Red Pill, Blue Pill



""You take the blue pill, the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill, you stay in Wonderland, and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes.""

- Morpheus, The Matrix

In many series, the hero's heroics are going to change his world. Perhaps he's making things his problem. Maybe he's learning the truth behind the Masquerade, maybe he's traveling to Another Dimension, or maybe the hero lives in a Lotus Eater Machine and he's going to leave.

In these series, the Call to Adventure is often phrased in the form of a question. Would you like to:

"(A) Go out on wacky adventures, fight magic extradimensional alien monsters, and save the universe? (Or, in other words, face mind-numbing danger, allies as crazy as your enemies and Everything Trying to Kill You?)"

"-or-"

"(B) Pretend none of this ever happened and go back to your normal life? (Or, return to the mundane grind, potentially unable to find it exciting anymore or forever to wonder what might have been, or just watch the world go to hell while being powerless as a mere normal guy?)"

Red Pill, Blue Pill applies when the hero is offered this choice, and could plausibly have chosen B. The Blue Pill is the promise of being able to resume normal life, with none of the elements of the "new" world intruding upon the old ever again. Often, it even includes Laser-Guided Amnesia so you don't even have to remember that it could have been different.

Of course, the viewers know the character is going to take the Red Pill; otherwise there would be no story. But just the simple act of giving them a chance to choose a normal life lets the writer tell you something about the character: they're the sort of person who does this willingly when they reasonably could say no. In Long Runners, expect at least one episode where we see what would have happened.

What it says about the character depends on the context. Sometimes it just means she's curious. Sometimes the character Jumped At the Call, despite not knowing it was possible. Other times, it's the ultimate expression of how much she hates the world she knows, and welcomes any change.

Sometimes a villain offers this choice, in the form of taking a quick break from threatening some third party to say something along the lines of "This doesn't concern you. If you leave now, I'll let you go." In this case, it typically indicates selflessness. The villain can also give the hero one last chance to go back to her old, boring life (especially if it turns out that saving the world involves a Heroic Sacrifice). You know the hero is really dedicated if she chooses to continue fighting anyway.

Note that the Blue Pill only has to look like a viable option. In many cases, if the hero had chosen the Blue Pill, the world probably would have ended because The Chosen One didn't show. The villain mentioned above may be planning to shoot the hero the minute he turns to leave. More subtly, if the hero does take the Blue Pill, this is technically Refusal of the Call, and just because the Call asked nicely doesn't mean it doesn't still know where you live.

In video games, this is usually a But Thou Must! or a chance for a Nonstandard Game Over.

If this choice is offered at the after the adventure actually starts, it's the hero's Leave Your Quest Test, and choosing the hero's path anyway is proof the character is a true hero. The villain prefers to "offer" the hero The Final Temptation instead.

This trope may also be used in conjunction with Betty and Veronica, where the Hero's choice is embodied as possible romantic partners: An Action Girl who fights by his side as the Red Pill, and the sweet Girl Next Door who offers the opportunity to settle for a normal life as the Blue. In this case, it's not a single choice, but a constant temptation complicated by the pull(s) on the Hero's heart. Following from the above, however, the dynamics are different if this choice is made at the end of a work: In this case, the choice is the difference between In Harm's Way and Home, Sweet Home. Subtrope of Two Roads Before You.

There are a few derivatives, such as "Black Pill/White Pill".

Unrelated to Red Oni, Blue Oni.

Anime and Manga
"Kotetsu: Hey, did you find your answer? Karina: . Isn't that enough of a reason?"
 * Light in Death Note is told that he can give up the Death Note at any time and go back to a normal life. He'd rather use it for his own devices. Which aren't heroic by any normal definition of the word, but anyway.
 * Although Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha had Raising Heart thrust upon her in an emergency, Yuuno later asked if she was absolutely sure she didn't want to give it back and be a normal girl. Of course, she decided to stay, and prove that she wouldn't be a burden, leading to the Training from Hell she willingly puts herself through day in and day out. It pays off.
 * Happens with frequency in Pretty Cure. Of particular note is Rin in Yes! Precure 5, whose response was "No thanks, I'll pass" (and she tried to get Nozomi, who had Jumped At the Call, to change her answer to the same). Eventually the Call got its way by taking a hostage.
 * Rozen Maiden: "Will you wind Yes/No?" Specifically, will you wind the doll so it can come to life and bond with you. Of course, they don't tell you that upfront...
 * The Continuity Reboot manga was about the other choice. Poor Jun can't catch a break even that way...
 * In Mahou Sensei Negima, Fate offers Negi the "this doesn't concern you" version; he and his students would be allowed to return to the real world unharmed, and in exchange he doesn't interfere with Fate's plan. In a twist, it's discovered that a hidden magical device would have made the agreement magically binding, Exact Words and all that.
 * In The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya,
 * One of these choices caps off the first chapter of Crossbone Gundam. The protagonist, a foreign exchange student, accidentally discovers poison gas canisters on the cruise ship and gets attacked by his former teacher, only to be saved by the Space Pirates he assumed were villains. The lead pirate tells him that he can either go home and forget everything he's seen so far, or join the pirates to learn the truth. No points for guessing what he chooses.
 * Karina Lyle/Blue Rose is given a Red Pill, Blue Pill choice in the fourth episode of Tiger and Bunny: stick to a relatively frustrating, often thankless job as a superhero (with the only perk being that her sponsors will support her music career) or go back to a normal life and try to make it on her own as a lounge singer..


 * In Kaze no Stigma there is a non-heroic example during the game arc: "Do you want power?"

Comic Books

 * Tim Hunter gets one of these in the Books of Magic series. He's destined to either be a great scientist or become a great magician. John Constantine and company take him on a tour of Functional Magic in the DC/Vertigo universes and everyone tells him that Functional Magic is much more dangerous and unpredictable than science and is likely going to bite you on the ass when you least expect it Because Destiny Says So. After seeing all this, Tim chooses science... but regrets the decision soon afterward. But it's OK, because it turns out one of the older magicians tricked him into choosing Functional Magic earlier with a oblique metaphor.
 * They didn't so much trick him, but when four weird strangers turned up and offered to take him on a tour of space and time to help him decide, saying "yes" at that point was already the decision. But it's OK because at the end he chose it again with his eyes open.

Fan Works and Parody

 * In Kyon: Big Damn Hero, Kyon gives Tsuruya the option to either learn the truth behind the SOS brigade and the supernatural, or remain 'just a side character.'
 * The Trope Namer scene in The Matrix has been parodied in a multitude of ways, often by assigning additional effects to one or both pills or by adding more pills in various colors:
 * In one gag, Neo actually reaches for the blue pill, prompting Morpheus to comment, "By the way, the blue pill is a suppository." Grimacing, Neo takes the red pill instead. "Excellent Choice, Neo."
 * Also spoofed in the Polish comic Gorsky and Butch "Take the red pill and you will be transported to a different comic book. Take the blue one and you will have an erection for 4 hours." "Tough choice... aren't you taking one?" "I don't need to, I'm black."
 * In "Sex and the Matrix," a parody video with Sarah Jessica Parker as Carrie Bradshaw, being taken through the same sequence as Neo. When shown the Matrix, she practically lunges for the Blue Pill, wanting to go back to her Manhattan lifestyle.
 * This comic shows what happens when you take a third option.
 * Parodied in this Dystopia comic.
 * The fan-made Matrix Regurgitated simply has both pills turn out to be drugs, but Morpheus can't vouch for the blue pills' quality.

Film

 * The Trope Namer is the famous scene in The Matrix where Neo is offered this choice. Of course he takes the red pill, partially out of Jumping At The Call, partially because we've seen how crappy his normal life is.
 * In the videogame adaptation, Path of Neo, choosing the Blue Pill naturally results in a Nonstandard Game Over.
 * In a clear inversion of this Trope, a character in one of the Matrix comic books actually takes the blue pill. Her story, instead of being the action packed thriller, deals with the psychological implications of saying no.
 * The villain type of choice also makes an appearance in Matrix Reloaded in form of the The Architect's two-doors-choice.
 * Though little attention is called to it, all Men in Black apparently get this. Naturally, it's the amnesia version.
 * In Total Recall, Douglas Quaid goes to a company to have memories of a spy adventure implanted in his mind. Something goes wrong and he embarks on a spy adventure very similar to the false memories he was going to get. Later, he's told that what he thinks is reality is in fact those false memories, and is offered a chance to escape by taking a red pill (which will act as a Blue Pill). He decides against it and kills the person offering the pill. The movie leaves unresolved the question of whether everything after the memory implantation was real or not.
 * Though, it's implied that the choice is simply a trap to get him to let down his guard. As the choice giver appears incredibly nervous for some odd reason. And immediately after killing the person offering the pill, he is then ambushed. Though, the question still lingers.

Literature

 * Red Pill, Blue Pill in the form of a hypnosis disk is offered to all Gardella family members in The Gardella Vampire Chronicles. At least two recent family members (Victoria's grandfather and mother) have chosen the blue pill and had their memories wiped when they chose not to become Venators (vampire slayers).
 * In the Suzumiya Haruhi novels, Kyon is given the choice by  to either stay in the normal, peaceful , or return to his crazy, troublesome   Refer to Disappearance in the anime entries.
 * In the Animorphs novels, the main characters are offered a chance to retroactively take the blue pill. They take it. Crayak expects the Yeerks to win handily without any humans fighting back. Turns out his Good Twin, the Ellimist, cheats, leading to the Yeerks losing. Crayak calls the whole thing off at that point.
 * In Diane Duane's Young Wizards series, a potential wizard has to take the Wizard's Oath before getting any magical powers. And even after taking the Oath "wizardry does not live in the unwilling heart", so if the wizard ends up truly regretting having gotten involved they lose their powers and Laser-Guided Amnesia sets in.
 * Philip Jose Farmer's World of Tiers novels. An aging man with a failed life and a shrewish wife is in the basement of a tract house he is buying when a door between the worlds opens up. He can stay with his living-death retirement or leap into the utter unknown. Soul-killing safety vs death-or-glory.
 * In Nightrunner, this is how Loveable Rogue Seregil offers to take the reluctant Alec on as his apprentice: "I admit I've cut a purse or two in my time, and some of what I do could be called stealing, depending on who you ask. But try to imagine the challenge of overcoming incredible obstacles to accomplish a noble purpose. Think of traveling to lands where legends walk the streets in daylight and even the color of the sea is like nothing you've ever seen! I ask you again, would you be plain Alec of Kerry all your life, or would you see what lies beyond?"
 * Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere:
 * Also at the beginning, when Richard chooses to rescue Door from bleeding to death on the street and unwittingly becomes embroiled in the scheme on her life.
 * In Christopher Pike's Magic Fire there is
 * Laszlo Xalieri's short story "The Confession" throws in one of these at the end. The story is initially presented as having been dictated by an evil immortal to an unwilling hostage, but the immortal has no intention of revealing the truth of his existence to the world—he knows the police are coming, and he plans to pretend to be a mere corpse, letting the cops assume that the hostage is insane and is the real culprit behind his various murders. On the final page, the immortal presents the possibility that he really is a corpse that the "hostage" skinned and stuffed, and proclaims that the hostage has only two choices: accept this version of the truth, and face the punishment for his crimes (the blue pill), or commit ritual suicide to become an immortal himself (the red pill.) It's left unclear whether the hostage really is insane, and
 * Many of the Choose Your Own Adventure style of books will offer this choice to the reader right at the start. Naturally, selecting the "blue pill" will end the story right there, sometimes involving the author calling out the reader for walking away from the adventure they read the book to experience in the first place.
 * Beowulf is given an explicit choice between dying in the glory of battle or living a long, peaceful life with a wife and children. Given he was a Germanic hero... guess which one he picked.
 * The young Bobby Garfield, the protagonist of the first story in Stephen King's Hearts in Atlantis, are asked to choose between going with the "low men" to their world as their prisoner, but in return getting to stay with his best friend Ted, or remaining a free person on Earth to live with his cold and emotional distant mother. He reluctantly chooses to stay, realizing that he is all in all just a child.
 * Used in The Magician's Nephew as part of a Batman Gambit by the White Witch to ensure she is revived when someone finally finds the world of Charn she destroyed and lies dormant upon. A bell must be rung to revive her, and to ensure the hypothetical visitor chooses to ring it rather than leave it, a poem is inscribed upon it which promises that if they take the blue pill by ignoring it, they will be driven mad from spending the rest of their life wondering what would have happened.

Live Action TV

 * Just about every companion in Doctor Who is pretty much in this position before going with the Doctor.
 * In a rare case, Donna chooses the blue pill. Of course, she comes to regret the decision and goes as far as investigating paranormal activity in hopes of bumping into him. Eventually, she does, in a Crowning Moment of Funny.
 * Grace, from the 8th Doctor TV movie, also chooses not to accompany the Doctor. Various Expanded Universe stories have explored the consequences of that decision.
 * In the second episode of season 5 of New Who (Starship UK), there's a tremendous red-pill/blue-pill plot, whereby people who found out about the big secret that were given the choice to forget or dissent. Dissenters were eaten. The Queen also got the same choice,.
 * A similar forget-me-now is seen in New Earth (Gridlock)
 * Gwen gets repeated warnings and opportunities to take the blue pill in Torchwood—to the extent where Jack effectively drops a blue pill in her drink. Only because of her amazing stubbornness does Jack eventually allow her to join (possibly since the only other alternative seems to be killing her).
 * Sarah Jane Smith offers the choice to Rani Chandra after she saved her from a murderous clown in The Sarah Jane Adventures.
 * This is basically the theme of the sixth-season Buffy episode "Normal Again," in which Buffy begins having visions of an alternate life where the entire vampire slayer identity, Sunnydale, the Hellmouth, and basically all the weird stuff in her life is a psychotic delusion, she's actually in a mental institution, and doctors there are trying to cure her psychosis so she can go home and live a normal life with her parents (who are together and in this version of reality). Eventually it becomes clear that she has a choice as to which reality she'll act on: she can take the "cure" that her Hellmouth-inhabiting friends brew up for her, or believe the doctors in the hospital and accept the life she's been living as a fantasy. In the end, it's not about which reality is real, but which one she chooses to inhabit: mundane, happy normalcy, or demon-fighting superheroics.
 * Played with in the fourth season finale of Charmed. The Angel of Destiny offers the sisters a reward: to give up their powers and lead normal lives where demons won't be able to track them down (however they will remember their previous lives as witches). Paige is against the decision while Piper and Phoebe are undecided..
 * In one episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, the leader of a species with which the Federation has just made first contact asks what happens if they ask that the Federation simply leave them alone and never return. Picard simply replies, "Then we will leave, and never return". Since only a tiny part of the species actually knew about the attempt at first contact, it would effectively be as if they had never been there.
 * In Angel, Cordelia, who is aware that her visions are giving her brain damage to the extent that her doctors are baffled she's not a vegetable, passes out and meets a demonic spirit guide. He tells her that if she keeps the visions, she'll end up dead, and offers her the chance to change the past, taking a different turn at a party so that she never met Angel again in LA and instead became a famous actress. She ends up deciding to.
 * Late in the first season of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, Zordon gives them the offer to return to their normal lives. In less than a second, the team agrees to stay Power Rangers. This is an interesting example, since the original draft for the episode was supposed to be the finale of the show, in which the big bad would have been defeated. So in the original ending, the rangers would have taken the blue pill. But because the show was enormously popular, Saban decided against ending it and the episode was rewritten.

Music
"♪Taking the blue pill only made you cry♪ ♪And all that the red pill did was make you forget why♪"
 * In Christina Aguilera's Birds of Prey

Mythology

 * Older Than Feudalism: Classical Mythology features The Choice of Heracles: He was approched by two Anthropomorphic Personifications before his adventures—Pleasure and Virtue—who offered him either an easy, pleasant, and un-special life, or a severe and perilous but glorious one. Heracles chose the latter, of course.

Newspaper Comics
"Croc: AND INTEEMINADE DEM WID SET OF WILD CHOPPERS? Pastis: Dude, have a Tic Tac. Croc: Ooohh, red pill or blue pill... Juss like "Matreex"."
 * Candorville parodies the trope-naming scene, but with only one pill and a bit of uncertainty which it is. The psychiatrist says that it's an anti-psychotic, and that it will eliminate Lemont's hallucinations of monsters. Lemont doesn't believe his health insurance would cover mental illness, so he thinks he can't really be in a sanitarium and there must be something else going on. (Also, he has a strong gag reflex and needs a chewable pill.)
 * It should be noted that a): Lemont actually took the pill, and b): the supernatural stuff, while no longer in-panel, hasn't fully gone away.
 * There was a Pearls Before Swine strip where Pastis was sending several crocs across the USA to find anyone who took offense at Pearls, resulting in this exchange:


 * Parodied in a FoxTrot comic, where Marcus quotes from the scene in The Matrix using jellybeans from his Easter basket; Jason first asks if the red one is cherry or cinnamon.

Tabletop Games

 * In Mage: The Awakening, the titular awakening, a metaphorical journey in which one comes to understand the truth of reality and attain magical powers, takes this form, as a person undergoing it can turn away and deny what they are experiencing (though it is not necessarily a conscious choice). The 'blue pill' is taken by those who prefer the mundanity of everyday life, and results in them disregarding or misremembering the awakening. In something of a subversion of the trope, it is suggested that a great many people annually undergo but reject the awakening, with the number of those who accept it decreasing every year (a sobering thought for mages).
 * The mysterious Messengers give this option in Hunter: The Reckoning. When Hunters literally receive a call from on high to take up the fight against the supernatural monsters hiding among humanity, the potential Hunter can refuse. If he does, he's stuck being able to perceive the supernatural creatures, but unable to do anything about it.
 * The opening fiction for the English version of In Nomine subverts this trope. An angel has just revealed her true form to some random lowlife in a grimy alley and convinced him to knife the mugger who almost got him. She wants him to become her servant and assistant on Earth, but allows that he can refuse and go back to his mundane life. The blue pill even comes with Laser-Guided Amnesia and an offer to put him back into reality right where she "removed" him. It sure sounds viable... but then she suggests that the police might get some bloody, fingerprint-covered knives in the mail any day now. Whoever said angels are nice?

Video Games

 * In Throne of Bhaal, the expansion pack to Baldur's Gate II, your character, in one of his explorations of self, is confronted by... Your innocence. It presents you with the choice to accept your innocence and go back to the blissful ignorance of not having killed, of not knowing who and what you are. You must refuse either way, causing your innocence to become the Slayer and attack you. In other words, You must destroy your innocence to proceed.
 * Cave Story: After, Kazuma offers you a chance to escape the island. Agreeing gives you a cool cutscene and the bad ending (a text-only detail of how you ran away, set to Hero's End).
 * The characters in Chrono Trigger didn't actually need to save the world at all; the disaster they spend the entire game trying to prevent occurs centuries after they would've died of old age. They could've taken the blue pill by simply going back home and forgetting about the whole thing.
 * At the end of the original Dragon Quest, as the hero confronts the Dragon Lord, the villain offers the chance for the hero to rule by his side instead of fighting to the death. Accepting the offer results in a Nonstandard Game Over.
 * In Golden Sun, the party is given a choice on whether to go on a quest to save the world or not. Choosing No results in a Nonstandard Game Over explaining that the world was destroyed. (There's also some Fridge Brilliance here. )
 * Something like it happened in Tsukihime.
 * The entire Taraimawashi-hen arc of the PlayStation 2 version Higurashi no Naku Koro ni is treated as a blue pill by the game, as evidenced by the poem at its outset. Basically, if you don't set off any of the triggers of your friends' insanity, then you wind up in that arc, where everyone goes insane around you, but you just don't get involved. The Call does not approve.
 * In Riku's ending in Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories, there's a combination of this and Take a Third Option.
 * In Persona 3, Ryoji Mochizuki,, gives you a Red Pill, Blue Pill choice on the final day of December.
 * Kotomine gives Shirou one of these choices right at the beginning of the Grail War. Of course, if you actually reject participation Ilya will just show up and kill you.
 * The final mission in Command & Conquer Tiberium Wars of the GDI gives the player a very similar choice about half way through, which allows the player to choose between using a cataclysmic Tiberium Bomb that will let the player finish the level easier, albeit, with a heavy sacrifice. Or, they can choose NOT to use the weapon, and slug it out the old fashioned way.
 * The Matrix: Path of Neo - it's a Nonstandard Game Over if you choose the blue pill.
 * In Super Paper Mario, Merlon gives you the choice as to whether or not you wish to embark upon the Quest to restore the Pure Hearts.
 * In the digital Choose Your Own Adventure style game Thief And Sword you get the option to ditch your mission right at the start.
 * The "Reverse/Rebirth" mode of Kingdom Hearts Chain of Memories begins with Riku finding himself in the lowest basement of Castle Oblivion, and a voice asks him if he'd go to sleep and forget his troubles and the light, or take the card before him and discover the truth. Riku, finding the prospect of napping in a boring room unappealing, takes the card.

Web Comics
"Itty Bitty: This is your last chance. After this there is no turning back. You take the blue pill, the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill, you stay in Wonderland, and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes. (He suddenly has two more arms) Or take the purple pill to relieve your acid indigestion. Or perhaps the orange pill to reduce your cholesterol. (Two more arms) Then there's the green pill for your receding hairline. And of course the yellow pill for... well, that's kinda personal."
 * Order of the Stick has a group of villains use it here (warning MAJOR spoilers); oddly inverted in that it's the blue "pill" that connotes acceptance. This being OOTS, it comes complete with a Lampshade Hanging in the form of a Shout-Out to The Matrix.
 * Actually, the colors assigned to the two decisions make a lot of sense when you think about it.
 * One Kid Radd strip features a parody of this concept:


 * Xkcd spoofs this, along with a couple of other memorable scenes from The Matrix, when Neo takes a third option.
 * In Savagechickens they show what happens when you mix both of then
 * PHD includes the scene in its "Graduate School as the Matrix" spoof, replacing the red and blue pills with two different flavors of ramen that sport the colors on their respective wrappers. "Nerdo" takes the red one, and suddenly finds himself in the real world (i.e. graduated), where he gets to see sunlight and actually has money in his pocket.
 * Subverted in this Oglaf strip (NSFW, as with most of Oglaf), where the hero chooses to return to his mundane life. Turnips are awesome.
 * In Beyond the Canopy, Glenn gets two such moments in quick succession. When he sees some shady characters heading off to the Forest's Navel, he considers his grandfather's warning to stay the heck away from that area—just long enough to reject it and rush off to stop the bad guys. Right afterwards, the bad guys themselves tell Glenn to get out of their way or die.
 * In Sinfest, the feminist website make this offer.

Web Original

 * From the Whateley Universe, in Bladedancer's origin story "Destiny's Wave". The Taoist Immortal Lan Caihe Ho offers Alex Farshine the choice: give up the magic sword and return to his mundane life, or keep it and become Handmaid Of The Tao, servant of powers of which she understands nothing.

Western Animation

 * Given a shoutout in an episode of Codename: Kids Next Door. A child named Bobby seeks to join the KND. Before being inducted, he is given a choice between a red lollipop, which is sweet and will make him forget, or the sour blue lollipop, which would allow him a chance to prove himself worthy. He chooses blue, but after being forced through many strenuous tests, it is revealed it was really a villain in disguise attempting to stop them from the inside. Of course, they knew it all along...
 * Used in an episode of The Proud Family. Instead of the pills, Penny is given a choice between a red computer mouse or a blue one to click on.