Law of Chromatic Superiority: Difference between revisions

* Part of a [[Crowning Moment of Awesome|CMoA]] in Fred Saberhagen's [[Berserker (Literature)|Berserker]] story [http://www.webscription.net/chapters/0743498860/0743498860___9.htm "Wings Out of Shadow".] When the AI personality construct asks for its spaceship to be painted red, it's your first clue that the musician who "kept getting thrown from his horse" is actually {{spoiler|Manfred von Richtofen, the [[Red Baron|THE Red Baron.]]}}

* In ''[[Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha]] A's]]: The Battle of Aces'', Nanoha's more powerful [[Evil Twin]], Material-S, has a mainly black-and-red barrier jacket, compared to Nanoha's own white-and-blue one.

* Manfred von Richthofen, a.k.a the [[Red Baron|the Red Baron]], is considered by many to be the greatest air combat pilot in the world,. He piloted (of course) a red triplane. He, in all likelihood, was the one to popularize this trope.

* The Tuskegee Airmen were the first black World War II fighter pilots and were credited with never losing a plane under their protection to enemy action... The infamous color of their plane tails? Red.

** The Tuskegees' signature was inverted twice over with the 352nd Fighter Group., Becamewho became so famous that the Germans started calling them the Blue Nosed Bastards of Bodney (Bodney being the city they operated out of). The inversion comes with the obvious blue nose.

* The Luftwaffe ended up distingushingdistinguishing their pilots in [[WWWorld 2War II]] by the color of their propeller spinner. Yellow-nosed aircraft, as Allied pilots dubbed them, had pilots with 30 kills or more. This proved to be more of a danger to the pilot than an intimidation of the enemy after the arrival of long-ranged Allied fighters on the Western Front: American pilots, confident in their superior numbers and ability to dive out of a bad situation to escape, frequently ''picked fights'' with yellow-nosed enemy aircraft in preference to lesser ones.

** There is an apocryphal story that some American pilots in the Pacific theater would paint their propellers a different color before every battle so Japanese pilots would think they were facing different fighter squadrons each time, creating the illusion that the Americans had massively superior numbers. This is probably the inspiration for the color of the Char Custom [[Gundam]].

* Less awesome real life example: the "black tax" levied on computers. A previous generation of Apple MacBooks come in two colors: white and black. There is a $200 difference in price between the two (black being more expensive). The functional difference? The BlackBook hashad a 90 -gigabyte -larger hard drive (perhaps a $50 value, if you're feeling very, very generous). With the other $150, you're paying for the privilege of owning a chromatically superior computer. A similar price difference exists with chrome or stainless steel kitchen appliances over plain white enamel. Black enamel usually costs more than white, but less than silver.

** And, of course, the white belt is the one novices carry, a black belt symbolizes a high expertise... and the red belt is reserved for the ''instructors'' no less.

** It works really well in Judo, with the belts going from white to black and the red belt being reserved for people of fifth dan and above. That-- that is, people that can do stuff you wouldn't expect in a movie.

*** The apocryphal basis for the color-belt system lends the Law a touch of faux - [[Truth in Television]]-originally, a practitioner merely received A belt, period, when he began. A pristine white belt which, unlike the rest of the uniform, was never washed, so that the sweat, dirt, and what have you else would slowly make the belt progressively darker. So if you saw a guy with a black belt, it meant he'd been studying his particular style for a long time and was probably capable of kicking your ass before you even knew you were about to fight him. Sadly, this explanation isn't actually true—it was invented by a California dojo in the mid-20th century ''specifically to invoke the trope''. (A bit of [[Fridge Logic]] would also make you wonder why someone from a culture that considers bathing in hot springs to be a normal part of life would let himself get so dirty that it shows on his clothes.)

[[Category:Law of Chromatic Superiority{{PAGENAME}}]]