detail, few people in fiction have heterochromia without it serving a thematic or plot function, particularly in media that don't use images or video of human actors (who might naturally have heterochromia). Characters with noticeable heterochromia usually fall into one or more categories:

• One or both of their eyes have been altered, either to gain additional capabilities or to replace a damaged natural eye. In fantasy, this tends toward Evil Eye; in science fiction, it's more likely to be one or more Electronic Eyes.
• The mismatch marks the character as special in some way, whether as magical, nonhuman, or something else entirely. With so few Muggles having heterochromia, there won't be too many false positives, but the condition is still common enough that the uninitiated won't find the trait too odd.
• If two characters have heterochromia, particularly if the irregularities are the same for both, their lives are linked via this Connecting Oddity. Expect a Family Eye Resemblance or something weirder. Since some types of heterochromia are genetic, this is Truth in Television.
• If one of the eyes falls on the "Uh-Oh" Eyes spectrum of eye colors and types to watch out for or is monochromatic, the normalness of the other eye emphasizes the weirdness of the other to give the unsettling effect of a Red Right Hand. The character is marked as a villain, whether or not they really are.
• The mismatch in eyes is used as a Duality Motif to foreshadow a hidden or dual aspect of their nature, whether literally (such as with werebeasts) or in personality (Tsundere to Split Personality and everywhere in between).

Depending on the context in which the heterochromia is used, the audience will expect at least one of these cases—heterochromia is just too rare and odd to be incidental...unless the author was counting on that and planned for a Subverted Trope or a Red Herring.

edited 23rd Feb '13 12:47:58 AM by Ironeye

I'm bad, and that's good. I will never be good, and that's not bad. There's no one I'd rather be than me.

Calling the crowner as overwhelmingly in favor of moving all examples to the broad tropes based on function. Our to-do list:

• Move examples to Red Right Hand, Electronic Eyes, and Evil Eye. This list can get us started.
• Make minor changes to the descriptions of Electronic Eyes and Evil Eye so that they more explicitly mention the possibility of non-matching eyes and no longer pothole to Mismatched Eyes.
• Launch the Duality Motif trope and move examples. YKTTW
• Launch the Connecting Oddity trope and move examples
• Launch the Unusual Trait Marks You As Special trope and move examples
• Figure out what's going on with Windows To The Soul and the connection between eyes and magic, moving examples accordingly. TRS thread, though that discussion may be shunted here.

edited 23rd Feb '13 2:33:27 AM by Ironeye

I'm bad, and that's good. I will never be good, and that's not bad. There's no one I'd rather be than me.

Windows To The Soul looks like it's trying to be the supertrope for Meaningful Eye Colours.

Also, for this thread's attention: TRS topic for White-Haired Pretty Boy.

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman

Ooops.

edited 23rd Feb '13 3:02:34 AM by lu127

"If you aren't him, then you apparently got your brain from the same discount retailer, so..." - Fighteer

You sure it's not synonymous with Meaningful Eye Color?

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.

Yes. It's apparently the same thing.

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman

Yeah, it's trying to be about any use of eyes for symbolic purposes, but ended up as Meaningful Eye Color. There was talk earlier about salvaging it to be about the connection between eyes and magic, perhaps as a supertrope of Elemental Eye Colors, but I don't think we can afford to keep it at that name due to being too close to another trope name.

I'm bad, and that's good. I will never be good, and that's not bad. There's no one I'd rather be than me.

That name needs to change in any case.

Also, fixing that trope could help at fixing Green Eyes, the next mega-project (after Mismatched Eyes)

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman

I went ahead and commented all the zero context and poorly written examples on Hot Mom. We may want to put that on the watchlist because that was a lot examples that needed to be commented out.

Hot Mom's already on our list.

Anyway, in addition to starting the two other YKTTW for Mismatched Eyes, we also need to come up with a description for the trope about eyes and magic being linked, with Evil Eye (an eye itself has magical powers) as a subtrope.

I'm bad, and that's good. I will never be good, and that's not bad. There's no one I'd rather be than me.

Like Heterochromatic Magician? (Is heterochromatic a word?)

Not specifically linked to heterochromia, nor to magical talent. We're thinking about making a trope for more general connections between magic and eyes, such as magical runs being scribed into pupils and such.

I'm bad, and that's good. I will never be good, and that's not bad. There's no one I'd rather be than me.

Isn't that covered by Evil Eye?

Rhymes with "Protracted."

Evil Eye is for when the eye itself is magical, though the examples are all over the place. They include:

• The colloquial "evil eye" (i.e. glaring at someone) and other things called "Evil Eye" or "Evil Eyes"
• Odd eye colors marking characters as evil.
• Eyes that somehow relate to a character's unusual abilities, whether by changing color when the abilities are used, or something else entirely.
• Hypnotic Eyes (which seems like it should be a subtrope or sister trope, depending on perspective, but is never called out as such)
• Extra eyes grown, whether or not they have special abilities.
• The standard telepathic trope of looking into someone's eyes to read their mind. (Do we have this one already?)
• Electronic Eyes
• Explicitly magical eyes (i.e. the actual trope)

This isn't the wicks, mind, but the example list. The one that is theoretically read after the description.

Now, if we're going with the common use of Evil Eye, then no, we don't need a new trope. If we're sticking with Evil Eye as written, we certainly do need a new one.

I'm off to take Evil Eye to the TRS.

I'm bad, and that's good. I will never be good, and that's not bad. There's no one I'd rather be than me.

This is what Windows To The Soul sounds like it is, but isn't.

The Revolution Will Not Be Tropeable

I think that's what Windows of the Soul is going for.

Windows of the Soul is not telepathy-dependant; it's more an extension of a real-life expression to denote what is more properly defined as reading someone's face (rather than just the eyes).

Windows to the Soul is, as has been said time and again, in dire need of renaming to something like Meaningful Eye Colors.

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.

Well, the idea that the eyes are the windows of the soul means that you can look into someone's eyes and see who they are as a person. In some cases this is an ability that only psychics or magic-users have, but in other cases it's just a fact of the world. I don't think it's worth splitting depending on whether everyone can do it or only a few gifted people.

The Revolution Will Not Be Tropeable

I know that, and I agree with not splitting it.

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.

Oh. Sorry!

The Revolution Will Not Be Tropeable

A YKTTW, Yellow Eyes Of Sneakiness for this thread's attention.

I think Big Ol' Eyebrows needs to be looked at. It was brought up in the Trope Description improvement thread, but I think it might need more work than that. Right now it is just a random listing or real and fictional people with bushy eyebrows.