Ngl i never thought that size of iris matter, (and i wanna steal this hc now if you don't mind), but! I also have headcanons about eyes, pupils in particular, that you might like
I noticed orsimers and bosmers have "+" shaped pupils, and in helps them both see good in both direction and both at night and day. They can change both vertical and horizontal lines individually depends of situation
Dunmers, in other way, have normal pupils, but they kinda able to see in infrared? They are able to physically see warmth from a person, so for dunmer its quite easy to spot a vampire faster than everyone else. Ironically it also help dunmer vampire to blend since its they have the least changes after transformation
Atlmers have...pretty eyes xDD nothing special compared to others but they have other advantages anyway
Oh yeah if anyone wants to steal my elf headcanons go ahead, I love spreading my propaganda XD
Also these are very interesting points, I love contemplating stuff like this... Now that I think about it, a larger iris would probably allow for a bigger expansion of the pupil, and while I don't usually draw elves with really expanded pupils, now I kind of want to, lol...
The pupil shape is also interesting to point out, I'm not sure what the mechanics of a cross pupil would be, and in reality it's probably just a cool aesthetic thing, but I'd assume for orsimer and bosmer that are seen as "barbaric" fighter types, it most likely does aid them in seeing vertical and horizontal movements faster than someone with a round pupil would - a good advantage to have while in close combat! So yes, they probably process movements faster than other races. I know these two races are sometimes depicted with round pupils, but that's boring lol, I mean if you're gonna have a fantasy race might as well go all out?
Dunmer having infrared vision actually makes a lot of sense, I'd imagine in their environment, especially during an ash storm where it's typically hard to see, seeing the heat of approaching entities would be very advantageous! Stealing that idea for sure...
I feel like other elven races could also have weird eye advantages too, maybe maormer have "w" shaped or crescent shaped pupils that allow them to see better in water. Falmer probably had some kind of protective membrane over their eyes that protected them from UV light, though now they've, uh, lost that feature... Dwemer could probably adjust and see in the dark pretty well too.
For altmer, I actually thought their eyes are adjusted to seeing colors and bright lights the best, since that's what they're all about anyway? Maybe they can see colors that other races can't, like mantis shrimp lol.
I thought the larger field of vision elves would have comes simply from the placement of their eyes - not only are the eyes physically bigger, they are slanted and positioned in such a way that they can see to their sides easier. Like, I think altmer could give some reeeally bombastic side-eye, it would make sense for their culture haha
I also want to mention, that since humans (afaik) evolved more visible scleras compared to other mammals as means of more effective nonverbal communication, maybe elves have subtler facial expressions and body language compared to humans, since they value verbal "high speech" more than some lowly nonverbal communication lol. It's harder to tell how they feel or what they're thinking from their face, maybe their brows move less and it's harder to notice the direction they're looking, and their body movements are often more refined and elegant.
Anyway, that's enough yapping for this post, thanks for indulging me in some headcanons!!!
