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Saying "my character has purple eyes" will get people telling you to change them without any further information. You can either blame Mary Sue or the Drow species.
Despite this automatic shudder when presented with unusual eyes, it's not a bad thing to have a physically distinctive character. Common fantasy tropes are common because people like them. People like characters who look different, when it's handled well.
One way to remove the gimmicky feel is to portray the unusual eyes realistically. This post starts by looking at some uncommon real eye colours and has a few thoughts on inventing your own.
Real Eye Colours
Green Eyes - Green eyes are the rarest common eye colour, and thus still get unusual eye colour status. They're based entirely on pigments (which sets them apart from most of the others discussed in this section). It's odd that novels link green eyes to red hair and pale features, because green eyes found in many parts of the world and in people with all hair colours. The trick with green eye realism is to shake up the stereotypes - don't just give them to Irish people (and don't make all your Irish people green-eyed and red-headed).
Yellow Eyes - These are also within the range of normal eye colours (and would be classified as amber), but it's rare to see someone with completely yellow eyes. It's a surprise they aren't more common in fantasy books. Maybe yellow isn't deemed interesting enough?
Violet / Purple Eyes - Violet eyes are caused by blue eyes mixed in with blood colouration*. You'll most commonly see them described in connection with human albinos. Most human albinos have blue eyes. In cases where there's very little pigment, blood colouration may show through, thus making the eyes appear violet under normal lighting conditions. This lack of pigment often leads to poor vision.
It's not impossible to see violet eyes in a non-albino person. The one violet-eyed individual I met had damage/deformity in the outer eye, which meant there was blood colouration in the iris area. Again, red + blue = violet.
It's also within the realms of possibility that a non-albino may have albinistic eyes (reduced pigment only in the eye area). I couldn't find a confirmed case for humans, but it sounds realistic enough to include in a fantasy novel**. A person in this category would have the same vision problems as a full albino.
Pink Eyes - As said before, most human albinos have blue eyes. However, in some cases, there may be so little pigment that the eyes appear pink (from blood showing through). Given that pink-eyed human albinos are rare, this colour choice might make it look like you didn't do your research.
(Note that albinos often appear to have pink or red eyes in photographs due to the reflections. This doesn't mean they appear to have pink or red eyes normally.)
Black Eyes - Really black, not dark brown. This is a caused by a condition called aniridia, where the iris fails to develop (along with some other problems with eye development). This leads to the eye appearing to have an enlarged pupil directly on the white of the eye. People with aniridia will have vision problems.
On Inventing Pigments
Let's say you decide you want pink eyes, but you want it to be caused by a pigment. You've immediately made pink eyes more common. As well as a scattering of pink-eyed people, you'd expect to see people with odd flecks of pink in their eyes, mixed colour eyes, and all the combinations we see with normal eye pigments.
Consider that the rarest common eye colour is green... you wouldn't have a chosen one marked by their green eyes, unless it was a case that any green-eyed person would do***.
This may be exactly what you want. It could be fun to explore a human population with new eye colours. If it's not what you want, and you want an eye-colour people have rarely seen (or may never have heard of) you're better off with an eye colour linked to a medical condition.
No, Not Purple!
Having medical implications to eye colour, or making it a common eye colour in your population****, are two ways to make it realistic. Some other thoughts on reducing the 'argh, purple eyes!' reaction are:
- Eye colour is usually subtle and you have to get close to see it. Violet eyes tend to be greyish violet (much as blue eyes are often greyish blue). Noticeable, but not the first thing you notice about a person. It comes across as more realistic if eye colour is something observers notice later.
That said, if your character has neon green eyes, it'll be noticeable at a distance. They're probably glowing. - Some of the 'argh, purple eyes!' response is a reaction to authors mentioning eye colour continuously. Don't get so caught up on the unusual eye colour that it's mentioned every five seconds.
- Why do unusual eyes have to be seen as pretty? They may appear ugly or freaky to some other characters. Some characters may be indifferent.
For Those Who Skipped to the End
Make your lavender-eyed princess short-sighted and give her glasses.
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* Though I've seen claims of violet eyes due to a pigment, I haven't seen any evidence to back it up. All the cases I've heard of, with reasonable evidence to back them up, are due to blue pigmented eyes and blood colouration combining to make violet.
It is possible to make light blue or grey eyes appear purple with special lighting, clothes and makeup (which is possibly the origin of claims of a purple pigment).
** Cats have a number of genes causing white fur patches and/or blue eyes, so the idea of albinism being restricted to certain areas of the body isn't unheard of in nature.
*** Big Trouble in Little China took this route.
**** It'd be funny to have a population of people with dark purple eyes and make the unusual eye colour brown. If there isn't a fantasy parody using that idea already, I'm a mushroom.
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(It shouldn't need to be said that the eye photo is me playing around with graphics programs, but I've seen people linking to similar photos as proof of dark purple eyes existing. So people googling purple eyes: they exist, but not like that.)
12 comments:
The main thing about eye colour for me (and you made this point) is that it's very subtle and I often don't notice what colour someone's eyes are.
The point about unusual eye colour often going with visual problems is interesting. There's food for stories here!
Part of the reason yellow eyes aren't used much in fiction (of the non-Mary Sue variety) might be because--at least in the one fellow I met who had them--they're really quite disturbing looking.
They're also not amber. His yellow eyes were more of a greyish egg yolk colour. He was a very nice fellow, but his eyes really gave me the creeps.
Tanith Lee uses non-Sue yellow eyes to create a disturbing first impression of a character in her book A Bed of Earth. That's the only place in fiction I've seen someone realistically portray that eye colour.
Wow, that's really interesting Polenth. I never realized all that about eye colours.
One thing about purple eyes, I have noticed that people with very dark blue eyes (which as you said aren't as usual as the lighter greyish blue) can appear to have purple eyes in certain lights. Even my own appear that way, most often in a darker room, say early evening with no lights on. I think it has to do with the quality of light reflecting on the iris, rather than quantity though. Blue eyes are very changeable in that respect (I personally have fairly brilliant blue eyes, but depending on light they can be grey-blue, sky-blue, dark blue, royal blue, and the aforementioned purplish colour).
Also, why aren't hazel eyes more popular in fantasy? Talk about an eye colour with possibilities!
Anyhow, now I want to make a blind purple-eyed princess! :D
~Bookewyrme
fairyhedgehog, The person I met with violet eyes, I'd talked to them several times before I noticed. I think I tend to notice whether eyes are light or dark early on, but the exact shade comes later.
jjdebenedictis, The amber comment was based on what they'd be classified as under normal eye classification systems. I call 'em yellow, but I'm an ecologist rather than a human biologist. ;)
It's true that yellow can look disturbing. That's one reason why I like the colour. It gives a wider range of possible reactions to the eyes.
Lia, Hazel is often shown as 'her eye colour changed with her mood'. I considered commenting on it, as it's usually done terribly, but hazel is a common eye colour (and there'd be enough to say about variable colour eyes to write another post).
That was an enjoyable post. Now too I want to write about a blind purple-eyed princess but since Lia already calmed it I'll go with an yellow-eyed heroine.
Southpaw, Yay for yellow eyes! Though I don't think anyone's claimed neon green either.
Purple eyes....Love it! It's kind of creepy yet sexy. I've thought about unusual eye colors but riding out my fixation on blue and green for now.
Andrea Allison, Nothing wrong with the usual colours (though the advice about eye colours being subtle still applies... possibly moreso when it's a common colour).
I heard that sometimes, the reason for purple eye colour is a genetic mutation called Alexandria's genesis. Nobody's really sure if it actually exists or if it's just an urban legend, but if it doesn't exist now, then there is a possibility it used to. The mutation was named after Alexandria Augustine, the first recorded person to of had it. She lived in London, England in 1329 CE and died at the age of 150. Here is a link including some more information on the supposed genetic mutation.
http://www.outpost-daria.com/fanfic/purple_eyes.html
Alexandria's genesis is fictional. It was invented by a fan fiction author, as was the history of Alexandria Augustine. That means you don't want to use it unless you have permission from the original author.
You can see it's made up if you look at the details. For a start, it's not just about purple eyes, but about making people superhuman (they have advanced immune systems, extra-long life expectancy, white skin that doesn't burn in the sun, etc). If someone had all of those things, it'd be on the news.
Also, the way the genetics works doesn't exist in the real world. There's no process for a condition to be passed down the female line only* (in humans - it is possible in some other species).
That doesn't mean it's impossible for a red** eye pigment to exist, but no one has been found with such a pigment to date.
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* This is because males have the chromosomes XY and females have XX. As everyone has an X, and females only have Xs, there are no chromosomes that only females have. You could have a male only condition though, by placing the genes on the Y chromosome.
** We are talking red pigments, because blue pigments already exist... so it's the red the body needs to make pigmented purple eyes. As said in the post, this doesn't stop eyes being purple... but the red comes from blood colouration rather than a pigment in the eyes.
Interesting. As I only write fantasy in brand-new worlds, I don't worry about the logistics. My characters have steely-blue, hazel, forest-green, and (the cat) sapphire. Most eye colors don't exist because they would look stupid on humans, such as orange. Therefore, I try to stick with natural variations, or more intense manifestations of natural colors. Unless it's an evil rat; then of COURSE it had red eyes ;]
Well...you could claim sex-limited, rather than sex-linked. Just stick the dominating form on your males' Y chromosome.
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