Basic Trope: Young characters — often girls — wearing red are marked for danger.
- Straight: The teenage Scarlet, dressed in a red coat, is murdered by a Serial Killer on her way home.
- Exaggerated:
- Scarlet has red shoes and a red hat to match her coat, and suffers a Cruel and Unusual Death.
- Scarlet rises to the top of the Sorting Algorithm of Mortality as soon as she puts on anything red.
- Scarlet and several other women in red coats are killed.
- Downplayed: Scarlet is wearing a striking red necklace when she's attacked.
- Justified: Scarlet's bright red clothes are conspicuous and she's small, weak, unarmed, and walking alone in a high-crime area.
- Inverted:
- The killer is wearing red.
- Scarlet's Color Motif is red and, while the killer hurts her badly and kills all her friends, she's the only survivor.
- Scarlet's Plot Armor is her lucky red coat.
- Scarlet is the only victim, but she's the only character who wore a color other than red.
- Subverted: Scarlet goes home alone, but despite her fear, nothing happens to her.
- Double Subverted: The next time she puts on the red coat, she's killed.
- Parodied:
- Scarlet's red coat has a Starfleet logo on it to call to mind the Red Shirt trope.
- Scarlet is red and is practically a magnet for unprovoked Assassination Attempts.
- The Implacable Man Serial Killer pursuing Scarlet stops as soon as she takes off her red coat or yells at him that it's "dark orange."
- Scarlet dies of a stroke while wearing her red coat. She had an unhealthy lifestyle including excessive smoking and drinking, but thanks to Insane Troll Logic, everyone chalks it up to that coat.
- Scarlet only owns a red coat; she's not wearing it when she's killed, but, again thanks to Insane Troll Logic, everyone assumes she was killed because of her red coat.
- Zig-Zagged:
- Some characters who wear red are killed, some are attacked but survive, and some aren't attacked at all.
- Scarlet wears her red coat one day and nothing bad happens to her. The next day she wears it, somebody attacks her but she's unharmed. This pattern repeats a nonzero number of times and she may not die violently.
- Scarlet is killed and resurrected repeatedly while wearing her red coat.
- Averted: Nobody wears red, or if they do, they're in no great danger.
- Enforced: The work draws heavily from Little Red Riding Hood in terms of imagery.
- Lampshaded: "You sure you'll be okay on the way home, Scarlet? Red's not really a lucky color..."
- Invoked: The killer specifically targets girls in red.
- Exploited: Scarlet's classmate Alice, who secretly hates her, gives her a red coat so that harm will come to her.
- Defied:
- Scarlet refuses to wear the red coat.
- The killer avoids approaching girls in red after being badly hurt by one in a Noodle Incident.
- Discussed: "You sure you'll be okay on the way home, Scarlet? In movies, girls who wear red tend to get in trouble..."
- Conversed: "Hey, I'm worried about Scarlet in this film ... will she make it home okay? The narrator specifically noted she's wearing red..."
- Implied: A young victim is shown to have been wearing something red.
- Deconstructed:
- Too many young women think that they can cheat death by wearing colours other than red in The City Narrows. They're very wrong.
- Girls stop wearing red because they think it's a death sentence, hurting sales of clothing.
- Reconstructed:
- They learn how to defend themselves, or they avoid bad parts of town.
- They buy as much in every other colour to make up for it.
- Played for Laughs: Scarlet is attacked while wearing her red coat, but it's just her boyfriend Bob doing it as ridiculously as possible, and they have a good laugh about it afterwards.
- Played for Drama: Scarlet puts on her nice red coat, then hears that this is a trope, which is Paranoia Fuel for her.
- Played for Horror: See Exaggerated 1.
Back to Little Dead Riding Hood
