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White/Blue - "Azorius"
WHITE and BLUE - Azorius (article here
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White and Blue are allies because they both believe in the common good and in creating improvements in the world. Having said that, White accomplishes this by implementing laws and regulations for society as a whole, whereas Blue uses science to improve individuals; one offers police officers, the other doctors. White and Blue tend to have a lot of "answers": almost any spell you can play, White and Blue can somehow interfere with. Having said that, Blue tends to strike preemptively with counterspells whereas White uses Power Nullifiers after the fact. Plus, counterspells are expensive and can't make things that have already happened un-happen; White's answers are cheaper and can serve as damage control at any time, but, like most Power Nullifiers, can be removed again, or involve Mutual Disadvantage where White gives you something in return for taking something away. White and Blue can sometimes clash in the long term, though, as Blue is willing to be more selfish than White would prefer.
White/Blue is the Stone Wall pairing of the bunch, combining White’s tendency to amass resources over time until it boasts a Badass Army to swamp the opponent with and ability to answer most threats along the way, with Blue’s counterspells, evasive creatures and tricky effects to disrupt early-game aggro. This puts them in stark contrast with their shared enemy Red, who starts swinging right from the starting bell but quickly runs out of steam if it can’t end the game within a few turns. Compared to Red’s impulsiveness and brashness, White/Blue is methodical and calculated, both in flavor and in gameplay, and lends itself well to Control playstyles. They also compliment each other’s weaknesses well: White’s card draw is the worst in the game, while Blue’s is the best. Blue can’t really do much about permanents that make it past its counterspells, while White has a way to get rid of every permanent in the game, including several at once. White/Blue’s main weakness is that it usually takes a while for it to get up and running, and so is vulnerable to anything that can damage it quickly in the first few turns or else throw several wrenches into the works early on.
White/Blue cards are all about order and control — sometimes excessively so. A spell that is white and blue might represent a social improvement program with significant and trustworthy research backing its ideals, or a hidebound, undemocratic bit of bureaucratic red tape. Depending on who you ask, the same spell might be both.
) White and Blue are allies because they both believe in the common good and in creating improvements in the world. Having said that, White accomplishes this by implementing laws and regulations for society as a whole, whereas Blue uses science to improve individuals; one offers police officers, the other doctors. White and Blue tend to have a lot of "answers": almost any spell you can play, White and Blue can somehow interfere with. Having said that, Blue tends to strike preemptively with counterspells whereas White uses Power Nullifiers after the fact. Plus, counterspells are expensive and can't make things that have already happened un-happen; White's answers are cheaper and can serve as damage control at any time, but, like most Power Nullifiers, can be removed again, or involve Mutual Disadvantage where White gives you something in return for taking something away. White and Blue can sometimes clash in the long term, though, as Blue is willing to be more selfish than White would prefer.
White/Blue is the Stone Wall pairing of the bunch, combining White’s tendency to amass resources over time until it boasts a Badass Army to swamp the opponent with and ability to answer most threats along the way, with Blue’s counterspells, evasive creatures and tricky effects to disrupt early-game aggro. This puts them in stark contrast with their shared enemy Red, who starts swinging right from the starting bell but quickly runs out of steam if it can’t end the game within a few turns. Compared to Red’s impulsiveness and brashness, White/Blue is methodical and calculated, both in flavor and in gameplay, and lends itself well to Control playstyles. They also compliment each other’s weaknesses well: White’s card draw is the worst in the game, while Blue’s is the best. Blue can’t really do much about permanents that make it past its counterspells, while White has a way to get rid of every permanent in the game, including several at once. White/Blue’s main weakness is that it usually takes a while for it to get up and running, and so is vulnerable to anything that can damage it quickly in the first few turns or else throw several wrenches into the works early on.
White/Blue cards are all about order and control — sometimes excessively so. A spell that is white and blue might represent a social improvement program with significant and trustworthy research backing its ideals, or a hidebound, undemocratic bit of bureaucratic red tape. Depending on who you ask, the same spell might be both.
Canon Examples:
- In Ravnica, the Azorius are a group of scholars who function as the courts of law in the city-world. They are obsessed with law, order, record-keeping, and governance. They will ignore the spirit of the law to follow the letter of it, and are blind to the growing dissent, chaos, and crime on the plane. Despite the destruction of their guildhouse and death of their guildmaster when the Guildpact was dissolved, they have resurged with a new leader, a great sphinx named Isperia. Their mechanic in Return To Ravnica, detain, completely locks down a creature, preventing it from doing anything. Their mechanic in Ravnica Allegiance, addendum, gives you a bonus if you cast the spells that have it (all of which are instants) during your main phase—i.e., when you have time to do things through proper bureaucratic channels. After Isperia's murder, the guild came under the control of Dovin Baan, a vedalken planeswalker working for Nicol Bolas...
- In Shadowmoor, the kithkin are bigoted, highly xenophobic assholes that kill anything that isn't a kithkin. Granted, 90% of those things are evil as well, but even "good" races like the elves are not safe. The Lorwyn merfolk were better... and they still were self-righteous people who red-taped anything they saw as a threat.
- Mark Rosewater considers the iconic oldwalker, Urza, to be White/Blue. Although he was a Big Good, he wasn't the least bit heroic at all, being a social darwinist Knight Templar that was willing to sacrifice everything and manipulate everyone to destroy Phyrexia. All for naught, as he came to make a Face–Heel Turn when he came to see Phyrexia as everything he wanted the world to be, in part thanks to the beauty of the pneumagogs, arguably white phyrexians themselves. His official card from Unstable is five-color, but since it's from a joke set (which, while canon, takes place in a very offbeat alternate Dominia), it being representative of his color identity should be taken with a grain of salt. His card from Modern Horizons is mono-blue, but as that is him pre-igniting, it doesn't represent the full breadth of what he would become. This is rectified in Brother's War, where his various cards show him in both white and blue, culminating in his first proper planeswalker card.
- Ephara, the Theros goddess of spellcasting and scholarship, is another canon example. She taught the denizens of Meletis magic to overthrow the tyrannical archon Agnomakhos and became the city's beloved patron goddess ever since. The designers stated that they made Ephara a foil to the Obstructive Bureaucrats of the Azorius Senate by having her embody the progressive aspects of White/Blue; every time a player summons a creature and adds to the community, Ephara gives the player more knowledge (or in gameplay terms, an extra card to draw).
- Ojutai and his brood from Tarkir are a very negative example. Like most dragons, they hunted the native mortals with impunity, the particular reasons for doing this not being very clear, freezing humans and other beings with their ice breaths. After Shun Yun surrenders the Jeskai clan, Ojutai goes full tyrant, demanding the death of every warrior that has slain a dragon and going full Orwellian falsifier, demanding history to be rewritten in his favour, down to erasing the words "khan" and "clan". After 1,280 years of ruling, the dragons are revered by the clan (a word that was readmitted) as spiritual teachers and masters, who have enough respect that they may kill a non-dragon of the Clan as they please. The dragons themselves, however, have proven to be influenced by their contact with normal humans enough that they have mellowed out, with Ojutai valuing the drive to seek knowledge in his favorite pupil Narset more than his own rules.
- Innistrad has spirits in both White and Blue. White spirits are ancestral guardians who focus on direct power-ups or decrease the opponent’s ability, while Blue spirits are wandering, mysterious supernatural beings (geists) who manipulate the battlefield.
- The Order of the Widget, from the joke setting Bablovia, are cybernetic knights known for their nobility and their constant upgrading of themselves. They combine White's honor and altruism with Blue's drive for self-improvement through technology. This being Bablovia, that self-improvement often translates to things like replacing a hand with a toaster so that they need never be without toast. Their absolute ruler is the Grand Calculatron, the founder who has upgraded himself so extensively he is no longer considered a creature mechanically. The Order's constitution states that any entity of greater capability may replace the Grand Calculatron as leader, showing White's love of global rules and Blue's respect for intelligence and perfection.
Fanon Examples:
- Outside of Magic, there is Ozymandias in Watchmen. He mixes Blue rationality, practicality, and deception with White altruism and Knight Templar thinking.
- Zeus in God of War is a perfect White/Blue villain; much like the kithkin from the Shadowmoor setting and the Azorius (and especially Augustin IV) from Ravnica, he is duplicitous, taking the guise of a benevolent, noble ruler while being a paranoid, obsessive monster on the inside.
- Mark Rosewater lists Rupert Giles, Cliff Clavin, Captain Jean-Luc Picard, and Beast as prime examples of white-blue heroes.
- Clank from the Ratchet & Clank series is highly intelligent and refined in speech, and also driven by a strong sense of justice. That said, he will skirt the law if doing so is necessary to protect the universe or to help his friend Ratchet.
- Kid Icarus has the benevolent (ish) goddess Palutena as the wise and intellectual goddess of Light. She provides her angelic agent, Pit, with tactical advice and bestows magical power onto him. She also has no qualms about blasting monsters with giant heavenly laser beams if necessary.
- Kuvira from The Legend of Korra. A Well-Intentioned Extremist who wants to bring order to the Earth people by creating an Empire (White), she takes full advantage of the resources (including people) at her disposal to accomplish this goal, and has a strongly meritocratic and technologically progressive worldview (Blue). She's also a ruthless and petty individual whose ego demands that others acknowledge her power over them and will not tolerate criticism, to the point of sending dissidents to labor camps, as several canon villains of this combination.
- Equilibrium depicts a society of the extreme blue-white variety by striving for Totalitarian Utilitarian ideals.
- Father Balder in Bayonetta, appropriate considering how his daughter is (see her below in Black-Red). His basic motivation is to re-make reality by resurrecting Jubileus, marrying Blue's desire for perfection (Father Balder himself is implied to be a perfectionist) with White's desire for order and peace (the latter is stated in Bloody Fate). He is a manipulative, calculating, cunning bastard, not at all dissimilar to canon Azorius villains like Augustin IV (as well as another example dictated by Mark Rosewater, Ozymandias, and as an added bonus, he's a pretentious fanatic who rambles on and on about his philosophy). This is his older, corrupted self, however. His younger, truer self is recorded below in Red-White.
- Interestingly, one of the greatest heroes and the arc antagonists in Guilty Gear Xrd fit this color pair. Ky Kiske is a holy knight and master strategist and tactician who prefers a well-reasoned, logical, and orderly approach to things. He cares about the populace, but initially had white's overly stratified view of good and evil. After seeing more of what justice meant to people and learning of the causes and desires that drove people to do what they did, he gained a more nuanced view of the world, and now considers many outcasts among his greatest friends, chief among them the red/black Sol Badguy.
- Meanwhile, the Conclave share Ky's desire to improve the world and put it on the right path, but they are also willing to do it by restrictive coercion. Their detachment speaks to blue, while their concern about the human cost and their reasons for creating a stifling dystopia is very white.
- The God-Emperor of Man from Warhammer 40,000 fits this color combo. His grand dream was to create a glorious star-spanning empire governed by reason and science (blue) so humanity could recover its long-lost prestige and fend off the gods of Chaos in the process (white). While he is almost universally adored by his subjects, he is also cold and impersonal, seeing even his own sons as a means to an end. What prevents him from being an Esper character, though, is that his personal agenda has never been for his own personal gain, but rather the safety and prosperity of the human race, which is a white value to its very core.
- Rango's title character, a heroic lawman (White) who's self-made and solves problems using intelligence rather than physical might (Blue).
- Autistic characters are usually portrayed as having these two colors in their identities. Some examples are Shaun Murphy, Sam Gardner (who's also Green) and Symmetra. Narset herself, a member of the Jeskai clan (who had Red in the previous timeline) and the Ojutai Brood, is a canonical autistic character in Magic The Gathering.
- Kyubey from Puella Magi Madoka Magica has the stoicism, rationality, and detachment that comes with Blue mana, and White elements in his usage of magical girls' despair and suffering to preserve the universe, as well as his MO, which is extremely utilatarian to the point of horrifying amorality, and at one point, he even compares humans to farm animals.
- Emily Kaldwin's supernatural abilities in Dishonored 2, in contrast with Corvo's, are focused on crowd control. She's not as mobile or stealthy as he is, and lacks the ability to deal direct damage with magic. Instead, she can put people out of comission using Mind Rape, and take out multiple targets at once by binding their fates, so that whatever happens to one target happens to the rest of them. It also allows her to decieve her targets and to fake her death by summoning doppelgangers.
- As befitting his title as Chief Justice of Fontaine, Neuvillette from Genshin Impact is both a fair and logical enforcer of his country's laws, while remaining an explicitly heroic example who uses his position for the best interest of his nation.
- In the Doctor Who sets, more incarnations of the Doctor are Blue/White (One, Two, Five, Seven, Eight, and Eleven) than other combinations. Blue fits the Doctor's cleverness and intellect, White fits their sometimes overly-inflexible codes of morals and ethics. While the Doctor is mostly heroic, they can be Too Clever by Half or fail to adapt the flexibility a problem might require. And when people less inflexible than the Doctor solve a problem in a way they don't like, the Doctor can turn on a dime and unleash wrath upon them ("The Christmas Invasion" being just one example).
Blue/Black - "Dimir"
BLUE and BLACK - Dimir (article here):
Blue and Black get along well, because both are The Unfettered. Both consider themselves Above Good and Evil; Blue sees everything in the world as fair game for use in experiments For Science!, and Black sees everything in the world as fair game to use for their own betterment because It's All About Me. Blue and Black share the ability to gain card advantage, but Blue usually expresses this as general knowledge gain, where Black has targeted spells that get you just what you need (or, more accurately, just what you want). Black is also willing to self-cannibalize to get ahead, which Blue isn't into, wanting measured progress where Black wants more power at any cost.
Blue/Black can be... dangerous. It tends not to just give you knowledge, like Blue, or attack another’s mind, like Black. It lets you see what others are planning and time an attack to mess them up right when it would hurt the most, such as a spy stealing an enemy’s plans and leaving disinformation or a spell tearing apart another’s mind and feeding you the choice memories. It’s the color combination of espionage, secrecy, domination, deception: rationality combined with self-interest. Yet at the same time, it is the pairing for the insatiably curious, the knowledge-seekers and collectors. These aren’t people who do so for its own sake — that’s Blue — or for some insidious long-term goal — that’s Black — but because they get satisfaction out of knowing and having things, no matter how trivial. Blue/Black, in other words, might well be the color of fandom.
On the plus side, Blue and Black are the colors that most value the concept of free will, as their shared enemy, Green, is all about predestination. Blue/Black can be a sociopath of the highest calibre, but also the voice of reason against conservatism or fatalism.
Interestingly, blue and black are also the colors most associated with introspection and with it, self-doubt. Blue-black is the most likely color combination to second-guess itself and tends to be acutely aware of its own limitations.
): Blue and Black get along well, because both are The Unfettered. Both consider themselves Above Good and Evil; Blue sees everything in the world as fair game for use in experiments For Science!, and Black sees everything in the world as fair game to use for their own betterment because It's All About Me. Blue and Black share the ability to gain card advantage, but Blue usually expresses this as general knowledge gain, where Black has targeted spells that get you just what you need (or, more accurately, just what you want). Black is also willing to self-cannibalize to get ahead, which Blue isn't into, wanting measured progress where Black wants more power at any cost.
Blue/Black can be... dangerous. It tends not to just give you knowledge, like Blue, or attack another’s mind, like Black. It lets you see what others are planning and time an attack to mess them up right when it would hurt the most, such as a spy stealing an enemy’s plans and leaving disinformation or a spell tearing apart another’s mind and feeding you the choice memories. It’s the color combination of espionage, secrecy, domination, deception: rationality combined with self-interest. Yet at the same time, it is the pairing for the insatiably curious, the knowledge-seekers and collectors. These aren’t people who do so for its own sake — that’s Blue — or for some insidious long-term goal — that’s Black — but because they get satisfaction out of knowing and having things, no matter how trivial. Blue/Black, in other words, might well be the color of fandom.
On the plus side, Blue and Black are the colors that most value the concept of free will
, as their shared enemy, Green, is all about predestination. Blue/Black can be a sociopath of the highest calibre, but also the voice of reason against conservatism or fatalism. Interestingly, blue and black are also the colors most associated with introspection and with it, self-doubt. Blue-black is the most likely color combination to second-guess itself and tends to be acutely aware of its own limitations.
Canon Examples:
- The — Dimir, did you call them? — do not exist. There is no “secret tenth guild” in Ravnica. Certainly not one whose entire, Guildpact-enforced magically-compelled purpose is to bring down the Guildpact itself. No sir. Would you take a look at this, please? *FLASHYTHING*
- With the defeat of Szadek, the Dimir were all but destroyed, but in time reformed, this time as a more general spy/information broker faction, with their public face as couriers, reporters, detectives, librarians, and other knowledge-hoarders. In Gatecrash, they have spells with the "Cipher" ability that can either be cast normally or "encoded" on creatures and activated every time said creatures sneak past their opponents' defenses. In Guilds of Ravnica, they get the "Surveil" ability, which allows players to look at a certain number of cards on top of their library and choose which ones to leave there and in what order, and which ones to put into their graveyard. Also in Guilds and subsequent sets, they've come around compeltely to being, if not heroic, then at least on the heroes' side: they know better than most that something is wrong on Ravnica, and they are determined to find out what and stop it to save their home (and, it must be said, their power and influence).
- With the defeat of Szadek
- Innistrad expands zombies from Black, the traditional color of undeath, to Blue; the Blue zombies are the Frankenstein's-monster-type skaab, and they tend to be stronger at the cost of discarding cards or requiring certain cards in the graveyard. Black has the more standard Zombie Apocalypse cards, which tend to be slower and smaller but inexorable. Where Blue can pull out an individual 6/9 zombie, Black can get a number of 2/2s.
- Kamigawa's Ninjas tend to be of this color combination (Human ninjas are often Blue, while Nezumi ninjas are often Black) especially with their Ninjutsu mechanic. The amount of trickery they are capable of is dependent on their ability to attack without getting blocked...sometimes a ninja will allow you to Discard and Draw, other times, they'll assassinate a target for you.
- Most Rogues in Zendikar will be either Black or Blue, but they will unsurprisingly have a penchant for Mind Rape from both colors.
- Theros's resident god of deception and lies, Phenax puts his own schemes and desires above anything else. He had a hand in the destruction of a small city and the death of all its inhabitants and has been shown to enjoy the strange cruelties that can be inflicted on mortals. He's also the patron of The Returned, a race of undead who managed to claw their way out of the underworld, but lost their identities in the process. He is in part symbolic of Blue/Black's ability to give fate a middle finger, as opposed to the fatalistic Erebos.
- Silumgar and his brood from Tarkir. Arrogant and self-centered, they formerly laid raids and stole treasures from the Sultai clan (not very nice themselves), but revealed further malevolence by going back on their words and utterly enslaving the Sultai. After 1,280 years in which Silumgar has ruled, he pragmatically rewards power and sheer ambition (as long as it poses no threat to him), making his Clan the only where non-dragons might rule over dragons.
- The Agents of S.N.E.A.K., from the joke setting Bablovia, are an Overt Operative network that spend most of their time spying on each other, trying to gain power through knowledge in typical Blue/Black fashion. Most members are primarily concerned, in very Blue fashion, with getting information (like what S.N.E.A.K.'s agenda is and whether it's really just a massive practical joke by another faction) and spy gizmos to help them get that information. The leader of the organization is whoever currently holds the ceremonial Golden Ruler, reflecting Black's respect for whoever has the skill to steal and keep it.
Fanon Examples:
- Severus Snape is a sympathetic example: he is what you get when you add Blue methods to a Byronic Hero. He is ultimately only out for himself, and for the legacy of his lost love Lily, and uses deception and double-agent tactics to carry this out. Fortunately, this pits him against Voldemort, on the side of Dumbledore and Harry Potter, and his Blue deception means Voldemort does not realize this until it is too late.
- The Master Control Program from TRON is an example of a Blue/Black villain. It seeks to appropriate programs, which satisfies the blue goal of becoming smarter and the black goal of becoming stronger, and it works in secret to infiltrate major orgnizations such as the Pentagon.
- Daria is an example of a Blue/Black protagonist. She is both emotionally detached and extremely cynical and self-centered, but she is still sympathetic and non-malicious.
- Mark Rosewater has listed Lex Luthor, The Borg (though he has gone back on this, now considering them Green/Blue or White; see below for details), Rita Skeeter, and Stewie Griffin as examples of Blue/Black characters.
- Mark Rosewater also considers the titular Sherlock to be Black/Blue.
- Hermaeus Mora from The Elder Scrolls series desires knowledge above all else. His Daedric Realm, Apocrypha, contains the unknown and unknowable, and he is always seeking to expand his collection. Not because he actually wants to use it, but simply because he gains satisfaction from having the knowledge in his possession. He can be very ruthless about it, too.
- The DC Animated Universe incarnation of Brainiac. An emotionless artificial intelligence who has decided that its purpose is the collection and preservation of all knowledge... and destroying the worlds from which he gathers said knowledge just to make it more valuable. Interestingly enough, he merges with Lex Luthor, a rather different variation of the same color combination.
- You’d be hard-pressed to find a better example of a Blue/Black character, villain or hero or... otherwise, than David Xanatos. A technocrat, always calm and in control, with seemingly endless resources (and contingency plans), he can manipulate people into doing what he wants even though they know they're doing what he wants by making it so it's what they want, too.
- An archetypal example is Hikawa, from Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne. Contrary to his green/white/blue Reason, he himself has absolutely no problem with wholesale slaughter, calculated psychological abuse, and even having the ambition in the first place to achieve his ends. He even seems self-aware to a point of the hypocrisy inherent in his methods, seeing himself as more of a necessary servant to prepare the way to the ideal world.
- Sōsuke Aizen is perhaps a quintessential Dimir character. A patient, deliberate manipulator, he uses his scientific genius to test the limits of what's possible and create new, useful tools that can be used to reach his ambitions. And his ambitions? In his own words, "My only purpose has always been to crush all who seek to control me." He seeks to surpass all those above him, all those who could control him, from the Soul King to Yhwach, to reach the peak of power and influence at the top of the world, no matter what it takes. His Zanpakutō is also Blue, creating perfect illusions that allow him to easily control others, and he approaches combat in a very Blue way, preparing for every outcome, going as far as to create an Arrancar with the power to seal Yamamoto's Zanpakutō, as Aizen knew his power surpassed his own.
- Batman is another Black/Blue character (Blue Methods with a Black goal).Linkara: I see Batman as a figure, ultimately, about how one can rise above tragedy to do good in the world and improve yourself. He is brusque, yes, but not heartless. Aggressive, but not unethical. He drives himself to the extremes he does, sacrifices himself and his happiness at times for one goal — so that no other eight-year-old child will ever have to go through what he did. Sometimes he goes too far and sometimes he makes mistakes, but that's because he's not a god, nor should he be. He is human. If Superman represents the hope and compassion humanity is capable of, Batman represents the determination and intellect we are also capable of. Superman's worst foe is Lex Luthor, a wealthy genius who uses his power for evil, but Superman's best friend is Batman, a wealthy genius who uses his power for good.
- Yes, he uses his powers for good. But as mentioned above, a character can do good and still be Black. What makes him Black is that he is ultimately self-motivated. Unlike Superman, who was taught to believe in "Truth, Justice and the American Way", Batman is motivated by a personal tragedy.
- Speaking of Blue/Black heroes, Kyoko Kirigiri is a good example of a heroic Blue/Black character. Her desire to be the Ultimate Detective is almost entirely motivated out of a desire to improve herself, as well as atone for her own failures (something that she takes to heart very personally). She also shares Black's tendency to put her life at serious risk if it means furthering a hunch or advantage she has, and part of this is further motivated by her own self, as she's afraid of having the ones she cares for personally be hurt by her own failures — especially the ones that left a mark on her, which is why she wears gloves. She tops it off by combining her self-motivated tendencies with Blue's natural intellect, stoicism and analytical abilities, as well as her ability to always think ahead.
- Shiang Sun (codename: Chalk Eater) and Shiori Koden (codename: Shionyan) from Shin Megami Tensei Liberation: Dx2 are protagonist examples: Chalk Eater is a computer nerd who completely loves horror movies, while Shionyan is a business-savvy Insufferable Genius (while she is mostly a Nominal Hero, she is still disgusted by the villains'... well, "villainess". Which makes sense since the Big Bad is Green-aligned). It's also worth noting that, while Shionyan is just as arrogant and selfish as you can expect for someone of this color alignment, Chalk Eater is a genuine Nice Guy as he is always willing to help his friends and knows to separate killing/torturing in fiction from killing/torturing in real life. While his Limit Break quests reveal he does have a "dark side" that makes him question if he is evil himself, his friends were quick to point out that he was a Well-Intentioned Extremist or Anti-Villain at worst. Also, he enjoys surfing and his main demon is even a manta ray (Blue), while his skills are focused on exploiting the weaknesses of opponents (Black).
- What makes Chalk Eater so dedicated to help his friends without having "good" colors in his identity is because he was constantly ignored by his parents as he was growing up, as they would prefer to spend their time on the Internet instead of raising their own kid, making him feeling very lonely. When he met the other heroes, his dream of company was finally fulfilled.
- The Illuminati from The Secret World are definitely Dimir. They also have a bit of Red in them (they are Sex, Drugs, and Rock & Roll and The Hedonist incarnate), but this isn't nearly as central to their identity. The core prospect of the Illuminati is run in an almost corporatocratic fashion, the fundamentals of their organization being rooted in the pursuit of power, and their organization being rife with selfishness, backstabbing and plotting (very Black). They are also extremely paranoid and secretive, keeping any and all information to themselves and seeking to manipulate things behind the scenes then get their hands dirty, with regular use of information broking, treason, blackmail and deception (very Blue). The two colors combined, they represent Black's Social Darwinist traits with the vicious secret-keeping and rigorous planning of Blue, making the most "evil" (to be loose) of the three conspiracies.
- Salarians from the Mass Effect universe can be considered a rare heroic example. Their entire society is based around two things: science (Blue) and espionage (Black) — their preferred battle strategy is to quickly and covertly remove the threat (which is something Dimir usually does as well), use small, but well-trained teams instead of huge armies (again, playing Blue "precision and skill over raw power"), and they have a penchant for being the most informed folks around, no matter the situation. On the other hand, they don't seem to be concerned about morality that much, as shown by the fact that they created the Genophage to "cull" the Krogans (which was — essentially — using Blue means to achieve a Black goal).
- Nico Robin is initially presented as a very morally ambiguous Blue/Black character, both in methods (archaeology, translation, skullduggery, neck-snapping, self-sacrifice) and motivation, being an alleged infamous betrayer of many criminal organizations, dedicated only to her quest for knowledge of the true history of the Void Century, but by the climax of the Enies Lobby arc she clearly represents a very positive example of the color combination. Black’s dedication to the self is at its’ finest in her stunning affirmation that she wants to live with the Straw Hats in spite of the entire world saying her existence is a crime, and her resolve in upholding the scholarly legacy of Ohara and solving the mysteries of the Poneglyphs is very Blue.
- In the Doctor Who set, two versions of The Master ("Formed Anew" and "Mesmerist") are Blue/Black. Blue represents how the Master is frequently the Doctor's intellectual equal, Black representing the Master's utter selfishness.
Black/Red - "Rakdos"
BLACK and RED - Rakdos (article here)
Black and Red get along because neither is afraid to say "It's All About Me," and both love the freedom to do whatever the heck they want. Having said that, they fall on opposite sides of the Emotions vs. Stoicism spectrum, in that Red is Hot-Blooded whereas Black prefers The Plan. It's like the difference between The Spock and The McCoy: both have cards which let you make sacrifices to get ahead, but Red ditches short-term resources (creatures, land) for immediate results, whereas Black sacrifices long-term resources (Hit Points, cards in hand, cards in library) for long-term gain. For Red, crippling yourself is a Desperation Attack; for Black, it's just the beginning. They also share creatures that are powerful, but come with a drawback, with Black's tending to be bigger and taking correspondingly larger chunks out of their owner's side, while Red’s tend to be extraordinarily cheap and fast for their size but don't last long.
Black/Red spells tend to be destructive (including self-destructive), discordant, and entropic. There is no Black/Red spell that is intended for defense, not counting the ability of creatures to block (though a fair number of Black/Red creatures, a higher percentage than the game’s average, actually can't). Black and Red combined are the color of the most dangerous madness, the most reckless attacks, the most devastating natural and unnatural forces, the most negative of emotions, and the most sadistic of tortures. That being said, black and red together is also the color of people who take the greatest joy in the pleasures of life and have the most aggressively protective and loyal attitude towards friends — they would sooner let the world burn than let a loved one die.
) Black and Red get along because neither is afraid to say "It's All About Me," and both love the freedom to do whatever the heck they want. Having said that, they fall on opposite sides of the Emotions vs. Stoicism spectrum, in that Red is Hot-Blooded whereas Black prefers The Plan. It's like the difference between The Spock and The McCoy: both have cards which let you make sacrifices to get ahead, but Red ditches short-term resources (creatures, land) for immediate results, whereas Black sacrifices long-term resources (Hit Points, cards in hand, cards in library) for long-term gain. For Red, crippling yourself is a Desperation Attack; for Black, it's just the beginning. They also share creatures that are powerful, but come with a drawback, with Black's tending to be bigger and taking correspondingly larger chunks out of their owner's side, while Red’s tend to be extraordinarily cheap and fast for their size but don't last long.
Black/Red spells tend to be destructive (including self-destructive), discordant, and entropic. There is no Black/Red spell that is intended for defense, not counting the ability of creatures to block (though a fair number of Black/Red creatures, a higher percentage than the game’s average, actually can't). Black and Red combined are the color of the most dangerous madness, the most reckless attacks, the most devastating natural and unnatural forces, the most negative of emotions, and the most sadistic of tortures. That being said, black and red together is also the color of people who take the greatest joy in the pleasures of life and have the most aggressively protective and loyal attitude towards friends — they would sooner let the world burn than let a loved one die.
Canon Examples:
- The Cult of Rakdos in Ravnica is violent, brutal, hedonistic, and fatalistic. They’re here for a good time, not a long time. The rubble left behind by their revels nearly covers the bodies left behind. Rakdos himself is a monstrously powerful demon that hurts when you summon him—and hurts your opponents more when he attacks. Rakdos and his guild are still kicking as of Return to Ravnica, and their new mechanic, Unleashed, allows you to place a free +1/+1 counter on a creature when you summon it...but those creatures with +1/+1 counters on them can't block. Oh, and they run a carnival now. They become so good at it that by Ravnica Allegiance, they have developed a new mechanic called "Spectacle", where cards can be cast for less if they've already drawn a little blood this turn, because the crowd just eats that stuff up.
- Innistrad's vampires are Black and Red. Generally, the Black ones gain you life and are harder to block (or just do direct damage), while the Red ones get stronger as they feed. These Vampires however, tend to be associated with Olivia Voldaren.
- The Boggarts from Lorwyn are a good version. They're sensation junkies, sharing experiences with fellow boggarts. All experiences (they don't have self-preservation instincts and believe in reincarnation, so...). All evil boggarts are ostracized, and they usually don't tend to be anything worse than pranksters anyways.
- Sarkhan Vol falls into madness thanks to Nicol Bolas' influence and his time trapped in the Eye of Ugin. Casting aside his Green affiliation in favor of Black mana, his new abilities reflect his new reckless and self-destructive streak. He is notably the only planeswalker card with no way to increase his loyalty (and the one ability that has no loyalty cost damages him anyway), meaning sooner or later, he will destroy himself.
- Mogis, God of Slaughter embodies the darker aspects of war in contrast to Iroas's high minded views of honorable combat; Mogis and his followers don't give a crap about fair fighting or greater glory. They care only for the wrath and pain they inflict upon the world and the greater destruction they can spread in their pursuit. When the crisis of Theros caused an upheaval among his Minotaurs, he sent waves of his mortal and Nyxborn (followers in the Theros equivalent of Olympus) to wage a campaign of slaughter against the cities of Theros. The whole war and his defeat were orchestrated by Xenagos, who used the victory celebrations following Mogis's defeat to complete his apotheosis and launch himself into Nyx, starting a war between the Gods and the mortal world.
- Kolaghan and her brood are an example of a semi-benevolent group associated with this colour combination. On the one hand, they cause death and destruction wherever they go, not really caring about the damage they make or the lives they end. After 1,280 years in the new timeline, the Clan that fell under her dominion degenerated into a horde of bloodthirsty cannibals that wage war and crush civilizations just to stave off the wrath of their dragonlord. Kolaghan values freedom the most, included freedom from law, civilization and honor, with her Clan emulating her out of fear of her wrath. On the other, unlike the other dragon clans, they initially didn't have any interest in enslaving the Mardu, and instead willingly allowed them to join forces with them, provided they keep up with their speed.
- The League of Dastardly Doom from the joke setting Bablovia is, as the name suggests, a supervillain organization combining Black's selfish power-mongering with Red's maniacal passion and the colors' shared destructiveness. Black's hunger for dominance shows in their desire to Take Over the World, while Red's propensity for chaos shows in their inability to get any two of their members to agree on how to go about it.
Fanon Examples:
- Bayonetta is a heroic example. She is quite self-focused and playful, and overall not very interested in outright heroics (not to mention hinting strongly at the hedonism inherent to this colour-mixture), but only sadistic and malicious to the angels (who are White villains, fittingly enough), avoiding most people except her two or three friends.
- Spike from My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic could count as this. He's naturally prone to greed thanks to his draconic nature, and giving in to it turns him into a powerful out-of-control monster, and he sometimes comes across as a little brat (he is still a child, after all). He can also be pretty selfish, too, willing to shirk his responsibilities in favor of doing what he wants. Spike is also very devoted to his friends, especially his foster sister/mother figure Twilight, to the point that he gets very jealous and insecure when his position as her "Number One assistant" is threatened, and his crush Rarity, to the point that being reminded of a gift he gave her snaps him out of his aforementioned Superpowered Evil Side.
- Pinkie Pie as well. Like the Lorwyn Boggarts, she's a playful, fundamentally hedonistic person that represents the best of this combination. Her one nervous breakdown implies that she sees friendship as a form of self-worth, but she does genuinely care for her friends.
- Tempest Shadow is a villainous version. After a childhood accident cost Tempest her horn, her magic became very chaotic, which drove away her friends, which caused her to grow into a bitter and lonely bounty hunter turned military commander employed by the Storm King. She is quite temperamental and aggressive (Red), and also believes that everyone is solely motivated by themselves, so she may as well be "with the mighty" (Black). The color combo is also reflected in her preferred weapon, the Obsidian Orbs, Magitek grenades that turn others into stone and can penetrate any magical defense, showcasing the color pair's unnatural brutality and disregard for the enemy's defenses. After a Heel–Face Turn thanks to receiving a little bit of kindness and mercy from the heroes, she begins to display some of the color pair's positive aspects. This includes Red's loyalty for her new friends, and while she still has Black's cynicism and individualism, it is used in a beneficial way to find her place in the world while defending Equestria whenever military strength is needed.
- Mark Rosewater also considers Donald Duck to be this. He is consistently selfish and VERY prone to exploding in rage. Likewise, he is depicted as the member of the Disney trio least interested in outright heroism and prone to jealousy, but not consistently malicious unless pissed off. Then there's his pyromaniac episode...
- Ebony/Enoby Dark'ness Dementia Raven Way is Black/Red all over. She was probably meant to be the independent, heroic version of the colour, but her utter selfishness and stupidity makes her a terror.
- Marceline from Adventure Time is another non-evil example. Amoral? Check. Artistic? Check. Individualistic? Check. Seflish yet very emotionally attached to her friends? Check. A vampire and a half-demon? Check.
- Jane from Daria. While her friend turned her cynicism into detachment from the human experience, Jane's is a means to question society and grow as an artist.
- Other black-red coloured examples which have been listed by Mark Rosewater include The Joker, Elaine Benes, Spike (initially listed as white-black), and Anakin Skywalker.
- At their core, all Sith Lords are this, or become this after embracing the Dark Side for too long. Appropriately enough, most Sith favor dark clothing and wield red lightsabers.
- A possessive Yandere fits this, focusing on the love he or she feels for the person (red's emotional emphasis) with zero regard for how anyone else feels (black's selfishness).
- Luffy of One Piece may be the best example of a heroic Red-Black character. He lives for freedom, adventure, and fun. He freely admits that he's selfish since he's the kind of guy who would rather eat meat than share it with others. He's also willing to declare war on the entire world for the sake of a friend.
- Rocky Rickaby of Lackadaisy fame. His primary motivation in the comic is proving himself useful to Mitzi. Rocky displays passion and flair, is prone to random bouts of poetry, and has a tendency to laugh maniacally when setting fire to distilleries belonging to roughneck pig farmers. He also harbors some decidedly unsubtle misgivings towards Sedgewick Sable, Mitzi's boyfriend, for the threat his wealth and prestige poses to Rocky's chances of proving himself, at least in Rocky's mind.
- Is there a better example out there than Bowser, the Koopa King? He lives in a dark, lava-filled badland, constantly plots to take over the Mushroom Kingdom and possibly beyond, has a temper as fiery as his breath, and a major crush on Princess Peach (which is implied to be a major reason why he bothers to kidnap her in the first place). Even his iconography suggests a strong black/red theme, the best example perhaps being the Bowser spaces in the Mario Party series.
- Ganondorf is almost as good an example as Bowser. He desires to rule Hyrule and seeks the Triforce with all the ruthless ambition and greed of a black villain while mixing in the temperament and aggression of red. His skillset reflects this as well; his primary weapons are fire and lightning with the odd bit of darkness.
- As indicated by his usual color scheme, Sol Badguy is another anti-heroic example. His connection to flame, generally-bristly attitude, love for music, and laziness speak of red. Meanwhile, every good thing he does isn't motivated by a desire to make the world better, but rather because it involves a personal connection or otherwise affects his own goals, and even when it does, he generally doesn't do it cheerfully. Much like Sorin Markov (selfish and morose, but also responsible and dedicated), this marks him as black.
- Interestingly, Sol hates and opposes another example of red/black, I-No. Sadistic, selfish, and contemptuous of all others, she delights in seeing others in pain and relishes having others at her mercy. She puts up a hedonistic and personable facade to mask her true personality, but easily switches from flirtatious taunts to enraged threats if challenged for too long. Her only reason for aiding That Man is that she thought his plan was interesting, and he often has to rein in her violent and cruel excess.
- Bakugo is driven by two things — his ambition to be the best hero in the world and his anger at Midoriya. Saving people is secondary to his own personal profit. Bakugo also has a Hair-Trigger Temper befitting characters of this alignment.
- Ririn Ueda (code name: Eileen) and Taro Fuse (code name: Megakin) from Shin Megami Tensei Liberation: Dx2 are heroic examples: Eileen is an ambitious Chivalrous Pervert who's always looking for ways to make some cash, not just for herself but to help her family too. She is also very open about her homosexuality (bordering Flanderization), which is a very Black/Red thing (Black's defiance of taboos and Red's dealing with sexuality in general). Megakin is a youtuber (or "megatuber") who loves both entertaining people and the attention he receives from them. Just like Shyonian (see Blue/Black above), he is very pissed off by the Green ideals of the Big Bad. Oh, he's also the leader of the heroes!
- Pick a Stock Shōnen Hero, any Stock Shōnen Hero. Chances are, they will be Hot-Blooded, love to fight (Red), and fiercely determined to be "the very best, like no-one ever was" (Black).
- Cinder Fall's only interest is being free to go where she pleases and do as she pleases, and she believes the best way to do so is to amass so much power that no one can ever stop her. Unlike the other villains she works with, Cinder has no stake whatsoever in the war between humanity and the Creatures O Grimm, or in her mistress Salem's vendetta against Ozpin; she just sees working for Salem as the most expedient path to gaining power, and from there to her idea of "freedom." The fact that she was Made a Slave as a child probably has something to do with that...
- Elizabeth Harmon is an ex - Child Prodigy who specializes at chess. She rationalizes her passion by describing the games as predictable events where she can seize control over every factor and doesn't have to trust anyone but herself with the task of winning the game. Her desire for control becomes one of her strongest qualities throughout the series. When she fails to take control, her "red" manifests as temper tantrums and hedonism.
- Mark Rosewater has also given Stripe as an example. While most of the gremlins are mono-red, being short, green, dim-witted and highly destructive creatures who like causing mayhem and destruction not unlike the canon goblins, Stripe, the leader, repeatedly demonstrated a level of cunning and ingenuity which Black is known for, such as trying up Billy's dog and cutting the clock's power cable to trick him into feeding him after midnight as a mogwai, jumping into a pool to spawn hundreds of gremlin minions, using weapons such as guns and chainsaws, and managing to keep the horde under his control, while also taking a sadistic thrill in torturing and killing his victims and laying waste to the town in a way similar to the Cult of Rakdos itself.
- Spamton from Deltarune favors Black's means of opportunity and Red's motives of freedom and authenticity. Recently to an even greater extent than his former friends, he tries to fork out false promises of being a "[[BIG SHOT]]" in order to gain "KROMER". However, his true desire is not for money or similar personal gain, but the chance to call his own shots in life and fulfill his passion for being a salesman.
- Aspects of this color pair are essential to getting the Golden Ending of OMORI. In order to break from a passive cycle that Omori was created to orchestrate (see Bant below), Sunny must accept that he played a part in his older sister's death, the resulting separation of his close-knit friend group, and him having to move out of town (Black does not take kindly to sugarcoating). At the same time, Sunny must promise to hold all his memories dear and accept his grief to truly live (emotion and freedom are Red).
- Two versions of the Master are Black/Red (The Master, Gallifrey's End and The Master, Multiplied). These are two of the more unhinged incarnations of the Master, focused more on their rage than their intellect. It is perhaps noteworthy that both of these incarnations effectively rebuilt an entire race in their own image: Multipled once turned almost every human on Earth into a version of himself, and Gallifrey's End upgraded Cybermen with Time Lord DNA, creating "Cybermasters" who could regenerate when killed.
Red/Green - "Gruul"
RED and GREEN - Gruul (article here)
Both Red and Green embody the idea of "Don't Think, Feel", and as such they get along quite well. Both colors are Hot-Blooded in different ways and share the highest damage potentials in the game: Green through its Bad Ass Army, and Red by Playing with Fire. Both win by hitting the opponent hard and fast, green with creatures, red with spells. Both (ever since the color pie shifted) are good at getting extra mana in play, though Red's tends to be one-shot on-the-spot abilities whereas Green gets renewable, long-term resources. They also complement each other’s weaknesses well: outside of its dragons, Red has little in the way of air defense, while Green’s air defense is some of the strongest in the game. Red has a burn spell for every occasion, whereas Green has trouble dealing with anything it can't simply stomp flat. Of course, Red runs off of unbridled passion and emotion where Green takes a bit of time to listen before acting on instinct. Finally, Green (though it prefers to remain True Neutral and maintain the balance) does have an outright altruistic streak represented by life-gaining, which Red just doesn't get: if you need to heal, you just let your body take care of it after you've hacked off all your enemy's limbs — that's what lulls between battles are for. This is perhaps best exemplified by their Status Buffs; Green has the classic "Giant Growth," which gives its target three extra combat power and three more Hit Points; Red's equivalent spells tend to only increase combat power, or increase HP but only by 1. Indeed, in Magic 2020, they receive their own version of Giant Growth, Infuriate, which for the same cost as Giant Growth gives three power... and two HP.
Green/Red working together is raw power and wildness. Law and civilization tend to fall by the wayside. Even the most destructive force of nature can be made stronger by adding Green to Red, or more chaotic by adding Red to Green. But hey, everyone knows sometimes you've just got to shut up, stop thinking, and act.
) Both Red and Green embody the idea of "Don't Think, Feel", and as such they get along quite well. Both colors are Hot-Blooded in different ways and share the highest damage potentials in the game: Green through its Bad Ass Army, and Red by Playing with Fire. Both win by hitting the opponent hard and fast, green with creatures, red with spells. Both (ever since the color pie shifted) are good at getting extra mana in play, though Red's tends to be one-shot on-the-spot abilities whereas Green gets renewable, long-term resources. They also complement each other’s weaknesses well: outside of its dragons, Red has little in the way of air defense, while Green’s air defense is some of the strongest in the game. Red has a burn spell for every occasion, whereas Green has trouble dealing with anything it can't simply stomp flat. Of course, Red runs off of unbridled passion and emotion where Green takes a bit of time to listen before acting on instinct. Finally, Green (though it prefers to remain True Neutral and maintain the balance) does have an outright altruistic streak represented by life-gaining, which Red just doesn't get: if you need to heal, you just let your body take care of it after you've hacked off all your enemy's limbs — that's what lulls between battles are for. This is perhaps best exemplified by their Status Buffs; Green has the classic "Giant Growth," which gives its target three extra combat power and three more Hit Points; Red's equivalent spells tend to only increase combat power, or increase HP but only by 1. Indeed, in Magic 2020, they receive their own version of Giant Growth, Infuriate, which for the same cost as Giant Growth gives three power... and two HP.
Green/Red working together is raw power and wildness. Law and civilization tend to fall by the wayside. Even the most destructive force of nature can be made stronger by adding Green to Red, or more chaotic by adding Red to Green. But hey, everyone knows sometimes you've just got to shut up, stop thinking, and act.
Canon Examples:
- The Gruul tribes are a loose collection of clans of iconoclasts and outcasts, raging against the total urban development of the plane of Ravnica, living in abandoned slums and trying to tear them down to wilderness. Their leader, the great cyclops Borborygmos, is not really in charge of the clans as a whole but is instead the leader of the Burning Tree, the strongest clan, granting him a position of great respect even among his lot. The chaos following the dissolution of the Guildpact has advanced the Gruul's desires, allowing them to actually return some areas to true wilderness. Not all is well for Borborygmos, though, as he is getting on in years, and while he can still take on all challengers to his position, the victories get narrower every time. In "Gatecrash", they gain the Bloodrush ability, which allows creatures to be discarded from the hand to provide another creature with a temporary boost that essentially "adds" the discarded creature's abilities and powers to the target. As of Ravnica Allegiance, the planeswalker Domri Rade has unseated Borborygmos, though he's still alive, and begun actively tearing at the structure of Ravnica society, as represented by their new ability, "Riot", giving creatures with the ability either the ability to attack on their first turn or a permanent boost to power and toughness.
- Radha, Heir to Keld, one of the main characters in the Time Spiral block, represented hope for a new beginning. In a World… ravaged by so many near-apocalypses, the inhabitants starving for any mana they could use, Radha stood out as an inexhaustible fount of mana, an oasis in Dominaria's wastelands. Playing to red's emotions and green's growth, she was a hot-tempered and belligerent person until a study with Multani and the time rift crisis in general smoothed out some of her pricklier thoughts, giving her some of green's wisdom and letting some of red's emphasis on friendship and empathy come to the fore.
- Innistrad's werewolves are Red/Green. Although both colors have similar effects, the Red werewolves are almost exclusively humans from the city, while many of the Green ones are pagans, hunters, and people closer to nature.
- Sarkhan Vol idolized the raw untamed power of nature, and he worshipped dragons because he saw them as the embodiment of that power. All that changed when he met Nicol Bolas.
- In contrast with the brutish werewolves and Gruul, Theros satyrs are playful hedonists, living life to the fullest. The populace sees them as wondrous spirits of much delight and joy, but in true Fair Folk-fashion, they are actually rather monstrous people who lure poor humans into their hedonist cults and enslave and humiliate them (at best), and engage in violent and rapist revelries.
- Xenagos, a satyr planeswalker, used to be like that, but after ascending (probably on one of such bacchic rituals), he realized how utterly insignificant he was in the great scheme of things, so he returns to Theros, and attempts at godhood to prove his worth.
- Atarka and her brood from Tarkir are yet another example of the primal savagery associated with this color combination, not interested in anything other than eating. This proves to be an asset, as Yasova manages to please Atarka by bringing her food. After 1,280 years, the Clan became personal waiters for their Dragonlord, risking becoming food themselves if they are too weak to provide; on the other hand, it is the only Clan of Tarkir where strong humanoids are free to kill and eat weak dragons, even if they are Atarka's own brood.
- Red/Green seems like a color combination ill-suited to the Mad Scientist theme of the joke setting Bablovia, but the Goblin Explosioneers make it work. They aren't interested in learning or winning or making the world a better place. They don't even have a government in any real sense, despite Bablovia's factions nominally being different governments. They just do what feels right, and what feels right is making things that go boom.
Fanon Examples:
- Mark Rosewater considers the Hulk, Animal, Tinkerbell, and Cosmo Kramer to be prime examples of red-green characters.
- The character of Stephen Colbert embodies the intersection of Red and Green through his philosophy of "Truthiness". The concept embraces Red's emphasis on emotion and Green's emphasis on instinct to believe what "feels" right as opposed to the Blue way of study and evidence.
- As pointed out by Mark Rosewater, the Cookie Monster is a good example of a Red and Green character, being driven entirely by his desires and instincts (in this case, eating cookies).
- Taokaka is about as red-green as they come. Preoccupied with her immediate impulses (usually hunger), she's hardly a mental giant, but has an instinctive grasp of ars magus and battle tactics that lets her keep up with the rest of the cast. She even acts like an animal (she's a cat beastkin).
- A smarter example of the same is Makoto Nanaya. Outdoorsy, devoted to her friends, and seemingly too enthusiastic for book learning, she's still a capable member of the NOL's Intelligence Unit and a spy for Sector Seven and has shown herself to be an ungodly-strong physical powerhouse on top of that. Most importantly, her unpredictability and compassion have made her a prime threat to Terumi's plans.
- From BlazBlue's spiritual ancestor, Guilty Gear, there's Ky's son, Sin Kiske. Dumb as a bag of hammers and about as subtle, he tends to blunder through things in his own style, not even taking note of the shape of whatever hole he's decided to force a peg into. That being said, he's enthusiastically friendly and keenly empathetic in a way that ends up attracting an unlikely but honest ally (Ramlethal Valentine) to his father's side in Xrd.
- San from Princess Mononoke is a good example of a Gruul character. Although human, she fights for her adoptive family of Green-aligned wolf spirits against the humans led by the White Lady Eboshi (in fact, as explored here, the movie itself is a nice example of a conflict between Green and White, acceptance of nature clashing with the wish of a group for safety). She is extremely passionate, fueled by her rage at both the destruction of the forest and her abandonment by her original human parents. And that's not even getting into her conflicted feelings for Ashitaka.
- Both the Brujah and the Gangrel can play this trope, depending on how you look at them. The Brujah are more geared toward red with their rebellious nature and wish to overthrow the status quo, while the Gangrel take a more green stance, in connection to their "primal" nature. Also, both Clans' weaknesses are connected to the Beast (which itself is pretty much a combination of Red and Green).
- Fenrir Greyback, true to his universe's worst stereotypes of werewolves, fully embraces his bloodlust and wrath (Red), and returns the begrudgement of the Death Eaters he works for due to seeing humanity's civility and rationality as below him (Green). He fits the most unthinking color duo due to his behavior and goals being more animalistic than any other character in his home series, not to mention him favoring raw strength over the wit, versatility, and finesse of most magic users.
- Hilda is arguably one of the most Green-Red protagonists of all time. Constantly constrained by the city and living for the great outdoors, she also lives in harmony with the many creatures she comes across and even tries giving the city a shot (there are a few canon examples of Green characters taking this stance). She's also very impulsive and retaliates against injustice. Most of her antagonists are White aligned bureaucrats stiffling her Red side, or Black aligned jerks overstepping the bounds of nature and family her Green side sets.
- From Doctor Who: The Fugitive Doctor from Fugitive of the Judoon is Red/Green. Being one of the more aggressive and impulsive incarnations of the Doctor, more prone to action and even violence, in stark contrast to the Doctor as we normally see them.
Green/White - "Selesnya"
GREEN and WHITE - Selesnya (article here):
White and Green are both concerned with community, and this is best expressed in their joint love of creatures. Green is all about keeping everything strong, but also encourages Social Darwinism, which is why it has a Bad Ass Army and single-target Status Buffs which make individual creatures stronger. In comparison, White cares about the Littlest Cancer Patient, and has a Redshirt Army, using global buffs (or the occasional high-powered champion) to make them all stronger.
Green/White cards tend to be about society existing in harmony with nature. Sometimes society shapes nature into forms it finds pleasing or useful, such as gardens or tree farms; other times, society shapes itself around nature to avoid despoiling it. Green and White working together often seem quite benevolent, perhaps the most so of any color pairing, but again, the needs of the individual are sublimated to that of the group, perhaps even more so than in White alone. They are the color combination with perhaps the highest average of both good small creatures and good big creatures, making a fearsome army, and almost all healing effects in the game are either white or green; combined, some of the most efficient life-gain spells in the game are present.
): White and Green are both concerned with community, and this is best expressed in their joint love of creatures. Green is all about keeping everything strong, but also encourages Social Darwinism, which is why it has a Bad Ass Army and single-target Status Buffs which make individual creatures stronger. In comparison, White cares about the Littlest Cancer Patient, and has a Redshirt Army, using global buffs (or the occasional high-powered champion) to make them all stronger.
Green/White cards tend to be about society existing in harmony with nature. Sometimes society shapes nature into forms it finds pleasing or useful, such as gardens or tree farms; other times, society shapes itself around nature to avoid despoiling it. Green and White working together often seem quite benevolent, perhaps the most so of any color pairing, but again, the needs of the individual are sublimated to that of the group, perhaps even more so than in White alone. They are the color combination with perhaps the highest average of both good small creatures and good big creatures, making a fearsome army, and almost all healing effects in the game are either white or green; combined, some of the most efficient life-gain spells in the game are present.
Canon Examples:
- The Selesnya Conclave in Ravnica are a group dedicated to peace, healing, and the betterment of the community (which they do through brainwashing the masses). Most guild members were dryads, human-like tree spirits, and their "leader" was a collective mind called the Chorus of the Conclave, which expressed itself through the bodies of high-ranking members, using them as figureheads. The new guild leader is a single dryad composed of three minds, and they seem to be stepping up their activities. Selesnya has become evangelistic, and more than a few cards emphasize how abhorrent they find the undead. Their mechanic in Return to Ravnica, "Populate", creates a token copy of a creature you control. In Guilds of Ravnica, they gain the old ability Convoke, which allows expensive spells to be cast more easily if you tap creatures when casting it.
- While humans have been in many different color combinations over the years, they count in the Innistrad settings as they are outnumbered by the supernatural beings and believe that united, they can survive the supernatural setting. Human cards that are White are in urban settings who try to calm the frightened masses down while Green human cards are monster hunters who live in the wilderness.
- Karametra is the patron god of harvests and orphans in Theros. The polis Setessa is her main city of worship. The city itself embodies the ideals of white and green, with it being arraigned in three circular rings of trees. The Setessans are mainly a group of warrior women who train in the wilderness to maximize their fighting potential while protecting their city.
- Dromoka and her brood play a more militant aspect of this colour pair. Thriving in the sunlit deserts of Tarkir, they killed the local Abzan peoples due to their traditions about "necromancy" (which, mind you, is depicted as a completely harmless communion with ancestral spirits), considering it to be an affront to natural life. Though they otherwise sympathised with said clan, they were so fanatical about that belief that they almost commited genocide, forcing their khan, Daghatar, to renounce their traditions and pledge alliance to the dragon. Further still, she decided to abolish the very use of the words "khan" and "clan". Fanatical and borderline hypocritical, Dromoka is a chilling example of the tyranny associated with extreme Green/White.
- By Dragons of Tarkir, Dromoka has evolved into an interesting balance between beneficence and tyranny. On the one claw, Dromoka doctrine explicitly promotes and honors the achievement of all members of the clan, dragon and humanoid alike, and it's definitely the safest of the five, with Dromoka dragons risking their own lives to protect their humans. On the other claw, Dromoka is still a tyrant, and her dragons demand service in exchange for their protection.
- Crossbreed Labs, from the joke setting Bablovia, is basically what happens when visionary mad science meets Furry Fandom. They're dedicated to using LEGO Genetics technology to give people the animal traits that reflect their true selves, demonstrating not only Green's love of critters but also its belief that people have an unchanging "true self," something that Blue for instance would firmly reject. The White shows in their focus on getting the treatment to anyone who wants it and fostering a society where they can live in harmony, showing White's utopianism and desire for peace and community.
Fanon Examples:
- The Body Snatchers in Invasion of the Body Snatchers are, as Mark Rosewater put it, "aliens on a mission". They operate as a collective if not an outright Hive Mind, they're communist allegories, and they look like plants.
- Fluttershy and Applejack embody the Green/White mixture in different ways. Both are close to nature, Applejack tending to her farm and Fluttershy tending to her pets. Applejack is white because she places importance on her friends and her large family and Fluttershy towards nurturing her animals.
- Friedrich Nietzsche invented a being with the worst attributes of Green and White in the Last Man, combining White’s emphasis on conformism and lack of any personal ambition with Green’s dislike of thinking and creating to create a being devoid of the will or vision to improve or stand out.
- Kimba has traits that show not only Green’s and White’s comparisons, but their contrasts as well. As the king of a jungle, he is a Nature Hero determined to protect it and its denizens from human and animal threats. He also uses his rule to attempt to integrate traits of human society onto the animals of his kingdom. He protects nature (Green) but also tries to place new laws to try to improve it (White).
- Other examples listed by Mark Rosewater include the Ewoks, a species with a primitive tribal structure living in wilderness with a deep sense of community, and the Oompa-Loompas, a group of strangely-identical hard-working people in the food manufacturing industry with a penchant for bursting into choreographed song and dance routines.
- Also via Mark Rosewater is Amity, whose focus on kindness and neutrality firmly align it with Green/White.
- According to Mark Rosewater, Ra's Al Ghul is a good example of a Green/White antagonist. His goals, after all, are to destroy civilization (Green) out of moral disgust, and with the intention of creating an utopia for the survivors (White). Even when he is written as hypocritical and self-serving, canon examples like Gaddock Teeg or the worst members of Selesnya show clear consistency with this alignment.
- Ramlethal Valentine from Guilty Gear is a good example of the ultra-conformist aspects of this color pair. She refers to herself as a mere tool of her Mother (white) to be disposed of when no longer needed, and has a feral and savage fighting style (green). She also disdains individual thought and has an obsession with purpose. Later on, Elphelt, Sin, and oddly enough Bedman successfully convince her of the importance of emotions and the value of individuals. By the end of Guilty Gear Xrd's story mode, she has potentially moved to green/red or green/red/white.
- The Jewish community of Anatevka in Fiddler on the Roof can be considered this, as shown in their Signature Song "Tradition". On the one hand, "here in Anatevka we have traditions for everything... how to eat, how to sleep, even how to wear clothes" — which puts them firmly into White. But — as Tevye himself admits — they have no idea why they do all of this, but they still follow the tradition because it's the thing that holds them together - which is something inherently Green.
White/Black - "Orzhov"
WHITE and BLACK - Orzhov (article here):
The ideological schism between White and Black is at a fundamental level. White is all about The Needs of the Many, and it needs to have lines that should not or must not be crossed, whereas Black believes "It's All About Me" and is willing to destroy or sacrifice anything to achieve goals. Black believes in protecting its individual ambitions from the world, White in protecting the world from individual ambitions. As such, White doesn't call Black "Selfish Evil"; to White, Selfish is Evil, making the second word largely redundant. In the same vein, Black just calls White "Lawful" because, to Black's way of thinking, Lawful implies Stupid. Long story short, The Fettered vs. The Unfettered; it's no surprise these two would have problems getting along.
White/Black cards tend to fall into one of two molds: either a full-blown hypocrite, who pretends to White's piety and selflessness as an act to hide or support its Black core; or a Knight Templar who is willing to use Black's methods for White's goals, doing whatever needs to be done for the greater good: if an innocent has to die a gruesome, horrible death (or endure some other similarly terrible fate) most wouldn't wish on their worst enemy in order to save a civilization, that's a fair trade. The third option is honestly using white's concern and black's selfishness to care for your group and no one outside it; essentially organized crime, or taken even further, the Absolute Xenophobe. Black/White is the combination of the Villain with Good Publicity, someone who believes in Realpolitik, and/or someone who believes Utopia Justifies the Means. There can also be a sense of self-sacrifice bordering on the insane with a White/Black hero: White heroes might lay down their lives, Black heroes might sacrifice even a loved one to save the day, but a White/Black hero might sell their own soul to protect their charge. Other Black/White cards, usually spells and not creatures, also represent the merging of the infernal with the divine or the crossing of other fundamentally opposed forces, often resulting in something new, extremely powerful — and dangerous. How dangerous? Think matter/antimatter.
On a mundane level, white-black is also associated with commerce and economics (particularly Treasure tokens).
): The ideological schism between White and Black is at a fundamental level. White is all about The Needs of the Many, and it needs to have lines that should not or must not be crossed, whereas Black believes "It's All About Me" and is willing to destroy or sacrifice anything to achieve goals. Black believes in protecting its individual ambitions from the world, White in protecting the world from individual ambitions. As such, White doesn't call Black "Selfish Evil"; to White, Selfish is Evil, making the second word largely redundant. In the same vein, Black just calls White "Lawful" because, to Black's way of thinking, Lawful implies Stupid. Long story short, The Fettered vs. The Unfettered; it's no surprise these two would have problems getting along.
White/Black cards tend to fall into one of two molds: either a full-blown hypocrite, who pretends to White's piety and selflessness as an act to hide or support its Black core; or a Knight Templar who is willing to use Black's methods for White's goals, doing whatever needs to be done for the greater good: if an innocent has to die a gruesome, horrible death (or endure some other similarly terrible fate) most wouldn't wish on their worst enemy in order to save a civilization, that's a fair trade. The third option is honestly using white's concern and black's selfishness to care for your group and no one outside it; essentially organized crime, or taken even further, the Absolute Xenophobe. Black/White is the combination of the Villain with Good Publicity, someone who believes in Realpolitik, and/or someone who believes Utopia Justifies the Means. There can also be a sense of self-sacrifice bordering on the insane with a White/Black hero: White heroes might lay down their lives, Black heroes might sacrifice even a loved one to save the day, but a White/Black hero might sell their own soul to protect their charge. Other Black/White cards, usually spells and not creatures, also represent the merging of the infernal with the divine or the crossing of other fundamentally opposed forces, often resulting in something new, extremely powerful — and dangerous. How dangerous? Think matter/antimatter.
On a mundane level, white-black is also associated with commerce and economics (particularly Treasure tokens).
Canon Examples:
- In Ravnica, the Black/White Orzhov Syndicate produced the heroine Teysa Karlov, but committed many atrocities as well. They were, in effect, an organized crime syndicate masquerading as an organized religion.note Their mechanic, "Haunt", brought dead creatures back as enchantments, usually with negative effects to be put on an opponent's permanents. They're still around in the new Ravnica, and they've learned new tricks, all to ensnare the flock. In Gatecrash, their new mechanic, "Extort", lets them bleed opponents for life every time they cast a spell. Their mechanic in Ravnica Allegiance, "Afterlife", has more in common with Haunt, with creaures creating Spirit creature tokens when they die. While Teysa remains in charge, Kaya, a planeswalker previously introduced in the Conspiracy multiplayer format, has also taken a position of great power, destroying the Ghost Council and freeing the indebted.
- Likewise, in Innistrad, Sorin Markov's ties of responsibility to the humans of his home shift him into black/white (from the pure black of the version of him that lived on Zendikar), and arguably makes him the Big Good of the whole plane. On that same note, most vampires associated with his grandfather Edgar Markhov will be of these colors too.
- In Theros, Athreos is the world's equivalent of Charon, responsible for ferrying the dead across the River that Ring the World to their final resting place in the Underworld. His association with death makes him black, but his role in easing the passage of life to death and being a part of a cyclical order puts him in the white camp.
- Ixalan gave us the Legion of Dusk, a vampire-ruled empire based on the Spanish Conquistadors. As with most vampires in Magic, they make copious use of blood magic and necromancy to further themselves. However, unlike your typical vampires, their society is highly organised and deeply religious, with extensive laws detailing who a vampire can feed on. This is taken to such an extent that the set contains the first mono-White vampires in Magic history.
- Ikoria has General Kudro, an interesting combination of the colors' qualities. He has Black's willpower, and on his card, he has an ability that requires sacrificing humans. However, he is genuinely dedicated to protecting the people of his city, shown in how he can be sacrificed to his own ability and empowers other humans. More negatively, he shows White's rigidity and xenophobia when he exiles Lukka for bonding and later refuses his help.
- The Strixhaven set takes place at a Wizarding School and has five colleges, one for each enemy-color pairing, and differentiated from the Ravnica guilds by focusing on the tension between the colors rather than what draws them together. Therefore, where Orzhov focuses on tribalism, Strixhaven's Silverquill college is split down the middle. It's the college of The Power of Language, but are words meant to unite the world, or to further your own agenda? Appropriately, the college's two Deans focus on different things: Shaile, Dean of Radiance, strengthens your Badass Army, while Embrose, Dean of Shadow, cannibalizes them to get ahead. (Appropriately for a set with a Duality Motif, the two characters appear on the front and back of the same card, with the player needing to choose which side would most benefit them.) Meanwhile, the college's founder, the elder dragon Shadrix Silverquill, lets you choose two of three options each turn, but requires you to target different players for each option. They are also the set's Zerg Rush faction that throws around lots of small spells, in opposition to Orzhov's Slow and Steady Wins the Race approach.
- Elric of Melnibone makes deals with the Lords of Chaos, but as an incarnation of the Eternal Champion, he is fated to use his powers to maintain the Balance between both Law and Chaos. He isn't Black/Green because left to its natural devices, the Universe will eventually stagnate into pure Law or Chaos — the Balance needs to be actively enforced for both to exist.
- Scrooge McDuck is consistently depicted as extraordinarily greedy and selfish but honourable and, in later years, devoted to his family, making him the most iconic example of a Black/White Disney character ever.
- Mark Rosewater cites Don Corleone, Magneto, and Jerry Seinfeld (the character, not the actor/comedian) as prime examples of the white-black color combination.
- Commissar Ciaphas Cain (HERO OF THE IMPERIUM!) is a heroic example who believes he is the out-and-out hypocrite version. The person compiling and editing his memoirs believes he is being too hard on himself, though she agrees that he is very self-centered.
- Linkara has a strong moral code and idealizes traditional hero models, but is also extremely pragmatic and frequently criticises cases of Honor Before Reason and moral inflexibility, embodying both White's and Black's best traits. He also has an arrogant streak and nearly turned evil because of it.
- An example from Fate/stay night is Archer (also known as Shirou Emiya). Originally intending to do good at any cost to himself, even if it hurt those who cared for him to see that happen (described as, "the selfish pursuit of selflessness"), he would later abandon his ideal in the name of his goal, resorting to calculated slaughter and brutal pragmatism in the name of selfishly saving as many lives as possible. Thus, it could be said that he began with a Black ideology and White methods (self-sacrifice for his personal desires) and shifted to a White ideology with Black methods (horrific and brutal slaughter in the name of maximized salvation).
- Fate/Grand Order has a more noble and almost downright heroic example of Black/White in the first Hassan i-Sabbah, the Old Man of the Mountain, better known as "King Hassan" to distinguish him from his successors who enforce his Legacy Immortality. King Hassan takes lives in the name of God, particularly those who have lived past their proper time, his unwavering faith granting him immense power over death and turning his existence into one close to a Grim Reaper. However, King Hassan avoids the pitfalls of becoming a Knight Templar, using his very strict code of conduct to act as an impartial judge rather than a bloodthirsty killer, and even skirts around said code through Exact Words to show kindness towards the heroes. He considers himself the shadow of the heroes, taking lives so that they can save lives, and whenever he's appeared in the story, he's been on the good guys' side.
- According to Mark Rosewater, Candor is White/Black aligned. In this case, Black honesty and self-awareness is basically institutionalised into White morality. A refreshing case for a White/Black faction.
- In Frozen, Prince Hans, through reasons that can largely be explained here (basically, he is akin to many canon White villains in being a duplicitous snot, but he's probably self-aware enough to be Black).
- The apparent paradox and synthesis of Orzhov can perhaps be most succinctly illustrated in the parable of ’’'The Goddess Of Cancer and The Goddess of Everything Else'', a metaphorical story for evolution showing how despite life’s inherent obligation to self-interest, propagation above all else, and natural selection (born of the Black 'Goddess of Cancer' to KILL CONSUME MULTIPLY CONQUER), that very drive while inevitably lead them to pursue effective cooperative strategies, leading to more complex organisms and communities (seduced by the White Goddess' of Everything Else's songs of multicellular life, then animal sociality, all the way up to abstract ideology and civilization), which are once again subject to the same uncaring, self-serving selection pressures in a brutal yet generative cycle, at least until life can be designed with more intentionality....
- The Young Merchant from Maoyu is an interesting example. He begins as the hypocrite version, using a thin veneer of adhering to humanity's cause to mask his dirty work as a ruthless money-maker. Upon meeting the Crimson Scholar, however, he finds his worldview completely destabilized. After some soul-searching and a conversation with the Hero, he finds himself solidifying his white/black roots... but with a more positive bent, using his ruthless money-making skill to ruin the Central Nations' currency, invest heavily in the Southern Triad, and push for a ceasefire with the demons. Even his rationale is a blend of selfishness and selflessness; in his words, the only thing he's found that all people have in common is that they'd all like to be a little happier, so why not use that to bridge the gaps between nations and trade?
- The two Primordial Serpents in Dark Souls fit White/Black, but in different ways. Kingseeker Frampt wants the save the Age of Fire (an ostensibly White goal). And if that requires tricking hapless Undead into turning themselves into kindling for the First Flame, then so be it. Darkstalker Kaathe, on the other hand, is the straight-up hypocrite version. He claims that the Age of Dark would be a golden age for mankind, but the fates of Oolacile and New Londo hint otherwise. Kaathe has a twisted desire to see humans give in to the Dark Soul and become monsters.
- Gouki/Akuma from Street Fighter is an interesting example. His ruthless desire to be the strongest leads him to be willing to kill strong enemies (and see nothing objectionable about that) and otherwise unreservedly disregard the mores of common society in his pursuit of this end, a strongly Black way of life. However, he has his own ironclad code of conduct that he hews to, a very White thing to do. He doesn't hurt noncombatants and refuses to kill or even fight those who are ailing or otherwise utterly beneath his abilities (after all, what sort of progress would hurting the weak grant him towards being the strongest?). Especially notably, he considers Vega/M. Bison/Dictator scum for using a tactic he considered dishonorable (Ryu and Ken defeated him, but were badly hurt in the process. Bison's response was to jump to a fresh clone body to finish them off, which Akuma perhaps saw as invalidating the fairness of Ryu and Ken's victory), attacking Bison and finishing him off with the Shun Goku Satsu/Raging Demon. Speaking of, the Shun Goku Satsu/Raging Demon technique is white/black as well, given that one interpretation of its effects is that it reflects the target's own evil against them, killing people with their own sins.
- The Auditors of Reality in Discworld are an extreme combination of Evil White (they are the Anthropomorphic Personification of "The Rules", who view the slightest trait of individuality as an instantly fatal disease and believe the universe would be much better if there weren't all these living creatures disordering it) and Black (when they do show personality traits, it always seems to be selfishness and ambition — not to mention that they're more obsessed with death than Death is). There's also a bit of the hypocrisy mentioned above; the Auditors sometimes seem to take the view that, since they are the Rules, the Rules don't necessarily apply to them.
- The Fire Nation in Avatar: The Last Airbender, at least at the time of the show. On the one hand, they've spent a hundred years trying to conquer the world, and committed massive genocide on the Air Nomads for the sake of that goal, and preach a philosophy on how Fire is the "superior element." All very Black. On the other hand, they have a very rigid military, and the upper class at least seem to have a strict code of conduct, and practice honor duel called Agni Kai. What's more, an episode set within the Fire Nation shows just how far the propaganda machine goes, apparently espousing that because they are superior, they'd be doing the world a favor by taking control of everything, textbook examples of Evil White.
- Yhwach from Bleach certainly qualifies, as a ruthless and pragmatic leader who encourages, expects, and enforces complete conformity and obedience from his subjects. Though he supposedly values peace, he brings it about with acts of tyranny, and executes those that fail him while hunting down the Arrancar, which he views as lesser. Even those that serve him well are expected to give up their lives for his goals at a moment's notice, as he sacrifices them to take back the power he granted them to use it for himself or give it to more useful underlings. Even if he does not sacrifice them, those that he gifts and heals live shorter lifespans, with their gifts all returning to Yhwach upon the end of their lives, making him stronger and extending his lifespan. While it is only made clear at the last moment, his true goal is to combine the human world with the Soul Society and Hueco Mundo, making the afterlife one with the normal world and ending the cycle of life and death, creating a world where no one has to die. This is a very White/Black goal that demonstrates Green's conflicts with them.
- Metroman is a cape who also believes in free will, embodying positive aspects of both colors.
- The Ventrue are this through and true. The most selfish of all the Clans, and yet the one most interested in keeping up The Masquerade. They are masters of keeping facade of being Affably Evil when it suits them, and pulling You Have Outlived Your Usefulness the moment you're no longer needed. They are willing to play by the rules — as long as it profits them (and they usually try to find The Scapegoat for the breach, so the blame is never on them).
- The sad saga of Hollow Knight can be traced back to a battle between two very different forms of White/Black; the Pale King vs. the Radiance. Both are light-associated bug-people who ultimately are motivated by self-centered reasons of what they, personally, think should be their kingdom. However, they couldn't be more different in actions; the Pale King usurped the throne from the Radiance for the very Black goal of giving free will to her subjects, and instituted a very White program of thought control to starve her of memories she could use to manifest again — for good reason, for the instant someone found a statue of her, she unleashed the Infection to bring her former subjects back in line. The Pale King sacrificed every moral code he had to create a vessel capable of serving as a container for the plague (Black's ability to bend morals and fascination with the Power of the Void) in order to save his people from their jealous former goddess by any means required (White's desire to protect others). The Pale King, thus, is a White/Black hero, willing to damn himself to save others. The Radiance, on the other hand, embodies White/Black at its most petty; unable to accept that someone stronger had taken away her toy, she unleashed a very Black ability of the Infection, which has the White end effect of turning its victims into extensions of herself. The Radiance personifies the most negative aspects of White (inability to tolerate other ways of life, capacity to commit genocide, and egocentrism) and Black (willingness to destroy what she cannot have, complete lack of concern for others, and greed). Ironically, the Pale King is shown to favor Black abilities over the Abyss, while the Radiance favors White light-based attacks and powers.
- The Reapers from Mass Effect, if not considered blue/green (as seen below), can be considered a terrifying example of a white/black philosophy put into action: despite their horrifying methods (mostly centered around turning sentient races into zombies, which is pretty in-color for black), they actually view themselves as the "greater good" — or, at least, necessity — for the galaxy. By purging the galaxy of developed species, they're "saving" them from even worse catastrophe that would happen if technology advances too far, which was the intent of their original creators, the Leviathans — although they became the first target.
- The Devils of Dungeons & Dragons and Pathfinder could be considered this combination. Devoted to hierarchy, law, structure and bureaucracy (White) along with immense selfishness, manipulativeness and ambition (Black).
- In early Shin Megami Tensei games, going down the Neutral route required White/Black's line of thinking. Almost always, you were pitted against former allies and friends who chose to follow either Law (a strictly White-aligned faction) or Chaos (Black and/or Red, though Lucifer throughout the franchise is usually about as Grixis as Nicol Bolas is, if not as openly malevolent); both factions are inherently twisted and evil at their core due to following their respective color's extremes, forcing a Neutral hero to have to go down the middle and reject each one's most negative qualities while accepting their positive ones, and be faced with more sacrifices to have to make than players who go all the way into Law or Chaos. Managing to balance making sacrifices and gaining power with saving (what's left of) the world and its people from these tyrannical, supernatural forces is necessary in order to get each game's A World Half Full outcome, which is the closest thing they have to a Golden Ending.
- The antagonistic Golden Idea from Dandara embodies both the dulling of individuality (White) and the use of outer bling for one's own image (Black). These qualities allow Eldar to seduce and assimilate the Intention side of the Salt (Blue, Intention's MtG color, unlike the Red-aligned Creation side, is allied with White and thus lacks resistance to Eldar's charm). Eldar's second form exemplifies his colors in two ways: he opposes individuality so strongly that he only exists as a collective entity (White), and fear for survival festers and overgrows when hidden behind a mask of shallow perfection (Black).
Blue/Red - "Izzet"
BLUE and RED - Izzet (article here)
Blue and Red fall on opposite sides of the Emotions vs. Stoicism spectrum. One's passionate, one's logical; one uses fire, earth, and lightning, the other water, wind, and ice; one's — look, do we really need to spell this out? They both have the highest ratio of spells vs permanents, but Blue has all the poker-face spells, the ones that win games but only if you have the skill to use them; Red, on the other hand, has all the spells that involve both the Random Number God and straightforward burnination of the opponent down to zero with fire and lightning. They also share a theme of weak and few creatures, but Red's tend to be of the "cheap with drawbacks" variety whereas Blue's are more Awesome, but Impractical.
Red/Blue was originally quite rare (although it certainly happened), but has become more common in recent years; when it appears, it tends to involve copious amounts of Science! and explosions. Think of Red/Blue as Blue's Madness Place — where the research, creativity, and drive to know ever more go a little overboard, leaving behind little things like pragmatism and stoicism. This can result in a mass of explosions and twisted metal and cries like “I think I know what I did wrong!” (or just as commonly, “Oh, I am hurt! I am very, very hurt!”). Somewhat more rarely, it comes about because Red and Blue are the two colors most likely to have Elemental creatures and pure-elemental effects — there's even an entirely separate creature type for red/blue "elementals", the "Weirds". And aside from oozes (which don’t really count and are most often green), Red/Blue is where you find non-Newtonian fluids, like gels. Red/Blue is the main colour combination associated with arts, with Red providing the passion and Blue perfectionism.
) Blue and Red fall on opposite sides of the Emotions vs. Stoicism spectrum. One's passionate, one's logical; one uses fire, earth, and lightning, the other water, wind, and ice; one's — look, do we really need to spell this out? They both have the highest ratio of spells vs permanents, but Blue has all the poker-face spells, the ones that win games but only if you have the skill to use them; Red, on the other hand, has all the spells that involve both the Random Number God and straightforward burnination of the opponent down to zero with fire and lightning. They also share a theme of weak and few creatures, but Red's tend to be of the "cheap with drawbacks" variety whereas Blue's are more Awesome, but Impractical.
Red/Blue was originally quite rare (although it certainly happened), but has become more common in recent years; when it appears, it tends to involve copious amounts of Science! and explosions. Think of Red/Blue as Blue's Madness Place — where the research, creativity, and drive to know ever more go a little overboard, leaving behind little things like pragmatism and stoicism. This can result in a mass of explosions and twisted metal and cries like “I think I know what I did wrong!” (or just as commonly, “Oh, I am hurt! I am very, very hurt!”). Somewhat more rarely, it comes about because Red and Blue are the two colors most likely to have Elemental creatures and pure-elemental effects — there's even an entirely separate creature type for red/blue "elementals", the "Weirds". And aside from oozes (which don’t really count and are most often green), Red/Blue is where you find non-Newtonian fluids, like gels. Red/Blue is the main colour combination associated with arts, with Red providing the passion and Blue perfectionism.
Canon Examples:
- The Izzet Guild in Ravnica is mostly neutral, with a few bad and good apples. They are frenzied researchers on the bleeding edge of mad science. Their leader, the genius dragon Niv-Mizzet, continually retools the guild’s signet to suit his passing whims, and can turn burnination into SCIENCE! Basically... run. (In the sequel block, he's got people working on dozens if not hundreds of seemingly unrelated experiments, for Reasons. Their new mechanic in Return to Ravnica, "Overload", allows single-target spells to instead hit every legal target. Run faster.) Indeed, Niv-Mizzet is so unconventional and brilliant a schemer that he's willing to consider plans that others would think mad, such as ones that require him to die... In an (actually, not sarcastically) unrelated note, in Guilds of Ravnica, the new Izzet mechanic, "Jump-start", allows an already-cast spell to be cast again from the graveyard if you discard a card from your hand when casting it. (Of course, if that card has jump-start, it too can be cast from your graveyard if you discard a card...) It is unknown how much of this is of Niv-Mizzet's own design, or how much is that brilliant young planeswalker Ral Zarek's invention.
- Keranos, God of Storms embodies the fury of the storm and the sudden blaze of epiphany. A god of little patience and less mercy, he dispenses insights and blasts of lightning in equal measure. As such, he is associated with blue and red mana. Being a god of wisdom, he cares little for mortals whom he sees as reckless, but assuming they're individuals of action and sought his blessing or council first, he's much more conciliatory. Such people may be gifted visions of the future, but will be unable to change the outcome, for example.
- Prismari College in Strixhaven is the college of artistic expression, but its members argue about what impact art is supposed to have: should it make you think or should it make you feel? Its two Deans embody Technician Versus Performer as well as Harmony Versus Discipline: Uvilda, Dean of Perfection, lets you announce a spell three turns early in exchange for a mana discount; Nassari, Dean of Expression, lets you steal random spells from opposing decks and gets stronger every time you do. The college's founder, Galazeth Prismari, turns all artifacts you control into mana sources, though they can only be tapped to cast instants and sorceries. As opposed to Izzet's Death of a Thousand Cuts approach to spellcasting, Prismari prefers to build up to a whopping One-Hit KO.
Fanon Examples:
- The Sparks of Girl Genius fit this almost by default, as Mad Scientists and Trope Namer for The Madness Place. They're inherently brilliant scientists, one and all, but the act of invention tends to send them into a "Spark-Induced Fugue State", aka The Madness Place. Once that happens, their genius starts being driven by their emotions, and useless little things like safety, morality, and sanity will be forgotten until they come out of it, pursuing knowledge For Science!. The most effective Sparks, however, are the ones who are best at maintaining their self-control at that point, thus leaning more into the Blue side than the Red.
- The best traits of a Red/Blue mixture are embodied in the Übermensch as talked about by Friedrich Nietzsche, combining Blue's desire to innovate and improve with Red's emphasis on emotion, individuality, and self-expression. Mark Rosewater considers the Red/Blue mixture to be opposed to the Green/White mixture, somewhat fitting as Nietzsche also essentially contrasts both (see above). Whereas one supports ultimate conformity, the other supports ultimate individuality.
- Portal: Aperture Science, at their height. They do what they must. Because they can. For the good of all of us (except the ones who are dead).
- Frozen (2013): Queen Elsa, as her powers indicate. A naturally free-spirited, fun-loving, emotional, artistic person, she is unfortunately forced to conceal her true self for the sake of her family and kingdom, causing her no end of grief (the iconic "Red oppressed by White" shtick). Her iconic "I Am Becoming" Song, "Let It Go", is basically a Red anthem where she chooses to run away and be free once her powers are revealed. The nature of her ice powers are a chaotic blend of Blue and Red — while she has the capability to turn ice into solid architecture and beautiful sculptures, she more often than not has her ice manifest in an uncontrolled and chaotic manner.
- The Kerbal species of Kerbal Space Program provide a lighthearted example. They're passionate about launching rockets to explore space and unravel the mysteries of their solar system, but they appear to have no concept of personal safety, meaning their pilots will eagerly climb into Flawed Prototypes that few humans would willingly take a ride on. Nevertheless, the high accident rates never seem to discourage the survivors from striving to do better next time.
- Examples listed as blue-red by Mark Rosewater include Doc Brown, Indiana Jones, Winifred Burkle, and Dr. Seuss.
- A very red-heavy example would be the Wyld Stallyns, Bill and Ted. While they're not, strictly speaking, book-smart, they are very passionate and compassionate people who find the news that they're the source of a future scientific utopia most excellent. Furthermore, they have an intuitive grasp of how time travel works, and show themselves to be more than capable of logical intellectual gymnastics in its use.
- The eponymous MacGyver is one of the best examples. A man of equal parts Science, action, and improvisation, his blue scientific knowledge combines with his red creativity to make him the guy you least want to lock in a room with a bunch of random junk.
- JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Golden Wind: Pannacotta Fugo is a heroic example of this trope, though he notably has more Blue in him than Red. He's predominantly Blue because he has the natural intellect of a Blue-dominant character, with an IQ of 152, while also being disbelieving in the idea of placing faith and/or risking his life for something he has no knowledge in — notably, he's the only member of Passione who doesn't go with the group in their desire to usurp the Boss, Diavolo, seeing the whole thing as a suicide mission, despite said Boss trying to kill his own daughter. In his own words, he won't be a "self-righteous idiot" to potentially get himself killed helping others (with this Lack of Empathy being a distinctly Blue quality). However, what makes him have a distinctly Izzet quality to him despite his logic is his extreme temper, to the point he stabs Narancia with a fork for getting a math problem wrong. He always had this absolutely furious temper, showing he's still human in the end, and he even gets set on a life of crime by him bashing a pedophile professor's head in with a book and being disowned by his wealthy family — all of this being definitely Red markings. This furious temper is even reflected in his Stand, Purple Haze, which has the nasty ability to release a flesh-eating virus that instantly kills those that get infected by it. Doesn't help that Purple Haze, on top of this terrifying ability, is a Lightning Bruiser Berserker who Fugo only brings out in extreme situations due to its high potential for collateral damage — it's even described as it "[striking] like a bomb and [departing] like a storm", lending further credence to his temper being made manifest (and thus, more of a reason why he's just as Red as he is Blue).
- Steins;Gate: Okabe Rintarou is a man who easily would pass as your typical Izzet member with his dedication to science and his rather emotional demeanour. What makes him such a good example of this color pair, however, is because he is a perfect example of a character using blue means to achieve a red goal. He's not really selfish enough to use his time traveling capabilities for personal gain, and he pretty explicitly claims he doesn't do it for the good of mankind. Seeing his childhood friend Mayuri die before his very eyes over and over again is what motivates him to use the knowledge gained from his time travel experiments up to that point in order to save her. This motivation in itself only makes it tougher for him when he finds out that Kurisu, who he had been falling in love with up until that point, had her death aversion at the beginning of the story directly tied to the death of Mayuri, and Okabe is forced to either let one die or find some way for both of them to survive. A clear-cut example of a person using scientific methods in order to help the people close to him.
- Rick and Morty: Rick Sanchez, being loosely based on Doc Brown, as noted as an example of this color combination above, is this. Rick himself, however, is drastically more amoral and prone to bring his grandson Morty along for his adventures, usually against his will. He takes the science and Lack of Empathy of Blue and mixes it with the adventureness and impulsiveness of Red to throw himself and Morty into thousands of odd, often dangerous situations, without any regard for the risks. He does care for his family, but usually saves them only after satisfying his own impulses first or after retrieving the stuff he needs for his next project first.
- Marisa Kirisame is a fairly straightforward heroic example. A human and a witch, Marisa is unlike many other characters in Touhou in that she is comparatively ordinary; as opposed to Reimu, who was born with exceptional talents and luck, Marisa had to work hard to gain her knowledge and skills, and must continue to work hard to keep up with her best friend and rival. She's quite rowdy, informal, flashy, often condescending, and prone to act out of curiosity, pestering Patchouli and stealing her books (along with the possessions of many others), but is much more diligent, thoughtful, and intelligent than her seemingly impulsive personality implies.
- Jeremy of Code Lyoko is a heroic, if flawed, Izzet. He is a very intelligent computer programmer, and he often turns into a workaholic when trying to find a solution. However, his ultimate motivation is loyalty to his True Companions, and his Love Interest Aelita. Such an emotional motivation is a very Red sort of goal. He also demonstrates deep courage, at one point going to Lyoko to rescue his friends in spite of being terrified. Unlike Aelita, he does not care about the greater good so much as the welfare of his friends, removing white and green, but he also has minimal self-interest, removing black. Jeremy also demonstrates the negatives of red; he has a quick temper and often snaps at his friends. In spite of his overall methodical nature, Jeremy can also sometimes be reckless with his technology. His strange experiments have resulted in A.I. Is a Crapshoot, Fantastic Drug, and Self-Harm, all of which created danger to himself and others because Jeremy was too headstrong and stubborn. This progress without due consideration of consequences is pure Izzet.
- Krystal is an example who compliments her mostly Red squad mates. She seeks information about her Cerinian heritage and is a telepath who detects both distress signals, and enemy weak spots (Blue). Krystal is also driven primarily from her emotions ranging from her compassion for others (notably those making the mentioned distress calls), and her romantic feelings for Fox (Red). These traits lends to Krystal’s stubborn mindset that can land her out of trouble just as easily as into it.
- The Ninth, Tenth, and Twelfth Doctors are Red/Blue. The Doctor is always brilliant, so Blue represents their vast intellect. These incarnations of the Doctor are the most passionate and/or angriest, befitting Red. Nine and Ten are still figuring out how to cope with the aftermath of the Time War and have considerable bottled-up rage as a result of it, and Twelve is Scottish and has "attack eyebrows."
Black/Green - "Golgari"
BLACK and GREEN - Golgari (article here
A color that embodies the Nature Hero versus a color that embodies the Necromancer. Are you not seeing the divide? To be specific, Green protects the cycle of life and death, while Black disrupts it for its own gain. Both have the ability to bring creatures back from the graveyard, but Green tends to bring things back to your hand instead of directly onto the battlefield, so the next cycle of life and death can continue. Black spells of this type are flavored to rip the bodies straight out of the ground and the creature in question comes back wrong. Green may also have the ability to sacrifice one creature to grab another — survival of the fittest and all — but Black will generally sacrifice its creatures to power something else entirely.
This intersection of colors is the fullness of the cycle of nature and all of its complexities. It embodies both life and death; all living things die, but from that death new life comes. It also embraces the entirety of nature... not simply strong beasts, but the worms, the parasites, the bacteria, the mold and fungus. Every form of life is accepted by Black/Green. As for the treatment/consideration of others... Black cares for the self, Green cares for the group. Black/Green cares for both... Black/Green doesn't think about "Me" and "My team": It thinks about "Me and my team." It does what's good for itself and for its True Companions; it betters itself, but tries to do that in ways that help its allies. Another bit of harmony between black/green is that it doesn't waste anything. Black sees everything as a resource, and so everything can be used. With Green mixed in, everything can be used then re-used. A creature can be played, then sacrificed, then recovered, only to be played and even sacrificed again, only to be recovered again later.
The essential identity of Green/Black is quite nicely summed up by the flavor text of "Golgari Signet" — either Green/Black cards are hideous abominations, natural things infested and warped by unholy energies, or they are aware of the balance of life and death, the cruelty of instinct and the value of deviousness, and are Above Good and Evil. And, as the text suggests, which is which largely depends on who's talking.
The fundamental basis of the Black vs. Green conflict is of Free Will vs. Determinism, respectively. Quoting this post: "Since Black believes everyone has free will, it believes that everyone acts on their own, individualized desires. Green’s belief in determinism allows it to see complex systems and how each part symbiotically works with the one next to it. Up again, this is where the surface growth vs. decay conflict arises. If everyone is acting by themselves, then each person's actions will impede on another's. Black wants to make sure that no one else's desires can get in the way of its own. Black cuts down the competition. Green, seeing a system in place, understands that everything working in conjunction will result in everything prospering together."
So how do these differences blend together? Black/Green is all about being able to move through a system to its own benefit. It uses Black’s willingness to get what it wants and Green’s recognition of symbiosis to manipulate the natural order to gain power.
Canon Examples:
A color that embodies the Nature Hero versus a color that embodies the Necromancer. Are you not seeing the divide? To be specific, Green protects the cycle of life and death, while Black disrupts it for its own gain. Both have the ability to bring creatures back from the graveyard, but Green tends to bring things back to your hand instead of directly onto the battlefield, so the next cycle of life and death can continue. Black spells of this type are flavored to rip the bodies straight out of the ground and the creature in question comes back wrong. Green may also have the ability to sacrifice one creature to grab another — survival of the fittest and all — but Black will generally sacrifice its creatures to power something else entirely.
This intersection of colors is the fullness of the cycle of nature and all of its complexities. It embodies both life and death; all living things die, but from that death new life comes. It also embraces the entirety of nature... not simply strong beasts, but the worms, the parasites, the bacteria, the mold and fungus. Every form of life is accepted by Black/Green. As for the treatment/consideration of others... Black cares for the self, Green cares for the group. Black/Green cares for both... Black/Green doesn't think about "Me" and "My team": It thinks about "Me and my team." It does what's good for itself and for its True Companions; it betters itself, but tries to do that in ways that help its allies. Another bit of harmony between black/green is that it doesn't waste anything. Black sees everything as a resource, and so everything can be used. With Green mixed in, everything can be used then re-used. A creature can be played, then sacrificed, then recovered, only to be played and even sacrificed again, only to be recovered again later.
The essential identity of Green/Black is quite nicely summed up by the flavor text of "Golgari Signet
" — either Green/Black cards are hideous abominations, natural things infested and warped by unholy energies, or they are aware of the balance of life and death, the cruelty of instinct and the value of deviousness, and are Above Good and Evil. And, as the text suggests, which is which largely depends on who's talking. The fundamental basis of the Black vs. Green conflict is of Free Will vs. Determinism, respectively. Quoting this post
: "Since Black believes everyone has free will, it believes that everyone acts on their own, individualized desires. Green’s belief in determinism allows it to see complex systems and how each part symbiotically works with the one next to it. Up again, this is where the surface growth vs. decay conflict arises. If everyone is acting by themselves, then each person's actions will impede on another's. Black wants to make sure that no one else's desires can get in the way of its own. Black cuts down the competition. Green, seeing a system in place, understands that everything working in conjunction will result in everything prospering together." So how do these differences blend together? Black/Green is all about being able to move through a system to its own benefit. It uses Black’s willingness to get what it wants and Green’s recognition of symbiosis to manipulate the natural order to gain power.
Canon Examples:
- Notably, Ravnica's Golgari Swarm is one of the few Black guilds to produce a hero — and a damn caring one at that. The Golgari effectively rule the undercity, effectively acting as the sewer workers and other "dirty jobs" men of the plane, but have parlayed it into a sort of power. Their first mechanic, Dredge, allowed you to burn small amounts of your library to get a card with the ability back from the graveyard. In Return to Ravnica, they're more or less the same, though, like the other guilds, showing more ambition and dynamism; their new mechanic, "Scavenge", is likewise more aggressive, allowing cards with the ability in your graveyard to be exiled to permanently boost a creature in play. Vraska, mentioned below, becomes a force within the guild as part of the plan; their new mechanic, "Undergrowth", is a more aggressive, reusuable version of Scavenge, granting larger effects the more creatures there are in your graveyard.
- Vraska, a Planeswalker born in the Golgari, has gone through a Heel–Face Revolving Door reflecting the duality of the color combination. A vigilante who killed those she deemed evil, Vraska started as an Anti-Villain opposing the Azorius but quickly evolved into Jace's archnemesis, wanting to undermine the Living Guildpact as part of her bid to gain power in Ravnica. However, the Ixalan block brought out her more sympathetic qualities, showing that she wants to rule the Golgari for altruistic reasons and can be kind and protective towards her pirate crew (even if they're, well, pirates). By the end, she's become Jace's close friend and love interest, working with him to infiltrate Nicol Bolas' band of evil Planeswalkers and betray him at the right moment — a Black method for the Green goal of preserving her home.
- Pharika, the Black/Green god of Theros, has domain over poisons and leeches. Her followers can use venom as a cure for other ailments, and are excellent healers — and deadly killers.
- The Elves of Skemfar in Kaldheim tend to play with these colors. They often have support that allows the player to summon more Elf Warrior tokens, and Tyvar Kell has the passive ability that allows players to tap all elves they control for black mana.
- In opposition to the Golgari, Strixhaven's Witherbloom College focuses on science, studying the cycle of life and death but disagreeing on its purpose. Sigmund Freud identified not only "eros", the drive towards life, but "thanatos," the drive towards death; which rules nature? Its two Deans are, appropriately, a vampire and a dryad: Valentin, Dean of the Vein, lets you recycle dying enemy creatures into Pest tokens that make you gain life when they die; Lisette, Dean of the Root, allows you to strengthen your army by gaining life. Beledros Witherbloom, the college's founder, also creates Pest tokens, and allows you to pay a (massive) amount of life to untap all your lands. It also takes on the "Hit Points Matter" theme that normally lives in white/black, as opposed to Golgari's normal habit of playing with the graveyard; in Witherbloom, green gets you more life and black helps you do something useful with it.
Fanon Examples:
- Mark Rosewater's listed examples for black-green are Poison Ivy, Venom, and the villain from 12 Monkeys.
- Nurgle from Warhammer 40,000 embraces the duality of Black and Green by rotting growth and growing rot. The followers of Nurgle are rotten and saturated with disease, in line with Black, but embrace Green to grow stronger through their hardships and persevere.
- Audrey II mixes Green's emphasis on growth with Black's desire for conquest.
- One of the rare protagonist examples is Tool from Ship Breaker. A half-man bred from engineered human, dog, hyena, and wolf genes, his kind are normally programmed with undying loyalty on a genetic level... well, undying until their patron dies, in which case they kill themselves. Tool is an oddity in that he has no patron, having outlived and largely grown past whoever they were. His appreciation for savagery, acceptance of the influence of nature and genetics, and his view of strength and survival are green, while his ultimate rejection of genetic determinism and general lack of concern with the greater scheme of things in favor of his own personal status are black.
- Unalaq, the Book 2 villain of The Legend of Korra, is pure, perfect Black/Green. A highly spiritual man (and the tribal chief of a highly spiritual people), he seeks to "take back the physical world" with all its progress, technology, and shallow materialism and reunite it with the spirit world, as it used to be long ago. He values tradition, spiritualism, and what he sees as a natural order tragically lost in modern times. On the other hand, he is also a selfish and power-hungry individual who plans to merge with the Spirit of Darkness in order to bring this restoration about (and he backstabs nearly everyone around him at some point or another). Unalaq also harnesses dark power to corrupt spirits and bend them toward his aims. His philosophies and goals are very Green, but his character and the means he uses to attain his ends are solid Black.
- Monika from Doki Doki Literature Club! has this color combination, though as the game's biggest Walking Spoiler, she only reveals this after a crucial plot twist. She's very Black in that she's willing to do anything to be with the player, the only real person she can contact in a shallow, pre-programmed virtual world — even if it means deleting the rest of her friends. However, despite trying to be cold-hearted about it, Monika still cares for her friends enough that she restores them just before her own deletion, which fits in Green's desire to help one's companions. Furthermore, when alone with the player, she talks about various Black and Green habits and beliefs that mesh together into a personal philosophy of hers: she considers the world too imperfect for there to be a benevolent God, and thinks that the key to happiness is being selfish rather than concerning yourself with the many problems of the world (Black), but she believes that people's unhappiness comes from the realization that they take a lot more from the world than they give back, and thus she wants to be a net-positive and strive to "pay back my lifetime's worth of consumption" (Green). Furthermore, she's a vegetarian, but for the pragmatic reason that meat production has a very poor carbon footprint (and all food comes from life anyway, so it's a double standard to only care about killing organisms relatable to humans as species — something the Golgari would eagerly point out).
- What happens when you mix together unbridled selfishness with primal wilderness? You get a lapdog. Iggy is a Boston Terrier who happens to wield a stand that gives him control of sand, dirt, and dust (which aligns with this color combo). This gives him an arrogant attitude of viewing himself better than the humans that he believed mistreated him as a stray dog, and superior to the other stray dogs of New York that he looks after. In contrast to the rest of the Crusaders who are out to save the world, Iggy is motivated by his hunger as only joined them in their quest because they give him his favorite coffee flavored gum as a treat; initially, he couldn't care less about fighting DIO. He's far from irredeemable though, as he has a soft spot for people who like dogs, at one point even risking his life to save a dog-loving child, and eventually grows to like the rest of the gang as comrades and friends.
- Speaking of heroic Black/Green characters and JoJo's Bizarre Adventure heroes, it's impossible to talk about Black/Green without bringing up Giorno Giovanna. Like most Black-aligned heroes, he's entirely motivated by his own experience with a Neighborhood Friendly Gangster saving his life from hell, and eventually motivating him to join the mafia solely out of self-interest, albeit a noble sense. He's also, like many Black characters, willing to put himself at serious risk to gain an advantage with his Stand, Gold Experience, whether that's ripping his arm off to extend his Stand's range against an early enemy, or risk himself being poisoned with a 100%-lethal venom to take down an opponent. However, he notably completely emphasizes the Green part of him. He thinks not just about himself, but the ones he holds very close to his heart, like his crew or his hometown; he cares very greatly for his crew and the community, and actively acts to preserve the happiness and stability of the community he cares for (very Green). It should also be worth noting that unlike several instances of Black/Green, he doesn't believe in the combo's worst qualities (that equality is a lie and people should accept when they're simply never going to be better than someone else), instead showing a belief that people's individual "truths" stand up to the falsehoods brought on ne'er-do-wells, which fuses Green's belief in pretedermination with Black's belief in individual advancement in one of the most positive depictions of the color combo. What's even more notable is the fact that his entire Stand revolves around the ability to create life and You Can't Fight Fate, both of which being an indisputably Green power.
- Surprisingly enough, Thanos from Avengers: Infinity War fits here, a stark difference from his comic book counterpart. He seeks to use the power of the Infinity Stones to kill off half of all sentient beings in the universe, but he does it because he believes there's just not enough resources in a finite universe to go around. Killing half the populace — and doing so at random, so there's no discrimination in the act — will allow the half that remains to survive much better than they otherwise would. A Black method for a Green goal.
- Counterpointing Thanos, Ultimate Charles Xavier is an egoist and a racist who never once denies that he believes mutants to be inherently superior to baseline human beings, even being a founding member of the Brotherhood of Mutants and an enormous influence on that group's philosophy in this universe. The main underlying distinction between Ultimate Xavier and Ultimate Magneto is not whether humans are better than mutants and should rule them, or whether they are equal and should live in peace... but whether attempting to conquer the entire world is even a feasible goal. Xavier believes that, in spite of mutants' inherent superiority, they simply don't have the numbers to overcome humanity by force and should pander to humanity's insecurities by pretending to be super–heroes, while waiting for baseline humanity to simply die off. A Green method... for a very Black goal.
- Tsukasa Kadoya embodies the "Free Will vs. Fate" conflict of these two colors. He is prophesied to be/become a "demon who will destroy all worlds". A great part of his character arc involves him trying to avoid this destiny, until he eventually snaps and accepts his role as the Destroyer Of Worlds. It's later revealed that it was necessary for him to become a villain in order to help the big picture of things. In crossovers that happen after the show's finale, he is shown to be perfectly fine with his title/nickname of "Destroyer Of Worlds" while still being a hero, albeit a rather cynical and pragmatic one. It's also worth noting that he isn't a hero out of genuine altruism; he just believes that this is his role in life and possibly to give a huge Take That! to people that insist he is "evil" too.
- Gruncle Stan appears at first to be a classic mono-Black character, lying, cheating, stealing, and basically being a man of poor character. Later, we learn that his highest priority is always family, and everything he does and everything he has done since high school has been to reunite his family.
- The Nosferatu Clan is embodiment of this trope. While they can be as egoistic and self-obsessed as rest of the Kindred, they keep an "outcasts stick together" mentality and can genuinely care about their own (as opposed to — say — the Ventrue, who'll happily throw you under a bus if it suits their schemes). It extends to the point that even their 'antitribu' are hardly different from their Camarilla counterpart, as they keep loyalty to Clan first and foremost (when most of the other Clans going this way ended up with various degrees of Ax-Crazy). Even their usual pool of candidates for Embrace have a green tint to them — as they are usually those who already lived at the bottom as mortals (a karmic reward, of sorts), or those who were vain and shallow enough to warrant a Karmic Transformation. Hell, they even usually live in the sewers (like Golgari) and have an affinity for (ghoulified) animals.
- Garfield really only cares about eating, sleeping, watching TV, and overall just appealing to his desires at the general detriment of nearly everyone else, whether it be sapping off of Jon's finances or kicking Odie off the table for the hell of it. That being said, he does still show an occasional sympathitic side for those close to him, particularly when they are in danger, so he showcases both the good and bad sides of this color combo.
- Aaron Burr, as portrayed in the Broadway musical Hamilton is a tragic example of this. He is very politically ambitious, he lacks any firm principles, and he is happy to throw his allies under the bus. However, he doesn't have any grand vision for the country himself, and he's notably passive, preffering to "wait for it" rather than take action. Instead, he is opportunistic and joins groups he thinks can help him. He seeks personal fortune through systems without wanting to change them, a very Golgari philisophy. The musical suggests that Hamilton's more active philosophy is more effective; Burr's political ambitions grind to a halt because potential allies and the electorate can detect that he doesn't have real principles or loyalty.
Red/White - "Boros"
RED and WHITE - Boros (article here)
White opposes Red for similar reasons as it does Black. White understands the utility of putting away its emotions; Red is ruled by nothing else. White thinks Red is Chaotic Selfish, too obsessed with its own pleasure to be trustworthy. For its part, Red sees White as a Control Freak and doesn't like all the annoying little rules White uses to harsh Red's not-so-mellow. White, with its aforementioned specialty in Power Nullifiers, can impose a lot of new rules on players; Red has all the spells that bend the rules and shake things up (e.g., "Spell which used to target [X] now targets something else, which you get to choose" or "Shuffle all permanents in play and deal them out randomly"). Put as simply as possible: Order Versus Chaos.
White/Red cards tend to be about the middle ground of Red's emotion and White's determination — taking an emotion and harnessing it to a greater cause. In-game, this is most commonly expressed as martial zeal, loyalty, and passionate faith, but other emotions work as well. Red/White is in many ways The Kirk to white's Spock and red's McCoy, able to use the strengths of both philosophies to achieve greater things than either could alone. However, Red/White seems to usually use hybrid means for either White-like goals or to combine the effects of opposing spells, rarely Red-like goals alone.
) White opposes Red for similar reasons as it does Black. White understands the utility of putting away its emotions; Red is ruled by nothing else. White thinks Red is Chaotic Selfish, too obsessed with its own pleasure to be trustworthy. For its part, Red sees White as a Control Freak and doesn't like all the annoying little rules White uses to harsh Red's not-so-mellow. White, with its aforementioned specialty in Power Nullifiers, can impose a lot of new rules on players; Red has all the spells that bend the rules and shake things up (e.g., "Spell which used to target [X] now targets something else, which you get to choose" or "Shuffle all permanents in play and deal them out randomly"). Put as simply as possible: Order Versus Chaos.
White/Red cards tend to be about the middle ground of Red's emotion and White's determination — taking an emotion and harnessing it to a greater cause. In-game, this is most commonly expressed as martial zeal, loyalty, and passionate faith, but other emotions work as well. Red/White is in many ways The Kirk to white's Spock and red's McCoy, able to use the strengths of both philosophies to achieve greater things than either could alone. However, Red/White seems to usually use hybrid means for either White-like goals or to combine the effects of opposing spells, rarely Red-like goals alone.
Canon Examples:
- The Boros Legion in Ravnica is heroic, but extreme (to the point that only a few characters are "good", not the whole group) and somewhat hypocritical, as they are willing to break their own rules to impose the law. In Return to Ravnica, they have become much more activist with their new leader, having deposed Feather. In Gatecrash, their new mechanic is Battalion: creatures with Battalion activate special abilities if at least two other creatures attack alongside them. In Guilds of Ravnica, their new mechanic is "Mentor"; if a creature with both Mentor and higher power than another attacking creature is attacking, it can make the weaker creature permanently more powerful.
- Meanwhile, the Nobilis of War from the Shadowmoor uses White methods for Red goals; namely, utter and total devotion to war. Both colours are in fact those most comfortable with war as a concept: White as a tool for peace (irony!), and Red as an outlet for aggression.
- The actual Shadowmoor races aligned with Red/White, the duergar and hobgoblins, express this combination by being territorial peoples, violently attacking anyone who seems like a threat (which is pretty much everyone). The duergar are somewhat more isolationist, preferring to avoid conflict by being underground, while the hobgoblins are more militant, actually going to the point of eating their enemies. Yes, a white aligned race that eats other sapient races.
- Another example is the Mirran Resistance in the Scars of Mirrodin block, fueled by both devotion to their cause, and defiance to the ever-increasing Phyrexian influence on the world. This leads to the few surviving uncorrupted Mirrans to keep from losing hope of a pure Mirrodin once again, by remaining defiant to the new Phyrexian rule reinforced by a staunch belief that even in this state, they can reclaim their home. (This hope is rewarded by the Red Phyrexians deciding not to hurt the resistance so long as they cause no trouble in the Furnace.) This color combination can create a really stubborn Determinator.
- Yet another example is the god Iroas. He's a war god and one of the patrons of the militaristic Kingdom of Akros. However, while he is an aspect of war, his focus is on valor and bravery in battle. What is seen as "honorable" warfare is his main domain, so either standing side by side with one's fellow comrades or striking out on one's own and making a heroic stand.
- Ajani Vengeant shows what Ajani was like in the aftermath of his brother's murder. Sarkhan Vol helped Ajani use that anger as fuel for power. His first loyalty ability locks down another creature for a turn, a very White ability in nature. His second loyalty ability deals 3 damage to a target while healing his controller for 3 life, a simple yet effective mix of Red and White. His third and most powerful loyalty ability destroys all lands a target player controls; while Red has become the color with the most land destruction, the original spell which says "Destroy all lands" is the white Armageddon.
- A villainous example would be Nahiri, the Harbringer. Formerly mono-White, seeing her home plane ravaged by the Eldrazi made her overwhelmed with rage and clouded her judgment, to the point she tried to inflict the same fate on the home plane of the man she saw responsible.
- Strixhaven's Lorehold college focuses on interpersonal connections: history, psychology, anthropology, archaeology. However, its members are divided on the question of whether these things are ruled by rules or passion. Its two Deans are Plargg, Dean of Chaos, which allows you to sneak whatever card you come upon into play; and Augusta, Dean of Order, which gives specific bonuses based on whether a creature is tapped or not and lets you tap and/or untap them to get things set up juuust right. The college's founder, Velomachus Lorehold, does the same thing as Plargg, but with only spells. Instead of Boros' Attack! Attack! Attack! philosophy, Lorehold focuses on a play style that cares more about things leaving the graveyard, whether its fate be coming Back from the Dead or becoming Deader than Dead.
- Samurai in Kamigawa are often of the Boros colors, with Imperial samurai being White and Rōnin being Red, and share in the typical Boros mindset of Attack! Attack! Attack!. In the past, this is implemented via their Bushido keyword, wherein they get extra Power and Toughness whenever they block or are blocked until the end of the turn. Come Neon Dynasty, they lose the Bushido keyword, but in exchange gain a playstyle that is more conservative, but still pretty aggressive: most Samurai will now have an effect that happens whenever a Samurai (or Warrior) attacks alone, much like in a Jidaigeki with a touch of Power of Friendship.
Fanon Examples:
- An example of the duality of Red/White is to compare Alucard and The Major from Hellsing; both are Red/White characters, but in opposite directions. Alucard uses his Red bloodlust to attain White’s ideal of a vampire-free England, whereas the Major uses White’s organization to spend 50 years preparing for a Red-style bloody war.
- The staff classifies V and The Punisher as W/R; both are murderous yet meticulously careful anti-heroes. Interestingly, V is an excellent example of using White methods (careful plans and stratagems) for Red ends (anarchy overthrowing a fascist state). Rosewater has also stated that Worf and The A-Team are further examples.
- Amon is a great example of a Red/White villain. A social revolutionary who seeks equality for non-benders, he is a rebellious Knight Templar with an absolute sense of authorithy and command as well as expert and meticulous strategising, never losing his cool, yet remaining quite passionate. He is vicious and stops at nothing to see his twisted brand of justice realised, yet he seemingly is still moral enough to not actually kill people aside from one quite desperate circumstance. His backstory only reinforces this, having been striving to be "fair to everyone" since he was a child, and revealing that he suffers tremendous emotional issues and possible exceptional guilt over being the very thing he came to hate. Also, he is a bloodbender, and blood spells are often Red (though it's because of his waterbending), and his blending-blocking ability has been revealed by Bryke to be chi manipulating, aka reversed healing, and thus White.
- Sam Vimes is a rugged man with an anti-authoritan streak and is not afraid to fight dirty if needed, but his dedication to the law and justice is absolute, and his sense of morals is one of the strongest in the Discworld despite his cynicism. Indeed, Agrus Kos, a Boros hero from the first Ravnica block, seems to be based somewhat on Vimes.
- General Alister Azimuth from Ratchet & Clank Future: A Crack in Time. A true patriot of the Lombaxes who was exiled after unwittingly helping Emperor Percival Tachyon exact vengeance on the Lombaxes prior to the Ratchet & Clank games, he wants to use the Great Clock to change the past so the Lombaxes never leave their home universe, thereby making up for his past mistakes, and displays passion and fervor in pursuit of this goal to the point he's willing to shoot Ratchet, the son of his own childhood friend, and risk the entire universe in the process.
- Inspector Carmelita Fox from the Sly Cooper series, so very much. She's quite dedicated to the pursuit of justice and the enforcement of the law, but is also quite passionate, short-tempered, and prone to venting her frustration on the criminals she apprehends.
- Rider from Fate/Zero, being the spirit of Alexander the Great, fits this paradigm; his methods and goals are each a thorough blend of white and red, order and passion. His camaraderie and fiery personality gave him the charisma to rally tens of thousands of allies to his cause, turning them into a Badass Army that could take over much of the known world. In combat, he can summon this massive army to his aid, not unlike what a Boros player might do. He claims that the reason Saber failed as a King is because she took a pure White approach to ruling, which meant she lacked the charisma to inspire true loyalty among her subjects.
- Calvin "Freckle" McMurray from Lackadaisy, though not all at once. Most of the time he's quiet, shy, and reasonable, but when he picks up a gun, something in him goes "click-click" and he switches into a trigger-happy maniac, though thankfully he has so far not harmed any of his closest associates, like Ivy (a college girl with a crush on him that he might reciprocate), Rocky (his cousin, see below in the Black-Red section), or Nina (his mother). Indeed, the poor guy finds himself torn between trying to be the good Catholic boy his mother raised him to be (he even applied to become a cop, but his aforementioned enthusiasm for firearms blew his chance) and his cousin and closest friend since childhood, Rocky, who has a bad habit of misguiding him into one misadventure after another, like setting fire to a backwoods distillery in an attempt to muscle out competition for a badly crippled bootlegging syndicate.
- The Lady Knight and Big Sister Maid from Maoyu are definite examples that, while united in purpose, vary in approach. As a knight and prioress, the Lady Knight's emphasis on faith, religion, military tactics, duty, and helping the peasantry are very white, while her hot-headedness, fury in battle, love and desire for the Hero, and generally rough demeanor are red. Meanwhile, the Big Sister Maid is also devoutly religious, but lacks that same commanding edge that the Lady Knight has. However, her red side manifests as compassion and fierce individualism, born of her childhood life as a serf under the heel of a cruel master. Mixing this with white's desire to help the collective, she fervently yet peacefully pushes for a more egalitarian society, one where everyone, whether nobles, peasants, soldiers, or serfs, can all enjoy the Holy Light's gifts of life, wealth, and freedom. Just to further push the red half, freedom is something that she believes is an inviolable right of the people, which even kings or priests should never be able to take from them.
- Tohru Adachi from Persona 4 is a good example of a white/red character. As a detective, he apparently has white's dedication to law, but he's also quite red — he's energetic, emotionally driven, and tends not to think things through. Furthermore, his motives as the murderer are extremely red. He kills Saki and Yamano on impulse when they wouldn't go out with him, and manipulates Namatame for fun. His white motives become more apparent as he talks more about the murders, as he constantly tries to convince the Investigation Team that he's doing what's right. His end goals are also pretty white — he seeks to replace all humans with shadows, ending individualistic struggles. Also, in Persona 4: Arena Ultimax, he honors the promise he made in Persona 4 to follow the real world's rules, going as far to interfere in Minazuki's plans to prevent those rules from being broken.
- Speaking of Persona, Persona 5's Phantom Thieves of Hearts are absolutely Red/White on the concept's fundamental level. While the alignments of the individual members tend to vary, like Red/White, they're united on a singular concept: like Boros with justice, they're in it together to reform Tokyo's corrupt society from within. They do this by using the Metaverse to access truly evil — and untouchable — people's sub-consciousness and force them to have a Heel-Face Turn, crushing them under the weight of their own guilt. The goals of the Phantom Thieves are indubitably White by nature (ensure stability, order, and justice by helping people), but their methods and rebellion against tyranny firmly plant them in Red as well.
- The Masked Lumen in Bayonetta 2 is a very straightforward example of Red-White. His basic motivation is to avenge his lover, seeking to kill the person he thinks murdered her. He's very impulsive, very honourable, very straightforward, objected to the witch hunts on moral grounds even when the rest of his side didn't (and manipulated him into fanning them), and ultimately commits a Heroic Sacrifice for the good of all. He is the younger, non-corrupted version of Balder, seen above in White-Blue.
- At his core, Sonic the Hedgehog, despite his title of "The Blue Blur", is an extremely red-white characternote . He values his own freedom and the freedom of others intensely, chafes at the notion of being restricted, and lives life at his own pace and by his own rules. He also cares a lot for the well-being of pretty much everyone he meets, and has dedicated himself to thwarting the evil ambitions of ne'er-do-wells like Dr. Eggman and protecting the peace and the people.
- At the very core of the franchise, Power Rangers is a very Boros show. Individual Rangers, even morphed, are typically only strong enough to take on a small squad of Mooks, while a full team tend to have no trouble taking on a much stronger monster, a very much White ideal. In combination with this, the series also promotes the importance of friendship and passion, leading, along with the generous use of explosives, to a very Red feel as well. While certain series may add others colors depending on motifs (Wild Force, for example, adds Green to this mixture), the show as a whole is consistently White/Red.
- Fire Emblem:
- The series as a whole tends to put a lot of emphasis on Boros values. Fire Emblem is a Low Fantasy Strategy RPG that features nobility's attempts to liberate a kingdom from an evil empire, malicious religious cult, or both. The series falls into Red/White due to its emphasis on teamwork, communal values and working together for a greater cause in service to the nation (a very White value), while also having a series hallmark being bonds between your soldiers, individual emphasis, and positive emotions like sympathy and love (very Red). While Fire Emblem is definitely leaning more to White than Red, the fact that a series theme has always been unifying people of disparate, different alignments for a greater cause is something that certainly embodies a Boros philosophy.
- While a lot of Lords in Fire Emblem follow the Red/White philosophy (adherence to order while being very emotionally-connected about it), two great examples would be Ike and Corrin. The former is a great instance of a Boros character due to his adherence to greater ideals and his determination to bring equality to beorc and laguz (very White ideals), while also being a free-spirited commoner in charge of a mercenary band with a fiery temperament (how isn't that Red?). Meanwhile, Corrin is a kind-hearted scion of nobility who is forced to choose between Nohr and Hoshido in the scheme of a great war; while adhering to order and peace just as much (if not moreso) than the average Fire Emblem Lord, their sense of emotional connection, camaraderie and leadership skills (even in spite of their average tactical capabilities) makes them firmly Red as well. Really, between these two serving as the most notable examples in a very Boros franchise, most Fire Emblem Lords fit Red/White pretty well, with some exceptions.
- The Templars from The Secret World are for all intents and purposes the Boros Legion IN AN URBAN FANTASY WORLD!. Formed within the Second Age of the current four ages, they were formed during the height of demonic presence in the world from the Hell Dimension, and have since dedicated each Reset Button to hunting monsters to preserving order and trying to keep the surface world as safe and demon-free as possible (inherently White). They are regimented, orderly and firmly lawful, but they are ultimately noted to burn down entire villages to get at one demon, take immense pride in martial zeal, and put a great emphasis on emotions and passion (very Red). Through this, they are highly martial and pride on using Red methods for White goals (war for peace, to protect humanity against the inhuman). The kicker is that they even have the same color scheme, being red and white all over, and just as militant as the Boros Legion itself.
- Mark Rosewater has stated that most of the Super Hero characters would by general rule either be this or combine White/Red with a third color. This is because as a rule they are aiming to a White goal (more lawful society) but use Red methods (vigilantism being openly against the law) to accomplish it.
- The video game Tales of Berseria shows White and Red at war with each other. The protagonist, Velvet Crowe, was traumatized when her brother-in-law, Artorius Collbrande, failed to protect her sister Celica and their unborn child; later, trauma turned to Rage when she saw him make a human sacrifice of their one remaining sibling, Laphicet the Littlest Cancer Patient. The game is her Roaring Rampage of Revenge against Artorius, who has since risen to leadership of an ecclesiastic organization that promotes detached, emotionless reason and wants to eradicate The Evils of Free Will. In the meanwhile, of course, Velvet has become a Blood Knight whose Left Red Hand, literally a demon claw, allows her to Life Drain her victims. Ultimately, the two are similar, each willing to force others to make sacrifices in the name of their goals.
- The Huntsmen and Huntresses of RWBY qualify, at least on an institutional level. While individuals vary in motives and means, the express purposes of the Huntsmen is to protect humanity from the Creatures of Grimm, and they frequently work in tightly-knit teams that often become as close as family. However, they also embrace individuality as a rule of thumb, with their outfits and gear being highly customized and unique, and their weapons being tailor made to their individual fighting styles. Even their powers tend to be unique and reflective of their personality.
- On an individual level, Yang Xiao Long is probably the best of this color pair: more than anything, she wants to look out for those she considers family, especially her half-sister Ruby and teammates Blake and Weiss (White). But she also has an explosive temper (literally) that's cost her as many fights as it's won, and tends to go by her heart more than her head (Red).
- Turians from the Mass Effect series can be an example of an interesting relationship between White and Red: their entire culture is centered around martial prowess, but they avoid typical trappings of Proud Warrior Race Guy by standing firmly on "Soldier" axis in the Soldier vs. Warrior debacle. Things like recreational drug usage or personal conduct are overlooked as long as you do your duty as a soldier, but — at the same time — being overambitious or risking the lives of your comrades for personal gain are shunned. Unlike most examples mentioned above (where it's usually Red martial themes mixed with White ideas of social solidarity), they actually have a Red flavor of society (as long as you're useful, anything goes) with a White martial code.
- Christian from the Green Day Album 21st Century Breakdown genuinely does want to resolve the problems of American society, but he doesn't really have a have a greater plan than mindless violence against the establishment, meaning he resembles a mindless terrorist more than a righteous revolutionary. It's a tragic example of red self-destruction sabotaging a white moral crusade.
- The War Doctor is Red/White, the only Doctor of this combination. Created when Eight was regenerating because of his utter disgust at the Time War, the War Doctor channels the Doctor's emotions, especially their anger and despair, into ending the Time War and stopping the unimaginable slaughter. . . by any means necessary.
Green/Blue - "Simic"
GREEN and BLUE - Simic (article here)
Blue and Green don't get along because of their attitudes towards the world, nature in particular, which boil down to Harmony Versus Discipline. Green believes that Status Quo Is God: "if it ain't broke, don't fix it." This tends to result in thinking Science Is Bad for meddling with Things Man Was Not Meant to Know. Blue, on the other hand, is trying to figure out how to build a half-monkey half-pony to please you. Blue loves technology, and has a number of spells that work well with artifacts; while less common, it also has some expensive and eye-popping effects in enchantment form. Green hates tech, and currently has the strongest Dispel Magic spells in the game; in fact, the artifact- and enchantment-destruction spell, Disenchant, was permanently moved from White to Green (as "Naturalize") after The Powers That Be realized it belonged there better. Blue is progressive and wants to actively improve things, while Green is conservative and thinks that if change happens, it should come about organically.
Green/Blue, like some other hybrids, most commonly involves mixing one color's ends and the other’s means. While Green tends to spurn knowledge, it is quite at home with wisdom, with one of the most noteworthy historians in the game, Reki the History of Kamigawa, being mono-Green. Both Green and Blue are the best colors in the game at drawing extra cards, with Blue letting one do so for just a little mana while Green sets requirements that you can fulfill each turn; meanwhile, other colors, if they let you draw more cards at all, either throttle how much you can do it (White), utilize Discard and Draw and use-it-or-lose-it “impluse” drawing (Red), or make getting more of them possible but painful (Black). This sort of "natural wisdom" generally manifests as bluish effects on Green cards, but it can cross over into full-on hybrids. Another common Blue/Green hybrid connects Green to Blue's small but still-present natural side in the form of water. We trust we don’t need to emphasize the importance of water to life, though Blue prefers saltwater and Green freshwater. Selkies and feral water-folk from Shadowmoor, humidity-loving jungle foliage, and natural springs of time-twisting water use Green means for Blue effects. Yet another combination involves people who think they can do better than nature; Green/Blue is the color of genetic engineering, vivisection and Frankenstein-style mad science. Lastly, Green with Blue sometimes manifests in naturalists, shamans, survivalists, and hunters who have a deep respect for nature but nonetheless seek to explore and study its workings.
Mechanically, Green and Blue, in addition to the aforementioned card draw, also boast the game’s biggest creatures between the two of them. Many Green/Blue decks, therefore, focus on Mighty Glacier strategies designed to ramp into huge monsters early in the game while parrying opponent’s attempts to stop them through counterspells and their shared Hexproof and Ward mechanics.
) Blue and Green don't get along because of their attitudes towards the world, nature in particular, which boil down to Harmony Versus Discipline. Green believes that Status Quo Is God: "if it ain't broke, don't fix it." This tends to result in thinking Science Is Bad for meddling with Things Man Was Not Meant to Know. Blue, on the other hand, is trying to figure out how to build a half-monkey half-pony to please you. Blue loves technology, and has a number of spells that work well with artifacts; while less common, it also has some expensive and eye-popping effects in enchantment form. Green hates tech, and currently has the strongest Dispel Magic spells in the game; in fact, the artifact- and enchantment-destruction spell, Disenchant
, was permanently moved from White to Green (as "Naturalize") after The Powers That Be realized it belonged there better. Blue is progressive and wants to actively improve things, while Green is conservative and thinks that if change happens, it should come about organically. Green/Blue, like some other hybrids, most commonly involves mixing one color's ends and the other’s means. While Green tends to spurn knowledge, it is quite at home with wisdom, with one of the most noteworthy historians in the game, Reki the History of Kamigawa
, being mono-Green. Both Green and Blue are the best colors in the game at drawing extra cards, with Blue letting one do so for just a little mana while Green sets requirements that you can fulfill each turn; meanwhile, other colors, if they let you draw more cards at all, either throttle how much you can do it (White), utilize Discard and Draw and use-it-or-lose-it “impluse” drawing (Red), or make getting more of them possible but painful (Black). This sort of "natural wisdom" generally manifests as bluish effects on Green cards, but it can cross over into full-on hybrids. Another common Blue/Green hybrid connects Green to Blue's small but still-present natural side in the form of water. We trust we don’t need to emphasize the importance of water to life, though Blue prefers saltwater and Green freshwater. Selkies and feral water-folk from Shadowmoor, humidity-loving jungle foliage, and natural springs of time-twisting water use Green means for Blue effects. Yet another combination involves people who think they can do better than nature; Green/Blue is the color of genetic engineering, vivisection and Frankenstein-style mad science. Lastly, Green with Blue sometimes manifests in naturalists, shamans, survivalists, and hunters who have a deep respect for nature but nonetheless seek to explore and study its workings. Mechanically, Green and Blue, in addition to the aforementioned card draw, also boast the game’s biggest creatures between the two of them. Many Green/Blue decks, therefore, focus on Mighty Glacier strategies designed to ramp into huge monsters early in the game while parrying opponent’s attempts to stop them through counterspells and their shared Hexproof and Ward mechanics.
Canon Examples:
- The Simic Combine are a group of Amoralutionary Biologists, led by the self-made elf-snake hybrid wizard-geneticist-mercantilist, Momir Vig. He wants to use science to improve life into more useful forms, and then sell those useful forms for moniez. The Simic Combine won't stop until the world looks like Australia.
- As of Return to Ravnica, the Simic Combine has seemingly moved away from Genetic Engineering Is the New Nuke and returned to their more druidic roots, with the help of a race of merfolk found in a vast underground ocean, which use Green's spirituality and duty and Blue science and analysis to preserve (and encourage improvement upon) nature. Their new mechanic in Gatecrash, "Evolve", makes creatures stronger every time a stronger or more durable ally appears. In Ravnica Allegiance, they get the "Adapt" mechanic, which allows a creatures that don't already have counters making them stronger to become stronger by adding counters.
- As of Return to Ravnica, the Simic Combine has seemingly moved away from Genetic Engineering Is the New Nuke and returned to their more druidic roots, with the help of a race of merfolk found in a vast underground ocean
- Kruphix, God of the Horizens is the oldest god in the Theros pantheon. He mainly governs potential and other unseen aspects of the world, such as mystery, navigation, and time. He's also the keeper of much of the world's ancient knowledge and its secrets, which makes him relatively quiet and uninvolved in the world, only appearing to a select few, or when he is needed most. Many say he guards all the knowledge in the world no one was meant to know, such as how to kill a god, something which he reluctantly tells Elspeth how to do when she comes to ask for assistance in eliminating the rogue planeswalker-turned-god Xenagos.
- Kiora is a merfolk planeswalker with an affinity for the ocean. She's The Beastmaster, particularly of very large seagoing creatures — "very large creatures" are one of the few things the two colors share in common. She also has an affinity for getting her hands on extra land and creatures, something Green is good at and something Blue always wants.note
- Nissa Revane has been a mono-Green planeswalker on six of her seven cards. But Nissa, Steward of Elements is both Green and Blue. An Earth Mother shaman by trade, Nissa has facility with lands, able to untap them (for Blue) and animate them for combat (for Green). She can sneak creatures into play. And her personality is uniquely Green/Blue, emphasizing not only knowledge and wisdom (she's a Sensor Character In Harmony with Nature), but featuring another thing both Green and Blue tend to have: No Social Skills.
- The Ixalan block provided us with the River Heralds, a nomadic collective of merfolk capable of bending the elements of their native jungles to fit their needs (Blue), while restoring the used areas to what they were before once said needs are fulfilled (Green); true to their alignment (Green and Blue being the less proactive colors), they focus less on finding the golden city of Orazca and more on hindering the efforts of the other factions seeking to find it.
- In Strixhaven we have Quandrix College, the college of mathematics. It is focused on an old philosophical debate about the nature of math: Is math a Background Magic Field that makes the universe go and which sapient beings were just smart enough to discover? Or is it a set of artificial rules we invented to help make sense of the universe? Its two Deans are Kianne, Dean of Substance, which lets you either play lands or exile non-land cards to strengthen Kianne's "Fractal" tokens; and Imbraham, Dean of Theory, who exiles cards and lets you take one into your hand. Notably, both characters utilize the same Exile zone by marking such cards with "Study" counters: if you have both, they collaborate very effectively (which is not always the case with the other Deans). Tanazir Quandrix, the college's elder dragon founder, lets you play with numbers by adding +1/+1 counters and setting all creatures' base power and toughness to be the same as Tanazir's. As opposed to Simic's We Have Reserves philosophy, Quandrix focuses on the Powerhouse strategy instead.
Fanon Examples:
- Dr. Moreau, Dr. Frankenstein, John Hammond (movie version), and Dr. Octopus (also movie version) are listed as blue-green characters by Mark Rosewater.
- If not White, the Borg are Green/Blue according to Mark Rosewater, being an infectious, virus-like species that intends to assimilate everyone at the expense of individuality.
- The Reapers from Mass Effect are a good example of Green-Bluenote taken to horrifying extremes. Their core motivation is to preserve biological life to prevent its destruction by synthetics, which they realise by assimilating an entire species into a new Reaper, something which they believe also to be an up-lifting of said race. In other words, Blue's craving for perfection mixed with Green's desire for growth (and acceptance, since they take a decidely fatalistic worldview in regards to the fate of sophonts). Combined with their superiority complex and Fantastic Racism, they embody the two worst aspects of this colour combination.
- Hiccup from How to Train Your Dragon is an ingenious Guile Hero and Gadgeteer Genius who also strives, fights for and stabilizes co-existence of Vikings and dragons.
- An example somewhat akin to Kruphix would be Dizzy, from Guilty Gear. While initially afraid of humans because of prejudice against Gears, she's very curious and diligently seeks knowledge, especially after getting human friends (blue). She also values wisdom about human nature, and sees anthropogenic destruction as part of a natural cycle. On top of that, she happens to be a Friend to All Living Things, to the point that wild animals would approach her without fear while she hid in the Grove (green).
- The title character of Moana is an example of an explorer; she's both intensely curious about the world outside her island (Blue) and has a deep abiding love of the sea, a part of the natural world (Green). She has a devoted love of her community and their traditions, but also chafes at the restrictions her father places on her desire to explore and voyage; towards the beginning, she discovers that voyaging was once a core part of her people's heritage and past, and it's easily the most overjoyed she's shown in the entire movie. The song "We Know The Way" shows how it once applied to her entire culture: "We are explorers reading every sign. We tell the stories of our elders in a never-ending chain."
- Four incarnations of the Doctor (Three, Four, Six, and Thirteen) are Blue/Green, the second most common for the Doctor after Blue/White. The Doctor often acts to prevent meddling in the natural course of events using their brilliance and intellect, Blue means for a Green goal. Thirteen's run had many episodes tackling social or environmental issues, with the Doctor extolling the virtues of a more harmonius and peaceful society and preserving what we have left.
