Technicolor Fire

Fire in Real Life is mostly a mix of reds, yellows, and oranges. In fiction, fire occasionally shows up as a different color, either to show that the fire is "unnatural", has different capabilities, or just plain Rule of Cool. Green and blue flames are the most common. A few common variants are when Ghosts and illusionists will usually create blue Cold Flames or when those Playing with Fire make their pyrokinesis distinctive by having it burn a different color.

This is actually Truth in Television: flames will appear blue if they reach high enough temperatures, and many pure elements burn in colors other than orange (Copper, for example, burns green). The latter is a commonly used method of discovering the chemical composition of a substance (called a flame test). However, it should be noted that while fire can be made to burn most any color with the right chemicals, including colorless, a truly black flame is physically impossible[1] (Granted, most black flames are done through magic...)

See also Fire Is Red.

Examples of Technicolor Fire include:

Anime and Manga

Comic Books

  • Fire from the Justice League of America can control mystical green fire.
  • Likewise the DC sorceress Jinx can conjure green flames, and is shown in her very first appearance.
  • Snowflame from New Guardians can make white flames thanks to his cocaine based powers (apparently cocaine is literal White Magic now).
    • There's a superhero with Cocaine-based superpowers? I know we're long passed the era of the Comic Book Code Authority but doens't that seem a little over the top?
      • 1988, baby. Snowflame's powers weren't necessarily FROM cocaine, but cocaine clearly augmented them.


Fan Works


Film

  • In Beowulf the movie the presence of Grendel causes fires to turn blue.
  • When Sam defeats the Samurai in Brazil, jets of pure red flame shoot out of its armor. In the Criterion Collection DVD Commentary, Terry Gilliam comments that the effects crew had a particularly hard time producing that color of fire.
  • Liz from the Hellboy film produces blue flames, which inexplicably change to orange in the second film.
    • Maybe not so inexplicably. She is pregnant at the time; she might just be holding back so as to not deep-fry the kids.
    • You mean the kids who are the children of someone who's immune to her own fire, and a demon who is explicitly immune to fire?
    • Maybe the pregnancy just takes out that much energy out of her?
  • Warlock (1989). When the title villain is nearby, ordinary fire becomes an eerie shade of blue.


Literature

  • In the Shannara series, witchfire is green.
  • Wildfire from A Song of Ice and Fire burns green.
  • Seen several times in Harry Potter:
  • The Name of the Wind has blue flame as one of the warning signs of the Chandrian—but also shows an Arcanist who can make candles burn blue by having it burn the proper materials, and later another who's built a whole collection of lamps in different colors in his quest to create a ever-burning one.
  • In the Guardians of Ga'Hoole book series, the ember of Hoole was different from the other volcanic embers because it burned with a green ring around the blue center.
  • In Lee Lightner's Warhammer 40,000 Space Wolf novel Wolf's Honour, on the shadow planet, the Thirteenth Company's fire burns blue. It also doesn't make any noise or give off any smoke.
  • In Robin Hobb's Royal Assassin, Chade chemically treats all the torches and firewood in Buckkeep Castle to make them burn blue. Since this is considered an evil omen and occurs during Regal's coronation, it causes a panic.
  • In Codex Alera, High Lords tend to light their swords on fire which burn in the same colors as their family crest. Octavian is baffled as to how this works and can only make his sword burn with normal red flame.[2] Kitai can do azure and purple and the Vord Queen's are bright green.
  • In Neil Gaiman's Stardust, one witch recognizes the fire of another, because witches' fires burn strange colors.
  • In Robert E. Howard's Conan the Barbarian story "Red Nails" the candles' flames are not mentioned, but their smoke is green.
  • Septimus Heap: A BoneFyre has purple flames.
  • Gandalf often creates multicolored fire, especially in The Hobbit.


Live-Action TV


Music

  • Symbolic fire, but it still counts, sort of: In the One Republic song "Apologize", the singer once "loved with a fire red, now it's turning blue", to represent his love growing colder as a result of "you" wronging him.


Mythology


Tabletop Games

  • Strange-coloured flames are sometimes associated with Chaos in Warhammer Fantasy Battle and Warhammer 40,000. Tzeench daemons often tend to lob iridescent flames at their enemies, and it's also one of the ways the "winds of chaos"-psychic power may manifest. In the 40k RTS series Dawn of War some chaos units such as the Defiler and Posessed Chaos Marines can shoot strange-looking pinkish flames.
    • It should be noted that in Warhammer, at least as far as the Flames of Tzeentch are concerned, each color also has a different (and horrible) effect on whatever poor sap gets hit by it.
  • In Magic the Gathering, there is a specific card in the Future Sight expansion, Ghostfire, that is flavored as transparent (and therefore invisible) fire.
    • The MTG novel "Purifying Fire" has a white, cool fire that is actually a source of pure white mana.
  • Both versions of The World of Darkness mention sickly green Balefire. In the Old World of Darkness, it's is the Wyrm-corrupted form of elemental fire, and exists in the most tainted places on Earth and in the spirit world. Evil spirits and corrupted werewolves can use it as a weapon, which mutates and taints the victim in addition to horrifically burning them.. In the New World of Darkness, it's a trick to summon the fires of Hell that the Lucifuge can learn In the Blood.)
  • Exalted has this all over the place. Pyre-flame, the fire of the underworld, is a sickly green and behaves like a viscous liquid; Ligier, the Green Sun of Malfeas, is also...well, guess; and Fire-Aspected Terrestrials often have multi-colored animas.


Video Games

  • City of Heroes has colour-tintable fiery auras for costume options. Of course, actual game-mechanically-useful fire effects are always standard orangey-red.
    • The exceptions are Plasma Shield, which is blue, and Healing Flames and Cauterize, which are green.
      • This has all changed with Issue 16, now you can recolor all of your powers however you like, including impossible black fire.
  • In Command & Conquer Generals, the Chinese "black napalm" upgrade makes all flame-based weapons more powerful and colors them purple.
    • Likewise, the Black Hand of Nod's "Purifying Flame" upgrade in Kane's Wrath turns all of their fire weapons blue.
  • Disgaea has this in spades. Blue fire, green fire, purple fire, purple-and-yellow fire, gold fire, and black fire are all present, and that's only the top of the list.
  • The Eternal Flame in Drawn to Life can be whatever color you want it to be. This is because you're God.
  • Aside from Kyo Kusanagi's "normal" red flames, we have Iori's cursed purple flames, Ash's green flames and newcomer Nameless' blood-red flames.
  • The flamethrower weapon in Jazz Jackrabbit 2 normally shoots normal orange fire, but its upgraded version shoots more powerful blue flames.
  • Breakable, heart-containing candles and torches in the various Castlevania games burn with a variety of colors.
  • Blue Fire from The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, which, naturally was cold fire used to melt the hot red ice.
    • Also, the four Poe sisters in the Forest Temple each have a different colored flame in their torches (which matches their eyes/hair).
    • In the ending sequence all the colors of flame appear together, as if the graphics designer was showing off.
  • In the Mortal Kombat series, one of Johnny Cage's signature moves is a green fireball.
  • Persona 4 has you summoning your Personas by breaking a card (as if it was made of glass or something) that is surrounded by blue flames.
    • Also, higher level Mudo spells invoke giant runes on the floor surrounding the target as purple fire emerges from each corner of the invocation site. Hama spells create white flames, instead. The recurring phallus demon Mara also has a unique spell in Persona 3 named Maralagidyne, which is a higher level version of the fire spell Maragidyne which attacks enemies with green flames instead of red ones. The spell Megidolaon also creates a giant white-bluish fiery explosion.
  • Some of the rewards in the treasure trails in RuneScape are special lighters that can be used in normal logs to burn them and produce colored fire, as opposed to the normal orange fire. They do nothing else though, so they are just for looks.
    • If you do use one, though, you're guaranteed to light the log on fire on your first try.
  • Protoss buildings in StarCraft burn with a blue-white flame when damaged, which may be based on the fact that hydrogen burns with a blue flame.
  • Hadokens from Street Fighter.
    • Clarification: Hadokens appear to be blue-white balls of fire, but usually have no burning properties. However, with Super Street Fighter II, Capcom said "Sure Why Not?" to a glitch that occasionally made a Hadoken come out red by giving Ryu a reddish fireball that did burn. Also, M.Bison (Dictator)'s Psycho Crusher is able to burn it's victims with blue flames.
  • Super Mario Bros.: Luigi's fireballs are sometimes green.
    • To emphasize the Shadow Queen's sheer demonic power before the final battle in Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door, every candle in the final boss chamber is put out during her summoning and spontaneously light again with black flames.
  • In Valkyria Chronicles, the flamethrowers used by Elite Troopers spray blue flame, supposedly because the fuel is atomized Ragnite. The type of flamethrowers that inflict debuffs shoot purple flames instead. Also, the titular Valkyria are surrounded by an aura of blue flames when their powers are active.
  • In World of Warcraft, Fel (demonic) fire is usually green, and shadowflame is a blackish-purple.
  • Many Dragon-type moves in Pokémon look like odd-colored fire; green, magenta, and even grey fire.
    • Sacred Fire, the signature move of Ho-Oh, was given a blue/purple color starting with Diamond and Pearl.
    • Likewise, Blue Flare, Reshiram's other signature move, is colored blue as well. Interestingly, both Reshiram and Ho-Oh are tied for the highest base stat total of Fire-type Pokemon(Arceus with a Flame Plate excluded).
  • During Case 5 of Ace Attorney Investigations, a special kind of oil which is used to make ink and lamps and that produces a green flame when lit, becomes important evidence as it was used to make counterfeit bills and cards from a smuggling ring leader that used them to send messages to his associates, and the green flame was the way they identified the cards as real.
  • In Team Fortress 2, when someone is on fire, the flames aren't different colored, but the BLU team has blue little effects around them to more easily show which team they are on and expose Spies.
  • In Final Fantasy XII, the Black Magic Spell "Ardor" is a late game fire element spell that produces giant explosive blue flames.
  • In Secret of Mana, there is a very powerful spell called "Burst", which produces fiery blue explosions. Oddly enough, it is not gained from the Elemental Spirit of fire, Salamander, but Dryad, the Tree/NatureSpirit.
  • Romancing SaGa: Mistrel Song has a Fire elemental spell which shields the party with glowing blue flames.
  • Mega Man X2 features Flame Stag, who normally emits red flames, but they eventually become blue to show that he has Turned Red.
  • Uncharted 2 has resin that burns a brilliant blue. So brilliant, in fact, every other light source in the area immediately disappears for dramatic effect once the stuff ignites.
  • Cursed Flames and related items/debuffs in Terraria are an insidious green, and cannot be extinguished by diving into water.
    • You can also craft torches of many different colors using gems.
  • When the necromancer is chosen on the character selection screen in Diablo II, he will create an illusion of blue fire around himself.
  • Metroplexity uses green fire for many Etheric attacks, especially those associated with The Herald Of Fire.


Western Animation

  • In Avatar: The Last Airbender, blue fire signifies a higher firebending power, though so far only Azula had been demonstrated using it. This could actually be a case of Shown Their Work, because the hotter parts of a regular fire are, you guessed it, blue.
    • The dragons that have appeared seem to be able to produce flames of all the colours.
    • Long Feng's office has a fireplace with crystals burning with green flames.
      • could be another case of Shown Their Work if the crystals had a high a enough percentage of carbon it could present a real world case of green fire, since when fires are burning a substance with a high amount of carbon they will in fact burn green. Which had this troper wondering why green dragons were never mentioned or shown
  • Maleficent breathes greenish fire as a dragon.
  • Skulker's... erm... hair is green flames.
    • Likewise, Dark Danny... erm... Dan Phantom has a white fire for hair as well.
    • Ember. Has. Blue. Hair. Yeah...
    • And what passes for the DP equivalent of Pandora has pink flame hair. It's pretty safe to say nearly half the ghouls you see in the series has colorful fiery hair.
  • Hades from |Hercules has blue flames for hair, which turn red when angered.
    • Originally reversed, an example of the artists doing their homework. Changed by the producers because the audience are morons and would be confused ("Why does he turn blue when he's mad? Shouldn't he stay red?")
  • The "Night on Bald Mountain" segment of Fantasia features blue, green, yellow and even magenta flames.
  • On The Prince of Egypt, the Burning Bush is depicted as pale pink flames. It also appears as more of an aural emanation rather than actual fire.
    • This might be Shown Their Work since according to the story, the bush drew Moses' attention because it burned without being consumed.
  • On Jimmy Two-Shoes, the Misery Inc. factory spews green fire.
  • G.I. Joe: Renegades features Firefly, whose incendiary bombs explode and burn with blue flame, but then turn orange after a moment. As with the firebending examples above, this could be a case of Shown Their Work.
  • Spike from My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic shoots green fire. Granted, said fire is used as a magical scroll delivery service, but he can also breathe regular fire that also happens to be green, as seen in "Secret Of My Excess."


Real Life

  • Wal-Mart sells a powder that will do this, is called Funky Flames. If you throw a packet of it in your fire, it'll turn the flames blue/green/purple. It's great at campouts.
  • There are also pinecones sold that turn your fire a variety of colors.
  • Duralogs burn green.
  • Gas stoves and Bunsen burners draw in extra oxygen via tubes around the base of the flames. This makes the fire burn more efficiently. Less soot, more heat. The removal of the soot takes away the red and yellow shades, the increased heat causes the shades of blue.
  • Those blowtorch cigarette lighters with a thin little copper wire that turns the flame green.
  • Chemistry teachers will often perform this trick in a lab, to teach students about the structure of atoms and what happens if you get their electrons all excited (the electrons basically start jumping up and down, releasing photons of the appropriate color).
    • Years of fascinated students chucking various chemicals into the top and base of a Bunsen can cause it to be discoloured for years. Most commonly it's green from all the copper compounds (copper being the most readily available impressive colour-burning ion available in most chemistry experiments).
    • Potassium, whose flames are purple.
    • Copper burns green.
    • Fireworks make use of this principle to produce their colors.
  • Some flames seen in a forge will be pink. These are the hottest. I guess you could say they're hot pink?
  1. ↑ Flames can absorb light and cast shadows due to particles like soot in the flame, but even if there are enough to block light, the heat of the flame would make them visibly glow some color anyway.
  2. ↑ Which, appropriately enough, is one of his family's colors
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