Not His Blood

A character is bloody, and the people nearby start to panic, but then the character says something to the effect of, "Don't worry, it's not MY blood." Whether or not this is actually comforting is dependent on a great many factors. Easy way for writers to create a Wham Line.

Compare Blood Is the New Black, Blood-Splattered Warrior, and Blood-Splattered Innocents. See A Bloody Mess when the blood is actually some harmless substance like ketchup. Might be used for Faking the Dead.

Could overlap with Offscreen Moment of Awesome or Noodle Incident if the incident that led to the character being covered in someone else's blood isn't even shown or explained, respectively.

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• An unusual example occurs in the season three finale of Aggretsuko: Haida prevents Retsuko from being stabbed by a Loony Fan of her band. The rescuer panics at a bloodstain on the intended target, not realizing it came from him.
• Case Closed has Conan rescue Ai from a bomb explosion, then tells the police to take her to the hospital because she has hurt her leg pretty badly. When the Detective Boys express concern about her apparent injuries, Ai tells them not to worry because it's not her blood. A later panel reveals that it's Conan who is injured, and it's his blood smeared on Ai's leg.
• Chainsaw Man:
  • While covered in blood after escaping an assassination attempt, Makima tells her subordinates "It's not my blood. I didn't get hit." She's lying; while most of the blood isn't hers, the audience saw she got shot in the head and somehow came back to life. Given the later revelation that attacks to Makima's injuries are transferred to someone else, it may technically be a Double Subversion.
  • Madoka, a minor character who survived the same attack offscreen, shows up in front of Makima with blood covering his shirt but no visible injuries. It's implied to be the blood splatter from his partner, as the pair were last seen standing next to each other as the attackers drew their pistols. The blood compliments his very bemused expression before he resigns.
• Inverted in Darker than Black: Protagonist Hei is fighting a Contractor named Wei who has the ability to destroy anything his blood touches with a snap of his fingers. Hei fakes his death by using blood from one of his own open wounds to smear on himself while simultaneously dodging Wei's actual blood. This allows Hei to have a Big Damn Heroes moment later after Wei thought he's won and nothing stands in his way.
• SPY×FAMILY; in a flashback to his childhood, Yuri remembers a time when his sister Yor came home from "work" covered head to toe in blood. As Yuri freaked out, Yor happily reassured Yuri she was fine while mentally noting that none of the blood was hers.

Comic Books

• In Brit (an Invincible spinoff), the titular Brit is completely invulnerable to any form of damage whatsoever. Thus when he emerges from a battle with a nosebleed, he reassures his allies that it's not his blood, but that of the alien he was beating up. It doesn't stop his superiors from deciding that he needs to be cut up and replicated. Later, after he's persuaded to return to defend the planet, we see it happen again... This time, it actually is his blood, because this one isn't the real Brit. He's actually an imperfect clone whose invulnerability is starting to wear off.

Fan Works

• With Pearl and Ruby Glowing: After Hiccup manages to escape God's Will First and reveals what happened to him to Stoick, the older man heads out and later returns in blood. Before Hiccup can comment, Stoick assures him that the blood isn't his, heavily implying that he killed some of Hiccup's assailants.
• In What a Strange Little Colt, when Thunderlane asks Rainbow how bad Gabriel's injuries are, she says the blood on her isn't from herself. (It's Gabriel's.)

Films — Animated

• The Pilgrim's Progress (2019): While Christian is making the final swim to the Celestial City, Apollyon turns up to attack him as he promised earlier. As he loses consciousness, he sees a cloud of blood. When he awakens in the city, he's told that the blood wasn't his; it was the blood of the city's prince, protecting him from Apollyon.
• Cuban movie Vampires in Havana has the main character, Pepito, being given a glass of blood as a "last dinner" but he spits it all over his shirt. When one of his friends finds him (who wasn't aware of his dealings with vampires) he gets on his knees completely shocked, but then Pepito reveals his undershirt which is completely white and his friends laugh.

Films — Live-Action

• In Die Hard with a Vengeance, McClane sports blood on his face after an action sequence. When asked by his partner if he is alright, he shrugs it off noting that it's not his blood.
• Elevated: Hank bursts into the elevator with his shirt covered in blood and holding a knife. After getting shocked reactions from Ben and Ellen, he explains that it's not his own blood, which only worries them even more when they assume he just murdered a bunch of people. He has to explain further that he didn't kill them, the building is actually being attacked by monsters and he only barely managed to escape.
• When police officers Tim and Janne show up at Iben's place in The Guilty, her six-year-old daughter Mathilde opens the door covered in blood, which she says isn't hers. When the dispatcher Asger hears this, he gets worried, because he knows that her infant brother Oliver was also supposed to be at home…
• In Hotel Rwanda, Paul finds his son covered in blood and screaming. He immediately brings Roger inside and starts wiping him down with a look of utmost terror, only for his family members to note that it's someone else's blood. It turns out that the kid went to see his neighbors, only to find their bodies.
• This is part of The Reveal in I Still Know What You Did Last Summer. One of the teens is apparently killed by the villain that has been stalking them, but later reappears, albeit covered in blood and in pain, making it seem that he was severely wounded and Left for Dead, but managed to survive. When Julie goes to treat him, however, she realizes after a few seconds that she can't find any actual wounds. He then tells her that the blood wasn't his, and he's really been helping the killer take them down.
• In Mad Max: Fury Road, when Max returns from killing the Bullet Farmer offscreen, his face is covered in blood. One of the Wives asks if he is hurt because he's bleeding but Furiosa answers for Max in an admiring voice "That's not his blood".
• In The Royal Tenenbaums, the father gets all worked up over one of the kids having blood on his forehead. It turns out to be dog blood.
• Unforgiven. After the climactic gun battle in which William Munny kills Little Bill and most of his deputies, Munny hears moaning coming from a pile of bodies. Mr. Beauchamp (Little Bill's biographer) moves a dead body off of himself, sees a patch of blood on his chest, and says "I'm shot! I'm shot!" Munny tells him "You ain't shot", and he's right; the blood came from the dead man lying on top of him.

Folklore

• The Welsh folktale Gelert the Dog is a variant of this; a nobleman goes hunting and leaves his baby son in his crib, under the care of his loyal guard dog Gelert. A wolf breaks into the house and Gelert fights it off, getting covered in the wolf's blood in the process. The nobleman comes home, sees Gelert covered in blood, assumes Gelert mauled his son, and kills him in anger, only to realise his mistake when he hears his son crying and finds the wolf's corpse in the house.

Jokes

• A boy came home from his first rugby match with a broken nose, a torn ear and three loose teeth, but he couldn't remember whose they were.

Literature

• In Carmilla, Laura glimpses the eponymous vampire standing over her bed covered in blood, in what she assumes is a prophetic dream of Carmilla being murdered.
• In A Dog's Purpose, Bailey bites Todd after he sets fire to his house and gets covered in his blood. The cops initially think Bailey got injured but they soon notice it's not his blood. Todd's Revealing Injury gets him arrested.
• Heralds Of Rhimn: After Regent Ilaina’s attack on the Reaches in Winter Herald, Crislie becomes concerned when she notices that Gildhe’s skirts are covered in blood, assuming that they were injured during the fighting. Gildhe grimly tells her that the blood actually belongs to one of their siblings, who didn’t make it.
• Ranger's Apprentice: In The Siege of Macindaw, Will underestimates the Scotti general, MacCadish, and only Horace's last-minute arrival saves him. When Horace sees the blood down Will's jerkin, he begins probing his torso for the wound. Tense, Will snaps at him that it's the general's blood, not his.
• Inverted in Shades of Magic when Kell reassures his family's royal guards that it's his blood on his clothing rather than his brother's. This calms the guards down, as Kell's routine use of Blood Magic is nothing new to them. (Ironically, Kell is lying to conceal the fact his brother provoked yet another drunken brawl.)
• In Warrior Cats, this happens occasionally in battle. One notable instance is when in Outcast, Lionpaw - one of The Chosen Ones, whose special power involves invulnerability and fighting skill - comes out of a rough battle completely covered in blood. His siblings panic, assuming that he's badly injured, and are shocked to discover that none of it is his own.

Live-Action TV

• In the opening scene of the The X-Files episode "Demons", Mulder wakes up in some hotel room and notices blood on his shirt. He calls Scully and when she asks if he is hurt, he replies "I don't know... [beat]... I don't think it's my blood." - Sting!!!.
• In the pilot of Outlander, Jamie returns from a fight full of blood. Then this conversation happens:
  Claire: You're hurt.
  Jamie: This lot isna my blood. (looks down on himself) Not much of it, anyway.
• Season 2 of Chicago Fire, "You Will Hurt Him" has Leon, Cruz's brother, in a car with the gang leader Doc, trying to get Doc to confess to killing an innocent girl with intent. While he succeeds, a rival car speeds past Team Voight's spy van and shoots up the car containing them both. Cruz, whom Leon insisted to come along on the sting operation, rushes to Leon, who tells him that it's not his blood. The three mooks ended up dead, with Leon and Doc surviving, the latter hit in his shoulder.
  Leon: I'm okay, Joe! It ain't my blood! (Cruz sighs and hugs his brother in relief)
• In season 5 of Justified, Chief Deputy Art Mullin is escorting Raylan's girlfriend to protective custody. Darryl Crowe, Jr., assumes that Raylan, himself, would be escorting his own girlfriend and sees this as a perfect opportunity to kill Raylan. However, instead of getting a bead on Raylan to be sure, he fires wildly, sending Art and Allison scrambling. In the aftermath, they check for injuries.
  Art: (stands up from covering Allison) Oh, you're bleeding!
  Allison: (looks at her shirt and then at Art) It's not my blood...
• A variation in an episode of M*A*S*H. While treating a patient with a compound fracture (when a broken bone protrudes through the skin), Col. Potter says that it can be removed entirely... as it's not his bone. The soldier in front of him stepped on a land mine and his leg bone was driven into his compatriot beside him.
• In Altered Carbon episode "Force of Evil", Kovacs goes through a Roaring Rampage of Revenge at the Wei Clinic, resulting in his shirt being soaked in the blood of many victims. When his sidekick arrives, he asks about the blood to which Kovacs replies in a deadpan tone "It's not mine". Watch the scene here.
• Law & Order: Special Victims Unit: In "Debt", the SVU breaks up a sex slavery ring in New York City, ending with a raid on one of the brothels and a Shoot the Hostage Taker resolution. As Detective Benson escorts the women—who was splattered with the criminal's blood—away, she reassures the girl's aunt, "Don't worry, it's not her blood."
• In Community episode "History 101", the Dean institutes "The Hunger Deans", a ridiculously elaborate series of physical competitions, the prize of each one being a plastic ball granting a seat in the class. Jeff is taking part in the competition and at one point Shirley is concerned that Jeff is bleeding out onto his shirt. He reassures it isn't the case, it is only Leonard's blood.
• In Babylon Berlin episode 2, the hero gets splattered with blood from a suspect who committed suicide. When the heroine finds him later in the police department's bathroom, she gets worried until he tells her that it's not his blood.
• A Bait-and-Switch version in Oz. In the midseason finale of season 4, Said and Adebisi get into a deadly brawl in their cell, which is not shown. From the outside, everyone can see that someone was pushed against the white curtains in the cell and shanked, as blood soaks the curtains. Adebisi then storms out, seemingly victorious, making the viewer think that it's Said's blood on the curtain. Then, Adebisi coughs up a mouthful of blood and falls to his death, revealing that it was actually his blood that was shown.
• In the NCIS episode "Shabbat Shalom", The Squad responds to a shooting at Director Vance's house; when they see Vance with blood on his shirt, he tells them that it's not his blood while in a state of near-panic. It's his wife's blood; she dies shortly thereafter.
• Criminal Minds: In one episode, the team is looking for three teen girls who have been abducted. Two are found after the unsub releases them. One is splattered in blood, but the other ominously assures the team that it isn't hers. The unsub forced the girls to kill one of the three so that the other two would be released. One of the girls was sick, so the other two tried to justify killing her. She overheard and bludgeoned one with a hammer, traumatizing the third.
• Following the infamous "Lullaby Shootout", General Hospital's Stone is horrified to see that his girlfriend Robin is covered with blood and begins frantically checking to see where she's been shot, only to suddenly wince in pain and realize that it's his blood splattered all over her.
• In an episode of Law & Order: UK, the bereaved mother of a murder victim stabs the defendant. DS Matt Devlin comes rushing over to pull CP Alesha Philips out of the chaos and is alarmed to find her splattered with blood—"You're bleeding!"—but she quickly reassures him—"I'm okay! It's not mine!"
• Inverted in Midnight Mass (2021): when Ed and Annie meet again after dying and being reborn as vampires they assure each other that blood on them is their own, meaning they hadn't hurt anybody.
• In one episode of Homicide Hunter, Joe Kenda recalls coming home early in the morning from a case where he ended up covered in blood from a victim who was not quite dead and inadvertently scaring his wife Kathy, who commented that it was interesting being married to him.

Theatre

• Macbeth: Macbeth has sent two murderers off to kill Banquo. He isn't happy when one of them shows up at the front door, spattered with blood, while Macbeth is entertaining a bunch of lords and nobles inside.
  Macbeth: There's blood on thy face.
  First Murderer: 'Tis Banquo's then.

Video Games

• Caleb in Blood alludes to that with a line at the start of E3L4: The Sick Ward: "I'm here to donate some blood... someone else's."
• A variation happens in Gears of War 2 when the team cuts their way out of the riftworm one of them says "This is wrong, I'm coughing up blood that isn't mine."
• In God of War (PS4), when Baldur punched Atreus in an attempt to protect his father, Kratos is initially worried when Atreus shows up bloody only for him to reveal that it isn't his, instead it is Baldur's whom by punching a mistletoe, his immortality gets broken and he can now be harmed by normal means.
• One of Bill's voice lines when being revived in Left 4 Dead: "Mosta this blood ain't mine".
• Shadowrun Returns: During the attack on the Kreuzbasar, the player will find Eiger drenched in blood and instantly panic, only for Eiger to state that it belongs to one of the assailants who tried to shank her while she was reloading, forgetting trolls have sharp tusks.

Webcomics

• 8-Bit Theater had Black Mage saying it after slaughtering a roomful of guards.
• Cyanide and Happiness plays it for Bloody Hilarious in this strip where a character throws up blood only to add that it's not his.
• Gunnerkrigg Court: To train her as the Medium of Gillitie Wood, Ysengrin brings Annie to a meeting with Forest creatures that quickly turns into an all-out brawl. She and Ysengrin quickly beat them into submission, but her friends are a bit startled to see her come back with her clothes charred and splattered with Ysengrin's blood.
• Schlock Mercenary:
  • Following a cargo loading accident with Powered Armor, one of the grunts tells their medic he broke a tooth with his kidney, then explains it wasn't his tooth.
    Hey, Doc. I think I ruptured a kidney with my face.
  • Another less-humorous time, after their noncombatant roboticist is forced to defend herself from a mob and the doctor informs Captain Tagon that she's covered in blood, not her own, but she's still showing signs of PTSD.
• S.S.D.D.: One where the splattered one has to be reassured it's not theirs when Adams shoots Gates while he's holding a gun to Tessa's head.
• Unsounded: After Duane catches Jon as he's cut in half on the battlefield, Lemuel is concerned the blood across his abdomen is his own.
  Lemuel: Are you alright? Are you hurt? What's this?
  Duane: W-war's rouge.
• In Wilde Life, Oscar gets splattered on with blood from a werewolf and is subsequently forced to explain himself to other characters who get worried seeing him like this.

Web Original

• Everyman HYBRID: During "May & June", the boys get spooked by something they believe to be the Slender Man, and Evan attacks it with a machete off-screen. When they come back, they're covered in blood, which Alex initially thinks is their own. However, it was actually the blood of a deer Evan had slaughtered.

Western Animation

• Discussed but subverted in The Simpsons episode "Bart the General", when Bart gets into a fight with Nelson.
  Franklin: Nelson, y-you're bleeding.
  Nelson: Naw, happens all the time, somebody else's blood splatters on me. [realizes his nose is bleeding] Hey, wait a minute... you're right! [to Bart, threateningly] You made me bleed my own blood.

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