ANON ASKED: sheer crack, but important: wesker’s got the cat eyes thing goin’ on, so…does he do the giant pupils thing when he’s excited?
Actually, its not even entirely crack because it would actually make perfect sense that Wesker’s eyes would function similar to a cat, or other predatory animals who possess similar vertical pupils like vipers & crocodiles. The vertical slits signify the predatory nature of the owner, allowing for more adapt vision;
‘Vertical pupils give highly focused vision and provide accurate distance vision to help the predator know exactly when to strike its prey. These types of predatory animals also usually hunt at night which means they have evolved an extra set of muscles to pull the pupil into a narrow slit shape during the day. This is to prevent the eye from being damaged or overcome by bright light, preserving vision and protecting the eye. Predatory animals with vertical slit pupils, like cats and many snakes, can maintain sharp focus across the horizontal field of view and more accurately judge distance to their prey. ”
So yeah, it would make sense if Wesker’s eyes are also capable of contracting & expanding. But I wouldn’t say they’re exactly like a cats eyes outside of the visual similarity as I don’t think Wesker’s eyes ever dilate enough to appear human again from what we’ve observed of him / his eyes in canon. His eyes seem to be more focused on keeping out light, I think ? I have a lot of thoughts on this.
What Wesker’s eyes do do that is super unique is maintain a steady glow. They’re highly bioluminescent & this appears to be linked to his emotions in some way. When experiencing a particularly strong emotion his eyes tend to literally light up with a temporary bright / burning sensation. Its less clear why this is a thing, I mean it looks extremely cool & more accurately terrifying from an in universe POV but there def has to be a more “zoological” reason they do this beyond Aesthetic TM.
Wesker’s entire body has been transformed on a cellular level by the virus to make him an adapt killing machine so here are my ideas/thoughts surrounding whats with his eyes / why they glow. ━ For a start, its possible this is a warning to other predators to back off, similar with how some poisonous animals are brightly coloured as a warning to fuck around & find out. & I do personally headcanon that most other infected creatures avoid Wesker because They Know. We know infected creatures actively prey on each other, so yeah, anything with the animalistic intelligence a lot of the infected animals have can determine that Wesker is too much to handle. The exceptions would be creatures who are particularly programmed for certain tasks / externally controlled or extensively brain damaged (like common T infected zombies)
It could also have a kind of “hypnotic gaze” effect per se, giving him the ability to temporarily stun / paralyse prey, because again, from an in universe POV Wesker’s eyes are terrifying, if you got caught in his sight you’d be shook, & thats not even with witnessing his, y’know, crazy super-human strength/speed on top of it. I actually just think he exerts an aura of danger / dread that most members of the “animal kingdom” pick up pretty fast & if you don’t get it on vibes alone his eyes serve as a more explicit signal. I know in like, RE0 for whatever reason Wesker can shoot lasers out of his eyes which I kind of interpreted as a kind of “physical” representation of this kind of concept.
Personally, I think most of all the glow / light up has to do with sharping vision. You turn up the brightness of your phone/screen when you want to see more, its possible the “natural light” of Wesker’s eyes has a similar purpose which comes back to the cat idea– rather than completely dilating & becoming visibly huge to collect light & heighten vision, Wesker’s eyes simply glow / exert their own light to increase / sharpen his vision. This is also another explanation for why Wesker’s eye glow seems to be related to his emotions. Naturally if he’s “focusing” on something his emotions will react accordingly, so therefor the glow.
& to add to all that the continuous glow of Wesker’s eyes may also be a reason why his pupils remain in the vertical slit-like state as oppose to ever dilating to an extreme, again having to do with filtering light & his eyes are literally producing their own light. Whatever the case may be the Virus has sharpened Wesker’s vision extensively & I mentioned before via my own personal HC that the reason his eyes are the one part of his body to actually show outward mutation was because of his impaired eyesight / mild photophobia/sensitivity previous to infection.
SO BASCIALLY while I don’t personally HC his eyes to dilate, they do GLOW & thats my Logic for why thats a thing. Fully support Albert Kitty-Eyes Wesker tho.
Oh ALSO while I’m on this topic the glow of Wesker’s eyes is also directly connected to the virus in his system. Supressing the virus dulls his eye glow so it can also be used to measure Wesker’s “strength” in a way. Theres an implication of Wesker’s vision & the virus being connected beyond just the “aesthetic” of his eyes looking like that. When Chris & Sheva “poison” him in 5 we get a moment where we see through Wesker’s eyes & his vision is fuzzing out related to the virus in his system reacting to the suppressant. I ALSO think its interesting to note that based on this he SEEMS to see in a different like, ‘colour’ pallet to normal people as well. The world through “Wesker Vision” seems like it has a yellowish/greenish tint to it.