Empty Eyes

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

Lack of pupils, and customary light reflection; iris shading goes from the usual radial to gradient; eyelids drop. Yep, this character is suffering from the Empty Eyes trope, a condition denoting that the character is air-headedly distracted, shocked, traumatized, dead, mind controlled, anywhere among those five points, or any combination of the above. This trope is most common in anime, though as of late, it's made its way to western animation. Due to the condition of shock causing the eyes to dilate, realistic live action will never have this unless the producers Did Not Do the Research. Pushed for effect in Break the Cutie scenarios.

Sister trope of Prophet Eyes, and the two may coincide as repeated trauma could give someone a Disability Superpower.

Compare Dull Eyes of Unhappiness, Thousand-Yard Stare, Mind Control Eyes, Heroic BSOD and Angst Coma.

Examples of Empty Eyes include:

Anime and Manga

Film

Music

  • "The Exodus", an Evanescence song, mentions in the last verse "So much more dismay in empty eyes."