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Color Motif
(aka: Color Motifs)

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"Red, the blood of angry men!
Black, the dark of ages past!
Red, a world about to dawn!
Black, the night that ends at last!"
— Les Misérables, "Red and Black"

For many years, artists and interior designers have understood that certain colors can provoke specific emotional and sometimes physiological reactions. Within a certain culture, you can be fairly certain that most of the audience will react predictably to certain colors.

A motif is a recurring element within a work, so a color motif is obviously a recurring color within the work. The color may be associated with a character, place, feeling, timeframe, or even the work overall.

  • Red is a bright color and creates feelings of excitement and intensity. It is also used to warn of danger and can symbolize anger or passion and love (calling to mind the Flames of Love). In Indian culture (Bollywood) and many parts of Southeast Asia, red is the color of marriage. In East Asia, red is the color of luck (hence red envelopes on Chinese New Year). Oh, it's also the color of socialism and communism. Ironically, The United States's right-wing Republican Party is also associated with the color red: by the Turn of the Millennium, the standard color scheme in electoral maps on the news had coalesced as red for Republicans and blue for Democrats.
  • Blue is the most common favorite color and can create calmness, serenity, and heroism, although darker blues are associated with a feeling of melancholia. It is also symbolic of masculinity and, interestingly, also femininity, the latter due to the Virgin Mary often being depicted with blue robes. The association with calmness can also extend to intellect and through intellect to magic. Light blues are associated with freedom and hope, due to the colour of the sky. With blue pigments being rare in nature, it is associated with unattainable beauty and rarity, such as in the concept of the blue rose. Its association with cool-headed seriousness leads to it being used in politics to represent conservativism and authority, and is specifically the colour of sailors and police, but it can also represent laborers and the working class due to association with the traditional colour of denim workwear. In America, however, it's associated with the liberal-leaning Democratic party.
  • Green, in an odd duality, represents both the natural and the unnatural. It has the obvious association with nature, plant life, and environmentalism, but is also commonly the color of poison and radiation (especially when mixed with yellow), and is often the color of the Eldritch or the strange and alien. Similarly, it is associated with both health (the colour of hospitals, healing magic and healthy plants and foods) and sickness (the colour of puke, snot and nausea). Bright green can mean "good/correct/positive" (especially in opposition to bright red as bad/incorrect/negative), playing off the idea of it meaning safety. Green is the colour of the military, since camouflage is usually in shades of green. Green is also the colour of money in America, and (especially in Hip-Hop) marijuana. Green is heavily associated with the religion of Islam.
  • Yellow is cheery and warm. However, it can cause feelings of frustration and anger when it is the predominant color. It also has connections to fear and cowardice. In China, yellow is also seen as the color of royalty, mainly due to ancient China forbidding anyone but the emperor from wearing it. Soft, pale yellow is the colour of blond hair, an uncommon hair colour that mostly occurs naturally on children and baby birds, and therefore represents purity and cuteness. Yellow is associated with industrial work — in industrial settings, yellow is used to signal dangerous machinery or increase visibility of workers. Through this, it can also represent safety, through its use in safety equipment like hard hats and protective gloves. Yellow often forms the middle part of a spectrum between red and green, where red signals stop/bad/danger and green signals go/good/safe — yellow therefore signals ready/warning/caution. Yellow can also be added to the pink/blue spectrum to represent a gender somewhere between them, being used for babies whose sex isn't known, and is often the colour of tomboyish girls. It's also the dominant colour in the nonbinary and intersex Pride flags. Politically, yellow is generally associated with liberalism and right-libertarianism (though it's considered a monarchist color in East Asia).
  • Purple is the color of royalty and wealth, but also of wisdom. It is often associated with spirituality, power, exoticism, or poisonousness. It also holds their more negative aspects, symbolizing traits like decadence, pride, and corruption; in Japan, purple is one of two colors associated with death, the other being white. Due to being both a powerful masculine colour (the colour of kings) as well as regarded as a feminine colour (a more tomboyish alternative to pink) — and in fact, being a mix of red and blue — it has a connotation of flamboyance and gender ambiguity. In addition to this, it has an association with psychedelia, so purple is a popular colour with gender-bending and funky rock stars, from James Brown to Jimi Hendrix to Prince. Politically, purple represents monarchy, and (in a red/blue two-party system) 'third option' political tendencies.
  • Brown gives a feeling of strength and dependability. It makes us feel warmth, security, and comfort. Conversely, it is also the color of filthiness and decay. Brown is extremely common in nature, as the colour of the earth, dried and dead plant tissues like seeds, fallen leaves and bark, and the vast majority of animals (including humans), which evolved brown pigments as camouflage and sun protection — natural products like wood, paper, fur, wool, plant fibre and leather have to be processed with chemicals to make them into more appealing colours. Through this association, brown is the colour of roughness and naturalness, often used to market "eco-friendly" products. It's associated with rusticity due to a belief that the clothes of poor people are undyed or more concerned with function than looks, but it can be associated with old fashioned riches, as many luxury goods plundered during colonialism were brown (coffee, tea, chocolate, exotic wood, spices) and were displayed prominently in rich European homes. Due to it being the colour things turn when they are cooked, it's also associated with deliciousness. Politically, brown represents far-right ideologies, especially fascism — in some European contexts, it's used as an opposite of green to refer to organisations and companies that are in favour of pollution.
  • Orange is, like yellow and red, an exciting color. It easily draws attention and conveys a feeling of warmth and enthusiasm. Politically, it's associated with Christian democracy; to a lesser extent, it's sometimes used to represent various forms of populism.
  • Pink is associated with romance, love, sex, and femininity—though this wasn't universal until the mid-to-late twentieth century, before which pink was sometimes seen as masculine due to red's association with blood. In Japanese media, pink can be associated with a Cherry Blossom Girl and by extension spring and rebirth. Pink also has a calming effect. Pink is frequently associated with LGBT people. Some moderate left groups (especially ones with social democratic leanings) have adopted pink.
  • Black is a color (or rather, not-color) of menace or evil. It can also be associated with death and, sometimes, rebirth. Due to it being what you see when your eyes are closed, it can also represent oblivion. Its association with sinister, understated strength, and a sense of it being a "rejection" of garish and distracting colours, gives it an association with stylish luxury and affluence, especially in fashion, furniture and packaging. In politics, it is the colour of anarchism and of militant, street-level movements, whether left (black bloc) or right (blackshirts). It also represents black civil rights movements and cultural identity.
  • White symbolizes purity, innocence, and divinity. It can also make an area seem bland, sterile, or cold. In some Eastern cultures (such as Japan and China), white is a symbol of death. Taking its association with purity to a more sinister level, white can symbolise oblivion, emptiness and dissociation. It can also represent potential, being the colour of a blank page waiting to be filled. In terms of politics, white could either refer to pacifism (hence the white flag) or right-wing counter-revolution (hence the Russian White Army). Women are traditionally married in a white dress in many Western cultures.
  • Grey is used for mourning, humility and repentance. It can also represent depression, plainness, and lack of life or joy. Like brown, grey is common in nature, particularly rock and metal which gives it a similar connotation of strength. While usually a sombre colour that can represent seriousness and austerity, inclement weather often involves a grey sky, giving grey a connotation of rage and drama similar to storms and tornados. Independent politicians are often associated with the color.
  • Gold symbolizes wealth, justice, balance, and royalty. It also is associated with wisdom and heroism. The height of a civilization is called the golden age for this reason.
  • Silver symbolizes the moon and femininity. It is also often magical in nature. Additionally, tying into gold representing greatness, silver is sometimes used to represent second bananas or "Second Place", hence the use of the term "silver age" to refer to a golden age's successor, should it not be a dark age.

For the many specific ways colors are used as tropes, see Colour-Coded for Your Convenience and its subtropes.

See also Motifs for other kinds of motifs found in Fiction. With how closely related the colors are to the elements, this has a lot of overlap with Elemental Motifs.

Please only include examples that do not belong on a more specific color trope.

Examples:

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    Anime & Manga 
  • While most of Asteroid in Love's main cast were given one of these, Ao's case is the most blatant. Her name means "blue"note Sure, "Ao" can mean blue or green, but an unanimated part of Chapter 16 established her name is taken to mean "blue" in-universe., she has blue hair and blue eyes, and personality-wise she's a mixture of Blue Is Calm, Blue Means Smart One with a bit of Shy Blue-Haired Girl, not to mention she has quite a tint of masculinity.
  • Berserk has this with its main trio.
    • Black for Guts. His hair is black, his shirts are usually black, his armor and cape after the Eclipse are black and he’s the “Black Swordsman”. Since he is also Dark Is Not Evil as The Hero, Guts is associated with positive qualities of blackness, like a beautiful👁 Image
      night sky or shelter for the night👁 Image
      .
    • White for Griffith. His hair is white, his armor is white, his cape (in contrast with Guts), his banners are white and prior to to his reincarnation he takes of the form of a white luminous falcon of light. Since Griffith is Light Is Not Good as the Big Bad he also reflects the insidious qualities of white, like oblivion, emptiness, dissociation and death as the Hero Killer. When Griffith tortured for years his flesh is milky pale and sickly and when he becomes a member of the God Hand Griffith’s astral form is like a terrible burning white flame consuming everything around it👁 Image
      .
    • Brown for Casca. Her skin tone is brown, her clothes such as her tunic, cape and boots are commonly earthly shades and her Time Skip outfit is a brown robe. She’s the most grounded and earthly of the trio, she’s strong, initially quite rough, very comforting, dependable and being the mother of Guts’ child has strong fertility and Earth Mother themes to her character and is associated with nature. Including having sex with Guts against a tree.
  • Black for Nero, aka Secre, from Black Clover. She has black hair (blue in the anime), wears a black dress, can transform into a black anti-bird, joins the Black Bulls, and her given name "Nero" means "black" in Italian. She also used Forbidden Magic, giving her wegs that mark her as a servant of the devil to the Magic Parliament, and, after contemplating joining Lumiere in the afterlife as he dies, finds companionship in the Black Bulls.
    • Asta is associated with black and red, in both his uniform and his Anti-Magic. The former is prevalent on his Black Bull robes reflecting his darker powerset, yet also fits as a colour symbolising power, protection, and comfort, which describe him to a tee. Red befits his Hot-Blooded nature, becoming excited very easily and having a determined and courageous outlook befitting an aspiring Ideal Hero.
    • Yuno has green and gold, in contrast to his childhood friend Asta. Green is the colour of his mana and Grimoire, and he even gains a body-wide hue in his Spirit Drive. It also reflects how he grew up in a harmonious and loving environment. Gold matches the colour of his eyes, Golden Dawn uniform, and befitting his almost regal stoicism and surprisingly compassionate attitude. Becomes further compounded with the reveal that he's the prince of the Spade Kingdom and gains another Grimoire that gives him Star Magic.
    • Noelle has blue, matching the colour of her magic aura, water magic, and befitting the Only Sane Woman of the Black Bulls.
    • Finral has green — the color of his clothes and mana. Finral himself is an easygoing man who is jealous of his younger brother's superior magic, seeing himself as inferior to Langris.
    • Captain Yami has black, being the colour that matches his squad, magic, and clothing. The colour itself can represent strength, protection, and comfort, fitting his role as the one who brought the Black Bulls together.
    • Mimosa has a subtle association with the color green. Her Grimoire gives off a gentle green glow when she uses it, her magic comes in the form of green plants and she has bright green eyes. This color fits both her plant magic since green is associated with nature and relates to her healing abilities since green is also associated with health. The color green can also be associated with the sin of envy which also fits Mimosa as a Clingy Jealous Girl when it comes to Asta.
    • Each of the Magic Knight squads is strongly associated with a particular colour.
      • The Black Bulls have black right there in the name. The squad is a group of social outcasts. And through joining the Black Bulls, many of them gained a second chance at life.
      • Golden Dawn has gold (duh). The squad is the highest-ranked and made up almost entirely of nobility and royalty.
      • The Silver Eagles continue the trend with silver. The squad is led by the royal Silva family, and despite their captain being quite impressive, the other members don't quite measure up to the powerhouses of other squads, Always Second Best.
      • The Crimson Lion Kings (you guessed it) crimson. The squad is a brave, Hot-Blooded group who favor using Flame Magic.
      • The Blue Rose Knights are (shockingly) blue. The squads' fighters are all women, with the men serving as errand boys, and typically favouring a calm, collected approach to battle.
      • The Green Praying Mantis's have (you guessed it) green. The squad is all commoners, making them more down to earth than the rest of the Magic Knights.
      • The Aqua Deer have, well, aqua blue, being an easygoing bunch with a friendly captain.
      • The Coral Peacocks are (have you guessed?) coral. Their squad is led by the energetic Dorothy and vain Kirsch., who embody the term Agent Peacock.
      • Finally, the Purple Orca's are purple, have quite a few members who are poisonously unpleasant.
  • Bleach: Rukia has white. Upon losing her powers Rukia's black kimono turns white and stays that way until her powers are fully restored. Also, her Zanpakuto's powers are ice-based and white in color.
  • Code Geass
    • Lelouch Lamperouge is strongly associated with black and purple. The former is seen preferring to play black in games of chess, being the leader of the Black Knights and his identity of Zero has the callsign of Black King. Purple is the colour of his Geass and is prominent across his Zero outfit. Fitting for someone like the mysterious and charismatic rebel leader Zero.
    • Kallen is strongly associated with red, being the colour of her hair, combat outfit, and Knightmare, on top of her Hot-Blooded personality.
    • Suzaku has prominent white and gold in his uniform and Knightmare Frame. Fitting for someone serving the Holy Brittanian Empire, and classic case of Pure Is Not Good.
    • Nunnally has pink, being the most prominent colour on her clothes, befitting a princess and one of the sweetest characters in the series.
    • Euphemia also has pink, being the colour of her hair and quite prominent in her clothing. Befitting someone who fits the appearance and personality of a classical princess, a kindhearted soul who wishes to improve things for everyone.
    • Schneizel is the white to his brother Lelouch's black, being known as the White Prince, wearing plenty in his outfit and favouring the white side in chess. His dedication to his goal is completely pure, meaning nothing is off the table in order to achieve it.
  • In Cyberpunk: Edgerunners, the two main characters have distinct color motifs:
    • David is Green. This represents his initial inexperience in mercenary work and him learning the ropes as an edgerunner. It also reflects how his addiction to cybernetics has poisoned his mind and how it ultimately leads him to his death.
    • Lucy is Purple. This color signifies death, and how people close to her (including David) end up getting killed due to the choices she makes.
  • Darker than Black combines this with Colorful Theme Naming. The main character, Hei, is codenamed after the Chinese word for black, which is carried over with his all-black clothing and unreflective black eyes. He is, accordingly, The Stoic, a total badass, and surprisingly close to being Batman. His dead little sister, codenamed Pai (white), is most often seen in flashbacks in a white dress, and hits pretty much all the ideas associated with that color by also being a Person of Mass Destruction. The Rei Ayanami Expy, Yin, has a codename meaning "silver," silver hair, and is... well, a Rei clone, and thus a Mysterious Waif with unusual powers and abilities. Similar statements can be made about most of the other characters with color codenames.
  • Dealing with Mikadono Sisters Is a Breeze: Yuu has red, Kazuki has purple, Niko has orange, and Miwa has green. Not only are these their respective hair colors, but they also tend to be associated with it.
  • Dragon Ball has the Z-Fighters and many other characters mainly associated with one color and different shades of it.
    • Goku has Red. The Nyoibō aka Power Pole is red, his Turtle School Gi in the anime is red and later reddish orange. Kaio-ken is red, Super Saiyan 4 is red, Super Saiyan God is red (both latter forms giving him red hair in canon). He is heroic, passionate, boisterous and very warm as a person.
    • Vegeta has Blue. His jumpsuits are blue, his Ki attacks like Big Bang Attack are blue, he gets a unique God transformation called “Royal Blue”. His personality compared to Goku is much more aloof and cold and he is of Blue Blood being the Prince of all Saiyans.
    • Broly has Green. His Ki attacks are green, his hair in his full power form is green, his Battle Aura is green and his canon version has green clothing and wears the ear of a green alien monster he befriended. In his original movie appearances, and to a lesser extent in his canonisation green is used emphasised Broly’s unnatural and freakish nature as a mutant among Saiyans.
    • Piccolo has Purple. His gi is purple, his blood (most of the time) is purple, his ki attacks are purple in the digitally coloured manga and many of the video games. Purple Is Powerful, it naturally compliments the green of his skin and reflects his balanced mix of anger and calmness compared to the aforementioned Goku and Vegeta.
    • Roshi’s Turtle School has Vibrant Orange. Roshi, Goku, Yamcha and Krillin are all relaxed, passionate, enthusiastic and tropical. All three are also associated with the Dragon Balls which are orange.
    • Shen’s Crane School has Dark Green. They’re practical, greedy, envious, brutal, allusive, complex and serve as a great Foil to the aforementioned Turtle School.
  • Fairy Tail:
    • Natsu has orange and red, matching his flames and guild mark respectively and reflecting his warm, friendly, and energetic personality.
    • Lucy is strongly associated with the color blue, which are featured in all of her main outfits and reflects her high intellect, her role as a hero and her feminine personality.
    • Gray has blue, matching his guild mark and magical aura.
    • Erza has red, being the color of her hair, which matches her personality, having a magenta magic aura and is one of the most passionate members of Fairy Tail underneath her calm exterior.
    • Wendy has turquoise, being the colour of her Battle Aura and a midpoint between her blue hair and green guild mark. This reflects her status as a level-headed girl who supports her friends in combat.
    • Juvia is associated with blue due to being a water mage, which includes wearing clothes in different shades of blue in addition to having blue eyes and hair.
    • Gajeel has black, being prominent across his clothing and matching his title Blacksteel Gajeel, and matching how he turned his character around after joining Fairy Tail.
    • Laxus has yellow, being a blonde with Lightning Magic and a yellow Battle Aura. This also reflects his constantly simmering aggression early on and how he became a source of stability for the guild after he mellowed out.
    • Zeref has black, reflecting his hair, clothing and title of the Black Wizard whose curse gives him a near constant "Instant Death" Radius. Tragically, this mirrors how badly he wants to die in addition to his involuntary powers.
    • Princess Hisui has jade green, being the colour of her hair, and her name translates to jade.
  • Happy Sugar Life: Satou is represented by the color pink while Shio is represented by the color blue. It’s their respective hair and eye colors (with Shio also wearing a blue Sailor Fuku) and their “love” is commonly symbolized by a jar full of pink and blue candies. After they hold a makeshift wedding, Satou wears a ring with a blue gemstone while Shio wears a ring with a pink gemstone. It’s also shown in the manga that Shio developed a love for all things pink after Satou’s death due to them reminding her of Satou. Satou is a Yandere that is willing to do anything to keep Shio to herself, while Shio is an innocent little girl that is frequently compared to an angel.
  • Maid-Sama! spends a chapter/episode examining what color motif best suits Misaki, prompted by Maid Latte scheduling a sentai-themed "Maid Rangers" event. Usui ultimately pegs her as "white" - untouched by any other colors, reflecting the way that Misaki sticks to her own path and does not allow other people to influence or divert her.
  • My Hero Academia:
    • Midoriya has green. The midori in his last name means "green" in Japanese, his hair and eyes are green, and his hero costume is also green (and so many of his other outfits). The color green is sometimes associated with people who are inexperienced at something, such as in the word "greenhorn." Midoriya is a junior hero in training who is just mastering his Quirk.
    • Bakugou is associated with a fiery, passionate and vibrant orange.
    • Uraraka has two.
      • Brown: "Cha" in her name, literally meaning Tea, is also used in the Japanese name for brown "Chairo", and she has a brown hair and eyes.
      • Pink (she has traces of the color on her suit, it shows up when she uses her Quirk, and it often appears in the background during frames that specifically focus on her. It highlights her cheerful, romantic and optimistic nature.
    • Aoyama has blue. The "Ao" in "Aoyama" means "blue" in Japanese, his eyes and cape in his hero costume are blue, and his Navel Laser is colored light-blue.
    • Ashido has pink, matching her skin, hair and hero name. It also fits her her role as the most stereotypically girly of the class and her optimistic personality.
    • Tsuyu has green, fitting her Frog Quirk and the colour of her costume, as well as her reliable nature.
    • Iida's hair and eyes are blue, symbolizing his nature the reserved, well-mannered and rule-obsessed Genius Bruiser.
    • Ojiro has white. The "Jiro" in his last name means White in Japanese, and his hero costume is colored white.
    • Kaminari has yellow, matching his electricity and blonde hair. Fitting for such an outgoing and upbeat guy.
    • Kirishima's hero name is Red Riot, which in turn is inspired by Crimson Riot, a retro hero that he admires.
    • All Might has gold, having prominent blonde hair, his aura from One For All matching the colour and is renowned for having held the Number One hero position for decades.
  • Naruto has this with its main trio and many other characters associated with one color in particular.
    • Naruto has Orange. His clothing is largely consistent of orange clothing and the color represents his enthusiastic personality, especially in Part I. He even Lampshades it at one point in Part II, dubbing himself "Konoha's Orange Hokage". He can also be associated with black since it has been shown on his clothing since the beginning of Part II and onward, as a means to represents his maturity. Fittingly, Orange is a mix of Red and Yellow, which are the colors associated with his parents.
    • Sasuke manages to have three color that symbolize him: Blue, Purple, and Black. Three different colors that represent his goals and mentality during the series. Blue is his main color though, with him wearing a blue shirt for most of Part I and even his hair being shaded blue in the anime, his personality also matches Blue Is Calm to contrast with Naruto.
    • Sakura has two colors: Pink (given her hair color and her first name "sakura" meaning "cherry blossom" are pink flowers) and red (the color of her outfits throughout the series and her Hot-Blooded personality fitting Red Is Violent).
    • Hinata has Purple, to be more precise lavender or a very light purple, its fitting since she is a Shrinking Violet. She's also associated with cream and sometimes white.
    • Both Rock Lee and Might Guy have Green. With both of them always wearing green jumpsuits and often mentioning the "power of youth".
    • Gaara has Red, given he's one of the few characters with red hair and his attire after his Heel–Face Turn is mainly red.
    • Kankuro has Black, given his entire clothing style's color theme is black.
    • Temari has Purple. All of the outfits she's seen in are connected to purple and her trademark fan sports three purple dots.
    • Minato has Yellow. Physically, it represents his spiky, blonde hair; personality-wise, it matches his warm demeanor. His famous nickname, "Konoha's Yellow Flash", practically lampshades it.
    • Kushina has Red, given her fiery personality and beautiful red hair. She was even given the nickname, "Red Hot-Blooded Habanero".
    • Toneri from The Last has Green, to represent his villainous status, dangerously jealous nature and inexperience.
    • Boruto:
      • Boruto is represented by the color pink, the color between his father's orange and his mother's purple. He's also associated with blue as his Karma markings are blue, which Contrasts Kawaki's red.
      • Kawaki's Karma is red, Contrasting Boruto's blue Karma markings.
      • Sarada is also represented by red, even wearing the same red dress her mother wore.
  • The Pactio Cards in Negima! Magister Negi Magi each have a color indicated on them, attuned with the personality of the character on the card. For example, the characters with Blue on their cards (Akira, Kaede, and Kazumi) are calm and understanding while the characters with Black on their cards (Setsuna, Yue, Chisame, Mana, Zazie) are more serious and down to earth.
  • In One Piece, each of the Straw Hat Pirates has their own color motif that goes along with them:
    • Monkey D. Luffy is Red. This perfectly goes with his easygoing, hyperactive, and Hot-Blooded personality. His trademark clothes often have red in them. Gear Two also makes his skin become red and shiny and Gear Four makes his armament haki shine red.
    • Roronoa Zoro is Green. Aside from this being his hair color, Zoro is also the most level-headed and relaxed of the Straw Hats. He also often gets into battles the most and takes a lot of damage. And then there is his rivalry with Sanji. Zoro's main attire also has a lot of green in it (especially post-timeskip). He even gets green flames on his swords much later on in the series.
    • Nami is Orange. Hot-Blooded, loves money, tangerines (thanks to her adoptive mother) and loves having fun, this color also best describes Nami. She also has orange hair.
    • Usopp is Yellow. Usopp, like Luffy, loves having fun and is very easygoing. However, he is very cowardly and would rather flee than fight. Usopp is also the weakest member of the Straw Hats and he knows this. Though he did learn to get over this in time and will be pushed into fighting should anyone insult Luffy. Usopp is also the son of Yasopp who happens to be a member of one of the Four Emperors crews, Shanks, who are considered "kings" of the seas. After the events of Dressrosa, Usopp is now referred to as "God Usopp."
    • Sanji is Blue. Sanji is also usually level-headed and loves cooking more than anything. Well, that and women whom Sanji constantly dotes over and would often participate in their activities such as shopping. Sanji also commonly wears a blue shirt and blue clothing, later on wields blue fire as an Next Tier Power-Up and his goal in life is to find the "All Blue."
    • Tony Tony Chopper is Pink. Although Chopper is male and makes it clear he isn't interested in love, he is heavily associated with cherry blossoms due to his relationship with his late adoptive father.
    • Nico Robin is Purple. Robin doesn't show too much expression but she is very smart being an archaeologist. She is also extremely ruthless in battle as her favorite technique is sprouting arms on people's necks and breaking their spines. She also has a Running Gag where often likes to talk about violent ways on how others have died freaking out her friends.
    • Franky is classified as Light Blue but does have traits of Red to go with his Hot-Blooded and over-the-top personality.
    • Brook is an interesting case as he is both Black and White which goes really well on his situation. For starters, Brook is an animated skeleton that is alive thanks to his Devil Fruit: The Yomi Yomi no Mi. This Devil Fruit allows the user to be revived after dying once and situations lead to Brook being revived as a living skeleton. This fits well with the "death" aspect for both colors. For White, Brook is one of the nicest characters in the series and often politely asks women if he could see their panties. After the timeskip, Brook has trained himself to use freezing slashes in his battles. For Black, though he is by no means evil, Brook is still a pirate and is part of a very notorious pirate crew that cause destruction around to those that mess with them. "Rebirth" of course applies to his devil fruit's effects.
  • In The Pet Girl of Sakurasou, Mashiro, an Idiot Savant and genius artist asks Sorata, her future Cloudcuckoolander's Minder what color he pictures himself. He claims to be opal-like, a swirling of colors. She sees herself as white. Later on he is depicted as insecure, confused about his future and overly worried about being normal; she instead is completely focused in her art, if not unbounded by societal norms.
  • In Puella Magi Madoka Magica, the five main heroines each have a single hue associated with them, appearing on their magical outfits, weapons, and their overall appearance, even in human form:
    • Madoka is associated with pink, often a color of magical girl protagonists. Pink and purple (as demonstrated by Homura) exist out of the primary spectrum (red, blue, and yellow), possibly symbolizing how she and Homura exist on a different level compared to the other girls.
    • Homura is associated with purple, signifying how she is far more powerful than the other girls.
    • Mami is associated with yellow, or alternatively, gold, referencing her noble aura.
    • Sayaka is associated with blue, showing her desire to become a hero. Blue is commonly representative of the element of water, something Sayaka herself is able to control, and Sayaka later is corrupted into the Mermaid Witch more than halfway into the anime. Being a masculine color, blue can also reference Sayaka's tomboyishness.
    • Kyoko is associated with red, evocative of her fiery personality, as well as the trail of blood her wish created.
  • Almost all of the core Sword Art Online gang have a color associated with them. Kirito (Black), Asuna (White and Red), Leafa (Leaf Green), Sinon (Cyan and Olive Green), Lisbeth (Pink), Klein (Red), Agil (Emerald Green), and Yuuki (Purple), Alice (Gold), and Eugeo (Blue). The only exception is Silica who has variably been given Red, Blue, and Yellow, without any specific fixed color.
  • In Tsubasa -RESERVoir CHRoNiCLE- Kurogane and Fai have an opposing color scheme to represent that they are foils of each other. Fai is commonly associated with blue and white, whilst Kurogane is associated with red and black.
  • Yu-Gi-Oh!:
    • Yugi has purple, matching his eyes and the colour scheme of Dark Magician, his favourite card.
    • Seto Kaiba main color is Blue, matching his eyes, initial Badass Longcoat, and his Signature Mon is Blue Eyes White Dragon. His other famous monster is Obelisk, the blue Egyptian God Card. It also matches his cold, calculating approach.
    Comic Books 
    Fairy Tales 
  • "The Nix in the Mill-Pond" regularly calls attention to colors: the nixie is white, as is the wise old lady's hair. The husband succumbs to the nixie when trying to get rid of the red blood of the deer he killed. The heroine has black hair. The magical items she uses to try to rescue her husband are all gold.
    Fan Works 
  • Everyday Craziness in Pontypandy is big on Color-Coded Characters, not just with clothing but with various other items.
    • In general, the fire service is associated with blue far more than other characters.
    • Sam and blue: he has blue eyes, his default outfit is a blue shirt with blue jeans, in the video game he wears a blue mask when sick, in "A Merry Pontypandy Christmas" he has a blue mug for cocoa, in "A Stormy Sleepover" he has a blue sleep mat.
    • Elvis and black: he has black hair, in "Scary Stories" and "A Merry Pontypandy Christmas" he has a black mug, in the video game he wears a black mask when sick.
    • Penny and red: her favourite gemstone is the red garnet, she has red blankets, her casual outfit includes a red jacket, her pyjamas are a red shirt and white pants with a red floral pattern, in "Penny on the Cliff by the Sea" she brings red towels when visiting Ben, in the video game she wears a red mask when sick, in "A Merry Pontypandy Christmas" she has a red mug.
    • Briar and purple/blue: They wear a blue station uniform, their favourite flower is the bluebell, their favourite gemstone is the blue sodalite, one of their favourite foods is blueberries, they have purple bedsheets, in the video game they wear a purple mask when sick, in "A Merry Pontypandy Christmas" they have a purple mug.
    • Tom and orange: His default outfit is an orange jumpsuit, he has orange blankets, in "A Stormy Sleepover" he has an orange sleep mat.
    • Krystyna and green: Her casual outfit is a green jumpsuit, her favourite gemstone is the jadeite, in "A Stormy Sleepover" she has a green sleep mat.
    • Ben and blue: His default outfit includes blue jeans, his favourite flower is the blue forget-me-not, his favourite gemstone is the aquamarine, in "To Melt This Aussie's Heart" he wears blue pyjamas and later a blue robe.
    • Jodie and blue: Her default outfit includes blue jeans, she has a dark blue wetsuit, in "Sarah's Mermaid Adventure" she has a blue mermaid tail, in "A Merry Pontypandy Christmas" she makes a blue wreath.
    • Charlie and yellow: he wears a yellow jacket, his favourite flower is the banana cream daisy, his favourite gemstone is the yellow agate.
    • Gabby and pink/orange: Her default outfit includes pink-and-orange flannel, she has a pink cell phone, a pink pig purse, and an orange umbrella, her summertime outfit is a salmon halter top with magenta cargo shorts, her swimsuit is a salmon-pink ruffle top and skirt, in "Sarah's Mermaid Adventure" she has an orange mermaid tail, in "Shop Till You Drop" she has an orange helmet, in "A Merry Pontypandy Christmas" she gets pink roses for Svetlana, in "A Stormy Sleepover" she wears pink pyjamas.
    • Svetlana and blue: She has blue eyes, her default outfit is a blue shirt, skirt, and shoes, she has a blue purse, her swimsuit is blue, in "Sarah's Mermaid Adventure" she has a blue mermaid tail, in "How Not To Camp" she wears a blue shirt, jeans, and hat, in "Svetlana Gets a Job" she is given a blue pencil, in "Sea Ballerina" she uses a blue bauble as fishing bait.
    • Sarah and pink: She wears a pink vest and shoes, her favourite flower is the pink lotus, her favourite gemstone is the pink spinel, in "Sarah's Mermaid Adventure" she has a pink mermaid tail and Mermaid Wand.
    • Norman and blue: He has blue eyes, he wears blue glasses, his default outfit includes a blue jacket, in "Unreal Estate" he uses blue chalk, in "A Stormy Sleepover" he wears blue pyjamas.
    • Lily and pink: She wears pink overalls, her favourite flower is the pink lily, her favourite gemstone is the pink coral, in "A Story for Lily" she has a pink mermaid tail, in "Runaway Raft" she finds a pink conch shell, in "A Merry Pontypandy Christmas" she uses a pink crayon.
    • Hannah and purple: She wears a purple top, in "Sarah's Mermaid Adventure" she has a purple mermaid tail.
    • Peter and red: He wears a red jacket and hat, his favourite flower is the red bush monkeyflower, in "A Stormy Sleepover" he wears red pyjamas.
    • Freya and orange/yellow: She has red hair, she wears orange pineapple socks, her favourite flower is the yellow sunflower, in the wintertime she wears a yellow hat.
    • Millicent and green: Her favourite gem is the green malachite, her default outfit is a green pantsuit, her nails are painted green, in "A Merry Pontypandy Christmas" she has a green mug.
  • Fallout Equestria: Pink Eyes: As the name would imply, the main character Puppysmiles is represented heavily by the color pink, to the point of being nicknamed 'The Pink Ghost' on the radio. Her fur is naturally pink, her eyes turn pink with certain emotional outbursts, and she releases toxic Pink Cloud when she's killed. After her first possession, she gains a blue streak in her hair, and blue becomes a warring arc color representing her internal takeover by the Nightmare.
  • Infinity Train: Blossoming Trail has a big focus on red for the main character, Chloe Cerise. She has red hair, she names her group the Red Lotus Trio, her nickname is "Chloe of the Vermillion", the fairytale associated with her is Little Red Riding Hood and she gains a red cloak and mark that lets her cast fire and summon demons. She was also dumped with red paint by her classmates as a bullying prank. Red represents her fiery spirit, her love of her friends and her Unstoppable Rage when pissed off. And on a smaller note, the Apex mark themselves with red lipstick over their faces, emulating the Conductor and are violent terrorists.
    • In the prequel, Infinity Train: Knight of the Orange Lily, Gladion's team of White Gestalt is associated with White whether it's due to outfits (Gladion, Specter, Paul London) or hair colors (Specter and Tokio), which contrasts them being noble figures heading off to fight the Apex.
  • Lilies Out of Season: The flowers Vegeta coughs up are bright red. While telling Vegeta about Hanahaki Disease, Bulma says that red flowers symbolize passion and strong romantic love. The color red is also frequently associated with Vegeta as he often blushes when his feelings for Goku are mentioned.
  • The Night Unfurls: Several characters / locations are associated with one or two colours.
    • Kyril has dark grey and dark red as his primary and secondary colours respectively. Grey, the colour of his Badass Longcoat, complements his humility, dourness, moral complexity, and him being a total enigma. The moments where the colour red is present, be it his eyes or his coat stained with blood, basically screams "don't mess with this guy". Befitting a '90s Anti-Hero, both colours are of darker shades instead of lighter ones.
    • The Hunter's Dream is predominantly white and grey due to the abundance of white asphodels and gravestones, hence associated with death and mourning.
    • Claudia is silver, from how she is clad in steel plate in most of her appearances. She is regarded as the right hand of the Goddess Reborn, Celestine, whose appearance has a gold and white motif.
    • Prim, associated with pink and white, is characterised as a Princess Classic and The Cutie.
    • Maia, associated with red and tangerine, is characterised as the fratboy of the Seven Shields.
    • Orcs are also known as "greenskins", alluding to their dull-green skin color. They are portrayed as dumb, dirty, and depraved.
    • Alicia (remastered version) is blue. She has blue eyes, is always clad in blue armour, is the leader of the Iris Knights (the iris is commonly depicted as a blue flower), and strives to live up to the ideals of a noble Knight In Shining Armour that protects the innocent from the orcs' predations.
    Films — Animation 
  • Aladdin has a color scheme based on its desert setting. Blue (for life-giving water) stands for good (the Genie, Jasmine's clothes, the carpet); Red (for the blazing sun) stands for evil (Jafar's cape, Iago, the gem that tempts Abu in the Cave of Wonders); and yellow (for the ever-present sand) is neutral (Aladdin himself, the riches of the Cave of wonders). Early on Aladdin also wears a purple vest, a mixture of blue and red, meaning that he is mixture of good and evil; not to mention foreshadowing his first wish being to "be a prince" and him becoming a prince through marriage.
  • Beauty and the Beast (1991):
    • Belle has yellow, the colour of her dress and reflecting her warm nature. Especially since she wears it for the dance when Beast's curse is lifted, signifying both have come to care deeply about one another.
    • The beast has red. Before he begins to accustom to Belle's personality and show signs of kindness, all he wears on his upper body is a red cape; he also shows unchecked rage and aggression to everyone in his vicinity at this point. Later, his capes vary in color. Subverted, because he wears a red cape in the climactic battle, where his personality has changed for the better.
    • Gaston has red and black, befitting the villain.
  • The Book of Life:
    • Red for Maria — symbolizing her bravery, plus the fact that both dresses she wore as a child and adult were both red. Jorge even states that Maria's favorite color is red.
    • Red for La Muerte — representing love, passion, and life.
    • Green for Xibalba — representing his envy.
  • Coco: Many things associated with Ernesto de la Cruz are a gleaming porcelain white — his beloved guitar, his tomb, the walls and floor of his mausoleum, his mansion, and his sombrero and mariachi suit. Even his bones appear to be particularly clean and shining. A white that represents his shining image as a celebrity star... or the bones of the metaphorical skeleton in his closet. Bright Is Not Good, indeed...
  • Despicable Me 3: To show the contrast in their personalities, Dru wears all white (both in his casual wear and his spandex villain suit), while Gru wears all black. Fittingly, Dru is naive while Gru is grumpy and serious. Even more so, Gru and Dru's father wore grey.
  • In The Emperor's New Groove, Yzma is heavily associated with the color purple; fittingly enough, the color is associated with royalty, madness and magic.
  • Encanto: The Familia Madrigal is color-coded among its branches. Abuela Alma, the matriarch of the clan, wears a deep burgundy/red dress to symbolize her role as the "beginning" of the Madrigal rainbow, while her late husband Pedro is depicted in white. Pepa and her family wear warm colors (light reds, oranges, and yellows), while Juileta's husband and children wear cool hues (blues, purples, and pinks). Bruno, Alma's third child, has pale green clothing; fittingly, green splits the color spectrum, and Bruno's absence has "split" the family.
  • In Frozen (2013), three characters are associated specifically with a particular color, present in all their outfits:
    • Anna has several.
      • Green. Most of her outfits at least a green element to them, even her iconic "winter dress", which has green leaves and stems as part of the floral motif. Many even have it as their primary color, and she always chooses green at formal events. It's also present in her Frozen Fever and queen dresses. If you're familiar with the symbolism of the Chakras: green stands for the Heart Chakra or love — Anna's power. Green is also associated with growth, and spring and summer, which Anna helps bring back after Elsa accidentally plunges Arendelle into an Endless Winter. She was even born in summer.
      • Pink. It's associated with love, particularly romantic love, and girlhood, as well as spring and rebirth. Fittingly, Anna's room is covered in in it, as seen when she wakes up excited for the gates to open on coronation day and for life to return to the castle (the French title for the accompanying song translates to "The Renewal") and the chance of finding love, including romantic love. It's in her coronation dress, too. It's also the color of the cape and hat in her adventuring outfit, which she dons when she goes to help Elsa thaw the winter. She loses the hat when Elsa accidentally freezes her heart and has her giant snow bodyguard Marshmallow kick her out of the ice palace, eventually losing all pink — and all color at all besides blue — when she finally freezes into solid ice, but her Act of True Love brings her — and the color — back.
    • Significantly, her main winter cape and hat are magenta, and so is her traveling coat in Frozen II. This shade is considered the color of "universal love" and is associated not only with compassion, but also more specifically with support, patience, and open-mindedness. It is associated with independent and intuitive thinking that considers possibilities beyond what is usual, fitting for how Anna realizes Elsa is Not Evil, Just Misunderstood and is the only one to not write her off. On top of that it is associated with impulsivity but also optimism, as well as extroversion and expressiveness.
    • Black; all of her travel outfits and most prominently her epilogue outfit in Frozen II feature black, signifying that while she has a pretty sunny disposition, Anna's also someone who's gone through her share of hardships and can be serious when necessary. It also serves as a direct contrast to her sister's white-based powers and wardrobe.
    • An Ice Person Elsa is associated with blue (for obvious reasons).
    • Kristoff has earth-tone colors — he wears mostly brown, symbolizing his down-to-earth nature and his humble origins, as well as his strength and dependability.
    • Hans is associated with white as a subversion of Disney expectations. In a more subtle manner, he wears purple under his coat, a common color motif used to represent villains in animated Disney films.
  • The Incredibles:
    • Violet is associated with purple, particularly after her Character Development. Her clothes heavily involve purple, and her force fields, eyes and hair have a purple tinge. Plus, her name is Violet.
    • Frozone. Lucius has a very limited palette when it comes to personal style, be it fashion or home design. He likes blue. A really cool ice-y shade of blue specifically.
  • Kung Fu Panda:
    • In the DVD Commentary for Kung Fu Panda 1, the creators note when colors are used for certain effect, based on Chinese symbolism. For example, gold means heroism, even for the Big Bad, who sees himself as the hero (and everyone else as just in his way) having golden eyes. Green represents wisdom, as seen in the green Oogway and Po's green eyes.
    • In Kung Fu Panda 2, Lord Shen is symbolized by red and white, representing fire and metal in Wu Xing philosophy. He uses both as his weapons in the form of the cannon. Additionally, white is the traditional color of death in Asian cultures. Meanwhile Shifu adds green to his outfit to show his new wisdom since the first film.
    • And finally in Kung Fu Panda 3, Kai’s main color is green, but unlike the natural emerald green of Po, Oogway, and Shifu, it’s a Sickly Green Glow that symbolizes his dangerousness and supernatural powers. Whenever he shows up, he is surrounded by a green aura, his blades are green Jade, and the jombies he commands are green as well.
  • The Lion King (1994):
    • Simba has yellow and red, matching his fur and mane respectively and exuberant personality.
    • Scar has green. First, he is the only character in the film (possibly the franchise) to have green eyes. Second, his Villain Song, "Be Prepared", has green in the form of lighting and smoke. And thirdly, green can represent envy, which is Scar's main reason for his evil deeds.
  • The Princess and the Frog:
    • Tiana has green, being the colour of her dress and her skin as a frog. Fitting for a mature, driven woman in the prime of her life.
    • Dr Facilier has purple and green, featuring prominently in his clothes and magic.
  • Puss in Boots: The Last Wish: Big Jack Horner has a pink and purple motif as shown by his pink hair and his pink necktie. He also wears a purple suit, purple lights, and purple smoke. His thumb also has a pink taint, due to his Character Tic of sticking it in his pies.
  • Rise of the Guardians:
    • Jack Frost's signature color is blue as Blue Means Cold and he is An Ice Person.
    • North's signature color is red as Red Is Heroic and exuberant (and because he's Santa).
    • Sandy's signature color is yellow for Gold-Colored Superiority.
    • Tooth's signature color is pink/purple.
    • Bunny's signature color is green, representing the vegetation of springtime.
    • Pitch is represented by the color black as an evil Living Shadow.
  • The Spider-Man: Spider-Verse films do this a lot, with various characters having color motifs significant to their arcs:
    • Spider-People in general like Peter, Miles, Peni, Noir, Spider-Ham, Hobie, Margo, and Pavitir are all associated with red and blue — traditionally "heroic" colors and, of course, the iconic color scheme of the original Spidey costume. Miguel O'Hara, the Spider-Man of the 2099 universe, retains this color association, but with much darker shades of blue and red, symbolizing both the Darker and Edgier nature of his home reality and how he himself has become warped into a Knight Templar.
    • Spider-Gwen and her universe are associated with a variety of pastel colors, both to riff on the "punk rock indie comic" vibe of her world and likely to symbolize how Gwen's personal life and emotions have become turbulent thanks to her superheroism.
    • The Prowler is associated with purple and green in order to contrast with Spider-Man's colors, since his gimmick is essentially being an Evil Counterpart with similar powers to Spidey but faked through technology. The color is also used subtly with Miles quite a bit, foreshadowing both The Reveal in the first film that he's unknowingly Prowler's nephew and the twist in the second where he meets an alternate version of himself who became the second Prowler.
    • Kingpin and the Spot are both associated with black and white, marking them out as major supervillains. With Spot, it's also used to symbolize his character arc. At the start, when he's a doofy Harmless Villain, he's white-with-black-spots, giving him a silly appearance and an innocent, non-threatening demeanor. Once he's developed into a terrifying Big Bad and Not-So-Harmless Villain, he switches to being black-with-white-spots, making him look much more intimidating and symbolically showing his corruption from a mere scientist trying to assert control over his ruined life to a vengeful, murderous madman who will destroy worlds to get even with anybody who disrespects him.
  • Transformers One: Sentinel Prime has gold. His wings are gold, his citadel is gold, his personal soldiers are gold-colored. At first, it shows his regal, almost royal status, much like the Primes. But when the truth of his nature is discovered, it showcases his self-aggrandizing nature.
  • Turning Red: Mei and her friends are each associated with a different color that forms most of their wardrobe. Mei wears red, Miriam wears green, Priya wears yellow, and Abby wears purple.
  • Wish: King Magnifico is primarily associated with the colors blue and white, symbolizing how the citizens of Rosas see him as benevolent and divine. But when he dabbles into forbidden magic after feeling threatened by Asha and the Star, his eyes and his magic turn green, symbolizing his fear and greed over wish-granting authority.
    Films — Live-Action 
  • Each segment in The ABCs of Death are bookended by zooming in or out or focusing on a red-colored object. Its sequel, ABCs of Death 2, does the same with the colour black.
  • In the film Auto Focus, orange is used to symbolize normalcy — Bob Crane's ordinary life has him drinking orange juice, he has a monologue about the meaning of the word "orange", and John Carpenter, who tempts Bob into his sex addiction, is color-blind and during a presentation, can't tell that the color is off on his projector and the on-screen oranges are purple.
  • Cries and Whispers: Red, red, red everywhere. The walls and carpets of the lavish family mansion are red. The curtains are red. The bedsheets are red. Maria's sexy lingerie is red. Maria's daughter is dressed in red. The credits roll over a red screen. The screen flashes red for scene transitions. The book that Anna reads to Agnes even has a red cover.
    Ingmar Bergman: Cries and Whispers is an exploration of the soul, and ever since childhood, I have imagined the soul to be a damp membrane in varying shades of red.
  • The Dark Knight Trilogy, which is highly noticeable in the series' main trope page. Batman Begins is filled with a yellowish tint. The Dark Knight has blue, most noticeably in the various evening or day for night shots. The Dark Knight Rises features white, showcased by the cloudy skies and the snowy winter setting.
  • Equinox Flower is a story of a businessman in late middle age who's having to deal with changing culture in Japan, as his daughter is getting married without asking permission. Director Yasujirō Ozu emphasizes the color red everywhere. Most prominent is a bright red teapot which shows up in every scene inside the Hirayama home, but there are other examples of red all over the place—purses, ashtrays, signs, barstools, placemats. Everywhere. This is no doubt referring to the "Equinox flower" which gives the film its name, and which is bright red. The equinox flower👁 Image
    often blooms around graveyards and is associated with death.
  • In The Godfather films, the color orange is a symbol of impending death. Usually, it comes in the form of orange fruit, but even orange clothing and orange decorations are used as foreshadowing towards death.
  • In Greed, a black & white movie, yellow represents greed. Specifically, it represents gold—gold nuggets in ore, Trina's gold wedding ring, the $5000 in gold coins that Trina wins, which wrecks three lives. The gold is hand-colored yellow. By the time it ends, with a murderer fleeing into the desert, the whole world is tinted yellow.
  • In Jason's Lyric, Jason often wears between blue or orange; reflecting his gentle-but-tough demeanor. Lyric often wears white; signifying her innocence, dreamy and nurturing traits.
  • In the Cut: The color red recurs👁 Image
    throughout the film—it is the color of the murder victims' blood, and when Frannie is watching the anonymous man getting a blow job in the dive bar basement, the man's figure is shadowed by red neon light. Red also shows up in the dress Frannie wears at the end and the lighthouse that Frannie is taken to.
  • Make Up (2019): Red. At first it appears to represent danger, as Ruth suspects that her boyfriend is cheating on her with a red-haired woman. Then it becomes clear this actually signifies her unfulfilled desires, because she gets drawn to Jade, whose hair is reddish-blond, with her feelings becoming clear when Jade's painting Ruth's nails bright red. Ruth fully embraces her desire for Jade after putting on a red wig, a red dress and going to have sex with her as red firelight is in the background.
  • Mama: Lily is associated with purple. She wears a purple blanket when they arrive at the house at the beginning of the movie and most of the children's drawings also depict her in purple. This is something she has in common with Mama/Edith's real baby, which ties into her fate at the film's end.
  • The Matrix (1999):
    • Green is the color of the Matrix. The Matrix Raining Code is green, the set dressing and monitors are green and pretty much everything is suffused with a green tint. This unnatural use of green is meant to reflect the fact the Matrix is artificial and sinister as a computer and is reminiscent of early CRTs.
    • Blue is the color of reality. It is stable, calming and sad with all scenes in reality having a blue tint to signify it is real unlike the Matrix.
  • My Animal: Red has a recurrent presence, not only outside during the blood moon where it makes sense, but for Heather's charged Erotic Dream about Jonny. Along with this, she sleeps under red sheets chained down so Heather won't get loose in her wolf form. While they actually have sex, the scene again is lit by red. So is the scene when Heather kills Rick (outside under the blood moon again). It seems to symbolize Heather's nature as both a lesbian and a werewolf, which are intermingled themes within the film.
  • The Phantom of the Opera movie musical had a lot of red.
  • In the Hindi film, Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi the color yellow is used extensively. Important or symbolic objects such as a tiffin bucket, flowers, bed linens, a car, and clothing are all the color yellow in the movie. This color symbolizes the joyful character of the girl Taani.
  • The Red Kimono uses red to symbolize sin and prostitution. So while most of the movie is in black-and-white, the eponymous kimono is actually shown as red onscreen. Similarly, the streetlight in the Red-Light District where Gabrielle's brothel is located is shown as red onscreen.
  • In the Rocky films, Rocky's preferred colors for his trunks are black and gold. In the second film, he wears mostly black with small gold stripes, signifying how Rocky is a dangerous fighter, albeit with a heart of gold. In the third film, which follows the progress of Rocky losing his edge as a fighter and becoming softened by the good life, those colors are reversed, and Rocky starts wearing showy and flashy gold trunks, (along with gold gloves and shoes) with small black stripes. This serves as a symbol of how the good life of fame and fortune has come to dominate Rocky's life, and he only maintains a small remnant of the edge, the hunger, the relentless drive that made him such a dangerous opponent in the first two films.
  • Rust Creek: Red. Both Sawyer and Lowell have red hair. Sawyer's stranded SUV is red. It's autumn, and the leaves in the forest are all red. Sawyer gets stranded at the eponymous Rust Creek, named after its red clay deposits. Sawyer helps Lowell dispose of red waste water, which he says would stain his whole yard red if he tossed it on the ground. And, of course, red is the color of blood.
  • M. Night Shyamalan's films often use bright colors like red and yellow to emphasize the supernatural or otherwise scary or shocking elements in a scene. This is particularly noticeable in Unbreakable (which also uses the colors green and purple to isolate the characters played by Bruce Willis and Samuel L. Jackson, respectively).
  • The colors blue and orange representing the Order Versus Chaos philosophies of Samaritan and Nemesis.
  • The Shining: The Overlook is brimming with this. Primary palettes for the hotel itself include various shades of red/an almost brownish deep red, orange, yellow, green, and blue/steel-blue. Danny and Wendy are also dressed in almost identical bright blue- and red-patterned clothes.
  • In The Sixth Sense (1999), the color red is intentionally absent from most of the film, but is used prominently in a few isolated shots for anything in the real world that has been tainted by the other world and to connote really explosively emotional moments and situations.
  • All (or almost all) of the Sith in Star Wars are characterized by black outfits, usually combined with red, both colors associated with evil, violent character archetypes. It started in the first film with Darth Vader and his all-black appearance coupled with a red lightsaber (contrast Obi-Wan's more neutral brown and white clothing and heroic blue lightsaber) and was seen next with Emperor Palpatine/Darth Sidious, who wears a black robe. The Prequel Trilogy had even more Sith who continued the theme: Darth Maul also wore black and wielded a red lightsaber, this time coupled with his skin being dark black and bright red; Count Dooku has a black shirt and pants with a very dark red cape and, again, a red lightsaber; and finally Anakin's becoming Vader is foreshadowed by his wearing very dark clothing for the whole film before his final transformation into the Lord of the Sith. The tradition is continued again in The Force Awakens with Kylo Ren, who deliberately styled himself after Vader and wears a similar all-black outfit that covers every inch of his skin.
  • The Substance: Women who are dismissed, disregarded or falling out of favor with men are consistently dressed in shades of blue; Elisabeth at the start of the film, her portly maid, the auditionee seen from behind before Sue arrives, Harvey's assistant Isabella, a random stagehand that Sue snaps at to fetch her robe, Sue herself when she starts degenerating and The Grotesque Monstro Elisasue. This is likely done as contrast to the hyperfeminine pink Sue sports when she makes a splash as the idealized young woman that men can't get enough of.
  • Each film of Krzysztof Kieślowski's Three Colors Trilogy is named after a color on the French flag (Blue, White, and Red) and has memorable cinematography focused on using that color to striking effect.
  • The three films in Edgar Wright, Simon Pegg, and Nick Frost's "Three Flavours Cornetto" trilogy are all associated with a specific color, represented by a flavor of Cornetto ice cream.
    • The first film, Shaun of the Dead, was a comedy about zombies with tons of blood and gore, its main character spent the entire movie wearing a white shirt with a red tie, a Running Gag involved various characters telling him, "You've got red on you," note  First because red ink from his pen was leaking on his shirt, later because he wound up covered in blood from fighting zombies and one scene had a character eating a strawberry flavored Cornetto ice cream cone.
    • The second film, Hot Fuzz, was a buddy cop movie that had the protagonists dressed in blue uniforms for the majority of the film, several scenes had a noticeable blue tint, and one scene had a character eating an "original flavor" Cornetto ice cream cone (which comes in a blue package).
    • The final film, The World's End, is about a group of five former schoolmates reuniting after almost 20 years to finally finish a pub crawl in their hometown, only to discover that the town hast been overtaken by alien robots. The ice cream appearing in this film is a green "Mint Chocolate Cornetto" to represent the aliens, even though the aliens aren't green at all and even have blue...ink inside them and the colour not being more present in the film than any other colour.
  • Vertigo uses green to illustrate Scottie's obsession for Madeline. For instance, after Judy gets completely made over in Madeline's image, the neon sign outside the window casts a green glow on her.
  • In Wings of Desire, all color is used to represent the human, mortal world. The bulk of the first 3/4 of the film is shot in black and white because that is how the protagonists, two angels, view the world. But scenes not from their perspective are shot in color, and when one of the angels takes human form, the whole movie shifts to color.
  • Striking use of color is part of the Signature Style of Zhang Yimou:
    • Zhang's 1991 Raise the Red Lantern features the color red as a dominant theme, representing the Chen family (particularly Mr. Chen), with other minor motifs following each of the wives/concubines.
    • In his film Hero (2002), many recurring colors appear. Black is used for mystery, red for deceit, blue for romance, green for memory, and white for truth.
    Literature 
  • In Autobiography of Red, yellow tends to symbolize things that pass out of the main character's life:
    • His ex-boyfriend dreams of him reviving a dead yellow bird and then freeing it.
    • There are two characters — one with a yellow beard, the other with a yellow scarf — whom he socializes with for a day, then doesn't see again.
    • The ex-boyfriend isnote revealed in the sequel to be blond, and he and the main character keep disconnecting and reconnecting over the course of two books.
  • Captain Underpants: Red, yellow, white and black for George; green, blue, grey and brown for Harold.
    • In the film, George sports a necktie that's red and yellow, a white collared shirt and black shorts and sneakers. Red is the colour of passion and energy and yellow is the colour of cheerfulness and fun, but also mind and intellect, true to George's personality because he's the resident Brainy Brunette and Keet. White symbolizes cleanliness and hygiene as seen towards the end of the film when the boys try to reaffirm their friendship despite being in different classes, Harold opts to do a spit shake and George doesn't want to because it's unsanitary. Black symbolizes ominous forces and magic as seen with George using the Hypno-Ring on Krupp in the film, where it turns out the ring might be a magic Hypno Trinket.
    • Harold sports a green and light grey shirt, brown shorts and pale blue slip-on shoes. Green symbolizes friendship and freedom and blue symbolizes caution, compassion, isolation, maturity and tranquillity and true to Harold's personality, he and George value friendship and the freedom to be creative, is a bit more cautious, empathetic and calm, Hates Being Alone, is Wise Beyond His Years and the Older Sidekick. Brown symbolizes strength and Harold is slightly bolder than George when it comes to fighting monsters or villains. Grey symbolizes quietness which makes sense since Harold doesn't talk as much as George.
  • In Ethan Frome, the color gray is associated with Ethan's wife Zeena, a cold, apathetic woman, while the color red is associated with Mattie, a lively, younger woman that Ethan falls for.
  • Fengshen Yanyi: lands inhabited by Immortals and buddhists are covered in purple clouds of good omen, green and blue are often used to describe vast tracts of wild forests and untouched nature, while the color gold is often associated both to divine characters and weapons and to the Imperial court. Red often appears as a sign of vitality, life and health, contrasted by white.
  • The Great Gatsby:
    • There's color symbolism throughout associating white with purity and yellow with corruption, such with the girls with yellow dresses at Gatsby's party. As for his eternal love Daisy, what kind of flower is white on the outside but yellow on the inside?
    • Green is used to a great extent as well, being associated with the idea of hope. The light at the end of Daisy's dock, which Gatsby seen reaching out towards and is described as one of Gatsby's "enchanted objects", is green, and the settlers Nick describes in the famous end passage of the novel are described as sighting "the fresh, green breast of the new world". Or, from another point of view, the green light at the end of Daisy's dock represents Envy. Specifically, Gatsby's envy towards Tom for his marriage with Daisy.
  • In A Pumpkin Shell: Over 20 Pumpkin Projects For Kids: Orange is used quite liberally to decorate this book, which fits with its pumpkin them.
  • Red is used to symbolize chaos in The Kane Chronicles, similar to Egyptian Mythology that it was based off from.
  • The Lord of the Rings: Saruman's title of "the White" seems to mark him as the leader of the Istari (wizards). However, as part of his Face–Heel Turn, he opts to become Saruman of Many Colors. While that may seem like a step up from White, Gandalf notes that, since White is all colors together, Many Colors are symbolic of discord and divisiveness. For the record, the other wizards use mostly neutral colors like grey or brown (besides the two blue ones).
  • The author Chuck Palahnuik uses a recurring motif of cornflower blue throughout his novels, for example, the color of the tie and eyes of the narrator's boss in Fight Club.
  • In The Reynard Cycle, white is highly associated with death (it doesn't help that the moon looks like a giant skull.) This becomes especially apparent in Defender of the Crown, when the author himself begins to use the color as a form of Foreshadowing.
  • Sho-shan y la Dama Oscura Every book have a different color to symbolize the three protagonists: The first one, Sho Shan y la Dama Oscura, is pink for Luisa — a symbol of her innocence —, The second, Tinta Violeta, is violet for Violeta — because of the name — and the last one, Doncella Roja, is red for Dagmar — to symbolize her destiny.
  • A Song of Ice and Fire:
    • All the noble houses throw their heraldic colors around every chance they get. The major players at the beginning of the series are the grim, dour, "stark" Starks whose colors are grey and white, and the rich, opulent Lannisters whose colors are red and gold (which contrast plays into the whole "ice and fire" motif as well).
    • The Night's Watch and the Kingsguard wear black and white, respectively. Both represent moral ambiguity in different ways — the Kingsguard is very respectable, but even the heroic characters among them tend to be assholes, subverting Light Is Good. The men of the Night's Watch are mostly thieves and other petty criminals, and mostly aren't the virtuous defenders of the realm that they should be, but tend to be commanded by men of high, if primitive, moral standards (for what those are worth in Westeros).
    • Grey is the worst color in the series and everyone and everything with this color is portrayed negatively.
    • House Targaryen are known for their silver-blonde hair and purple eyes. Both colors represent the family's superhuman reputation.
    • Brown has connotations of poverty and uncleanliness. Rhaenyra's sons have brown hair to denote that they are bastards. Nettles is often described as brown to denote that she was poor (she is also accused of prostitution). The dregs of King's Landing subsist on a "bowl of brown" which is a stew made from questionable materials.
  • The two cults featured in The Tenets of Futilism have very different ideas as to the meaning of the color white. The Waxers believe it symbolizes purity, tranquility, the usual stuff. Futilists, on the other hand, see white as representing all the colors of the rainbow rendered boring and dull together.
  • Valhalla features color coded gangs, which were created by prison companies to keep their prisons full. The gangs have have long since taken over the companies by the time the story begins.
  • Dante's La Vita Nuova makes use of red to represent love, most strikingly in the crimson dress of Beatrice. She wears it at age nine when he experiences Love at First Sight and in a vision after her death to remind him what true beauty is.
  • In Xanth, Irene has a Green Thumb power, and thus green is her color. Her hair is black, with magically green tint. Her clothes are green, even her unmentionables (seen when her skirt flares up), and when the centaurs give her a fur garment, it's hinted to be green (save for the silver lining), as that's the natural color of furs grown on fur trees.
    Live-Action TV 
  • Black Mirror: Yellow frequently appears in the episode Shut Up and Dance in association with Kenny; he has a yellow phone screen, his home and the hotel have a yellow interior decoration, he wears yellow-tinted sunglasses while robbing a bank, not to mention the yellow puddle of urine. The color actually references Kenny's cowardice, as he did everything in the episode to save himself from being exposed as a pedophile.
  • The Boys (2019): Annie is always associated with a light yellow color. She is blonde, her costume has yellow and golden details and her powers generate yellow light.
  • Criminologist Himura and Mystery Writer Arisugawa:
    • The "Study in Vermilion" cases have, expectedly, the colour orange connecting them together. The first case, murder by arson, left Akemi with a deep phobia of the colour orange, as she associated it with the fire that killed her uncle. The second case took place at Cape Tasogare, with tasogare being a niche term for dusk — Akemi's phobia is notably triggered by the evening sunset painting the sky orange. And then the final case takes place in an apartment complex called Orange Tachibana. When Arisugawa notices this colour connection and points it out, Himura remarks that it's just like an author to have noticed that thread.
    • While imprisoned, Moroboshi wears a white cape that marks her as an ethereal and sinister figure. When she escapes and becomes directly involved in the plot, she switches her cape for a more striking all-black ensemble.
  • The Cry of Mann:
    • Orange is associated with "supernatural" elements, including the phones, Ghost Lady, and Jouglat's funeral clothes.
    • Blue is associated with happy things, such as Trool Day and Tank Mann's return, as his vest is blue.
  • The CSI franchise is known for this. The original CSI has a lot of brown that evokes the desert setting of Las Vegas. CSI: NY has blues and grays to evoke the gritty nature of the big city. CSI: Miami has a lot of orange and yellow to evoke the bright, sunny semi-tropics of Miami.
  • Daredevil: Born Again: The series empathizes the main colors of the lead characters, with Daredevil getting a crimson red, Fisk a stark white and Bullseye a deep blue. This is particularly seen towards the end of episode one and the end of episode 7.
  • Empire (2015):
    • The Lyons, Lucious especially, have an affinity for gold.
    • There are also certain color schemes for some individual members of the family: in the early episodes, Lucious is often seen wearing or surrounded by purple, which symbolizes royalty and power; Andre is heavily associated with black, is The Un-Favorite due to his pursuit of business and education rather than music, hides Lucious' dirty laundry and gives him cover stories, and is the most emotionally turbulent member of the family due to his bipolar disorder; Jamal is often associated with white, symbolizing his status as the most moral brother; Hakeem is the Lyon who is most seen associated with gold, as he is the favored son ( at least, until the Season 1 finale) and often spoiled by Lucious (however, he's seen in black more when he and Jamal begin actively competing).
  • Game of Thrones: Played With by the Night's Watch and the Kingsguard, who wear black and white respectively but represent moral ambiguity. The Kingsguard is very respected but filled with jerkasses, subverting Light Is Good, while the Night's Watch is nowadays infamous for being mostly criminals and runaways but includes many dutiful men of a somewhat higher moral fibre, subverting Dark Is Evil.
  • Alicent Hightower from House of the Dragon wears various colors in different stages of her life. Her personal favorite color is blue. After marrying King Viserys, she adopts the Targaryen color red. She then signals her turning against Princess Rhaenyra by switching to her family's color, green.
  • The "little yellow house" the Blacks lived in during the first season of Millennium (1996) was so colored because its warm and cheery qualities made it a (seeming) refuge from the dark and grisly cases Frank worked on.
  • Emma from Once Upon a Time (2011) is first introduced wearing a red dress and throughout the series often wears a scarlet leather jacket. Also, Ruby always has red on her outfits, whether it is her red highlights or drives a red car or has a red wolf ornament on her windshield, which is fitting seeing how her Fairytale counterpart is Red Riding Hood.
    • Mary Margaret Blanchard aka Snow White often wears white.
    • Regina and Mr. Gold—aka the Evil Queen and Rumpelstiltskin—most frequently wear black in both Storybrooke and the Enchanted Forest, which is often associated with the kind of evil characters that both of them traditionally are. (Rumpel combines the black of his Enchanted Forest garb with some red, which is also often used for villains.)
    • Zelina, the Wicked Witch of the West, of course is colored green to symbolize her jealous nature.
  • Red Dwarf: Downplayed. Cat has some minor associations with the color pink, which ties into his flirtiness, fixation with being seen as sexually attractive, and weakness for pretty women. He wears pink suits, a pink waistcoat with his zebra-print jacket, and uses pink glowsticks in "Samsara".
  • The Serpent Queen: Diane de Poitiers is always dressed in black and white. Her younger lover, King Henri II, begins wearing these colors as well, symbolizing the extent to which he is in her thrall.
  • Early Smallville episodes also liked to use primary colors for anything related to Clark Kent, hinting at his future as Superman.
  • In Twin Peaks, red usually turns up suggesting danger and sexuality, most obviously in the curtains of One Eyed Jacks and the Black Lodge.
  • A bright acrid yellow is used throughout Utopia (UK), often relating to death and danger, and very closely tied with Arby the hit man.
  • Why Women Kill: All three women are wearing red when they kill. Tellingly Taylor, who was the only woman to kill without criminal intent, i.e. doing so in self-defence, is wearing the least amount of red. Simone and Beth Ann who are both decked out in all-red dresses, with Beth Ann in matching accessories, did it out of love and revenge respectively.
    Music 
  • Al Green's made puns on his last name by naming an album "Green Is Blues" and having the lettering on the album covers of Call Me and Let's Stay Together be in green typography.
  • In the K-Pop Girl Group LOONA, every one of the twelve members have a signature color of the Colour-Coded Characters and a number of the members heavily feature that color in their solo music video. The reason behind the color associations aren't clear, but the color line up for the revealed members looks like:
    • Heejin is hot pink.
    • Hyunjin is yellow.
    • Haseul is green.
    • Yeojin is orange.
    • Vivi is pale pink.
    • Kim Lip is red.
    • Jinsoul is blue.
    • Choerry is purple.
    • Yves is burgundy.
    • Chuu is peach.
    • Go Won is eden green.
    • Olivia Hye is silver.
  • In Marshmello's "Happier", the main character is surrounded by yellow while her daughter is accompanied by red.
  • Most of Red's album covers have something red on them symbolizing the "blood of Christ," just like the band's name.
  • R.E.M. were quite associated with the color yellow. Dead Letter Office, Eponymous, Green, Out of Time, Reveal and Collapse into Now used it dominantly on the cover, and Automatic for the People had a yellow CD tray on early pressings. Murmur was even reissued with a yellow logo instead of a blue one (which was the one widely available in the UK for years). Additionally, the video collections This Film Is On, Tourfilm, Parallel, and Road Movie used yellow dominantly, often for the logo, as did the Live Album Live At The Olympia.
  • Type O Negative virtually always used green and black on their album covers, and sometimes orange. The only exception to this rule is the reissue of Dead Again which is red — the original is however green. Usually, the text on their albums will be white, with the band name in the top right corner, and the album name in the bottom left. The band did this intentionally to evoke a sense of continuity — describing the green as 'verdigris' and the orange as 'ochre'.
  • The White Stripes used black, red, and white in all band-related imagery from their music videos to the outfits Jack and Meg wore (as seen in their page image).
    Video Games 
  • Arthur's Nightmare uses a dark red to symbolize danger. The game's title screen has a red background, various rooms can change into red-tinged Eldritch Locations, and every enemy has red eyes. Even minor details, like a QR code shown on the house's TV and the protagonist's computer's wallpaper in the ending, are colored red.
  • Awaria: Two main colors, green and purple, are featured throughout the game with different distinct meanings. Green refers to both the supernatural and danger in general. Purple refers to machinery, living people, and the physical world of the tunnels.
  • Blue Prince:
    • Blue, the titular color, represents discovery and truth. It's the color of the blueprints you use to explore your deceased grandfather's house filled with puzzles and secrets, the majority of rooms you'll draft are blue-colored, and all blue memos are completely truthful unlike other colored memos. Your title screen also gets colored blue when you do Dare Mode, a Harder Than Hard difficulty mode that requires you to reach Room 46 while fulfilling four dares.
    • Red represents danger and lies. Red rooms have negative effects that you'll generally want to avoid or find ways to negate, (almost) all red memos lie to you, and it's the banner color of Fenn Aries, a nation with a troubling history of censoring works and making people who challenge their politics "disappear". Your title screen also gets colored red and the skies turn red when you do Curse Mode, a Harder Than Hard difficulty mode that curses you to begin each day with only thirteen steps and lose items every time you draft a non-blue room. This blue vs. red dichotomy is highlighted even further by the crowns you can find for each color: the blue crown's power lets you remove red rooms from your draft pool for today, whereas the red crown's power lets you redraw if your three initially drawn floorplans don't have any red rooms.
    • In addition to blue and red rooms, there are multiple other room categories that are represented by a specific color: Green rooms are nature-related and can contain flowers and dirt piles that give you extra items, gold rooms are shops where you can spend coins to buy items, violet rooms are bedrooms that give you extra movement steps, and orange rooms are hallways that are good for connecting rooms together.
  • Clarence's Big Chance: Clarence and his personal effects are generally associated with the color pink.
  • Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars. GDI is blue, Nod is red and the Scrin is purple. Kane later starts wearing purple.
  • Control (2019): The major supernatural entities in the game have their own color motifs.
    • The Board is black and white, representing its inhuman sterility and the binary nature of its "test" - you either succeed and become the Director, or fail and die.
    • Hiss, the antagonistic force that took over the building is represented by red patterns of smoke, and the areas possessed by it are bathed in red light. Likewise, the game as a whole has a red motif, from Jesse's hair to the various UI elements and even the game's logo.
    • The spiral entity accompanying Jesse is mostly blue, and has a calming influence, resisting the terrorizing effects of the Hiss and purging it from various areas.
  • Deltarune: The specific pairing of pink and yellow appears in a lot of imagery across the game, with no obvious meaning yet outside of usually being tied to optional and frequently ominous content. Spamton's glasses have pink and yellow lenses, the mysterious "FRIEND" face has pink and yellow eyes, the Odd Controller that Kris receives for Chapter 3's Sword Route is shown to have pink and yellow buttons if examined, and Chapter 5 of Lord of the Hammer (implicitly alluding to Deltarune's own Chapter 5) is titled "The Field of Pink and Gold". Chapter 5 is also suggested to focus on Asgore, whose color scheme is predominantly pink and gold between his hair and shirt. Less seriously, it also appears as the color of "Cat" Mike's eyes as a nod to wild fan theories.
  • Devil May Cry:
    • Dante has Red. His Badass Longcoat is red, his tops and pants are usually red. His Battle Aura is red, his Devil Trigger forms are red, his eyes often glow red and many of his weapons like his BFS Rebellion glow red. Naturally he is passionate, hotheaded, boisterous, rebellious and as the Big Good of the series very heroic.
    • Vergil has Blue. His coat is blue, his clothes are blue, his aura and Devil Trigger Forms are blue and the Summoned Swords are all blue. In stark contrast to Dante, Vergil is serious, calm, regal, aloof and much colder towards other people. He averts Blue Is Heroic being the antagonist for multiple games and having apathy towards innocent lives and he is distant and isolated as a person.
    • Sparda, Dante and Vergil’s Long-Dead Badass father has Purple. His clothes in human form are purple and his weapons are given a purple aura. According to several sources he was a mix of both his sons, like Dante he was very heroic and rebellious as a Defector from Decadence but like Vergil was levelheaded and stoical. Purple Is Powerful very much in effect as Sparda’s exploits as the “Dark Knight” are legendary within the setting having defeated both Mundus and Argosax.
    • Nero uniquely has both Blue and Red. He is an Uneven Hybrid who has traits akin to both his father and uncle, yet he also dissimilar to both of them and ultimately doesn’t share their priorities. DMC5 has his Devil Trigger colour scheme be blue and white, in contrast to more threatening blue and dark grey of his father Vergil.
    • Eva Dante and Vergil’s mother, and her Identical Stranger Trish are associated with regal Gold and Black. For Trish this reflects her Hidden Heart of Gold and being Dark Is Not Evil.
    • Lady commonly wears White and Black. She is the Token Human, she has a Sugar and Ice Personality, in her debut in DMC3 she didn’t believe demons could be good demonstrating a Black-and-White Morality mentality — before Dante changed her mind. She’s capable of both great compassion and great violence.
    • Nero's girlfriend Kyrie wears all white, symbolising her pure heart and how she acts as Nero's Morality Chain. She's also the only named member of the Order of the Sword to be an example of Light Is Good as she is a true believer unlike the others who use the religion to their own ends.
    • Nico is Nero's mechanic and sidekick, with her main colour being a brownish orange, reflecting her oddball nature and mild case of Orange-and-Blue Morality along with her role as providing weapons and support rather than being on the front lines like Lady or Trish.
    • V is completely black, from his clothes to his hair and tattoos. He's a complete mystery and the weakest playable character in the series, sticking to the shadows and conducting his familiars to go battle for him.
    • Lucia is an inversion of Dante, having red hair while wearing white as her main colour. Her good hearted personality plays into White Is Pure as she is by far the most reserved and focused on helping others out of the main girls, while her red hair reflects how Red Is Heroic just like with Dante.
  • In Drakengard, the dragons are colored differently. In the first Drakengard, Angelus, Caim's dragon, is red. She starts out as a bright red, turns pink in her second form, and then goes to a deep red in her third form. Her chaos form is a deep, purplish red. In Drakengard 2, Legna, Nowe's dragon, starts out as being a rich blue. He then turns to a darker, almost midnight blue, and finally goes to black. In Drakengard 3, Mikhail, Zero's dragon, is white with a black underbelly.
  • Donkey Kong Bananza uses a number of colors througout the game.
    • Yellow and black are used in DK's Bananza transformations, not to mention that yellow pulls double duty representing the gold throughout the game and the bananas that DK loves so much.
    • Cyan and magenta is used in the UI, official artwork, and plenty more to harken back to the girders and ladders of the arcade classic, this game's inclusion of Pauline and New Donk City helps bridge the gap between the arcade games and the modern Donkey Kong games.
    • Once King K. Rool makes his grand return, he and his Kremling Krew are represented in a Sickly Green Glow, showing how his evil greatly eclipses Void Kong.
  • In the latter half of EarthBound (1994), Porky dons a flashy suit to indicate that he's now rich and corrupt. It's red and black — just like the alien conqueror Giygas when you fight him.
  • Fallout:
    • Fallout 3 even more than the first two games, is strongly associated with green due to the game’s green tint giving numerous environments in the Capital Wasteland a Sickly Green Glow, appropriate for a radiation-filled post apocalypse.
    • Fallout: New Vegas is associated with yellow colors specifically amber, with the Pip-Boy colour and HUD being yellow by default and the overall game having a yellow tint to it. This was likely to emphasise the Western Desert Punk setting compared to the Capital Waseland.
  • In Final Fantasy VII, Mint Green in general is heavily used throughout the game being the color of Mako energy, the eye color of those exposed to Mako, the color the Lifestream and the color featured in the logo. It’s used both emphasise the Green Aesop aspects of the story and industrial power of Shinra. The Main Characters are also associated with one particular color.
    • Cloud has Blue. His eyes are blue, his SOLDIER uniform is dark blue, his paldron is blue tinted, his trooper uniform was blue and in Rebirth the other clothes he can wear are blue. He is levelheaded, relaxed, aloof, isolated, carries a great of sadness inside him. Blue Is Heroic as he is highly protective of loved ones, is militaristic and thanks to his Meaningful Name is associated with the sky.
    • Tifa has Red. Her eyes are red, her gauntlets are red, her boots are red. In Rebirth her final Limit Break “Meteor Shower” is a bunch of flaming kicks. In Amano’s concept art her miniskirt was red, a look later used in Dissidia. She’s The Heart, a Love Interest to Cloud, passionate, strong and heroic. Whereas Cloud is more introverted, she’s extroverted.
    • Aerith has Pink. Her dresses are primarily pink, her ribbon is pink and her even swimwear in Rebirth are pink. She’s lighthearted, girlish, friendly, often childish and openly romantic and flirtatious. It’s also ironic given she’s the White Mage who are usually depicted as chaste and pure.
    • Barret has Dark Green. His pants are moss colored his other outfits have green highlights. He is an Eco-Terrorist, driven, stubborn, loyal, militaristic, a Father to His Men and Team Dad.
    • Nanaki aka Red XIII (contrary to his name) has Orange. His fur is orange, his eyes are orange and his Battle Aura and special attacks in Rebirth are reddish orange. He is arrogant yet heroic, is often in comic relief roles and can be very energetic.
    • Yuffie has Light Green. Her top being green and green the remake games her Martial Arts Headband is green too. She’s funny, youthful, greedy and mischievous. In Rebirth she’s also quite envious towards Head-Turning Beauties Tifa and Aerith whom crowds of men will fawn on while writing her off as a kid.
    • Sephiroth has Silver. His hair is silver, his pauldrons are silver, his outfit has silver highlights on black and even when he was young in Ever Crisis he is outfit mostly has silver. He is regal, majestic, strong highly magical and beautiful. Yet since he is Light Is Not Good as the Big Bad, he’s also cold and cruel. His defeat and crippled Pride at the golden-haired Cloud’s hands also serves as a major motivation for his character.
  • In Fire Emblem: Three Houses, each of the houses, their leaders, and the countries they are associated with have a specific color assigned to them:
    • The Black Eagles, Edelgard, and the Adrestian Empire are, despite the name of the house, associated with red more than black. With their leader Edelgard wearing primarily red, the Adrestian Empire's territory is shown with red and the flag of both the country and the house are red, representing Edelgard's passion and determination towards reaching her goals. It along with their secondary black motif represent the fact that she and the country are the primary antagonists of 3 of the 4 routes.
    • The Blue Lions, Dimitri, and the Holy Kingdom of Faerghus are, as the house name suggests, blue, representing their dedication towards upholding chivalric values. Dimitri himself also has a black motif in part 2, representing his fall from grace and status as a mirror of Edelgard.
    • The Golden Deer, Claude, and the Leicester Alliance are yellow, representing Claude being much more cheerful and stable than the other two lords. It also represents the alliance's less savory qualities, mainly its habit of political backstabbing and cowardice.
  • Five Nights at Freddy's:
    • Purple, which is associated with William Afton, whose sprite when shown is colored purple.
    • A somewhat lesser example is gold. 'Golden' animatronics, like Golden Freddy and Springtrap, tend to be the most dangerous. They are the original animatronic suits from Fredbear's Family Diner.
  • Ghost Trick: Inspector Cabanela wears a clean white coat to represent his spotless record and his determination to keep it flawless. The only part of his garb that isn't white is his red scarf, which may actually come with bonus symbolism. It supposedly represents his bloody spot on his record, which is letting Yomiel escape.
  • God of War: Kratos is strongly associated with the color red, with all the associations of anger, violence and bloodshed. This is displayed via his tattoo, his Greek-era clothing, the red orbs he collects, and the massive amounts of literal and metaphorical blood on his hands. From 2018 onwards it gains connotations of somewhat more straightforward heroism.
  • Haunting Starring Polterguy: The color green is associated with the presence of ghosts in this game. Poltergeist Polterguy, the ectoplasm and the on-screen text all share the same slimy, bilious green.
  • Hollow Knight: The infection that drives the game's story is marked by a strong bright orange color, to the point where only a few orange objects in the entire game are unrelated to it. Infected enemies bleed orange and several of them have large blobs of it on their bodies. When the Forgotten Crossroads become the Infected Crossroads, covering the area with its orange substance, it becomes apparent that the source of it is located around there.
  • In Icarus Needs, this is used to help instill the atmosphere.
  • In I Was a Teenage Exocolonist, yellow is Tammy's favorite color, as seen in her outfits and her favorite things. Yellow gifts such as flowers increase her heart meter by 2 points, and 4 if it's her birthday. It symbolizes the happiness she brings around others, especially kids, but it also symbolizes her cowardice as a child.
  • In The King of Fighters games, purple is the color of anyone associated with Orochi. Iori's flames are purple because of his clan's association with it. The New Face team switches to purple once they reveal their true power.
  • "Soul" bosses in the Kirby series frequently incorporate cyan and magenta into their designs and attacks, even if they lacked those colors in their original forms. Several even have attacks where they split into discrete cyan and magenta halves.
  • Throughout the The Legend of Zelda series, there are three recurring colors: red, which represents Power and the goddess Din; blue, which represents Wisdom and the goddess Nayru; and green, which represents Courage and the goddess Farore. Each of these colors is frequently worn by or otherwise associated with the main character connected with that facet of the Triforce — red for Ganondorf, blue for Zelda, and green for Link.
  • In Octopath Traveler, each protagonist is assigned a color, as evidenced by their costumes, and the banners in their journal logs: Priest Ophilia, White; Scholar Cyrus, Black; Merchant Tressa, Yellow; Knight Olberic, Blue; Dancer Primrose, Red; Apothecary Alfyn, Green; Thief Therion, Purple; and Huntress H'aanit, Orange.
  • OMORI: The color purple is used for fantastic dreams, given that the kids have purple hair and skin, and the sky for Headspace. Black is used to symbolize fear, like Something and Omori, while red is used to symbolize self-loathing and suppression, such as the Red Hands and Omori's final form.
    • Every member of the group is associated with different colors through their clothing and through the pinwheels which appear throughout Faraway Town:
      • Like Omori, Sunny is associated with both white (through his pinwheel), and black (through his clothing and hair.) Together, they reflect his quiet and introverted nature, he could also be associated with red due to Omori's Red Hands in headspace and the metaphorical blood on his hands and his self-loathing and suppression which is what the color is used to symbolize in the game, and him healing from his trauma and moving on could be seen as him washing off the metaphorical blood from his hands and now being clean again.
      • Kel wears orange clothes, loves to drink Orange Joe, and his pinwheel is orange; fittingly, he's just as energetic and extroverted as his Headspace counterpart, not to mention significantly friendlier.
      • Aubrey's favorite color is pink, reflected in both her pinwheel and her dyed hair. Initially, this seems to relate more to the thuggish, hostile attitude she's developed; later on, however, it's revealed that Aubrey had planned to dye her hair together with Mari before the latter's death, giving the motif new meaning in that deep down, Aubrey still has a girly streak and hasn't completely lost sight of the person she used to be.
      • Hero has both a blue shirt and a blue pinwheel, appropriate for both his nickname and his role as the most level-headed of the group. As a bonus, it establishes a Blue/Orange Contrast with his brother. More tragically, it also reflects the intense grief he continues to struggle with over Mari's death.
      • Basil's shirt and pinwheel are both green, befitting his love of flowers and nature. His blonde hair and Nervous Wreck behavior can also bring to mind an association with Cowardly Yellow.
      • Mari is associated with purple through her pinwheel and through several of her outfits; it's also revealed that she wanted to dye her hair purple at one point. It symbolizes her grace and wisdom as The Heart of the group, but on a darker note, it's also associated with death in Japan. Compounding this, Mari is also associated with white, the other Japanese color for death: the white egret orchid appears in several areas connected to her, and her spirit wears the Ethereal White Dress she intended to wear for the recital.
  • Persona:
    • Persona 3 has a dark blue motif, fitting for the depressing, somewhat dreary atmosphere of the game. The PSP remake has the same blue motif when using the male main character, and pink when using the newly-added female main character.
    • Persona 4 uses a cheery, bright yellow motif, indicating how upbeat the game is in comparison to other Shin Megami Tensei games and, especially, Persona 3. The Vita Updated Re-release is called Persona 4 Golden.
    • Spinoff Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth, which brings together the characters from both 3 and 4, uses purple.
    • Persona 5 uses a bright red motif, symbolizing the danger and excitement of the main characters' Phantom Thief lifestyles.
    • In Persona Q2: New Cinema Labyrinth, while the rest of the cast is represented by the colors of their respective games (blue for the cast of 3, pink for Portable’s female protagonist, yellow for the cast of 4, and red for the cast of 5), new characters Hikari, Nagi, and Doe are represented by the color orange.
  • In Resident Evil the main characters are generally Color-Coded Characters so this occurs a lot.
    • Chris has Green. Most of his outfits from RE1 to Death Island have hunter green or olive drab in them. Chris has a lengthy military history, is highly stubborn, protective and driven. His surname is of Scottish origin and he cares about protecting the world from biohazards. Chris also has earthly and wilderness connotations loving to fish, has adventures in Arklay mountains, West African and Romania and is best known for punching boulders.
    • Jill has Light Blue. Her eyes are blue, her outfits from combat gear to swimsuits are primarily powder blue or indigo, including the hats she wears. She’s very calm, intelligent, heroic, refined, pragmatic and beautiful. She was also a police officer.
    • Leon has Dark Blue. His RPD police outfit is blue, his shirt in RE6 is blue and at start of Death Island he wears a blue jacket. He is very laidback, levelheaded, protective and chivalrous. He’s also got a more serious and flawed side and as noted in the sixth instalment carries a great of sadness within him.
    • Claire has Red (more specifically maroon or magenta). Her original outfit is pinkish red, her hair in later games is red, her motorbike from RE2 is red. The clothes she wears in her later appearances always contain red in them, including sneakers in Degeneration and even reading glasses in Infinite Darkness. She’s very passionate, considered The Heart in the majority of her appearances and associated with love both familial and romantic.
    • Rebecca has Light Green. Her S.T.A.R.S uniform has a green top and green pants while both Vendetta and Death Island have her wearing green tops coat and her famous basketball outfit is green. She’s youthful, naive, cheerful and compared to the other Main Characters more pacifistic as a Science Hero and The Medic. Even her game RE0 has a green tint to it.
    • Ada has Dark Red. All her main outfits since RE2 have been scarlet or at the very least contain some deep shades of red in them as seen in Damnation. She’s the Lady in Red being more overtly sexualised as the Femme Fatale compared to the aforementioned Claire, is quite the Heel–Face Revolving Door and is most certainly The Vamp having seduced Leon and many other men.
    • Wesker has Black. His Sinister Shades are black, his tactical gear is black, his outfit in RE4 is black, he wears black Future Spandex and a black Badass Longcoat in RE5. He is Dark Is Evil as the Team Killer, Mad Scientist Big Bad, is heavily associated with the series’ themes of conspiracies and mystery and quite literally operates in the shadows for most of his appearances.
  • In Sonic the Hedgehog, Sonic is blue which contrasts Knuckles' red symbolising that they are foils and opposites to one another.
  • Marvel's Spider-Man 2: Kraven is strongly associated with yellow, as shown by his jacket and the yellow glow in his weapons. One possible interpretation of the color is that it's reference to his cowardice. Although he isn't a coward in the traditional sense, deep down, Kraven is terrified of dying ingloriously and is furious that God would give him a death that he deems "shameful". By fighting Spider-Man and his rogues gallery, Kraven believes he can find an opponent who can beat him.
  • Survivor: Fire: The boy, the player character, is in yellow so that he stands out more and is easy to recognize.
  • Undertale: Playing the Ball game reveals tidbits of the significant traits colors represent:
    • Red's trait is unknown, but it's assumed that it may be Determination. This is the color of the protagonist's SOUL.
    • Orange represents Bravery; accordingly, when faced with Orange attacks, you have to unflinchingly move straight through them in order to avoid taking damage. It's implied that the Human with the Orange SOUL wore the Tough Glove and the Manly Bandana.
    • Yellow represents Justice; tellingly, it's the only color whose associated SOUL mode you never gain access to on a Genocide route, and one of the colors that Sans' eye flashes during your fight with him at the end of said route. It's implied that the Human with the Yellow SOUL wore the Cowboy Hat and Empty Gun.
    • Green represents Kindness; if you see green-colored "bullets" in battle, then they will heal you instead of hurt you and they often advance the battle, pacifying your opponents and allowing you to spare them. It is also the color Undyne turns your SOUL during your fight with her; while this prevents you from running away, it also gives you a shield with which you can block her attacks. The Human with the Green SOUL is implied to have donned the Stained Apron and the Burnt Pan, the former which lets you regenerate 1 HP every other turn, and the other which increases the HP recovery of healing items by +4.
    • Teal represents Patience; you have to stand still in order to avoid taking damage from these attacks. It is also the second color that Sans' eye flashes during your fight with him, and say what you want about Sans, but he has been nothing if not patient with you up until now.
    • Blue represents Integrity; it weighs your SOUL down with gravity, turning the gameplay into a platformer instead of a Shoot 'em Up. The Human with the Blue SOUL is implied to have worn the Old Tutu and the Ballet Shoes.
    • Purple represents Perseverance; when your SOUL is turned purple, you're trapped on three lines that you have to jump between in order to avoid the enemy's attacks. The human with the purple SOUL is implied to have used the Cloudy Glasses and Torn Notebook.
    Visual Novels 
  • Danganronpa:
  • In Mio's route in Little Busters!, the colors blue and white are given special importance due to their association with a poem Mio loves: 'the seagull/wonder if she is sad/untouched by either the blue of the sky or the blue of the sea'. Later, Mio writes about her flying someone 'in blue's embrace', and in the end it's made clear that Mio is the white bird and Riki is the blue. Therefore it's a hint of foreshadowing when a character named Midori is introduced as there's no room in the poem for green.
  • Obey Me! – One Master to Rule Them All! has the seven demon brothers, whose color motifs indicate the sin they represent:
    • Lucifer, the eldest brother and the Avatar of Pride, is represented by blue.
    • Mammon, the second-eldest brother and the Avatar of Greed, is represented by yellow.
    • Leviathan, the third-eldest brother and the Avatar of Envy, is represented by orange.
    • Satan, the fourth-eldest brother and the Avatar of Wrath, is represented by green.
    • Asmodeus, the fifth-eldest brother and the Avatar of Lust, is represented by pink.
    • Beelzebub, the sixth-eldest brother and the Avatar of Gluttony, is represented by red.
    • Belphegor, the youngest of the brothers and the Avatar of Sloth, is represented by purple.
    Web Animation 
  • In The Amazing Digital Circus: Red and blue show up a lot in the Circus, aside from being Pomni's colors. In Episode 6, Caine's glitch causes his left eye to turn blue and his right eye to turn red. In Episode 7, the Red Pill, Blue Pill decision has red being to remain in the Circus, while blue means that the humans get to leave. In Episode 8, Caine is symbolled as a red dot, who is trapped, while a new, blue prototype is worked on. Caine breaks out of containment, eats/absorbs the other AI, and then creates the Circus.
  • Knights of Guinevere:
    • Blue appears prominently often through the pilot. It's the main color of the Guinevere androids and their innards. It's also in the smoke billowing from the factories on the surface, it's referenced in a disease called 'Blue Lung', and it's in a recreational drug that Sparky smokes.
    • Red is also used as a contrast to blue, usually during danger or representing it. The sky is red in the picture of the newspaper of Guinevere being mutilated while everyone in the foreground has a blue hue, Sparky's weapon emits red sparks during the night, the Lower Labs are mostly grayscale, with red lights and the elevator's cyan glow being the only sources of color, and Sir Arthur is represented with red in Frankie's hallucination.
  • RWBY:
    • Ruby has red, matching her name, outfit, weapon, and the color of her aura. Fitting for an excitable Huntress and doubles as a Flower Motif given her name and Semblance leaving behind rose petals.
    • Weiss has white, matching her name, dress, favoured element, and the snow that covers Atlas.
    • Blake has black, reflecting her name, clothing, and weapon. Fitting given the colour can symbolise protection and stealth, which reflect her feelings towards her friends and approach to combat respectively.
    • Yang has yellow, matching her outfit, weapons, aura, and fitting an energetic young woman.
    Webcomics 
  • Copper eyes: Encountering certain characters triggers Darcy seeing certain colors, thus they are intrinsically tied to said colors.
    • Roman is Blue. The first time he sees blue is in his eyes and it is more noticeable when he is around. Even his last name — "Bleu" — is just the word "blue" with the vowels switched.
    • Blaise is Green. Darcy starts seeing green when he appears and Darcy become insanely jealous of how close he is with Roman.
  • In Evus, each of the three nations of the world, Nem, are associated with a certain color. Pandion, a peace-loving nation and the homeland of the protagonist, has a gold/yellow flag. Accipiter, the nation at war with Pandion and the one that values war and honor, has a red flag. Elanus, a cold and windy nation which is somewhat on the sidelines of the war, has a blue flag.
  • In Homestuck, all of the kids and trolls have a particular shade that they are associated with. For the kids, this color just relates to their text color and the color of the symbol on their t-shirt, but for the trolls is actually has plot-significance: Alternian society is run based on a color-based caste system, with blue, purple, and pink at the top and red, orange, and yellow at the bottom. Also, Skaia is represented by blue and white, representing the sky and thus nature, while the Felt, Green Sun, Doc Scratch, and Lord English are associated with an unnatural green, and the opposing planets Prospit and Derse are almost entirely composed of golden and purple colors respectively. And, each player character possesses an in-game Class and Aspect, the latter of which is associated with a certain combination of shades, meaning that some characters have two associated colors. These motifs are very prevalent in the fandom, with it being common to draw fanart in which a character is entirely drawn in their color, or Idiosyncratic Ship Names based on them, e.g., PBJ for Gamzee/Tavros, whose colors are purple and brown.
    • Additionally, the color pairing of red and blue shows up a lot: the trolls' and kids' universes are coded blue and red respectively; Sollux's eyes, glasses, and psychic powers are red/blue, as is the cursed virus he creates; the trolls divide into red and blue teams for the game; red-blooded Aradia obtains a blue-blooded robot body and dates blue-blooded Equius, who turns into a red sprite; Aradia also has a rivalry with blue-blooded Vriska, who loves red shoes; and the two male human protagonists are coded red and blue.
  • In Koan of the Day, green is often used to symbolize the tortoise, whose words are occasionally in green👁 Image
    .
  • In Plume, the leading colour seems to be gold. Dom has a golden gun, Corrick has Supernatural Gold Eyes, non-Black Magic glows gold, Auru is a City of Gold and the spellbook is written in golden ink.
  • For Stomp!, the entire website changes colour schemes depending on what chapter you're reading.
  • Vampire Girl:
    • Played straight with Levana as a reflection of her attitude towards life. As a vampire who was miserable with her life, she wore mostly black; as a mortal who could now embrace and live her life, she wore far lighter colors, such as a sky blue t-shirt.
    • Laura's hospital scrubs are also a light blue, and has been shown to display much calmness whenever Levana would be faced with a problem, such as her relapses from blood withdrawals (working in a chaotic hospital probably also helped her learn how to keep her head in stressful situations).
    • Two of the prominent supernatural characters in the comic have green skin and wear purple outfits. Sigfred N. LeRoy is a wise old wizard who hires himself out to help people in situations that are far more complicated than everyday predicaments; the Vampiress is the evil supreme overlord who rules over all of vampirekind.
    Web Original 
  • In Alice Isn't Dead, Humanoid Abomination the Thistle Man is heavily associated with the color yellow. He wears a yellow baseball cap and is also referred to as "the man with the yellow fingernails." The Character Narrator stresses repeatedly that they're a unique, translucent shade. On her first meeting with him, he's rotely and messily consuming an omelet, and its remnants coat his fingers and face.
  • Season two of Carmilla has a mild version of this. As Perry wears progressively darker colors until she is revealed to be the Dean and Mattie has almost the opposite arc she incorporates lighter colors as she becomes more comfortable with the protagonists, and when she dies, her dress is predominantly white with hints of black.
  • Emesis Blue: Fittingly for a TF2 fan film, red and blue. Slower, quieter scenes are typically bathed in an icy blue tint, and most of the first act is cold blue - fitting for a rainy Halloween night. The most violent and disturbing scenes frequently have harsh red lighting instead, especially as Ludwig struggles with his violent urges. Red and blue imagery tends to appear together most prominently during scenes of conflict.
  • Game Grumps: Any time a multiplayer game features color coding, Arin will take the pink player (or red, if pink isn't available) and Dan will take the blue player. These colors also appear outside their let's plays, such as their fursonas being a pink cat and a blue unicorn respectively. This fits the Red Oni, Blue Oni motif, with Arin being the impulsive, hotheaded "Grump" and Dan being the chill, snarky "Not So Grump." Arin is also In Touch with His Feminine Side and often plays as girls, such as always playing Peach in Super Mario Bros. games where she's an option, so the pink often comes as a consequence of that.
  • Fans of The Needle Drop are able to tell how an album will score if Anthony Fantano happens to be wearing a flannel shirt in the review. If it's yellow, it's a great album; if it's red, it's a bad album.
  • Mr. Amazing and the Black Eagle, two superheroes in the Red Panda Adventures wear yellow tights and, respectively, a stylized black A and a black cape and mask. It's never actually mentioned in-series, but the color motif is significant for those two as they both got their powers from the same source: experiments with a Super Serum created by Doctor Nikolai Darius, a reformed supervillain who, in his heyday, went by the name Doctor Bumblebee.
  • Colours are prominent in RWBY, and the series itself was inspired by a dream about red, white, black, and yellow.
    • Ruby Rose always dresses in red, and dyes her hair the same colour. Given that she's a passionate idealist and the protagonist, the symbolism is clear.
    • Weiss Schnee's name translates into 'White Snow', the colour of her hair. She's an intellectual perfectionist who likes everything to be in order.
    • Blake Belladonna has black hair and wears black. She's not evil by any means, but she's not exactly friendly or chatty, and her troubled past, her status as a former terrorist, and her more cynical outlook on the world, make her the team Anti-Hero.
    • Yang Xiao Long has flowing blonde hair and loads of yellow in her clothing. The polar opposite of Blake, she is extremely warm and friendly, but she has a hell of a temper.
  • Purple and white are the official colors of the Smegolia.
    Western Animation 
  • Amphibia makes constant use of pink, blue, and green. On the Calamity Box, Anne has the blue gemstone, Marcy has the green gemstone, and Sasha has the pink gemstone. Anne's companion in Wartwood, Sprig, is pink. Marcy's companion in Newtopia, King Andrias, is blue. Sasha's companion in Toad Tower, Grime, is green. When in Super Mode, Anne has flaming blue hair, and her eyes glow blue when she activates her powers. As shown in "The Core and the King", Andrias had two friends when he was young; a green toad named Barrel and a pink frog named Leif. Their relationship directly mirrors that of Anne, Marcy, and Sasha's.
  • In Avatar: The Last Airbender, each nation has colors and seasons symbolic of it. People of the Fire Nation wear reds, golds, and reddish brown, and their season is summer. Earth Kingdom residents wear greens, yellow, and browns, and their season is spring. The Air Nomads wore yellow, orange, reds, and blue came in the color of their tattoos, with their season being fall. The Water Tribes wear blues, white, and purple and their season is winter.
    • Surprisingly for a Fire Nation character, Azula has blue - her uniquely-colored flames represent her prodigious power note and her cold, calculating personality. Her name is also derived from "Azul," the Spanish word for "Blue."
  • Blue Eye Samurai: Each of the main characters has a specific color or color palette that crops up around them repeatedly: Blue for Mizu (obviously due to the color of her eyes, her cape and even her blade), Green for Taigen, Red for Akemi, Grey for both Ringo and Eiji, Yellow for Shindo, and Orange for Fowler.
  • Danny Phantom: Danny has two.
    • Green, being the colour of his ghost forms ecto energy.
    • Blue, matching his eyes and the colour of his cryokinetic powers.
  • The Dragon Prince: Callum has two.
    • Blue — For most of the first three seasons, Callum is always seen wearing his blue jacket. Blue is often associated with calmness and serenity. This color is also used to convey when a character is more down to earth, cool-headed and may use their wits and intelligence to lead others. Callum frequently relies on coming up with plans or using his memory and observation to hone his magical abilities.
    • Red — His red scarf is one of his most notable articles of clothing. Red has often symbolized passion and bravery, and is often associated with action. Over time, Callum becomes less timid and doubtful about his abilities and more action-oriented. In the Season 3 finale, he takes this even further by jumping off a cliff to save Rayla. When he turns his arms into wings, they rip apart his jacket, leaving only his red scarf and reddish shirt.
  • Hazbin Hotel: While looking quite similar at first sight, Emily and Sera colours pattern are subtly different and hint at their differing personalities:
    • Despite Sera is the head of Heaven, with wings' feathers white and marginally purple, white is ironically and suspiciously a minor colour in Sera's overall design. Her hair and eyes are of an unusual grey, and her clothes of choice display a large amount of silver/grey too. In addition, most of her dress is a very pale dull/matte blue, a hint at how flawed she is compared to the benevolent being she pretends and is supposed to be; her less than shiny methods, and her moral ambiguity. Significatively, her sclerae are dark grey while Emily's are of an intense light blue.
    • Emily's whole colour spectrum is either downright purple or colours similar to Sera's (white and grey) but with a small amount of purple added to the base tinct of each one, all the while being slightly more saturated and luminous. This is to show her youthfulness and optimistic take on the afterlife, both as the Seraphim in charge of bringing joy and happiness to Heaven's people, but also on a metaphysical level, since she really believes in and supports Charlie's apparently crazy project. Tellingly, Emily's dress lacks the matte blue part of Sera's, but instead she's got vivid blue sclerae showing she has her heart in the right place.
  • Miraculous Ladybug:
    • Marinette has two.
      • Pink — It's her main color scheme in her civilian attire and the color can represent femininity and love.
      • Red and black — Her main color scheme as Ladybug, to match her animal-themed Miraculous. Both colors can represent power and leadership.
    • Adrien also has two.
      • Black — He wears a black costume and uses a black staff as Cat Noir, and wears a black t-shirt as Adrien. When he uses Cataclysm, his hand becomes charged with black energy and whatever he touches will usually disintegrate into a pile of black dust. Also, his name is Cat Noir (French for “black”) and the color can represent power and beauty.
      • Green — His second primary color scheme (present in his transformation energy and the lights on his ring) due to his natural green eyes, that are more pronounced as Cat Noir. Also, Cat Noir’s staff has green lines and a green paw print on it. As Adrien, his t-shirt also has a green stripe on it. And as Astrocat, he has wings made of green energy and leaves a trail of sparkly green light when he flies.
    • Hawk Moth also has two.
      • As Gabriel, white, being the colour of his initial suit, and his new clothes in Season 5 have nothing but white. Not to mention his lair being full of uncorrupted, white butterflies and his mansion being almost entirely white.
      • As Hawk Moth, it's purple, being the colour of his suit, akuma's, and reflecting his status as a dangerous supervillain.
    • Luka has several.
      • Luka has blue eyes, his hair dyed blue, wears a blue cardigan and a dark blue hoodie. His civilian color is reflected with Marinette, who is associated with pink. As Viperion, his superhero suit is teal and his hair color is changed to match with his suit, while his eyes become green.
      • In stark contrast with Kagami, whose akumatized are forms associated with shade of white, Luka's akumatized forms consist of a black suit with some additional colors like purple (for Silencer) and teal (for Truth).
    • Chloe has yellow, as she is always seen in her trademark yellow sweater and the color can represent anger, which fits Chloé's antagonistic personality. Also, all of her supervillain identities have yellow skin and a black-and-yellow costume, except Antibug and Sole Destroyer.
    • Kagami has red and (various shades of) white, just like the ones of the Japanese flag.
      • She and her mother Tomoe are strongly associated with red: she sports a Scottish red tie and pleated skirt by default, and her fencing attire is red unlike every other ones. Her Miraculized appearance has almost as much red as Ladybug's, just with a bigger percentage of black and some yellow lines. Her mother's akumatized forms are all red. Their autodriven car Tatsu is also flamboyant red.
      • Kagami's akumatized forms always go for something on the white scale: plain white with black markings and a red horn for Oni-chan ; silver for Riposte; silver (herself) & white (her sphere of magical retribution) for Lies ; and a giant gray cloudy self in "Protection".
    • Zoe has yellow, even besides her Miraculous she has blonde hair, wears yellow trousers, and unlike her sister, represents the positive connotations, being warm, cheerful, and kind.
    • Rose has pink, being the colour of her lipstick, and prominent in her regular and superhero outfits. Fitting for a perpetually cheerful and romance loving Nice Girl.
    • Juleka has purple, not only being prominent in her superhero outfit, but in her civilians clothes and hair. Fitting given it's association with the queer community and her massive amounts of Ship Tease with Rose.
    • Max has green, being the colour of his shirt.
    • Ivan has black, being prominent in his civilian clothing and superhero outfit, and reflecting his protective and comforting nature.
    • Bob Roth has gold, fitting his greed. He wears a gold ring, a gold necklace, a belt with a gold buckle, and sunglasses with yellow lenses, he has yellow eyes, both his akumatized forms have golden skin and teeth, Moolak has gold hair and sits in a gold safe which fires yellow lasers that turn people into gold coins, Bob's second supervillain identity is named Gold Record, and Gold Record wears shiny, gold clothes and uses a golden record as a weapon, which can transform people into records in a flash of yellow light.
  • Molly of Denali: In "A Qyah Juneteenth," it is pointed out that Juneteenth foods tend to be red to symbolize the struggles of African and African-American ancestors.
  • Moral Orel: Blue. At 4-years-old, Orel wears a blue jumper. At 11-years-old and as an adult, he wears a buttoned blue shirt. He also wears a blue suit to church, and then there's the blue heron that follows him through the events of "Nature" which according to Word of God is meant to symbolize Orel's innocence.
  • My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic: In the Season 5 finale "The Cutie Remark", each Bad Future timeline is tinted with a different color representing the different kind of Sugar Apocalypse that Starlight has wrought, as indicated by the color of the map:
    • Red: Equestria is at war with King Sombra and the Crystal Empire.
    • Green: Queen Chrysalis and her changeling army have chased ponykind to the forests.
    • Blue: Nightmare Moon has shrouded the land in eternal night.
    • Orange: Lord Tirek has reduced Equestria to a flaming ruin.
    • Purple: Discord is free to unleash never-ending chaos on the world.
    • Brown: The Flim-Flam Brothers have industrialized Equestria.
    • Gray: Equestria is a barren wasteland, devoid of all evidence of life.
  • The Owl House:
    • Luz Noceda
      • Is consistently associated with purple — her hoodie, her grom outfit, her grudgby uniform, her Anti-Magic cape, etc.
      • Scenes around Luz sometimes have some mixture of blue, pink, and purple — the colors of the bisexual pride flag👁 Image
        , since Luz herself is bi.
      • Golden yellow, being the primary colour of her Light Glyph and reflecting her kind nature.
    • Amity Blight frequently associated with pink — her Abomination Track uniform, her leggings and necklace in her casual outfit, her fire spell, her Grom dress, her Grudgby uniform and letterman jacket, etc.
    • Eda has gold, being the colour of her eyes, magic, the gem on her chest, and the elixirs she drinks to keep her curse at bay.
    • Her sister Lilith has white, being the colour of her Palisman and starting to wear more in her clothes after her Heel–Face Turn, representing her startening to lighten up in terms of personality as well as morality.
    • Emperor Belos initially comes covered in white and gold, reflecting his robes, mask, and staff. They refect his image of himself as a 'pure' saviour that he projects to the people he interacts with and wants to 'cleanse' the world of the Boiling Isles corruption.
    • Being the Golden Guard, Hunter primarily wears shades of yellow, alluding to his high status within the Emperor's Coven. While masquerading as a Hexside student, he sports the yellow potions track uniform, his magic is yellow while using Flapjack, and his runaway outfit, while mostly green and blue, sports a bright yellow shoulder bag.
  • In Ready Jet Go!, character types are sorted by color. Jet and his family all wear blue because of their heroism and optimism/serenity in dire situations. Enthusiastic and kind characters, like Mindy, Bergs, and Sunspot wear orange. Sean's green shirt emphasizes his connection and love for Planet Earth (and his nausea, since he gets nauseous in space). Yellow is used for bombastic Large Hams like Zucchini and Mr. Peterson because of how bright yellow as a color is. Sydney's grey shirt emphasizes her serenity and peace-keeping demeanor. Finally, Mitchell's red jacket helps him stand out from the crowd and has an interesting multi-faceted meaning. Red is a color associated with anger, and Mitchell is The Napoleon. But it's also associated with passion, and Mitchell is very passionate and dedicated to his amateur detective work. Finally, Red Is Heroic, and Mitchell is a trusted ally to Team Propulsion by the end of the series.
  • Samurai Jack: The titular character has white, being the colour of his gi and reflecting his physical and spiritual purity.
  • In The Spectacular Spider-Man, there appear to be different colors representing different aspects of Peter's life:
    • Blue represents Peter's personal identity, between his blue bedroom, blue shirt, and the blue on the Spider-Man costume.
    • Yellow seems to represent safety, friendship and family: yellow house, yellow school and biology classroom (his best subject), Gwen and Eddie both have blonde hair (No longer visible on Eddie after he becomes Venom), Aunt May dresses in yellow and feeds Peter banana-cream pie, even Jameson, Peter's source of employment, dresses in yellow.
    • Green represents danger: many of the villains dress in green (And the main villain even has "Green" in his name), even down to Doc Ock wearing green goggles, and the Osborns all wear green, while Oscorp is largely lit with green light. Colonel Jupiter has a green and yellow costume, denoting him as an apparent ally who becomes an enemy.
    • Red may represent new things in Peter's life which could be good or bad: MJ has red hair, Vulture (the first of a trend of supervillains) has red armor, and the red on Spider-Man's costume.
    • This might be reaching a bit, but Black may represent moral ambiguity: Black Cat is an obvious example, while Venom eventually becomes more anti-heroic in the comics, something which may have eventually happened on the show as well, had it not been cancelled. Further, Tombstone dresses in a black suit: he's definitely a bad guy, but doesn't want to make war with Spider-Man if he doesn't have to.
  • Star vs. the Forces of Evil: Star herself has yellow. Star has blonde hair, it's one of her two favorite colors (besides blue), and when she "dips down", Star glows bright yellow, as well as her controlled mewberty version being yellow with some orange tones.
  • Star Wars: The Clone Wars and Star Wars Rebels uses the standard Star Wars color motifs, though mostly with characters that appeared previously in the films (especially Darth Maul). More originally, Assaj Ventress and Savage Oppress also have black clothing. Palpatine changes it up by wearing a red cloak whenever he appears as Darth Sidious in Clone Wars. Master Keelyvine Reus's eyes, lightsabers, dress, gloves, lipstick, and the paint job on her astromech droid are all green, and she is a Lady of War who can represent safety amidst the warzone.
  • Super Robot Monkey Team Hyperforce Go!:
    • Antauri has two.
      • Black, being a powerful and wise Mentor to Chiro.
      • Silver after his resurrection, reflecting his role as second in command and his responsible and wise nature.
    • Sprx has red, being his colour and reflecting his hot-headed and passionate personality.
    • Gibson has blue, being his colour and reflecting his role as the smart one on the team.
    • Otto has green, being his colour and reflecting that despite his goofy demeanour he is an excellent team player.
    • Nova has yellow, being her colour and reflecting her nature as an energetic and Nice Girl, albeit with just as big a temper.
  • Trollhunters:
    • Jim has blue, representing his heroic qualities. His main outfit and armour are mainly blue and he has Innocent Blue Eyes.
    • Toby has red and yellow, both colors representing his energetic and Hot-Blooded personality. They are the main color schemes of his clothes, his warhammer has the same design, and the armor Merlin made for him is orange and brown.
    • Claire has purple, representing her intelligence. Her outfit and lock of hair are both purple. And when she was fighting Morgana, the color of her magical spirit is purple.

Alternative Title(s): Colour Motif, Color Motifs, Colour Motifs

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