Green Eyes

[raefinlay]

I've been reading the new(ish) Luna line to get a feel for that particular market. Read one that was pretty decent. (C.E. Murphy's Urban Shaman.) Read another that was abysmal. The abysmal one contains the typical hero/heroine in a love/hate relationship. They torment each other verbally while being undeniably drawn together by flaming passion, blah, blah. *has headache from rolling eyes so much* If I read another "sparks" or "moth to flame" metaphor I will spork this book.

Also, the heroine has green eyes. Not only are they green, they are oft-noted whenever the reader is forced to wallow in the hero's POV.

Dude(s). In one of my WIPs, my heroine has green eyes. I didn't do this because it was a cliche. I did it because *I* have green eyes, so I know how to write about them. Color-crayon green. Green that makes people look twice and say, DUDE, you have GREEN eyes. My sister has green eyes. My cousin has the kind of sea-green eyes that make you think about tropical beaches. Green eyes are just...normal. To me.

But reading the abysmal book, I'm getting it. I see why people are so irritated by the green eye thing. Why do so many authors choose this color for attractive heroines? I guess Hitler ruined us for blue. (Unless, of course, the blue eyes are accompanied by dark hair.) And brown is just so...I dunno. Why not brown? Do we still have subconsious, residual issues with brown?

*repaints all characters with brown eyes*

Comments

[the-numinous-1.livejournal.com]

I've never to this day equated blue eyes with Hitler - that's fucked up. Oh, I understand the connection, but sometimes white people have blue eyes without being part of a "master race". I'm Irish/Welsh/Scottish - I have blue eyes. And some of my characters have blue eyes. I hope to fucking god no one ever reads my novel and thinks I'm promoting ethic cleansing along the lines of the Third Reich because a character happens to have blue eyes!

[raecarson.livejournal.com]

Yeah, me too. But that's exactly where my brain went. It's like we've tried so hard to avoid the blue-eyes cliche from the 40's and 50's that we've ended up with another.

I think blue eyes are beautiful. So, why don't we see it more often in fantasy fiction? *shrug*

[cristalia.livejournal.com]

Most of the first round of the Luna line are kind of sucky, because they started up the line with very little notice (comparatively). This meant they got 1) the writers who write that sort of thing who were 2) available at the time and not under deadline for something else or 3) already had something ready to go. You can imagine that the selection went down rapidly under those circumstances.

The second batch seems to be much better, though. I think they're finding their feet now.

[raecarson.livejournal.com]

Interesting. Yes, that would explain the disparity I've seen. I've heard good things about the recent stuff, and I plan to keep reading.

[everyonesakitty.livejournal.com]

Green eyes are sooo pretty.

But all my characters have blue and brown. I don't think I've known anyone with green eyes besides you evah in my whole life. Now I'm anxious to see you in person...

[stillsostrange.livejournal.com]

I have green eyes. And red hair. But my hair does not flame, and my eyes don't spark. I keep candles at a safe distance to avoid that sort of thing.

And my bosom doesn't heave very often, since I stopped smoking.

[magicnoire.livejournal.com]

I'm supposed to be not-commenting, but I also agree with the above -- Luna's first year was really hit-or-miss. Mostly miss. A lot of those novels weren't really fantasy novels (although they claim otherwise on the Luna forums); they were romance novels written as fantasy novels. And I think it showed; a lot of them were fufushishi.

The latest one I have is Michelle Sagara (West)'s Cast in Shadow. I started reading a bit of it, but I'm biased since I've loved all of Michelle's novels so it's hard for me to be objective. I must say though; it's a stark contrast to many of the previous Lunas. The writing is so much tighter than the fushishi ones. I say this because I'd read Annie K's one prior and her style is much... looser and ornate than Michelle's taut style, I suppose.

And Last Rite's Angelline has blue eyes. She's not blond though, so I guess that doesn't really count.

...dude, I don't think I have any blue-eyed blondes. D:

[raecarson.livejournal.com]

...they were romance novels written as fantasy novels.

A while back, (a long while back, I believe) elizabethbear posted a trunked story. It was sci-fi...but only because the setting made it so. She said she trunked it because you could remove the characters and plot from the setting, place them anywhere else, and have basically the same story. (And it was a lovely story, but she was right.)

That's exactly how I feel about the abysmal book. Except, of course, it's not written anywhere near Bear's level.

[pjthompson]

Huh. I think I've had a villain with green eyes and a couple of good guys who are not the main squeezes and I think I had an MC once with green eyes, but I can't remember who. Mostly, I've covered the eye spectrum, from blue to gold to brown--but I do tend to have grey eyes a lot. There's probably something Freudian there that I shouldn't examine too closely. :-)

[raecarson.livejournal.com]

Ooo, grey. I don't think I've used that one yet.

[cathemery.livejournal.com]

In my many years of reading, I have noticed that blue eyes have been used a great deal. Not just blue, of course: saphhire blue. Jewel blue. Some other specific romanticized shade, frex, the deep blue of the just after rain, blah blah blah.

Green eyes, as far as I know, are more rare in the gene pool. And truly green--emerald or grass, both of which are popular for the romantic or the shock value---is very rare. Most of the people I've seen who claim to have green eyes have eyes with some green in them, and sometimes the eyes look gray or green or maybe even blue or hazel. Some people who say they have green eyes, those eyes don't look green to me at all.

And if you repaint all their eyes brown, please be careful about those, too: puppy brown and doe brown are nauseatingly familiar already! :g:

Maybe the key here is not go overboard describing eye color. I wonder if we could start a fingernail color trend. Or navel descriptions, oh imagine the potential. He glanced down at her belly button. She an inny. .. but not just any kind of inny. No, hers had a rich depth with a little tip-tilt to it that suggested a lively personality with extreme feelings, the kind of inny that attracts a man's eye and makes him breathe hard with interest. He was breathing hard with interest himself now, and --- oh, my. Somebody stop me!!

::chortle::

[(Anonymous)]

No, hers had a rich depth with a little tip-tilt to it that suggested a lively personality with extreme feelings, the kind of inny that attracts a man's eye and makes him breathe hard with interest.

*dies laughing*

Belly buttons are not discussed nearly enough in fiction. Or big toes.

[pjthompson]

That's the funniest thing I've read in many a yesteryear.

[aaron-mag.livejournal.com]

Not going to stop you at all. I'm starting to get interested in this mysterious heroine and her inny belly button!!!

:D

[iagor.livejournal.com]

I like love-hate attraction thing. "pouts" I used one for Lost Dog.

[navicat.livejournal.com]

I like it too!

*adds pouts*

[jmeadows.livejournal.com]

*giggles*

Dude, yeah. I'm leaning towards stopping describing characters' eye color unless the narrator character would actually notice that sort of thing. Dirt-boy, frex, probably won't be noticing any eye colors (and I need to cut out the ones he does notice, except maybe the girl he has the hots for). In Glicia, Danielle's eye color is never observed. Freic and Natalia don't have theirs discussed much, either.

And honestly, I don't know about you--'cause I always assumed it was because other people had much better sight than me--but I have to get darn close to see someone's eye color. And with most people, I'm just not willing to do that. :)

*Jodes of the green eyes*

[cathemery.livejournal.com]

Ditto on the having to get pretty close. I always figured it was just my eyes, but I remember once asking G about someone's eye color and he had no idea, so I felt better!

[navicat.livejournal.com]

Azahra has green eyes. But that's cuz I have green eyes. Maybe, after reading this thread, I should change that.

The main character in the next book has brown eyes! I promise!!

[jmeadows.livejournal.com]

My characters have a full range. Arian has green, Mai has black, Tabetha has blue, Kelt has brown...

I seem to be missing hazel eyes. I only have a few of those, and none for main characters, I think.

[pjthompson]

Dude--I can so not believe you've gotten so many comments on a green-eyed theme. It proves one thing: eye color is important. :-)

[raecarson.livejournal.com]

Next post will be about butts. They're important too, right?

[(Anonymous)]

I just finished slogging through "In Camelot's Shadow" by Sarah Zettel. Eh... mediocre. I allowed myself to be suckered in by the fact that the hero was Gawain and that's just because I *love* the story of Gawain and the Green Knight (with the love!). Hopefully the later novels in the Luna line are better. I admit to enjoying romantic fantasy (fantasy romance? romance disguised as fantasy? whatever).

And *I* have brown eyes.

One thing I've noticed about people with non-brown eyes ("colored eyes", as they are referred to in Pakistan :D) is that it's hard to determine what exact color they really are. They tend to be a mix of grey and blue, or green and blue, or blue and grey, or all three. My husband, frex, has chameleon eyes--when he wears blue, they look blue, when he wears green, they look green; when he wears red, er... ;).

And I agree with Jodes, a lot of the time you don't even notice eye color, really, unless you make a point to look. I'm thinking of people I see pretty regularly and I can't remembder what colors eyes most of them have.

*goes away, musing that eye color is definitely overrated as a descriptor in novels*

~Rabia

[magicnoire.livejournal.com]

I like romantic fantasy. However, I don't like romance masquerading as fantasy for two reasons: 1) it cheats the fantasy reader because the fantasy setting is very, very mediocre and lame in its set-up and 2) it fails as a fantasy for reason #1.

I don't consider romantic fantasy and fantasy romance the same thing. To me, these are different types of novels.

[kmkibble75.livejournal.com]

I think it's just that for most people, green = uncommon. So they insert easy exoticness there, and think they've created an interesting character.

*hides Thimble's leaf-green eyes*

[pjthompson]

Oops--I just remember the other character I did with eyes "the green of a new leaf." JK Montmorency's girlfriend.

[cricketshay.livejournal.com]

Most of my characters have brown eyes. That's weird since mine are blue and the kids are a mixture of blue and hazel.

[frigg.livejournal.com]

Hmm...green eyes just have a stun effect. C gets compliments all the time, whereas I, with my plain hazel eyes, never attract much attention. *sniffs*

I never thought of Hitler and blue. Growing up in Denmark, blue eyes are pretty common, though.

Dark grey eyes are quite unusual - perhaps this will be the new green? I've seen it just twice.

[aaron-mag.livejournal.com]

Pah dude. I have hazel/brown myself. Hazel eyes are the best!!! Come on...

[aaron-mag.livejournal.com]

Ha ha...

Christo has blue eyes...

Ariana, however, has brown eyes. And so do I. Nothing wrong with brown eyes. Christo finds plenty of attraction in brown (although he insists on refering to them as hazel).

But green eyes are pretty as well. As a matter of fact I find most eyes pretty (men and women). It is the flicker of thought that flashes in them when they think, "Ah! You think you're so smart, wait till you hear what I have to say next" or "I've got an idea of what we can do..." that makes them so pretty.

Color is just a side note...

[raecarson.livejournal.com]

Doode. See Charlie's post below. Made me think of you for some mysterious reason...

*snerk*

[ccfinlay.livejournal.com]

It's just hard to imagine guy writers having this same conversation. It'd probably be more like:

"Dudes. So yesterday I was rereading Robert Jordan's Lord of Chaos, right, and like I noticed heads exploding like ripe melons maybe sixteen different times. You know? And I have a head exploding like a ripe melon in my story too. I didn't realize it was such a cliche! I tried to turn it into a head exploding like a cantelope or a honeydew, but that just seems, I dunno, too girly. I mean soldiers don't eat cantelopes. I so totally don't know what to do now. I'm screwed!"

"Comment: How about heads exploding like water balloons? I've used that one."

"Comment: I used heads exploding like water balloons filled with oatmeal. I think that gets more of the effect."

"Comment: Oh! That's good! I want to use that! But now it's already been used! I'm still screwed!"

"Comment: Giant overripe tomatoes? Nice and bloody looking."

"Comment: Do your heads have to explode? Can't it be some other body part instead?"

"Comment: No, it's definitely got to be heads. See, it's magic, they're trying to think through a problem, and SPLAT. I really need the effect."

"Comment: How about heads exploding like roadkill bloated by the sun?"

"Comment: Oooh! I've never seen that one. Awesome. Thanks! You guys rock!"

[raecarson.livejournal.com]

HA!!!

ccfinlay, meet aaron_mag. aaron_mag, meet ccfinlay. Now, go explode stuff.