Significance of Harry's green eyes?

[bubblesofdeath88]

Originally posted by LadyofthePensieve (original post)
Green is the anti-colour to red!

In the Mario games Mario is red and Luigi is green, and they are brothers.

[Expelliorma~]

Voldemort's eyes only became red after all those experiments he did to himself to reach immortality. I think the original eye color is supposed to matter, if eye-colors do matter.

[spuachi]

yes, but why red eyes? Why didn't they turned green or yellow? It could be red as a meaning of agressivity and hate, but it could also have another meaning.

[Silk E Smooth]

I didn't go through and read what everyone else said so I don't know if this idea has already been mentioned. But Harry has his mother's eyes. We are told by JKR that we will know the importance of why her eyes are green. Obviously it's more than just a characteristic if JKR is mentioning that it's important. But why? I think we will find out about Lily's background and it's connection is the eyes.

Green is closely connected to Slythern. While we think Harry could be the heir to Griffindor (on the Potter side) he could also be the heir to Slythern. Voldermont was the heir and his powers were transferred into Harry. So the green eyes could be an interlude into the fact that he is the heir. Voldermont has red eyes. Red is the opposite of green in all aspects of the color spectrum. You can buy green concealer to cover up red blimishes. Teenagers have pimples!...I'm kidding.

There's also some connection between Voldermont and Lily. He wasn't going to kill her but he did because she got in the way of killing Harry. I think he may have been trying to kill the heir to Griffindor and Lily is married into the line but not an heiress.

Either way, the eyes are an important fact.

[daredevildiver13]

Absolutely.

[Halo Demornay]

Brainfart... Did JKR ever confirm that Lily was in Gryffindor? If not, I bet she was in Slytherin. I'm only saying this because we know almost nothing about her besides that her eyes were green and she was Harry's mum. JKR likes to surprise us with things like this. Sorry if something like this was posted already, I only skimmed the basic idea in each post.

[Halo Demornay]

Wait, let me get this straight. If James was the heir of Gryffindor and Lily was the heir of Slytherin, wouldn't Harry cancel them both out? Jeez, this is confusing. Why would Voldemort want to kill the heir of Slytherin... unless Voldemort is ALSO an heir... okay, I'm thoroughtly confused. Somebody else should take over this wild tangent.

[daredevildiver13]

I read an interiew where JKR says that Lily WAS a Gryffindor. I thought the same thing until I read the interview.

[spuachi]

That's right, she was a gryffindor, and James too, of course

[daredevildiver13]

I wonder what color eyes James had!

[i wish i knew]

I think it says somewhere he has brown eyes. HOld on I'll check.

[i wish i knew]

I cant find his I think it may mention that in book 3 but I dont have that one with me. I did find in the section about the mirror of erised that Harry's moms family all have green eyes but why doesn't Petunia? I think Lily was a dopted and iis realy from, a wizard family and that the Evans payed her more attention than Petunia so if she ever found out she was adopted she would feel she still belongs.

[Nys]

Maybe the significance of the eye color is in his mother's sacrifice for him. Maybe he had different colored eyes as a baby and that there might now be a bit of his mother in him. Maybe he'll end up being really really good at charms as well as maybe transfiguration like his father.

[banyopp]

Also Harry notices in the mirror of erised that his eyes are the same, not just color, but shape as well. Maybe the color is not the imprtant thing, maybe it is just a clue to show us the similarity of this feature in his family. In the mirro he saw other members of his family, many or all, I cannot remember which, had green eyes just like his. I was sorta zonin out thinking about this, and maybe there is a link not just with his mother but through the family. Like the eyes, not literally of course, are passed down generation by generation on Lily's side of the family. I am also assuming that she was in fact adopted and is not an Evans by blood, but is pure blood. Anyway, I was really going out on a limb and thinking of the possibilty of these blazing green eyes being a sort of secret keeper of Lily's wizard family. Maybe something her great great great etc...grandfather saw or witnessed or something or other, and was hidden in the green eyes. Then through charmwork this was passed down generation to generation, and a by product of this charm passing is the blazing green eyes. Almost as a sign. I have no idea if this makes any sense and I may add more later or fix this up, it sorta just came to me now.

[daredevildiver13]

I think the same thing about adoption.

[spuachi]

Originally posted by Nys (original post)
Maybe the significance of the eye color is in his mother's sacrifice for him. Maybe he had different colored eyes as a baby and that there might now be a bit of his mother in him. Maybe he'll end up being really really good at charms as well as maybe transfiguration like his father.

I think that the 1-year-old Harry we see in the first film has green eyes also, even in the pictures with his parents, so he couldn't have received the eyes later, he must hava had green eyes since he was born.

About adoption, I also think it is very probable that either Lily or Petunia were adopted, but prefer the idea of Petunia being the adopted one... or even better, the squib of the Evans family.

[daredevildiver13]

You can't base anything on the movie though. Some things in the movie aren't like they are in the book.

[MadMagic]

I think the significance of Harry's eyes is just that he inherited his mothers eyes, just like Harry inherited his fathers unruley hair. If there was some big significant magical thing, I think that JK would have insisted that Dan wear green contacts in the movie, raher than just leave his eyes their natural blue.

[Andora]

Originally posted by spuachi (original post)
I think that the 1-year-old Harry we see in the first film has green eyes also, even in the pictures with his parents, so he couldn't have received the eyes later, he must hava had green eyes since he was born.

In the movies, Harry's eyes are never green, at all. They are always blue, because Daniel Radcliffe's eyes are blue, and the producers/etc. didn't believe it was an important enough feature to digitally change. So as someone already said, you can't really trust the movies since they are not coming from JKR's mouth directly, the books on the other hand are.

I agree with what people have written here in that it's probably not the color which is significant. The fact is, Harry looks "remarkably" like his father in all respects, hair - the color and style, face shape, everything except the eyes. I think that's what's important, he has his mother's eyes, and she was very good at charms, it seems to me that Harry is very good at spells too, he almost always is able to do complicated spells which other people say are incredibly complex, like expecto patronus.

I also think that Hermione mentioned something about eye contact being important in spells to make them happen, this was in the first book at the Quidditch match when they thought Snape was jinxing Harry's broom. Maybe Harry is really good at spells and charms because he has really focused eyes, and since his eyes are his mother's maybe it was a family thing to have focused/shocking eyes.

[spuachi]

Originally posted by Andora
In the movies, Harry's eyes are never green, at all. They are always blue, because Daniel Radcliffe's eyes are blue, and the producers/etc. didn't believe it was an important enough feature to digitally change. So as someone already said, you can't really trust the movies since they are not coming from JKR's mouth directly, the books on the other hand are.

We already cleared that here: Dan TRIED to wear green contacts, but he couldn't because he couldn't stand them (allergie, or something like that). They DID change it digitally, but it looked too weird, so they decided to keep the blue eyes. If you see some of the posters of SS you can actually see Dan with green eyes (very green, actually). Another fact to keep Dan's original eyes is that sometimes, depending on the light, he has "naturally green eyes", so there's no need to change them.
As I said we cleared this looong before, so please, read the other posts before posting.



About the movies, I know taht the movies are not a very reliable source of information, but we must also remember that JK supervised many details and even affirmed that there are some hints in the movies that we don't have in the books. I think that the part about James and Lily being killed and Harry surviving is so important that JK must have been very specific about the details there. That's the main point of the whole story, so it must be true to the story.