History Main / LawOfChromaticSuperiority

* Most of the enemies from ''VideoGame/{{Blinx}}'' return in later levels with a different color scheme and more health.
* The rarity of writers in ''VideoGame/BungoToAlchemist'' is referred to as the color of each writer's background when they are summoned. In descending order: Rainbow → Gold → Silver → Beige. Enemies are also color-coded based on their difficulty.

* In the ''VideoGame/{{Crusader}}'' games, the cream-of-the-crop, "Silencers", such as the main character, wear red armor. The next-best level of soldiers, "Elites," wear black.
* In the computer game ''VideoGame/DiabloII'', the weakest of the creatures known as "Fallen ones" are red, the stronger version known as "carver" are blue, the strongest (called "Dark ones") are black (not counting a very special purple version).
** The Balrog-type demon also fits. From the weakest to strongest: Balrog (pale red), Pit Lord (Bluish Black), Venom Lord (Olive Green).
** Diablo himself: Normal (red), Nightmare (yellow), Hell (black).
** The Diablo series also introduced the colouring of items that has since become standard in many [=RPGs=]. In the first game, white was normal, blue magic and yellow unique. ''Diablo 2'' added yellow for rare and green for set items, changing unique to gold. Diablo 3 uses red for legendary (replacing unique and set items in the previous game). While the details vary, the core white-blue-yellow progression can be seen in many games. Ironically, it's actually somewhat subverted in ''Diablo 2'' since although rare items had more modifiers, regular magic items could have ''larger'' ones, so the weapon with the highest possible damage was actually blue, but then the best weapons are unique or runeworded anyway.

** 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.

* Inverted in ''Anime/MaiOtome''. The first years, who are meant to be the weakest in both power and skill, wear a red dress, the second years wear dark grey and the graduated Meisters run the gamut of colours. Lena Sayers, said by WordOfGod to be the most powerful ever, wears blue.

* OlderThanPrint: ''Haft Paykar,'' the epic poem of ancient Persia (modern Iran). The prince [[ValuesDissonance marries seven princesses]] [[UnwantedHarem from different countries]] [[AllYourPowersCombined and visits them each to learn their wisdom]]. Each princess is a {{Color Coded Character}}s. In order of 'enlightenment': Black, Yellow, Green, Red, Blue, Brown, and, finally, White, for the most pious princess, whom he visits on Friday, the holy day of Islam.

** In ''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.

** In ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaSkywardSword'', Link's [[GiantFlyer Loftwing]] is "special" because it's red, the implication being that it's faster than the others. Pipit, during the prologue, won the Wing Ceremony last year, but thanks his lucky stars Link's "red terror" wasn't involved.
** In ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaBreathOfTheWild'', 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.

* Ii Naomasa, one of UsefulNotes/TokugawaIeyasu's [[FourIsDeath Four Guardians]] [[note]]inspired by the awesome red color of Yamagata Masakage's unit when he was a kid[[/note]], formed a unit dressed entirely in red armor nicknamed the Red Devils. Dressing in red, of course, made them so fast that they drew first blood in the Battle of Sekigahara. At this point, no matter what color the Tokugawa wears in any media adaptation, if there's Naomasa, he'll always be portrayed with red armor.

* Purple, in some societies, came to be associated with royalty because it was expensive to produce. Sometimes, it was even ''illegal'' for commoners to possess it. It's made out of a mucus secretion of sea snails. In the West, purple is the color of royalty. In Asia, it's usually yellow (saffron-based dyes being extremely expensive). At certain points in Chinese history, anyone caught wearing yellow clothes (or using the emperor's surname) was not only executed, but so was their extended family up to three degrees of relatedness. So your clan is dead if you accidentally offend the emperor.

* The rarity of writers in ''VideoGame/BungoToAlchemist'' is referred to as the color of each writer's background when they are summoned. In descending order: Rainbow → Gold → Silver → Beige.
** Enemies are also color-coded based on their difficulty.

* ''VideoGame/TheFinalFantasyLegend'' appears to have a subversion where Silver armor is more expensive and powerful than Gold armor. However, Silver is really a mistranslation of Mythril. [[VideoGame/SaGa2 The sequel]] gets around this by changing Bronze, Gold, and Mythril to Bronze, Silver, and Gold in the English translation.

* ''[[VideoGame/MakaiToshiSaGa The Final Fantasy Legend]]'' appears to have a subversion where Silver armor is more expensive and powerful than Gold armor. However, Silver is really a mistranslation of Mythril. [[VideoGame/SaGa2 The sequel]] gets around this by changing Bronze, Gold, and Mythril to Bronze, Silver, and Gold in the English translation.

*** ''Series/JAKQDengekitai'' is the sole exception with Big One, who is has a primarily white suit with accents of the other four heroes' colors and who manages to take over complete leadership from Red Ranger Spade Ace, which includes field leadership and all of the attention.

* ''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.]]

** Another exception is ''Series/JuukouBFighter'', which became the first ''{{Series/Beetleborgs}}'' series, in which the ''blue'' warrior rather than the red one is the leader who gains a unique powerup halfway through the series. Most likely because the red warrior is a girl.

** Most Heisei (2000-onwards) Franchise/{{Kamen Rider}}s are either red to begin with or gain a red SuperMode. Played with by Series/KamenRiderAgito [[note]]Black and gold, with silver and red SuperMode[[/note]], Series/KamenRiderBlade [[note]]Blue and silver, with a gold and black SuperMode[[/note]], Series/KamenRiderDecade [[note]]Magenta and black, with silver and black SuperMode[[/note]], Series/KamenRiderDouble [[note]]Has a red half-form, but his primary one is green and black[[/note]], Series/KamenRiderOOO [[note]]The MidSeasonUpgrade is all red, but the SuperMode is purple[[/note]], and Series/KamenRiderFourze [[note]]Primarily white, red is just an alternate form, SuperMode is a steel blue[[/note]].

*** ''Series/JAKQDengekitai'' is the sole exception with Big One, who is a white hero who manages to take over complete leadership from Spade Ace, which includes field leadership and all of the attention. Oddly enough, ''Series/MightyMorphinPowerRangers'' would mirror this situation when BreakoutCharacter Tommy gained the White Ranger powers and took over leadership from Jason (though part of that was because Jason was in the process of being written out anyway, and it didn't make sense for the replacement Red Ranger to automatically be placed in charge).
*** ''Series/MiraiSentaiTimeranger'' and its Power Rangers counterpart ''Series/PowerRangersTimeForce'' is another exception, though in an odd way - while the Red Ranger got top billing, leader was the ''Pink Ranger''.
*** This causes interesting effects in Power Rangers seasons when there are two Reds. ''Series/PowerRangersTimeForce'' gave different Battlized forms to both the Red Ranger and the Quantum Ranger, and in ''Series/PowerRangersNinjaStorm'', the Red Ranger got the Battlizer but the Crimson Ranger got an equally impressive CoolBike.
*** Taken furthest with ''Series/BakuryuuSentaiAbaranger'' and ''Series/PowerRangersDinoThunder''; where not only did the Red Ranger get the same SuperMode as the rest of the group, he got a SixthRanger-style upgrade with its own weaponry and Zord, and then ''Dino Thunder'' added a Battlizer on top of ''that''!
*** Another one that plays with the formula is ''Series/UchuSentaiKyuranger''. The actual leader of the team is the violet ranger, who joins the team as the tenth ranger, but does not take the spotlight away from the red ranger. The red ranger also uses super modes more often than the other rangers, although the first few he uses are not unique to him and can be used by other rangers but his unique super mode changes his color to white.
** Another exception is the first ''{{Series/Beetleborgs}}'' series, in which the ''blue'' borg rather than the red one gains a unique powerup halfway through the series. Most likely because the red borg is a girl.

* ''Franchise/TheLegendOfZelda'':
** In ''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, red ring is twice as strong as the blue ring, red candle has infinite use whereas blue candle has one use per screen.

* Played with in the post-end bonus chapter of ''VideoGame/TheWorldEndsWithYou''. The characters form a Sentai FiveManBand. The leader is Red, Neku is first Black-n-Blue but later "demoted" to just Blue so someone else can be Black ([[spoiler:Black is TheMole, by the way]]), and Joshua first wants to be Pink, but then says he should actually be Gold and later gets "upgraded" to [[AmbiguouslyGay Rainbow]]. (No, really.)
* Red Slimes in the ''VideoGame/DragonQuest'' series are the stronger version of normal slimes, and they are females in some of the adaptions.

* Loadout cards in ''VideoGame/DirtyBomb'' are rated in color from basic Standard cards to Lead, which introduces augments, Iron, which has two augments over Lead's one, and finally Bronze, which fills out the augment slots. There are higher tiers, but the sole advantage they have is different coloration or special patterns in the case of event loadouts, and the ones available are the same across every rank (An iron loadout with the same first two augments as a gold one will have the exact same weapons) except Standard.

* Subverted by the gold robot in ''VideoGame/{{Dogyuun}}''. It's ''golden'' in colour, it's set up to be the BigBad or TheDragon, it gets screentime in the intro... and it's only the second of 10 bosses.

* In ''VideoGame/LEGOIsland's'' racing minigames, vehicles whose colors don't clash are faster than ones with clashing colors. Also discussed at length by mechanic Nubby Stevens outside the gas station, with a red and blue race car acting out his theories in a FunnyBackgroundEvent:

* The Tuskegee Airmen were the first black World War II fighter pilots and were credited with never losing a plane under their protection to enemy action. The infamous color of their plane tails? Red. The Tuskegees' signature was inverted twice over with the 352nd Fighter Group. Became so famous that the Germans started calling them the Blue Nosed Bastards of Bodney (Bodney being the city they operated out of). The inversion comes with the obvious blue nose.

* In [=WW2=] the Luftwaffe often painted parts of their fighter aircraft in bright colours, especially yellow, for easy recognition, e. g. during the Battle of Britain so that they would not be fired on by trigger-happy tail-gunners of the bombers they were escorting. These colours, e. g. on the propeller spinner, engine cowl or tailfin were also used to set apart sub-units of a ''Jagdgeschwader'' (fighter wing) or as a common mark of fighters serving in a particular theatre of war (e. g. white for North Africa). This ended up leading to the belief among Allied pilots that the Luftwaffe distinguished their pilots in [=WW2=] by the color of their propeller spinner. Yellow-nosed aircraft, it was thought, had pilots with 30 kills or more (in actual fact, e. g. the Luftwaffe's top-scoring pilot Erich Hartmann (352 kills) had a black one, and Hans-Joachim Marseille, the top-scoring pilot against Western Allies (158) had a white one). This proved to be a danger to some German pilots after the arrival of long-ranged Allied fighters on the Western Front: American pilots, confident in their superior numbers and ability to dive out of a bad situation to escape, ''frequently picked fights'' with yellow-nosed enemy aircraft in preference to lesser ones. There is an apocryphal story that some American pilots in the Pacific theater would paint their propellers a different color before every battle so Japanese pilots would think they were facing different fighter squadrons each time, creating the illusion that the Americans had massively superior numbers.
* 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]].
* [[http://uk.gamespot.com/news/show_blog_entry.php?topic_id=26431086 Studies]] show that "gamers have more of a chance of being on the winning side if they choose to play as a red team member as opposed to blue." The same applies to athletes all the way up to the professional and Olympic level, according to DiscoverMagazine. The caveat being that they are action games, such as [=CoD=] and Halo. In thinking games, such as MultiplayerOnlineBattleArena, colors like blue have the advantage due to encouraging long-term thinking, creativity, and being able to see the bigger picture.
* RealLife studies have shown that players in sports who wear red are more likely to win in competitions over other colors, like blue. Is this because putting on red somehow ups their performance? No, it's because wearing red seems to have some kind of intimidation factor in the opponents. So wearing red doesn't make you better, it just makes everyone else worse.
* The "black tax" levied on computers. A previous generation of Apple [=MacBooks=] come in two colors: white and black. There is 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.]]

* The infamous Magazine/{{Playboy}} [[PlayboyBunny Bunnies]] outfits are ranked this way, with the black-colored bunny outfit signifying the highest ranking of bunny. This system has largely fallen out of use lately for the various locations of the Playboy Club (mostly for aesthetic reasons), but still occasionally plays the trope straight.

* Purple, in some societies, came to be associated with royalty because it was expensive to produce. Sometimes, it was even ''illegal'' for commoners to possess it. It's made out of a mucus secretion of sea snails. In the west, purple is the color of royalty. In Asia, it's usually yellow (saffron based dyes also being rather expensive). At certain points in Chinese history, anyone caught wearing yellow clothes (or using the emperor's surname) was not only executed, but so was their extended family up to three degrees of relatedness. So your clan is dead if you accidentally offend the emperor.

* In the opening of ''WesternAnimation/LiloAndStitch'', Stitch escapes from his confines and steals one of the police cruisers — specifically, as an observer notes with [[OhCrap more than a hint of concern]], "the red one". [[AllThereInTheManual Secondary material]], possibly that month's issue of ''Disney Adventures Magazine'', explained that the red one was the fastest, hence while the officers chasing him in the other pods couldn't catch him.
** Downplayed in the movie proper; they didn't catch him not because he ran away in the fastest vehicle, but because [[AttackAttackRetreatRetreat he charged at them and they nearly shot him down, prompting him to panic and engage the standard-issue hyperdrive.]]
** The same material mentioned that it was very lucky that this was the case, because Stitch only took the red one because [[RuleOfCool he thought it looked cool]].

* In ''Franchise/StarWars'', Red Squadron (the survivors of which later became [[Literature/XWingSeries Rogue Squadron]], keeping the red coloring--notably, their counterpart, Renegade Squadron, didn't have red and didn't last) was considered the best starfighter squadron.

** [[SixthRanger The center]], [[YourCheatingHeart half-]]brother to the first four, is [[TagalongKid the youngest]] and, in fact, [[OlderThanTheyLook eternally a child]], and is associated with the PowerOfLove. And whirlwinds.

Simple: paint the toaster [[RedOnesGoFaster red]]. The resulting toast will be [[MemeticMutation three times better]] than normal toast. Red also [[TurnsRed makes every video game enemy three times stronger.]] The RedShirt can be a case of some colors being worse: they go ''down'' faster.

Simple: paint the toaster red. The resulting toast will be [[MemeticMutation three times better]] than normal toast. Red also [[TurnsRed makes every video game enemy three times stronger.]] The RedShirt can be a case of some colors being worse: they go ''down'' faster.

[[quoteright:350:[[VideoGame/MegaManX3 https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/law_of_chromatic_superiority_final.png]]]]

[[quoteright:345:[[Anime/MobileSuitGundam https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Char_custom.jpg]]]]
[[caption-width-right:345:Why the red goes on top.]]

->''"Yeah... he took the red one."''
-->-- '''Nameless alien security officer''', ''WesternAnimation/LiloAndStitch''

* ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'' had the Command Track departments wear a "Wine Red" uniform. This is a departure from the original ''Series/{{Star Trek|The Original Series}}'' where the Command was Gold (actually a Lime Green that turned gold under the stage lights and film stock) and the engineering and security detail was red, hence the infamy of the {{Red Shirt}}s and it's speculated the change was to avoid that trope[[note]]In actuality, it was planned to retain the original color scheme. However, when they saw Jonathan Frakes and Creator/PatrickStewart in the red uniforms, they realized it worked a lot better and made the switch.[[/note]]. Red became exclusively command track, while gold was changed to Operations/Engineering and Security, while Blue has remained the medical and scientific departments throughout the franchise. Star Trek is unique in that there is significant division between the departments in terms of responsibility, but less so in terms of rank. Blue and Gold uniformed officers can reach lieutenant commander and remain in those colors (Commanders consistently wear Red uniforms, as that means they are on command tracks), while in the first season Worf and Geordi wore red and had the comparatively low ranks of Lieutenant Junior Grade. In the second season both were promoted to full Lieutenant and wore Gold, Worf was Head of Security and Geordi Chief Engineer.