History Main / GoodColorsEvilColors

* ''{{The Order of the Stick}}'', the former TropeNamer; see quote at the top of the page. Refers to dragons in ''[[DungeonsAndDragons Dungeons & Dragons]]''.

** In ''{{Halo}}'' 3, "stealthy" Jiralhanae wear black. Because they're like [[NinjaPirateZombieRobot ninja space gorilla-men.]] Stealth or SpecOps Elites in other games also tended to wear dark colors, the main exception being the white SpecOps commander.

* The game company Bungie color codes enemies in most of its games. ''{{Marathon}}'', ''Oni'', and ''{{Halo}}'' all had enemies who used the same model but different colors indicated they had more health and did more damage, and were higher-ranked.
** In ''{{Halo}}'' 3, "stealthy" Jiralhanae wear black. Because they're like [[NinjaPirateZombieRobot ninja space gorilla-men.]]

* ''{{Tron}}'' is probably one of the best-known "blue heroes, red villains" works.

* The whole imagery of SamuraiJack is based on strong primary colours.

** The video game sequel, ''Tron 2.0'', takes this farther with an extended color-coding scheme. Good guys are blue, neutrals are yellow, and villains are red (for security programs), sickly green (for virally infected programs), or purple (for the rival company's programs), depending on their affiliation.

* In the original novel ''TheWonderfulWizardOfOz'', it's specifically pointed out that Dorothy is seen as a Good Witch by the Munchkins because she wears blue (the color of Munchkinland) and white (symbolizing witchiness). As one of many parallels, ''{{Wicked}}'' TheMusical has Nessarose (a.k.a. The Wicked Witch of the East) specifically wear blue and white as her BoardingSchool uniform colours, before she [[LoveMakesYouEvil turns evil]]. She's also a PaleSkinnedBrunette, no matter what actress is playing her.

[[quoteright:300:[[SpiderMan http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/spidey_suits_3663.jpg]]]]

* Many Fascist paramilitaries have used coloured shirts to designate themselves, hence why many were nicknamed "insert colour here"-shirts. In a summary:

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.

[[quoteright:350:[[StarWars http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/spidey_suits_3663.jpg]]]]

[[quoteright:350:[[StarWars http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/obi_wan_and_d_vader.jpg]]]]
[[caption-width-right:350:Guess who's the bad guy?]]

Related tropes: ChromaticArrangement, ColorCharacter, PaintItBlack, RedOniBlueOni, PinkGirlBlueBoy, ColorCodedPatrician, SensibleHeroesSkimpyVillains, GoodEyesEvilEyes, DressCodedForYourConvenience, ColorCodedMultiplayer, ColorCodedWizardry, RoyGBiv, LawOfChromaticSuperiority.

** In ''FinalFantasyXII'', party members display as blue dots on the mini-map, hostiles are red, and neutral NPCs are green.

* Inverted in the film CityOfAngels: The angels, who are good, all wear black trench-coats.

* Subverted in Descendants of Darkness: our main hero, Tsuzuki, has an awesome dark trench coat. Muraki, the bat-shit insane CompleteMonster dresses in all while, all the time.

** But ''subverted''(?) by the Republic Diplomatic Corps, a.k.a. the people whose ship Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan were using in the beginning of ''ThePhantomMenace''. Their ships are all deliberately painted that nice, dark, 'AxCrazy' kind of red...to show that they're full of peaceful Republic diplomats.

* The only time that JohnWoo subverts his usual "white villain, black hero" color scheme is in the final church shootout of ''TheKiller'', which has HitmanWithAHeart 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, CowboyCop Inspector Li]].

* Subverted in the finale of ''Film/{{Gladiator}}'' by the Genre Savvy Commodus with his aimed heroic victory in the arena, where he the villain Wears White to cast himself as the hero, while the hero Maximus is in Black armour, and earlier a full helmet.

* ''[[{{Ptitleer3dxllk}} G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra]]'' subverts the usual black villain/white hero. Storm Shadow, the evil ninja, always wears white, while Snake Eyes, the good ninja, always wears black.
* ''ElMariachi'' and ''{{Desperado}}'' both subvert the traditional white/black symbols. The Mariachi wears a black mariachi outfit, while the villain always wears white.

** ''The Elenium'' does subvert black armor = evil with the Pandion Knights, however, who are on the side of good, even if the main protagonist tends toward {{Anti Hero}}ism at times. The CorruptChurch still wears red, of course.

*** It should be noted that the Sixth Doctor is a bit of a subversion; 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.

** Subverted 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".)

** The ''{{Eberron}}'' campaign setting subverts this. Whereas dragons all have "Always [CharacterAlignment]" in the core books, in Eberron this is changed to "usually" or "often". Surprise your party with a [[ChaoticGood principled revolutionary]] red dragon fighting against a [[LawfulEvil charming but tyrannical]] gold dragon!

** There was also a mild subversion 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!
*** There was also a major subversion in the form of Atris, who is a Jedi dressed in the whitest of pristine white with a blue lightsaber and is even depicted in the game's promotional material as the 'face' of the Light Side for the game. [[spoiler: She goes Sith towards the end, without the obligatory EvilCostumeSwitch for black, and even before then never appears as anything more than a judgemental, self-righteous bitch.]]

** The ''Transformers'' cartoon series took the color-coding pattern to the next step, introducing a basic convention of blue eyes for Autobots, and red eyes for Decepticons. This was an unswerving constant in the first year of the cartoon, but was subverted come the second year by the yellow-eyed Decepticon thrust, and while the basic pattern was employed through to the end of the show, more and more exceptions continued to appear. Something that was maintained a lot more consistently, however, was the color-coding applied to the team's paraphernalia: Autobot laser blasts, spaceships, headquarters and machines and devices of all shapes and size were a golden orange in color, while the Decepticons favored their iconic purple.

* A subversion of this trope in real life, of course, the dominance of camouflage as a battledress for modern soldiers.
** Except that most nations use their own individual camo patterns, such as [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disruptive_Pattern_Material British DPM]], [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disruptive_Pattern_Combat_Uniform AUSCAM]] (Australian), [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CADPAT CADPAT]] (Canadian) and the four American digital patterns ([[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MARPAT MARPAT]], [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Camouflage_Pattern UCP]], [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airman_Battle_Uniform ABU]] and [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uniforms_of_the_United_States_Navy#Navy_Working_Uniform_.28NWUs.29 NWU]])

* "Red state" and "blue state" to refer to U.S. states where Republicans and Democrats, respectively, predominate in presidential elections. Note that this has only been [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_state_vs._blue_state_divide#Origins_of_current_color_scheme standard]] since the 2000 election; before that, election maps were often colored red and blue, but which color represented which party switched regularly. It is left up to the individual reader to decide whether this is an example or a subversion of the usual blue/good red/evil convention. This may very well be an example of AdaptationDecay, given that red has traditionally stood for socialism and blue for aristocracy. (At least one assignment of red to the Republicans in the 1980s was intended as a slight by a liberal news director: he gave the conservatives the color of radical Communism.)

** In NZ the system is Red-Labour (ex-Liberal), Blue-National (sort-of-Conservative), Green-Greens(da colour o' da grass), Black-NZ First (not currently running), Yellow-Act (vaguely National followers), Brown > Maori (special-interests), Purple > United Future (don't say much), Red-Brown > Progressive (Labour cronies). An amazing variety given the country has only about 4 million people, and only 122 seats. It isn't actually an example of this trope though, since they're all politicians.

* '''[[color:hotpink:Pink]]''' - The TokenGirl

Related tropes: ChromaticArrangement, ColorCharacter, PaintItBlack, RedOniBlueOni, PinkGirlBlueBoy, ColorCodedPatrician, SensibleHeroesSkimpyVillains, GoodEyesEvilEyes, DressCodedForYourConvenience, ColorCodedMultiplayer, ColorCodedWizardry, RoyGBiv.

Another common pairing is red versus blue, where the hero is blue and the villain is red. A variation on this is [[RedOniBlueOni a character that's calm being represented by blue and a more fiery character being represented by red]], usually TheHero and TheLancer, or TheHero and TheRival.