History Main / LawOfChromaticSuperiority

* ''Anime/CrossAnge'' both double-subverts it and plays this straight. Hilda's Arquebus is primarily red-colored and she is by far the most aggressive and active pilots amongst the usual Norma people that pilot Arquebus... but that pales compared to other Ragna-Mails, which are black colored... [[spoiler:except when Hilda gets one herself (Theodora), its SuperMode paints the Ragna-Mail red.]] On the other hand, the [=DRAGONs=] are led by Salamandinay, who rides the primarily red-colored Enryugo and [[AuthorityEqualsAsskicking by far the best DRAGON pilot, aside of being the race's princess.]] The two of them lampshade this trope when they appear in ''VideoGame/SuperRobotWars'' during save-quit scenes.

* In the ''VideoGame/{{Touhou}}'' series, the Yakumo "family" of youkai display this. Yukari Yakumo, whose first name translates to "Violet", is one of the most powerful characters in the entire series. Her [[{{Familiar}} shikigami]], Ran Yakumo ("Indigo"), is a short step below, and both are [[BonusBoss Extra Stage bosses]], with Yukari being a [[BrutalBonusLevel Phantasm]] Stage boss. Down the spectrum is Chen ("Orange")--Ran's own shikigami--who is both a Second Stage boss and Extra Stage midboss.

'''Boom:''' ''*chuckles*'' ...True. But Red is the Big Cheese. Head honcho! Large and in charge! I mean, you get to tell the others what to do, and then they do it!

* In ''Machinima/RedVsBlue Reconstruction'', [[spoiler: Red defeats Blue by default, by erasing all the Blue' records. At least that's how Sarge sees it.]]

** The Soldier enemies follow this pattern in every game they appear in, despite those games not doing this for other enemies. Green-armored Soldiers are the weakest kind, blue ones are stronger, red ones stronger still, and gold and grey ones strongest of all. This convention mirrors the green/blue/red progression of the rings/armor Link finds as protective gear, since they are human warriors wearing armor rather than monsters, though ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaALinkBetween Worlds'''s version of the Soldier enemeies are full time monsters made by Yuga.

[[caption-width-right:236:"Why does the one with red paint get extra guns?!"]]

** ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaI'': If a monster has a red or orange version and a blue version, the blue version is generally tougher. The only exception is the blue Bubbles, which are far less annoying than the red versions. On the other side, if a beneficial item has a red and a blue version, the red is better -- red potions have two doses, the red ring's protection is twice as strong as the blue ring, and the red candle has infinite use whereas the blue candle has one use per screen. The Magical Sword (red hilt) does more damage than the White Sword (blue hilt).

** The Soldier enemies follow this pattern in every game they appear in, despite those games not doing this for other enemies. Green-armored Soldiers are the weakest kind, blue ones are stronger, red ones stronger still, and gold and grey ones strongest of all. This convention mirrors the green/blue/red progression of the rings/armor Link finds as protective gear, since they are human warriors wearing armor rather than monsters.

* ''VideoGame/DragonQuest'': Red Slimes series are the stronger version of normal slimes, and they are females in some of the adaptions.

* The "black tax" levied on computers. A previous generation of Apple [=MacBooks=] came in two colors: white and black. There was a $200 difference in price between the two (black being more expensive). The functional difference? The [=BlackBook=] has a 90-gigabyte larger hard drive (perhaps a $50 value, if you're feeling very, very generous). With the other $150, you're paying for the privilege of owning a chromatically superior computer. A similar price difference exists with chrome or stainless steel kitchen appliances over plain white enamel. Black enamel usually costs more than white, but less than silver. {{Invoked}} for the "white is coming" ad campaign for the white Sony PSP in the Netherlands, featuring a [[EthnicScrappy black model]] and a white model fighting, which spawned a [[UnfortunateImplications predictable]] [[http://www.engadget.com/2006/07/06/sony-under-fire-for-racist-advertising/ response.]]

* In ''VideoGame/{{Okami}}'', {{Orochi}} has eight heads, each with a [[NiceHat different colored hat]]. The head with the red hat is the dominant one, getting to say all of Orochi's lines and gets the character portrait. In addition, the villain Crimson Helm has a face and hat that is identical to Orochi's dominant head, though this is because Crimson Helm was born from Orochi's remains.

** In ''Film/TheForceAwakens'', Captain Phasma, the commander of all First Order Stormtroopers is clad with ''literal'' [[ChromeChampion chrome armor]], a [[BlingBlingBang golden blaster]] and a [[BadassCape long cape]]. According to WordOfGod, the chromatic material was salvaged from ''[[UpToEleven Palpatine's yacht]]'' in Naboo. Subverted however in her actual abilities where, like your typical Imperial and First Order officer, she talks a big game but is a subpar fighter at best who will surrender without a fight if it means saving her own skin and eventually falls in battle to her former subordinate Finn who takes her down with considerable ease.

* ''VideoGame/{{BalloonFight}}'', a Nintendo-produced game which takes heavy inspiration from Joust, has white-balloon enemies, cyan-balloon enemies, and yellow-balloon enemies, in order of difficulty and points earned.
* VideoGame/{{Galaxy Champions TV}}'' uses this several times. The final stage has golden flooring, and is also full of golden recolors of all the enemies, who are faster and more aggresive than thier non chrome counterparts, when you fully upgrade a weapon future pickups of that weapon will be golden, and the Galatic Champion is decked out in golden armour

*** ''Series/MiraiSentaiTimeranger'' and its Power Rangers counterpart ''Series/PowerRangersTimeForce'' is another exception, though in an odd way - while the Red Ranger got top billing, the leader was the ''Pink Ranger'', as this was a case of RookieRedRanger by means of TimeTravel. Both shows also featured a second Red Ranger in Time Fire or the Quantum Ranger, who when it came to the US release got a Battlizer as well.
*** Two Red Rangers also appear in ''Series/NinpuuSentaiHurricaneger'' and ''Series/PowerRangersNinjaStorm'': Hurricane Red / Red Wind Ranger and Kabuto Raiger / Crimson Thunder Ranger. Both were their subteam's leaders, with Red pulling rank when they eventually teamed up together, but on ''Ninja Storm'' Red got his Battlizer and Crimson instead got an equally impressive CoolBike.

* ''VideoGame/GuildWars2'' greatly expands on the color-coding of item quality to include eight categories. In ascending order of quality and rarity they are [[VendorTrash gray]], white, blue, green, yellow, orange, red, and [[PurpleIsPowerful purple]]. Also, three enemy types have special colored borders for their name indicating their difficulty. There are silver elites, gold champions, and purple legendaries. Weaker enemies have standard frames while the unique world bosses have a unique frame.

** Poor quality items, colored grey, and are VendorTrash. More often than not they are low-quality equipment or {{Joke Item}}s.

** ''VideoGame/ZeldaIITheAdventureOfLink'': Just like in the first game, an enemy's color indicates its strength; orange is the weakest, then red, and finally blue is the strongest version of that enemy.

** The Eliminator in ''VideoGame/KingdomHeartsCoded'' is a [[UndergroundMonkey red re-skin]] of the Defender Heartless. It's also one of the most dangerous non-boss enemies in the game, being able to inflict any StandardStatusEffect at random with its powerful attacks and has a large amount of HP.

* ''VideoGame/{{Joust}}'' has, in ascending order of points earned and aggressiveness, Bounders (red), Hunters (grey), and Shadow Lords (blue.

** ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaALinkToThePast'' continues this with the blue and red armor, the blue and red boomerangs, and arguably the ice rod (blue) and the fire rod (red). The Cane of Byrna (blue) and Cane of Somaria (red) may also qualify, since the latter is required to progress in the game where the former is completely optional. Averted with the potions, where the blue potion is the best because it has the combined abilities of the red and green potions. *** In many cases, the red/blue coding of enemies is changed up somewhat to take advantage of the Super NES's ability to display far more colors on-screen than the NES, i.e., Eyegores and Goriyas are green/red and Leevers are green/purple. In all three examples, green is the weakest.

** ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaALinkToThePast'' continues this with the blue and red armor, the blue and red boomerangs, and arguably the ice rod (blue) and the fire rod (red). The Cane of Byrna (blue) and Cane of Somaria (red) may also qualify, since the latter is required to progress in the game where the former is completely optional. Averted with the potions, where the blue potion is the best because it has the combined abilities of the red and green potions. In many cases, the red/blue coding of enemies is changed up somewhat to take advantage of the Super NES's ability to display far more colors on-screen than the NES.

** ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaALinkToThePast'' continues this with the blue and red armor, the blue and red boomerangs, and arguably the ice rod and the fire rod. Averted with the potions, where the blue potion is the best because it has the combined abilities of the red and green potions. In many cases, the red/blue coding of enemies is changed up somewhat to take advantage of the Super NES's ability to display far more colors on-screen than the NES.

** The Soldier enemies follow this pattern in every game they appear in, despite those games not doing this for other enemies. Green-armored Soldiers are the weakest kind, blue ones are stronger, red ones stronger still, and gold and grey ones strongest of all.

** ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaI'': If a monster has a red or orange version and a blue version, the blue version is generally tougher. The only exception is the blue Bubbles, which are far less annoying than the red versions. On the other side, if a beneficial item has a red and a blue version, the red is better -- red potions have two doses, the red ring's protection is twice as strong as the blue ring, and the red candle has infinite use whereas the blue candle has one use per screen.

* The ''Franchise/PrettyCure'' series is an odd one. There ''are'' red-colored Cures, but the pink Cures are the leaders. The first series to feature a team, ''Anime/YesPrettyCure5'', had an early episode where Natts wanted to know who the leader was for the team. Nozomi decided it should be Karen, since she was the smarter of the five. However, Karen decided it should be Nozomi, since she was the one who got them all together and the others agreed.

* Linguistic comparison studies have shown that, almost universally, the first color split off from white/warm/light and black/cool/dark when a language adds in a third color term...is red. Yes, that's right, even among colors themselves, red is chromatically superior. [[note]]The next split, for those curious, tends to be either yellow, [[UsefulNotes/GreenIsBlue blue/green,]] or [[BreadEggsBreadedEggs yellow/blue/green.]]

*** Most enemy types are colour-coded based on how tough they are. In order of weakest to strongest: red → blue → black → silver. In Master Mode (from the first DLC pack), red-coloured enemies are removed, with each enemy type being moved up a step in colour (red in Normal Mode becomes blue in Master Mode, blue becomes black, etc.), and a new class of gold-coloured enemies become the strongest ones.

** The Soldier enemies follow this pattern in every game they appear in, despite those games not actually doing this for other enemies. Green-armored Soldiers are the weakest kind, blue ones are stronger, red ones stronger still, and gold and grey ones strongest of all.

** Windows 8: vanilla (white), Pro (black)

*** ''Series/KikaiSentaiZenkaiger'' provides the first complete aversion of this since ''J.A.K.Q'' and the first time it was averted since the start of the show, with the main character being the White Ranger Zenkaiser and the Red Ranger [=ZenkaiZyuren=] being just another member of the team.