Black Cloak - Television Tropes & Idioms

Tip: I know you want your identity safe, but think "low profile", not "ringwraith".

Sluggy Freelance

A hood that conceals the face is often a required matching accessory.

One of the oldest required dress codes by the Forces of Darkness. A Black Cloak villain sometimes even refers to himself as "Evil" or "Dark." The higher-up Black Cloaks are usually supernatural beings patterned after The Grim Reaper. The Nazgul Ringwraiths from The Lord Of The Rings and the Dementors from the Harry Potter books/films are the quintessential examples. Lesser Black Cloaks are usually cultists of some kind.

Often Black Cloaks will wander around in public. Nobody ever seems to question the people who are obviously concealing their identities. As with Stormtrooper armor, it's very easy for good guys to steal the uniform and walk around undetected in enemy territory, at least for a little while. Wearing a black cloak also signifies if a hero is dallying with The Dark Side, or is an Anti Hero.

One doesn't have to wear the outfit to be a Black Cloak, though this makes it easier. If at any point, one is referred to as "The Dark Lord" , "The Dark Queen" or something similar, then honorary Black Cloak status is given.

Very, very common in video games.

See Colour Coded For Your Convenience.

Examples:

Live Action TV

An episode of Highlander The Series had Duncan being attacked in his dreams by a Black Cloak. He went to a mystic who specialized in this, who gave a lot of psychobabble about the darkness within, and told Duncan not to fight it and try to understand it. It turned out that the mystic was the Black Cloak, and it was a scheme to get Duncan to drop his guard.
Typical villains in various Buffy The Vampire Slayer and Angel The Series episodes.
The Ghouls from Power Rangers: Lightspeed Rescue.
Subversion: In Big Wolf On Campus, the protagonist falls for the trope when he sees a Black Cloak attacking an old man. As it turned in, it was just death doing his job, which he had to pay up for.
Subversion: The new-series Doctor Who episode "End of the World" has a group of Black Cloaks who, at one point, seem to be behind the evil plot; however, they're really a decoy for the true villain.

Western Animation

The evil Wizard named NoHeart from the Care Bears children's cartoon was a Black Cloak.
Skeletor is depicted this way, especially in the newer version of He-Man.
Raven from Teen Titans is technically heroic, but as a half-demon destined to destroy the world, she qualifies as "dark."
- Perhaps ironically, when she is corrupted by a dragon trapped in an ancient tome, she switches to a white cloak.
The Hooded Claw from The Perils Of Penelope Pitstop.

Literature

Not technically a villain, but still inspired by the Reaper, this is the garb of the Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come from A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, published in 1843.
The Ringwraiths in The Lord Of The Rings.
- Lampshaded in Bored of the Rings.
Voldemort's Death Eaters in the Harry Potter series, as well as the Dementors.
In The Baroque Cycle famous people traveling incognito wear black sashes, anyone who recognizes them is supposed to ignore them while they are wearing the sashes.
Subverted in Don Quixote, when the titular ingenius hidalgo mistakes a group of Benedictine friars for evil wizards, making this Older Than Steam.
Dracula himself.
- Lampshaded in "Love at First Bite."
The supervillainess Hekate's 'Master', so horrific that even she is scared of him, in the Whateley Universe stories.

Video Games

Organization XIII from the Kingdom Hearts games, though they tend to pull down their hoods and show their faces unless they're being intentionally mysterious. For unexplained reasons, however, Mickey Mouse is also wearing one of these through half the game. Might be explained away as a disguise, except for, y'know, THE EARS...
- Di Z says somewhere during chain of memories that the cloaks have some darkness-resistant properties, but which exactly and how much exactly we hear not. However, this might explain Micky wearing one while travelling the darkness as well as helping Riku supressing Xehanorts Heartless
The Shadowlords from Ultima V.
The Black Cloak Society from King's Quest.
One might also include the Testaments from Xenosaga.
- This troper thinks it fits. Albedo Piazzola is a White Cloak who is arguably creepier than any Black Cloak this troper has ever seen.
The Sephiroth clones from Final Fantasy VII, though they're more innocent victims forced to take after their namesake, only doing evil when directly manipulated by him.
Arcanum's final boss Kerghan is a Black Cloak (well, the cloak is red and gold, but its the same idea) as are most of the Molochean Hand assassins trying to murder you.
Fire Emblem games almost always have a Big Bad wearing a purple cloak, functionally the same as black. They always use dark magic and quite often play the Dragon to, well, a dragon.
- The purple is likly for art reasons, as a black cloak would mess with the outline
This troper finds that this is depressingly common in the free MMORPG Plane Shift. So much so that his current evil character makes a point of not wearing black, mostly to avoid this but partly because he wants to be a Villain With Good Publicity.
Los Illuminados of Resident Evil 4
Tyrael from Diablo is a brown cloak, and oddly enough, he's one of the good guys.
- Although The brown-cloaked figure seen in the cinematics is actually Baal pretending to be Tyrael. And he's definitely not one of the good guys.
The Seekers from Gothic 2.
Princess Zelda in Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess
The Ethereals of X-COM: UFO Defense. The image under their autopsy research entry is the only time we see their faces.

Film

Subversion: In his progression from innocent farmboy to Jedi Knight, Luke Skywalker started in a white outfit (Star Wars), underwent most of his training in a grey flight suit (The Empire Strikes Back) and wore a black jumpsuit under the traditional brown robe when he proclaimed himself a full Jedi Knight (Return of the Jedi). Also, at the end of RotJ, note that he comes to the celebration at the end with the front of his tunic partly unzipped...resulting in a patch of gray, surrounded by the dark.
- Although the comics and novels that take place afterward state that he stained himself with the Dark Side quite a bit by then, they were primarily written after the fact and may be considered a Ret Con.
- A straight Star Wars example, though, is The Emperor/Senator Palpatine/Darth Sidious, who shows up this way in the original trilogy, the prequels, and the Animated Adaptation, Star Wars Clone Wars. Anakin, his protege, originally omits the cloak from his personalized leather Jedi attire, but as he gets darker, he starts donning it as well. He upgrades to the signature black cape and life-support system of Darth Vader after losing to Obi-Wan.
- Lucas has explained this phenomenon in interviews. In Star Wars, warm colors and Earth tones symbolize "humanity" (in the inclusive sense) while pure black and pure white both symbolize impersonality. Hence the Empire is entirely black-and-white to signify that it is coldly institutional. Luke wears black to signify that he has become more reserved and withdrawn from daily tumult with his Force training.
The Neighbourhood Watch Alliance members in Hot Fuzz.

Anime

Played with with the protagonist's disguise in Code Geass involves a helmet that completely hides the face and a black cloak. Though it remains a mystery if he really is a good person, or is just wanting power for himself.
Nekozawa from Ouran High School Host Club wears one of these partially to be mysterious, and because he is extremely photosensitive.
Naruto has The Akatsuki, who have painted very stylish red clouds on their Black Cloaks, which, in only a minor subversion, don't come with hoods.
- You can tell when an Akatsuki is about to die, because they will generally throw off their cloak or it'll be burnt, destroyed E.T.C.

Commercials