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!

[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]

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*

[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...

[the-numinous-1.livejournal.com]

I guess I must be living with blinders on - I have never in my life read any fiction about any character with blue eyes and thought of Hilter or Aryan people or anything of that nature at all. And this is the first time in my life (I'm not exaggerating) that I've even heard blue eyes in fantasy fiction have been equated with Hitler and his vision of "superior" genetics. To me, someone with blue eyes meant they were fair-skinned and from a northern (cold) country. That's all, nothing more. And I've read a number of fantasy novels that feature fair-skinned, blue-eyed races - as far as I know, the only one I could really draw WWII parallels to with any certainty to is LOTR. I'm just sort of stunned by this. I guess I'm stupid. And racist.

[raecarson.livejournal.com]

Naw, you're not stupid or racist. I doubt that anyone who writes about blue eyes is racist. That's quite a leap. I'm just speculating that maybe, maybe, that's why so many people avoid writing about them.

Actually, it was quite the silly, tongue-in-cheek post. Well, it was supposed to be, anyway.

[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.

[raecarson.livejournal.com]

But, do you have a smattering of pleasing freckles across your pertly turned nose?

[stillsostrange.livejournal.com]

I'm reading Staying Dead right now, and it's not bad at all. The romancey bits are very toned down and sensible so far.

[stillsostrange.livejournal.com]

Pretty much, yeah. If by pleasing you mean, don't make me want to soak my face in bleach.

[cristalia.livejournal.com]

So long as the eyes are not just a touch too wide for beauty.

[everyonesakitty.livejournal.com]

Holy cow, I just discovered that jodi and you and rae *all* have green eyes. how did I miss this fact? That's so cool!

*surrounded by green eyes*

[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:

[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]

...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.

[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::

[iagor.livejournal.com]

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

[(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.

[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]

ooo, toes.

She had toes like a monkey, long and thin and tanned as brown as her shoulders from walking barefoot on the beach. He found himself staring at her toes, imagining them half-concealed in shoes, dressed with jeweled toe rings, garnished with nail polish in shades of lucious melon, juicy strawberry, tart and tangy apricot. He remembered to glance up, and the knowing smile on her face made him flush under his tan. . . .

His toes stuck out from his sandals like spilled railroad ties, thick and dark, the nails filed into spikes and painted black.

He stretched his leg so his foot hung over her face and, humming, began to wriggle his toes. Too long for beauty and too double-jointed for grace, his toes nevertheless were hauntingly attractive.

--where does this stuff *come from*? I obviously need to have my brain cleaned. :)

[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!

[jmeadows.livejournal.com]

Whew! Glad it's not just me! :D That would be very sad indeed. :)

[jmeadows.livejournal.com]

*pours bleach all around*

[jmeadows.livejournal.com]

I think I read that book.

Or--*shudder*--is there more than one?