lately i've really been noticing all these times when they say の in front of some adjective where i as a stupid learner would say が or は. for example:

「目 の 悪い 人」 people with bad eyes
「非 の ない 者」 people with no faults(?)
「行った 事 の ない 庭園」 a garden (i've) never been to

i myself would've tried to word this as 「目 が 悪い 人」 so i tried searching online but couldn't find anything explaining it. i might have come up with the answer. が would mean "eyes that are/have bad people", "faults that are/have no people". の instead connects the two words before and after it together, showing that both of those act like a set pair that then modifies the THIRD word.

when you say 私 の 犬 は 可愛い "my dog is cute", you're linking together 私 [の] 犬: it's not "me" that's cute, it's not "dog" that's cute, it's the inseperable two words MY DOG together as a set that is cute. 目 の 悪い, you've linked "eyes are bad" together so that BOTH of those modify the third word 人. otherwise we'd be confused, thinking we could be saying "eyes; bad person" (悪い 人) instead of "eyes bad; person" (目 悪い).

i'll slowly try to think about it more and find more examples to add to this post and see if the theory holds true.