Hypnotic Eyes

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.
Okay, new rule: If the Ghost Wizard's eyes start to shimmer... DON'T LOOK INTO THEM. YOU ARE SO DENSE SOMETIMES.
—Mitzi McNinja (to her unconscious husband), The Adventures of Dr. McNinja

If the eyes are the windows to the soul, this person has a very... persuasive... compelling... even possessive soul. With little more than a few words intoned in their deep, Compelling Voice, any fool gazing into their eyes will be hopelessly hypnotized.

The mind control victim who has gazed too long into this abyss will likely develop Mind Control Eyes. High power Hypnotic Eyes (or when broadcast) may function like a Hypno Ray and work on several onlookers at once.

If the hypnotist is using glasses, then it's likely a Mind Control Device instead of this trope.

Examples of Hypnotic Eyes include:

Advertising

  • One commercial for Super Mario Land 2, the debut of Wario as a villain, has him trying to use Hypnotic Eyes to brainwash people into obeying him.

Wario: Obey Wario, destroy Mario!

    • Carried over into a commercial for the sequel, where you play as him. In this case, he's enticing people to act more like him.
  • This Japanese commercial features a young caterpillar with hypnotic eyes

Anime and Manga

  • Lelouch of Code Geass has something akin to this; his 'Geass' (a power closely connected to eyes and sight) allows him to issue 'absolute orders'. Lelouch geasses you to do something, you do it. Not fully this trope (there are enough differences to distance it), but certainly closely related. Especially when it becomes permanently active.
    • Rolo's Geass from R2 is more hypnotic in nature than Lelouch's (it freezes everyone's perception of time) and is centered on his eye, but it doesn't require eye contact to take effect (it works within a radius).
  • Saralegui from Kyou Kara Maou!
  • Kurumu from Rosario + Vampire seduces the main character with these (Justified Trope: she's a Succubus), though she calls the ability "Charm." She only really uses it in one episode, though, after her Heel Face Turn.
    • She has also used it once in the manga after her introduction. But here there is a explanation for this as she wants to catch Tsukunes heart with fair play and not with her powers, not only for her love for him but also her love for the rest of the girls in the harem. This turns into a tear jerker when she accidently charms Tsukune and spends the rest of the day with him in her room, ending with her trying to make him saying that he likes her until it's instead her who breaks down to tears and says that she likes him
  • Sakura in Kämpfer.
  • Naoi plays these almost entirely for gags in Angel Beats!.
  • The Sharingan from Naruto has hypnotic powers. In Kakashi's case this expresses itself as the iris spinning madly...

Ooo! Spinny eye!'

  • Hiei from Yu Yu Hakusho. His Third Eye gives him a number of psychic abilities. Although sadly, they are rarely, to never used.
  • In the hentai Alien from the Darkness, when the eponymous alien is in its human female form and begins seducing a crew-member, its eyes flash green before revealing its unexpected appendages. Once this happens, the alien's victims' eyes go blank, and they seemingly become unable (or unwilling) to resist.
  • Trigun: Dominique the Cyclops. When she opens her eye shutter, her Demon's Eye can dazzle all five of a victim's senses, making it seem like she teleports from place to place.

Comic Books

Film

  • In Disney's The Jungle Book, Kaa the python has these type of eyes, as shown in this clip, starting at 0:20.
  • Jafar's cobra-headed cane in Aladdin.
  • The eponymous Dr. Mabuse in Fritz Lang's Dr. Mabuse the Gambler.
  • The villain of the B-movie The Thing That Couldn't Die (another fine Mystery Science Theater 3000 experiment) is the undead head of devil-worshipper Gideon Drew, which is still able to instantly enslave anyone who looks at him without protection.
  • Played for laughs in the comedy Love at First Bite; when Dracula and Jeffery attempt to do this to each other, a luckless waiter sticks his head between them and instantly keels over.
    • Followed by the entire restaurant, other than the two in question and the love interest that they're busy fighting over.
  • Village of the Damned.
  • Montag of The Wizard of Gore is implied to have this, generally modeled by the camera going to an extreme closeup of his eyes as he stares for several seconds, following by a member of the audience doing what he wants.
  • Disney's Robin Hood anyone? Sir Hiss at least once did this to Prince John.

Literature

"Funny you should be so sleepy so early in the day... your eyelids are getting heavy... you...are...asleeep."

  • In Rudyard Kipling's short story "Rikki-Tikki-Tavi", Darzee's wife must avoid looking into the cobra Nagaina's eyes, because doing so would leave her paralyzed with fear.
  • In the Night Huntress books, vampires can brainwash humans if they look at the vampire's eyes. A small percentage of the human population is immune to this ability.
  • In the fantasy series Redwall, snakes, primarily adders have this ability. The only (known) non-snake example would be the pine marten Ublaz Mad Eyes. The name says all.
  • In A Wrinkle in Time, the Man with Red Eyes has powerful Hypnotic Eyes which he uses to bring Charles Wallace under the control of IT.
  • The Shadow was known for this in most of his incarnations.
  • Manfred, the Headmaster's son in Charlie Bone, has these as his gift.

Live-Action TV

  • Buffy the Vampire Slayer. "Buffy vs. Dracula". The Count has hypnotic Blue Eyes that can enthrall even Buffy.
  • The Master of Doctor Who fame has a long history of hypnotizing people by staring into their eyes and telling them to obey him.
  • All vampires in Young Dracula but Vlad takes the cake. He's so good that he mind-wiped an entire crowd, including several slayers and Renfield, into forgetting about vampires. It was so strong that Renfield's memory was still being re-wiped every time he re-learned about vampires four years later.

Puppet shows

Tabletop Games

  • In Vampire: The Masquerade/ Vampire: The Requiem, this is any vampire with the Dominate discipline, which generally requires that the user make eye contact with the target to implant suggestions.
    • Also oWoD Setites with Serpentis 1, Eyes of the Serpent, could freeze someone in place by making eye contact.

Toys

Video Games

  • The Tiki Tak tribe from Donkey Kong Country Returns aren't much of body, so they invoke this trope into hypnotizing various animals into doing their labor for them. Beings of higher thought capacity are proofed against this power, but since this is an animals-only universe, that limits it to the Kongs. The first level literally starts with Donkey Kong demonstrating this fact to one of them the only way he knows how.
  • Agent Superball in the second season of Sam and Max does this through his Secret Service shades if Sam insists in believing in Time Travel. In the future. With the time travel machine only 4 meters away.

Webcomics

  • Black Mage of Eight Bit Theater has on two occasions used Hypnovision on his allies enemies allies. Both occasions did little to no good, as the first target (Fighter) was too dumb to be affected by it (even though he actually kinda was), and the second (Red Mage) was wearing mirrored shades for "no apparent reason".
  • Count Antonie the Vampire tries this on Meryl in Minion. She of course sees right through it and clobbers him.

Meryl: "I'm a dark witch, you moron! Did you honestly think I wouldn't know about that stupid 'Hypno-Eye' of yours?!"

  • The Kingfisher features vampires with the Hypnotic Eyes, to varying degrees. Vitus early on puts Marc to sleep with the look, but goes to Helen for help rewriting his memories.

Web Original

Western Animation

  • Futurama: All glory to the Hypnotoad!
  • A completely out-of-left-field example from The Critic, when Duke Phillips is running for President:

Reporter: What is your response to critics who say that this marriage is just an outrageous publicity stunt to help your campaign?
Duke: I say, gaze into the hypnotic power of my Evil Eye!
[He leans forward...]

Iris the Great Egyptian Magician: "By Osiris and by Apis, look in my eyes. You have turned into a wild boar. Yes! A wiiillld boooaaarrr..."

  • In the Looney Tunes short "Mexican Boarders", Slowpoke Rodriguez, the Slowest Mouse in all Mexico, uses Hypnotic Eyes to zap Sylvester into becoming his obedient slave, thus showing how he's been able to survive.

Slowpoke: Slowpoke may be pretty slow downstairs in the feets but is pretty fast upstairs in the cabeza.

  • Super Bike in The Fairly OddParents.
  • Tak in Invader Zim seems to possess these in the form of some sort of device in or near her eyes. While in disguise, a flash of her eyes allows her to erase short-term memories of her victims (unless their mind is too strong, like Dib's and Gaz's were) and, in one case, impose her will over others.

Girl: Looks like Zim has a girlfriend!
Tak: It's not NICE...to embarrass people! You should apologize...and...[eyes flash] eat your eraser!
Girl: (With Mind Control Eyes) Yes, Tak! I'm sorry, Zim. [Takes a bite out of her eraser]

  • My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic villain Discord has this ability, which he uses to invert the personalities of the mane six (except Twilight). He usually uses this as the finishing touch after having worn down his victims the mundane way first, but when Fluttershy proves immune to this kind of persuasion, he skips straight to the magic.
    • In Bridle Gossip Pinkie Pie claims that Zecora the Zebra has this ability, and shows the swirling eyes herself when she sings a song about it, but she is just imagining things/making things up.

Real Life

  • In hypnosis, particularly in stage hypnosis and instant inductions, eye contact is essential. If you stare at someone without blinking long enough, many people naturally fall into a light trance attempting to keep eye contact with you. In stage hypnosis, the term is literally called the "hypnotic gaze".
  • Cillian Murphy.
  • Apparently, Wolf Messing as well.
  • According to last Russian Empress Alexandra Feodorovna (Alix of Hesse), also Rasputin.
  • Another Russian, Natalia Guseva.
Retrieved from "https://allthetropes.org/wiki/Hypnotic_Eyes?oldid=2021580"