- Inside Out: The main Aesop of the film is that it's okay to feel sad sometimes, and that every emotion has its purpose. At the beginning of the film, Joy is a Control Freak obsessed with keeping Riley as happy as possible, and while she sees the purposes that Disgust, Anger and Fear serve at times, she doesn't see the purpose of Sadness, whose purpose is seemingly to just make Riley sad. This ends up causing the film's main conflict, as for Joy’s attempt to get rid of a new, sad core memory Sadness creates causes both of them, along with all of Riley's core memories, to get trapped outside of Headquarters. Later in the film, when Joy is trapped in the Memory Dump, she accidentally rewinds to an sad part of a happy memory, causing her to realize what Sadness' true purpose is: to allow Riley to indicate that she needs help and thus allow others to sympathize with her. By the end of the film, not only are Joy and Sadness on good terms, but Riley's core memories are a mix of emotions, rather than just being entirely happy. What reinforces the film's Aesop is that Riley's depression is not caused by Sadness, but rather the lack of Joy and Sadness.
- Celeste: The game’s main Aesop is that your negative emotions are a part of you, and that you should try to understand them rather than eradicate them. Throughout much of her climb up Mount Celeste, Madeline is tormented by Badeline, a dark version of her who claims to be her “pragmatic part" and attempts to convince her to abandon the climb. In Chapter 6, after Badeline sends Madeline falling all the way to the bottom of mountain when the latter tries to completely reject the former, Madeline begins to consider that Badeline may be right. Down there, she once again encounters Granny, who tells her that Badeline is really just scared, and that she should find her and try to figure out why she feels that way. Badeline initially rejects Madeline when she shows up, but after a boss battle, Madeline is able to comfort Badeline, and convinces her to work together. This results in a Split-Personality Merge that allows them to finally reach the top.
Raspy and Tough
- Gun: Both Colton and Ned have rowdy, husky voices that go hand-in-hand with them being mountain men.
- Insurgency: The Insurgent leader has a significantly deeper voice than his grunt counterpart, conveying a more experienced and authoritative tone.
- ParaWorld: Several Norsemen units have very coarse, raspy voices that match their rowdy personalities very well.
- Better Call Saul: Nacho's voice is normally soft spoken but takes a massive dip in tone as he tells Hector off, injecting as much venom as he can into his final words.
- Blood Stain: Elliot has described Dr. Stein's voice on multiple occasions as intimidating; on page 28, she compares it to "sandpaper polishing a rusty can".
- Lindybeige: Lindy sometimes parodies the kind of TV narration associated with Rated M for Manly action by affecting a ludicrously deep, gravelly, American-accented voice. He does it for the title of each video in his Ironclad review series, the intro of "Super-recognisers: the future of law enforcement?
", and in his Churchill tank video with The Chieftain when he says the title of World of Tanks. - Mozinor: Baboulinet (Vin Diesel) is dubbed with a very deep and raspy voice that's an exaggerated parody of Alain Dorval's French dubs of Sylvester Stallone (you seemingly can't have an example of The Ahnold in French without it sounding at least a bit like Dorval). That voice is used for several other characters, John Rambo (naturally), tough delinquents and Luc Besson for instance.
- The New Order Last Days Of Europe: Henry Kissinger's voice is recognizably rough and gravelly, fitting his no-nonsense, merciless attitude.
- League of Legends:
- As to probably be expected from a giant crocodile man; Renekton has a very deep, rumbling voice. It's even deeper in Legends of Runeterra.
- Rengar has a very deep, growling voice. Fitting for a powerful humanoid lion.
- Sion is a violent behemoth who speaks with a gargled and frightening rasp.
- Udyr boasts a very deep and growly voice, letting you know what a wild and powerful fighter he is; it's even more pronounced after his VGU. It's also quite apparent in his Spirit Guard skin that he appears to be purposely pitching his voice down to a growl when fighting.
- After his VGU, Warwick retains the deep, guttural voice that he had originally, but now audibly growls a lot more compared to his previous lines. For a bloodthirsty and seemingly unstoppable predator, it works.
Strong Friend Resemblance
- Charlie and Lola: Lola's best friend Lotta, is essentially a black Lola; not only do they follow Alphabetical Theme Naming, but they have identical body shapes and both tend to wear a pair of bows in their hair.
- Dexter's Laboratory: Dee Dee's best friends, Mee Mee and Lee Lee, are black and Asian respectively. Despite having different head shapes and hairstyles, they have the exact same body shape (long limbs, small bodies, and big heads), dress identically (pink shirt and skirt, long white tights, pink ballet shoes), follow the same Alphabetical Theme Naming, and are all extremely ditzy with stereotypical feminine interests.
Art Episode
- The Simpsons: "Mom and Pop Art" has Homer's mangled attempt at constructing a grill become recognized as a masterpiece of outsider art, earning him a Louvre exhibition and a purchase from Mr. Burns. However, his second attempt at making art gets criticized as self-repetitive, forcing him to come up with a new idea. Many cultural references are made throughout the episode, with Homer visiting the Springfield Art Museum for inspiration and viewing many famous paintings and artist Jasper Johns appearing as a kleptomaniac version of himself. Upon learning about the large-scale installation work of Christo, Homer gets the idea to flood Springfield with the city's fire hydrants, a piece which, surprisingly, earns praise from the whole town.
- SpongeBob SquarePants:
- "Artist Unknown" has Squidward host an art class at a rec center, only for SpongeBob, of course, to be his only student. Much to his chagrin, SpongeBob proves to be effortlessly talented, creating a perfect replica of David with a single hit of his mallet. After driving SpongeBob away, Squidward attempts to sell his pieces to an art collector, only for all of them to be rejected in favor of SpongeBob's sculpture (which Squidward takes credit for). When the sculpture ends up getting damaged, Squidward seeks out SpongeBob to make another one, only for his skills to have greately declined. This eventually causes Squidward to go into a destructive rampage and walk out of what he assumes is nothing more than a mess, not realizing he unitionally created an even more glorious rendition of David.
- "The Masterpiece" has SpongeBob discover that rival restaurant Sea Chicken Shack is successful largely due to having a large statue of its mascot for children to play on. As a result, Mr. Krabs has Squidward chisel a statue of him, only for the resulting sculpture to be a jagged, grotesque depiction of Mr. Krabs that's unsafe for children. Thus, SpongeBob proposes an alternative: having Mr. Krabs paint himself gold and become a Human Jungle Gym.
- In "The Googly Artiste", during an arts and crafts session, Patrick creates a rock with googly eyes sloppily glued all over it. When an art critic arrives and praises his work, he quickly becomes famous, selling numerous replicas of it. When he runs out of rocks, he gets the idea to place them on a Krabby Patty, earning him even more success.
- "Fiasco!": When Jackson Pollock-esque artist Fiasco creates a piece out of raw food material from the Krusty Krab, Mr. Krabs profits off of it by allowing customers to view it providing they order two patties. Plankton, assuming it's garbage, steals it, resulting in an extensive chase. The piece ultimately ends up getting eaten by Patrick, but Mr. Krabs is nevertheless able to squeeze more money of it by having Patrick stand in front of an x-ray to show the artwork inside of him.
- In "Out of the Picture", Squidward attempts to sell his paintings at the Krusty Krab, to little success. However, when a critic arrives and informs Mr. Krabs that art tends to become more valuable when the artists is "no longer with us" or "out of the picture", Mr. Krabs sends Squidward off on a variety of increasingly dangerous tasks in an attempt to kill him. SpongeBob eventually encourages Squidward to destroy his work to save himself, but the critic only praises it as powerful performance art, causing Mr. Krabs to join in until the two get Squashed Flat by the ceiling, creating the greatest artwork of all.
Suffocation Blues
Say a character is suffering from a lack of air. They could be experiencing a Choke Hold, being hung, or merely holding their breath. Regardless of reason, the writer wants to clearly illustrate such. While you could have their face turn red, said color is already used to convey anger, embarrassment, and spiciness. Thus, a common substitute for such is blue.
Compare Blue with Shock, another reason for a character's face to turn blue.
Examples
Video Games
- Terraria: The icon for the Suffocation debuff depicts a gasping purple face with palms wrapped over throat.
Web Animation
- Helluva Boss: C.H.E.R.U.B's jingle includes the line "Does it hurt you through and through / When you face is turning blue?", accompanied by the visual of a man's face turning blue as he dies at the gallows.
Western Animation
- In the Bugs Bunny cartoon Long-Haired Hare, Bugs torments arrogant opera singer Giovanni Jones by forcing him to hold a single note for an absurdly long time. His face first begins to turn red, then purple, then blue, before cycling through the whole rainbow.
