Follow TV Tropes

Following

Blind Justice

Go To

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/daredevil_detail.png

"See, now he thought he was goin' to get off with that old 'I'm blind' excuse. But oooooh boy, he had another thing coming..."
Uncle Ruckus, The Boondocks

It's a well-known fact that Justice is blind. But it's sometimes more than just a "well-known fact": Some works feature actually blind characters working for truth and justice; others reference the saying in another way.


Blind (or blindfolded) character examples:

    open/close all folders 

    Anime & Manga 
  • Bleach: Played straight with Tosen. He's blind and strives for justice, but joins with Aizen because, although he thinks he has a clear view of justice, he's blinded by his desire for revenge. Thanks to the specific autocratic nature of the Central 46, a shinigami who killed his wife over something trivial became a Karma Houdini. Since that wife was a very close friend of Tousen's, he didn't take it well and swore to uphold justice in her name and by her sword. He obtained his justice against the Central 46 by supporting Aizen's move to kill them all and leaving with Aizen to join the enemy the shinigami existed to fight. He left behind two people who vowed to open his eyes to true justice. They did.
  • Marine admiral Fujitora from One Piece. He is even implied to pride himself by it as he says: "The blind ones have the privilege of not seeing certain terrible things in this world". Fujitora turns out to have blinded himself deliberately so that he would no longer have to look at the evil in the world.

    Comic Books 
  • The DCU:
    • Charles McNider AKA Doctor Mid-Nite, one of DC's early characters and a member of the Justice Society of America. Blinded by a grenade, he finds that he can't see in light, but can still see in total darkness.
    • Wonder Woman: Themis, Titan of Divine Law and Justice, usually wears a blindfold while on Olympus serving in her role as mediator of judgement. For a time, Wonder Woman herself became blinded after a battle with Medusa and wore a blindfold, clearly invoking the image of Lady Justice.
  • Marvel Universe:
    • Daredevil is Marvel's foremost blind superhero, and a defense attorney as his civilian job.
    • The Shroud was blinded in a ritual which awakened mystical senses, and uses the darkforce to trap and fight criminals.
    • Libra, a longtime Avengers foe, invokes this motif. He is a blind man, his costume has a Libra symbol, and often talks about balance.
    • The Hawkeye foe Blind Justice was a blind vigilante with a scales symbol on his costume.
  • Judge Dredd: The fact that no one ever sees Judge Dredd's eyes through his helmet's dark visor is supposed to be a reference to this. Moreover, he was blinded once when he visited a Bad Future. When he returned to the present, he had Electronic Eyes inserted.
  • Chief Justice Tyrest's Legislators in Transformers: More than Meets the Eye have no eyes, which was confirmed by Word of God to be a reference to this concept.

    Films — Live-Action 
  • In Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, the character Justice wears glasses.
  • Judge Dredd. When Dredd meets former Chief Justice Fargo in the Cursed Earth, there's a statue of Blind Justice in the room.
    Dredd: The blind lady. Who is she?
    Fargo: Justice... before your time. We should never have taken justice out of her hands.

    Literature 
  • Max Carrados: Blind detective created by Ernest Bramah.
  • Parodied in A Series of Unfortunate Events. The judges insist that everyone in the courtroom wears blindfolds so that justice will be blind. They're evil, and using this to cover their kidnapping/escape.
  • Inverted in The Republic Of Trees, where the group's "lawgiver" is Blind Without Them. She lampshades the trope but the group still implements her laws, with disastrous results.
  • Baynard Kendrick's blind detective Captain Duncan Maclain (an Army captain blinded in WWI who turned investigator).
  • In the Belisarius Series the blind former Emperor Justinian takes as his assignment to codify the laws. He is also inspired by a vision of the image of justice as being blind in the future.
  • Thornley Colton, blind detective created by Clinton H. Stagg.
  • One of the stories in the Tommy and Tuppence collection Partners in Crime is a pastiche of Thornley Colton, with Tommy wearing an eyeshade to simulate blindness. It's a fake to prank Tuppence.

    Live-Action TV 
  • Max Carrados, blind detective, made an appearance in the 1971 series The Rivals of Sherlock Holmes.
  • In the Arrested Development episode "Justice Is Blind", Maggie Lizer, blind lawyer is revealed to not be blind, but using it for sympathy from judges and juries. Her seeing-eye dog Justice is blind, however.
  • Blind Justice, TV series from 2005. A Police Procedural about a detective who is blinded in the line of duty and returns to the force.
  • Matt Murdock in Daredevil (2015) is a blind lawyer.

    Music 
  • In Alice's Restaurant, there's a judge with a seeing-eye dog, and the narrator makes a joke about "typical American blind justice".

    Tabletop Games 
  • Tyr, the God of Justice in D&D setting Forgotten Realms, was blinded as punishment for questioning Ao the Overgod.
  • Warhammer Fantasy: In her role as Goddess of law and justice, Verena is commonly depicted similarly to Lady Justice, with a blindfold, sword, and set of scales.

    Video Games 
  • BlazBlue: Tsubaki Yayoi plays with this. She has a bit of an overexaggerated sense of justice due to being a fangirl of historical dramas. While she means well, she's also loyal to the NOL, which has tasked her with the execution of Jin (her crush) and Noel (her friend). Additionally, her Ars Armagus Izayoi "steals the light from the user's eyes," which will eventually cause Tsubaki to go blind. As of the end of Continuum Shift, Tsubaki has also made a Faceā€“Heel Turn due to Hazama spoon-feeding her half-truths about Noel stealing Tsubaki's place as Jin's secretary in the current timeline (he intentionally left out that the Jin of that timeline—who went on to become Hakumen—still neglected Tsubaki and Tsubaki ultimately died Taking the Bullet for Jin), which brings out Tsubaki's darker side.
  • A subtle example exists as a Stealth Pun in Cuphead. In the run-and-gun stage Rugged Ridge, there are giant sets of balance scales that serve as platforms, and each side has a pair on eyes that open when either is weighed down by the player(s). When they're level, they shut their eyes.
  • In Freedom Force, the "Law" half of the superhero duo Law and Order is dressed exactly like Lady Justice, complete with sword and blindfold. She is also truly blind, having lost her sight in a car bomb explosion before gaining superpowers.
  • Helltaker has Justice, the former High Prosecutor of Hell, who passed judgement (no, not the current High Prosecutor Judgement) upon sinners that were sent her way. Fittingly enough, at some point in her career she became permanently blinded, which is somewhat implied to be the reason she's retired in the first place.
  • Mortal Kombat: Kenshi Takahashi starts out as something of a subversion, being blinded thanks to letting Shang Tsung manipulate him (an Arrogant Kung-Fu Guy before the series started) into opening a tomb belonging to the souls of his ancestors and then going on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge after the sorcerer. Over time, he mellows out into a lone vigilante of sorts who hunts down corrupt criminal organizations at night. Seeing as he's a partial homage to Daredevil, one of Kenshi's combos from Deadly Alliance, Deception and Armageddon is named "Blind Justice".

    Visual Novels 

    Webcomics 
  • Homestuck: Terezi Pyrope is a blind (aspiring) legislacerator, emulating her Famous Ancestor Neophyte Redglare, a renowned legislacerator (who may or may not have also been blind). It's also a rather Stealth Pun-y example as she represents the sign of Libra, the scales.

    Web Original 
  • Looming Gaia: The minervae named Justice removed her eyes so she couldn't judge people by their appearance, and only sees whether they are good or evil with her magic third eye, immediately killing them if she senses irredeemable evil.

    Western Animation 
  • On The Simpsons there's a statue of a little girl with a blindfold on a la the Justice statue standing in front of the Family Court building.

    Real Life 
  • Chinese civil rights activist Chen Guangcheng is a blind lawyer.
  • Sir John Fielding a.k.a. "Blind Beak". There are a few fictional works about him, too.

Other examples:

  • The Fugitive describes Dr Richard Kimble as "an innocent victim of blind justice" from the second season onwards.

Top