A question about Pupil-less eyes

[EmperorSubcutaneous]

An old family friend was actually born with no pupils in his eyes. (Not with extremely enlarged pupils, none at all.) He had to have holes punched into his eyes as a child so he wouldn't be blind. Apparently it was an extremely new surgery at the time, and very risky, but it worked and he can now see, even though his pupils are slightly off-center.

So yeah, it is possible in real life. But they probably go with it in anime/whatever for symbolic and stylistic purposes rather than realistic ones.

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

It's just stylization my friend. I think it's great you're thinking about this, but no amount of logic will make sense of it. It generally seems to come with some surge of power or anger in video games and animes though (when not a full time thing). My supposition would be that it's use is to show the person being blanked as different to a human, either because their evil or anger has stripped them of their humanity, or because their power has transcended human. The eyes are a difficult thing to look at and not see some humanity. But I'm just making a guess here.

What examples are you thinking of that feature characters with pupil-less eyes?

Probably things like these.

Well the the case of the lower pic (I think that's Ryu, but it might be Guts for all I know) I'm pretty sure his eyes just rolled into the back of his head.

 

[Skuffyshootster]

There's this one kid at my school who has these deep, pitch black eyes. I assume his pupils are there, but looking at his eyes is like looking at two black holes.

 

[Skuffyshootster]

There's this one kid at my school who has these deep, pitch black eyes. I assume his pupils are there, but looking at his eyes is like looking at two black holes.

 

[twaddle]

There's this one kid at my school who has these deep, pitch black eyes. I assume his pupils are there, but looking at his eyes is like looking at two black holes.

that sounds awesome.

well any who, thats a pretty common stereotype these days as in most anime characters even in the lowest grade of anime tend to have pupils unless they are actually trying to project that they are blind or have super vision. But all white eyes tend to be a sign of power or seeing beyond what is normally seen in anime. Or they may be dead or being mind controlled.

 

[Skuffyshootster]

There's this one kid at my school who has these deep, pitch black eyes. I assume his pupils are there, but looking at his eyes is like looking at two black holes.

that sounds awesome.

well any who, thats a pretty common stereotype these days as in most anime characters even in the lowest grade of anime tend to have pupils unless they are actually trying to project that they are blind or have super vision. But all white eyes tend to be a sign of power or seeing beyond what is normally seen in anime. Or they may be dead or being mind controlled.

It would be, but overall he reminds me of a squirrel.

 

[Drakmeire]

I'd like to imagine that Maka's eyes have no pupils because she has no soul.
http://img44.imageshack.us/img44/276/makad.jpg
the only time you see pupils is when she is resonating with Soul meaning that is the only time she has a human soul.
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but as a fan of the series I know for a fact she has a soul with Angelic properties (Such as levitation). But hey, fun theory while it lasted.

 

[octafish]

I first thought of Tommy Monaghan and how his eyes freaked out Batman, just before he covered the Bat in half digested curry. His eyes are all black though.

 

[zehydra]

" only exist in animes and video games"

and movies... It's often used in horror movies. There's something eerie about pupil-less eyes, or white eyes.

 

[AdamRBi]

Eye's are the windows to the soul, shut the window and close the blinds and the motives of the individual becomes uncertain. Uncertainty is facing the unknown, and the unknown is the most frightening thing in existence.

Next to spiders.

That's the basic summary of it all, it's usually used as a visual representation of having no soul. You can interpret a lot about a person from their eyes, more specifically emotions from the dilation or constricting of the pupil. In real life, the pupil shrinks to prevent overexposure to light and dilates to allow in more light in the dark. In cartoons, one can say a wide open pupil to show a character excited or overjoyed is a way to say their opening up to let more of it in. Adversely, a dilated pupil to show fear or bewilderment is a representation of blocking out whatever it is that frightened them or allow for less information to enter while their still processing the earlier statement.

Makes sense then that a soulless, emotionless character be stripped of this feature to appear empty and devoid of what once made them human.