AB Negative: Difference between revisions
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{{trope}}
{{quote|'''Grace:''' I've got a very rare blood type. I'm AB positive.
'''Bruce:''' Well I'm IB positive. I be positive [[Afraid of Needles|they ain't touching me with no needle]].
|''[[Bruce Almighty]]''}}
Although most of the real world gets by quite peacefully with the more common blood types, in the world of entertainment only the rarest will do; if a character's blood type is mentioned, you can bet, if not your bottom dollar, then certainly one of the lower ones that it's going to be rare and special.
In the early twentieth century, red blood cells were first given the most common classifications: O, A, B and AB. Three decades later the Rhesus factor was also discovered, marking any blood as RH positive (+) or RH negative (-), and woe to you if you get a transfusion of the wrong RH. (Only applicable if the receiver is RH negative. In RH- blood there is no antigen for the RH+ body to recognize and fight, whereas the RH- body will attack RH+ blood.) Now, O red cells can be given to anyone, and AB can receive any type of red blood cells. So a really rare blood type for receiving a red cell donation would be O- (because the only type they can tolerate is another O-), B-, then A- (B- is the rarest of the three, but can tolerate the more common O-, as can A-). As this knowledge of bloodtypes (and their inheritance) predates the use of DNA by well over half a century, many an older work or period piece use blood typing in place of DNA to narrow suspect pools (If the blood from the killer is AB-, the killer can't be anyone with a different blood type) and as evidence of (often illegitimate) parentage. This may even show up in modern works that avert [[Instant Forensics]] if time is important (determining the blood type of a sample is much faster than DNA testing, which requires a backlogged specialist lab).
With plasma, it's the other way around. The plasma of group O people contains antibodies to both A and B blood group substances, which is why they have a reaction if they receive those types. So giving O plasma to an A patient may result in a minor reaction as the donated antibodies attack the recipient's cells. AB plasma has neither antibody, so it can be given to anyone.
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You can thank [[wikipedia:Charles Drew|Dr. Charles Drew]] for discovering and codifying blood types. He discovered how to match up blood types and also came up with a method for storing blood for up to 14 days (previously it was no good after ''48 hours'') saving thousands of lives in WWII.
Not to be confused with [[Did Not Do the Bloody Research]].
{{examples}}
* In general, many anime and manga series will list their characters' blood types in supplementary materials, due to the
▲== Anime & Manga ==
* Though it's only mentioned in [[All There in the Manual|supplemental materials]], the fact that Mashiro in ''[[
▲* In general, many anime and manga series will list their characters' blood types in supplementary materials, due to the afformentioned Asian beliefs in [[Personality Blood Types]]. Given that something like 99% of people in Japan are Rh positive (+) the system is only based on the four antigen combinations. Functionally assume everyone is Rh positive unless specified to be otherwise.
▲* Though it's only mentioned in [[All There in the Manual|supplemental materials]], the fact that Mashiro in ''[[Mai-HiME]]'' has AB- blood in Japan, a country mostly without the negative RH factor, serves as an early clue that she's not quite what she appears to be. Not to mention the fact that she shares her blood type with Fumi, along with her birthday and voice actress.
* Bombay blood type appears in ''[[Yakitate!! Japan]]'', used to show that {{spoiler|Pierrot Bolnez and the king of Monaco}} are related.
* In ''[[Detective Conan]]'', Conan's blood type is a major plot point during the ''Desperate Revival'' arc. Ran offers to donate blood to Conan, {{spoiler|after he is shot earlier in the arc, without stopping to check his blood type, implying she knows he is Shinichi}}.
** Eisuke Hondo is a universal donor. This is important because his sister, having donated blood to him, also had to be blood type O, meaning that she couldn't be Rena Mizunashi, who has blood type AB. {{spoiler|Except, as it turns out, she is; Eisuke's blood type changed to AB when she donated some bone marrow to him due to his leukemia.}}
* Angels in ''[[Neon Genesis Evangelion]]'' must be identified on the computers as having [[Techno Babble|Blood Type BLUE]] before the [[Humongous Mecha|Evas]] can attack them. The fact that the majority of Angels are several stories tall and [[Frickin' Laser Beams|shoot lasers]] isn't enough of a giveaway.
** [[Word of God]] is that "Blood pattern Blue!" is a shoutout to an old Japanese scifi B-movie, in which people who see UFO's have their blood turn blue (then get discriminated against). It has nothing to do with the plot of Eva, its just an in-joke. Moreover they don't actually call it "Blood type" in the sense of AB- or O+, but "Blood Wave-Pattern" which is made up technobabble.
** Like many anime series, the blood types of the main characters are listed in the supplementary materials, and fit the "blood type theory of personality" very accurately. Shinji is Type A, and is thus weak and submissive (a majority of people in Japan are actually Type A). Asuka is the only Type O, and accordingly is a hothead (it does make sense that as she is from Germany and the only non-Japanese person on the show, she has an uncommon blood type for Japan). Misato is even wounded in one episode and they display that her specific blood type she's getting in a transfusion is "AO", although there is no functional difference between "AA" and "AO" because A is dominant.
*** That's not entirely true, as [[wikipedia:Chimerism#Humans|human chimeras]] do exist carrying two distinct blood types, like AO. As if Eva weren't complicted enough.
** ''[[Rebuild of Evangelion]]'' complicates this further: an onscreen graphic notes that Unit-01 is BLUE A* while Sachiel is BLUE 04, being the fourth Angel in this continuity. Shamshel and Ramiel keeps this numbering too.
* Ryouhei Sumi in ''[[Future GPX Cyber Formula]]'' once gets into an accident which caused some serious loss of blood in one filler episode. His blood type (AB) is not shown, but is mentioned to be very rare, as it is difficult enough to use transfusion in case of an
* In the 70's [[Shoujo]] horror/romance manga ''Akuma no Hanayome'' (''Bride of Deimos''), there's a story in the manga about the main character Minako's friend who was horribly disfigured in a car accident and Deimos made a deal to Minako that he can fix her friend's face if she agrees to marry him. She refuses his offer, so instead, she made a deal with the
* This has recently become a significant plot point in ''[[One Piece]]'', where Sanji is revealed to have a rare blood type, and Chopper runs out of spare blood for transfusions because Sanji keeps having [[Loveable Sex Maniac|incredible nose bleeds,]] prompting a crisis when the racist Fishmen refuse to donate blood.
** {{spoiler|This gets played about with a bit more later in the same arc, when Luffy is in dire need of a blood transfusion after his fight with Hody. No one else in the Straw Hats have the same blood type as Luffy, but considering how small Luffy's crew is(and how one member [[Dem Bones|doesn't even]] ''[[Dem Bones|have]]'' [[Dem Bones|blood]]), this is fairly believable. Several people in the nearby crowd do have the same blood type, and Luffy's suffered blood loss at least a few times with it being dealt with offscreen, so it's implied to be not particularly rare; the Straw Hats just didn't have another ready source on hand at that particular moment.}}
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==
* In ''[[Hellblazer]]'', Brendan Finn is "O Guinness positive", which makes him a "universal recipient". No, it's not magic, he just drinks a lot.
* In the ''[[Yoko Tsuno]]'' album ''La Frontière de la Vie'', the entire plot evolves from how a child has an exceedingly very rare blood.
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* The abducted victims in ''[[The X-Files]]: I Want To Believe'' all had AB- blood. {{spoiler|It turns out that this is because the kidnapper is trying to perform a full-body transplant.}}
* ''[[The Greatest Show On Earth]]'', winner of the Academy Award for Best Picture in 1952, involves a train wreck with a victim that needs a blood transfusion. Guess what his blood type is? (And, of course, the fact that his AB- blood could accept a transfusion from ANY Rh negative donor is completely unknown to the ''doctor'' who is treating him. The donor has to be AB-, or nothing!)
* Averted in ''[[Some Like It Hot]]'', where it is reiterated that one of the main characters is a type O.
* Also averted in ''All The Young Men'', a long-forgotten Korean War military drama featuring a young Sidney Poitier. His white CO needs a transfusion and is Type O, but they're all out of bottled O. Guess who else is Type O. This was considered '''daring''' in 1960.
* ''[[Mad Max]]: Fury Road'' (2015): [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bxhj3Rs6_hs WITNESS ME, BLOOD BAG!] Takes the trope [[Up To Eleven]].
** [[Fridge Logic]] in that being a blood bag [https://screenrant.com/mad-max-fury-road-blood-bag-death/ should have killed him], and:
** Type O is the "universal donor" for packed red blood cells (the most commonly transfused blood product) but they're transfusing whole blood, which contains both red blood cells and plasma. There [https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1392190/goofs is no universal donor] for whole blood.
* Drives the plot in ''[[Made in America]]''. The daughter learns her blood group in a biology class at school. She happens to know the blood group of her mother and her dead father and realises that she can't be her father's daughter. Whoopi Goldberg admits that in fact she wasn't pregnant when her partner died and used a sperm donor and pretended (even to herself) that it was her partner's child.
* A major plot point of ''John Q'' was that the title character's son was a rare bloodtype and needs a heart transplant. Meanwhile, a woman dies in a car wreck of the same bloodtype, and they eventually use her heart.
== Literature ==
* AB- figures in the plot of [[Robert A. Heinlein]]'s ''[[I Will Fear No Evil]]'', which involves the protagonist's brain being transplanted into a new body. Part of the plot setup is the rarity of the AB- blood type; the protagonist is shocked when his body donor was actually someone he knew well.
** RAH himself was AB+ , and a member of the National Rare Blood Club (which he mentions in an appendix to ''I Will Fear No Evil''). To this day, [[Science Fiction Conventions]] sponsor [https://web.archive.org/web/20070517180314/http://www.heinleinsociety.org/blooddrives/index.html Robert A. Heinlein Memorial Blood Drives].
* In [[Breaking Dawn]] The Cullens keep a refrigerator full of blood in their house just in case [[Mary Sue|Bella]] ever needs a transfusion. Naturally it's the very rare O-.
* Is a plot point in a [[Nancy Drew]] file.
* In ''[[Outlander (novel)|An Echo In The Bone]]'', one character, Ian, has it suggested that his wife's miscarriage was due to issues with their respective Rh blood types. (The ability to manage [[Time Travel]] intact is treated like a matter of genetics or blood type as well.)
* ''[[Dracula (novel)|Dracula]]'', thanks to [[Science Marches On]]. When the book was written, the concept of blood transfusions was radical, cutting-edge science, and the possibility of an allergic reaction to someone else's blood wasn't known. Thus, Lucy can get transfusions from four different men without anyone worrying about blood type compatibility. Since she's in the process of becoming a vampire, blood types may be irrelevant to her in a very easy retcon. Another easy [[Fan Wank]] is to claim that Lucy's an AB blood type.
** [[Fred Saberhagen]]'s [[Perspective Flip]] ''[[The Dracula Tape]]'' makes use of this; while his Dracula did drink from Lucy, it was the blood transfusion that was killing her.
*** Also theorized in [[Anno Dracula]].
* ''[[Everworld]]'' uses this trope correctly when the main characters have to give an emergency blood transfusion to Galahad. April volunteers because she's O-, the universal donor.
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** In another episode, they play the trope straight. A woman in need of a liver transplant is apparently disadvantaged by having AB- blood. In fact, blood type would be the least of her worries.
* ''[[Lost]]'' features a scene in which Jack struggles to find a donor for Boone and, failing to find a match among the other survivors, reveals himself to be O- and performs the transfusion using his own blood. He actually got Charlie to ask nearly everyone in the camp their blood type but only 4 people knew.
* In "Journey to Babel", an episode of ''[[Star Trek: The Original Series]]'', Ambassador Sarek requires open heart surgery which is hampered by his T- blood, noted as being rare, even for a Vulcan. Luckily, another person on board also had T-
** And since Vulcans have copper-based rather than Humans' iron-based blood, it's realistic that it would use a different blood type system.
* The ''[[M*A*S*H (television)|Mash]]'' episode in real-time, where Hawkeye and company are racing against the clock to save a soldier who, according to Winchester, has "that elusive type".
** Normally averted on the show: All sorts of blood-types show up and they routinely run short of all of them.
** The writers adapted the trope to make its use accurate and believable for the time period. It's never said that the soldier can only take AB- blood; it's stated (by Potter) that AB- blood would be the best for him. In the 50s it was thought that the more blood the patient had lost, the more important it was to provide the exact blood type.
** They also had an episode about this. One wounded racist marine has a rare blood type and they tell him the only source is from a black soldier. They start applying make up to make him darker and darker until he believes he's turning black. After they tell him he learns some tolerance.
** In another episode a soldier is given the wrong blood and has a severe reaction. They gave the blood type listed on his dog tags - but they weren't his tags. He stole them from a buddy who was killed in the attack he was wounded in, because the buddy [[Retirony|was just about to be sent home]].
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* In ''[[Forever Knight]]'', they actually not only [[Shown Their Work|get the blood type info right]], saying Schanke, who is AB+ , "can take anything but motor oil," while O- can only receive O-, it's involved in a plot point, too. {{spoiler|The killer's mother had died from hepatitis contracted from a blood transfusion, which slipped through the screening process; he was taking out only O- donors who could have been the source.}}
* On ''[[Charmed]]'', Piper has AB negative blood as does Andy. This is shown in the episode "The Wendigo". The Wendigo also attacks people with the AB negative blood type.
{{quote|
'''Andy:''' Uh, I was just thinking how I'm probably not the best cop to be on this stakeout with, seeing as how I'm, uh, AB negative.
'''Andy:''' Maybe. I've just gone over the coroners reports from Chicago, New Orleans, and now local. It turns out all the victims were AB negative. }}
* A third season episode of ''[[Chuck]]'' features Casey {{spoiler|having to donate his AB- blood to save the life of a man he'd been trying to kill off and on for years (well, Chuck 'stole' it, but whatever)}}.
* In the last season of ''[[Queer as Folk]]'', after the bombing in Babylon, Michael has been seriously hurt and taken to the hospital. The ER doctor says he needs a blood tranfusion, but he's AB negative and they are short on his type. Brian answers he's O negative, universal donor and wants them to take his blood. But they won't take it because he's gay and they are considered too high of a risk for HIV. Brian then goes berserk, but Ben tells him he
* Comes up ''twice'' on ''[[The A-Team]]''. The first time, B.A. needs a blood transfusion, type
* ''[[Gossip Girl]]'': Dan and Rufus Humphrey are both AB+. {{spoiler|Milo, Georgina's and Dan's "son" is 0-.}}
* In ''[[Terminator]]: [[The Sarah Connor Chronicles]]'', they mentioned that Sarah had O- blood but John had AB- blood; this would mean that she couldn't possibly be his mother, barring vanishingly rare situations like mutation or [[wikipedia:Hh antigen system|Bombay blood type]].<ref>For the record, type O is recessive, and Sarah is therefore by necessity homozygous for O. Johny could be AO (type A) or BO (type B), but type AB is not possible</ref>
** This is confirmed (again) from [[Robert A. Heinlein]]'s ''I Will Fear No Evil'' where Johann explains how he loved his son more than life itself, even though he knew that his son's blood type was O and his was AB, he has to explain he knew from birth that his son wasn't his because the blood typing was incompatible.
* Another blend of this with [[Did Not Do the Research]] appeared on ''[[Law and Order SVU]]'', when a comatose woman's mysterious pregnancy is under investigation. Her blood type is A and the fetus's is AB, so the investigators conclude that its father ''must'' be type B ... even though a type AB father would also have a 50/50 chance of passing the B trait on to his child. Particularly deserving of a You Fail Genetics Forever is Wong, who agrees that the father's type must be B despite his own medical training.
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* ''[[True Blood]]''. The (sorta) titular drink has each blood type as a separate flavor, and vampires have preferences on their favorite. Newbie vamp Jessica drinks a cocktail of several different types to get used to the taste.
* One episode of ''[[Dad's Army|Dads Army]]'' was based around Pike being called up to join the regular army. The platoon can't get him out of it, so they hold a fish and chip supper to say goodbye to him - after which Pike announces that he was excused from joining the army because he has a very rare blood type, but didn't want to tell anyone until after the fish and chips.
* The season-two finale of ''[[Monk]]'' featured a victim whose blood group was "AB-negative with a D-antigen--the rarest blood-type in the world!" It is indeed rare; in fact, [[Artistic License: Biology|it doesn't exist]]. This turned out to be why he was
* Psych actually did the research in a recent episode. {{spoiler|A man needed O negative ''donations''}} of course Lassiter is the needed bloodtype.
* In a variant on ''[[CSI]]'', a power outage shuts down the lab's equipment, and the investigators must resort to old-school ABO typing of blood evidence. Greg remarks that he's got clumping in his Type O sample; this is an error, as Type O is distinguished as such by its ''failure'' to clump when exposed to anti-A or anti-B serum. (It could've been O-positive and clumped in anti-Rh serum, but Rh-typing wasn't otherwise mentioned.)
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== Video Games ==
* ''[[Shadow Hearts]]: Covenant'' has a door in one dungeon that will only open if a person with AB blood tries to open it; this was done by its builder to ensure her apprentice, the party member Lucia, wouldn't get into things she shouldn't. Only one member of your party can open it, leading to a brief puzzle to determine which of your party members is AB. Oddly enough, it isn't Yuri (type A) or Karin (also type A), the main
* Toko in ''[[Kara no Shoujo]]'' is of the Bombay blood group {{spoiler|which means that she can't get a blood transfusion after getting hit by a truck.}}
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[[Category:Artistic License Medicine]]
[[Category:Bloody Tropes]]
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