Basic Trope: Blood is shown as black instead of normal red.
- Straight: A character becomes wounded, and is shown bleeding blackish blood.
- Exaggerated:
- An Ax-Crazy character goes on a murderous rampage, and the result is an area with blood everywhere, all of it as black as tar.
- Everything that should be red is shown as black instead.
- Downplayed: A character is wounded, and bleeds maroon blood.
- Justified:
- The wounded character is not human, so their blood looks different.
- Alternatively: The point-of-view character suffers from protanopia — the lack of red light receptors in the eye — and blood looks dark as a consequence.
- Or the wounded character is being seen on a black-and-white TV monitor (perhaps an older security camera)
- The character was shot in such a way (i.e., shot through the liver) or has a medical condition (i.e., too little iron) that makes the blood look darker than usual.
- There's not enough light to trigger our cones. (no cone activity? no color)
- Inverted: Blood is shown being far brighter a shade of red than possible in reality.
- Subverted: The black "blood" isn't really blood at all, and when characters do end up bleeding, it's normal red.
- Double Subverted: The black "blood" is a different substance, so we assume characters will still bleed red. However, once they really do get injured, their blood is still pitch black.
- Parodied: Blood in the series is frequently confused with oil.
- Zig Zagged: It's a black liquid splattered or smeared somewhere, but the story keeps flipping views on whether it's blood or not.
- Averted:
- Characters bleed. The blood is normal red.
- Nobody is shown bleeding.
- Parodied: Characters bleed chocolate syrup.
- Enforced:
- It's a family friendly show, and making the blood black lets them get away with some violence without getting too gruesome.
- The colorizer couldn't find the right shade of red, so kept that part of the B/W movie uncolorized, keeping it 'black'.
- Lampshaded: "Oh no, this blood is going to leave black stains everywhere!"
- Invoked: A character drinks some sort of chemical that will turn his blood black, knowing that he will soon die- he doesn't want to startle bystanders too much.
- Exploited: Soldiers wear black outfits, which simultaneously hides blood and allows stealth.
- Defied: A character makes sure to get enough iron, thus ensuring that his blood stays red.
- Discussed: "Isn't blood supposed to be red?" "Yeah." "So why is ours black?"
- Conversed: "That one show always shies away from showing blood, and now when they do, it's black? Come on!"
- Deconstructed: The characters in the series suffer from severe anemia caused by iron deficiency; iron is what makes blood red, so their blood can appear black. The other symptoms of anemia cause the characters much suffering.
- Reconstructed: The art is highly stylized, with unrealistic colors used in many places for dramatic effect.
Back to Black Blood