Technicolor Eyes



Authors seem to like giving characters funny-colored eyes. Hair too. Often the colors are pretty much never found in life. Common ones include gold, red, purple, silver, mixed, and various other brilliant shades you're unlikely to see on anyone not wearing colored contacts and in some cases not even then.

Common Eye Colors have their own stereotypes.

This doesn't count for series that give strangely-coloured eyes to everyone and never bring it up. The eyes have to be special, in-story and out.

Subtropes include:
 * Curtains Match the Window
 * Kaleidoscope Eyes
 * Mismatched Eyes
 * Purple Eyes, straddling the line between technicolor and "just might be found in real life"
 * Uh-Oh Eyes
 * Black Eyes of Crazy
 * Black Eyes of Evil
 * Evil Eye
 * Eyes of Gold, straddles the line between technicolor and "found in real life," although it is common in a lot of species of animals
 * Glowing Eyelights of Un-Death
 * Glowing Eyes of Doom
 * Hellish Pupils
 * Hidden Eyes
 * Mind Control Eyes
 * Red Eyes, Take Warning

Anime and Manga

 * Nia in Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann has aquamarine eyes and, for bonus points, pink cross-shaped pupils..
 * Cardcaptor Sakura's Yue is described as having "purplish silver" eyes in the manga. They're actually reflective, referencing his status as.
 * Samurai Seven 's Ukyo has violet eyes.
 * In Eureka Seven, both Eureka and Anemone  have purple/pink irises. Eureka's also contain a circle parallel to the iris, while Anemone's eyes each have a single straight line etched across them.
 * When Anemone starts to rebel and they go to that freakish factory-hospital where they're trying to get more, all the girls have that line, and in one scene we see some of them being pumped full of drugs in a clearly painful and cruel test (that, incidentally, ); during the test, the lines stretch apart and eventually snap into circles. So whatever they're for, they're relevant.
 * And Nightmare Fuel.
 * Miyu from Vampire Princess Miyu originally has dark brown eyes, which turn golden when she becomes a vampire and the Guardian. She can still "disguise" her irises by turning them back to their original brown color.
 * The Claymores in Claymore have silver eyes that turn gold when they start to use their powers.
 * Almost every cursed member of the Sohma family in Fruits Basket has odd-coloured eyes that correspond with the zodiac animal they are. (Except some of them just have odd-coloured eyes. For example, Yuki is, but he has purple eyes.)
 * Performing a Unison in Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha includes a change in the eye color of a mage. Doing it with either Reinforce gives one solid blue eyes. Agito, on the other hand, can grant red eyes (in the case of Zest), or purple eyes with faded pupils (in the case of ).
 * In Code Geass, those using the eponymous power have one eye marked with a glowing red, bird-like sigil, while the rest of the iris gains a red tint. The creators have said that this is simply a visual cue for the audience, though it's implied Geass Users can see the symbol in each others' eyes.
 * Christopher Shouldered from Baccano! is a somewhat unusual example: his eyes a perfectly normal pale blue, but are also so severely and permanently bloodshot that everything apart from the iris seems blood red.
 * All mist people in Kemono No Souja apparently have emerald-green eyes and hair; it is a dominant genetic trait that makes both them and their descendants easy to identify.
 * Kenshin has purple eyes that go golden when in Battousai Mode.
 * Hokuto from the series Shikabane Hime has a pink iris and black pupil in one eye, and a black iris and pink pupil in the other. She's as bat-shit crazy as you may think.
 * Lenalee from D Gray Man has purple eyes in the anime, the Noah have golden eyes, and Allen's Cursed With Awesome left eye turns black with neon red spirals inside when he senses Akuma.
 * A lot of characters in Kiddy Girl-and have oddly colored eyes, but they get outmatched by Letuchaia and Pauki, who have eyes with a very clear horizontal split in them. Geacht'er has a slightly less conspicuous version of this, for some reason.
 * For the most part, Black Cat sticks to regular and stylized shades of perfectly normal hair colors. Eye colors, however, are all over the spectrum. In particular, Train's Eyes of Gold are symbolic, and one of Sven's orange and green Mismatched Eyes can see a couple minutes into the future.
 * The Wandering Son anime is full of this. Eyes of Gold for Takatsuki and several other characters, red eyes for Yuki, Black Eyes for a few characters, Violet Eyes for Anna, and various other colors. The manga doesn't fit this trope for the most part, however raven haired characters almost always have Black Eyes as of recent volumes.
 * Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle: Sakura has jade eyes, Syaoran has Brown Eyes, Fai has sapphire eyes, Kurogane has ruby eyes, and Makona has no eyes (usually).

Comic Books

 * Superman is occasionally described as having eyes an unnaturally bright shade of blue, resulting in him wearing slightly tinted glasses to disguise this as Clark Kent.
 * Gambit has red eyes with black scleras, and is a mutant. Fortunately, most mundanes don't notice it.
 * Storm has blue eyes, along with white hair despite being African. Explained as a link to some similarly colored sorceresses in her family tree.
 * Tempest of The DCU has purple eyes; this eventually turned out to be the mark of a potential mage.

Literature

 * Drizzt Do'Urden quite possibly originated the use of purple eyes for a Sue/Stu. His are lavender, even when viewed through infravision. Of course, in real life, this would mean his eyes are a very strange temperature indeed. Even if the color range didn't correspond to heat scopes today, it would mean that his irises are of a markedly different temperature than the rest of his body.
 * When he uses infravision, his eyes stay lavender instead of glowing red (as per usual). His eyeballs are probably normal temperature.
 * Drizzt is also a dark elf, and drow elves' most common eye color is red, with the occasional orange or gold. At the time of Drizzt's creation, purple eyes were highly unusual. As of 3rd Edition, they are described as having purple as a distinct possibility.
 * This is probably a Take That against all of the characters with Violet-Eyed Special Snowflake Syndrome.
 * Violet eyes can actually exist in Real Life. They're rare, and happen when blue eyes aren't quite blue enough so some of the red shows through. This basically means that they are really just a somewhat-off shade of blue, though. Any pictures of actual purple eyes are either digitally manipulated or made with contact lenses, they're not really distinguishable from normal blue eyes unless you look really closely.
 * Mercedes Lackey's Vanyel has silver eyes.
 * Also of note is Firesong k'Treva who also has silver eyes.
 * Perrin Aybara of The Wheel of Time acquires gold eyes. Justified, however, by his close connection with wolves, for which Eyes of Gold are common. Also somewhat a case of Windows of the Soul.
 * Thomas Harris for some reason didn't think Hannibal Lecter was spooky enough, so gave him maroon eyes.
 * Edward Cullen and his family from the Twilight series are all vampires, and their eyes will actually change color depending on how long it's been since they've had blood. Black if it's been a while, and gold if they've just hunted.
 * Nomadic vampires in Twilight have dark burgundy/red eyes, because they drink human blood.
 * In the Star Wars Expanded Universe, Ysanne Isard has one red eye - almost always described as "molten" (the other is blue, and almost always described as icy). Teneniel Djo's eyes are bronze. Grand Admiral Thrawn has glowing red eyes, and Timothy Zahn insists on mentioning them every time he appears. But then, he normally appears around Imperial officers, who generally are very uneasy around aliens in general, supremacist gits that they are; and he's never a point of view character, only ever seen from the point of view of people around him; and while he was alive his species (who so far universally have glowing red eyes) was unknown in the greater galaxy. And that's not counting the characters with prosthetics, of course.
 * And Leonia Tavira has purple eyes.
 * Leland Gaunt, the main villain of Stephen King's novel Needful Things, can change the color of his eyes: they always appear as the exact shade that the observer finds most attractive.
 * Prince Corum Jhaelen Irsei, one of the incarnations of the Eternal Champion from the fantasy novels by Michael Moorcock. Corum's race, the long-lived Vadhagh, have eyes described as "large almond eyes with yellow centers and purple surrounds". When Corum got angry, his iris would change to "burning gold" and the pupil to black.
 * The "blue in blue" eyes of the Fremen of Arrakis in Dune, though these are common to all Melange users who consume enough of the Spice.
 * Alanna of Tamora Pierce's Song of the Lioness quartet has purple eyes. So does her cat. So does her twin brother.
 * Pierce later admitted that Alanna is her most blatantly Sueish protagonist.
 * It's not unusual for siblings to have the same eye color, and the cat is sent by the goddess specifically to guide and protect Alanna.
 * Especially justified as Thom and Alanna are twins- and though not identical, they look enough like each other that they can switch places allowing Alanna to train to be a knight even though she's a girl.
 * Liam Ironarm the Shang Dragon, one of Alanna's lovers, has magical Mood Ring-esque eyes.
 * The wizard Raistlin Majere from Dragonlance had golden eyes with hourglass-shaped pupils as part of a curse put on him; he was forced to see time as it affected all things, so all living things would wither and die and turn to dust in his eyes, even rocks and buildings would slowly erode and crumble if he looked at them long enough. No wonder he became rather gloomy.
 * Flauvic of Sherwood Smith's Crown Duel has gold eyes.
 * Willo Davis Roberts' Girl With The Silver Eyes has Psychic Powers, due to a drug her mother was exposed to during the pregnancy.
 * The alien children in The Midwich Cuckoos (filmed as Village of the Damned) have golden eyes. In the film, their eyes glow when they use their psychic abilities.
 * Demonic vice cop Zhu Irzh from the Detective Inspector Chen series of novels has gold eyes.
 * Inari, Chen's partially demonic wife, has red sclera and black pupils.
 * One of friends has yellow eyes when in natural lighting, but under florescent lights they turn gold. (and she wasn't wearing contacts).
 * Titus, seventy-seventh Earl of Groan, has violet eyes. Notably, this example predates the others on this page by at least two decades.
 * Ysandre de la Courcel in Jacqueline Carey's Kushiel's Legacy books is a violet-eyed blonde. Her daughter Alais inherits the eyes but not the hair.
 * Kvothe of The Name of the Wind has green eyes, but the precise shade varies with his mood; one character realises how scared he is when they notice that his eyes have paled. Curiously, Bast has similar eyes, but in blue.
 * Door, from Neil Gaimans 'Neverwhere" has eyes that don't seem to have fixed color- they are described as being like fire opals.
 * While not technically unrealistic, in The Dark Tower series, Roland's eyes are described by some characters as appearing "impossibly blue", to the point of being almost transparent it seems.
 * In The Stormlight Archive, the Alethi and closely related peoples are split into castes based on eye color. The "darkeyes" (commoners) have mostly ordinary eye colors, but the "lighteyed" aristocrats can have a much wider range, from ordinary colors like blue or green to more unusual ones like gold or violet.
 * Invoked in Daemon, where Loki/Gragg wears special contact lenses to access the darknet, which has the side effect of giving him weird eye colours.
 * The Dresden Files gives us the White Court of vampires, who can become uber-strong and heal almost any injury by drawing on their "Hunger." When this happens, the eyes of the demon inside them will start to show, turning eyes first silver and then pure white as the Hunger takes control. (This also happens when they feed, or when they're Hungry, or any other time the demon takes some control.)
 * There are several flavours of Technicolor Eyes in Septimus Heap, including Green Eyes for Wizards, Blue Eyes for Witches and Violet Eyes for Queens and Princesses.

Live Action TV

 * The title character from the 1-season series Lucan had eyes that glowed red when he was using his "wolf powers".

Role Playing Games

 * In Exalted, the Sidereal Exalted gain this as part of their exaltation, with flecks of color corresponding to their caste appearing in their eyes.
 * If you're a fanfiction writer with Mary Sue issues trying to defend the odd eye color of your Sue spawn with her sparkling technicolor eyes as legal, look no further than Dungeons and Dragons! The tabletop roleplaying game offers enough races with oddly colored eyes to fill a Monster Manual just with them, especially in 3rd edition. Basically, any color you can think of, even metallic gold and silver, can be yours, just pick the right fantasy race: goblinoids, half-dragons, various elven subraces like sea elves, moon elves, gold elves and the evil drow elves, the planetouched races descended from angels, demons or elemental creatures, the list if endless. Throw shapeshifters into the mix, and you can even justify Kaleidoscope Eyes that change color according to the Mary Sue's mood, such as the Changeling race from Eberron (humanoid descendants of human/doppelganger mating who are able to modify their outward appearance at a whim and change internal organs sufficiently that they can functionally change their gender)! Mood-ring eyes are always a favorite with Sues.
 * Metallic dragons are born with eyes the colour of their metal that slowly go molten as they age
 * And ever since 4th edition the Eladrin have been a mainstream core race, a group of elves better than those other elves who are so fine tuned and connected to the feywilds and magic that they can teleport and they come complete with eyes that come in solid gem stonish colours.

Video Games

 * Meta Knight from the Kirby series has yellow eyes, but only . In the anime adaption, they change depending on his mood.
 * In Final Fantasy X, the Al Bhed tribe all have green eyes with a spiral pattern on them.
 * ... which must make their vision somewhat interesting, given that the spiral pupil wouldn't let light in in a regular fashion.
 * Wankable. It may just be that the iris has a darker colour spiral pattern on it and the pupil is the regular shape. This would still fall under this trope though, as heterochromia doesn't normally work that way.
 * Princess Rozalin from Disgaea 2 has red eyes like most other demons, but deviates in that her pupils are white. According to Yukimaru, it's a trait that usually pops up in members of the Snow Clan.
 * Sapphire Rhodonite from the third game takes the cake, though: neon green eyes with white star-shaped pupils.
 * Almaz starts with normal blue eyes, but because he's slowly turning into a demon, they're starting to turn red. As a result, his eyes are a blue-red gradient for the most of the game.
 * The g-man, of Half-Life, looks like he has Green Eyes, but if one looks closely enough you can see that they are actually part yellow, part blue and in his appearance in Episode One they're much brighter.
 * Persona 2 averts this trope. Everyone in the game has realistic eyes, save for Amano but all of them are rare colors.
 * In the Oblivion mod Nehrim the Aeterna race are distinguishable by their technicolor eyes, with colors including gold, purple, and turquoise.
 * Most Puyo Puyo characters have standard eyes despite having all sorts of unnatural hair colors, although a few have technicolor eyes. Satan has red eyes, Sig has Mismatched Eyes with one being red, and Oshare Bones has one eye with a pink iris and yellow sclera whereas his other eye is a glowing undead pupil.
 * Meilin Chen from Rusty Hearts has stars in her eyes.

Web Animation

 * Strong Bad and Stinkoman from Homestar Runner have green eyes. Coach Z's eyes are completely white, one of Bubs' is blue, Marzipan has pink eyes, and Senor Cardgage also has green eyes.

Webcomics

 * Otherworlders of Miamaska are recognized by their red and purple eyes.
 * Quentyn of Tales of the Questor has eyes that are a startling shade of blue, Nessie has violet eyes, Sam the halfling has bright green ones... In fact, it's a general rule of thumb that the more important a character is, the more prominent or vivid the eye color....
 * The Wisecracker from the webcomic of the same name inspired by "City of Heroes" has purple eyes.
 * {...}/Galahad/Hanna's partner in Hanna Is Not a Boys Name has glowing orange eyes. Literally glowing. Though that could be because he's a zombie.
 * Additionally, all the vampires have red eyes, except for Adelaide, the only female, who has hot pink eyes.
 * Gender Swapped has Eddy, he has pink eyes. No, not the diasease pink eye, his eyes are literally pink.
 * A race in Gold Coin Comics have purple eyes, characters in Berserk mode have red eyes.
 * Sort-of confirmed that the Homestuck kids' text colors matched their eye colors (blue for John and, red for Dave, purple for Rose, green for Jade and  , orange for  , and pink for  ), the same way the trolls' text colors mostly matched their blood color, which would have colored their eyes in adulthood.
 * Dead characters have entirely white eyes, no pupil and no iris.
 * Terezi's eyes are entirely red due to being.
 * Sollux, being as Gemini-themed as a single character can get, has eyes a'la 3D glasses: one entirely red and one entirely blue. The colours can even switch back and forth, until Eridan blinds him via magic/science and they turn solid black. After he, he has one all-white eyeball while the other is still solid black, and things "look 2D."

Web Original

 * In the Whateley Universe, distinctive eye colors are explicitly common among mutants; something in the process of their powers starting to kick in causes their eye color to change, and pretty often the end result is something considered rare in the normal human population.

Western Animation

 * Jimmy Two Shoes: While Jimmy is usually portrayed with generic Black Eyes, "The Masked Jackhammer" reveals that he has dark orange irises with even darker pupils.

Real Life

 * A rare example is a medical condition called heterochromia. It comes in two flavors: Complete (each eye is a totally different color; see also Christopher Walken, Dan Aykroyd, Yuna) and Sectoral (one or both eyes have off-colored sections; see also Kate Bosworth and Simon Pegg). See also Mismatched Eyes.
 * Central Heterochromia is a variant of Sectoral whereby the iris forms two distinct rings of different colours, Catherine Tate has this.
 * It's a very groovy mutation.
 * People with grey eyes frequently have amber flecks on the iris, and their eyes can take on the colour of their surroundings due to the low amount of natural colour present.
 * The Afghan Girl. It's probably why her eyes are so damn piercing.
 * She has a textbook case of central heterochromia, mentioned above.