Why, oh why, in fiction, do writers place so much stress on a character’s eye color?

Let’s face it: in your real world, when you meet someone, the first thing you notice is NOT the color of her/his eyes. Far from it. The very first thing you notice about a new acquaintance is gender, and if you’re not sure about that, then you might experience a sense of existential anxiety. Also, very nearly simultaneously with the above, you notice skin color/ethnicity, age, and physique, especially butts and/or boobs, depending on your preference. Hair color/style will also factor in. But rare, rare, rare is the person who notices eye color as part of a first impression unless it is advertised by loud makeup or brightly colored contact lenses. Otherwise, eye color awareness generally comes later, if at all. I dare say most of my longtime friends would be unable to state with accuracy what color my eyes are. Someday I want to write a realistic fiction character who says, with refreshing honesty, that s/he never noticed what color somebody’s eyes are.

So how has eye color become a big deal in fiction?

Because, in the long history of storytelling, eye color has become symbolic, serving as characterization shorthand.

Across the spectrum of genres and fictitious characters, blue eyes are perceived as attractive and morally good, unless they are cold blue eyes or pale blue eyes of a sharkish nature. Otherwise, so enamored are we of blue eyes that we go to ludicrous extremes in search of an exceptional blue. Violet eyes are not uncommon in fiction, although in nature they seem limited to Elizabeth Taylor. Indigo eyes, the color of classic brand new blue jeans? Don’t I wish. Eyes like Arizona skies (turquoise) cerulean blue, midnight blue (Navy?), TARDIS blue, dusty blue, cadet blue, slate blue, timber wolf blue, nearly ad infinitum. We keep pushing the boundary of blue until we have overstepped into blue’s troubled twin, gray.

Imagine Sherlock Holmes with blue eyes? No way. Without consulting the text, I can state with near certainty that Sherlock’s eyes were gray to symbolize his cold logic. (Watson’s would be brown. More on brown anon.) The symbolism of gray is that of blue compromised and/or rendered heroic by some chilly shadow. The symbolism of gray often links in with that of the sea and its restless, shifting tides – sea-fog gray, gull-shadow gray, Atlantic gray, salty as tears. Or gray is described by references to metals – pewter, or steel, or a dangerous gunmetal gray – if Shane’s eyes aren’t gray, they should be. I once described a character as having “eyes the color of tarnished silver.” Precious metal, but imperfect. Except, of course, in the case of the exceptions. Gray eyes can signify cool, calm serenity. Quiet gray eyes provide a foil for a character with eyes of, say, vixen green.

Now there’s a fictional eye color cliche, reserved almost exclusively for strong-willed foxy ladies with distinct character flaws. Didn’t Scarlett O’Hara have green eyes? In real life, the only person I ever met who had genuinely green eyes was male, and otherwise so ordinary I did not notice his grass-green irises for several months. He was absolutely not a green-eyed monster, but I suspect that the use of green eyes in fiction is tainted by that phrase, which apparently predates Shakespeare. Hence, there are hardly any good-hearted green-eyed characters in fiction, with one exemption: a blameless, naturally red-haired character is grudgingly allowed to have green eyes. But then the redhead mythos comes into play, and that’s another blog.

The real world’s most common eye color is brown, and in fiction it denotes ordinary people, foils, and followers. I don’t know whether Conan Doyle ever says Watson has brown eyes, but he should. Watson is dogged in character and displays doglike loyalty; of course he should have the eyes of a deerhound. But most authors want to make their brown-eyed characters special, so they lighten the brown to hazel, or darken it to sloe (hazel being a nut and sloe being a blackish berry, although few readers know that), or they call upon exotic coffees or chocolates for comparison, or they add flecks, invariably golden ones, that sparkle and dance. I have yet to see silver flecks in fictional irises, or copper ones, or aluminum for that matter. This disappoints me, because I am always on the lookout for new decorator trends in eye color. Why settle for hazel when, with only slight exaggeration, we can have yellow eyes like an alley cat’s? Why stop at sloe when we can go jet black (a metaphor of gemstone, not aviation)? Why balk at violet when it’s only a small step to amethyst? I plead guilty. I’ll be adding precious-metal sparkles next.

In our imaginations, eyes are vistas of symbolism, portals of the soul. Fictional characters gaze into one another’s eyes a heck of a lot more than real people do, so there has to be significance there, symbolism, and spirituality. It would be fun to flout the rules and have a very average brown-eyed character saving the world. But it’s also fun to be aware of the tacit rules and use them: an exceptional character requires an exceptional eye color. Writing I AM MORGAN LE FAY, I took this convention to an extreme by giving that witchy woman one green eye and one purple. (Amethyst. That was when I committed amethyst.) In real life, this would mean nothing more than hey, lookie that. But in fiction, does Morgan Le Fay’s ambivalent eye color mean she is dangerously weird? You bet it does.

Recently, a fan surprised me by ordering herself a new set of contact lenses: one green and one purple, in honor of Morgan Le Fay. I feel quite touched.

What is it going to take to top that? Could I possibly invent an entirely new eye color never before see in the history of story?

Don’t eye wish.