In RealLife, [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hemophobia hemophobia]] is an anxiety disorder characterized by -- [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin well]] -- extreme fear of blood. Treatments exist, but the condition tends to be lifelong and is usually caused by childhood trauma.

In fiction, being AfraidOfBlood is much the same, though the symptoms tend to run a rather more colorful gamut from mere extreme discomfort or nausea to falling unconscious on the spot to awakening {{superpowered evil side}}s. Note that there is some scientific basis to this: physical reactions uncommon in most other phobias have been recorded in cases of fear of blood.

In the past, this trope was mostly associated with [[AlwaysFemale females]], in both fiction and real life, which is why most {{distressed damsel}}s share this condition (good thing there's NoPeriodsPeriod). In the present, this trope is usually PlayedForLaughs (or -- with equal effort -- for tragedy) by giving it to someone in a medical profession or other position where they're likely to see a lot of blood. For examples of when someone who is likely extremely proficient at ''spilling'' blood is afraid of it, see the Blood section of WhyDidItHaveToBeSnakes. If the character is justified in being afraid of blood, perhaps they fear ThePowerOfBlood.

Contrast HemoErotic. Compare AfraidOfNeedles and AfraidOfDoctors.
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!!Examples

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[[folder:Anime and Manga]]
* Ako Izumi from ''Manga/MahouSenseiNegima'' is an example of this trope being PlayedForLaughs: the class health representative and an aspiring nurse, yet deathly afraid of blood. In the original manga it's not played for laughs; it's implied to be an emotional scar from some sort of accident in her past (that also left her with a large scar across her back). At one point, she gets a small scrape on her forehead and when she realizes she's bleeding, she goes lightheaded and faints.
* Princess Tsunade from ''Manga/{{Naruto}}'' ''[[CharacterDevelopment was]]'' another example of a blood-fearing medic, though the phobia started long ''after'' she became a medic -- [[spoiler: when her little brother Nawaki and her fiancé Dan died in front of her and she couldn't do anything.]].
** Gaara had this problem as well, not blood in general, but his ''own'' blood. Up until his fight with Sasuke, Gaara's protective sand made it so he'd never been injured in his entire life. Seeing his own blood for the first time didn't rest well with him.
* Naga from ''{{Slayers}}'', [[spoiler: as a result of watching her mother get killed before her eyes, so the bloodshed she saw gives her post-traumatic stress disorder as a result.]]
* Winner Sinclair of ''{{Karin}}'', which can make his vampire hunting a little difficult.
* Being avatars of peace and harmony, the kirin in ''TheTwelveKingdoms'' aren't just afraid of blood (becoming faint or woozy just from the sight or smell of it,) they're physically weakened by it. Even suffering a tiny cut will incapacitate one from contact with its own blood.
* Excel from ''Manga/ExcelSaga'' is [[AfraidOfNeedles mortally afraid of needles]], and feels faint at the sight of her own blood. She's become desensitized about other people's blood due to [[BloodFromTheMouth Hyatt's influence]], however.
* Seiya, the sidekick of ''Manga/NurseAngelRirikaSOS'', is a male example but is still PlayedForLaughs. He's lived his whole life in a hospital, but can't stomach the sight of the stuff.
* Inspector Misao Yamamura from ''Manga/DetectiveConan''.
* In a filler arc from ''OnePiece'', Dr. Kobato is deathly afraid of blood. Tough luck, all the other doctors of the base she works in were gone by the time the arc began, forcing her to treat patients herself, even though she's just a pediatrician. Thanks to Chopper and Nami's help, though, she gets over it.
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[[folder:Comic Books]]
* Parodied in a ''TheFarSide'' comic, where one of "the king's men" faints at the sight of yolk.
* In the comic book of ComicBook/TheMask, one character who goes after the Mask is a mob sniper who can't stand the site of blood. He manages to shoot The Mask (which does nothing because of his powers), but the Mask still makes a big show of the injury, only to pull his hands away causing a drop of blood to drip out of the tiny bullet wound. This causes the hitman to faint.
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[[folder:Film]]
* Played for laughs in ''Film/DeadSnow'', where the character Martin (who is studying to become a surgeon) is afraid of blood.
* Played for laughs in ''JustLikeHeaven'', when David is talked through giving someone a tracheotomy by Elizabeth's ghost. After he successfully does this, he asks what something on his hand is. Elizabeth calmly tells him that it's just a little blood and he promptly faints.
* In the movie version of ''Film/GetSmart'', apparently just talking or thinking about blood is enough to get Lloyd to faint.
* In Film/TheThreeStooges short "Merry Mavericks", the cowboy hero passes out when he sees blood trickling from an unconscious bad guy's mouth.
* In ''The Darwin Awards'', Joseph Fiennes's character gets demoted from his detective position as he faints at the sight of blood.
* In William Castle's ''Film/TheTingler'', the theater manager's mute wife has an extreme fear of blood, which figures heavily in the story line.
* Another comedy example is El Primo in ''Film/JuanOfTheDead''; he's a big immensely strong man who instantly keels over at the sight of blood. He eventually (successfully) starts fighting zombies ''blindfolded''.
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[[folder:Literature]]
* ''Literature/AudreyWait'' features Carol, Audrey's mom, who nearly faints when she walks in on Audrey covered in red nail polish. She gets better when the confusion is clarified. Also the NoodleIncident where Audrey's mom helps Audrey's dad with a pumpkin carving accident, which Audrey describes as "the incident that was ''almost'' a pukefest in addition to the other problems".
* Bella from ''Literature/{{Twilight}}'' gets sick from seeing a tiny bit of blood in the first book. It's actually the smell that gets her. She can watch an extremely gory action movie with no problems.
** This trait of hers seems to turn into a forgotten trait by the time of the fourth book - she certainly sees no problem with [[spoiler:having to drink blood to stop herself from dying during the pregnancy]].
* The book ''{{Boo}}'' featured a horror novelist who fainted at the sight of blood, as the main character learned when they watched a movie adaptation of one of his books.
* In Janwillem van de Wetering's Grijpstra and de Gier mysteries, Rinus de Gier suffers badly from this problem. Needless to say, this makes investigating homicides awkward.
* Tre in ''Literature/{{Stuck}}'' is horribly afraid of blood, and as a result he passes out at the sight of it on two separate occasions.
* In the ''AubreyMaturin'' series, Jack laughs at Stephen when the latter questions the former's ability to view surgery. Then the former views surgery and very nearly passes out. It turns out that the heat of battle covers quite a bit. Contrarily, Stephen never shies from anything.
* In JamesHerriot's books, he occasionally deals with men of the Yorkshire dales who are convinced they can handle anything. Then he starts operating on their pets or livestock and they learn that a difficult calving is ''not'' the same thing as cutting it open, snipping away at its bits, and sewing it back up. Herriot rather humorously points out that while the big burly farmers drop at the sight, their ''wives'' are more than willing to help him out, without so much as a flinch to be seen.
* In ''TheShamerChronicles'' Nico's afraid of blood [[spoiler:after sitting with his family's blood on his hands and clothing for days, thinking that he killed them and not being allowed to clean himself.]]
* In ''Literature/SeptimusHeap'', Merrin Meredith's fear of blood probably explains why he reacts so aggressively to being restrained by Nicko in ''Magyk''.
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[[folder:Live Action TV]]
* Dexter Morgan from ''Series/{{Dexter}}'' has this, to the point that his entire career involves interpreting and cleaning up blood. If too much of it is in one location---say, several murder victims' worth absolutely soaking a room---he will pass out (or vomit, or both.) This is tied to his witnessing the chainsaw murder of his mother when he was a toddler.
* Gus from ''Series/{{Psych}}'' has a very strong fear of blood:
** In the episode "Tuesday the 17th" Shawn was able to figure out he was being tricked by Gus when his friend casually wiped blood on his pants (which was actually fake blood) instead of the expected reaction to run screaming from the room.
** In "This Episode Sucks" Shawn accidentally squirts the contents of a blood bag on Gus, leading to Gus going into a catatonic state for a short time.
* Hurley from ''Series/{{Lost}}''.
* ''DocMartin'', from the series of the same name. Sets up the whole series, as his aversion to blood halts his high-flying medical career in its tracks and causes him to become a GP in a small rural village.
* An episode of ''Series/TheXFiles'' called "Blood" contained a man with this phobia. Which makes it amusing and concerning that he's more afraid of the person coming to his house to collect a blood sample for a "cholesterol test" than the appliances in his house that are telling him to kill people.
* In an episode of ''HogansHeroes'', [=LeBeau=] was shot in the shoulder and they found him unconscious. It turned out to be a very minor wound and he had simply fainted at the sight of the blood.
* An episode of ''DoogieHowserMD'' focuses on Doogie helping a young nursing student with her fear of blood. The result? The girl spends the night in Doogie’s room “fantasizing”… with the help of a cute little SurvivalMantra he teaches her: ''"Plasma and platelets and cells, oh my! Plasma and platelets and cells, oh my!"''
* Papa Lazarou from ''TheLeagueOfGentlemen'' is so freaked at one point, ''he runs out of his own show.'' Granted, it's probably ''nosebleeds'' which he's probably never encountered before, rather than the actual sight of blood.
* This happens twice in ''Series/EverybodyLovesRaymond'':
** In one episode, Ray tries to be a man and aggressively fights with Debra over the tweezers in order to remove a splinter from her hand. Then he sees the blood and has to sit down.
** In another episode, Ray volunteers at a hospital, sees some bags of blood, and feels dizzy.
* In an episode of ''Series/LieToMe'', Lightman proves a suspect couldn't be a serial killer by cutting himself, which immediately causes the man to faint.
* ''Series/LawAndOrderCriminalIntent'': Goren demonstrates to Eames a suspect's innocence in a brutal multiple stabbing by cutting his hand and shoving it in the man's face, causing said suspect to briefly and slowly lose consciousness.
* ''Series/{{CSI}}'': In the first "Miniature Killer" case "[[ThePartridgeFamily Danny Partridge]]" is murdered and his kitchen is soaked in blood. The detectives suspect his son, an architecture student with access to scalpels, but he claims he faints at the sight of blood. He later proves it by going on a "tipping table" and losing consciousness.
* In ''Series/PeopleLikeUs'', documentarian Roy Mallard passes out at the sight of blood, or even at the thought of it.
* Happens in an episode of ''Series/{{Bones}}'' where a fanboy of her books is accused of reproducing the murders in her latest novel to come out. He faints after being given a Nose Bleed. A bit of a 'did not do the research' as he was in the pilot episode and had no problems staunching the bleeding leg wound on the murderer after Bones shot him. Unlikely he would have developed a blood phobia after that, when showing no problems at the time.
* The Spanish series ''Doctor Mateo'' starts with the eponymous world-famous surgeon suddenly becoming afraid of blood.
* Henry from ''{{Sanctuary}}'' has a weird relationship with blood. When several wounded refugees are brought in, he is asked to help bandage them but is reassigned when he says, "You know about me and blood." But when he is asked how he'd feel if he came across a dead animal and he'd smell its blood, [[EyesNeverLie his pupils dilate]]--even though he answers "Sad".
* Kari Byron of ''MythBusters'' is a surprising aversion. To those unaware, Kari is a (usually) strict vegetarian who is absolutely disgusted by the sight of animal parts and meat in general, and since producers are fond of putting Kari around meat and animal parts [[WhyDidItHaveToBeSnakes just get her reactions on camera]], fans are ''very'' well aware of this phobia. Which makes it rather surprising when one episode has Kari reveal that she doesn't mind the sight of blood at all, and actually finds it "kind of pretty".
* In ''GameOfThrones'', Jon and Ygritte have a brief [[DiscussedTrope conversation]] about this trope in which Ygritte points out the [[NoPeriodsPeriod problem]] with the idea of girls fainting at the sight of blood:
-->'''Ygritte:''' Why would a girl see blood and collapse?
-->'''Jon:''' Not all girls are like you.
-->'''Ygritte:''' ''*smirks*'' Girls see more blood than boys.
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[[folder:Theater]]
* In Shakespeare's ''AsYouLikeIt'', [[SweetPollyOliver Rosalind]] passes out when presented with a handkerchief stained with the blood of her wounded LoveInterest, Orlando.
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[[folder:Toys]]
* Draculaura, the vampire girl in MonsterHigh is a literal VegetarianVampire who is so hemophobic, she faints when someone even says the word 'blood'.
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[[folder:Video Games]]
* In the TotalWar series of games, your generals can suffer from this. It makes them less effective battlefield commanders, what with battles involving lots of blood.
* Kurthnaga, the Dragon Prince in ''[[VideoGame/FireEmblemTellius Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn]]'' can't stand the sight of blood. This is more or less used as an excuse to justify him not becoming playable as soon as he joins your party, and he (mostly) gets over it by the end of the game. It also has the effect of rendering him AwesomeButImpractical, however, because by the time he does join your other characters are so much [[CantCatchUp stronger than he is]] you have little reason to use him.
* In ''VideoGame/DuelSaviorDestiny'' the ninja Kaede has a surprising weakness to the sight of blood. It developed after she saw her parents killed in front of her and she was splashed with the blood, which is a rather dark spin on the idea considering how it's almost always played for humor.
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[[folder:VisualNovels]]
* ''CrossChannel'': The sight of blood triggers Taichi Kurosu's psychotic episodes.
* ''VisualNovel/AceAttorneyInvestigations'' reveals that Detective Gumshoe can't stand the sight of blood. [[CluelessDetective This is not]] [[ButtMonkey terribly surprising]].
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[[folder:Web Comics]]
* Hannelore of ''QuestionableContent'' is not haemophobic per se, but with her OCD it makes little difference; she freaks out when she hits her head on a cupboard door and starts bleeding.
* Abel in ''DanAndMabsFurryAdventures'' is, in fact, haemophobic, which causes him some trouble.
* Karkat Vantas of {{Homestuck}} is bothered by blood and at one point passes out after seeing a dang lot of it. Bothered mostly by his own. Blood colour is a serious business in troll society, and Karkat kinda got the short end of the stick. That is why he never lets anyone else know what colour his blood is.
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[[folder:Web Original]]
* Liam "Brook" Brooks of ''SurvivalOfTheFittest'' v4 suffers from this. Sadly, he's also on a DesertedIsland and forced to kill his classmates. [[spoiler: [[AxeCrazy He's not the least bit scared of it anymore...]]]]
* While not afraid of blood outside of a certain context, the {{Lets Play}}er {{raocow}} reveals in the description to [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SXznxaAGHwM this video]] that he has a rather strong aversion to facial damage (even if done as crudely as in said video), after witnessing an accident in his youth. He also mentions that heavy make-up will sometimes unnerve him in a similar fashion. He also feels uneasy about bones.
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[[folder:Western Animation]]
* ''WesternAnimation/CountDuckula'' is a haemophobic vampire duck. Because Nanny made the mistake of providing tomato sauce instead of blood for his last re-incarnation ritual, [[VegetarianVampire he prefers veggies to virgins]].
* Donkey in ''WesternAnimation/{{Shrek}}''.
* Chicken Joe from ''SurfsUp'' faints at the ''thought'' of the sight of blood.
* In ''{{Sixteen}}'', Jonesy admits he's afraid of blood since he was a kid. He had a nosebleed which "wouldn't stop".
* Tommy from ''{{Rugrats}}'' develops this phobia after he cuts his finger on a bush and he worries that if he gets injured again all his blood is going to come out, in the end Chuckie helps him get over it and then upon seeing Tommy's bleeding hand Chazz passes out.
* Butters from ''WesternAnimation/SouthPark'' due to a tapping dancing performance that went horribly wrong and caused many people to die.
* The minor character Sheena on ''HeyArnold'' is extremely phobic of blood and violence. Served as a small plot point in the School Play episode, as this is how Helga gets her to give up the part of Juliet.
* [[BackAlleyDoctor Dr. Nick Riviera]] in ''TheSimpsons''. In the episode "Homer's Triple Bypass" he passes out during surgery when he sees the blood.
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[[folder:Real Life]]
* As a result of growing up in a tannery, in any setting other than a battlefield, Ulysses S. Grant hated the sight of blood to the point that it would drive him in to near-hysterical paralysis. Needless to say, even on the battlefield he always ordered his beef well done. He tried to keep it cool on the battlefield, but inevitably [[INeedAFreakingDrink needed a freaking drink]] afterward...which was unfortunate, because he [[CantHoldHisLiquor couldn't hold his liquor]], which gave him an undeserved reputation for [[TheAlcoholic alcoholism]].
* [[ThoseWackyNazis Heinrich Himmler]] allegedly suffered from this. Ironic, considering, [[HellholePrison well]] -- [[KillEmAll you know]]. The Nazis generally acknowledged this trope. They ordered the gas chambers to the death camps for the sake of being more humane -- to the guards, [[DidntSeeThatComing who were suffering from various types of traumas and stress disorders for shooting defenseless civilians by the thousands at that point]].
* Creator/EliRoth, believe it or not. In fact, many horror directors known for putting large amounts of gore in their movies are actually hemophobic.
** [[FridgeBrilliance Which makes perfect sense if you think about it.]] Why would a horror director fill their movie with things they don't consider scary?
* Creator/SamRaimi, despite making the goretastic ''Franchise/EvilDead'' movies.
* Ironically enough, [[KnightTemplar Maximilien Robespierre]], despite [[TheRevolutionWillNotBeCivilized instigating the Reign of Terror]], was incredibly hemophobic
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