Scary Shiny Glasses

"Gendo shifted his head minutely. His glasses flashed at Rei. Backlit by the reflected sunlight from the surface, he was a black shape with only the flash of his lenses to highlight his form. He was like a perched demon, sitting in judgement."

— Advice and Trust

These are definitely not mere 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 one's character. Large eyes represent honesty and innocence, while smaller eyes indicate darker personalities. This is because eyes are very important to conveying emotions.

If you can't even see their eyes because of light reflecting off their 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.

Sometimes the glasses are a visual metaphor for the bearer's inhumane qualities. Other times the possessor is Not Even Human.

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. Character Tics involving adjusting one's glasses — particularly by pushing them up the nose — has an alarming tendency to trigger this trope. Compare Malevolent Masked Men and Opaque Lenses. Can also be combined with a High-Class Glass for use by a Nazi Nobleman or Evil Aristocrat.

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Example Subpages:

• Anime & Manga

Other Examples:

Comic Books

• In Astro City, The Archmage Simon Magus' glasses give off a constant glow, as if they're hiding some great power behind them.
• Hugo Strange, long-time member of Batman's Rogues Gallery is usually depicted with these. This trope was overused with this guy to the point modern portrayals usually show him with mirrored Spectacles to mimic the effect of Scary Shiny Glasses permanently. This is also used for James Gordon Jr.
• Oddly, this is used for Commissioner Gordon in Batman: The Dark Knight Returns. He's giving a speech, and as he looks down at his notes and back up again, the reflection switches on and off.
• In Alan Moore's Lost Girls, during Alice's telling of her story, her father's friend "Bunny" (the equivalent of the White Rabbit) who later takes her virginity wears a pair reflecting glasses. There's a very creepy panel where we get a close-up of his eyes with Alice reflected in them.
• As an adolescent, Sara/h from The Maxx is often shown in silhouette with only the blank lenses of her glasses visible.
• The graphic novel adaptation of “Murder Mysteries” gives the protagonist these. He’s strongly implied to have murdered a woman, her roommate and her child before getting hit with amnesia.
• The Corinthian in The Sandman (1989) always wears reflective sunglasses, but then, that's really preferable to looking at what he actually has in his eye sockets.
• This effect happens a few times with Gideon Graves in Scott Pilgrim, as well as with Lynette Guycott (especially noticeable when she punches the highlights out of Knives' hair).
  • Simon Lee also has this (at least in Scott's imagination).
• For some odd reason, David in the comic book adaption of Shaun of the Dead has this trope, making him look strangely like Gendo Ikari. It's probably to foreshadow his being a Bitch in Sheep's Clothing.
• In "The Hard Goodbye", the first graphic novel of Sin City, the cannibalistic serial killer Kevin wears glasses with lenses that often whited out so his eyes are not visible. This is carried over to the film version of the story.
• Triple X Ray in Sleeper (WildStorm) has this even in the dark. When he finally takes them off it's revealed that his eyes are glowing radioactively. More of a subversion, since Ray isn't really that bad a guy. Played straight, however, with Peter Grimm.
• The Ax-Crazy protagonist of Welcome to Hoxford has this, and he never takes his glasses off.
• Gibson Praise in The X-Files Season 10.
• Malcolm Colcord, director of the Weapon X Program in the X-Men comics often has them, like on the cover of Weapon X #6. Also the former head of the project Professor Truett Hudson.

Fanfiction

• A Brief History of Equestria gives us, of all ponies, Princess Platinum. It would, naturally, be impossible for the author of the history book to know this factoid, but the side stories it to us, along with her tendency to steeple her hooves.
• Parodied in Hetalia: Axis Powers fanfic Gankona, Unnachgiebig, Unità. When asking who Italy liked, Japan—who was Cosplaying as Teru Mikami—gave off an ominous glasses glint. Not that Italy was affected; he didn't confess at that moment.
• Guys Being Dudes: Arlo's glasses can do this, and he activates it whenever he wants to look especially evil. Seeing as his glasses have a number of bizarre capabilities, it seems likely that he specifically modified them to do this.
• Pokémon Reset Bloodlines: A minor character named Iolani Pueo often does this intentionally, a trick she learned from her late mother. It's implied she uses the glare for both intimidation purposes and to hide her glowing eyes when she uses her Dominion Bloodline power.
• Soul Eater: Troubled Souls: In Chapter 2, Stein goes to the Correctional Class homeroom for Noel. He doesn’t know this yet, but he is away at the time. He knocks on the door and hears the students on the other side scrambling to fix things up. Stein enters and a disappointed student points out it’s not Noel. Cue Stein’s glasses glinting as he looks at said student.

Film — Animation

• Turning Red: Mei's father Jin Lee seems to have these during his Mundane Made Awesome cooking scene when his glasses go opaque. However, it turns out to be steam fogging up the lenses.

Film — Live-Action

• Ballistic Kiss: Donnie Yen plays a bespectacled hitman named Cat, whose glasses tends to shine during shootout scenes that takes place at night or in darkened scenes. Naturally he's a killing machine who takes plenty of names throughout the movie, and his glasses makes him more threatening than he already is.
• Copycat: Whenever Serial Killer Peter Foley is watching his intended victims on his computer, the screen reflects off his glasses so his eyes are invisible. As he is sitting in a darkened room, in the close-ups of his face his shiny glasses are the only illumination.
• In The Exorcist, the doctor that initially diagnoses Regan has these as he scans through the X-Rays looking for something amiss.
• Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade has Himmler wear these in the brief scene in which he appears. Extra evil points for the glare being the reflection of a pyre upon which books are being burned.
• In the independent film Ink the bad guys, who are all depicted as usually wearing glasses and glass screens in front of their faces, remove their screens in the climactic battle to reveal that the glasses actually emit their own light.
• Worn to great effect by the eponymous villain of The Ranger.
• In Rear Window, we can see Lars Thorwarld's eyes through his glasses just fine ... up until he enters Jeff's apartment.
• The Right Stuff: After sending Gordo Cooper to get a sperm sample, and him making a rather inappropriate joke about assisting him, the nurse looms over him as she sends him off, her face in shadow and Gordo's reflection in her glasses obscuring her eyes.
• In the film adaptation of Sin City, Kevin's glasses follow this trope, as suggested by the graphic novel's art style.
• The brutal Knight Templar Big Brother in the Film Noir Sweet Smell of Success J.J. Hunsecker wears these to good effect.
• The airplane pilot at the beginning of Westworld dons a pair.
• Judge Doom in Who Framed Roger Rabbit wears shiny rimless glasses, as if he wasn't creepy enough. The fact that this Trope is used not once, but twice with those glasses in the film doesn't help us to relax.
• In the film version of Witness for the Prosecution, the main character has a similar trick using a monocle and a window at the right time of day. The shine is intimidating both to the audience and to those he speaks to, and he claims nobody can lie under its influence. He's wrong.

Literature

• The Age of Madness: In the final chapter, Rikke envisions Hildi's future, seeing her with shining lenses over her eyes as she builds a malevolent financial empire.
• In The Alice Network, Violette creates this effect by turning her face towards the sun, which reflects on her glasses in such a way that her eyes cannot be seen.
• In Artemis Fowl: The Arctic Incident, one of the Russian mafia who shot down the Fowl Star, Vassikin, develops shiny glasses after finding a golden card on Artemis Sr.
• Nguyen Seth of the Dark Future novels, a truly terrifying character, has these glasses. At a couple of points he takes the glasses off, and, although his eyes are never described, the characters who see them are never quite the same again.
• In Deep Secret, the normally mild-mannered Rupert's glasses are described as doing this at one point when he's especially angry at someone.
• The scientist Skinner in Dr. Franklin's Island, twice trying to help characters escape while highly upset and unsteady, is twice said to have light reflecting from his glasses, making his eyes look like "mad pennies".
• Flavia de Luce doesn't need glasses, but she wears them anyways to invoke this trope.
• In Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Aberforth's glasses do this at one point when his brother (Dumbledore) is mentioned.
• In John Bellairs' novel The House With a Clock in Its Walls, the undead Mrs. Izzard has exactly this sort of glasses which even shine with ghostly radiance during a chase scene, and after her destruction, all that is left of her is her skull and her glasses.
• In Timothy Zahn's book The Icarus Hunt, it's mentioned offhand that the main character's boss only wears glasses so he can use them to reflect light in the eyes of whoever he's talking to. It's also mentioned that it doesn't work nearly as well over videophone.
• James Bond novels:
  • When Jack Spang in Diamonds Are Forever personally goes to collect the final batch of smuggled diamonds from his contact in Africa at night, the contact notes how the moonlight causes this effect on his flying goggles.
  • The titular villain of Colonel Sun is depicted with these in the second cover for the book. One lens reflects light, whereas the other shows a reflection of Bond.
• The Major dons these in Stephen King's The Long Walk.
• In William Golding's Lord of the Flies, Piggy's glasses do this several times.
• Dr. Bull from The Man Who Was Thursday by Chesterton indulges in this trope and with a good reason - without these sinister specs he looks like such a nice, jolly chap that he'd never pass as one of the bad guys he's supposed to be infiltrating. The glasses make him appear nearly inhuman.
• Moonrunner, has a rather unnerving illustration of a mad scientist character that uses this trope.
• Isaac Asimov's "The Mule": Mayor Indbur, third of the name to rule the Foundation, feels obligated to live up to the examples set by his tyrannical predecessors. Because he is, by nature, nothing more than an excellent bookkeeper, he tries to evoke an intimidating presence by wearing specially-made contact lenses. He doesn't need them to correct his vision, but they can catch the ambient light in an intimidating glint, which is one of the many subtle tools he uses to establish his supremacy as Head of State.
  [T]he tinted contact lenses he wore caught the light in a manner that imparted a hard, dry gleam to his eye. — narration
• In the Dystopia classic Nineteen Eighty-Four, a colleague of protagonist Winston Smith has a hostile spectacle-flash, which is the textual equivalent. Likewise, in Politics and the English Language, also by George Orwell, and almost a word-by-word copy of the scene from 1984 that's talking about the same topic: When one watches some tired hack on the platform mechanically repeating the familiar phrases... one often has a curious feeling that one is not watching a live human being but some kind of dummy: a feeling which suddenly becomes stronger at moments when the light catches the speaker's spectacles and turns them into blank discs which seem to have no eyes behind them.
• In Otherland by Tad Williams, when the recurring Twin villains make their first appearance in the World War I simulation near the beginning of the first book, one of them sports these.
• Raymond Chandler's Philip Marlowe:
  • In The Little Sister, after Marlowe reveals that he knows exactly how far from innocent Orfamay Quest really is:
    The light glinted on the glasses. There were no eyes behind them.
  • In Playback, Marlowe gets a scare while sneaking into a hotel late at night:
    The night man was looking right at me. [...] he wore glasses and the light shone hard on the glasses.
  • It turns out to be a subversion: the night man is harmless, and when Marlowe gets closer he realises that the shiny glasses are hiding the fact that the night man is sleeping on the job.
• Gideon from Scott Pilgrim uses this effect constantly, in all three media.
• In the C. S. Lewis novel That Hideous Strength, the character of Professor Frost is repeatedly described as having pince nez glasses that would reflect light in such a way as to make his eyes invisible.

Live-Action TV

• Admiral Adama's glasses in Battlestar Galactica often catch the light and glint ominously when some serious ass-kicking is about to ensue.
• Seen a few times on Giles in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, especially when he's in Ripper mode.
• In the Columbo episode "Death Lends a Hand," after the culprit kills his victim, the whole sequence of the coverup (moving the body, etc.) is shown in the lenses of the glasses worn by the actor (Robert Culp), who does not move for the several minutes it takes to play out. Talk about windows into the soul...
• On Criminal Minds, the unsub from "Burn" wears this sort of eyeglasses, which reflect the flames creepily when he burns a man alive.
• Rare early Western example: the War Lords in the Doctor Who story "The War Games" (capable of using it to hypnotise human characters).
• Occasionally used to great effect for Dr Harrison Wells in The Flash (2014). One occasion is when Barry agrees to focus on improving his speed, something that has been Dr Wells's goal from the beginning of the series and is heavily tied to his mysterious ulterior motives. The lightning Barry is producing while running on the treadmill reflects in his glasses, partially obscuring his eyes as he smiles to himself somewhat deviously.
• Self appointed moral guardian Mary Whitehouse is portrayed as having them by the trailers for her TV biopic, Filth: The Mary Whitehouse Story. Since the film is made and shown by the BBC, which was one of her most frequent targets, this may be an intentional use of this trope.
• The introduction of Simon in Firefly, as part of the misdirection that he's The Mole.
• As is traditional, the Hugo Strange of Gotham is presented as having these.
• The Haunting of Bly Manor Dani is haunted by visions of a shadowy man with shiny glasses that glow in the dark. It turns out that he's her memory of her late boyfriend, who was run over immediately after she broke up with him. The light reflected in his lenses are from the headlights of the truck that killed him.
• Not quite so literal Western example: Mr. Bennet in Heroes wears horn-rimmed glasses, which ramp up his personal creepiness factor. Dramatically.
• Charles Augustus Magnussen in Sherlock's series 3 finale

Music

• At one point in his music video for Back and Forth, Doctor Steel's goggles reflect nonexistent flames as he sings about "drag[ging] a burning smile across this nation".
• The Strange Folk in the music video for Gorillaz' "Fire Coming out of a Monkey's Head" are depicted as pitch black silhouettes wearing glowing red goggles.
• EDM Producer Rezz wears a pair of LED glasses when she's on stage as part of her on-stage persona, this creates a very unsettling effect. Doubles as Hypnotic Eyes.
• In the music video "First of the Year (Equinox)" by Skrillix, this happens to the man in the trench coat as he walks through the tunnel, while pouring a suspicious chemical into a handkerchief.

Newspaper Comics

• Bil Keane from The Family Circus, especially when interpreted by The Dysfunctional Family Circus, as seen here and here.

Video Games

• Ovan from .hack//G.U. has shiny glasses most of the time.
• Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw's infamously creepy Survival Horror freeware game, 1213, features the impatient and batshit-insane Westbury, who torments 1213 through video screens. All that we see of him besides his silhouette are his huge round glasses. What's more, the shiny glasses are the boss of the second episode, as a pair of giant white circles that fire bolts of lighting at the protagonist.
  "I saw that, twelve-thirteen!"
• Alpha Protocol: Michael Thorton's glasses tend to be rather reflective. Sometimes to a ridiculously bright extent.
• ANNO: Mutationem: While traveling to The Walter Raleigh, Ann meets a mysterious individual, K, who proceeds to tell Ann a story about a child who made a Deal with the Devil, all with shiny glasses, and just before Ann can ask anything else, he suddenly vanishes.
• Batman: Arkham City introduces Hugo Strange with Bruce Wayne's reflection in his glasses. You can even see his eyes under them.
• Iron Tager from BlazBlue: Bringing the Real Soviet Damage with permanent glasses-glow.
• Cave Story: The Doctor's eyes are always obscured by the glare of his spectacles.
• The clever costume builder can achieve the effect in City of Heroes by combining the glasses costume part with the "glowing eyes" aura.
• There's one of the scariest scenes in Condemned: Criminal Origins, where you've been suddenly attacked by your recent companion, with a Scary Shiny Glasses effect permanently on. Turns out that this was just a hallucination, though.
• The sprites of Morishige from Corpse Party will turn into these when we find out that he dug out the third bag needed to appease the ghosts, which were under one of his dead classmates' pulverized body.
  "You know when the glasses flare up like that, that's when you know you don't fuck with 'em!" — PewDiePie
• Deltarune: When Ralsei reveals The Roaring's existence in Chapter 2, the lenses of his glasses turn completely white on his overworld sprite, highlighting his uncharacteristic sternness in that moment.
• Dante's Legendary Dark Knight costume in the Devil May Cry series references the human form of his father Sparda, who has a one-way purple monocle over his left eye. In Devil May Cry 3: Dante's Awakening, the costume's official artwork has the monocle obscuring his eye in white light, which contrasts the official artworks of the first and fourth games where the monocle is transparent.
• Disgaea 3: Absence of Justice: When Mao's glasses start to shine, it's generally a good rule of thumb to get out of there. Usually, it means the mad science is about to begin, and you're the specimen.
• Professor Hojo from Final Fantasy VII gets a lot of mileage out of this one. Due to the limitations of low-poly models, in-game his glasses are opaque the whole time. In better-animated Compilation materials, he glints significantly at the drop of a hat.
• Keats from Folklore does this often, like every second scene. He also has scary shiny glasses whenever he's in combat and his Transcendence bar is filling up.
• Theodore Slowslop in Gadget: Past as Future always wears sunglasses that glint like this from time to time. Though he hired you to investigate a group of scientists, it's never stated which side he's truly on.
• The player can pull this off with Niko◊ in GTA IV, given the right lighting conditions.
• Half-Life:
  • Some of the scientists in Black Mesa in Half-Life have glasses like these. Averted, since they're mostly craven cowards.
  • The eyes in the masks of Combine civil protection and overwatch troops in Half-Life 2 shine like this. (CP silver, Overwatch blue.)
• This trope, and a significantly better voice actor, did wonders for The House of the Dead's Goldman when he reappeared in the fourth game.

• Jill Leidner, the Student Council President of Jenis Royal Academy in The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky displays this whenever channelling her inner (self-described) evil genius moments to her friends.
• Roxis Rozenkrantz of Mana Khemia. Whenever he's in battle, his idle battle sprite will periodically have an ominous glare
• The Sorrow in Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater has glasses that simultaneously blank out and break when he does his ghost routine.
• During the tutorial of Metroid: Other M a scientist says he gave Samus' suit a "polish" and then repositions his glasses causing them to flash, creepy... It turns out this scientist is part of the reason Metroids still exist.
• Persona:
  • Persona: Tsutomu, on top of his odd appearance, his glasses lenses are completely opaque.
  • Played for laughs in Persona 3 FES. In one of the new extra features for the original storyline, Shuji Ikutsuki's glasses do this whenever he thinks up one of his terrifyingly bad puns. This happens a lot. Also, when he goes into full-on Straw Nihilist slash A God Am I territory, his glasses do this too. It abruptly ceases being funny. Players familiar with this can spot the twist a mile away, as all but one of his evil mode pictures show up before he reveals his plan.
  • Persona 4: Yu has this in spades when Izanagi is first awakened.
  • Persona 5 Royal: Dr. Maruki sports these in his flashbacks right before he's about to awaken Azathoth and in his Palace's alert icon.
• Albert Wesker from Resident Evil does this a lot, although with Sinister Shades instead of normal glasses. Come 5, it's gotten even worse, as the Virus has apparently done a lot of good for Wesker in this case. He wears mirrored glasses to keep people from seeing his obviously-infected eyes, and the second Jill and Chris open fire, begins Flash Stepping around the room and dodging bullets like he just stepped right out of the Matrix. All without losing the scary shine.

• Kamek and his fellow Magikoopas from the Super Mario Bros. games all wear identical round, opaque glasses.
• Latooni Subota from Super Robot Wars: Original Generation is a perfect example. She wears extremely thick coke-bottle glasses that she says are her analyzation glasses; they turn out to be a psychological tool she uses to stay professional at all times.
• Tales of...:
  • It is implied that Jade Curtiss from Tales of the Abyss wears his glasses to protect the environment from his eyes. They flash often, especially in the anime adaptation. In both the game and anime, the only time you ever see both of Dist's eyes is when he's not wearing his glasses.
  • Julius from Tales of Xillia 2 gets this from time to time, though he's not a bad guy. His Alternate Self that's encountered early on, however, tells a different story.
• In Team Fortress 2, the BLU Engineer has these in the last page of the Loose Canon comic.
  • Medic also gets in on the action in Blood in the Water.
• Beruga, one of the main antagonists in Terranigma. His hometown Mosque is adorned with giant posters of his face, and his eyes hidden behind a pair of opaque round glasses.
• Watch_Dogs 2 has an excellent example◊. However, said glasses are only available as DLC. (The No Compromise pack - Cop glasses)
• World of Warcraft: In the intro for Worgen, Godfrey shows he has quite an experience when it comes to being scary. Bonus points for the reflection of the worgen's eyes in his glasses.

Visual Novels

• Aoi-sensei in Aoi Shiro occasionally engages the shine effect, usually when teasing the girls with scary stories.
• In Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney, Kristoph Gavin develops this◊ this when things cease going his way. When using Perceive on him during Turnabout Succession, you can look through his glasses and see his eyes shooting daggers at you. It's very, very unnerving.
  • Also subverted with Winston Payne, who has shiny glasses, but is a spineless wimp that is easily rattled. His brother, Gaspen, uses shiny sunglasses instead, but is as much of a pushover as Winston.
• In Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc, Toko occasionally has this, from time to time. In Danganronpa: Ultra Despair Girls, it's most notably when Jack is trying to hide how she feels from Komaru. Jack doesn't really want to admit that she's growing rather attached to Komaru, even after nearly betraying her for Byakuya.
  • Shows up again in Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony after Tsumugi Shirogane reveals herself to be the mastermind
• Mr. R of Boys' Love game Kichiku Megane uses the common version of this trope from time to time. Is is interesting as it combines with various other features to add to his largely concealed face.

Web Animation

• In Seasons 9 and 10 of Red vs. Blue, the Director of Project Freelancer's face is rarely seen in full, and if his eyes would be in the shot they're hidden by the glare on his glasses. This makes the final episode all the more potent, when he finally removes his glasses to reveal Family Eye Resemblance.

Webcomics

• Comedity: In this strip. Also, note the discreet Rule 34 insertion.
• Crimson Flag has Archmage Kesnar wearing them, though he seems to be a good guy so far. A straighter example would be the priest in Sierra's flashback.
• The BLU Medic pulls this a couple of times in Cuanta Vida.
• Eerie Cuties. In one strip Nina has one of these moments even though she's not wearing glasses.
• El Goonish Shive:
  • Tedd subverts this. His glasses look like this trope, but function more as Nerd Glasses. They once functioned as true Scary Shiny Glasses while he was ranting in full Mad Scientist mode about a new invention.
  • His father, on the other hand, has nearly identical glasses and works as a The Men in Black. Even compared to the other The Men in Black he works with, he's shown to have an unnervingly clear picture of all the weirdness going on in Moperville and the surrounding areas. Tedd's father also demonstrates this when he's extremely angry and at risk of losing his temper.
  • Luke, a newish character as of this strip, apparently activates his after being called gay by another card player.
• Exiern: Denver, who is usually a bumbling nerd, breaks out the Scary Shiny Glasses in this strip just before thinks get dangerous.
• In Everyday Heroes, this is how Professor Odious is first seen, hinting that Jane Mighty may have a Dark and Troubled Past. Lampshaded here where he explains how he obtains the effect. Though this Trope is both invoked and averted at the same time. Odious is a former villain, and he's the head of the local support group that helps people like himself reintegrate into society.
• Parodied in this strip from Frankenstein Superstar.
• Quite a common trope in Funny Farm to illustrate the sinister (although not necessarily evil) nature of some characters, e.g. here and here.
• Homestuck's Eridan Ampora sports these after he gains the powers of the White Wand used to murder Feferi.
  • John Egbert as well, on a couple occasions.
  • Jade after going Grimbark has them almost all the time in Hero Mode.
• Irrelevator The more you're plotting, the more your glasses shine.◊

• The hooded man from Miamaska has his first appearance with this.
• In A Miracle of Science, Dr. Haas' glasses turn like this the very instant he's infected with Science-Related Memetic Disorder.
• Dr. Narbon in Narbonic wears those. Dave, who's not particularly scary, averts the trope by wearing Opaque Nerd Glasses as a regular nerd, then having them turn clear when he realizes the truth and has his Mad Scientist Freak Out.
• Never Satisfied: Tetsu, on several occasions. Typically it's to indicate their somewhat flat, detached demeanor, but it's just as frequently used to show things have gotten serious.
  • Seiji gets this as well, when January finally pushes her unapologetic treatment of Sylas too far.^note tfw you're so mad your eyes and mouth disappear
• Nip and Tuck do this with a minor character here, as part of a ridiculously elaborate practical joke to scare a blowhard.
• Played with/parodied in Paranatural, where Mr. Spender adjusts his glasses to catch the light dramatically... then grabs the glint and uses it as a shuriken.
• Dale in Questionable Content has developed permanently Scary Shiny glasses ever since starting his challenge with Marigold, as an extended Shout-Out.
  • Handwaved in this strip.
• Fedya in Rhapsodies. Normally he's a good natured, gregarious and laid back individual who enjoys playing the Funny Foreigner, but when his glasses turn walk away slowly.
• Rosebuds: Rosa's glasses will shine and hide her eyes when she is especially angry, surprised, or embarrassed.
• In Samurai Princess if Peter Fawdry's glasses are shinning it's a good sign that you are about to take a bullet to the head.
• Sluggy Freelance: Dr. Vistuvius has them — justified by having glowing vampire eyes behind them.
• Happens a lot in Trying Human, because The Men in Black all have Hidden Eyes, often by means of shiny glasses, but also Sinister Shades, bangs and blindfolds. Also dr. Glasner, the Mad Scientist of Area 51, wears shiny glasses.
• In Yokoka's Quest, Grace's glasses flash entirely white for a frame as she begins geeking out while introducing to her spirits, the Poker Gang, to Yokoka.

Web Original

• The Undertaker in The Backwater Gospel sports these. They also never stop shining, to drive the point that he is a Humanoid Abomination home.
• Secondary villain Mars from Broken Saints sports a pair of glowing red shades, which are appropriately knocked askew when he gets his ass kicked by the heroes.
• According to this Cracked article, real life lawyers invoke the trope to help hide the shifty eyes of their clients.
• Percy from Critical Role is not-infrequently depicted this way, like in his first character portrait pre-2016 and in the Vox Machina Origins tie-in comics. The intro to the animated adaptation, The Legend of Vox Machina, shows his glasses flashing and briefly illuminating Orthax, the demon he made a pact with to avenge his family.
• Dr. Horrible, after undergoing his final transformation.
• James Lee is typically characterized in shadow, with glowing teeth and white glasses that act like screens. When he gets particularly weird, the screens on his glasses will display spirals or other patterns.
• While it doesn't appear in game, artwork commonly portrays Hawley Faust from Survival of the Fittest v1 with these.
• Tribe Twelve:
  • The Observer, the primary antagonist of the series has this in spades. Really doesn't help that he's rotoscoped to make every other feature indistinguishable... except for his teeth.
  • The mysterious Scriniarii also has these, although he's thankfully an ally.
• Waldo The Movie: When doing a Dramatic Gun Cock with a shotgun, Waldo is lit so that his characteristic Nerd Glasses become this.

Western Animation

• In the Batman: The Animated Series episode "The Clock King", Fugate's spectacles look normal enough in the prologue, but have a Four Eyes, Zero Soul effect after his Start of Darkness.
• Willy Watt develops these in his debut episode of Batman Beyond. The closing, silhouetted scene of him in juvenile hall just makes them scarier, to such a degree that it seems to be affecting the other inmates. (Well, okay, maybe it was really because he made a TV explode, but the glasses played a role in it.) The next time he shows up, he's ditched them because they don't really work with his new tough guy persona.
• In an episode of The Batman, these were the only sign that Clark Kent wasn't Clark Kent, but Clayface posing as him. That and his terrible acting.
• Batman: The Brave and the Bold: In "Chill of the Night", a priest trying to get a confession out of the dying Lew Moxon has these. All the more scarier when it turns out to be Batman in disguise. A very angry Batman, and more so given BATB Bats is Lighter and Softer than most other Batmen... but not this time.
• Franz Hopper, the mysterious mad scientist in the French series Code Lyoko, is always seen wearing opaque, slate-colored glasses that reflect the ambient light.
• Daria gets this when she tells her ghost story on a family camping trip. "... and then the witch disposed of Gretel's intestines for fear of bacterial infection."
• In Gravity Falls Ford's glasses do this in The Last Mabelcorn, making it unclear whether or not he is being possessed by Bill Cipher.
  • Candy's glasses do this in Roadside Attraction, when Dipper is being cornered by all the girls he flirted with.
• Curly in Hey Arnold!. Let's just say he's a bit crazy.
• Seen on Dib in the opening credits of Invader Zim. Dib's Father and Mrs. Bitters both have eyeless glasses, but their lenses are usually if not always dull, but that likely points to their constant plotting nature.
• Dale Gribble from King of the Hill is rarely ever seen without his mirrored shades. While he's still a lovably inept doofus, he happens to be the single most devious and untrustworthy character on the show.
• The girl Sarah in MTV's Oddities: The Maxx, a depressed sarcastic lonely girl, who's father turns out not to be dead but the serial killer Mr. Gone. Her thick glasses are not only shiny to the point of opaqueness, they cover almost half her face. The first time you can actually see her eyes (briefly), is when she snaps and threatens to shoot... well, shoot someone, possibly herself, with one of her father's guns. (She doesn't in the end, because she's Genre Savvy and doesn't want to end up as a soppy girl.)
• Cloud biologist Dr. Claude Belgon in the beautiful gothic-steampunk animated short film The Mysterious Geographic Explorations of Jasper Morello (Australia, 2005) is a textbook example of the creepy scientist with shiny glasses. In fact because all the characters have been rendered as layer-on-layer black silhouettes (in the way of Balinesian shadow puppets) with silvery highlights, all you get to see of his eyes are the white circles of his glasses against the black background of his head.
• Dendy gets this look in OK K.O.! Let's Be Heroes when she's about to do something morally dubious.
• The Owl House: In "Any Sport in a Storm", Hunter is introduced to Willow by her snatching him out of the air with vines and seeming to glare down at him with these... before she sweetly asks him to join her Flyer Derby team.
• Played for Laughs on Phineas and Ferb, when Lawrence uses them to win an evil glare competition.
• The Master in the animated Funny Animal series Road Rovers wears these at all times, though he's the leader of the protagonists. Handwaved at one point, when he explains there's no real reason for his glasses to be glowing like that, it just makes for a cool effect. Considering that the Master doesn't actually wear glasses, it must be a rare case of Scary Shiny Contact Lenses.
• Eric Cartman on South Park.
  "You will respect my au-thor-i-tie!"
• Norman Osborn has these at one point in The Spectacular Spider-Man. During the transformation of Flint Marko into a supersoldier (under the watchful eyes of Norman, Otto Octavius and mob enforcer Hammerhead), the experiment goes terribly wrong, and the view cuts from the screaming Marko to the horrified Octavius to the somewhat unnerved Hammerhead, then straight to Norman, who is watching utterly impassively with light from the experiment reflecting opaquely off his glasses. It was very creepy.
• Happens to Octus/Newton in Sym-Bionic Titan when he is using his technology to figure out how to undo the Monster of the Week's effect (that freezes all organic life).
• In Villainous we see Flug get these in the ending of one of the villain orientation videos when he's explaining to Mojo Jojo from The Powerpuff Girls while he's strapped to a torture table in Flug's lab that the injection he's about to receive won't kill him, but he'll probably wish that it would. It's the first time we really see the reason why Flug works for Black Hat.

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