Scary Shiny Glasses

Why is Yamazaki winning?
Maybe because he can do the Gendo glasses thing even without a light source?

—Wave Master Megatokyo Forums

These are definitely not Nerd Glasses, although they are sometimes mistaken for them at first. This is a variant of The Faceless.

Traditionally, one's eyes are an indicator of the soul. Large eyes represent honesty and innocence, while smaller eyes indicate darker personalities. Strong-willed girls will have Tsurime Eyes. Moe characters have Tareme Eyes. A trickster will have closed eyes. (Which doesn't necessarily mean they're evil, just that they're sneaky. Of course, many sneaky people are evil...)

If you can't even see their eyes because of the Scary Shiny Glasses, beware—for these are individuals who deliberately wall themselves off from the people around them. If the symbolism is particularly ham-handed, you can even expect the glasses to be non-prescription lenses, easy to break or take off during a moment of epiphany—or death.

The Scary Shiny Glasses can be turned on or off at will by the wearer; they can especially crank it up for intimidation. When they are in effect, the glasses reflect light such that all you can see are two white circles, nothing is visible of the eyes. Often for extra effect their bodies will just be a black outline, with the glasses as the only visible detail.

People with Scary Shiny Glasses never have The Glasses Come Off for just fights. A single flash of the glasses can represent a sudden increase of intention, but to really be Scary Shiny Glasses they need to have an even, creepy glow. A variation is to have the glow complete on one lens, but just a flash or not there at all on the other, allowing the audience to see just how sinister the character is being behind his eyepiece.

The shades worn by The Men in Black are a lesser variant; see Sinister Shades. Characters with Four Eyes, Zero Soul are prone to this. Adjusting Your Glasses—particularly by pushing them up the nose—has an alarming tendency to trigger this trope. Compare Malevolent Masked Men and Opaque Lenses. Bespectacled Bastard Boyfriends, on the other hand, almost never do this, because it's not sufficiently sexy.

Examples of Scary Shiny Glasses are listed on these subpages: