Eyes of the World

The Eyes of the World (called individually the Left Eye of Darkness and the Right Eye of Light) are the "treasures" of the Lumen Sages and the Umbra Witches long ago given to the clans by Aesir. The sages were given the "Right Eye" while the Umbra Witches received the "Left Eye".

The Eyes of the World are an essential plot concept in both of the Bayonetta games.

Legend of Aesir
"The Legend of Aesir... A legend from the dawn of time. 

''Nobody knows where the world came from. A struggle caused the Trinity of Realities to be split into three realms: light, darkness, and chaos. Obviously, our world was the one born from chaos. The three worlds all needed rulers. Most of all, ours. And the one that ruled the chaos became known as Aesir. Aesir spent the first eternity quietly looking upon the Earth from his holy mountain. Where we only see reality and make it match our rules of the world, Aesir saw through reality, and those visions became our world. These observations became Aesir's power. Aesir's eyes were truly the eyes that created the world.''

''However, Aesir pitied the humans for their naivety and lack of free will, so the power he wielded was split into two equal halves and entrusted each to humanity's instincts: the Right Eye of Light, and the Left Eye of Darkness. By dividing the power of the eyes of Aesir, humans gained free will... They could now choose. With control of the Eyes of the World, the eyes that determine destiny, humans could choose their own paths. They awoke to their own identities. Man is but a reed, the most feeble thing in nature, but now we were thinking reeds, and we took our big first step towards grand prosperity. ''

The inheritors of the eyes of Aesir had been granted the power of creation." 

- Luka, telling Bayonetta of Aesir and The Eyes' origin.

Antonio's Notebook:Treasure of the Clans: The Eyes of the World

 * Several hundred years ago, the now vanished clans of the Umbra Witches and Lumen Sages stood as overseers of time immemorial, thriving from their remote European base in Vigrid.


 * However, their reign quickly came to a close via a violent war that ended in their mutual destruction... Their war, lasting for 100 years, saw the Witches and their campaign of assassination push them to the brink of victory; yet, the people’s fear of these powerful women spawned the witch hunts, and eventually both clans vanished into the ether. Long serving the powers that be, it is said the clans did not use their power to interfere with history, but rather to protect its passage. We are told that they carried out these duties via use of their treasured "Eyes of the World."


 * Yet, what this statement means is anyone’s guess. What is clear is that the clans’ very existence was closely linked to historical change, so much so that even kings and emperors feared the clans’ power. There were two "Eyes of the World," one each controlled by the witches and the sages, which when used together were able to carry out their stated task of overseeing. To prevent the power of these ‘Eyes’ from being used for nefarious purposes, they were equally split, and the clans prohibited inter-relations in an effort to maintain the balance of power that existed between them.


 * The irony is that the grand war that led to the clans’ destruction was sparked by these very treasures. After their downfall, the "Eyes of the World" suddenly disappeared. Information about them is extremely limited…


 * What sort of item were the eyes? What shape did they take? All this remains unknown. The black market recently saw a large gem stone come into the market bearing the name of the "Eyes of the World;" although, it may be a different item under the same name, or even a mafia scam meant to gauge market reaction.


 * There is no proof that the ancient treasure was actually a gem, but there is reliable, albeit troubling information regarding the treasure and the CEO of the Ithavoll Group. It is said that he is in search of some unknown item for his development project in next-generation energy, but whether it has any relation to this matter requires further research.

Origin
After the Trinity of Realities were formed, the Eyes of the World were first created by the God of Chaos, Aesir, as part of his powers as the God that governs the Human World. Watching over humanity, he came to pity their circumstances and decided to give them the Eyes of the World, resulting in them gaining free will at the inadvertent cost of splitting himself into two halves; a good personality and an evil personality, in which the latter was born due to the bestowing causing negative emotions and concepts (fear, humiliation, etc.) to exist. The group of humans who held and protected those who inherited the eyes became known as the Umbra Witches and Lumen Sages.

Right Eye's Last Inheritor
Five hundred years ago around years before the period of the Clan Wars and Witch Hunts, Balder had inherited the Right Eye of Light.

Due to him marrying and conceiving a child by the name of Cereza, breaking an age-old tenent that forbade the intersection (relationship) between Umbra Witches and Lumen Sages, the prophecy behind the tenent revealed that the child would be the one to inherit the Left Eye of Darkness and be used to resurrect Jubileus.

Bayonetta 2 (Past)
The evil personality of Aesir, Loptr, attempted to re-take the former power his complete being had forfeited and subjugate the Human World under his thrall. To this end, he traveled to the past (as his plan was done at the era in which the Right Eye would be destroyed by Bayonetta, causing an imbalance) and with Paradiso acting alongside him and deceiving Balder, instigated the Witch Hunts to wipe out the Umbra Witches, having already done away with all but one of the Lumen Sages and weary from the Clan Wars. With Balder believing the good personality of Aesir, Loki, to be responsible for killing Rosa.

Bayonetta (Past to Present)
Due to Loptr's events in being reborn as Aesir in the present timeline and Balder's travel to the past from his manipulations and later sent back to his time, the Lumen is corrupted from the pure evil of Aesir's soul and continues the Witch Hunts.

Balder is able to realize that the Eyes can awaken god-like powers of creation like Aesir possessed and that using them with a ruler of a realm in the Trinity (Jubileus) would allow the rebirth of the universe in any manner he saw fit. To this end, the inheritance of the Left Eye of Darkness is bestowed to surviving Umbra Witch, Bayonetta when due to the evil Balder's time manipulation of using a displaced past self to inspire her and affect the present Bayonetta's history. With this achieved, he attempts to fulfill a prophecy and resurrect Jubileus, The Creator. However, he succeeds but is grievously injured and the Dea is later killed by Bayonetta and her summoned Queen Sheba.

Bayonetta 2 (Present)
After failing his plan to resurrect Jubileus, Balder uses his last moments in which he regains his former personality exhibited from the past to make certain of Aesir's complete demise, congratulating his daughter on keeping her promise to stop him should the evil from Aesir's soul stray him from his path. Along with Aesir, he dies and the Right Eye of Light is lost, causing a imbalance.

After killing Rosa, he collects Balder from the past to the present due to the fact that he was unable to gain the Right Eye of Light from his present self, who would have been killed by Bayonetta's efforts and his death would cause the Right Eye to disappear. He manipulates him and pits him against the present's inheritor of the Left Eye of Darkness and Loki. Stealing the "Soverign Power" from Loki and the Eyes of the World, Loptr reforms into Aesir albeit without his good personality. However, Loki uses the true, old power of the first incarnation of Aesir that he had inherited, "Nothingness", to destroy the Eyes. Although his body is defeated by a summoned Omne from past Balder and present Bayonetta and consumed by Gomorrah summoned by Jeanne, his soul survives and attempts to be reborn in a different era.

Balder resorts to trapping the deity's power and soul into his body despite it poisoning him. However, he accepts this fate and is successful and is sent back to his time after a heartfelt goodbye of Bayonetta, his daughter and is sent back to his timeline.

Due to the time traveling nature done from Loptr (and to some extent, a corrupted Balder) and being sent back to his time after trapping the deity, this created a "endless circle of time" (a time loop) in which prevented a newly created Aesir from being reborn in a different era as he intended and permanently kills the God of Chaos, as well as destroying the Eyes of the World altogether.

Abilities
Both Eyes of the World allow the power of creation, able to create concepts (free will, fear, humiliation) and can even manipulate all of reality and had the power to even merge the Trinity of Realities into one as well as nigh-omniscience and great power and energy. Individually, both of the eyes also allowed for a scope of limited omniscience, allowing the user to have one nearly equal to that of a god. A skilled user of one of the Eyes is capable of seeing through deception and can even create a beam of light sufficiently powerful enough to destroy a planet.

Trivia

 * According to Hideki Kamiya, the Eyes of the World chooses it's own candidates based on their power, with Balder and Bayonetta being the most recent candidates chosen to hold it's power. Additionally, according to Kamiya when he expressed applying the Anthropologic Principle, he states both of them are the ones who could change history the most.
 * If one looks closely at every masked angel such as Affinities, Applauds or Grace and Glory, one can find an eye symbol on their masks that hints at the Right Eye belonging to the forces of light. Similarly, when facing demons in Bayonetta 2, the seal that prevents Bayonetta from escaping the battleground is a red eye symbol that hints at the Left Eye belonging to the darkness.