Red Shirt: Difference between revisions

The color of shirt worn by the nameless security personnel on the original ''[[Star Trek: The Original Series|Star Trek the Original Series]]'' series. Their only job was to get eaten, shot, stabbed, disrupted, temporally-shifted, frozen, desalinated, or crushed into a cube. Their death would give [[William Shatner]] and [[DeForest Kelley]] a corpse to emote over, and [[Leonard Nimoy]] a corpse to, well, [[The Stoic|not emote over]]. ([[Gene Roddenberry]] [[Inverted Trope|inverted this trope]] in ''[[Star Trek: The Next Generation|Star Trek the Next Generation]]'' when he had all officers of command rank wear red shirts while the security and engineering departments wear gold.) In a series where [[The Main Characters Do Everything]], if you suddenly see someone else involved, they are probably a [['''Red Shirt]]'''.

A [['''Red Shirt]]''' is the [[Evil Counterpart|Good Counterpart]] of [[Evil Minions]] and [[Mooks]] -- set—set filler for our heroes' side. Their purpose is almost exclusively to give the writers someone to kill [[Sorting Algorithm of Mortality|who isn't a main character]], although they can also serve as a [[Spear Carrier]]. They are used to show how the monster works, and demonstrate that it is indeed a deadly menace, without having to lose anyone ''[[Anyone Can Die|important]]''. Expect someone to say "[[He's Dead, Jim]]", lament this "valued crew member's [[What a Senseless Waste of Human Life|senseless death]]", and then [[Forgotten Fallen Friend|promptly forget him]]. Security personnel in general fall victim to the worst shade of this [[Trope]], as most of the time their deaths aren't even acknowledged at all; according to Hollywood, you could walk into a bank and shoot a security guard right in the face without anyone making a fuss. If you shot anyone else afterward, the headline would just read "Bank Customers Killed".

Compare to [[The Worf Effect]] (a character is hurt, but not killed, to show the enemy's power), [[The World's Expert on Getting Killed]], [[Retirony]], [[Mauve Shirt]], [[Sacrificial Lamb]], [[Disposable Sex Worker]], [[Anyone Can Die]], [[Little Dead Riding Hood]].

Contrast [[Bring My Red Jacket]], [[Plot Armor]].

== [[Advertising]] ==

** In several scenes in ''[[Naruto]]'', including Kabuto's attempted assassination of [[Anti-Hero|Sasuke]], several ANBU Black Ops are easily killed. [[The Worf Effect|This is to show how powerful the invaders from the Sound and Sand villages actually were]].

* [[FUNimation]] voice actor [[Vic Mignogna]] wrote a ([[Ear Worm|horribly catchy]]) song about the [[Red Shirt]] [[Anime]] equivalents, called [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5TA-QJ2d3kk "Soldier A"]:

''The unsung hero of anime

''Hip hooray for Soldier A

''He only has one line but saves the day

''He's called upon to grunt or yell or scream

''Even if his mouth is never seen

''Through the fray with ne'er to say

''He'll lead the way, he's Soldier A'' }}

* On the way to a battle with the forces of Marmo in ''[[Record of Lodoss War]]'', protagonist Parn chats up a fellow soldier who is very optimistic about the whole thing. Naturally, as soon as the battle is over and the heroes lament the losses, they find the soldier's body. It was his fault -- hefault—he really shouldn't have shown Parn that [[Fatal Family Photo|good-luck charm his child made for him]].

* Phil Foglio's [https://web.archive.org/web/20080510111733/http://www.airshipentertainment.com/buck.html Buck Godot] series has the evil "X-Tel" corporation, whose security forces' uniform consists of grey shirts... [https://web.archive.org/web/20150316090403/http://www.airshipentertainment.com/buckcomic.php?date=20070308 and red PANTS.]

* In one issue of Toyfare's ''[[Twisted ToyfareToyFare Theatre]]'', Kirk returns from a mission in which "only a dozen redshirts died," to find himself in the Mirror Universe, where the meek and pragmatic Mirror Kirk is protected by the immortal Redshirts. ''TTT'' loves playing with these. There are usually Redshirts around to die in stories featuring Captain Kirk, and the title page of one of the trade paperbacks shows Kirk and Spock standing amidst a sea of Redshirts while Spock looks around uneasily.

* The ''[[X Wing Series]]'' comics started to display this later on. There were complaints after the first several arcs that, while people quit or transferred out, no-one ever died. Promptly someone who'd been there since the beginning and one who'd been around for an arc got killed in ''Requiem for a Rogue'', and in the arc after ''that'' four new pilots were introduced. One instantly immersed himself in a subplot, another took equally little time to establish her status as part of a rather pragmatic [[Proud Warrior Race]]. The other two failed to do anything but sort of hang around in the background, and by the end of the book those two had been shot down and killed within two pages of each other.

* ''[[Empowered]]'', being a superhero comic (albeit a parody) also has [[Mooks]], but one supervillain ThugBoy once worked for really took the cake when he made his Witless Minions wear shirts with an emblem looking like a bullseye. Wow. Now that is...

* ''Transformers: Last Stand of the Wreckers'': The whole mini-series is basicllybasically a ''Transformers'' story told from the viewpoint of a bunch of Red Shirt second stringers. In fact a large part of the characterscharacter's protrayalsportrayals are built around the fact that this trope applies. Pyro fears that he'll die a meaningless death so he's spent most of his life trying to plan the perfect death. Ironfist is basicllybasically in complete denial about his role as a Red Shirt until later in the story where he seems to almost quietly accept his percievedperceived unavoidable death.

* In a recent{{when}} ''[[Taskmaster]]'' mini-series, the main villianvillain is former mook turned leader how actually CALLS himself Red Shirt. He's the only one that doesn't get the joke.

* Notorious ''[[Star Trek: The Next Generation|Star Trek the Next Generation]]'' fanfic author Stephen Ratliff unironically(?) gave us [[Better Than a Bare Bulb|Ensign Throwaway]] in his ''[[Marissa Picard]]'' stories.

* This is frequently played with in ''Trek'' fanfics. A typical example is [https://web.archive.org/web/20091127105133/http://liquidfic.net/mesir.html here].

* Played deliberately straight by the crew of the ''Enterprise'' in the ''Star Trek'' [[Deviant ART]] web comic, ''[http://comicalclare.deviantart.com/art/Ensign-Sue-Must-Die-23-175328458 Ensign Sue Must Die!]'' The crew quickly find out that Ensign [[Mary Sue]] is EXTREMELY''extremely'' annoying. Virtually all attempts to get rid of her fail. [[{{spoiler:|Including shooting her! She's [[The Princess Bride (film)|spent the past few years building up an immunity]] to phaser blasts.}} So the crew turn to the one guaranteed way of killing off a crew member. They give her a promotion which changes her shirt colour from blue to red. They waste no time and go on an away mission, where she is killed almost immediately.

== Films[[Film]]s -- Live-Action ==

* If you're a 00-agent early in a ''[[James Bond]]'' film, kiss your ass goodbye. Subverted in ''[[Golden EyeGoldenEye]]'', when {{spoiler|the [[Big Bad]] turns out to be the "[[Faking the Dead|dead]]" 00-agent.}}

* This trope was parodied very effectively in ''[[Galaxy Quest]]'' in the character of Guy Fleegman, "Crewman Number Six" -- who—who is the only cast member NOT''not'' shot or killed during the climactic final battle! (Although [[Reset Button|a bit of time travel makes everyone else better]]). [[Lampshade Hanging]] at its finest (also see [[Plucky Comic Relief]]). In the end, he gets a major role in the new ''Galaxy Quest'' series, in a reference to the fact that ''[[Star Trek: The Next Generation|Star Trek the Next Generation]]'' featured a Security officer as a main character throughout its entire run and in general saw far fewer redshirt deaths.

* The countless native African servants and carriers in the ''[[Allan QuartermainQuatermain]]'' movie adaptions exist only to be eaten by crocodiles or killed by traps so that the danger can be demonstrated without killing off a main character.

* In the 2009 ''[[Star Trek (film)|Star Trek]]'' movie, Kirk (in blue) and Sulu (in gold) are accompanied on a drop mission to take out a planetary drill with a character wearing red armor (to guard against the heat of reentry). Guess which one of the trio dies? At first it seems to be a subversion, as he survives {{spoiler|what seems to be the obvious fate of missing the platform and falling to his death from the upper atmosphere of a planet}}. Unfortunately for the poor guy, it's a [[Double Subversion]]; his final fate actually manages to be fairly spectacular. {{spoiler|His parachute catches on the platform, and he gets vaporized by the drill.}}<br /><br />This was completely intentional, according to the commentary -- Abrams and the writers called this their "red shirt moment".

* ''[[Star Trek: The Motion Picture|Star Trek the Motion Picture]]'': Two crew members die in a teleporter accident, although they aren't seen to be wearing red shirts (in fact, no-one is).

* ''[[Star Trek: First Contact|Star Trek First Contact]]'':

* ''[[The Mummy Trilogy|''The Mummy'' (1999)]]''. In the end, {{spoiler|the only people who make it out are the four protagonists}}.

* Subverted in ''[[Smokin' Aces]]''. Though many nameless cops bite it in the various shootouts, our hero is so distressed by the mass carnage that it sends him into a [[Heroic BSOD]]. He laments "So many people are dead!" even as his superiors try to get him to callously brush it off and do his job.

* The [[X-Men (film)|''X-Men'' film franchise]] averts this a few times:

** A [[Red Shirt]] security guard eventually drove Nightcrawler away when he attacked the President. Granted, this was after a [[No-Holds-Barred Beatdown]] from the mutant.

** In Wolverine's [[The Movie|own movie]], he and Sabretooth are captured and executed by [[Red Shirt]] soldiers. They healed.

* Averted in the ''Fighting Fantasy'' book ''Starship Traveller''. Your security personnel are much more competent in both phaser and close combat; this is reflected by having all non-security characters take a -3 Skill penalty in combat -- presumablycombat—presumably showing that a character's Skill stat is for their particular job, not their ability in general. But then played almost straight in the fact that it is indicated that there are a great number of faceless nameless redshirts available in your crew for horrible things to happen to (if you play well-in a way that won't get your identified personnel killed) and that you and your crew repeatedly, if such things happen, suffer a critical giving-a-shit failure.

* Played with in the ''Day of Honor'' TOS novel. A redshirt got himself good and toasted... but it was in an honorable way to the Klingons. They decided to give this guy an annual holiday.

* "Chapter 3: Lucky Red Shirt", from Hell’s''Hell's Children'' by Andrew Boland. The Shirt does not turn out to be lucky.

* The African porters of ''[[Congo]]'', the movie or the Crichton novel, seemed to regenerate like clones. "Oh, look, there are three left. Oh, wait, the apes just killed them all. Hey, where did those other two porters come from?"

* Even though the ''[[Warrior Cats]]'' series has a strict [[Anyone Can Die]] policy (and how), the seldom seen Tribe of Rushing Water is made up of about 75% Red Shirts, who get killed off in bunches pretty much anytime the Tribe is featured in a book.

** Interestingly, the leader of Rogue Squadron, Wedge Antilles, is sometimes cited as an [http://kevinbolk.deviantart.com/art/Star-Wars-Funnies-Wedge-146264636 Anti Red Shirt] -- a—a minor supporting character with little backstory who survives multiple dangers. In the [[Star Wars Expanded Universe]], where he's not minor, it doesn't apply, but in the movies, it does.

{{quote|''[[Discworld|DW]] is based on a slew of old myths, which reach their most "refined" form in Hindu mythology, which in turn of course derived from the original ''[[Star Trek: The Original Series|Star Trek the Original Series]]'' episode "Planet of Wobbly Rocks where the Security Guard Got Shot".''}}

* Utterly spindled, folded and mutilated by ''[[Night of the Living Trekkies]]'', where the hero encounters a terrified man in a red shirt at a Star Trek convention attacked by the living dead. Turns out that "Ensign Willy Makit" has lost the rest of his group, several trekkies who claim to be from the U.S.S. Expendible...Expendable ''who died in ways completely unrelated to the zombies''. (Willy didn't even ''know'' about them until the hero showed up.) It gets better: Willy's real name is {{spoiler|[[Punny Name|Kenny Dyes]]}}, and {{spoiler|he ultimately dies... in a way ''completely'' unrelated to the zombie attacks}}.

* Averted in ''[[The Name of the Wind]]'', where the Adem, a warrior race whose mercenaries wear all red outfits, and are pretty unlikely to even be wounded.

* Parodied by [[John Scalzi]] in his book ''Redshirts,'', told from the point of view of an ensign on a space exploration vessel:

** Despite it being the [[Trope Namer]], quite a few of the characters that die in ''[[Star Trek: The Original Series|Star Trek the Original Series]]'' are blue shirts or gold shirts. In fact, no red shirt deaths occur until the seventh episode. The dubious honor goes to Crewman Mathews, who is pushed into a bottomless pit in "What Are Little Girls Made Of?"

** An interesting case also occurs in "By Any Other Name". Two redshirts are [[And I Must Scream|turned into crystals]], one of whom is a [[Good -Looking Privates|hot female yeoman]], who would usually survive. The other is a more typical [[Men Are the Expendable Gender|male]] security officer and is also [[The Black Dude Dies First|black]]. It's the former that gets crushed into powder, however.

** There is in fact an even more unfortunate color to be wearing, but it's more obscure: The [https://web.archive.org/web/20131005221214/http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Hansen_(Commander) two] [http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Harold characters] who wore the same beigey-yellow shirt both died in attacks on outposts, along with everyone with them.

* Later incarnations of ''Trek'' (''[[Star Trek: The Next Generation|Star Trek the Next Generation]]'', ''[[Star Trek: Deep Space Nine|Star Trek Deep Space Nine]]'', ''[[Star Trek: Voyager|Star Trek Voyager]]'') invert the term by switching uniform colors. Command staff in ''[[Star Trek: The Original Series|Star Trek the Original Series]]'' wore yellowish uniforms and operations staff (such as security) red; from ''[[Star Trek: The Next Generation|Star Trek the Next Generation]]'' on this was swapped, making gold shirts the new target of preference while red shirts were usually safe and secure on bridge duty if not for the [[Explosive Instrumentation|usual exploding console]].

** In the ''[[Star Trek: Deep Space Nine|Star Trek Deep Space Nine]]'' episode "Valiant", the title ship is crewed by cadet group called "Red Squad". [[Everybody's Dead, Dave|Guess what happens...]]

* Notably deconstructed in the ''[[Star Trek: The Next Generation|Star Trek the Next Generation]]'' episode "Lower Decks." The episode was told almost entirely from the point of view of four low-level ensigns on the ''Enterprise'', revealing how normally anonymous crewmembers deal with being kept in the dark about missions and being forced to constantly fight for the main characters’ respect. In the end, {{spoiler|after one of them doesn’t make it back from the mission of the week, it deals with Captain Picard’s guilt and remorse at sending a comrade to her death}}.

* ''[[Star Trek: Voyager|Star Trek Voyager]]''. Averted in the early seasons by giving some screen time to crewmembers who were slated for death in later episodes (i.e. Hogan, Jonas, Carey). But eventually they reverted to bumping off anonymous ensigns by the shuttleload.

** The aversion is justified because of Voyager's premise. They are on the opposite side of the galaxy from Earth and 75,000 lightyears away from the closest starbase, so they don't have a practically infinite number of Starfleet recruits to replace them and they only have about 150 crew members, 100 being stated as the minimum to run the ship (though proven false on multplemultiple occasions). Thus they can't afford to have crew members [[Dying Like Animals]] all the time. However, they shaved about 1/7th of their time off every season, and got a few more crew in later, so the writers could start being more lenient and allow more deaths a few seasons in.

* ''[[Star Trek: Enterprise|Star Trek Enterprise]]''. The crew never suffered any fatal casualties in the first two seasons (despite incidents like a Romulan stealth mine blowing away a section of the hull), no doubt so as to avoid the "phaser fodder" cliché. All this changed in the third season Xindi war arc, with eighteen killed in "Azati Prime" alone. The trope is lampshaded in "The Forgotten", when Trip has to write a letter to the parents of a dead crewmember but [[What Measure Is a Mook?|can't remember much about her]], so he keeps getting her mixed up with his [[Dead Little Sister]]. There's also two classic redshirt incidents: in "The Council" an away team takes along a MACO when entering one of the mysterious Spheres, and in Season 4 "Daedalus" Reed goes searching through a dark room for a [[Negative Space Wedgie]] with an unnamed crewmember -- nocrewmember—no guessing who gets killed on both occasions. Deliberately parodied in [[Mirror Universe|"In a Mirror, Darkly"]] where Mirror Reed puts on an [[Star Trek: The Original Series|Original Series]] redshirt with fatal consequences.

* In [[Crime and Punishment Series]], the newly deceased [[Red Shirt]] often only has [[Retirony|one week left to go before retirement]]. At the opposite end of a career-span, the first ''[[CSI]]'' episode had a [[Red Shirt]] who had only been on the job for a week (also done in ''[[The Bill]]'').

** During a conversation with Lock, Boone was tying red shirts to trees. Eight episodes later, he died (and was the first main character to do so.) [[Lampshade Hanging]] and [[Foreshadowing]] at the same time. This scene is even more ironic because the actor who played Locke had been in an episode of ''[[Star Trek: The Next Generation|Star Trek the Next Generation]]'', in which he wore, you guessed it, a red shirt. He didn't die in the episode. Being that his ''Star Trek'' character got court martialed and imprisoned for his poor decisions as Captain which resulted in the deaths of his almost his entire crew and loss of his ship, he definitely doesn't have the right to call Kirk "a piss-poor Captain". (Although Kirk had his fair share of court martials as well, he only got a few redshirts killed at a time, not an entire crew in one go).

** The show itself performs many a [[Lampshade Hanging]] on its ''actual'' [[Red Shirt|red shirts]]. The characters Scott and Steve, for instance, are always confused by important characters, even after one of them dies (Hurley's eulogy for him boils down to "Sorry I could never remember your name.") The character Dr. Arzt is introduced near the end of season 1 and complains about how everyone (i.e., the main characters) acts like a high school clique. What happens to Arzt? He gets blown up an episode later.

* ''[[24]]''. Any CTU field agent who isn't Jack Bauer or the season's [[Colonel Makepeace]] is a red shirt. In season 4 and part of season 5, CTU HQ's security officers actually wore red shirts -- thatshirts—that is, until ''they were all killed at once in a nerve gas attack''.

* ''[[Blake's Seven|Blakes Seven7]]'', having been designed in response to ''[[Star Trek]]'', features a character announcing, "I am not expendable, I am not stupid, and I am not going."

* The ''[[Supernatural]]'' Season 5 episode "Good God, Y'All" has a whole ''town'' full of [[Red Shirt|Red Shirts]] {{spoiler|divided into thinking that the other side are demons so that Sam and Dean can figure it out and meet War, the Apocalyptic Horseman}}.

* In the TV adaptation of ''[[Tremors]]'' nearly every episode starts off with some random construction worker/tourist/passer by getting brutally killed by some monster.

* In ''[[Stargate Atlantis]]'' any character who makes a premier appearance just as something is discovered is destined to meet a quick demise. The Red shirt du jour is introduced that episode, often by name. As the series' regulars investigate new technology or a recent discovery the newly introduced Red shirts keeping watch get toasted/Wraith-ed/introduced to the [[Monster of the Week]].

** This was lampshaded in an episode where a couple of [[Mauve Shirt|Mauve Shirts]]s are trying to rescue SG-1, and one of them says they might as well be wearing red shirts.

{{quote|''{{'}}Tis a gift to wear a gold shirt or a blue, you see

''But look, my dear, what they have done to me

''Even Engineering would a blessing be

''But no, they've made me Security

''Whe-en the landing party's gone

''I'll be there with my red shirt on

''I'll make sure my estate's all orderly

''Because that is the last that you'll see of me'' }}

* [[Jonathan Coulton]] wrote the song "Red Shirt" as a theme to ''Redshirts,'', a book by [[John Scalzi]] mentioned above.

''Get in, get out again and no one gets hurt

''Something is dragging me up a hill

''I look down in my red shirt

''I look down in my red shirt'' }}

== [[Professional Sports]] ==

* [https://web.archive.org/web/20131005070300/http://www.llbbl.com/data/RPG-motivational/target68.html This] RPG motivational poster explains it all...

* A minor setting in ''[[Warhammer 4000040,000]]'' is Kill Team, where a squad of highly trained specialists go up against countless enemies, and they can purchase upgrades. The most useful: Red Shirt, a minor character who, according to the other Kill Team members, is probably going to get killed in a variety of gory ways. Can be averted in that if the Red Shirt survives, [[Mauve Shirt|he becomes a member of the Team]], and upgraded accordingly.

** Which it inherited in their entirety from it's papa-game, ''[[Exalted]]''. The Exalted community has long referenced Extras as 'Mooks', and the game encourages them to be considered little more than ambulatory scenery for the awesome epic melodrama that is the Player Character's lives.

* Given that there was [[Trading Card Lame|inevitably]] a [[Collectible Card Game]] based on ''[[Star Trek]]'', and given [[CCG Importance Dissonance]], there were inevitably actual [[Red Shirt]] characters you could deploy. Having said that, once players hit on the idea of sending in a single character to [[Schmuck Bait|set off all the opponent's traps]], that tactic was inevitably called "Redshirting" as well.

== [[Video Games]] ==

* The ''[[Star Trek: The Next Generation|Star Trek the Next Generation]]'' licensed game (SNES/Genesis) has over a dozen Ensigns who can accompany you on away missions, despite there being no advantage in doing so; series regulars like Data and Worf have more health, while Dr. Crusher has healing packs. On the plus side, you can kill off as many Ensigns as you want, whereas losing two officers will abort the mission. Even the game doesn't care if they die.

* ''[[Star Trek: Voyager|Star Trek Voyager]] - Elite Force]]'': The game lampshades this by giving the "Redshirt Award" to the teammate who died the most during a Capture the Flag or Team Deathmatch game.

** Carmine (whose name is a shade of red) is a rookie squadmembersquad member who is the only character to wear a helmet and mask. He's also the first squad member to die in the game (and actually one of the only two characters who die), shot in the head by a sniper after the first couple of levels.

** Repeated in part two, when Carmine's brother (who joins your team) dies even more horribly. The first Carmine's [[Red Shirt]] status was [[Lampshaded]] before that by a dialogue between the brother and Dom. Parodied in the [http://www.vgcats.com/comics/?strip_id=218 VgCats] webcomic.

** Also in ''Gears of War'', the member of Alpha Squad who runs off and is instantly killed by the berserker is listed in the credits as Redshirt Gyules. ([[Genius Bonus]]: "Gules" is heraldic language for "red".)

* Fairly frequent in ''[[LAL.A. Noire]]'''s street crime submissions. Valiant police officers are usually picked off in beginning cut-scene for the mission, and you'll never see or hear of him again. They're never even mentioned when you report back for a coroner at the end of the mission. No "officer down" or "notify this nameless cop's family he's been shot," just get a coroner for, most likely, the guys you shot.

* Parodied in ''[[Space Quest]]|Space Quest 5]]'', where miscellaneous crew members all wear blue shirts, and Roger Wilco, the protagonist (and ''ship's captain'') is the one who wears a red shirt. Guess who gets shot at all the time?

* In ''[[Mass Effect]]'', the introductory mission on Eden Prime begins with a squadmatesquad mate named Richard [[Leeroy Jenkins|L. Jenkins]]. Guess what happens the first time you encounter any enemies. Go on, guess.

* The oarsmen on the ship to Tolbi in ''[[Golden Sun]]'' exist only to be slain by sea monsters, thus giving the player a chance to veer the ship off its course -- andcourse—and they're all wearing red bandanas.

* In ''[[Fire Emblem]]'', since the games are known for having [[Loads and Loads of Characters]], you would think that there would not be many red shirts. However, on numerous occasions green colored "Other" units will be found either as generic guards or NPC reinforcements. They are usually of the class "Soldier", which no characters that you recruit will ever have (though they are also sometimes seen as enemy units). Worse still, they have some of the lowest stats in the game. Soldiers are given better stats and made into a playable class in ''Path of Radiance'' and ''Radiant Dawn'', but they still seem to be the go-to class for neutral units.

* ''[[Quest for Glory]]|Quest for Glory 5]]'' has "Kokeeno Pookameeso" as one of your competitors for the throne. This translates into "Red Shirt". Guess which of your competitors is first to die? (If you do the side quests, Kokeeno acts a bit more like a [[Mauve Shirt]], getting a good amount of dialog that shows him to be a good and honorable man with admirable reasons for entering the Rites of Rulership. Sadly, it doesn't do him a lot of good.)

'''Female Patsy:''' Oh, [[Sound Effect Bleep|**** ]] me, none of us are safe! He could kill one of us at any time...!<br />

'''Mastermind:''' While I appreciate, and thank you for, the ''[[Star Trek]]'' reference, you got me. I was going to test this [[Death Ray|portable Doom Laser]] out on [[You Have Failed Me...|one of you]]. }}

* In ''[[Halo]]'' Marines drop like flies.

** In fact, when Halo is blown up, it was very likely that every marine on it was dead. And if it wasn't... well, they're dead now.

* [[Double Subverted]] in ''[[Tales of the Abyss]]''. Because clones (here called "replicas") aren't bound to [[Prophecies Are Always Right|a prophecy that affects the entire planet's population]], the [[Big Bad]] wants to [[Cloning Blues|replicate the world and everyone in it]]. Since cloning people in this setting tends to kill the original, the originals that the [[Big Bad]] used for his clone army become [[Red Shirts]] to their replicas, since the [[Big Bad]] wants them to live in the place of the originals. ''However'', that same clone army ends up becoming [[Red Shirts]] themselves when our heroes [[Storming the Castle|storm his fortress]] and wipe them out.

** ''[[Final Fantasy VIII]]'' has the Galbaldian soldiers, who in a funny way look like Shinra Army, who are also easily cut down. This really shines bright in the SeeD final exam part of the game when the anxious Galbaldians who attempt to ambush your party try to fight at obviously unwinnable odds. Their are even soldiers in Red uniforms as well as the blue.

* In the ''Cataclysm'' expansion of ''[[World of Warcraft]]'', there's a quest named "Madness" in which you are to accompany a Horde Negotiator to speak with the leader of the Dragonmaw clan of Orcs. You're informed that two have already been sent and not returned, but the quest giver feels assured that if you accompany the negotiator, the clan leader will respect your strength. Along the way, the developers attempt a trope overload, as the Negotiator lampshades [[Retirony]], informs you that "After these negotiations, I am looking forward to a long and prosperous life." If talked to, he questions you "[[Red Shirt|Hey, does this red shirt make me look expendable?]]" Once you begin negotiations, as one might predict from the quest name, the following conversation eventually takes place: [[ThisPunctuated! IsFor! SpartaEmphasis!|"This is madness!" "This is... DRAGONMAW!]]" with an accompanying sparta kick into the fire for the poor ''Red Shirt''.

* Subverted in a trailer for ''[[Marvel vs. Capcom]] 3'': When Chun Li's helicopter is brought down by Super Skrull, both she and Captain America actually take care to save and protect the nameless pilot.

* In ''[[EveEVE Online]]'', there's a mission where the objective is to find a man named Red. When he's found {{spoiler|he's dead and}} described as wearing a red shirt.

* In the ''[[Team Fortress 2]]'' "Meet The Videos" this trope is inverted with the RED team mercenaries regularly defeating BLU mercenaries.

* The Gallian army in ''[[Valkyria Chronicles]]''. If the raw deal a [[Red Shirt]] normally gets is a sushi platter, the one these guys get is still flopping on the deck with its eyes bugging out. For starters, their only representative is an asshole and none of them have faces, defining traits, or redeeming value (when their enemy counterparts get two cutscenes to show how human they are). Then the vast majority gets burnt alive in an explosion, which is par for the [[Red Shirt]] course, except the explosion was a [[The Woobie|''woobiefying'']] moment for the person who blew them up, and [[A Million Is a Statistic|no one cares that they're all dead afterward.]] And as if that wasn't enough, if the player somehow manages to kill off all the distinct personalities of Squad 7, they'll start filling slots in the militia, and still have no faces or final words, fully prepared to die in thankless, anonymous droves (and if the player didn't care about Squad 7, they probably won't mind killing off what amounts to ordinary, faceless [[Player MooksMook]]s). Apparently the difference between the militia and the army is that the army can train soldiers to be more disposable than toilet paper.

** The appropriately [[Red Shirt|red-shirted]] Lieutenant (later Lieutenant-Commander) Der Trihs (Red Shirt [[Sdrawkcab Name|spelled backwards]]) is a subversion, as he's repeatedly injured in various grievous ways, including being reduced to a head-in-a-jar a couple of times, but never actually dies. Instead, he actually "wins the game" by retiring from the mercenary business to live with a pretty girl on a paradisaical vacation-planet. {{spoiler|It is revealed at one point that his skull is quite nearly impervious to harm.}}

** Another strip also references this: "[http://www.schlockmercenary.com/d/20020414.html2002-04-14 Would you take a red shirt for a pay raise?"]

** [https://web.archive.org/web/20130607081550/http://www.sluggy.com/daily.php?date=060806 This] and [https://web.archive.org/web/20130607064732/http://www.sluggy.com/daily.php?date=060813 this] strip from the ''"Stick Figures in Spaaaaace"'' series of stick-figure [[Filler Strips]] have characters with red shirts getting killed by random gunfire.

** [http://picswww.sluggy.com/daily.php?date=971014 "Wow! It knows to go after the extras first!"]

* ''[[I Was Kidnapped by Lesbian Pirates from Outer Space]]'' features at least two strips [[Lampshading]] this [[Trope]], as seen [https://web.archive.org/web/20111005193020/http://rosalarian.com/lesbianpirates/?p=196 here].

* ''[[What's New with Phil and Dixie]]'' [https://web.archive.org/web/20150428205728/http://www.airshipentertainment.com/growfcomic.php?date=20081228 strip] on "[[Magic: The Gathering|Weatherlight]]" Saga has "Snapper" McFipt:

* Parodied in ''[[Legostar Galactica]]'' where one of the main characters is Ensign [[Red Shirt]] and is continually being killed yet is always brought back to life. It's to the point that a laser shot ''in the opposite direction'' will actually ''bend'' just to hit him. It is subverted later, however, when a series of accidents fall on another character while sparing Ensign [[Red Shirt]], who's the first surprised.

* Played with in [http://metroid.bobandgeorge.com/index.php?comic=480&num=1 Strip 480]{{Dead link}} of ''Metroid: Third Derivative'' in which Joey asks for {{color|red|red}} paint so he can paint a [[Red Shirt]] on all the other degenerates.

* Heavily subverted and parodied in the ''[[The Order of the Stick|Order of the Stick]]'', where two nameless redshirts manage to survive ([[Mauve Shirt|and even become secondary characters]]) by the rule of [[Nominal Importance]]. Belkar even referred to them as "the two redshirts" at the beginning.

* Referenced in [http://freefall.purrsia.com/ff1800/fc01775.pnghtm this] ''[[Freefall]]'' strip.

* In ''[[The KAMics]]'' we see the [https://web.archive.org/web/20130522170252/http://www.drunkduck.com/The_KAMics/5360519/ Redshirt Bearer Brigade] & in the author's notes [[User:KAM]] brags none will survive.

* [httphttps://wwwweb.archive.org/web/20130930033751/http://glarkware.com/adult/expendable This shirt, too.]

* The French Web writer ASP Explorer, in the 9th story in his work ''Les Fantastiques Aventures de Morgoth l'Empaleur'' (not related to ''[[The Lord of the Rings|this]]'' Morgoth), plays with this hilariously: the adventuring party meet in jail a young and idealistic 1stfirst-level mage called [[Star Trek: The Original Series|Tiberius K. Redshirt]]. He wishes to accompany them when they escape, and shortly later we learn that his middle name is ''[[South Park|Kenny]]''. One of the main characters explains stealthily to the hero that nobody else expect him to last alive very long, because he doesn't have the ''[[Plot Armor|thing]]'', whatever it is, that make an adventurer. He open doors, he pull levers, he press switches and not only lives through the dungeon, {{spoiler|which ironically is not the case of the character who distrusted him, though it is unrelated,}} but gains enough XP to become 8th-level innkeeper when he quits adventuring. He then lives a long and peaceful life until the age of ninety-three years, when he dies by falling from a staircase.

* On ''Stone Trek'' this is consistently [[Lampshaded]]: Every time a [[Red Shirt]] dies, a "Dead [[Red Shirt]] Count" is shown.

* Parodied [http://chzsetphaserstolol.files.wordpress.com/2011/11/sci-fi-fantasy-untitled8.jpg in this image caption]{{Dead link}}.

* The [[College Humor]] short ''Jurassic Park Character's Awful Realization'' is explicitly about this, wherein the main cast are arguing over who should distract the T-rex with a flare. Gennaro is elected for this, and accuses the others, "I'm only here to die, aren't I?" The other characters fail to reassure him ("[[Blatant Lies|You're a very important character!]]") and an argument ensues wherein [[Genre Savvy]] Gennaro insists it's unfair to ask the most obviously doomed character to go out there, saying Grant and Ellie are both needed experts, Malcolm is the tension-relieving comic relief, and Tim and Lex [[Infant Immortality|are kids]], and he's simply "[[Acceptable Targets|the lawyer]]." The others try and convince him maybe he's a [[Mauve Shirt]] instead. {{spoiler|Malcolm ultimately [[Kick the Dog|tosses him out of the Explorer]] and after a failed attempt to persuade the T-rex he's plot relevant by saying [[Blatant Lies|he's Tim and Lex's real father]], he gets nommed.}}

** Parodied in "Where No Fan Has Gone Before", in which the entire ''[[Star Trek: The Original Series|Star Trek the Original Series]]'' cast is threatened by a jealous energy being, but only Welshy (a parody of a [[Suspiciously Similar Substitute]] for Scotty), who's dressed in the classic [[Red Shirt]], gets killed. [[Rule of Three|Three times over.]]

** In the same episode, a flashback of the so-called ''[[Star Trek]] Wars'' is shown where some officials are throwing [[Red Shirt|redshirted]] ''[[Star Trek]]'' devotees into a volcano while chanting ''"He's dead Jim."''

'''Kim:''' ... A [[Red Shirt]]?

** Parodied in the same episode that the quote at the top of this article comes from: when Peter is running in the road with [[William Shatner]], the latter gets hit and killed by a car. The camera then pans to Ensign Ricky, who declares: "I did ''not'' see that coming."

** Many clones who DO''do'' have names also die. Their death is just [[Mauve Shirt|more noticiblenoticeable and sudden]], and gives a name for the main characters to scream out in sorrow. ''Matchstiiiiiiick!!!''

* The [[Red Shirt]] gets his revenge in ''[[Robot Chicken]]'' with a ''[[Star Trek]]'' sketch. When the crew teleported down to a planet to survive the ''Enterprise'' exploding, the crew reasons that to survive one of them must be sacrificed as food. [https://web.archive.org/web/20130604100303/http://video.adultswim.com/robot-chicken/no-power.html Obviously they choose the Red Shirt first], but the [[Red Shirt]] tells them off by saying "On behalf of all the [[Red Shirt|redshirts]] that fell before me, it makes me very very proud to speak the following sentence... I'm the only one that brought a gun." He proceeds to kill and eat them all.

* Spoofed mercilessly in ''Sev Trek: Puss in Boots'' (thean Australian CGI spoof of ''[[Star Trek: The Next Generation|Star Trek the Next Generation]]''). An alien asks the ''Enterforaprize'' to supply [[Face Full of Alien Wingwong|hosts for its young]], as they're reputed to have "endless supplies of expendable ensigns". After the offer is curtly refused ("Each ensign is a valuable member of our crew!") the alien runs rampant on the ship causing the death of 47 ensigns, mainly due to [[Failsafe Failure|Failsafe Failures]]s and the lousy aim of the main characters. The ensigns have names ranging from Ensign Anonymous to (naturally) Ensign Expendable. One dying ensign laments the fact that he would have been promoted to lieutenant in a few days, therefore becoming immune.

* Providence soldiers in ''[[Generator Rex]]''. Not only are they merely cannon fodder, they're also completely useless when battling against actual EVOs, presumably so Rex can come and save the day. It gets horribly ironic in the episode "Basic", when Rex and Noah take up Providence's basic training - the trainees are expected to take down one of the strongest EVOs in the series (one that not even Rex was able to defeat, even with his powers). Each of them, alone. With just a gun. It's not so much [[Training Fromfrom Hell]] as it is a ridiculous joke.

** Naturally this rule doesn't apply to any Providence Soldier whose seen [[Averted Trope|Without A]] [[Faceless Goons|Helmet]], they're all [[Mauve Shirt|Mauve Shirts]]s and generally fair pretty well, though the rules of [[Family-Friendly Firearms]] seem to dictate that they can never accomplish anything meaningful with their rifle-err, "Blasters".

* The men fighting for Italian freedom fighter Garibaldi were also called [[Red Shirt|red shirts]]. [[Badass Army|Things went better for them.]]

* General A.P. Hill in the American Civil War apparently wore a [[Red Shirt]] that he called his "[[Bring My Red Jacket|battle shirt]]" into battle. He dies in battle after Gettysburg.

'''Clarke:''' Number Three was like the guy with the red shirt on ''Star Trek''- ''(applause break)'' -we got a lot of them. }}

* The Irish Brigade in the Service of France wore long skirted red coats while French uniforms were typically blue. The Irish Brigade is most well known for battles like Fontenoy, Cremona and Ramillies... -- in which they suffered extremely heavy casualties.