Significant Green-Eyed Redhead

Wow, they make you completely forget about the giant hawk wings, don't they?

"Your beauty is beyond compare
 With flamin' locks of auburn hair

With ivory skin and eyes of emerald green"
—Dolly Parton, "Jolene"

Green-eyed redheads are among the rarest color combinations found in humanity (with the exception of some abnormalities), and thus is used to distinguish an important, notable character visually. It's more often found with women than with men, and is almost always either found as a trait of The Hero or The Hero's Love Interest. To qualify for this trope, it's important that:

  • The character is a major character.
  • The character is not in works where You Gotta Have Blue Hair.
  • The character isn't from a live-action work, unless they were artificially given these colors for the purpose of the work, or were chosen directly for it.
  • The character has red hair and green eyes, and not pink hair or hazel/blue-green eyes, or even green hair and red eyes.

This image might have been influenced a lot by Maureen O'Hara and her various roles, which also influenced this to be the Phenotype Stereotype for an Irish person. It may also have something to do with the fact that red and green are complementary colours—which also may help to explain why so many red-headed characters are depicted wearing green, even if they aren't Irish.

Examples of Significant Green-Eyed Redhead include:

Anime and Manga

  • Kurama from Yu Yu Hakusho, at least in his human form. The red hair, green eyes combination in this case is a warning not to underestimate him.
  • Hellsing‍'‍s Pip Bernadotte, Love Interest of Seras Victoria. While he's a mercenary and an Anti-Hero to be traditionally sweet, he is the nicest of the guys in these series along with Sir Shelby Penwood. With the other men being Dracula, a deadly butler, Nazis and Fanatic Vatican Crusaders, Pip looks like a saint.
  • Youko Nakajima from The Twelve Kingdoms.
  • Lavi from D.Gray-man.
  • Brief in Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt.
  • Kino Makoto/Sailor Jupiter from Sailor Moon is this in the manga, Jupiter moreso. Word of God says that her eyes turn green after transforming into Jupiter, and they look more hazel/brown in her untransformed state in some artwork.

Comic Books

  • DC comics' Wally West the third Flash.
  • Jean Grey from the X-Men.
    • Also her daughter from an alternate future, Rachel, and her clone, Madelyne Pryor.
  • Mary Jane Watson from Spider-Man.
  • Maxima from Superman has the red hair and green eyes.
  • Batwoman / Kate Kane.
  • Lyra, daughter of Thundra and The Hulk, combines this with green skin.
  • Lena Luthor, at least in Supergirl: Cosmic Adventurs in the 8th Grade
    • Also the "Lex's daughter" incarnation in The DCU ... although in this case her green eyes may have indicated that she was still connected to Brainiac.
  • Lex Luthor, usually acknowledged as Superman's arch-rival, has naturally red hair (though he's usually bald for a number of reasons Depending on the Writer). Incidentally, so does Superman's best friend, Jimmy Olsen.
  • Caitlin Fairchild from Gen 13 is this physically as well as usually personality wise (though she can be a Fiery Redhead when it comes to protecting the others).
  • Poison Ivy.
  • Rogue's hair is usually referred to as "auburn", but was colored more red in earlier comics. And her eyes are green.
  • Starfire, with golden skin.
  • Leetah and her daughter Ember, as well as Redlance and his daughter Tyleet in Elf Quest. Notable because Leetah and Ember are both dark-skinned.
  • Mezmerella
  • Cheryl Blossom


Fan Works


Film -- Animated


Film -- Live-Action

  • Merlin in the 1998 miniseries, where it appears that both young and old Merlins' eyes were digitally enhanced to be green beyond reality.


Literature

  • Mara Jade from the Star Wars Expanded Universe may be the ultimate example: a Badass and former Evil Redhead who was so enormously popular, she joined the good guys, became The Hero Luke's long-time partner, and was eventually happily married to him. Until Legacy of the Force, but no one likes what happened there.
    • Scout, the Jedi Padawan equivalent of Batman in Yoda: Dark Rendezvous, has these.
  • Lily Evans-Potter from Harry Potter series is a Posthumous Character example: both a formidable witch of her own and the love interest to James, The Hero of the previous generation, and also Severus Snape, her former best friend.
    • Fanon likes to give Ginny green eyes too, just to hammer home the Generation Xerox point even harder, but the books establish hers as brown.
  • Gemma Doyle, the protagonist from the A Great and Terrible Beauty trilogy.
    • Her mother too.
  • Maharet and Mekare from The Vampire Chronicles, as well as Jesse.
  • Ellysetta Baristani from Tairen Soul.
  • Becky Sharp in Thackeray's Vanity Fair (1847–48) is a green-eyed Evil Redhead, though her hair is probably more of the sandy variety.
  • Beatrice Bailey, the protagonist of The Witches of Bailiwick. Her specialty is controlling the weather, which goes with the nature aspect of this trope.
  • Christopher Hitchens mentioned this trope while criticizing a stereotypically Irish-American character in John Updike's last novel.
  • The title character of Fire is red-headed and green-eyed and beautiful beyond the lot of ordinary people; her hair and eye color both coming from her mother.
  • Ronda Moleary from Stationery Voyagers, who has almost no temper, is made as stereotypically Irish-American as possible. She is a composite Captain Ersatz of Kaitlin from Heroes and Roma Downey, and serves as Michell's ideal girlfriend.
  • Vesper Holly, Mary Sue protagonist of a Narm Charm-tastic children's adventure series by Lloyd Alexander. Just look at that name!
  • Sennar, one of the main characters of the Chronicles of the Emerged World.
  • Aviendha from The Wheel of Time has been described as such.
  • Cherry Valance from The Outsiders is the redhead with green eyes that starts all the trouble in the book, while allowing Ponyboy, the protagonist, to change his view on Socs.
  • Kvothe in The Kingkiller Chronicle, who has "true red" hair.
  • Kris Longknife has red hair and green eyes, at least according to the cover art.
  • April from Everworld is mentioned a few times to be this.
  • Rachel Morgan and her mother in The Hollows.
  • Triss Merigold in The Witcher Saga. And video games, too.
  • Sioned from Melanie Rawn's Dragon Prince stories.
  • Sharon from the Topeka Kansas USA section of The Great Panic chapter in World War Z.
  • Finnick Odair of The Hunger Games.
  • In Michael Flynn's January Dancer, a woman is introduced by her red hair and green eyes even before her name is given.
  • The Girl from The Club Dumas; her very light green eyes are mentioned many times as being captivating, likely because she is in fact a fallen angel. In the film adaptation, The Ninth Gate, however, she has different coloring.
  • Mildmay, one of the viewpoint characters of Doctrine of Labyrinths. For most of the story, he's one of only two-redhaired people, the other being his brother, and the only redhead with green eyes. Felix often describes them as being like jade.


Live-Action TV


Music

  • In Dolly Parton's song "Jolene", the titular character (and the narrator's romantic rival) has "flaming locks of auburn hair" and "eyes of emerald green".
  • William Sheller's song "Les miroirs dans la boue" (The Mirrors in the Mud) is all about a young girl with "green eyes bathed in red hair" ("les yeux verts noyés de cheveux roux").
  • Gaelic Storm's Green Eyes, Red Hair is all about this. The woman in question overlaps with Fiery Redhead too.


Mythology

  • Thor in Norse Mythology is a rough tough badass god, who happens to be redheaded and green-eyed. Yet when he had to cross-dress as a woman in Thrymskvida, all the giants were so smitten by "her" dazzling looks that they failed to notice many, many less-than-subtle hints of a trap...


Video Games

  • Talia Maurva from the Aveyond Series has red hair and green eyes, and is a talented magic wielder.
  • The Bridge Bunny Kelly Chambers in Mass Effect 2 is probably the most trouble-free and relaxing romantic interest (for both genders). Don't expect any ass-kicking from her, though.
    • Default female Shepard is another example. Expect much asskicking from her.
  • Aveline Vallen in Dragon Age II, is the first companion you pick up and is a green-eyed redhead.
  • Played very straight in Chrono Cross with Leena.
  • If you squint hard enough, you'll notice that pre-zergification Sarah Kerrigan from StarCraft series had grayish-green eyes (especially on that photo Raynor has of her in SC2), and she was a redhead.
  • Luke Fon Fabre from Tales of the Abyss. This is actually a plot point, as a noble with red hair and green eyes has a great role in a prophesy that will lead to world prosperity.
  • Priscilla of Carleon from Fire Emblem 7.
  • Gabriel/Indalecio of Star Ocean the Second Story has red hair and green eyes, but he is hardly a hero.
  • Kasumi from Shakkin Shimai.


Visual Novels


Webcomics


Web Original

Western Animation

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