Red and Black and Evil All Over - TV Tropes

"Our race is marked by jet black and crimson skin. Just like you..."

• In The Myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, Aristaeus and Hades, the two antagonists, dress exclusively in red and black. The snake that kills Eurydice is a red-and-black coral snake, and Hades' underground nightclub is lit in harsh red and blue light that blends to look black.
• This ad for Virtual Boy Wario Land depicts Wario in this manner while showing him laughing maniacally and sneaking through a cave. It is also meant to mirror the red-and-black graphics of the Virtual Boy.
• An early TV ad for the LEGO Star Wars toyline showed a kid building a ship out of LEGOs, followed by Darth Maul's voice asking "Got anything in red and black?", after his own use of these colors, as seen in the film section.

• Alexandre Cabanel's The Fallen Angel: Heavily downplayed but Lucifer's main hues are his red hair and blackening wings.

• BoBoiBoy: Subverted in BoBoiBoy Thunderstorm's debut. When he appeared, his outfit turned black with red glowing highlights and lightning insignias. He was unlocked out of rage and he first wore a red-eyed Death Glare. However, he was only "evil" because the villains exploited his weakness — the longer the elementals were split up, the worse his memory became — and claimed they were his friends. His memory and good allegiance eventually return by the end of the episode.
• Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf: The villain Wolnie is a dark gray wolf who wears red clothes.

• Abraxas (Hrodvitnon): Towards the end of this Godzilla MonsterVerse fanfiction, Keizer Ghidorah covers the sky in a broiling, lightning-filled tempest which casts red light and black shadows over the terrain.
• The Mirror Universe Smurfs in the Empath: The Luckiest Smurf story "Smurfed Behind: The Other Side Of The Mirror" are mostly red-skinned and wear black clothing and are constantly evil — the opposite of the good blue-and-white Smurfs of the normal universe. Its Papa Smurf is red-skinned and wears blue, while its version of Empath wears white clothes with black stars on it, however.
• Fate of the Clans: Cú Chulainn Alter has black armor with veins of red on it and his skin.
• In chapter 1 part 11 of SilfofinaDragon's Sengoku Basara fanfic Finally Home, Toyotomi Hideyoshi's tragically wicked daughter Kagehime appears in a black kimono, described with having red flowers on it.
• Guys Being Dudes: The main colors of Arlo's outfit and hair, as in canon. He retains his affiliation with Team GO Rocket from Pokémon GO canon and gains Card-Carrying Villain tendencies.
• Infinity Train: Blossoming Trail: UnChloe wears a pretty black dress, has a black crown decorated with garnets and long red hair. She's also a sadistic manifestation of a child's worst impulses.
• Downplayed in the Junior Officers chapter "The Undersea Twister"; Deborah wears red and black because she's angry.
• Miraculous: The Phoenix Rises has The Nightmare King show up at the end of chapter 15, a knight clad in blood red and pitch black armor who's first onscreen action is massacring a squad of guards without mercy or remorse.
• The Night Unfurls:
  • Not evil, but Kyril is still an anti-heroic Terror Hero whose eyes blaze red occasionally (in the remastered version, they are always red), garbed in dark grey attire. The "red" part is more pronounced whenever he is covered in gore, head to toe.
  • One of his apprentices, Sanakan, is an Inversion. Assuming that the Old Hunter Set she wears looks exactly the same as that in Bloodborne, her Badass Longcoat is a case of dark on the outside, red on the inside. She's actually one of the heroes.
• Son of the Sannin: Played with in the case of Fugaku Uchiha whose Susanoo is red and black (even wielding a dual bladed-katana as a full Shout-Out to Darth Maul, seen below). While he was an antagonist when he was alive (and even then he was at most an Anti-Villain rather than outright evil), he doesn't use this ability until the Fourth Ninja War as an Edo Tensei zombie, and by then he's not even a willing antagonist anymore.
• Total Drama Legacy's Big Bad, Emilia Burromuerto, wears a red and black outfit.
• Twinkling in the Dark: Chapter 21 briefly features an evil version of Candy, who has black ear-buns and wears a red bow with a skull, instead of her normal yellow ear-buns and magenta bows.
• In the Undertale au Underfell, in which all the monsters are more vicious and wholly willing to murder Frisk on sight, the monsters tend to be redesigned with red and black tones. Subverted with Frisk, who wears a red and black-striped shirt but is an unambiguously sweet kid.
• We Can Be Heroes! (Steven Universe): Val Kazkani is a brutal Hopkoblin mob boss who wears a snazzy red and black pinstripe suit, and rules the port town of Krapton with an iron fist.

• In 9, The Fabrication Machine is a towering, spider-like robot with a black frame and a single red eye, and it's hellbent on wiping out the Stitchpunks and taking over what's left of the ruined world.
• In Barbie of Swan Lake, Rothbart wears a dark red and gold outfit with black trim as befitting an Evil Sorcerer, and wields a ruby ring that he uses to cast spells.
• Unsurprisingly, this is the color scheme of a lot of Disney villains, though it has also been given to some non-villanous characters.
  • Jafar from Aladdin wears black with red trim, and has a black beard. His cobra form has a black upperside with stripes and the underside of his hood being red. His genie form is a muscular red devil with a black topknot and black beard. His black cape with a red underside and was somewhat Dracula-esque in appearance.
  • This applies to the red and black Queen of Hearts from Alice in Wonderland (1951).
  • Cruella DeVil, the villain of 101 Dalmatians, primarily wears a white fur coat with a red underside over a black dress and red gloves. Her car is also colored red and black.
  • The black-haired Mother Gothel from Tangled wears a red dress and often a black cape over that too. Her color combination sharply contrasts with that of her "daughter" Rapunzel's golden hair and lavender dress.
  • Professor Ratigan, the arch-villain of The Great Mouse Detective, wears a black suit with a red-lined Ominous Opera Cape.
  • Gaston from Beauty and the Beast (1991) is a black-haired, muscle-bound hunter who wears a blood-red shirt and black trousers, and he goes from an amusing Small Name, Big Ego character to being the main villain of the film.
  • Scar from The Lion King (1994) is an evil lion with reddish-orange fur and a black mane.
  • Peter Pan: The eponymous protagonist's nemesis, Captain Hook, wears a red jacket with a red pirate hat and has black hair.
  • Frollo from The Hunchback of Notre Dame wears a mostly black and purple suit, but with small red adornments.
  • The Incredibles inverts the trope with the titular Parr family, who are given Super suits of red and black colors (along with a touch of gold). The villain Syndrome and some of his henchmen go for the black and white contrast (which in this case, despite what Good Colors, Evil Colors generally tells, does not represent neutrality). The final Omnidroid, on the other hand, plays the trope straight by having a bright red eye to match its black metal body.
  • The Duke of Weselton wears red and black colors in Frozen and his Establishing Character Moment is him muttering darkly about how he plans to exploit Arendelle. While he does play a minor antagonistic role, in that he orders his two henchmen to take out Elsa if presented the opportunity, he turns out to actually be more of a Red Herring for Hans.
  • Te Kā in Moana is a large volcanic entity, and thus there's plenty of red and black in her body to go against her fiery eyes. However, her villainy is subverted. She is actually Te Fiti, overcome with rage at having her Heart stolen from her. As soon as the Heart is returned, she reverts to being the gentle island entity she normally is — and, notably, she turns green.
  • Shere Khan from The Jungle Book (1967) is a justified example, since he is a tiger, he naturally has orange fur with black stripes.
  • The Carnotaurus from Dinosaur is mostly dark red with black highlights.
  • Rourke's crystal from seen during the final battle near the end of Atlantis: The Lost Empire, unlike the crystallized Kida, who is glowing light blue, is black with glowing red, lava-like veins. This was confirmed in the novelization, where when Milo slashes Rourke in the arm with a crystallized glass shard, the Heart of Atlantis, being sentient, recognized Rourke's evil and transformed him in this manner to cruelly torture him as punishment.
  • Scroop from Treasure Planet is an evil, insectoid alien who is primarily colored red and black, and is by far the vilest character in the movie, making even John Silver look like a saint in comparison, especially considering the fact that Silver is ultimately redeemed by the end of the movie once he finally realizes the errors of his ways, unlike Scroop.
• DreamWorks Animation plays with this trope around a bit:
  • The Shrek franchise has a couple straight examples:
    • The normal outfit of Lord Farquaad, the Big Bad of Shrek, is mostly red and black with some gold.
    • The Wolf, one of the villains in the Big Bad Ensemble from Puss in Boots: The Last Wish, has red eyes and a black cloak, and while he's not the most evil character or largest threat in the film, he's definitely menacing and has a personal score to settle with Puss in Boots, especially come the reveal that he's Death itself.
  • Scenes featuring Lord Shen in Kung Fu Panda 2 tend to feature a lot of red and black. It's also combined with White and Red and Eerie All Over in that Shen himself has a white and red color scheme.
  • Inverted in How to Train Your Dragon 2. Toothless is a pitch-black dragon with a red replacement tail fin, yet he's completely loyal to the friendly and amicable Hiccup, whose new outfit is also the same colors as his dragon companion.
  • Red and black is the signature color scheme of the Rock Trolls in Trolls World Tour, although most of them don't dress with it (their leader Queen Barb is the only relevant example); instead, it's the coloration of their home and appliances. The trope is subverted by the end of the movie when they redeem themselves.
  • Downplayed in The Bad Guys (2022). The characters' orientations are expressed in the colors of their clothes. Cooler colors like black and blue represent the heroes, while hotter colors like red and white identify the villains.
• In Gandahar, the genocidal Metal Men are jet black robots with red "eyes".
• The LEGO Movie: Lord Business when he dons his villain outfit. Even his robot secret police enforce this trope.
• In The Mitchells vs. the Machines, the Pal MAX Prime robots are clad in black armor plating and have glowing red innards and a single glowing red eye, and are by far and away the deadliest servants of PAL.
• Ruber from Quest for Camelot is an Evil Redhead who wears a black cleavage and trousers with red armor, boots, belt, wrist cuffs, and shoulder pads. Much later on towards the end of the film when Ruber bonded Excalibur to himself, his mechanical right arm has ascending shades of black to red all over.
• In Rock-A-Doodle, The Grand Duke of Owls wears a black and red cape.
• In The Swan Princess, the hag magically disguised as Princess Odette wears a black and red dress. This makes her easy for viewers to distinguish from the real Odette, who wears white and green.
• The whole army of the One-Eye from The Thief and the Cobbler uses these colors to overkill.

• The Brothers Lionheart: Evil Overlord Tengil always wears black armor and a helmet with a crest of red feathers.
• In The Chronicles of Fid, the eponymous supervillain Doctor Fid describes his own powered armor as follows: The armor was form-fitted and so thoroughly non-reflective that I seemed a silhouette, a six-and-a-half-foot man-shaped hole in the world. There were stars visible inside that blackness, pinpricks of light and color; looking upon my was gazing into the clearest night sky, entire galaxies encompassed within my being. Only at the armor's seams were any hint of a three-dimensional figure offered: from there an angry red glow seeped, as though something infernal was trapped inside.
• The Custodes Fidei ^note  order in the Deryni works have black robes with red belts and trim. Officially, the red is supposed to suggest allegiance to and protection for the House of Haldane. Guarding the Faith from what? From Deryni and their sympathizers, of course. The order's name can also call to mind the famous Latin question, "Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?"^note  Since they are an aspect of the corruption in the church, this is justified.
• Count Dracula has black and red. He's the Trope Codifier for what the description talks about this trope and vampires in their capes.
• Earth's Scariest Monsters!: Two examples:
  • Vorigan is an evil vampire whose cape and clothes are black and red.
  • Malphas is an evil fire demon from Hell with red skin covered in black splotches.
• Go to Sleep (A Jeff the Killer Rewrite): Downplayed. For Halloween, Jeff's mother buys him a black hockey jersey with accents of red and white, and a Jason Voorhees mask at the center, with a Jason goalie mask to go with the costume. He wears the same clothes when he kills his family, but despite his Slasher Smile, he doesn't appear too happy doing the deed.
• Played With in Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation: Mo Dao Zu Shi. Wei Wuxian's usual colors are red and black, and he has possibly the highest bodycount in the story and a pitch-black reputation to match (plus, there's the fact that he singlehandedly invented the entire practice of Necromancy). But as the story goes on, Wei Wuxian repeatedly shows himself to be a much better person than 90% of the cultivation world, who essentially pigeonholed him into being a villain because he wouldn't conform as they wished.
• The Great Zoo of China: The most dangerous dragons are the red-bellied blacks, named after a venomous Australian snake.
• In Harry Potter, the Big Bad Lord Voldemort is described as having red, cat-like eyes and wearing black robes.
• In Honor Harrington, the PRH State Sec uniforms have red coats and black pants.
  • The inmates of one StateSec prison world refer to them as the Black Legs, partly from the uniforms and partly to have a word for the enemy that didn't include the Havenites who were their fellow prisoners.
• Into the Fiery Abyss: The demons who drag Jermaine off to Hell are black and red, and they're definitely evil.
• Journey to Chaos: Governor Caffour makes his first appearance as a villain wearing a red and black suit. It blends well with his new necrocraft.
• Simultaneously used and subverted in the League Of Princes series. Ruffian dresses in red and black, because he knows that bounty hunters tend to get color-based nicknames, and he wants to be "Ruffian the Black" or "Ruffian the Red". But he's such a sad sack that he just gets called "Ruffian the Blue".
• In The Lord of the Rings, Sauron's forces use black banners and an insignia marked with a red eye.
  • Russian Tolkien fanfiction loves portraying Feanorians dressed in these colors.
• The seventh room in Edgar Allan Poe's "The Masque of the Red Death" is black with red stained-glass windows.
• Pryrates in Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn always wears bright red robes with black lining (red in particular is so strongly associated with him that he's often called "the Red Priest or "the Red Wizard). He's also the most purely evil character in the series — even the Big Bad (a hate-filled undead Omnicidal Maniac) is played with more sympathy than Pryrates^note .
• In the Modesty Blaise novel I, Lucifer, Lucifer dresses entirely in red and black as part of his Devil Complex.
• In the Old Kingdom trilogy, the necromancer Hedge, one of the chief villains of the second two books, usually wears a suit of black chainmail with red plates. As he falls increasingly under the power of his master, Orannis the Destroyer, Hedge himself gradually transforms from a fairly normal-looking man to a creature of flame and shadow, thereby bringing the aesthetic into his own body as well.
• A Song of Ice and Fire:
  • Played with by Targaryens, who, while as a whole not any more good or evil than any other house, have a tendency, when evil, to be REALLY evil, and often Ax-Crazy. When these folks (Maegor The Cruel, Aerys "The Mad King") wear their house colors, they play this trope straight (or possibly subvert it, because in-universe meaning of these colors is different — depending on your point of view). Then again, decent members of the house often wear these colors too. Then there's the fact that the first king of this house could be alternatively seen as a Young Conqueror or as an Evil Overlord. Because you can't conquer the whole continent, especially with the aid of giant fire-breathing monsters, and be nice about it.
  • House Blackfyre, on the other hand, played it straight. They are a Targaryen offshoot house that descended from Daemon Blackfyre^note , and their colors are inverted Targaryen colors (a black three-headed dragon on red field). They have instigated five rebellions against the Iron Throne.
  • Euron Greyjoy is among the worst of the worst, and he wears a red cloak and black armor in The Winds of Winter preview chapters, which is significant because the armor is made of Valyrian steel.
  • Drogon, the largest and wildest of Daenerys' three dragons, has black scales, red horns, spinal plates, and eyes, bleeds black blood, and breathes black fire tinged with red. He is said to be the second coming of Balerion, the dragon ridden by Aegon the Conqueror, who had the same traits.
• In The Spiral Labyrinth, the magic system is color-coded; each wizard has a major and a minor color. The Big Bad uses black and red.
• The Parshendi of The Stormlight Archive are human-looking beings with marbled red and black skin, who have been embroiled in a war of extinction against the Alethi after assassinating their king for no known reason. They are also the setting's legendary Voidbringers, who can channel the power of Odium. Most of them aren't too pleased about this.
• Raksha in Tales of Kolmar are always red and black.
• In The Wheel of Time:
  • Moridin, most powerful and evil of the Forsaken, explicitly refers to black and red as his colors; he always wears them himself, forces his servants to do so, and they predominate the decorating of his fortress. Mazrim Taim, who is a rather sinister fellow despite nominally being on the sign of good, also likes the colors, hinting at a possible connection between them. Eventually it is revealed that Taim is indeed The Mole and a Darkfriend.
  • This theme is also reflected in the Aes Sedai ajahs: the Black Ajah is the secret darkfriend fifth column within the Aes Sedai, with members in all of the seven official ajahs, whereas the Red Ajah, while a legitimate subdivsion within the Aes Sedai with their own official mandate to track down and "gentle" male channelers, tends to produce the largest number of well-intentioned extremists, bigots, and power-mad idealogues (which itself is a part of a recurring theme of the series that where members of different genders don't interact and lean on each other, stagnation and dysfunction soon follow — do with that as you will). Virtually every outright antagonist character among the Aes Sedai is a member of one or both of these two groups.
• In the Wizard in Rhyme books, the diabolical Sorcerous Overlord of Ibile uses red and black for his colours, symbolizing blood and grief.

• Slovenian art-rockers Laibach love their red and black.
• Inverted with Steam Powered Giraffe. While their clothing is a red-on-black scheme, they are not evil robots.
• The Toy Soldier (Doctor Steel's fan club) color scheme, until around 2011, was black with red (and yellow) accents. Somewhat justified, as they are a deliberate parody of evil organizations. (Since the Doctor's retirement, use of red has been diminished.)
• The PV for the Vocaloid song Red Shoe Parade is animated in a shadow-puppet style, with the parade's red shoes showing clearly.
• Blue Öyster Cult's album Tyranny and Mutation had its album sides titled "the Red" and "the Black", and the band was known to play with dark themes (and did quite a bit on that particular album as well).
  • Also (and on the above album), the song "the Red and the Black":

    Canadian Mounted baby, police force that works/ red and black, it's their color scheme/ get their man in the end/ ...you kill you maim, you kill you maim

• Pagan/Viking Metal Bands Varg and Turisas use black and red "warpaint" instead of Black Metal's black and white Corpse Paint.
• Poets of the Fall:
  • Hamartia, the jester mascot of Twilight Theater's album art◊, wears a typical Harlequin red and black diamond motley, but the flap of his Happy Harlequin Hat terminates in a snake head instead of bells, and he has a nasty Slasher Smile, both of which mark him as a Monster Clown.
  • Downplayed with Hamartia's reappearance as a jealous, vengeful Orcus on His Throne figure in the video for "Daze," as the motley is replaced by a subtler color scheme in his royal costume, with black hair trimmed with black feathers, black pants, an elaborate red leather jacket, and deep maroon lipstick and face paint, all of which fit with the decadent Masquerade Ball over which he presides.
• In A Sound Of Thunder's song "The Queen of Hell", the titular Villain Protagonist sings "Red and black our banners wave/ As we march across the land."
• Blurryface, the character from Twenty One Pilots lore who represents the "dark side" of Tyler Joseph (namely, his insecurities, self-doubt, and struggles with mental illness) dresses in red and black, and his presence is indicated by black paint on Tyler's hands and neck and red eyes. This is also reflected in the color scheme for the Blurryface album (in which the character features prominently).
  • Another of Blurry's incarnations, the Bishop "Nico" (an elderly man who appears in the videos for "Jumpsuit" and "Nico and the Niners") also sports the color scheme, in the form of a flowing red cloak and black paint on his hands and lower face.
• British folk punk group The Men They Couldn't Hang invoke this in "The Ghosts of Cable Street", a song about a riot that broke out in 1936 between the British Union of Fascists and the heroic antifascist demonstrators.

  This is the British Union with its flag of black and red
  A flag that casts a shadow in Berlin and in Madrid

• Industrial Bass artist Moris Blak invokes this by having much of his album artwork and on-stage costume (including an Uncanny Valley inducing full-face mask) in blacks and reds. Unsurprising, given that Industrial music revels in evil, oppressive or just plain unsettling imagery.

• Satan, in most of his modern depictions, is usually colored this way. The closest thing to this description in The Bible is a red dragon, which is described as "orange."

• All of Kane's outfits throughout his WWE tenure prominently feature this color combination.
• The NWO Wolfpack, which was the only difference between them and NWO Hollywood, who still wore the original black and white.
• Boogeyman, although the fans never booed him, despite the promoter's best efforts.
• Ojo Diabolico Jr. usually wore black with splashes of red around his gear. His XMW Tag Team partner Ludark Shaitan was Pink black and evil all over.
• AHII looked the part in All Japan Pro Wrestling, he looks even bonier and spiky than Darth Maul but turned out to be not so bad when he came to the rescue of the local baby faces.
• Completely averted by Sami Zayn who is the ultimate Nice Guy babyface with these colors. And even as a heel, he wears military green.
• Finn Bálor is basically this trope except for the evil part. His bodypaint entrance in WWE NXT includes mostly black and red coloration, and maybe the evil thing applies because he's supposed to be channeling a demon.
• Heidi Lovelace often wore Purple in the independents. She switched to this when WWE turned her into Ruby Riott, leader of The Riott Squad.
• CHIKARA 2016: The Batiri, two demons (Obariyon and Kodama) and a goblin (Kobald), replaced their usual green-and-black facepaint and gear with this after UltraMantis Black hexed them while possessed by Nazmaldun.
• Brock Lesnar always wears black gear with crimson accents in his second WWE run.

• Canadian figure skater Roman Sadovsky wore a blood-red-and-black costume for his short program during the 2017-2018 competitive season (which is set to Peter Gundry's "The Vampire Masquerade") in order to convey to the audience that he was portraying a vampire who attempts to seduce his intended victim with an elegant waltz.
• AC Milan football team's colours are red and black. The founder Herbert Kilpin said in 1899: "We will be a team of devils. Our colours will be red like fire and black like the fear we will invoke in our opponents".

• In the early BattleTech sourcebooks and the early novels, the Draconis Combine was depicted as a brutal and repressive dictatorship, which was solidified by a black-and-red dragon national symbol and parade colors. Toned down in later works, which reworked the Combine from Imperial Japan in space to Feudal Japan In Space with an emphasis on honor. Otherwise averted and zigzagged; heroic Private Military Contractors like the Kell Hounds used neon red and pitch black battlemech paint.
• In Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition, Zariel the Fallen Angel is the new Archdevil who rules Avernus, the first layer of the Nine Hells of Baator. She wears black armor and has burning red wings and eyes.
• The Scorpion Clan of Legend of the Five Rings have Card-Carrying Villainy as their hat, so naturally they wear red and black clothing and always wear masks. Being Obviously Evil is their job, and as samurai, they take their duties very seriously.
• In the Ravnica setting of Magic: The Gathering, the Cult of Rakdos relies on red and black mana, and has a Circus of Fear theme throughout.
  • Interestingly they have none of the grand schemes that the other guilds do. The problem is that their parties turn everyone involved into a Combat Sadomasochist. Survivors are implied to have themselves lobotomized in order to forget what they've done.
  • The combination of black and red mana in general tends to be dangerous to be around — with black the color of selfishness and red the color of emotion, you tend to get very poor self-control and a remarkable appetite for cruelty. It's not universal — you can sometimes get a black-red character who uses their Red devotion to their loved ones to offset the selfishness of Black — but the major black-red groups in Magic's history have included the bloodthirsty vampires of Innistrad, the Cult of Rakdos, the barbaric minotaurs of Theros, the Mongol-esque Mardu Horde (who offset it with a dash of community-focused white mana, giving them at least in-group compassion), and a fair chunk of two Shards of Alara — the barbaric Jund and the deathly Grixis. Black-red planeswalkers include Sarkhan Vol at his lowest point (he gets better), Nicol Bolas, and — in his duel deck — the theoretically mono-red Tibalt splashes black to represent his fairly overt sadistic tendencies. However, it is inverted in Lorwyn boggarts and Tetsuo Umezawa, two fine examples of Dark Is Not Evil.
• Both played straight and subverted for two different factions in Mutant Chronicles:
  • Subverted: Red and black are worn by high-ranking Brotherhood Inquisitors. While the Inquisition has done a lot of very shady things, they are ultimately a force for good.
  • Played straight: the sigil of the Dark Apostle of War, Algeroth (used in promotional materials to symbolize the Dark Legion as a whole), is a red dagger-like cross on a black field, and Algeroth's army leaders, Nepharites, are depicted as hulking red-skinned giants in spiked black armor.
• Black and red are the official colors of Cheliax in the Pathfinder campaign setting. The nation's current power is based largely on their alliances with hell itself.
• Warhammer 40,000, grimdark universe that it is, absolutely loves this color scheme, and you can expect to find some variation of it in every Codex regardless of the faction's supposed 'goodness'.
  • Amongst the Space Marines, this is most common amongst the Black Templars and Blood Angels Chapters, usually reserved for their most elite soldiers. The Blood Angels are an odd zigzag of this trope. Regular Blood Angels are a subversion — despite their name and color scheme (red with black accents), and having a lot of vampiric traits within their culture, they are optimistic and care for the Imperial citizens they fight for. However, a flaw in their geneseed, unfortunately, make them all at risk to succumb to the Black Rage. Black Raging Angels are a Double Subversion and wear the reverse of normal Blood Angels colors (black with red accents).
  • The Tyranids used this color scheme for the entirety of Hive Fleet Behemoth, the first of their many, many such fleets to invade the Milky Way Galaxy.
  • Similarly, this scheme is a popular one for most Orders Militant of the Sisters of Battle.
  • Averted by the Farsight Enclaves, which use a burgundy/red-and-black color scheme, as opposed to the beige/orange or similarly neutral coloration of the main T'au army. Despite the coloration, they're certainly no eviler than their kin and are somewhat more egalitarian. In fact, recent lore has painted them as the most outright heroic faction of the T'au, whose mainline philosophy is becoming increasingly Orwellian.
  • Surprisingly uncommon among the Ax-Crazy and Obviously Evil Chaos Space Marines, as it took until 5th Edition and its emphasis on the newly created Red Corsairs warband for this scheme to show up in canon.
• Yu-Gi-Oh!, there's an entire series of monsters called "Dark ——", consisting of Evil Counterparts of existing monsters, and as part of this gimmick they've each undergone an Evil Costume Switch. Guess the predominant colors◊ on them now.

• In Cross Road, the devil Amduscias wears black, with red in the lining of his cape. Played with, as it's unclear how evil he really is.
• Some productions of Hamlet have the title character dressed in red and black. However, despite being a morally ambiguous character, Hamlet (probably) isn't evil.
• The Tabloid Junkies in Michael Jackson: ONE dress in black and/or red.
• Subverted in Twisted, where Ja'far uses the same colors as Aladdin's Jafar including when he becomes a genie, but is only thought to be evil by the ignorant populace, he's actually the Only Sane Man trying to run the kingdom properly.

• The nebula ghost in Space Mountain Ghost Galaxy at the Disney Theme Parks is red/orange mixed with the blackness of space.

• This is the main color scheme of several bad guy BIONICLE sets: Makuta Teridax, Icarax, and Antroz, Kalmah, warrior and elite class Skrall, Sidorak, Vultraz, and Radiak. Subverted with the benevolent Turaga Dume — his set represents the evil Teridax masquerading as him, but the real Dume has these colors too. Interestingly, the Maxilos robot that Teridax's spirit possessed for a while also had these colors...
• LEGO's other themes were also aware of this trope: The Spyrius faction from LEGO Space, the Evil OGEL Empire from LEGO Alpha Team, the Bulls from LEGO Knights' Kingdom (2000), Vladek and his Shadow Knights from LEGO Knights' Kingdom (2004), and various other villainous groups from LEGO Castle, including witches, a dragon, and the Bat Lord, all had red and black as part of their uniform color schemes. One exception is M-Tron, which flew black-and-red spaceships against black-and-white craft flown by the evil Blacktron II. Both sides used greenish-yellow windshields in the 1991 Lego catalog, so this "glass" did not ensure M-Tron's goodness.
• The Stone Army in Ninjago's 2013 line follow this trope, in contrast to the Skeleton Army and Nindroids being black and purple.

• Ace Attorney Investigations 2: Prosecutor's Gambit: Excelsius Winner, the true Greater-Scope Villain of the original trilogy, wears red and black and he's easily one of the vilest characters in entire series. This goes in hand with his Obviously Evil nature, in contrast to the others main antagonists who hide better their true nature.
• These are the theme colors of Danganronpa's Big Bad Mascot Villain Monokuma, whose body is half-white, half-black with a single red eye. There’s also (by extension) Junko Enoshima, with her strawberry-blonde hair being the only exception, and some white thrown in to better represent her control over Monokuma.
• Dark Sakura from Fate/stay night wears a black dress with red lines all over due to The Corruption.
  • Gilgamesh has some red and black on his street clothes (and red eyes), his armor is gold with some black parts and his cloth parts are red; even his sword has black and red.
  • Saber Alter wears black armor with faint red eyes and a visor with more visible red eyes, again symbolizing The Corruption.
  • Archer A.K.A Heroic Spirit EMIYA falls into the anti-hero version with his black bodysuit and red semi-coat. At least until Unlimited Blade Works where he betrays the party and tries to kill Shirou.
  • For its prequel, we have Berserker, who is a Black Knight with a red visor, and any weapon he touches becomes just as black and red as he is. Subverted, as Berserker's true identity is Lancelot, who really just wanted to atone for his sins and figured the best way to do it was to have his king kill him.
  • Angra Mainyu, aka Avenger, specifically in Fate/hollow ataraxia whenever he’s in control of Shirou; his skin grows dark, he gains black tattoos all over, and his only clothes are red.
• Madame Scorpion from Henchman Story is a ruthless supervillain who wears a black Spy Catsuit with red trimming, and wields a red Laser Blade.
• In Slow Damage, Towa's mother, Maya, is a Posthumous Character and one of the main factors behind Towa's severe mental and physical trauma. They mostly appear in his nightmares, with the narration focusing on their dark hair and their bright, red lips being the only facial feature that stands out. Further nightmares also make it clear that they usually wore a red-and-black kimono.
• In Sunrider, PACT’s ships and mecha are painted red with black trimming, their officers and leaders wear red-and-black uniforms with gold detailing, and even their emblem◊ is red and black, likely to symbolize their communist leanings. Unsurprisingly, they’re the primary antagonists of the series.
• The nue in Wizardess Heart have huge black kimonos and black fur around their heads, as well as big red jewels on their necklaces. They also appear as black shadows.

• DSBT InsaniT: The Darkness counterparts are all black, except for their red eyes.
• In the hypothetical opening sequence for the concept series Fuwa Fuwa Foof, this is invoked in the middle part detailing Foof's criminal past, with black and red being used in the coloration of the backgrounds while most other details are solely colored white (with the ones that aren't being red or black too).
• The Auditor, the Big Bad of Madness Combat, is a pitch-black Living Shadow with glowing red eyes. When he claims Jesus' Holy Halo to wear, it turns dark red as well.
• Panic Collection: Mia from "Unemployed in-Law Drives My Luxury Car And Crashes It But When She Finds Out The Shocking Truth" is depicted wearing a strapless Little Black Dress with a red sash and is a promiscuous vixen who leeches off men and even stole other girls' boyfriends back in high school.
• Red vs. Blue:
  • The Insurrectionists are a team of black-and-red clad soldiers who oppose Project Freelancer. Subverted, as they're just protecting UNSC property from the Freelancers, who are Obliviously Evil.
  • Played straight with Sharkface, a former Insurrectionist who returns in Season 13, who has no problem with assisting in the genocide of an entire planet in order to avenge his fallen comrades.
• RWBY: While the main protagonist Ruby is a fun inversion with her borderline-goth outfits contrasting with her kind, idealistic personality, the show’s rouges gallery provides a few straight examples.
  • The Grimm, one of the first antagonists introduced and a central point of the show’s premise, are a race of shadow monsters with pitch black skin/fur and glowing red eyes and insides. They also sport boney “masks” with luminous red markings forming a unique pattern for each type of Grimm. This extends to the Grimm’s mistress, Salem, who has Black Eyes of Crazy with red pupils and wears black dresses accented by dark red lines.
  • Adam Taurus is a violent and genocidal leader of the White Fang, who hates all of humanity for oppressing the Faunus and so wants to kill them all. He dresses entirely in red and black, and his hair is vivid red, except for two tufts that appear to be black horns. His sword has a long, red blade and when he uses his power, the entire world around him seems to turn to black silhouettes against a blood-red sky. He invented the white masks the White Fang wear to hide their identities, using the Grimm as inspiration so as to strike fear into the hearts of humans. The leaders of the White Fang, of which he is one, have red designs patterning the masks to make them stand out from the crowd.
  • Yang’s deadbeat mother Raven Branwen is the leader of a bandit tribe and has black hair, red eyes, and loosely samurai-like outfit that uses red and black colors. That said, she's ultimately more of a Wild Card desperately attempting to stay out of the conflict than actually evil. She used to be on the side of the good guys until she learned that Big Bad Salem has Complete Immortality and is literally impossible to kill. Convinced that Salem could not be beaten and due to Ozpin's habit of lying to people about the conflict, she abandoned the struggle between the sides and returned to the bandit tribe she was part of before attending Beacon Academy for the Hunstman training.
  • Cinder Fall is a subordinate of the Big Bad Salem. She dresses in a red mini-dress with black shorts. She is a sadistic and ruthless successor of the Fall Maiden that is driven to gain power.
• Wolf Song: The Movie
  • The Death Alpha, the main antagonist of this film is a hellhound with these fur colours almost perfectly bilaterally split down the middle
  • his nephew Zar, who looks similar and starts off as an antagonist also counts, until his own Heel–Face Turn. He contrasts his uncle in the fact that he uses a lighter shade of red
  • inverted for the most part with Arrow, who, while having black fur and red markings, he is still on the heroes side, despite being a tempered recluse to start off with, but he does have a heart of gold

• In contrast to Dragonfly's green, the magic of Great Raven in Archipelago is either simply red, or black with red swirly patterns. This includes magical weapons, magical wings the Raven's servants have, and their trademark red-on-black left eye.
• Played with in Bandette, which is about a Classy Cat-Burglar. Bandette's costume is mostly red and black because she's a criminal, but it's lightened with the primrose-yellow lining of her cape, which shows that she isn't actually evil.
• Hilariously subverted in Darths & Droids, which has the very Obviously Evil Darth Maul turn out to be a private detective working for Palpatine (who is in the side of good here), and he was only fighting the Jedi in self-defense because they thought he was a bounty hunter.
• The demons from Deities have this color scheme, as well as the setting of Hell.
• In Drowtales, the resident Living Doll Collector, Kharla, seems to like the Red/Black combo.
  • These are also the colors most often worn by Syphile, Ariel's abusive caretaker.
  • And Luliane switches to this outfit after the timeskip, because she's been possessed by Khaless, also qualifying this for Evil Costume Switch.
  • In the last two cases, a more innocuous reason for the colors is because they are the Sarghress clan colors, along with this trope.
• EVIL is a webcomic about villains, and aside from white, ONLY uses the colors red and black.
• In El Goonish Shive, Evil Cheerleadra's costume is a red and black Palette Swap of regular Cheerleadra's blue and white outfit.
• Jagganoth, the seventh Demiurge from Kill Six Billion Demons has deeply ashen skin that looks almost black and red eyes. His Key is also red and he commonly wears red and gold, including a signature red helmet. He is also set up as the Big Bad of the series, featuring most prominently in the final book Breaker of Infinities.
• Mr. Bones, the villain of Kukuburi gleefully adopts this color scheme, contrasting with the Big Good's predominantly blue color scheme.
• This makes up Dark Star's entire color scheme in L's Empire, including their text boxes.
• Legend of the Blue Diamond has the character The Serpent, who is red and black and has no qualms about killing and manipulation.
• The black spirits from Off-White have red eyes and Tron Lines. The evil part is frequently averted, however.
• The Order of the Stick uses red/black word balloons for several demonic characters, and Redcloak's most distinguishing features are his, well, red cloak and black armor.
• Played straight and lampshaded in-universe by Umbria/Zaedalkaah from Book 1 of Our Little Adventure. When she joined the Souballo Empire later she eventually started wearing their colors, though.
• Slightly Damned: Pretty much any demon with a red and black color pattern (mostly fire demons) qualifies. Azurai and Dakos, however, take the whole cake and eat it, too.
• Stand Still, Stay Silent: The Encyclopedia Exposita version of the map of the Known World has full-on Silent World areas, which have fallen to the Plague Zombie monsters, colored in black. The cleansed areas, which were technically reclaimed by some of the few human survivors but are actually closer to buffer zones between the Silent World and settlements, are colored in red.
• Inverted with Star Impact's Phoebe. Her boxing getup is predominantly black and red, but she's one of the protagonists.
• Many of Zoophobia's residents of Hell have this color scheme, and also commonly have it as their speech bubble color.
  • Red and black is technically the theme of Hell (with some exceptions).
  • Usually subverted in the "evil" aspect of this trope.

• The uniforms of Doctor Steel's Army of Toy Soldiers are black with red (and some yellow) accents. (Although since Dr. Steel's retirement, red is still an official color but liberal use of it is discouraged, possibly to avoid their being confused with Nazis.)
• Channel 10 - Manila: In "Dance-o-Rama PHILSACOR Promo September 1988" the Maligaya T-666 commercial from the titular company, PHILSACOR, is shot in a black background with a red gradient, with the closing logo itself being the company name in red letters over a black background, implying it's a demonic corporation. That said, the bar under the company name has a white gradient and the promos for said TV model are mostly monochrome over a white background, overlapping with another similar trope.
• In Noob, the players of the Coalition, the enemy faction to the protagonists, are very prone to wearing red and black according to the webseries and comic. They also happen to be the faction that got saddled with the red cursor while the two other ones got yellow and green.
  • The novels and Neogicia reveal that these are the official Coalition colors. In addition, the brother and Necessarily Evil Psycho Sidekick of the Empire's leader wears clothes with this combination.
• The Noedolekcin Archives: Kirk takes on a red version of the Nickelodeon Haypile logo, has one black eye, and is a soul-stealing entity responsible for the broadcast hijackings.
• TV Tropes:    The "Evil" color font deliberately looks like this.