Family Eye Resemblance

In media, characters frequently have a Strong Family Resemblance to other members of their family, often down to a Hereditary Hairstyle. But sometimes creators go for a more subtle hint of relation: and since Eyes Never Lie, what better thing to do that than by giving the whole family very distinctive peepers?

Frequently, people who knew the parent in question will remark that the character has their mother's/father's eyes. In some cases, people can figure out who the family is from their eyes alone! Oddly, this occurs as often (if not more so) with Common Eye Colors as it does with Technicolor Eyes; this is usually justified by the eyes exhibiting some kind of expression or intensity that the parent shared.

Examples of Family Eye Resemblance include:

Anime and Manga

• Fullmetal Alchemist: Ed and the human Alphonse have their father's golden eyes. The manga and the second anime reveal that it is a mark of Hohenheim being ethnically Xerxian; i.e., belonging to a lost civilization, in which everyone had the same golden eyes..
  • Alexander Armstrong's tiny little sister Catherine claims that she has the same eyes he does. It's true... but it's the ONLY thing she has in common with him, appearance-wise.
• In Black Butler, Ciel has his mother Rachel's blue eyes. It's mentioned occasionally how much Ciel looks like his mother (even by his father Vincent, who he resembles even more).
• In Yuri!!! On Ice, Yuuri Katsuki has his mother Hiroko's Brown Eyes while Yurio and his grandfather Nikolai have the same Green Eyes.
• In Detective Conan, one can distinguish the members of the Sera family because they all have the same Tsurime Eyes. So far, the ones who have showed up are the matriarch Mary (the "mysterious girl"), her two sons (Shuichi Akai and Shukichi Haneda) and her daughter (Masumi).
  • Additionally, Ai once puts on eyeliner and Conan thinks to himself that her eyes are familiar... because they resemble the Sera family's ones. According to word of God, Mary Sera herself is related to Ai and Akemi's Missing Mom Elena.
• All over the place in Naruto, where people who are related will near always have similar eyes:
  • Both the Uchihas and the Hyuugas share very peculiar eyes. The Uchihas have black eyes that turn red when they use the Sharingan, while the Hyuugas have either iris-less white (manga) or very pale lavender eyes (anime) whether they use their Byakugan or not.
  • In Boruto, Shikadai has the eyes of his mother Temari while Himawari and Boruto have their dad Naruto's and Inojin got eyes like his mother Ino's. Until Himawari activates her Byakugan - then her eyes turn white or lavender, like her mother Hinata's own.
    • Boruto's friends and teammates follow this too: Mitsuki has the same eyes as Orochimaru and turns out to be his clone, whereas Sarada not only has eyes similar to those of her father Sasuke, but also has a Sharingan.
• In My Hero Academia, one of the earliest hints that Dabi was the missing Touya Todoroki is that the guy's eyes are VERY similar to those of his abusive father, Enji/Endeavor
• Sharp-eyed Bleach readers / viewers will notice from the start that several characters fit in the trope: Ichigo Kurosaki, his sister Karin, and their cousins Kaien, Kuukaku and Ganju Shiba. In this case, it wasn't revealed until much later that the Shibas and the Kurosakis were cousins (though Ichigo, Yuzu and Karin's dad/the Shibas's uncle Isshin Kurosaki / Shiba) ; Ichigo was noted to be a red-haired Kaien, but it was believed to be a case of Identical Stranger instead.

Comic Books

• Batwoman has a Long-Lost Relative Reveal heralded by the words "You have our father's eyes". Said by the villain Alice, who is actually Batwoman's long lost twin sister Beth..

Fanfic

• Morgan is told this in The Return after he is transformed into a Succubus: Her new body has her mother's eyes.

Film

• Repo! The Genetic Opera. Blind Mag tells Shilo that she has her mother's eyes.
• Hot Shots!. People often tell Topper Harley that he has his father's eyes. Actually, he does. Literally. He keeps them in a little velvet case and all.
• Rosemary's Baby. One character says of the title spawn of the Devil that "He has his father's eyes".
• In Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, when Indy meets Dr. Elsa Schneider:

Elsa: Dr. Jones? Indy: Yes? Elsa: I knew it was you. You have your father's eyes. Indy: And my mother's ears. But the rest belong to you. Elsa: (smiling) Looks like the best parts have already been spoken for...

• In the remake of Fright Night, the vampire tells a certain character, "You have your mother's eyes...and your father's aim." That's not a compliment.
• In Super Mario Bros, the evil Koopa lady says this about Princess Daisy.
• In What a Girl Wants, it's mentioned in dialogue that Daphne has Henry's eyes. The actors have different eye colors and no one bothered to give one of them contact lenses or something.

Literature

• Harry Potter is often told he has his mother's eyes, so often that he can finish the phrase himself.
• In one of Mercedes Lackey's Dragon Jouster novels, one character is able to identify the hero as the long lost son of her friend because his eyes looked so much like hers.
• It is often pointed out that all members of the Heap family in Septimus Heap share Green Eyes.
• In the 13th century Saga of the Volsungs, all the Volsungs have unusually bright, piercing eyes.

Live Action TV

• A Blackout Sketch on The Benny Hill Show: A vicar is looking at a couple's new baby.

Vicar: He has your husband's nose. Wife: Yes. But he has his father's eyes.

Music

• The Queen song '39 has the line: "Your mother's eyes from your eyes cry to me."

Theater

• This is the subject of the song "Lily's Eyes" in the theatrical version of The Secret Garden.
• In Die Walkuere, Hunding notices the resemblance of his wife Sieglinde's eyes to Siegmund's. This observation, and the Leitmotif quietly underscoring it, is the first clue they're related to each other and to Wotan.

Video Games

• Brutal Legend. If you fail the stage battle against the Tainted Coil at the end:

Doviculous: You have your mother's eyes. And soon, so shall I. On a necklace, I think.

• Golden Sun Dark Dawn: Briggs recognizes Matthew because he "has Jenna's eyes", when Matthew clearly has his father's eyes.
• In Fire Emblem: Blazing Blade, Wallace decides to believe Lyn's claim of being Lord Hausen's granddaughter upon taking a close look at her face because he can tell from her eyes, which do look like his lord's. Eliwood also remarks on this.
  • In Fire Emblem Awakening, Lucina and/or a Chrom-fathered Inigo have the Mark of Naga in an eye, proving that they are Chrom's children.
  • Fire Emblem: Engage has the brothers Diamant and Alcryst AND their cousin Citrinne, who all have very similar reddish eyes.
• In Summon Night: Swordcraft Story one of the Craftlords claims he can recognize Pratty (or Cleru for the strange people that play for something OTHER than lesbians) has the same eyes as her father Shintetsu, though this is after he notices Shintetsu's Guardian Beast is with her.

Web Comics

• Gunnerkrigg Court: One astute reader realized that Anthony was Annie's father when they noticed that she had his eyes.
• In Order of the Stick, Durkon claims he can tell that Julia is Roy's sister because they have similar eyes. This is odd as Roy has the semi-unique feature (his Palette Swap Thog, every member of the identical Azure City Army and a few nameless characters share it) that the eye farther from the camera is the bigger one, which Julia lacks.

Western Animation

• In the X-Men TV series, Christopher/Corsair and Scott/Cyclops don't find out that they're long-separated father and son until quite a while after their first meeting. (Jean does, but she stays silent). Yet before the discovery Corsair does tell Cyclops that his firstborn son had his dead mother Katherine's eyes.