Elven Vampire Eyes - why do the irises get smaller???

Aelthwyn

This is probably old news, since I hadn't really paid close attention before now, but I recently decided to try out vampire on the test server with one of my Bosmer characters to see if he liked that as part of his build, and was immediately struck by how weird his eyes look, and not because they are red with dark around the edges. Altmer, Bosmer, Dunmer, etc. normally have large irises where the color fills the entire eye. WHY would they suddenly have smaller irises with white (or rather pinkish) spaces on either side where nornally their iris would be filling the entire eye opening??????? This makes no sense and makes them look less elvish. How has this been okay for all this time? It's like... are these just the same human eyes that get applied to everyone? How cheap.

I mean vampire eyes look fine on a Breton, but they just don't look quite right on the Mer - and now that I've noticed it I can't stop noticing it. Also, gotta say, there's better deep/brilliant red eyes on regular dunmer and bosmer. My character looks more vampiric to me with his default eyes, with these he kiiiiiinda looks like he's wearing cheesy joke glasses with eyes painted on them, they're not nearly as piercing now.

SickleCider

Yes, you nailed it. It's just the same effect applied to all races. It's the same reason that Argonians and Khajiit lose the pigment in their scales and fur and POC suddenly become white when they're a vampire. I was hoping after having Rada al-Saran as a prominent character that they would go on to illustrate more nuance.

Mindcr0w

Aelthwyn wrote: »

WHY would they suddenly have smaller irises with white (or rather pinkish) spaces on either side where nornally their iris would be filling the entire eye opening??????? This makes no sense and makes them look less elvish.

Why wouldn't their eyes change in this or any other number of manners? How much "sense" does a mythical, magical, fantasy creature magically transforming into a slightly different mythical, magical, fantasy creature really need to make?

Ackwalan

To much skooma?

Aelthwyn

Mindcr0w wrote: »

Aelthwyn wrote: »

WHY would they suddenly have smaller irises with white (or rather pinkish) spaces on either side where nornally their iris would be filling the entire eye opening??????? This makes no sense and makes them look less elvish.

Why wouldn't their eyes change in this or any other number of manners? How much "sense" does a mythical, magical, fantasy creature magically transforming into a slightly different mythical, magical, fantasy creature really need to make?

Anything goes "because magic" does not make a good fantasy world. A good fantasy world is not without sense or rules, they may be different from real world rules but there are still ways in which the world works which you can count on, it doesn't just morph and do whatever the hell it wants to like in an actual dream - well unless 'unpredictable like a dream' is supposed to be a feature of it. If becoming a vampire makes everyone's skin super white (which goes with can't be in the sun) and everyone's eyes red (which goes with the whole bloodlust theme) but only make's certain races irises smaller (why?)..... that doesn't seem to follow unless there's some kind of reason why some races would be affected differently. Somehow it just feels like a the pigment of the iris seems to be more plausible to change, whereas changing the actual structure of the eyeball is a different matter. If they want to write up some lore to explain away a lazy art choice, fine, but it's still not a very good choice, and still seems inconsistant in a way that one would not expect inconsistancy.

Mindcr0w

Aelthwyn wrote: »

Anything goes "because magic" does not make a good fantasy world.

Neither does slavish devotion to meaningless minutia.

Sense, rules, and consistency are all well and good. But getting caught up in insignificant details like "why do elvish eyes look weird when they get turned into vampires" is the kind of fanboyish obsession over consistency that turns even extremely consistent fantasty world creators (which granted the TES writers never have been) resentful of their fanbases.

Imho, of course.

But since we're talking minutia anyway, I could argue that you might just be looking at it wrong. Becoming a vampire doesn't just "turn your eyes red" it makes all vampire's eyes look the same regardless of what they looked like as mortals. There. Ultimate in world consistency.

NotaDaedraWorshipper

Mindcr0w wrote: »

Aelthwyn wrote: »

Anything goes "because magic" does not make a good fantasy world.

Neither does slavish devotion to meaningless minutia.

Sense, rules, and consistency are all well and good. But getting caught up in insignificant details like "why do elvish eyes look weird when they get turned into vampires" is the kind of fanboyish obsession over consistency that turns even extremely consistent fantasty world creators (which granted the TES writers never have been) resentful of their fanbases.

Imho, of course.

But since we're talking minutia anyway, I could argue that you might just be looking at it wrong. Becoming a vampire doesn't just "turn your eyes red" it makes all vampire's eyes look the same regardless of what they looked like as mortals. There. Ultimate in world consistency.

No. The only reason behind it is that the vampire appearance change is a badly and lazily done feature. It's why mers' eyes turn human. Why argonians and khajiit scales and fur change. Why redguards turn white. Why it fades tattoos, paint, scars, make-up etc.

Magdalina

Ooo you noticed that too? I think I saw it on Gwendis for the first time. I don't actually have any vamp chars myself but I couldn't quite figure her race because she looked Bosmer but had human eyes. Then I realized that all vampiric mer have 'human' eyes. That just looks lazy and I wish they'd fix that.