Basic Trope: An evil character has black eyes.
- Straight: The villain has black eyes.
- Exaggerated:
- Every villain we run into has a shade of black eyes, and none of the heroes do.
- The more evil a villain is, the blacker his eyes are.
- Downplayed:
- The villain's eyes are a very dark brown, much darker than any of the other characters'.
- Villain possesses animal-like features. His eyes become all-black when he goes into combat, just like that of a hunting cat.
- Justified: He's a demon or an alien.
- Inverted:
- The only character with black eyes is the hero.
- The hero has bright blue eyes.
- The villain has perfectly white eyes.
- Subverted:
- We catch a glimpse of a black-eyed character, but he turns out to be on the good guy's side.
- The character isn't evil after all, although he is very dangerous when slightly crossed.
- Double Subverted: ...Until we find out he was The Mole all along.
- Parodied:
- The villain laments his eyes for not being black, and eventually goes to dye them. He becomes an Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain.
- A brand of contact lenses is advertised as fighting crime by keeping away evil black eyes.
- The villain dyes his eyes to a different color, and instantly becomes a good guy.
- Zig-Zagged:
- The shady-looking character with black eyes is actually on the good side, but he turns out to be The Mole. However, as soon as he reveals this, he dyes his eyes. After which he goes back to the side of good because the black eye color actually shows that he is mind-controlled by the Big Bad, and it's rendered useless by the dye.
- An alien race introduced as Always Chaotic Evil has these eyes. They are eventually revealed to be more complex, but good or evil, they all have the same eye style.
- Averted:
- Who have black eyes that don't have anything to do with whether they're good or bad.
- None of the villains have black eyes.
- Enforced: We need a way for audiences to tell apart a villain from his heroic counterpart — let's give him black eyes so they can notice right away.
- Lampshaded: "Fear me and my black eyes!"
- Invoked: A villain makes his eyes black for the sole purpose of making himself look more evil.
- Exploited: A hero, who is disguised as an enemy soldier, dyes his eyes black to emphasize his façade.
- Defied:
- After making his Face–Heel Turn, a character makes sure to prevent his eyes from becoming black, as he doesn't like the idea of how he'd look with black eyes.
- An Evil Vizier refuses to make his eyes black because he knows having one will make people know he's evil.
- Discussed: "Maybe we should stay away from that guy. Look at the eyes! It just spells evil!"
- Conversed: "Why do they give the bad guys black eyes?"
- Implied: A Big Bad who isn't seen for the longest time is said to have the darkest eyes in the world.
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