History Main / ColorblindConfusion

-->-- '''Donkey,''' ''WesternAnimation/Shrek1''

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* In ''Anime/IrodukuTheWorldInColors'', the main protagonist Hitomi Tsukishiro is colorblind, which causes a problem when her friends ask her to demonstrate her magic abilities for a photo shoot. She's told to use a bottle of blue [[AppliedPhlebotinum star-sand]] to perform a water-walking spell over a pool, but can't tell the difference, and grabs a bottle of pink sand instead, resulting in her falling into the water.
* 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 the English version of the manga adaptation of ''Literature/BattleRoyale'', Kazuo Kiriyama is revealed to have become colorblind after suffering brain damage in the car accident that made him emotionless and remorseless. When Noriko shoots him in the head, the non-fatal injury he suffers strikes the damaged part of his brain, causing him to not only be overwhelmed by the emotions that had been repressed, but subjecting him to SensoryAbuse due to suddenly seeing colors again, his mental dialogue begging him to make it go "back to gray!"

* ''Manga/SacrificialPrincessAndTheKingOfBeasts'': In a land of Beast Men, the Hyena Lante is mistaken for an attacker when his fur is matched against a tuft that was torn from the assailant. Being the TokenHuman, Sariphi is the only one able to tell the fur is a different color, which allows her to find the real assailant.

* It's not brought up often, but ComicBook/{{Cyclops}} is effectively colorblind 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 colorblind, which hampered his success and eventually caused him to turn to crime.

* In the Colt Noble story from ''Mini-Comics Included'', Mareea is fooled by Duper, an impostor Colt with green skin and purple hair. Her brother Ferran confirms the obvious at the end of the story -- she's completely colorblind. If this sounds a little weird, read up on a ''Franchise/MastersOfTheUniverse'' character called "Faker".
* In ''ComicBook/TheMazeAgency'' #11, Gabe's EurekaMoment occurs when he realized that the killer had shot up an empty room before finding the room containing his intended victim because he was colourblind: he had been unable to tell the difference between the red corridor and the green corridor. He is then able to work out from what he has observed of the suspects which of them is the only one who could be colourblind.
* A pivotal moment in ComicBook/DogMan's backstory is when they were a duo consisting of a dog named Greg and an unnamed cop, and [[WireDilemma they had to figure which wire to cut in order to defuse a bomb]]. Greg answers by growling, meaning "green". Too bad they realized too late that dogs are red-green colorblind. This is the incident that led to Greg's head being sewn onto the cop's body.

[[folder:Fanworks]]
* In ''Fanfic/AquamanMonster'', Garth's Tritanopia colorblindness (inability to distinguish blue from green and yellow from red) leads him to accidentally choose a tacky outfit to wear when going out with Tula, which she has to fix with oil dyes.
* In ''Fanfic/ThePowerOfFriendshipAndThisGunIFound'', Seto is red-green colorblind, which is why he dyed his hair green (it looked like brown to him; his classmates thought it was just eccentric rich person things so said nothing about it) and why he's so attached to the Blue Eyes White Dragon (blue is more vivid than most colors).

* In ''WesternAnimation/Shrek1'', 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]], as [[SnipeHunt a distraction]] so Donkey doesn't bother them while they handle it themselves. 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 colorblind!"

* ''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 colorblind.

* A unique example turns up in ''Film/TheAbyss''. Bud isn't naturally colorblind, 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/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 colorblindness is the only way one can stand the latter's taste in clothing.

* 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.

* ''Literature/TheDresdenFiles'': Like any dog, [[BigFriendlyDog Mouse]] is red-green colorblind. In the part of "Zoo Day" he narrates, he notes that Maggie calls his vest red... and he has no idea what that means, but if she likes it, it's all good.
* In ''Literature/DialAGhost'', the titular Dial-a-Ghost agency works to find homes for various ghosts, some of whom are peaceful and kind and some... distinctly less so. At the beginning of the book, some nuns at a local abbey offer a home for some friendly ghosts, while Fulton Snodde-Brittle asks for a family of angry ghosts in an attempt to frighten his young third cousin Oliver to death so he can [[InheritanceMurder inherit the estate himself]]. The agency finds the Wilkinson family for the abbey and two ghosts called the Shriekers for Snodde-Brittle, tasking an office boy with giving the right envelope to the right person, referring to them by their colors. However, said office boy is colorblind and is afraid to ask for clarification, so he blindly guesses which is which. Fortunately for young Oliver, the office boy guesses wrong, saving him from the child-hating Shriekers and setting the plot of the book in motion.

* On season 9 of ''Series/ProjectRunway'' Anthony Ryan Auld, a fashion designer featured as a contestant, is colorblind, 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.

* 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]].
* 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 colorblind 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 colorblindness, 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.
* ''Series/NewGirl'': The episode "All In" reveals that Winston is colorblind and this is played for humor -- he can't see his green sneakers as green and has trouble with puzzles. This has never come up before this episode.
-->'''Schmidt:''' Winston, if you think your shoes are brown, what color do you think you are?
* The SeriesFinale of ''Series/TheMysteryFilesOfShelbyWoo'', "The Big Cheese Mystery," features a criminal disguising themself as "Cheese Louise," a popular children's show character, to rob banks. The culprit turns out to be a woman getting revenge for being humiliated on the show as a child. Shelby figures it out by [[SpottingTheThread noticing]] that the Cheese Louise committing crimes has ''green'' gloves, while the [[ImpostorForgotOneDetail original had red]]. She then realizes that the woman is red-green colorblind, given that she's made repeated mistakes about color-coded objects throughout the case (such as opening the wrong cooler for a drink or reaching for extremely flavorful green wasabi despite saying that she didn't want too much spice with her meal).
* ''Series/TheGlory'': An unusual example of this trope. Yeon-jin's daughter Yi-seol is color blind, a fact that Yeon-jin is desperately trying to hide because it would reveal that Yeon-jin's husband Do-yeong isn't Yi-seol's biological father, Jae-joon is. (The show gets this right; any color-blind female must have a color-blind father, and Jae-joon is also color blind.)

* In ''Radio/TheGoonShow'' episode "Foiled by President Fred", Eccles has a red sack of forged money and a blue sack of genuine money. Or maybe it's the other way around. Thanks to his colour blindness, he isn't able to tell which sack is which colour anyway...

* In ''VideoGame/MyTimeAtPortia,'' Sanwa, one of the Hulu brothers, has recently given up on his job as a barber because he realized he's colorblind. Specifically, because he accidentally dyed Remington's hair bright green. To unlock his barbershop, you help him regain his confidence by making him a pair of colorblindness-correction glasses. Thankfully, since Remington actually keeps his green hair all throughout the game, it seems he actually likes the look.
* When ''VideoGame/AmongUs'' first started taking off, it was quickly discovered that the game was very colorblind-unfriendly; not only did one task (wires) rely on matching colors, but if 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.

* In ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolidVThePhantomPain'', Snake is rendered unable to distinguish between the colors red and white whenever he sustains a head injury, due to the shrapnel in his forehead pressing on his optic nerve. This would have played an important role during the [[WhatCouldHaveBeen cut mission]] "Kingdom of the Flies". [[spoiler:After defeating the Eli-controlled Sahelanthropus, an interactive cutscene would play where Snake would have to gun down a group of XOF soldiers (clad in white hazmat suits) before they could get to Eli (who has a red hazmat suit). However, Snake ends up wounded by a grenade explosion during the action and becomes unable to distinguish between Eli's red suit and the soldiers' white suits, causing him to shoot Eli by accident.]]

* PlayedForDrama in ''VisualNovel/HigurashiWhenTheyCry'' where Satoko and Satoshi Hojo are both colorblind 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]]]].
* 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 ([[ABloodyMess it was just ketchup]]), but it ends up being ChekhovsGag later.

* ''WebAnimation/HelluvaBoss'': Loona the HellHound is apparently colourblind, and cannot read a magical formula in a grimoire to escape a red-lit room. How much this could affect her daily life in the red-skied, mainly red-lit, red-coloured Hell is left to speculation.

** 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.
** In the episode "Grey vs Grey"; a Red team and a Blue team are locked in a room together, and it's DeliberatelyMonochrome to illustrate that every soldier is colorblind. "What are the odds?"

* In ''Webcomic/AnotherGamingComic'' everyone's hair started out shaded green due to the author being colorblind. He eventually changed it so everyone has more standard hair colors.

* In ''Webcomic/{{Freefall}}'' Florence, an Uplifted wolf, is colorblind. 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 colorblindness.
* Once in ''Webcomic/SchlockMercenary'' Lieutenant Pi attempted to disarm some rogue ordnance by pressing the ''green'' button on his remote, and not the ''red'' detonation button. Cut to his head in a jar saying [[http://www.schlockmercenary.com/2008-03-08 "Nobody told me I was red-green colorblind."]] However, he has a very good excuse for being confused. He ''wasn't'' colorblind before a rather sadistic doctor [[https://www.schlockmercenary.com/2008-03-13 tinkered with his vision.]]

* ''WebVideo/ScottTheWoz'' is colorblind in real life so naturally he works jokes about it into his show. He also talks about it in a semi-serious capacity in that he's thankful for the rewind feature of SNES games on Switch as it finally let him beat a Donkey Kong Country 2 level which had color-coded ropes as its main mechanic.
** Parodied with Rex Mohs having a condition known as Fruit Blindness which leaves him unable to tell one fruit from the next.
* In the ''WebVideo/SuperMarioLogan'' episode, "Life is Ruff!", Joseph and Cody are the first to realize that Bowser Junior is [[FreakyFridayFlip in the body of Chompy]], Junior's pet chain-chomp. Cody gives Junior two balls; one red and one blue, and tells him to pick the red ball if he really is in Chompy's body. Being colorblind, Junior accidentally chooses the blue ball. Cody later realizes that dogs are colorblind, so if Junior was in Chompy's body, he wouldn't be able to tell the two balls apart.

* In the ''WebVideo/SuperMarioLogan'' episode, "Life is Ruff!", Joseph and Cody are the first to realize that Bowser Junior is [[FreakyFridayFlip in the body of Chompy]], Junior's pet chain-chomp. Cody gives Junior two balls; one red and one blue, and tells him to pick the red ball if he really is in Chompy's body. Being colorblind, Junior accidentally chooses the blue ball. Cody later realizes that dogs are colorblind, so if Junior was in Chompy's body, he wouldn't be able to tell the two balls apart.

* LetsPlay/GeorgeNotFound has severe protanomaly[[note]]a form of red-green colorblindness[[/note]], which puts him at a disadvantage in color-based mini-games. One example of this happens in "Minecraft Speedrunner VS 3 Hunters REMATCH" (one of LetsPlay/{{Dream}}'s Manhunts), where Dream bluffs the hunters by drinking a Fire Resistance potion; George (the only one close enough to see the potion clearly) can't tell which color the potion particles are, and Bad soon after jumps to the conclusion that Dream drank a Strength potion. With George unable to correct him, he just goes along with that interpretation and runs for the hills.
* This becomes {{invoked|Trope}} in LetsPlay/{{Sapnap}}'s video [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g6xX2AdZeeY Minecraft, But We Are All Colorblind...]], where Dream and Sapnap use a plugin to simulate George's protanomaly on their own screens, so they can explore what Minecraft is like for the latter.

* In ''Fanfic/AquamanMonster'', Garth's Tritanopia colorblindness (inability to distinguish blue from green) leads him to accidentally choose a tacky outfit to wear when going out with Tula, which she has to fix with oil dyes.

* ''TabletopGame/{{Traveller}}'' has a long player tradition of taking advantage of the colorblindness of [[WolfMan Vargr]] characters for practical jokes. More recent rulebooks have started depicting Vargr dressed in [[IWasQuiteAFashionVictim hideously clashing colors]].

* Ray Gillette in ''WesternAnimation/{{Archer}}'' is implied to be red-green colorblind, 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 the 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.

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Littlest Pet Shop|2012}}'':

* In the ''WesternAnimation/MarthaSpeaks'' episode, "[[CourtroomEpisode Martha the Witness]]", Martha represents Mrs. Demson as the witness to a traffic accident that destroyed her lawn furniture. At one point, the defendant's lawyer shows Martha three cards; two red and one green. Martha, however, is unable to tell the three cards apart, due to her being colorblind, but towards the end of the episode, she reveals that she is able to tell that the top of a traffic light is always red, and the bottom of the traffic light is always green.
* In the ''WesternAnimation/SonicBoom'' episode "Bro-Down Showdown", Sonic and Knuckles compete on the titular game show to win a new couch for Amy after they spill nachos on her old one. Sonic is teamed up with Dr. Eggman, and Knuckles is teamed up with Mike the Ox. At one point, Comedy Chimp asks Mike what color Knuckles is. Due to being colorblind, Mike guesses green, even though Knuckles is red. When he finds out he answered wrong, he admits he's colorblind, and when a red light flashes, he asks if the light was green.
* 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, [[SuddenlyObviousFakery at which point the audience sees the gem as an emerald as well]].
* Tuba in season 3 of ''WesternAnimation/InfinityTrain'' is red-green colorblind. This allows her to help solve a puzzle where objects disappear depending on what color they are. Because the colors look the same to her, she can see and interact with both at the same time.
* PlayedForLaughs in ''WesternAnimation/TheAmazingWorldOfGumball'' episode "The Boredom". A trucker takes the Wattersons' house, which is blue. He seems to think it's pink. He then calls the pink frosting on a donut blue, and his partner figures out he's blue-pink colorblind.

* LetsPlay/GeorgeNotFound has severe protanomaly[[note]]a form of red-green colorblindness[[/note]], which puts him at a disadvantage in color-based mini-games.
** One example of this happens in "Minecraft Speedrunner VS 3 Hunters REMATCH" (one of LetsPlay/{{Dream}}'s Manhunts), where Dream bluffs the hunters by drinking a Fire Resistance potion; George (the only one close enough to see the potion clearly) can't tell which color the potion particles are, and Bad soon after jumps to the conclusion that Dream drank a Strength potion. With George unable to correct him, he just goes along with that interpretation and runs for the hills.
** In a more general example, the difference between iron and diamond weapons/armor is extremely small from George's point of view, which causes him to be shocked whenever he takes more damage than he expects from swords.
** George has mentioned several times that in the Bedwars minigame on Hypixel, he tends to confuse the green and yellow team bases with each other since the colors look ''very'' close to the other to him.
** This becomes {{invoked|Trope}} in LetsPlay/{{Sapnap}}'s video [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g6xX2AdZeeY Minecraft, But We Are All Colorblind...]], where Dream and Sapnap use a plugin to simulate George's protanomaly on their own screens, so they can explore what Minecraft is like for the latter.

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

May also occur with FunnyAnimal or UpliftedAnimal characters pointing out that their species is naturally colorblind 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.

-->-- '''Donkey''' ''WesternAnimation/Shrek1''