History Main / ColorBlindConfusion

* In the ''{{Series/Leverage}}'' episode [[Recap/LeverageS02E09TheLostHeirJob "The Lost Heir Job"]], Ruth's colorblindness is hinted at when she brings flowers for a grave and calls them blue irises when they're clearly yellow. This is later used to prove that she's really the daughter of the wealthy Mr. Kimball and a stripper named Georgia, who were both colorblind and correctly shows the mechanism of inheritance as coming from both sides.

* In the ''Series/{{Psych}}'' episode [[Recap/PsychS06E16Santabarbaratown "Santabarbaratown"]], Shawn has a EurekaMoment when he remembers that Thea Summers is colorblind, which helps prove that her father was Ellis Beaumont, who was recently murdered and had the condition as well. The mechanism of inheritance is also oversimplified by a stating that a colorblind man ''must'' have a colorblind daughter, when in reality she would have to get the gene from both parents due to it being carried on the X chromosome in order for it to be expressed.
* Inverted in ''Series/TheXFiles'' episode [[Recap/TheXFilesS03E23Wetwired "Wetwired"]], where Mulder's red-green colorblindness turns into an unexpected asset, as TheGovernment's [[SubliminalSeduction subliminal messages]] operate primarily in that spectrum, and he is thus the only one [[DisabilityImmunity immune to them]].

* In the ''WesternAnimation/FamilyGuy'' episode [[Recap/FamilyGuyS9E6BrianWritesABestseller "Brian Writes A Bestseller"]], Brian complains during a particularly prima-donna moment that all the M&Ms brought to him are gray when he specifically said to remove them, the joke being that, as a dog, they're all going to look that way to him.

* When ''VideoGame/AmongUs'' first started taking off, it was quickly discovered that the game was very color-blind unfriendly; not only did one task (wires) rely on matching colors, but you saw someone kill but didn't catch their name and were colorblind, you had nothing to go on in meetings; leading to Impostors getting away or Crewmates being misblamed because of this trope. Later updates [[AuthorsSavingThrow fixed this]] by adding symbols to the wires and carrying hats into the debate menu.

* The novelization to ''[[Recap/DoctorWho50thASTheDayOfTheDoctor The Day Of The Doctor]]'' says that the first two incarnations of ''Franchise/DoctorWho'' could only see in monochrome and that it took him centuries to realize that he was colour blind. Presumably as a nod to the show being black and white back then.

In RealLife, partial ("red-green" or "blue-yellow") and full color blindness are among the most common disabilities, affecting around 8% of males and .5% of females worldwide, with the number possibly being even higher as many people go through life unaware that they have the condition due to it not causing problems in their lives.

In fiction, however, a character having this is usually a ChekhovsGun or is only brought up in a situation where being able to distinguish colors is vitally important, such as a WireDilemma or needing to identify a key object by color alone. The fact that color blindness is usually inherited means it can also be used to [[WhosYourDaddy prove or disprove a character's parentage]] if they have it while another character does or does not, though much like the ABNegative trope the mechanism of inheritance is often over-simplified, especially with females who are far more likely to be an [[http://www.color-blindness.com/2006/03/07/the-biology-behind/ asymptomatic carrier]] for the condition unless they get it from both sides, due to the most common gene associated with the condition being carried on the X Chromosome. It's also sometimes used as an explanation for a character's [[ImpossiblyTackyClothes horrendous fashion sense]], in which case it's often PlayedForLaughs. Since color blindness can disqualify a person from receiving certain types of licenses, especially aircraft, a character learning they have this is sometimes used as a DreamCrushingHandicap.

May also occur with FunnyAnimal or UpliftedAnimal characters pointing out that their species is naturally color blind as a FurryReminder. When this trope is applied to dogs it's a case of ScienceMarchesOn, as it's now known that while dogs may not see colors as well as humans they're still able to distinguish them.

[[folder:Anime and Manga]]

* In ''{{Manga/SEX}}'', Yuki's red-green color blindness contributes to his DrivesLikeCrazy tendencies since he pays no attention to traffic signals.

* It's not brought up often, but {{ComicBook/Cyclops}} is effectively color blind as a result of the ruby quartz visor that's used to keep his [[PowerIncontinence eye beams from destroying everything]] tinting everything a shade of red. How he's able to fly [[CoolPlane the Blackbird]] isn't explicitly stated, though it's likely the controls have been calibrated so he can see them.
* The Rainbow Raider, a member of ComicBook/TheFlash's Rogues Gallery is a gifted painter who's also completely color blind, which hampered his success and eventually caused him to turn to crime.
* In ''ComicBook/TopTen'', [[UpliftedAnimal Hyperdog]] eventually reveals that he's color blind, which means that he's been able to see through the patterns on the skin of his partner [[ArtificialHuman Girl One]] (who was created by a couple of horny fanboys so she has to be naked all the time but ''does'' have a nudity taboo and uses the patterns to give her some modesty) and when she finds out [[AccidentalPervert he's been effectively seeing her naked this whole time]] she decks him. He tells her he's not attracted to human women as a way to try and defuse the situation, though we later learn he was lying about this when he enters a relationship with a human and adopts a daughter with her.

[[folder:Film]]
* In ''Film/CatsAndDogs'', the dogs know [[WireDilemma which color wire to pull on a bomb]] to disarm it, but since they're all color blind can't tell which one it actually is.
* ''Film/EdWood'' has Ed being forced by Loretta to choose between a red and a green dress, but when he can't decide asks the director of photography to choose one or the other, only for him to reply that he can't tell them apart. Doubles as both a BreakingTheFourthWall joke as the movie is DeliberatelyMonochrome and a reference to Wood's real-life director of photography Bill Thompson, who was actually color blind.
* In ''Film/TheHangoverPartIII'', Chow being color blind means that he can't tell Stu which wire to cut when both are trying to disarm two parts of a security system at the same time.
* A unique example turns up in ''Film/TheAbyss''. Bud isn't naturally color blind, but his only illumination source in the depths is a pale green light that makes the wire he has to cut look exactly the same as the one he shouldn't cut.
* In ''Film/LittleMissSunshine'', Dwayne wants to be an Air Force pilot and has taken a vow of silence until he succeeds. Finding out he's color blind and therefore won't be able to fly causes him to drop an AtomicFBomb.
* In ''Film/TheShadow'', a color blind scientist [[WrongWire cuts the wrong wire]] on the nuclear bomb, making the timer go to warp speed. By the time he's reconnected that wire to fix it, he's gone from having hours to having about two minutes.
* In ''Film/StrangeDays'', evidence is discovered that the killer must be colorblind. It never gets to be a useful clue because the colorblind guy kept it a secret, but serves as a BrickJoke in the final confrontation, where the killer tells the protagonist his color blindness is the only way one can stand the latter's taste in clothing.
* In ''WesternAnimation/{{Shrek}}'', Fiona sends Donkey to find a blue flower with red thorns to help heal Shrek after the ogre takes an [[ShotInTheAss arrow to the butt]]. Cut to Donkey desperately looking around a field of those exact flowers before complaining that "this would be so much easier if I wasn't color blind!"[[/folder]]

* In ''Literature/TheGiver'', all of the members of The Community are color blind since birth, and have apparently been deliberately made so through genetic engineering. When protagonist Jonas realizes this and specifically that he can see the color red while they can't it contributes to him finding out [[CrapsaccharineWorld the truth about their way of life]].

* In ''Series/JohnDoe'', the title character was completely color blind except when he saw certain clues or people related to his previous life or the case he was working on, when instead of the usual DeliberatelyMonochrome style the show used from his perspective the items in question would be in color. There was also an episode where a lightning strike restored his color vision but made him lose his EncyclopaedicKnowledge until another lightning strike put things back to normal.
* In the ''{{Series/Leverage}}'' episode [[Recap/LeverageS02E09TheLostHeirJob "The Lost Heir Job"]], Ruth's color blindness is hinted at when she brings flowers for a grave and calls them blue irises when they're clearly yellow. This is later used to prove that she's really the daughter of the wealthy Mr. Kimball and a stripper named Georgia, who were both color blind and correctly shows the mechanism of inheritance as coming from both sides.
* ''Series/MisterEd'': The title character had whether or not he was color blind flip-flopped with two episodes touching on it, the first where Ed wants a color TV but Wilbur refuses to get him once since horses are color blind, but Ed proves him wrong by pointing out the color of the clothes he's wearing. In a later episode Ed wins a color TV in a trivia contest, and a fight among Ed and Wilbur ensues about whether it will go in the house or the barn. In the end Ed steals the TV and watches it in the barn, and decides to let Wilbur have it, since he discovered he was actually color blind.
* On season 9 of ''Series/ProjectRunway'' Anthony Ryan Auld, a fashion designer featured as a contestant, is color blind, and [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DisBkOLmxxw talks about it]] during his audition video and during the season, explaining that he both can't see some colors and perceives others differently and has both red-green and blue-yellow colorblindness. Also qualifies as DeafComposer since the judges would frequently laud his color choices on garments and acknowledge that they weren't sure how they looked to him but they found them praiseworthy. On a few occasions he's also shown consulting with other designers about whether two colors match and/or look good together.
* In the ''{{Series/Psych}}'' episode [[Recap/PsychS06E16Santabarbaratown "Santabarbaratown"]], Shawn has a EurekaMoment when he remembers that Thea Summers is color blind, which helps prove that her father was Ellis Beaumont, who was recently murdered and had the condition as well. The mechanism of inheritance is also oversimplified by a stating that a color blind man ''must'' have a color blind daughter, when in reality she would have to get the gene from both parents due to it being carried on the X chromosome in order for it to be expressed.
* Inverted in ''Series/TheXFiles'' episode [[Recap/TheXFilesS03E23Wetwired "Wetwired"]], where Mulder's red-green color blindness turns into an unexpected asset, as TheGovernment's [[SubliminalSeduction subliminal messages]] operate primarily in that spectrum, and he is thus the only one [[DisabilityImmunity immune to them]].
* On ''Series/{{Elementary}}'', an episode opens with the rare bit of Gregson and Bell, not Holmes and Watson, busting a crook. They confront a man who killed a woman for ending their affair. They note how the man is color blind and when he realized he couldn't clean up all the blood from the shooting, he just covered it with new wallpaper. But because of his color blindness, he failed to realize the shade of the pattern was slightly different than the original which stuck out like a sore thumb to the cops and allowed them to find the blood and bullet hole.

* This forms a part of a MoonLogicPuzzle in ''VideoGame/EdnaAndHarveyHarveysNewEyes'' where a pizza's toppings must be made in accordance with the wishes of the characters, the catch being that all are different types of color blind. Adrian has red/yellow color blindness, Peter has red/green color blindness, Petra has yellow/green color blindness, and Drogglejug has green/blue color blindness.
* ''VideoGame/ValkyriaChroniclesII'' combines this with ArtisticLicenseBiology by having one character, [[spoiler:TheMedic Cosette]] becoming colorblind after witnessing their parent's death, making them unable to see the color red. They, naturally, get faced with a WireDilemma and not only overcome it but are cured of their color blindness in the process. Needless to say while color blindness can sometimes be caused by factors other than genetics (usually physical trauma to the brain or retina) witnessing a traumatic incident isn't one of them, and EpiphanyTherapy isn't known to cure it.

* PlayedForDrama in ''VisualNovel/HigurashiWhenTheyCry'' where Satoko and Satoshi Hojo are both color blind and cannot tell broccoli from cauliflower as a result, which results in a scene where BigBad [[spoiler:Miyo Takano]] asks Satoko which of the two is green while pointing a gun at her head, and after panicking Satoko picks at random. [[spoiler:She's correct, but Takano [[MortonsFork shoots her dead anyway]]]].

[[folder:Webcomics]]

* In ''Webcomic/{{Freefall}}'' Florence, an Uplifted wolf, is color blind. One time she uses a hand device to tell her what color her dress is.
* One ''Webcomic/{{Nodwick}}'' comic had the party detailing this time they'd heard a ''red'' dragon was terrorizing a village and bought an "Orb of Commanding Red Dragons" to vanquish it, only to find that the village in question had a tendency towards genetic red-green color blindness.

* In ''Webcomic/Sorcery101'', werewolves become color blind, much to the dismay of Brad, who prior to his transformation was a graphic designer.

[[folder:Web Original]]
* In ''Machinima/RedVsBlue'', this turns out to be the reason Sister ended up on the Blue Team, since she was ''trying'' to go to the Red Team to be with her brother Grif but her disability combined with her general stupidity meant she joined the wrong army by accident.
** Taken UpToEleven in the episode "Grey vs Grey"; a Red team and a Blue team are locked in a room together, and there's a DeliberateMonochrome to illustrate that every soldier is colorblind. "What are the odds?"
* PlayedForLaughs in the WebVideo/DoorMonster sketch [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QW3q-4AqeMQ Can't See Green]], where green objects are invisible to a character with red-green colorblindess.

* Ray Gillette in ''{{WesternAnimation/Archer}}'' is implied to be red-green color blind, which is something of a problem as he's ISIS' demolitions expert (though it's possible he was just {{Trolling}} Archer by intentionally hitting the wrong buttons in an elevator). If true, then by extension he likely lied in order to get his aircraft piloting license.

* In ''WesternAnimation/LittlestPetShop2012'' Zoe mentions in the episode [[Recap/LittlestPetShop2012S2E22TheHedgehogInThePlasticBubble "The Hedgehog In The Plastic Bubble"]] that dogs cannot see red as a FurryReminder.

* In ''WesternAnimation/AllDogsGoToHeaven'', while Itchy is busting Charlie out of jail, Charlie warns Itchy not to break through a pipe because it could be a water main. Itchy insists that it can't be: water mains are green, and this pipe is red. Charlie retorts that Itchy has always been colorblind. Followed by an ImmediateSelfContradiction when Itchy insists that the pipe is green and water mains are red.

* Tuba in season 3 of ''WesternAnimation/InfinityTrain'' is red-green color blind. This allows her to help solve a puzzle where objects disappear depending on what color they are.

* In ''Webcomic/{{Freefall}}'' Florence, an Uplifted wolf, is color blind.

* ''VideoGame/ValkyriaChroniclesII'' combines this with ArtMajorBiology by having one character, [[spoiler:TheMedic Cosette]] becoming colorblind after witnessing their parent's death, making them unable to see the color red. They, naturally, get faced with a WireDilemma and not only overcome it but are cured of their color blindness in the process. Needless to say while color blindness can sometimes be caused by factors other than genetics (usually physical trauma to the brain or retina) witnessing a traumatic incident isn't one of them, and EpiphanyTherapy isn't known to cure it.

* In the ''WesternAnimation/AdventureTime'' episode "Red Starved", several characters proclaim that the large gem Finn discovers is a green emerald, even though he and the audience can clearly see it is a red ruby. Eventually, Finn gets fed up and describes it as a perfectly normal, ''dark gray'' ruby. Jake then tells Finn he's color-blind, at which point the audience sees the gem as an emerald as well.

* Inverted in ''Series/TheXFiles'' episode [[Recap/TheXFilesS03E23Wetwired "Wetwired"]], where Mulder's red-green color blindness turns into an unexpected asset, as TheGovernment's [[SubliminalSeduction subliminal messages]] operate primarily in that spectrum, and he is thus the only one immune to them.

* Combined with ImposterForgotOneDetail in ''Anime/MagicalGirlLyricalNanohaAs''. [[spoiler: Being cats, the Liese twins]] get the color of their Barrier Jackets wrong when they disguise themselves as Nanoha and Fate. Not that it really matters, since the person they were trying to fool had never seen Nanoha or Fate in their Barrier Jackets, but it clues in the audience that something is up.
* In ''Manga/TongariBooshiNoAtorie'', a boy named Tartar has a condition where he can't see colors called argentosis. This ends up biting him since when an accident scatters the bottles of paint ingredients and leaves them disorganized. Worse, he encounters a situation where he needs to give someone medicine but because the bottles aren't labeled he runs the risk of giving them something dangerous instead.

* In ''WesternAnimation/AllDogsGoToHeaven'', while Itchy is busting Charlie out of jail, Charlie warns Itchy not to break through a pipe because it could be a water main. Itchy insists that it can't be: water mains are green, and this pipe is red. Charlie retorts that Itchy has always been colorblind. Not helped by continuity error that comes literally a second later, when Itchy insists that the pipe is green and water mains are red.

[[folder:Literature]]
* In ''Literature/TheGiver'', all of the members of The Community are color blind since birth, and have apparently been deliberately made so through genetic engineering. When protagonist Jonas realizes this and specifically that he can see the color red while they can't it contributes to him finding out [[CrapsaccharineWorld the truth about their way of life]].
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[[folder: Visual Novels ]]

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[[folder: Live Action Television ]]

* In ''[[VisualNovel/PhoenixWrightAceAttorney Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney: Trials & Tribulations]]'', Prosecutor Godot is blind-blind, and requires a large electronic [[ComicBook/XMen Cyclops]]-like visor to see anything at all. But, much like Cyclops himself, the red lenses tint everything red, making it impossible for him to see red against a white background. This is originally PlayedForLaughs when he fails to notice a comically large "bloodstain" on an apron (it was just ketchup), but it ends up being ChekhovsGag later.

Compare BlindMistake, where a character being unable to see at all causes confusion. Not to be confused with ColorblindCasting, where an actor's race is not taken into account when casting a role.