Albinos Are Freaks

aka: Evil Albino

Miss Cerebus: Mr. Dragon does not like to be kept waiting.
Hemlock: The impatient albino.
Miss Cerebus: I don't think Mr. Dragon's affliction is a joking matter.
Hemlock: I thought it was rather humorous myself. A spy network run by a bloodless freak who can't stand light or cold.

— The Eiger Sanction

Genetic disorders are rarely brought up in fiction, but when they are, albinism — or in some cases leucism — is among the most common. Albinism is a genetic condition that results in little or no production of melanin, the compound responsible for hair, skin, and eye colors in many species. In fiction, this usually manifests as very pale or stark white skin and hair paired with red or purple eyes. Because this phenotype is highly unusual, it is oftentimes viewed with great suspicion.

As such, most of the time these characters are social pariahs among their own people. At best, and especially if they occupy some high rank of authority, they'll be regarded with no small measure of fear by all. If not, they'll probably just be ignored or left to their own devices, which they might just prefer. At worst, though, they'll be actively shunned, exiled, abused, or subject to any other manner of horrific fate.

The exact reason for this discrimination may vary from setting to setting. In many cases, the ostracization of an albino character will be linked to the supernatural and/or magical. In fact, many fantasy and horror stories that use this trope treat a character's albinism as directly related to any magical or supernatural abilities they might possess, or as a the result of being a victim of said activities; compare Locked into Strangeness. In other works, the actual supernatural and magical aspects will be stripped down to simple myth and superstition, making the character an innocent victim of both.

Visually, albinism is very striking, and the introduction of one usually establishes that the character is of some plot importance even before they are properly introduced. Albinism, and the impact it has on others' treatment of someone with the condition, may be a source of the character's motivations.

Compare White Hair, Black Heart, Undeathly Pallor, White and Red and Eerie All Over, and Red Eyes, Take Warning;^note In Real Life, that last one doesn't show up too often among albinistic humans except under direct bright light, so more realistic examples will give such a character Creepy Blue Eyes instead. these visual associations with evil may contribute to the ostracization. Relatedly, meta-examples may play up albinistic traits as a villain's Red Right Hand; this form of the trope is common among The Morlocks, for example. In more realistic depictions of albinism, which tends to go hand in hand with vision problems and sun-sensitive skin, such a villain may also be an Evil Cripple with Four Eyes, Zero Soul. Expect them to be Prone to Sunburn and also be Weakened by the Light, which may be used against them.

This trope also occasionally overlaps with Chocolate Baby if a dark-skinned father mistakes his kid's albinism for a sign that the mother cheated with a lighter-complexioned man.

It's common for characters with albinism to have a Meaningful Name relating to the colour white, such as Snow, Bianca or just plain White. If not, they often have an Embarrassing Nickname related to their condition. It's also surprisingly common for characters to be simply called "the Albino," especially if they don't have much plot importance.

See also Mystical White Hair for white hair being associated with special powers. If an albinistic Animal Nemesis is depicted as uniquely formidable or aggressive, expect a Moby Schtick. Contrast White Wolves Are Special, Great White Feline and White Stallion for examples of albino/leucistic animals which are portrayed postitively. Compare and contrast White Bunny, which can be played both ways.

For another disability that's often treated as an oddity, see Little People Are Surreal.

NOTE: When writing examples regarding an albino character being an outcast, remember to include that the reason (or at least major reason) is because of their albinism.

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• Inverted in Beastars. District 0 is a town populated entirely by white animals known as Brights, who believe themselves to be superior to animals with normal pigmentation. Orion, a white kangaroo, developed spots of pigment on her crotch when she was 12 and was almost thrown out of the town for not being a true Bright. She was only allowed to stay on the condition that she would perform sexual favours for anyone who asked. She and Ebisu, a white crow, eventually get fed up of this superior attitude and decide to take their chances in the outside world.
• Blade Runner: Black Lotus: Elle's Evil Counterpart Water Lily looks exactly like her, except albino. And British.
• Shiro from Deadman Wonderland is a Manic Pixie Dream Girl, which is somewhat unsettling because she is in a extremely dangerous prison, and she acts like she is Ganta's friend even though he has no memory of her. And it later turns out she is also the man in red who murdered Ganta's class. At first it seems that she has a Split Personality but it later turns out she is actually a Death Seeker who wants Ganta to kill her.
• Kimba the White Lion: Kimba is the main character whose white fur makes him distinct from the rest of the cast. However in one episode he is outright bullied by other lions for having white fur. Being a white lion, he most likely has leucism instead of albinism.
• Mekakucity Actors: Tsukihiko was an outcast in his village due to his albinism and called a "monster", which results in him falling in love with the medusa Azami and building a house for her. While she initially tries to push him away, she gradually reciprocates and eventually proposes marriage to him when she discovers that the villagers beat him up whenever he goes back to the village for building supplies.
• Negima! Magister Negi Magi: Setsuna Sakurazaki is half Demon, and yet — being a member of the Uzoku/crow tribe — somehow has white wings. She was ostracized and exiled from her home and family due to her features, which they saw as an ill omen, and Evangeline speculates that she hides her red eyes and white hair with contacts and hair dye because of it.
• Kantarou of Tactics has albinism, which is a mark of his unusually strong spiritual powers and onmyoji, which is a common idea in Japan. However, he was also socially ostracized as a child because of his abilities, so it wasn't always a great thing for him.

Comic Books

• Batman:
  • The minor Bronze Age villain Klaus Kristin a.k.a the Snowman is an albino. Originally, he is a famous and popular Olympic skiier, but he comes to see himself as a freak (this is mainly due to him being part-yeti, but his albinism serves to highlight his difference from other people). Batman ends up defeating him by shining a bright light in his eyes which he can't stand to look at.
  • The often-forgotten Dusan al Ghul had the good fortune to be born the son Ra's al Ghul craved... only to be rejected as his heir because his father believed albinism meant the boy was crippled and worthless. Dusan nonetheless spent his entire life faithfully serving his sire in an attempt to gain his love, sacrificing his life to this end. A grief-stricken Ra's tragically understands how loyal and devoted to him Dusan was when it's too late.
• Gen¹³: The villain group Trance and the Freaks includes a guy simply called "Albino", who for some reason always speaks in Sssssnake Talk.
• The Jonah Hex villains Edgar and Johnny Autumn are Siblings in Crime with albinism, descended on their father's side from ultraterrestrials dwelling Beneath the Earth. The Autumns were transparently based on the real musicians Edgar and Johnny Winter, also brothers with albinism, who unsuccessfully sued DC Comics for defamation over this depiction.
• In Micronauts (Marvel Comics), Acroyear's twin brother Shaitan was born with albinism and sided with the villain Baron Karza partly because of how the rest of his race shunned him.
• The Spider-Man villain Tombstone is an albino African-American who was regularly bullied in his youth because of it.
• Spirou & Fantasio: The Master of the Black Hosts is an African albino. He was treated horribly by everyone from the moment he was born because of it, ultimately leading him to take revenge the moment he had the power to do so.
• In The Thing: Freakshow, one of the titular freakshow's attractions is Istvan, also known as the Accursed Albino. For some strange reason he's a massive, deformed, drooling brute with shark teeth, who also appears to be intellectually disabled. No explanation for this is ever given, as he's not stated to have any condition other than albinism.
• Eez from Thirsty Mermaids is all white with red eyes and she's seen as freakish and unwanted by other merfolk for being a Sea Witch.

Fan Works

• Asylum of Doom: Discussed and defied in regards to Maddie. As she lives in the 1940s, she's treated as a freak for being albino, but is ultimately the nicest and most normal person that Gaz meets in the asylum, which she's only locked up in because she believes that she should be treated like a normal person despite her appearance.
• Defied in Batman: Restless Dreams. Although not much is known about her, Dr. Blanc seems like a shifty person. She has white hair despite not seeming elderly. The writer mentioned in the notes for Chapter 1 that he doesn't mean for her to be albino, because he doesn't like the stereotype that albino people are scary. The writer only gave her white hair to match the White and Red and Eerie All Over color scheme of her outfit. The writer notes that he specifically gave her dark eyes because albino people tend to have pale-colored eyes. The fic doesn't mention her skin tone, though it doesn't mention anyone's skin tone either.
• Codex Equus: Downplayed with Gagal, who was bullied for his albinism as a child but wasn't ostracised, and was no longer bullied as an adult. His condition does give him vision problems and make him Prone to Sunburn, but he doesn't let this bother him and instead accepts himself for who he is.
• Parodied and Zigzagged in Dragon Ball Z Abridged. First discussed and lampshaded amongst the Namekians that the cause of a worldwide drought on Namek was due to a race of "filthy and evil" Albino Namekians, which were all killed off in a great war. Later it's revealed that the real cause of the drought was Guru's own selfishness in drinking all of Namek's water, and he shifted the blame onto the Albino Namekians. Realizing they had slaughtered an entire race of what were most likely innocent people, the Namekians promptly rip Guru to pieces.
• Eyes of the Devil is a Warriors fic where an albino kit is ostracized by ThunderClan. When his pink eyes open, his mother rejects him as the downfall of the Clan.
• Gray Whirlpool Series: Corrin's albinism is frequently referenced by other characters, often to mock her and prey on her low self-esteem.
• HSETAU: This version of Karkat has albinism and was treated badly by his parents because of it.
• Invader Zim: A Bad Thing Never Ends: Aldrich Coathanger is an albino, as well as a Corrupt Corporate Executive and a Mad Scientist and a psychotic child-killer.
• Kamikakushi has a preteen Senju Tobirama being relentlessly ostracized and isolated by his own cousins because they're scared of his red eyes. It's even worse with strangers, as he remembers more than a few priests throwing him holy water for looking like a youkai.
• Little Hands, Big Attitude: Rouge the Bat was discriminated against by her village ever since she was born for having albinism. She claims it's because a white bat can't blend in the darkness and hunt during the night, implying that's a comment she heard when she was a kid. However, her village was extremely cruel to her, to the point they threatened her mother to either abandon her or be deprived of food until they die from starvation. Her mother chose the former, and now Rouge has severe abandonment issues and her appearance is a Trauma Button for her. In separate occasions Shadow and Maddie tell her that she's an amazing inflitrator and a fighter and she has already proven her village wrong.
• Maria Campbell of the Astral Clocktower: As in the My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom! canon, albino Sophia was ostracized as a child. However, there's an additional reason here: Seath the Scaleless, one of the ancient enemies of humanity, was an albino dragon, and he keeps reincarnating into new bodies every few decades. Albinos are referred to as "scaleless" and generally seen as nothing but potential Seaths. A few lines imply that the reincarnations turn albino once Seath's soul comes to the fore, but Sophia insists that there is no record of one of the reincarnations being albino before they became Seath. Of course, there's also a Running Gag that it's Sophia's personality that makes people think she might be the newest reincarnation of the Paledrake.
• The Nowakverse: Widget was born albino and missing an arm, and was dropped from an overpass by Monterey Jack when she was a baby. She was "reared" by an abusive street mother who called her "Li'l Freako" and used her to get handouts before ODing, after which Widget had to fend for herself on the streets, building her own artificial limb.
• Conversed in episode 30 of Peeking Through the Fourth Wall. In the fanfic undergoing the MST, Lincoln and the Original Character Lio get bullied at school for having white hair, with the other kids calling them "albino freaks". Lynn notes that kindergarteners apart from Lisa don't generally know the word "albino" and so shouldn't be using it as an insult. The real Lincoln also says that the only bullying he got at school for his hair colour was some kid calling him "powdered sugar".
• Queens of Mewni: Downplayed with Galaxia the Clairvoyant, who was generally held in high regard as a queen despite having albinism. However, as a child there were people who misunderstood her condition and were afraid or disgusted by her, due to thinking she was contagious, while others blamed her albinism on her having a commoner for a father or her mother being, well, Soupina the Strange.

Films — Animation

• Flushed Away: In Whitey's first appearance Rita calls him a "pink-eyed freak".
• Kung Fu Panda 2 has Lord Shen, a white^*It's unclear whether Shen has albinism, leucism or neither. He has the red eyes associated with albinism, but he also has some pigment in the eyespots on his tail. peacock who will stop at nothing to gain power, even genocide. In an early version of his backstory, Shen's parents were ashamed of his colouring and so left him in the care of the Soothsayer, which fuelled his power-hungry nature. This information wasn't included in the film, but made its way into the novel and the official website.
• Referenced in Scared Shrekless. Donkey's original ghost story is about a crazy albino guy with a Hook Hand, who lives in a mirror and steals the organs of anyone who looks at him.

Films — Live-Action

• 10,000 BC has a somewhat more positive example of "freakiness," in this case special plot relevance, in the form of a blind sage in the slave camp—played by Sadrag Nakale, a Namibian actor with albinism. On a meta level, the really freaky part is the circumstances under which he's introduced to deliver exposition to our lead: the other slaves drag him out on a stretcher from under the floorboards, and he gives his Infodump in a bizarre mewling whimper.
• In the film adaptation of Cold Mountain, Boisie is an albino Psychopathic Manchild who takes sadistic glee in torturing and killing people. He gets a nosebleed whenever he kills someone, which is apparently due to the actor playing him thinking that albinism causes nosebleeds, but is all too easy to read as some kind of fetishistic Bloodlust.
• Cyberjack: The albino villain Nassim is described by one character as having "horrible eyes and white hair... like a lab rat on steroids".
• Disturbing Behavior: Gavin suspects that the Blue Ribbons won't be interested in indoctrinating U.V. due to his albinism: "I doubt they're interested in the pigmentally challenged. That's not their style."
• The Eiger Sanction: The ex-Nazi C2 boss Dragon is sickly and albino, being very sensitive to light and requiring his blood to be replaced twice a year. As the page quote shows, Hemlock doesn't hesitate in calling him a "bloodless freak".
• In Christine's Nightmare Sequence in End of Days, the Laughing Mad stranger who raves at her on the subway before shattering to pieces is played by albinistic actor Victor Varnado, whose character is credited solely as "Albino".
• The Greatest Showman: Barnum's freakshow circus includes a pair of twin albino women.
• The Heat has an albino DEA agent named Craig Garret who is generally antagonistic towards the protagonists and is even noted as looking "evil as fuck" by the Cowboy Cop. As it turns out, he's not The Mole, but he is a misogynistic asshole according to his partner (who turns out to be the villain of the film). Mentioning his condition is also a Berserk Button for him, and he sees prejudice everywhere, which Mullins ruthlessly exploits.
  Mullins: Are you okay? Because you look really pale.
  Garret: IT'S A GENETIC CONDITION!
  Mullins: Fucking snow cone.
  Garret: Oh, I get it! That's a good one, because I'm really white!
• One of Cristabel's suitors in The Hottie and the Nottie is a weird Stalker with a Crush whose albinism is treated as one of the traits making him an Abhorrent Admirer.
• House of 1000 Corpses: Otis B. Driftwood is the most sadistic member of the entire depraved Firefly family. In this film he's depicted as albino (though with noticeably brown Perma-Stubble), but in the two sequels he's retconned as being simply Caucasian, reportedly because the director thought that having a psychotic albino murderer was too cartoonish.
• The sinister Angelic Abominations that keep showing up throughout Knowing initially all appear as humans with pale blue eyes and white hair and skin.
• Lethal Weapon (1987) has Mr. Joshua, a Psycho for Hire who is the main threat of the film, and whose albinism serves to highlight his sinister nature.
• The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean: "Bad Bob the Albino" is a notorious madman who comes to town, shoots people at random and rants about the creative ways in which he's going to kill Bean. While he's busy monologuing, Bean shoots him In the Back.
• The Matrix Reloaded: The Twins are an extremely creepy pair of identical programmes who can turn into intangible, ghostly forms at will.
• Me, Myself & Irene: Both the audience and the main characters are led to believe that Casper/Whitey is a very creepy albino man who may have murdered his family. In reality, he's a nice if clingy guy whose family moved to Arizona, and he couldn't go with because of the harsh environment.
• In Mowgli, Bhoot is an albino wolf runt who gets bullied and called a freak who "came out wrong" by the other wolves. He and Mowgli become best friends because they both have difficulties finding their place in the pack. He's surprisingly cheerful despite his status.
• Not Another Teen Movie: Jake says that any girl could be prom queen, so Austin bets Jake that he can't make the most unattractive girl in the school into the prom queen. Jake points out several candidates, including an albino hippy girl who sings "I have no pigment, I need sunscreen, no way I could be prom queen". Austin dismisses her though, because "any girl with a guitar is hot". He chooses the Hollywood Homely Janey Briggs instead because "She has glasses and a ponytail!"- the joke of course being that Janey is meant to be far more attractive than any of the "hopeless" girls.
• The Ωmega Man: The Family is a collection of "survivors" of the Synthetic Plague that destroyed the world, whose exposure to said plague turned them albino. In addition to not being able to physically withstand any strong lights, it's mentioned that the plague will still kill them eventually, and the few completely uninfected survivors also think of them as things that should not be.
• Powder sticks out like a sore thumb. He gets picked on in school and has electrical powers, too.
• Subverted for laughs in The Princess Bride. After Wesley is captured by Prince Humperdink and imprisoned in the pit of despair, he's met by an albino who at first speaks in a high-pitched raspy voice. He then clears his throat and starts talking like a normal human being.
• Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark (2019): Sarah Bellows was persecuted by her own family and locked away from the world because she was born albino. In life, she was a hero who tried to save the town from her family, as their mill operations were poisoning the water supply. Sarah's family successfully convinced the townspeople that Sarah was a witch who was responsible for the deaths of several children, making them see her as evil and burning her at the stake. As a spirit, Sarah embraces everything her family thought her to be and terrorizes the town in the present.
• Vamp!: Keith and AJ run into an albinistic gang leader named Snow who threatens them with a knife, but they manage to hit him in the groin and escape. He shows up again later for revenge, this time with his gang, who all appear to be albino as well.

Jokes

• A white missionary sent to evangelize a remote tribe in Darkest Africa is summoned by the furious chieftain, as his wife has just given birth to an albino child. The missionary reassures him that he has nothing to do with it and it's simply an accident of nature, like the one black lamb in the chief's flock of sheep. The chief looks around and whispers, "Okay, I shut up about the baby and you shut up about the sheep."

Literature

• Alara Unbroken: To the Nacatl, Ajani's albinism is a symbol of bad luck (called "white as death"); as a result he spent much of his youth an outcast.
• Downplayed in The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents with the albino rat Dangerous Beans. He's described as "small and pale and generally ill-looking", and is the most philosophical and idealistic of the rats, which causes most of them to find him strange. However, he's generally well liked and is one of the most important figures in the rat colony, as he's able to understand philosophical concepts and make them comprehensible to other rats. He's also accurately depicted as being nearly blind, though this isn't much of a problem for a rat.
• The giant albino penguins in Lovecraft's At the Mountains of Madness are harmless but creepy (or not, depending on your point of view). They're also implied to have evolved due to corruption by the Elder Things.
• Bailey School Kids: In Aliens Don't Wear Braces, the kids believe Mrs. Zork is an alien from a planet without color, as when they first meet her, her skin and hair are pure white and her clothes are monochrome. Over the course of the book, the town gradually appears to lose its color, while Mrs. Zork gets more and more colorful, leading the kids to believe that she's stealing the town's color and bringing it back to her home planet.
• In The Banned and the Banished novel Wit'ch Storm, Mycof and Ryman are Creepy Twins with albinism. They also have the Lovecraftian Superpower of growing mind-controlled rats out of pustules on their bodies.
• Barsk: The Elephants' Graveyard: Pizlo is considered to be an "abomination" by Fant society due to being albino and born out of wedlock. As a result, almost every other member of his species refuses to look at him, talk to him, or acknowledge his existence in any way.
• The Beaches: Glyn is a girl with albinism who is very creepy and lingers, unwanted, on Levi's property. Trope is subverted when it turns out that Glyn is actually a benign character trying to warn Levi of danger.
• Blood Meridian: Judge Holden is an Ambiguously Human child rapist and murderer, with skin so pale that it has almost no pigment at all. By the end of the novel he's implied to be something akin to a demon or an Anthropomorphic Personification of human evil.
• The Broken Earth Trilogy: The tuners' being albino accentuates how different they look from the people of Syl Anagist, which makes them be considered subhuman. This is because they were deliberately engineered to be a racial caricature of Thniess people, who weren't albino but were associated with having relatively paler skin.
• The Chalk Man: Mr Halloran is the titular Chalk Man and finds it hard to be accepted by the kids he teaches due to his appearance. When he's later suspected of murder, Eddie notes that it's easier for people to distrust Mr Halloran because he is a strange-looking outsider, and so he conveniently fits into people's ideas of what a murderer should look like.
• Children of the Red King: Billy is continually passed over for adoption, implied to be because of his albinism, and the villain manipulates him into evil by claiming he'll help him find a family.
• The Chronicles of Ancient Darkness: Dark was rejected by his clan for his albinism; as a result, he lives alone in the mountains with his also albino pet raven, Ark.
• The Da Vinci Code: Silas's father was an alcoholic thug who abused his son because of his appearance, forcing Silas to run away from home as a teenager and turn to crime to survive. He's not a hitman because of his albinism, but it's understandable that his treatment might lead to some unsavory career choices.
• In the The Dark is Rising novel The Grey King, Bran Davies is an albino living in Wales. The people who live in the area are afraid of him because of his white hair, odd looking eyes and pale skin, and consider him to be a freak.
• Deptford Mice: Oswald feels like an outsider due to his white fur and pink eyes. The other mice seem to accept him well enough and avoid pointing out his differences, but Oswald still believes that his mother is secretly ashamed of him. Piccadilly, however, accidentally upsets Oswald by nicknaming him "Whitey". Later, Oswald is forced to adopt the "Whitey" name again while disguised as a rat, and also has to put up with the rats' mockery without saying a word.
• Domina: Artemis Butler sometimes gets referred to as "freakish" due being an albino. This is mostly in his flashback chapters, however. By the time of the story proper, the city has had a Bio-Augmentation device for fifteen years, so red eyes and white skin are very low on the list of weird things in the city.
• In a Dragonlance short story, there is an albino silver dragon. A knight thinks it is a white dragon and slays the creature. After realizing he just slaughtered a being of pure good purely on appearance, the knight decides to care for the dragon's baby.
• Dragon's Egg: Pink-Eyes is a young albino Cheela who is also very small for his age, and these traits cause the other Cheela to find him a bit odd. Due to his albinism, Pink-Eyes' sight is poor and the others struggle to find work he can help with. However, his unique vision also allows him to see the invisible scanning beam from an orbiting human spacecraft which the Cheela believe to be a god, causing Pink-Eyes to be seen as a prophet.
• Dreamsnake: North's pathologic hatred of healers is because they could never do anything about his albinism or gigantism, traits that he hated about himself.
• In The Dunwich Horror, hideous Wilbur Whateley's mother is a mentally-ill albino woman, and this is one of the things that contributes to his family being ostracized by the rest of Dunwich. It also turns out that the titular horror has inherited his mother's condition when his true form in finally revealed.
• The Eiger Sanction: As in the film adaptation, Dragon is albino and requires very little light as well as frequent blood transfusions. The narration makes it clear that these traits are meant to make him seem freakish and unlikable.
• Subverted with Elric of Melniboné. Yes, he's an albino, and yes, he's a creepy practitioner of black magic with only the barest semblance of morals... but the latter is perfectly normal in the culture he was raised in, and Elric is if anything unusually nice in comparison to his normally-pigmented relatives.
• The revenant in the second Fablehaven book drains its victims' pigment in addition to leaving them silent and catatonic. Both of these effects appear to be related to the aura of paralyzing terror it exudes, which not only breaks people's minds but also literally turns them white with fear, like Locked into Strangeness extended beyond the hair. When the revenant is destroyed, its victims' minds return, and the magical artifact it guards later cures their albinism.
• In Geek Love, Oly and her siblings were bred for their deformities so they could be used as attractions in a freakshow. Oly herself is a bald albino hunchback dwarf, but in a subversion, she's actually considered by her parents to be "too normal" and therefore less marketable than her siblings.
• Steerpike, the villain of Gormenghast, is never explicitly stated as being an albino, but is described as being very pale and having red eyes. He's also a Machiavellian schemer hungry for power at any cost and kills several people directly and indirectly.
• The Big Bad of Harry Potter is the Evil Sorcerer Lord Voldemort, who started out Tall, Dark, and Handsome but lost his pigmentation (along with his hair, nose, and lips) as a side effect of splitting his soul into multiple Horcruxes.
• House Made of Dawn: Abel is humiliated at a horsemanship competition by an albino man called Juan Reyes. Because of this, and because he is unsettled by Juan's appearance, Abel decides that he is evil and a witch. When Juan tries to hug him, Abel stabs him to death and earns himself a prison sentence. Even after being convicted Abel says that he doesn't regret what he did, because he feels deep down that Juan was an enemy.
• I, Jedi: Albino Shistavenen female Caet Shrovl relates that she was poorly treated by her people on their home world for her condition. As she believed the Empire caused this through an experiment which they performed on her mother, she grew to loathe them for it and joined a pirate group which despised the Imperials—which ironically is now under the control of Leonia Tavira, a rogue ex-Imperial moff.
• In The Impossible Virgin, a Modesty Blaise novel, one of the villain's subordinates is Lisa Brunel, an albino woman. The villain has manipulated her from a young age to make her into a useful tool, and encouraged her to think of herself as an unlovable freak as one of his techniques for keeping her socially isolated.
• The Inheritance Cycle inverts the negative connotations, but keeps the associations with supernatural oddity, in the context of the raven Blagden. An elven king granted the bird exceptional intelligence and longevity in return for Blagden saving his life, and side effects included white coloration and the gift of prophecy.
• The Invisible Man: Griffin was albino until he made himself invisible, and it's suggested that his condition was the reason why the invisibility experiment worked on him in the first place. He's also quite mentally unstable and a sociopath who only cares about himself.
• Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon?: Inverted. Bell's snow-white hair and red eyes remind others of the cute, but dangerous almiraj (a rabbit with a horn on its head) monsters that inhabit the middle floors of the dungeon — this adds to his "pure" and "rabbit-like" appearance that others find endearing and cute, while Hestia, who is head over heels for him, considers them part of his "cool looks".
• Jamaica Inn: The vicar, Francis Davey, is noted as looking eerie and inhuman due to his albinism and is often compared to a ghost, though he's one of the kindest characters in the book towards Mary. At least, he is until it's revealed that he's the mastermind behind the whole wrecking operation and the person who murdered Mary's aunt and uncle.
• Kane Series story "Reflections on the Winter of My Soul" has Evingolis. Although the lord of the manor is proud to have secured him as his minstrel, most people in the manor dislike him and treat him with distrust, not only because of his looks but also his aloof manner and strange songs in even stranger languages. And they are right, since he is a vicious werewolf whose aim is to kill all humans in the manor.
• Known Space: The planet We Made It is primarily populated by albinistic people due to a founder effect from the original colonists, as well as the fact that the planet's climate forces them to live underground, causing a major problem of albinism irrelevant. The protagonist, Beowulf "Bey" Shaeffer, is the victim of discrimination on Earth, where he isn't allowed to have children because of his "genetic flaw".
• Misery: In the book-within-a-book Misery's Return, Misery Chastain needs to be cured of her fainting spells. In order to do this, Ian and Geoffrey must take her to Africa, to a place with a hive of giant albino bees and their magical queen.
• Moby-Dick is a white sperm whale^note He's probably leucistic, since he's described as having patches of typical gray skin (albeit on the parts of his body that are usually underwater, whereas his head is pure white), but he was based partly on a genuinely albinistic whale., but he's not so much consciously evil as he is an Animal Nemesis. The narrator, Ishmael, extensively discusses the fact that purely white things — such as albinos or white whales — are deeply unsettling even though white is the color of good. In fact, it's suggested this psychological factor drove Ahab to hate the whale even before Moby-Dick took his leg.
• My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom!: Sophia is a social pariah because of her white hair and bright red eyes, and many people call her evil or cursed despite being a young girl. Her brother Nicol claims she's harassed for it due to "foolish superstitions" and because people envy their family. Catarina, however, thinks she's beautiful and can't help but quote romance novels around her, endearing her to both Sophia and her brother early on.
• Out of the Silent Planet: One of the otter-like hrossa that Ransom encounters is pure white. Ransom regrets that he never found out whether the hross was a member of an undiscovered subspecies or was "a mere freak like our terrestrial albino".
• Overlord: The acting chief of the Red Eye Lizard Folk tribe is a dorky but cute female albino lizardwoman named Crusch Lulu. She believes herself to be ugly because of her albinism, but Zaryusu instantly falls in love with her when he first sees her.
• In Oy Yew, Oy's best friend Linnet is all but stated to be albino. When Oy is chosen to work for Master Jeopardine, Linnet wants to go with him, but Mrs Rutheday tells her that "the Master wouldn't want anything as plain freakish as you at the house".
• Redwall: Inverted in Triss. The Pure Ferrets are a royal family of albino ferrets. In their eyes, this makes them "pure" and distinguishes them from other creatures, which they see as being below them. In other words, they're the ones on top who are persecuting other creatures. However, to the reader, they are obvious villains, making it easy for the reader to see them as "freaks."
• Realm of the Elderlings: The Fool's completely white appearance tends to make people uncomfortable, and in particular they find it hard to meet his eyes. Funnily enough, he's considered to be pretty when he later gains some colour. It shows just how much of a difference albinism made to the way people saw him.
• In Robin of Sherwood, a 1996 Darker and Edgier picture book version of the story by Michael Morpurgo, Maid Marian is an albino; she hides in Sherwood Forest with a group of local outcasts (driven to there because they also have disabilities) because other people believed she was a witch due to her appearance. Marian and Robin have a son who's also albino. As a result, she fears he'll be mistreated just like she's been, though Robin is pleased that he shares her looks.
• The School for Good and Evil: Anadil has albinism and is at the School for Evil in a world where Beauty Equals Goodness applies. Her appearance is considered to be on the same level as that of girls with green skin or one giant eye. In the climax, she temporarily becomes beautiful and her white hair changes to brown, while her red eyes turn green.
• The School Mouse: The mouse protagonist crosses paths with an albino mouse. She's initially terrified by him, believing him to be the ghost of her dead friend because of his white fur, but they quickly clear up the confusion and he turns out to be quite nice.
• The Shahnameh Zal is born an albino. His father abandons him on the mountainside, but the Simurgh, a wise and kindhearted (and semi-divine) bird finds him and raises him as his own. Zal eventually leaves the Simurgh to find his place in the human world, and to find his father.
• Downplayed in Silverwing with Zephyr, an albino bat. He's a mysterious loner with mystical powers, and Shade finds him very strange when he first meets him. However, Zephyr is friendly towards the heroes and his help proves to be invaluable to them.
• Lampshaded in R. L. Stine's Snowman: the title character points out several times that, despite his own questionable actions and sanity, he can't be an evil albino because he has white hair and dark brown/black eyes. Having grown up with white hair, he apparently got used to explaining what eye colors albinos actually have a long time ago.
• Alluded to in A Song of Ice and Fire: When the Starks find a litter of direwolf puppies in A Game of Thrones, there are three males and two females — one for each legitimate Stark sibling. The illegitimate son Jon finds a sixth albino one, which he adopts himself since he compares its albinism to his own feelings of being an outcast.
• In Sophie and the Albino Camel, the hero is an albino camel called Chobbal. Chobbal experiences rejection by his own mother for his albinism, leading to a young African boy raising him instead.
• Temeraire: The dragon Lien's family line and breed is basically the equivalent of Chinese royalty, but in a culture where white is associated with death and bad luck, albinos are basically treated as walking bad luck charms. If it wasn't for Yongxing accepting her as his companion, she would probably have been alone all her life.
• They Thirst has Kobra, an albino Ax-Crazy biker who murders random people for fun. He only gets worse after becoming a vampire.
• In Time Hunter: The Albino's Dancer, the titular character simply known as "The Albino" is a mute and heavily scarred gangster who can only communicate through recorded soundbites. For some reason, the cover illustration◊ gives him light grey skin, making him look almost like a zombie.
• The Tunnels books mention that Will Burrows, one of the main characters, was bullied for his albinism at school. The subterranean colonists put a more positive spin on this trope, valuing albinism as a sign of descent from their founders.
• In The Underland Chronicles, gnawers (sapient rats that are typically human-sized) with albinism are exceptionally large and aggressive, to the point where a prophecy refers to one as "the Bane" and foretells that its birth will enable the gnawers to defeat their human foes. On the other hand the human Underlanders themselves invert this to the point where Albinos Are Normal, as they all appear to have albinism—except for one boy who inherited his Overlander mother's dark hair and green eyes, and even he has translucent skin from living Beneath the Earth.
• Varjak Paw has Sally Bones, a completely white cat who is a vicious killer and the leader of the biggest gang in the city. Other characters are unnerved by her otherworldly appearance and avoid her at all costs.
• Implied in Wings of Fire. Burn collects "weirdlings", including "stuffed scavengers with the palest skin you ever saw". Queen Scarlet is horrified by the thought.
• The Witcher: Geralt has white hair due to the alchemical processes that made him a witcher; more than once it's aroused suspicion of him as a mutant even before he's known as a (none too popular themselves) witcher.

Live-Action TV

• Billy the Exterminator: Justified. In one episode, Billy encounters an albino raccoon, and refuses to release it into the wild out of fear that its white fur will make it highly visible to predators.
• In Black Lightning (2018), one of the main villains is Tobias Whale, an African-American albino crime boss whose albinism made him an outcast for much of his life.
• Carnivàle: In the episode "Black Blizzard", Gecko shudders at the mention of an albino and says he hates them. Gecko himself is a man with reptilian skin who works in a traveling carnival, which shows how low he considers them.
• 1960s UK cop series Gideons Way had an episode called "The White Rat", featuring a gang led by an albino called Mickey who claimed his appearance had prevented him from becoming a children's doctor.
• The Man in the High Castle: Discussed by the Marshall, a Nazi bounty hunter operating in the Neutral Zone, while an African-American man with albinism shines his shoes. It would appear it's possible to be too white in the American Reich.
• Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: In "Blood Oath", Dax teams up with three Klingons from the Original Series to hunt down a Klingon known only as "The Albino", who is shown to use methods that Klingon society regard as particularly dishonorable, killing the sons of the three Klingons with a virus, and trying to lure them into an explosive Booby Trap instead of the honorable battle they're looking for.
• In Star Trek: Discovery, Voq, son of none (voq pagh puqloD), is an albino Klingon who is treated as a freak of nature and shunned by the great houses.
• The X-Files: Samuel Aboah from the episode "Teliko" is a Burkinabè immigrant who lacks a pituitary gland and harvests them from other African or African-American men to restore his skin tone. He is compared unfavourably to a vampire-like creature from West African folklore (the eponymous Teliko) by a Burkinabè ambassador. He is depicted as a merciless killer with a seemingly inhuman ability to squeeze into small spaces.

Music

• Katy Perry's Surreal Music Video for "E.T." plays with this trope. Perry releases Shaun Ross, a model with albinism, from inside a robotic spacesuit with a kiss that makes the metallic exterior disappear. But while Ross is depicted as ethereal, he's perhaps the least freaky part of the video. For starters, Perry herself plays an alien with Supernatural Gold Eyes, Femme Fatalons, and a series of bizarre outfits and hairstyles, who lands on a desolate, junk-covered future Earth and turns out to have a satyr-like pair of gazelle legs below her waist.
• In Sound Horizon's song "El no Ehon - Majo to Lafrenze," Alte Rose cursed Lafrenze to born albino, forcing her mother to abandon her in a forest to keep her from being burnt as a witch.
• "Your Horoscope for Today" by "Weird Al" Yankovic foretells that people with the star sign Aries will "trade toothbrushes with an albino dwarf," among a list of other nonsensical horoscopes.

Myths & Legends

• In some central and eastern African countries (like Tanzania and Malawi, which have the world's highest albinism rates outside of a few Native American communities and South Pacific islands), a fringe folk belief attributes magical properties to albinistic body parts. This has put albinos in those regions at risk for abduction and mutilation by wannabe witch doctors who aim to make their bodies into amulets and potions. Meanwhile in Zimbabwe, some men believe that sex with an albino woman can cure HIV/AIDS, leading to rape and subsequent HIV infection.
• There are a few Urban Legends that present albinos as spooky or dangerous. In particular, Weird NJ has catalogued a few urban legends that center around or include albinos, such as albinos supposedly attacking people on a desolate road in Neptune, a similar story featuring the famous Clinton Road in West Milford, and even a whole albino village in Clifton!
• Inverted, on the other hand, by the Guna people of Panama. They hold albinos in high regard and task them with defending the moon from a dragon during lunar eclipses.

Tabletop Games

• Ars Magica 5^th Edition: Albinism is one of the options for the "Disfigured" flaw, which substantially penalizes dice rolls related to appearance and getting respect from people. An Embarrassing Nickname is also suggested.
• Dungeons & Dragons:
  • Inverted by the drow, the subterranean elven Evil Counterpart Race, who are easily distinguished from surface elves by their coal-black skin and snow-white hair. Szarkai are extremely rare albino drow, and are seen as signs of Lolth's favor and secret weapons in their war against the rest of elvenkind. Their coloration makes them natural infiltrators of surface elven communities, so szarkai are typically sequestered from the rest of drow society and groomed for this vital role.
  • Among the orcs, albinos are considered marked by the foul god Yurtrus (in gameplay terms, they have the "unholy scion" template), and are both respected and feared by the rest of the tribe. They grow into "plague speakers" who do Yurtrus' work, and while they're given food and loot by other orcs, these albinos stand alone on the battlefield, and live apart from the rest of the tribe, with only their doting mothers for company.
  • Ravenloft: One of Carnival's sample scenarios involves helping an innocent, young albino girl find refuge from prejudice among other human oddities
• Exalted: The Dune People were a race of albinos born into slavery, and society treated them as animals. Upon breaking free, they became the monsters the rest of humanity saw them as, turning into murderous cannibals that want anyone non-Dune Person dead.
• Freedom City's Atlas of Earth Prime has Whitestone, a Tanzanian albino superhero who fights the prejudices and superstition his home country has regarding albinism.
• Pathfinder: Gnomes can literally die of malaise if they get chronically bored. Those who survive the ordeal become colourless, unaging, and eerily calm; these Bleachlings are alternately revered and reviled, and tend to withdraw from gnomish society.
• Warhammer:
  • The Lizardmen invert this. Albinism is seen as a sign that the Old Ones have marked the lizard for a life of greatness. Albinism could be taken as an upgrade to a single hero character in 6^th edition, and the special character Gor-Rok is an albino.
  • Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay: Albinism is one of the mutations that can be inflicted by exposure to the Ruinous Powers of Chaos. It can also be a perfectly ordinary congenital condition, but superstitious peasants and Witch Hunters aren't likely to appreciate the distinction.

Video Games

• Criminal Case: World Edition: Brother Klaus is an obvious Silas Expy, being a completely insane albino monk who is also a murder suspect. He also mentions that the reason he hated one of the murder victims (and made a rather creepy voodoo doll of said victim) was for mocking his appearance as a child.
• Crusader Kings III. Albinism is an inheritable genetic trait, which causes a -10 general opinion of the character in non-albinos (everyone thinks they're creepy). However, it also grants +15 dread (everyone thinks they're creepy), meaning an albino ruler (or dynasty) can be viable based on the adage that if one cannot be loved, one should be feared.
• Dominus Ghaul from Destiny 2 was nearly abandoned to die from exposure as a baby for being born albino and sickly, with the implication that this contributes a lot to his insecurities and obsession with Might Makes Right. His albinism isn't commented on much outside the backstory, but observant players can note that he's never seen outside during daylight in cutscenes or gameplay.
• Fallout 4: Most creatures in the Wasteland have albino variants that, for some reason, are considerably deadlier. This trend started in Fallout 3's Broken Steel DLC with the albino radscorpion, which oddly gains health in direct sunlight.
• Fate/Grand Order: The ostracizing of Lavinia Whateley from the Puritans in Salem is in part due to her rather sickly albino appearance that is shared by the rest of her family.
• Game of Thrones (Telltale): Sylvi's village saw her white hair as a bad omen, and her mother left her in the forest to die as a baby, but her brother recovered her and left the village with her.
• Hitman: In Hitman: Blood Money, Mark Purayah II and Mark Parchezzi III are both albino due to being imperfect clones, created by a flawed version of the procedure that produced Agent 47. The Praetorians from Hitman: Absolution have a similar appearance, which has led people to speculate that they were created by the same process.
• Identity V: Andrew Kreiss was an outcast for his entire life, due to his albinism causing people to think he was cursed. Because of this he withdrew from society and became a reclusive gravedigger, which only furthered people's negative opinions of him. His in-character Twitter account presents him as being abrasive and quick to assume that others are mocking him, but also desperately wanting to connect with others and not knowing how.
  Andrew: [on being asked if he'll take part in a Kimodameshi event] He's already so pale, he doesn't even need a costume to play a ghost, right? That's what you were thinking, weren't you, ya bastard? I'm just... sitting this one out...
• The Stowaway, one of your party members in Pyre, is a young albino girl who was cast into the Downside literally just for being different. Her albinism and odd outlook on life (implied to be a result of autism) caused the corrupt nobility of the Commonwealth to deem her an annoying freak and exile her out of spite.
• Total War: Warhammer: Inverted. Lizardmen see albinism as a favorable mark from the Old Ones, and those with the trait, such as Gor-Rok, are believed to be destined for greatness.

Webcomics

• In Mage & Demon Queen, Berkz is an albino orc who says that the other orcs used to shun him due to his white skin. One of the things that endeared him to Malori was the fact that she complimented his appearance rather than mocking him.
• White Angels Have No Wings: Baek^*"white" in Korean Yeonhwa is the eponymous "white angel" and she is notably treated differently due to her albinism. Either other students bully her and drive her away because of her being different (not that she minds all that much), or older people think she's some sort of special being (which, while not mean-spirited, still paints her as an anomaly). Unfortunately, she also isn't exactly the nice person she seems to be.

Web Original

• Broken Saints: Lampshaded by Cielle, who says that she's sick of people assuming that her Fortune Teller abilities are due to her albinism. She says that she thinks that people only come to her shop because they subconsciously see her as a freak show. Oran is noticeably unnerved when meeting her, which she picks up on and she tells him to stop judging her for having a medical condition.
  Cielle: ...And I mind that people like your friend here give me a bad vibe for having a pigment deficiency. It's called albinism, handsome. Get educated.
• Past Eons Productions: Walking With Dinosaurs: The first chapter shows an albino male Bagualosaurus, and says that he will probably not get to mate because females prefer males with brighter colours.
• Serina: Albino blue-tailed chatterravens are usually killed at an early age, while melanistic chatterravens are valued so much that the trait has become highly prevalent within the species despite being recessive. Because of these attitudes, Brighteye has to defend his brother Whitecrown from being killed by Tyr-reet while Whitecrown is still a child.
• Story Booth: In "Finally Accepted for Being Albino", Lulu is ostracized and bullied for most of the episode due to her albinism. By "bullied," it includes a nearly lethal case.
• Conversed in TB Skyen's review on Baldur's Gate III. He dislikes characters with the default look of the Dark Urge being a white dragonborn with red eyes and markings, citing sources on how people with albinism are discriminated against, demonized, and even killed for that stereotype, and states that Larian Studios probably shouldn't have picked a design that could be misconstrued as an albino person for a dangerously unstable serial killer.

Western Animation

• Brickleberry: In the episode "Campin' Ain't Easy", Woody tells an albino black kid that he can't join the group of other black kids and to "get over there with the rest of the weirdos". When the kid is later climbing past Woody's window, Woody sees him and shouts "Aah! A White Walker!"
• Family Guy always portrays its albinos as creepy and offputting.
  • Exaggerated in the Cutaway Gag PBS Presents: Albino Children Are Normal.
    Host: So aside from not being able to go into the sun, you're completely normal?
    Albino Kid: [with Creepy Monotone] Yes. The moon is my sun. I like to kill beetles. Beetles are teachers. I sleep with a fork.
  • Another gag has Peter outside in the snow, hoping "that weird albino from up the street" doesn't show up. Said guy then opens his eyes, revealing that he's been standing right next to Peter, but was perfectly camouflaged by the snow. His White Bunny then also opens its eyes, revealing that it too was there all along.
• King of the Hill: When Peggy gets a letter from a former student of hers who's currently in prison for murder, she tries to think of which student she had that could've become a killer, remarking, "I think he might've had wavy blond hair," before adding disdainfully, "Or was he that albino boy?"
• Chimi's debut episode in Maya and the Three reveals that she was regarded by her village as a cursed child due to her pale skin tone and red eyes. Even worse, her mother died giving birth to her. This is enough to cause her village to abandon her to die in the jungle, but luckily, she's taken in by a kind monkey who basically becomes a surrogate parent to her. In the present day, she's a loner with a serious chip in her shoulder about other people, but she's proven to be noble and kind, especially towards animals.
• The Simpsons:
  • In the "Treehouse of Horror VIII" segment "The Homega Man", Homer mistakes real-life albino musicians the Winter Brothers for flesh-eating mutants and runs them over.
    Homer: Die, you chalk-faced goons!
  • In "The Crepes of Wrath", Homer has a shocked reaction to learning he'll be hosting an Albanian exchange student:
    Homer: You mean all white with pink eyes?
• The Venture Bros.: Pete White self-identifies as a freak and an outcast because of his albinism, and occasionally other characters tease him about it. This Subverted, since he often encounters Mutants and victims of Freak Lab Accidents. Compared to them, Pete's claim to freakishness is dubious. Whenever he indulges in self-pity over it, his friends remind him that albinism is not especially rare, nor does it really diminish his quality of life beyond making him comically Prone to Sunburn (direct sunlight has actually caused him to burst into flames).

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