Good Colors, Evil Colors: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

 

In an age where every other hero is an [[Anti-Hero]], how do you tell who to root for? Why, you look at what ''color'' the character wears, of course! In visual entertainment, who's good and who's evil is usually distinguished by the colors, and woe be to those who are [[Genre Blindness|colorblind]].

[[Light Is Good|White for good]] and [[Dark Is Evil|black for evil]] (why do you think it's called ''[[The Dark Side]]''?) is probably the oldest and most obvious classification. [[Everything Is Racist|This can lead to]] [[Unfortunate Implications]]. It can be more complex than this, of course, especially when you get into different cultural values and perceptions. (For example, in Asia many countries associate white with death and mourning [since bones are white], as it has been associated in Europe at various times. It can also denote [[Pure Is Not Good|purity]], merely because it shows dirt well.) Black can also be used as a form of [[Shadow Archetype]] which is not necessarily evil, and nowadays, dark equaling evil is subverted as often as it's used straight; see [[Dark Is Not Evil]].

 

 

In superhero comic books, superhero costume themes tend to rely on the primary colors (red, blue, yellow or gold) whereas supervillain costume themes tend to rely on the secondary colors (green, purple<ref>[[Memetic Mutation|Thanks doc.]]</ref> orange). Most commonly, heroes wear red and blue, and villains wear green and purple.

It should be noted, though, that many times it's not the actual color that's used to distinguish good and evil, but the tone or shade of that color. For example, more natural or muted colors are often used for the good guys, while darker or more garish versions adorn the villains. The best example of this is probably green, which can be used for good if reminiscent of nature, or bad if it looks artificial, either by being too bright ''or'' too dark. Confusing things further is the general rule than in sci-fi, if there are two armies, the 'good' army will be the one that wears brighter colors ([[Star Trek|Federation vs. Klingons]], [[Star Wars|Rebels vs. Empire]] etc).

 

 

That said, the general breakdown is this:

 

Good Guys:

* '''Black''' - [[Anti-Hero]], [[Knight in Sour Armor]] and generally [[Badass]] heroes.

 

* '''{{color|green|G}}''' (used equally for neutrals and allied but not under your control)

 

 

Related tropes: [[Chromatic Arrangement]], [[Color Character]], [[Paint It Black]], [[Pink Girl, Blue Boy]], [[Color-Coded Patrician]], [[Sensible Heroes, Skimpy Villains]], [[Good Eyes, Evil Eyes]], [[Dress-Coded for Your Convenience]], [[Color-Coded Multiplayer]], [[Color-Coded Armies]], [[Color-Coded Wizardry]], [[Rainbow Motif]], [[Law of Chromatic Superiority]], [[Red and Black and Evil All Over]], [[Gold and White Are Divine]].

 

* The killer and detective in ''[[Death Note]]'' are lit by vivid red and blue lights respectively during internal monologue, regardless of the natural lighting of the scene. Later on, Matsuda gets yellow, and both Mogi and Aizawa get green. Even outside their monologues, Light tends to wear darker colours, while L is in an off-white T-shirt and jeans.

** Also, the ruthless and slightly unhinged Mello wears all black, while his calmer, less aggressive rival Near wears all white and has white hair.

* The main protagonist's [[Humongous Mecha]] in the ''[[Gundam]]'' metaseries is always white, with red, blue, and/or yellow highlights.

** Allied and antagonist Mobile Suits, though, vary in color schemes between series (though you can bet there will be at least one enemy Ace in a [[Law of Chromatic Superiority|red one]]), and sometimes there are enemy "Gundams" that share the hero's paint job.

** And recently there has been cases of pink mobile suits that have been "coincidentally" piloted by girls.(Strike Rouge and Tieren Taozi anyone?)

** ''Gundam 00'' plays this straight with GN particle emissions. Celestial Being uses drives that give off blue-green particles, whereas the antagonists give off red and gold particles. Justified in that Celestial Being uses "true" GN drives, whereas the antagonists use incomplete, reverse-engineered GN drives.

*** Blue: Good/Normal human (only villains eat these)

*** Red: Corrupted human (anyone with a red soul is [[The Heartless|fair game]])

* Specialist Knightmare Frames from ''[[Code Geass]]'' tend to follow this quite well:

** Suzaku's white/gold Lancelot and its [[The Ace|ace]] of a pilot who serves the people.

 

 

* A classic example of the association of heroes with primary colors and villains with secondary ones would be the 1980s [[Lex Luthor]] in his super-armor (purple, green, black) battling [[Superman]] (red, blue, yellow).

** Or take [[Spider-Man]] (dark blue, red and black) and his villains Doctor Octopus (green, sometimes combined with orange/ochre), Electro (green, yellow), [[Norman Osborn|Green Goblin]] (green, purple), Kraven (various shades of brown), the Lizard (green), Mysterio (purple, two shades of green), the Sandman (green and black shirt, brown trousers), the Scorpion (green, purple, white), the Shocker (brown, yellow), and the Vulture (two shades of green).

* [[Good Is Not Nice|Batman]] dresses in black. [[Kid Sidekick|Robin]] dresses like an explosion in a paint factory. Lampshaded when Batman explains that one of the reasons Robin wears bright colors is because he [[Good Cop, Bad Cop|plays good cop to Batman's bad.]]

** Also in ''[[Kingdom Come]]'' at the end, {{spoiler|when Batman turned Wayne Manor into a hospital, he wore all white.}}

* The long-time [[Real Men Wear Pink|pink chestplate and pink striped pants]] of Gambit from the [[X-Men (Comic Book)|X-Men]] are surely only there to fuck with our heads.

* Lampshaded in the [[Spider-Girl]] comic ''The Buzz''. When Spider-Girl first encounters Buzz (red, blue, and yellow) fighting Doctor Jade (green and black) she immediately and correctly [[Genre Savvy|identifies Jade as the villain and Buzz as the hero]] based on their costume colours.

{{quote|'''Spider-Girl''': I'm not the type who usually leaps to rash conclusions, but you are dressed in green, and bad guys have traditionally favoured secondary colours since the advent of colour comics.}}

 

 

== Fan Works ==

* In the ''Pokémon'' fandom, certain protagonists tend to have their [[Curtains Match the Window|eyes a specific color]]. For example, Red tends to have red eyes in fanworks. Leaf either gets green (if you think of her as being named "Green" or "Leaf") or blue (if you think of her as "Blue"). Same thing with Blue (who either has blue or green eyes depending on whether you call him "Green" or "Blue"). All three have brown eyes in canon. A less common variation is Ethan, who was usually known as "Gold" within the fandom prior to HGSS, has gold eyes when his canon eyes are dark blue.

** Silver is also sometimes drawn with silver eyes, like his ''[[Pokémon Special]]'' counterpart, when his eye color is [[Curtains Match the Window|red]] in the games.

* ''[[Futari wa Pretty Cure Blue Moon]]'' goes against this with the Etherium, a group of villains who wear white and those who [[Heel Face Turn|turn good]] get black uniforms ([[Anti-Hero]]). However, other than this, Good Colours and Evil Colours are generally kept. [[Smug Snake]] Kainatrol has a dark red colour scheme setting off her white uniform, while more sympathetic villain Mekuramast (her opponent in the [[Enemy Civil War]]) has light blue. [[Dark Magical Girl]] Millusion has dark blue-green, and the other villains wear bright green, purple, and gold (though the last one, wearing a Good Colour, gets considerably less pagetime). Asa and Yoko themselves are symbolized by pink/orange and blue/black, though these choices came from the design sheet the story was based upon and the inversion of black and white has already been stated. [[Mysterious Watcher|Dawn]] and [[Damsel in Distress|Mia]] are both symbolized by pink and bright red.

== Films -- Animation ==

* In Pixar's ''[[WALL-E]]'', the bureaucratic robots (AUTO, Gopher, the "cyclops" doorkeeper) have red glowing eyes and use red forcefields. EVE, a friendly robot, has blue glowing eyes and uses a blue forcefield. The stylist/beautician robots (with female voices) are pink. WALL-E himself is school-bus yellow, indicating his naive, somewhat clumsy character.

* [[Kung Fu Panda 2]] uses red to symbolise Lord Shen, the movie's [[Big Bad]]. He is also associated with white, symbolic in eastern Asia of death and metal.

* The characters in Disney's ''[[Aladdin (Disney film)|Aladdin]]'' were specifically designed around this trope, on the notion that water is a life-giving force in the desert. Genie and Jasmine sport blue. The Sultan wears much white and gold, with a splash of blue. Jafar and Iago sport red (though Iago had blue wingtips; perhaps a foreshadowing of his [[Heel Face Turn|side-switching]] in the sequel) because red is the death color in... [[Anachronism Stew|Egypt?]] Aladdin and Abu sport purple, because they're in transition from being thieves (red) to heroes (blue). After Jafar gains control of the Genie, Genie often goes purple. And when Jafar puts Jasmine in [[Go-Go Enslavement]], she wears a reddish-orange.

* ''[[Beauty and the Beast]]'': Both Belle and the Beast occasionally wear blue, [[Big Bad]] Gaston always wears red, and all of the villagers wear brown or green.

* ''[[The Hunchback of Notre Dame (Disney film)|The Hunchback of Notre Dame]]'': [[Complete Monster]] Frollo and his henchmen always wear black, Quasimodo, Esmeralda, Phoebus, Clopin, and the Gypsies all wear bright colors, and at the end of the film both Phoebus and especially Esmeralda wear white.

* ''[[Megamind]]'' first has [[Villain Protagonist|the titular Megamind]], clad in black and blue (blue skin, too), pitted against the yellow and white Metro Man, and later on, we have Megamind, still in black and blue {{spoiler|pitted against the red and white Tighten.}}

 

*** In the computer RPG ''[[Knights of the Old Republic (video game)|Knights of the Old Republic]]'', you can scour caves for light-saber crystals, amongst the nesting grounds of nasty arachnid critters. Non-red crystals can be found in the crystalline formations around the eggs, but they're scarce and require a lot of searching. If you search the eggs themselves, you'll find a red crystal every time, as they're a by-product of the arachnids' reproductive cycle, but harvesting them destroys the eggs, so each one you recover comes at the cost of destroying an innocent life. A bit of a [[Broken Aesop]], considering how many of the adult arachnids you have to slaughter your way through in order to reach the nests in the first place. Especially as you don't gain any [[Karma Meter|dark side points]] for it.

**** [[Justified Trope]], you're killing ''baby'' spiders.

*** In the books, there is at least one instance of a good guy's lightsaber crystal generating a red blade by pure coincidence. Luke got a Darth Vader flashback, but squashed it quickly.

**** This probably has roots in Lucas' original intention, in that the colour of a lightsaber's blade depends on the wielder. Originally Luke's lightsaber was supposed to be red when Vader activated it. They scrapped that idea though, obviously.

*** The same goes for the clones, with their color-accented armor matching their job or combat role. It's especially evident in the ''[[Star Wars Battlefront|Battlefront]]'' series and ''[[Star Wars: Republic Commando|Republic Commando]]''.

** Averted by the Republic Diplomatic Corps, a.k.a. the people whose ship Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan were using in the beginning of ''[[The Phantom Menace]]''. Their ships are all deliberately painted that nice, dark, [[Ax Crazy]] kind of red...to show that they're full of peaceful Republic diplomats.

** Even within the "good" side, there is an aspect of potential [[Fridge Brilliance]] to the blue vs. green colouring. Qui-Gon uses green, Obi-Wan uses blue, and Luke Skywalker uses blue in ''[[The Empire Strikes Back]]'' and green in ''[[Return of the Jedi]]''; the [[Fridge Brilliance]] is in how {{spoiler|much like Qui-Gon was more trusting of Anakin than Obi-Wan was, Luke was more trusting of Vader in ''[[Return of the Jedi]]'' than he was in ''[[The Empire Strikes Back]]''.}}

** An expansion of this is that while there are plenty of exceptions, blue lightsabers often seem to used more often by younger, inexperienced Jedi while green seems to be favoured by [[Older and Wiser]] Jedi like Yoda. Luke's decision to change his saber colour could be said to reflect his maturity in the third film.

* Every version of ''[[The Three Musketeers (novel)|The Three Musketeers]]'' ever filmed features (good) Musketeers in blue and (bad) Cardinal's Guards in red. Historically, both groups wore blue, and in both real life and the original Dumas novels, the two groups simply had a fierce rivalry rather than being a good/bad dichotomy.

* In ''[[Logan's Run]]'' the Sandmen all wear black and silver uniforms.

* In ''[[Harry Potter (film)|Harry Potter]] and the Order of the Phoenix'', the protagonists have white smoke when they Apparate, and the antagonists have black smoke.

* Used in ''[[The Great Race]]''. The hero, The Great Leslie, wears white. And all his gear is white. His car, his rope, his grappling hook, his pipe, his clothes. He even gets hit with a white pie in a pie fight. The villain, Professor Fate, wears black and his car is black.

* The only time that [[John Woo]] avoids his usual "white villain, black hero" color scheme is in the final church shootout of ''[[The Killer]]'', which has [[Hitman with a Heart]] Ah Jong in a white suit and the villain Johnny Weng and many of his men in black suits. But then again, {{spoiler|Ah Jong is the one who ultimately dies, and Weng has to be finished off by Jong's friend, [[Cowboy Cop]] Inspector Li}}.

* In ''[[G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra|G.I. Joe the Rise of Cobra]]'' Storm Shadow, the evil ninja, always wears white, while Snake Eyes, the good ninja, always wears black.

* ''[[El Mariachi]]'' and ''[[Desperado]]'' both invert the traditional white/black symbols. The Mariachi wears a black mariachi outfit, while the villain always wears white.

* In ''[[Curse of the Golden Flower]]'', the soldiers in the chrysanthemum rebellion wear golden armor, while the king's soldiers wear silver.

* Sergey Bondarchuk's ''[[Waterloo]]'' goes some way to portray Blücher's Army of the Lower Rhine as menacing and somewhat sinister by associating it with the colour black, even to the extent of deviating from historical facts.

* Inverted in the film ''[[City of Angels (film)|City of Angels]]'': The angels, who are good, all wear black trench-coats.

* Movie-verse '''[[Transformers (film)|Transformers]]''' continues the tradition: The Autobot good-guys have glowing blue eyes, whereas the "evil" Decepticons have glowing red eyes.

 

** Deities tend to be color-coded as well, appearing in a particular shade of light whenever they show up.

** ''The Elenium'' does avert black armor = evil with the Pandion Knights, however, who are on the side of good, even if the main protagonist tends toward [[Anti-Hero|Anti Heroism]] at times. The [[Corrupt Church]] still wears red, of course.

** In the fight on the bridge of Khazâd-dûm, Gandalf's sword Glamdring glows blue (as Elvish swords always do in the proximity of evil creatures), while the Balrog's sword glows red, similar to the page image.

** Gondor/The Reunited Kingdom, being an entire nation of badass heroes, has black as its main heraldic color.

** ''[[Wicked (theatre)|Wicked]]'' - particularly the musical - is built around a subversion of this trope; everyone ''assumes'' Elphaba is evil because of her lurid green skin. She is, in fact, the misunderstood heroine.

* In Harry Potter, red (for Gryffindor) is "good," while green (for Slytherin) is "evil."

* [[Bruce Campbell]] relates an interesting anecdote in his autobiography, "If Chins Could Kill", about how costume designers use this trope to subtly enhance the story, as on the set of "The Hudsucker Proxy" his character started dressing in lighter colors and gradually got darker as he became more sinister.

* In ''[[Heathers]]'', the three main Heathers only wear their own colors and the protagonist, Veronica, wears all black to show her outsider status inside their clique. Heather Chandler wears red, showing her leadership status. Her red hair bow shifting to Heather Duke shows the latter's replacement of the former. {{spoiler|And Veronica snatching it back from her is used to symbolize the end of the Heathers.}}

* Sometimes in fairy tales, more often in illustrations, the heroines are fair ([[Hair of Gold|blonde]]) and the villainesses are dark (brunette or black-haired). Who knew moral standards were dictated by hair color? Averted by Snow White (whose mother wished for her to have hair as black as ebony).

* In the ''Dragonriders of Pern'' books, the eyes of dragons (and fire-lizards) change color according to their state of friendliness (or mood). Calm, happy dragons have green/blue eyes; angry, violent or fearful dragons have red/orange eyes.

** Of course, that's not counting the way the entire species is [[Color Coded for Your Convenience]], with color determining size, rank, and mating behavior (and as a consequence, the riders are also color-coded, since everyone's place in the hierarchy is based on what kind of dragon they ride).

* Reversed in the ''[[Sword of Truth]]'' Series, where the villain of the first book wear pure white, and the protagonist wears black since the fourth book. Oh, and one woman only wore black because of a subconscious desire to ''escape'' evil.

** Also, Beauxbatons school uniforms are pale blue, Durmstrang are blood red. Hogwarts basic black.

* Inverted in [[Mikhail Akhmanov]]'s novel ''[[Arrivals From the Dark|The Faraway Saikat]]'' with the Kni'lina, a race of bald [[Human Aliens]] whose color-coding system (among many other things) is different from that of the humans. In the past, their homeworld of Yezdan only had one moon. A large passing asteroid was snatched up by Yezdan and turned into the second moon, with the tides and earthquakes causing widespread devastation for the Kni'lina. Since then, the Kni'lina consider green to be a warning/danger color, thanks to their second moon having a greenish hue. In contrast, red is the morning color (i.e. good). Hence, on all their consoles, if all indicators are red, then all is well. Once they start turning green, that's when you have to worry.

* The Sci-Fi Channel's ''[[Dune]]'' miniseries is heavily color-coded. Not just the costumes, but the background lighting and set coloring followed this convention. The Harkonnens are all red all over. The Imperial Corrinos are purple and gold. The Atreides primarily wore tan and white. Fremen wear brown and dark orange. Spacing Guild members wear black robes to fit in with their "neutrality" and almost priestly function.

** Note that the novels clearly state that the Atreides colors are green and black, the Harkonnens blue, and the Corrino scarlet and gold (with black and gray for the Sardaukar).

*** It should be noted that the Sixth Doctor plays with this trope; while all the other Doctors tend towards black, brown, beige, or otherwise muted colors, the Sixth, the most anti-heroic Doctor, wears almost ludicrously garish colors, and even has blonde, curly hair.

*** Subsequent [[Expanded Universe|novels and audio dramas]] reclad him in blue.

** Played with by the colour scheme of Davros' new Daleks with their friendly gold and off-white cream-colored scheme. (But then he originally designed them while passing himself off as a good guy in "Revelation of the Daleks".)

* ''[[Firefly]]'' has browncoats and purplebellies. Though it usually comes up in conversation only. The two creepy bad guys are known as the "hands of blue."

** The general costume and set design uses this trope as well. The ''Serenity'' uses a lot of warm and friendly reds and browns, and Mal, Zoe, Inara and Kaylee are usually wearing a variety of red (if you count pink for Kaylee). Alliance uniforms, ships and buildings are sterile blues and greys. Neutral ground tends to be dusty brown.

* Many, many game shows use a red-yellow-blue theme to separate players. One of the most well-known uses of this is ''[[Wheel of Fortune]]''.

** Perhaps the best example, though, is ''[[Tattletales]]'', where the [[Studio Audience]] was separated into red, "banana" and blue segments to root on the celebrities playing the game. At the end, every audience member received a share of the celebrity couple's winnings.

* ''[[Lost]]'': Jacob wears white, Jacob's nemesis wears black (this plot point was apparently foreshadowed since the pilot, when Locke tells Walt about how backgammon has two players, two sides, one light and one dark). Subverted, however, by the fact that this color more reflects their philosophy (humans are good but flawed vs a more cynical view) and neither appears to have an upper hand morally (Jacob {{spoiler|seems to have caused the death of Nadia and basically manipulates everyone in their past to come to the Island}} while Jacob's nemesis {{spoiler|manipulates Locke in order to take his body}}.

** The good guys' colorcoding also fits the trope quite well. [[The Hero]] is almost always red. Blue will almost always be, if not [[The Lancer]], the smart, technique-instead-of-Heart-based character that ''makes'' a good Lancer (less like [[TV Genius]] Billy and more like Kai, Sky, and Theo - experts who get stuck playing second fiddle to the [[Rookie Red Ranger]].) The last two loners, Dillon and Will, are both Black Rangers, though far from all Black Rangers are like this. Also, the three Rangers to wear purple started their careers beating up on the good Rangers (well, we had one Ranger-like [[The Dragon|Dragon]] who didn't defect, one who did, and one good guy who went through a few episodes [[Not Himself]] before becoming a Ranger.) It doesn't reach the point of every character to wear a given color being an [[Expy]] of the last, but colorcoding does sometimes happen.

*** There does seem to be something of a [[Memetic Mutation]] that all Black Rangers are either rebellious loners or extremely serious and that Green Rangers are air-heads and/or the comic relief of the team, but there are plenty of exceptions with both colours.

** On the few occasions when their true forms are glimpsed, ''[[Deep Space Nine]]'''s [[Energy Beings|Prophets and Pa-Wraiths]] follow the blue for good, red for evil version of this trope.

** In addition, every incarnation of ''[[Star Trek]]'' has different-colored uniforms to denote what division personnel work in. In every pre-TNG timeframe series, Red = Operations/[[Red Shirt|Death]], Blue = Science/Medical, and Gold = Command. In TNG and later series, the meanings of Red and Gold are swapped. This is lampshaded in "Trials and Tribble-ations" when characters from ''[[Deep Space Nine]]'' go back to the original series era.

* In the 1969 adaptation of Alan Garner's ''The Owl Service'', each of the 3 main characters is always attired in a particular colour: Gwyn in black, Alison in red, and Roger in green. These were the 3 colours of electrical plug wiring at the time, and the person to 'earth' the power the 3 of them have created is Roger, who of course is wearing the colour which matches with this wire.

* In ''[[Stargate SG-1|Stargate SG 1]]'', the Tau'ri usually wear blue on-base and green offworld ([[Justified]]: those are standard US Air Force and Marine Corps uniforms). [[Big Good|Asgard]] ships come in dark grey and [[Shiny-Looking Spaceships|shiny white]]. The Goa'uld use gold and purple (for decadence) and armor their Jaffa in silvery gray, and [[Big Bad|Anubis']] [[Boss in Mook Clothing|Kull warriors]] are armored in jet black. That gets [[Subverted]] after the Jaffa pull a [[Heel Race Turn]], then played straight when the Lucian Alliance appropriates Goa'uld technology for their own use.

** In ''[[Stargate Atlantis]]'', anything Wraith is bluish purple.

 

== Puppet Shows ==

* While there are no good or bad guys per se in ''[[Fraggle Rock]]'', the Fraggles are typically colour-coded according to their personality; particularly the [[Five-Man Band]]. Gobo, [[The Hero]] and most balanced of the group, has fuchsia hair and wears a multi-coloured and multi-hued outfit. Red, the [[Cute Bruiser]] [[Action Girl]], has bright red hair and clothing. Wembley, the high-strung and indecisive [[Tagalong Kid]], has yellow hair and a banana-tree pattern shirt. Mokey, the spacey [[Granola Girl]], has pale green hair and wears earth-tones. Boober, the perpetually angsty [[Grumpy Bear]] and [[The Smart Guy|Smart Guy]], doesn't really wear much besides his hat and scarf, but his hair and clothing are all [[Goth|dark-coloured]].

** This seems to work for other Fraggles as well. Cantus, [[The Obi-Wan]] and [[Trickster Mentor]], dresses in a gauzy purple robe, befitting of his mystical personality and wisdom. [[Manipulative Bastard]] Convincing John dresses in a confusion of colours, like a stereotypical used-car salesman.

 

== Tabletop Games ==

** The ''[[Eberron]]'' campaign setting plays with this. Whereas dragons all have "Always [[[Character Alignment]]]" in the core books, in Eberron this is changed to "usually" or "often". Surprise your party with a [[Chaotic Good|principled revolutionary]] red dragon fighting against a [[Lawful Evil|charming but tyrannical]] gold dragon!

* ''[[Talislanta]]'': Everyone in Aaman wears pure white, because it's a [[Knight Templar|repressive]] [[Path of Inspiration|theocracy]]. Green is the favored color of Cymril, although it hasn't been mandatory since the game's first edition.

== Theater ==

* There were paired productions of ''[[Julius Caesar (theatre)|Julius Caesar]]'' and ''[[Antony and Cleopatra]]'' where each of the major political factions had costumes of a single color palette to make the action easier to follow. Antony's (the hot-headed military man) faction was red while Octavian's (the calculating politician) was blue and Crassus' (the weak truce-keeper) was white.

* ''[[A Streetcar Named Desire]]'': The first time you see Blanche she's all in white. Hell, even her name means "white."

** Also of note is the men's poker game, which Williams emphasizes should be lit in raw, primary colors. And there are big ripe watermelon slices on the table.

** Another example is Williams' direction for Stella's kimono in the Act 4, Scene 1 - it should be bright blue, a departure from her usual color scheme. This is just after the "STELLA!!" scene, which implies that Stanley and Stella have just had sex.

** Likewise, ''[[A Midsummer Night's Dream|A Midsummer Nights Dream]]'' often color codes the couples with Hermia and Lysander wearing pink/red and Helena and Demetrius wearing light/dark blue. Many productions go further, dressing the Puck in green, Titania in Silver/White, Oberon in Black/Gold, the Mechanicals in earthy tones etc.

 

 

== Video Games ==

** 343 Guilty Spark's eye and [[Eye Beams]] are blue when he is on your side, but [[Red Eyes, Take Warning|turn red when he goes rampant]].

* Many [[Turn-Based Strategy]] games have allies in blue and enemies in red, especially if there's a "radar" where individual characters are represented as dots. ''[[Fire Emblem]]'' and ''[[Super Robot Wars]]'' are both examples of this.

Red Soldier: Sure, I'm tired of wearing red anyway. }}

** ''[[Advance Wars]]'', however, colors the player's units red in its campaigns, and enemy units (assuming there is only one enemy faction in the scenario) are usually blue or black.

** [[Justified Trope]] in that Soviets were, of course, communist, hence "Reds."

** And in the ''Yuri's Revenge'' expansion pack for ''Red Alert 2,'' the renegade faction led by Yuri is purple.

*** They also get the emblems wrong: while the Atreides are correctly given a hawk, the Harkonnen symbol from the novels is a griffin, not a ram (as depicted in the games).

** It occasionally goes beyond that into powers. The Energy Blast powerset is blue-white for heroes and red for villains, and the same goes for ''lightning''.

*** Now averted as Power Customisation has finally been implemented, but the default powers are still the same.

** The developers have noted this, and mention that the armour and banners of the alien-fighting Vanguard group, who will work with both heroes and villains, are grey and purple to indicate their ([[Informed Attribute|supposed]]) neutral morality.

*** The Loyalists' emblem is golden, and the Resistance's emblem is blue.

* In ''Deadlock'', each of the seven races are represented by a different colour - and that's the only thing visually separating many of their things, such as tanks and flags. The colours are often somewhat representative of the races (the Cyth get black and are the most devious and "evil" of the races, whereas the mighty Tarth warriors get a dark, blood red).

*** Outside of gameplay mechanics, there are also elements of this trope in the storyline. Blood Elves took to wearing red in mourning of their fallen brethren. As a result, the High Elves (who the Blood Elves have had a bit of a falling out with) ''never'' wear red. There are also elements of color coding in the dragon flights. Red, Green, and Bronze Dragons are (for the most part) good. Black dragons are evil, and Blue Dragons are only evil in Northrend. The creation of the Twilight Dragonflight also adds purple, dark blue, and ''magenta'' to the list of evil dragon colors.

* [[Anti-Hero|Sanger Zonvolt and Elzam Branstein]] from ''[[Super Robot Wars]]'' are both enormously [[Badass]] and both [[Heel Face Turn|temporarily]] work for the [[Necessarily Evil]] antagonists in ''[[Original Generation]]''. Accordingly, they favor black [[Humongous Mecha]] with yellow trim and black [[Humongous Mecha]] with red trim, respectively. Especially noticeable in Elzam's case since he goes through nearly half a dozen mechs in a given continuity, and paints ''every one of them'' black and red. [[I Call It Vera|And names them Trombe]].

* Ever since ''[[Warcraft]]: Orcs and Humans'', blue has been the colour of the humans (later the Alliance) and red of the orcs (later the Horde). ''[[Warcraft]] III'' subverted this by making the orcs commit a [[Heel Face Turn]] but keep their traditional red colour, as well as bringing in the undead Scourge (purple = evil), night elven Sentinels (blue or teal = good, natural) and demonic Burning Legion (green, purple, red = evil).

** The third game also gives the option to turn your units blue, allies teal, and enemies red, literally colour-coding them for your convenience.

** The sequel has the colour of players in multiplayer appear more red if they are Locust or blue if they are COG the farther away they are.

* In the ''[[Resident Evil]]'' series heroic Chris favors green, Leon and Jill wear blue, while Claire and Ada wear red. And of course, [[Big Bad]] Albert Wesker is always decked out in black.

* ''[[Star Wars]] Galactic Battlegrounds'' puts soldiers in different coloured suits to represent what side they're on (with instant repaints and costume changes upon being converted by a Jedi).

** Any legal target, regardless of relationship, is also displayed as red by default.

** With pink being the default colour for other people in your fleet, there is also the slightly less common Not Pink Shoot It rule of engagement which is the default MO on Ganknights<ref>Fleets of (by default otherwise unrelated) people from a third-party community site just going on a rampage in a random direction while often including at least a few people which are blue to the residents of the area which is getting visited</ref> usually leading to [[Hilarity Ensues|hot blue-on-blue action and diplomatic fallout in the aftermath]].

* ''[[Knights of the Old Republic (video game)|Knights of the Old Republic]]'': Every character-page picture has a colored background reflecting their force alignment. Neutrals will have grey, dark siders have red background, and light siders have blue (and at the very top, they will stand in a pillar of radiant light, against a dark-blue starry sky backdrop). They will also take on an increasingly hostile stance the darker they get.

** There was also an aversion of this in the second game. At one point on Onderon, you come across two aliens arguing about who the people should support, the good Queen Talia or the two-faced General Vaklu. The alien in support of the "evil" General is blue-skinned, while the one supporting the Queen is not only red-skinned, but has horns!

** Blue and red were also used throughout the interface as shorthand for "light side"/"dark side", which was carried over to ''[[Jade Empire]]'' for Open Palm/Closed Fist ratings as well. In ''[[Mass Effect]]'', however, this changes to blue and ''orange'' ([[Blue and Orange Morality|no relation]]) to emphasize that Renegade is less about [[Card-Carrying Villain|card-carrying villainy]] and more about [[I Did What I Had to Do|pragmatism]].

* ''[[Infamous (video game series)|In Famous]]'': Evil Cole shoots red lightning, while Good Cole shoots blue lightning.

* ''[[Sonic the Hedgehog]]'' has this trope smeared all over it. Sonic (the hero) is blue, Knuckles (the tough guy) is a cherry red, Amy Rose and Rouge the Bat (the chicks) have extensive pink colouring, Shadow the Hedgehog ([[Anti-Hero]]) is red and black, and Eggman Robotnik is covered in red, yellow, and black - good old evil commie colours.

* In all of Koei's ''Warriors'' series, allies have blue life bars, enemies have red ones, and neutrals yellow. This color scheme extends to the game map.

* The fairy targeting systems of ''[[The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time|The Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time]]'' and ''[[The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask|Majora's Mask]]'' has the fairy turn blue if it's targeting a NPC, yellow if it's targeting an enemy, and green if it's targeting an inanimate object.

** Not to mention that Link wears green (with brown/blonde hair), Zelda usually is wearing white (with blonde hair), and Ganon is usually wearing black (with red hair).

* In the newer ''[[Persona (video game)|Persona]]'' games, player characters always summon their Personae with a blue aura. Shadows and Non Playable Persona users have a Red Aura.

* In ''[[Mother 3]]'', the Magypsies are wizard-like entities that live millenia long lives. They [[Camp Gay|each represent a color of the rainbow]](Aeolia=Red, Phrygia=Orange, etc.), except for {{spoiler|Locria/Fassad/Yokuba, who has betrayed the Magypsies, and now sports white(absence of color in pigments).}}

* The rollermines in ''[[Half-Life 2]] Episode 1'' are similar; they're normally blue, but when they've been reprogrammed by Alyx they turn yellow. Then when they are about to explode they turn red.

* In ''[[Mitsumete Knight]]'', the country you're fighting for as a mercenary, Dolphan Kingdom, has a blue and white crest and its soldiers' armor is light blue, while the enemy country, the Dukedom of Procchia, has a red and black crest and its soldiers' armor is jet-red. [[Grey and Gray Morality|Subversion]] in that the enemy side has sympathetic characters and reasons to fight, while Dolphan is ruled by a [[Deadly Decadent Court]] {{spoiler|who will discard you like an old rag by voting a law explusing all foreigners from the country, [[Dude, Where's My Respect?|after you win the war for them]]}}.

* Color-coding is employed in ''[[Final Fantasy VIII]]'' to highlight the parallels and contrasts between Squall and Seifer: Squall, a [[Good Is Not Nice]] [[Anti-Hero]], wears mostly black and has dark hair, while his [[Rival Turned Evil]] Seifer, who has aspirations toward knighthood, is [[Blond Guys Are Evil]] and wears a white [[Badass Longcoat]].

* In ''[[Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine|Warhammer 40000 Space Marine]]'', soldiers from [[The Empire]] use lasguns with a red beam, while those faithful to the true gods wield green ones.

* In the ''[[X (video game)|X-Universe]]'' series, the [[Good Republic, Evil Empire]] trope is subverted with [[Grey and Gray Morality]]. That said, the factions that are generally treated as good and evil tend to follow this trope. The [[The Federation|Argon Federation]] uses gunmetal gray, and the [[The Kingdom|Kingdom of Boron]] use bright green. The [[Proud Warrior Race Guy|Split Dynasty]] uses rusty red, and the [[Scary Dogmatic Aliens|Paranid Empire]] uses bluish purple. The neutral [[Proud Merchant Race|Teladi Space Company]] leaves their ships unpainted, which translates to dark gray.

 

 

** Generally ignored or lampshaded with the BG crew - they're more or less team colored. Even Donut. Doc wears purple because he's on loan to both Red and Blue teams, but becomes the villain when O'malley possesses him. He returns to being a pacifist when O'Malley leaves.

** The Freelancers take this trope and throw it through a meatgrinder. To whit:

*** Agents Wyoming and Maine wear white armor. For Maine it could be argued that he fits the crazy mold. Wyoming, however, is merely a coward.

*** York wears tan.

** The [[Grand Finale]] completely mess with this trope, having two determining fights happening in parallel: Aang/Ozai and Azula/Zuko. Both were red, or a kind of orange, versus blue. But in one fight, Blue was good, in the other, blue was evil.

* On the classic 1960s ''[[Spider-Man (1967 TV series)|Spider-Man]]'', want to know who the villain is if they aren't already established in the comics? Their skin is green. Even if they are entirely normal humans. And no one really notices.

** White and black: Nothing special

** Gold and black: Guardian

** Green and Black: Viral minion

 

 

[[Category:Costume Tropes]]

[[Category:Good Colors, Evil Colors]]