Alien Blood/Playing With

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Basic Trope: An inhuman character has blood different than that of humans.

  • Straight: The aliens have green blood.
  • Exaggerated: The aliens have glowing neon rainbow blood.
  • Justified:
    • The aliens have large quantities of some chemical (or a different oxygen-bearing protein, or analogues thereof) in their blood that alters its color.
    • Or the blood turns a different color in the alien atmosphere.
  • Inverted: Alien blood is red, but human blood isn't.
  • Subverted: We see an alien who appears to be bleeding dark green, but it turns out this is a Paintball Episode.
  • Double Subverted: ...but when the alien falls over and gets a nosebleed, his blood is yellow.
  • Zig Zagged:
    • The aliens bleed, but it's never shown in normal lighting and each shot seems to make the blood appear a slightly different color, sometimes red and sometimes not.
    • The blood changes color based on the alien's mood. Red is the standard color because the aliens are almost always angry.
    • There are multiple alien species; some bleed red and some don't. Some don't even have blood.
    • Due to Bizarre Alien Biology, the aliens leak different brightly-coloured fluids depending on which internal systems have been damaged.
  • Parodied: Bob looks to be bleeding something green, and the rest of the characters run around accusing him of being an alien.
  • Deconstructed: Because the aliens have green blood, the human characters see them as less humanoid and thus become desensitized towards killing them, even for minor reasons.
  • Reconstructed: The aliens are aware that their green blood makes it more difficult for humans to relate to them as sentient beings, so they make sure to emphasize that they are still intelligent in order to stop this from becoming troublesome.
  • Averted:
    • The aliens bleed normal red blood.
    • The aliens aren't shown bleeding.
  • Enforced: The aliens look almost exactly like humans, and during battle scenes, viewers need to know which is which, so the blood is colored differently.
  • Lampshaded: "It's really weird that all the aliens bleed green." "You know what's weirder? All the creatures on your planet that bleed red."
  • Invoked: A species is genetically engineered by scientists, who make the blood green so that the species can be distinguished from humans.
  • Defied: Scientists genetically engineer a new species that looks almost perfectly human, and make sure to make the blood red so as not to ruin the effect.
  • Discussed: "Your blood is... red?" "What, did your silly human media lead you to think it would be green or something?"
  • Conversed: "Haha, it always looks like the aliens on this show are bleeding mustard or something. Talk about Narm!"

Back to Alien Blood