No Eye in Magic: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

[[File:reflection-doesnt-kill01 8204.jpg|link=Percy Jackson & the Olympians|frame|Percy will never take [[Product Placement|his mp3 player]] [[Taken for Granite|for granite]].]]

 

{{quote|"You know how they say eyes are the windows of the soul? They're the ''doors''."|'''[[Doctor Who|The Doctor]]''', "[[Doctor Who/Recap/S31/E04 The Time of Angels|Time of the Angels]]"}}

 

{{examples}}

== Anime and Manga ==

* In ''[[Bleach]]'', Kaname Tousen, being blind, is immune to {{spoiler|Aizen's Perfect Hypnosis}}, and when this is brought up, reveals {{spoiler|he's been working for Aizen the whole time}}.

* In ''[[The Dresden Files]]'', when a wizard looks directly into someone else's eyes, they can see the essence of that person's soul. This ability is called a "soulgaze." Unfortunately, this is an automatic effect, once it's activated it can't be stopped, and since it's eye-to-eye it's very much reciprocal, so the other person sees into the wizard's soul as well. Harry himself spends most of the series avoiding direct eye contact with people, unless he has a good reason for it, or has already soulgazed them, since it can only happen between two people once.

** Which is a bit bizarre, because Names can change, but you only ever get one look at someone's soul.

*** Weirdest of all, one person was petrified by seeing it ''through a ghost''. The ghost was petrified instead of killed because he was [[Captain Obvious|already dead]].

** There is also Legilimency, the ability to extract emotions and memories from a person's mind, which usually works via eye-to-eye contact. Dumbledore, Snape and Voldemort are expert Legilimens, and scattered through the series (even before we knew what Legilimency was) we can find instances where Harry felt they could "read his mind". Almost a "missed" example, but once or twice Harry does look away from their gaze; initially the reader would just assume he felt uncomfortable under scrutiny -- [[Foreshadowing|now we know better]].

* Similarly, in ''[[The Seventh Tower]]'', anyone who wants to use a sunstone to produce light magic has to be able to see it- otherwise, they'll just be able to make it glow harmlessly. Consequently, blind people can't do light magic, and blindness is portrayed as a major phobia of [[The Magocracy|the Chosen]].

* Weird variant: In ''[[Perdido Street Station]]'', anyone looking at a slake-moth's wings would fall into a hypnotic trance. Looking at a reflection of the wings was safe, because the image was inverted right-to-left, but looking at ''a reflection of the reflection'' was not, because the image seen would then be identical to the actual wings. Strange helmets and periscopes incorporating an odd number of mirrors were developed by slake-moth handlers to take advantage of this effect.