Among all the other annoying fads out there in the literary world (cough, bloodsuckers, cough, cough), there are a few that are a bit less...conspicuous, if you know what I mean. A couple years ago, when I wrote my first novel, I wanted to give my character a feature that stood out...a sort of trademark. So I chose green eyes, and I was pretty happy with the choice. Only after my novel was completed and I started with the second story in the series did I realize just how cliche green eyes are. It figures. So I was wondering: Did anybody else notice the Green-Eye Fad? Here are a few examples for good measure (NOTE: I didn't touch any movies or TV series; this list is all confined to books) : Harry and Lily Potter Percy from Percy Jackson and the Olympians Annie Cresta, minor character from The Hunger Games Nerezza, minor character from Gone by Michael Grant
The number of eye colors to choose from isn't tremendously large. I suspect you could compile a similar list for any of the colors.
Green eyes are, like, the rarest. What people seem to forget about eyes though, is that they're not just one colour. Brown eyes usually have flecks of orange. My own are quite nice. They look kind of green, but they also look kind of blue. When you look really close, you notice that they're a greyish-blue with a ring of green directly around the pupil.
You know, you might be right. I probably just notice the rush of green-eyed main characters because of my book, but a part of me still feels like green eyes are getting a lot of attention. Looking at it again, it might not be as dominant in literature as it is in television.
I hope that's true, that green eyes are the rarest. If that's so, then I did a good job picking out my character's feature, and I don't have to worry. As for eyes being multiple colors...yeah, I see your point. Mine are mostly green, but the inside has a circle of a sort of burnt-orange/brown color. Weird.
"Green-eyed fad"? When I saw the thread title, the Potters were really the only ones I could think of, aside from a couple of characters in stories being written by people on here. Steerpike makes a good point -- there are really only so many colors to choose from without being ridiculous -- basically some variation of blue, green, or brown. I guess I just don't see it. Poor brown eyes, though! Terribly underused, unless they're fancy gold variations. ...Actually, I'm pretty guilty of this myself. My main character had brown eyes until I saw Bre Joyner in a York Peppermint Patty commercial and -- er. Anyway. Edit: From what I have read, green and blue eye colors together only seem to be like 4-5% of the worldwide population. (With the bigger half of that being blue.) Green eyes seem to be pretty common in a few places, while being very rare in most others. In Joumana Medlej's "The Artist's Guide to Human Types" (which is a great reference) she says: I remember her saying that they are pretty common in her home country of Lebenon. ANYWAY, still the least common, yeah. Sorry for rambling.
Before you read this, you have to understand, I love eyes. They baffle, amaze, intoxicate, confuse and interest me. A lot. Carry on... I think that people (me included) use green eyes because (like someone said) they are never just GREEN. They almost always have flecks of other colors in them which makes something interesting to write about. Mine are green but sometimes they can look blue or brown, it just depends. So (not just mine) can be just about every color in one color. And whoever said there are only so many to choose from is right. It makes it hard to make stand out characters based specifically on eyes unless you want to give them color contacts. Woohoo Unnaturally purple eyes. haha Personally, when I write, and also because I'm slightly obsessed with eyes, I use green for certain characters to make them different then the others. In something I'm working on now, it's a small village and because it's small and secluded, all the traits seem to run together, so when someone turns out not like the rest, they are subliminally considered an outcast. I honestly added nothing of substance to this conversation other than this: I absolutely love having green eyes. : )
Green eyes are quite simply awesome (their my eye colour.). They're the rarest of the natural eye colours so I suppose they denote something rare about characters that have them. I admit I'm guilty of doing this.
Hmmm.. interesting, three of my characters have green eyes but I didn't really think about it till now. I never noticed that HP had green eyes. My own eyes are hazel - a mixture of green and brown - the exact amount of each seems to change regularly. I love green eyes, but my favourite eye colour is brown.... big dreamy brown eyes that can melt your heart. A boy I went to school with had blue eyes so pale they looked like ice, he freaked me out.
