Healthy Green, Harmful Red

Healing? Nah. I just want to show this bear rug that I can turn green.

"Red and sweet are good to eat. But I swear by this sonnet, green will make you vomit."

—Grandpa, Hey Arnold!, in an inverted case of this trope

The colour green is forever associated with health in one form or another; those kale and rocket smoothies which claim to be a superfood, or green medical kits. Even helping the environment is referred to as "going green."

Second to only hearts, the colour green is generally used in video games to colour in a player's health, as well as indicate to the player what items can heal them. In cases where this trope applies, green is primarily, if not solely, used to indicate healing items to the player, with other attributes often associated with the colour green (such as poisons, wind and earth) being relegated to other colours. In fact, the association with health being green has been used so often and for so long that many game developers just choose green as their default.

Green being associated with health leads designers to use its opposite color, red, for the opposite of health, harm. Bloodshed, gore, explosives, the colour red is generally used to display debuffs, health loss, and it's even used frequently as the colour of damaging spells. If a game's damage numbers are usually white, then a Critical Hit's damage is usually red. Unlike the colour green however, the colour red being used as the damage indication colour does not usually restrict the coloration of other red elements or attributes, namely fire due to its primary use as a hazard.

When combined together and shown in a health bar, the colour green tends to represent a high level or full health, with the health bar turning red when that health level becomes low, though yellow and/or orange can sometimes appear as the intermediate stages of health due to their positions on the colour wheel.

Note that this trope isn't solely reserved for video games, as green and red has been used to represent healing and harm respectively in a variety of media, such as battery charge indicators. Cases of healing may also be a case of Green Means Natural should the healing powers and nature be explicitly connected. And this trope is itself a subtrope of Colour-Coded for Your Convenience and Red/Green Contrast. Contrast Green Is Gross and Sickly Green Glow.

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Examples

Action Games

• In Bayonetta, vitality-restoring lollipops are green while damage-increasing lollipops are red. Additionally, Bayonetta’s vitality gauge is green, while damage taken is shown as red.
• In the Devil May Cry games, the health gauge is usually green, while damage taken is shown as red.

Action-Adventure Games

• In Fantastic Four for the Playstation 1, the player character's life meter is displayed a vertical green bar next to the character's symbol (Mr. Fantastic, Invisible Woman, Human Torch, The Thing or She-Hulk), in one of the corners of the screen. To indicate decrease of health, the green bar becomes dark red in colour.
• Genshin Impact: The life bar of your player characters is green, but turns red when at low HP. Enemies start with a red bar and definitely mean harm for you.
• The Life Meter in Guardians of the Galaxy (2021) is a vibrant green which can only be refilled by collecting green Essence Drop-s from enemies. Red comes into play with the pink shield, in a Regenerating Shield, Static Health setup.
• In Jak and Daxter, eco is the colored magical crystal energy that fuels the world, with Green Eco being used to heal players. Red on the other hand symbolises attack strength, and it's used in later instalments as the fuel for Jak's shotgun.
• In both Spider-Man (2000) and Spider-Man 2 – Enter: Electro, for the Playstation 1, Spider-Man's and the bosses' health meter is given as a colour gradient, like a "reverse rainbow": green for full, yellow as the midpoint, and red for low.

Beat 'Em Up Games

• In the Genesis/Mega Drive port of Captain America and the Avengers, the villains' (sub-bosses and bosses) health follow this pattern: a full green bar for health, a red colour for damage.

Fighting Games

• ClayFighter only starts using green health in the second game:
  • In: ClayFighter: Judgment Clay, a full health bar is shown in green colour, and, past the halfway point, acquires a red colour.
  • In ClayFighter 63 1/3, the characters' health bar in the first round is a vivid green. Whoever is defeated gains a "second wind": the next round, their health bar is refilled (this time with a yellow colour), and becomes reddish after it is damaged past the midway point.
• Dead or Alive: Dead or Alive 1, 2 and Ultimate have green health bars. When a character takes damage, a portion of their health bar turns red before fading away.
• In the 1990s Midway fighting game War Gods, the characters' full health bar is represented by a green colour. As their life depletes, their health bar acquires a red colour.
• In some ports of Rise of the Robots, the characters' full health bar is depicted in green, and changes its colour to yellow, then to a dark shade of red: SNES port; Genesis port.
• Evil Zone for the PSX: the characters' health meter is a vertical green bar that diminishes with the opponent's attack.
• The Mortal Kombat series: Green is full health, red is low:
  • In Mortal Kombat 1 (Arcade, Genesis/Mega Drive/SNES) as seen here.
  • Mortal Kombat II: Seen here.
  • Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance
  • Mortal Kombat: Deception (PS2/Game Cube) seen here
  • Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero: The bosses' life meter is coloured a green, and becomes red when it depletes to near zero. See: here.
• In Night Slashers, the players', the mini-bosses' and the stage bosses life bars follow this dynamic: green for full health, red for damage/diminishing health.
• In Tekken 2, the characters' full health bar is shown in green colour. As the player beats their opponent (and vice-versa), their health bar drops and turns red.
• Tobal: The first game, Tobal, uses a green bar for full health (an empty one is transparent), while Tobal 2 uses the green for full health bar, and red for damage (while also transparent).
• Virtua Fighter series:
  • Virtua Fighter 1 and its remix: Codifies characters' full health bar with a green colour, and damages/low health bar with a red colour (glowing red in the second game).
  • In Virtua Fighter 2, the characters' health bar is shown in a green colour. As the characters beat each other, their health bar begins to show a red glowing colour.

First-Person Shooter

• Doom up to the Collector's Edition has hazardous floors in some levels, which are radioactive sludge or molten ooze. There's usually a hazmat suit nearby if the sludge area is large enough. When the suit is used, the player's view takes on a greenish tint for as long as the suit lasts, and renders the player immune to the floor's normal damage. When there's no suit available, or its duration expires, the floor resumes its damage, which turns the player's view into a reddish tint while his health percentage declines.

Horror Games

• In Dead Rising, psychopaths' and survivors' health bars are shown as green while the damage they take is shown as red.
• Resident Evil:
  • Green herbs are the most common and basic healing item in the franchise, with all other herbs being useless unless combined with said green herb.
  • In games prior to Resident Evil 4, your health was indicated by a heart rate meter. At full health, it was green and showed your status as "Fine". When you are near death, it's red and your status is "Danger", typically meaning you are one hit away from death.

Platformer

• Inverted in the first episode of Crystal Caves: red mushrooms make you stronger, green mushrooms kill you instantly.
• In Skylanders, your Skylander will blink red when their health is low, and a green heart appears when they regain health via eating food (or for a select few, a health-restoring upgrade).
• In Super Mario 64, Mario's life meter is indicated as a pie chart-like circle, segmented into 4 quadrants or 8 fractions: sky blue for full (4/4), then light green for 3/4, yellow for 1/2, and red for 1/4. Also serves as Oxygen Meter for the water levels ("Jolly Roger Bay", "Dire Dire Docks" and "Wet N' Dry World").
• In Tomb Raider II, Lara Croft's health bar is shown as a colour gradient: from red to green. The more damage Lara takes, the more her life bar depletes to the red colour until it fades completely.

Real-Time Strategy

• Battle Realms: Unit health bars start out green when full or near-full, turn yellow around the halfway mark and turn red when at quarter health.
• Pikmin: The health wheels of both captains and enemies are bright green when full, and turn yellow at half health and red at quarter health.

Rhythm Games

• In Friday Night Funkin', the health bar is split between opponents. The player's side of the bar is shaded green, while the opponent's is shaded red; the better you play, the more health is given to the player and taken from the opponent.

Role-Playing Games

• Deltarune: While damage is indicated by red numbers, healing is represented by green numbers appearing above a character's body.
• Dragon Age: Inquisition: Unlike the previous two games in the series which used a red health bar throughout, the health bar in this game starts out as green when full then reveals a blood-red backing as it depletes. The characters' portraits also turn red and blooded when they're in critical condition.
• Fallout 4: Health is represented by a green bar which shrinks as the Sole Survivor takes damage, while radiation damage is represented as a red bar that restricts the character's HP.
• In the original PS1 version of Final Fantasy VII, the effect of healing spells is indicated by a green-coloured font; while a dark red coloured font in the character's HP meter shows they are incapacitated.
• Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes: The life meter for characters in your party is green, and turns yellow at the mid point, then red when near death. Green pots spread around the map contain healing tonics, which are green in colour as well. When a character is healed, the value will show up in a green number, compared to the white for damage, or yellow for a Critical Hit. Some abilities characters can get affect healing in some manner, and the icons for said abilities often have a green background.
• Kingdom Hearts: The Life Meter and healing spells are green, and when the character's health drops under 25%, their profile icon will flash red.
• Legend of Grimrock: Damage number pop-ups are white normally; red when you hit an elemental weakness; green when you use an element the enemy absorbs, thus healing them.
• Pokémon:
  • When a Pokemon is at full HP (HP being how fit the Pokemon is able to battle) it is shown as a green bar. As it decreases (either during battle or through poison outside of battle), it first turns yellow at about half, then red when it's at about 1/5.
  • Grass type, which is represented with the colour green, has the most amount of healing moves out of any type in the game.
• The health bars in the boss fights in the Red Ball games use green to indicate health and parts of it turn red to indicate harm.
• In the RPG Video Game Remake Virtual Hydlide for the Sega Saturn, the player character (Jim the Knight) and the bosses' life meter is shown as a green bar that becomes red with every damage they take.
• In Zenforms: Protectors, healing spells turn your Zenform green, add green sparkles and display green text. Health bars are also shaded in a green-red gradient.

Turn-Based Strategy

• Battle for Wesnoth: Unit's health bar is green when the unit is close to full health and red when it's close to dying.

Simulation

• In Growing Up, the Mental Health and Parents' Satisfaction meters are green when above 70 and red when below 20.
• In I Was a Teenage Exocolonist, Sol's Stress meter is green on one end for zero Stress, red on the other for maximum Stress, and yellow in between.
• In Roots of Pacha, the Stamina Bar is green at high stamina, yellow at medium stamina, and red at low stamina.
• The Sims: Sims' need bars, and the diamond summary above their heads, are green when they're full and red when they're at their lowest, with various shades of orange in-between.

Other Games

• Clean-o-Clock (a Licensed Game based on The Loud House) features a meter. If you're doing well on the game, it is in the green, if you're doing badly, it's in the red, and if you're just doing an average job, it's in the yellow.
• Neopets: Subverted in the game Ice Cream Machine, where Adee has to dodge flying scoops of ice cream. Two of the powerups are a red scoop with a minus sign and a green scoop with a plus sign, which would make one assume that the former is bad and the latter is good. However, it's actually the other way around; the red scoop slows down the other scoops and makes them easier to dodge, while the green scoop makes them fly at you faster.

Other media:

Literature

• Inverted in The Corellian Trilogy when Han is on board a Selonian ship. For them, green is not the colour of health, but of danger and disaster, so when green indicator lights start flashing all around him, it's not a good sign, it means they're headed for a crash.

Web Original

• In the Life SMP series, players are given a certain number of lives, most commonly three. When they have all three lives, it's represented with green, and when they have only one left, it's represented with red. Their nametags reflect this. In the second season, Last Life, when a player has more than three lives, the extra lives are represented with a darker green.

Western Animation

• Hey Arnold!: When camping, Grandpa reminds Arnold that red, not green berries are safe to eat using the mnemonic rhyme as seen in the page quote. Arnold always thought the rhyme said "green and sweet," with predictable results.
  "You're vomiting, aren't you Arnold?"

Real Life

• At stop lights, red means stop and green means go. Green is healthy because you can safely continue driving and red is harmful because we all know the health issues that come from getting T-boned by a semi.
• Inverted with many red, edible fruits which tend to be green and unpalatable or even inedible prior to fully ripening.

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