Light Is Not Good/Real Life

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • The clione is a sea slug that looks like a tiny angel (hence it's other name, "sea angel"). When it wants to eat, however...see for yourself [dead link].
  • Swans. Seriously, they might be ridiculously angelic in appearence, but they're aggressive and use their angelic wings to break bones when fighting. Even black swans fit this trope because they still have white wing feathers.
  • Anglerfish and similar deep sea fish.
  • Polar Bears are known to be lethal predators who sometimes even kill for fun.
  • Josef Mengele, the most horrifying of the nazi doctors, was reffered not only as "Angel of Death", but as "White Angel" as well, due to his white doctor suit and possibly due to Genre Savvy prisoners (see below for the use of white as the colour of death).
  • Bugzappers from an insect's perspective.
  • Historically, white has more often than not being the colour of death, contrary to modern perceptions, and it still is in parts of Africa and Asia. Even in Ancient Egypt, where its mythology had Light Is Good very strongly, white symbolised the sterile desert sands and the goddess Sekhmet, while black was the colour of the fertile Nile muds.
  • Any religious extremist who uses white clothes to convey a holy appearence. Osama Bin Laden is a good modern example.
  • Sunstroke and sunburns can result from staying outside too long. They can be fatal, albeit usually only by making someone feel so ill or in pain they don't want to move.
  • Consider for a moment: The Sun is a gigantic atom-smashing fireball. It puts off completely absurd amounts of light, heat, and radiation. Prolonged exposure to it will kill you. And that is what made the nuclear bomb the most feared weapon in human history: We brought The Sun to Earth. It's also responsible for providing energy to all life on Earth, so, more of a yin yang thing really.
    • They've got nothing on supernovae and gamma ray bursts. The latter will fry anything in its path, the former destroys everything in a solar-system sized radius. Supernovae are also an example of Light Is Good, since they're the source of the heavier atoms in interstellar clouds, and thus of the material that earthlike planets are made of.
  • Speaking of atomic power, the "Radiance of a Thousand Suns" is often used when talking about Hiroshima. A nuclear bomb's flash is the most brilliant light possible on Earth short of a gamma ray burst or supernova pop - and if you see it, you'll be blinded and burned.
  • Any star that's in old age and/or is about to die, and especially if that star has planets.
  • A group of people once used religious symbols, fire and very-white clothes. Its name? The KKK.
  • Black holes count as this and Dark Is Evil. At the very edge of oblivion, you can find a circle of light orbiting it. Inside the actual black hole, it's full of light being pulled downwards.
    • The term "black hole" overall is just because light, alongside everything, is sucked into it; both outside and inside of them is filled with brightness being pulled into. There's also the theoretical "white holes", which are essencially the exits of the "black holes", which are throwing out all matter inside. This is good because it provides new matter, but also very bad towards anything nearby.
  • White phosphorous (P4) was used as a weapon since World War I. It can cause death in three different ways: by burning deep into tissue, by being inhaled as a smoke, and by being ingested. And we won't discuss about specific uses of this substance.
  • Magnesium and lead flames are white/silver in colour. Besides the fact, that they are, you know, fire, the first are ridiculously explosive and so hot that it is very hard to put them down, while the latter are toxic. Magnesium also burns so brightly it can damage the eyes if looked at for too long.
  • A common side-effect and/or withdrawal symptom of drug use (be it prescription or otherwise) is extreme sensitivity to light.
  • The Nazis often used light to their advantage, often for propaganda purposes. For example, the Nuremberg rallies were often accompanied by a Pillar of Light.
    • The Swastika itself started out as a symbol of sun.
  • A glow in the dark crowbar. Gods only know what kinds of things it was made for.
  • There once was a place, nicknamed "Empire of the Sun." They ran one of the most brutal regimes in recent history. Some would even say they were even worse than the Nazis. They were the Japanese Empire.
  • The British Empire for which "the sun never sets".
  • France in the reign of Louis XIV "The Sun King".
  • Horribly, HORRIBLY played straight for those forced to endure the "White Torture"
  • A warning sign seen in many physics labs: "Do not look into laser with your remaining eye." They expect you to be smart enough to know what happened to your missing eye.
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