No warmth is to be found within the deepest hue.
The color blue represents sadness. Use of blue denotes tragedy and the feelings of loneliness, grief, and pain that come with it. This is because blue is a cool, detached color that shies away from warmer colors that evoke positivity. As a result, people associate it with dispassionate sorrow and emptiness, hence the phrase "feeling blue".
Ironically, this motif also represents sentimentality: blue, as a softer color, symbolizes vulnerability and tenderness, just as sadness is a highly sensitive emotion. Sadness represents internalized sensations (such as emotional pain and trauma) that aren't as obvious as physical sensations, which correlates to blue's subtle, provocative nature. The emotion of sadness, while unpleasant, elicits others to express their grief and accept insecurities. In this way, sadness also corresponds to the healing aspects of blue. Having a vibrant color like blue for sadness can likewise distinguish it from adjacent emotions of apathy and depression (which tends to employ gray and desaturated colors) to illustrate the difference between feeling something and feeling nothing.
In fiction, settings will typically feature blue to illustrate the somber tone of a work. Blue Mood Lighting is a common method of visualizing this. For music, the Blues is a common application of this trope with melancholic tunes. Morose or despondent characters can also be colored blue to denote them as The Eeyore. A person (especially a Living Mood Ring) can also turn blue when they're sad as a Double Meaning Gag.
Blue as sadness will often be paired with water as well, given that water tends to be blue and tears are made from water. Similarly, the overlap between this and Blue Means Cold could end up as a Tragic Ice Character.
Subtrope of Color-Coded Emotions. May be involved in Unnaturally Blue Lighting as Mood Lighting. Sister Trope to Blue Is Calm. Compare and contrast Blue Means Cold and Gloomy Gray. Contrast Bluebird of Happiness. Contrast Yellow Is Cheerful, Vibrant Orange, Cheery Pink, and Red Is Violent for other colors. See also Blue Means Smart One and True Blue Femininity, which can overlap with this trope.
Not to be confused with the fanfic of the same name.
Examples:
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Anime & Manga
- Doraemon: Doraemon was originally yellow, but after getting his ears eaten off by a mouse, he turned blue due to the shock and depression from the sight.
- Fairy Tail: Juvia wears blue, initially to reflect her early characterization as a sad, gloomy girl loved by no one, though she also has some fiery moments and later brightens up altogether.
- I Got My Wish and Reincarnated as the Villainess (Last Boss)!: The Downer Beginning is emphasized by having nearly the entire session painted in a blue overtone—with the exception of one panel, which cuts to the outside of the hospital—where a few children are playing—for contrast.
Arts
- Picasso's Blue Period is a somber, blue-hued series of paintings produced between 1901 and 1904, stemming from a long period of depression brought upon by the suicide of his friend Carlos Casagemas, which caused him to withdraw socially.
Comic Books
- Absolute Martian Manhunter: Despair-The-Zero, an Eldritch Abomination that personifies grief, nihilism, and depression, has a blue Color Motif and is alternatively known as Despair-The-Blue.
Fan Works
- Downplayed in the Danger Rangers fanfic A Gillty Conscience
; Jaclyn the axolotl has blue skin, which matches her being consumed by grief over the death of her younger sister Fuchsia. Her father Ford (who also has blue skin) is similarly gloomy over Fuchsia's death (though he copes with his pain by investing himself in his work).
- NES Godzilla Creepypasta: Face's shtick is that he makes all kinds of facial expressions with varying colors depending on Zachary's responses. One of his sad faces is blue.
- Para Artificial Intelligence: In "Dean sees some new concerning emotions": From trying to read emotional Aura Vision on Neuro, while being unsure about the color correspondences:
Neuro said as her colors went bright blue.If that was sadness...[...]That couldn't be it, though. Dean shouldn't try to decipher what Neuro was feeling. It was a lost cause.
Film — Animated
- Home (2015): The Boov change colors to match their emotions; for one, they turn blue when they're sad.
- Hoodwinked!: Red gets a song dedicated to her sadness, "Red is Blue", which plays as she walks out of her granny's house in despair after discovering her grandmother was lying about her double life. During the song, anything that's not red is shown in a shade of blue, and a bed of red flowers Red passes by wilt and turn blue in response.
- Inside Out: Sadness has blue as her Color Motif, having blue skin and (droopy) hair and wearing a frumpy sweater and large glasses. She is the Emotion Personification of a person's sadness and, fittingly, is The Eeyore and can summon a Personal Raincloud.
- Discussed in The Lion King (1994) when Timon and Pumbaa discuss the melancholy state of their recently adopted lion cub (who, unbeknownst to them had just lost his father and been sent on the run)
Timon: Gee, he looks blue.Pumbaa: I'd say brownish-gold.Timon: No, I mean he's depressed.
- Melody Time:
- When the couple in "Once Upon a Wintertime" break up, the entire scene is given a blue filter.
- "Blame it on the Samba" opens on Donald Duck and Jose Carioca looking sad, and literally colored blue. The Aracuan bird takes them into his cafe and starts cheering them up with samba music, which restores them to their normal colors.
- Raggedy Ann & Andy: A Musical Adventure: The Camel with the Wrinkled Knees is a blue camel who is very sad and lonely. He even sings a song called "Blue", which is about being sad.
- Sleeping Beauty (1959): Crossed with Blue Is Calm. When Princess Aurora returns to the kingdom on her sixteenth birthday, she is wearing a blue dress. During this time, while she is sad, she takes the change with a stiff upper lip and remains relatively cool for the remainder of the movie, since this is when she falls into her deep sleep.
- Toy Story 3: Chuckles the Clown is a literal Sad Clown associated with blue: he has blue hair, and he's introduced in depressing blue Mood Lighting. Notably, his hair used to point upright (resembling a smile) in his happier days, but it fell into a frowning shape after Lotso abandoned their friendship. Since then, he's been deeply depressed about the dark path that Lotso has taken.
Film — Live-Action
- Betty Blue is a cinematic study of that trope. The movie follows the narrator "Zorg" and his manic-depressive girlfriend, Betty. Betty, moving from sadness to violent outbursts, is defined by the color blue, while Zorg is defined by orange. All scenes in which Betty plays, especially the ones where she withdraws into herself, are filmed against a definite blue background, like a spotless blue sky or a room with blueish neon lights. In contrast, Zorg's scenes are filmed in reddish-orange tones like sunsets or candlelight.
- Follow That Bird: The Sleaze brothers dye Big Bird's feathers blue and brand him as the Bluebird of Happiness. Because Big Bird is so homesick, however, he sings about how he's feeling blue in more ways than one.
- R2-D2 of the Star Wars films has a small mood indicator light next to his single eye. When this indicator is red, R2 is peeved or antagonistic; when this indicator is blue, R2 is worried or sad. To express happiness or agreement, R2's indicator will alternate between red and blue.
- The Smurfs (2011): Defied by Papa Smurf when he says that in the Smurfs' village, "even feeling blue is a happy thing", as a pun on how all Smurfs are blue.
Literature
- Discussed and inverted in the children's book My Blue is Happy, wherein the narrator, a little girl, notes that people see blue as a sad colour, but she sees it as a happy one because she has a blue sweater and a pair of jeans that she likes, and because swimming pools are blue.
- In the children's book Saying Goodbye to Lulu, the protagonist girl buries her dead dog Lulu in her blue sweater.
Live-Action TV
- Sesame Street: In the "Elmo's World" skit "Skin", Dorothy the fish has a Fantasy Sequence about Elmo as a chameleon turning blue because he's lonely.
- Super Space Sheriff Gavan Infinity: The Emorgear Hisoo is colored blue and is associated with sadness. Downplayed with its partner, Gavan Bushido, who wears silver armor with blue accents.
- Zyuden Sentai Kyoryuger: Aigaron, the Knight of Sorrow, has blue as his Color Motif with a permanent frowning mask and is prone to crying. He is responsible for gathering the "sadness" emotion from humans.
Music
- Allie Goertz: In her song "Everything's Coming Up Milhouse", there is a Double Meaning Gag describing the character Milhouse from The Simpsons as being "alone and blue", because his hair is literally blue.
- Bears in Trees: I See Blue's "Life's A Beach" associates dissociation and feelings of numbness with 'seeing grey', and the overwhelming bursts of sadness that sometimes follow these periods of numbness with 'seeing blue'.
- BTS: The song "Blue and Grey" is a song about loneliness and melancholy, sung to heartbreaking effect, with the colours blue and grey continuously used in the lyrics to represent depression. It's likely one of the most depressing songs that the band has made.
- Eiffel 65: "Blue (Da Ba Dee)" is a song about a blue alien from a planet where everything is blue. He's strongly implied to be suffering from depression, and in one of the lines of the song, he laments, "Blue are the feelings that live inside me."
- Frank Sinatra: The album In the Wee Small Hours, which is about his melancholic loneliness in the wake of failed relationships, shows Sinatra wearing a blue suit on the album cover, expressing his feeling "blue".
- John Coltrane: The album cover of Blue Train blue, just like the title and the title track. Coltrane is shown contemplating, suggesting he's feeling blue.
- Joni Mitchell: Blue has a blue colour for its cover. The album itself was based on her sadness surrounding her breakup with her longtime boyfriend Graham Nash.
- LeAnn Rimes: Her first big hit, "Blue," is about feeling lonely and depressed after a break up, particularly as the other person doesn't appear to feel as sad. The song is notable for the title being yodeled expertly by a then 13-year-old Rimes.
Blue
Oh, so lonesome for you
Why can't you be blue over me? - Neil Diamond: "Song Sung Blue" is about singing the blues when you're sad (noting that you can do it "with a cry in your voice"), and how it might cheer you up by doing so. Fittingly, album covers show the name of the song in blue font, or have him in a blue suit.
Song sung blueWeeping like a willow
- Otis Redding: The album cover for Otis Blue is blue, in line with the album title and the songs about feeling "blue".
- Taylor Swift: The Colour-Coded Emotions in the song "Red". The passion of loving is associated with red, the sadness of losing with blue, and the loneliness and depression of missing is dark gray.
- Young the Giant: "Darkest Shade of Blue" links depression and sadness to the color blue, while comforting a person in its throes, telling them that they're not alone.
Video Games
- Ace Attorney: Athena Cykes's necklace computer "Widget", aids her in reading the emotions of others and defaults to her own emotions, displaying them via colors: blue is the color for sadness or fear.
- Final Fantasy VII: Sadness is a status debuff that makes the target take less damage but also delays their Limit Break gauges. Characters under the Sadness status have their limit bar displayed in blue rather than the normal pink.
- Life Is Strange: True Colors: People who are feeling sad (and items connected to sadness for someone) have a blue aura in Alex's vision.
- Neopets used to have a mechanic where pets with low mood could turn blue via Random Event. It no longer happens, though, as eventually, the creators thought that Random Events that changed the pets' colours weren't fair to players who had bought expensive paintbrushes, morphing potions, etc.
- OMORI: The game's Status Effects are based on emotions. The Sad/Depressed/Miserable statuses are associated with the color blue: it's written in a blue font in the status indicator, affected party members have a blue background on their portrait, while enemies turn blue.
- Pokémon: Sobble is a Water-type Lizard Pokemon that is very timid and can cry easily, its tears are powerful enough to make others cry as well.
- Super Princess Peach: The Gloom vibe, which causes sadness, is associated with the color blue. Enemies with Gloom have a blue tone, the vibe is activated by a blue heart on the touch screen, and tapping it causes the bottom screen to turn blue as Princess Peach starts crying waterfalls of blue tears.
- Warframe: The weather in the Kingdom of Duviri consists of five Spirals, each tied to a particular emotion or mood. The spiral of Sorrow tinges everything blue and its associated courtier Luscinia's Orowyrm form uses Frost attacks with a blue hue.
- Weird and Unfortunate Things Are Happening: Sorrow-type things are usually indicated by a blue color, such as their icon.
Web Animation
- Inanimate Insanity: Blueberry is The Eeyore of the fruits: a pessimistic, nihilistic downer who spends his entire first appearance agonizing about the pointlessness of life, to the point that he refuses to help out in the challenge. The fact that he's a blueberry means he's metaphorically and literally blue. Later, though, he decides to turn around and actually play, and by the end of Blue Buried, he's switched his blue motif to brains as an Insufferable Genius.
Western Animation
- Abby Hatcher: When the Squeaky Peepers become sad enough, their fur turns blue so that they're literally and figuratively feeling blue. They also sing the blues.
- Aladdin: The Series: In "The Flawed Couple", the characters are enchanted by magical, colored gemstones, which instill them with corresponding emotions. There’s a blue gemstone which causes depression.
- An already depressed Bunnicula sucks the juice from a blueberry and gets a literal case of the blues.
- Elena of Avalor: In the final season, Elena wears a dress that changes color to match her mood. It turns blue when she's sad, and comes with the power to summon rain clouds and storms.
- The Ghost and Molly McGee: The sob goblins, ghosts who feed off of misery and make people sad, appear purple at first but take on a more monstrous blue form the more misery they leech off.
- The Jetsons: Orbitty is an alien who changes color to express emotion. He turns blue when he is sad.
- Martha Speaks: Discussed in "Martha's Blue Period"; when asked if she's feeling blue (as in sad) when she misses Helen, Martha responds that she isn't, as she's still yellow.
- Muppet Babies (2018): In "Rowlf Gets the Blues", Rowlf misses his mother while she's on a business trip, and he does his best to hide his misery. As such, his fur ends up turning blue, and it starts going back to normal when he tells the truth about how he feels.
- Nella the Princess Knight: Riley of Glowshire has enchanted hair that changes color on her moods; it turns pink when she's happy and blue when she's sad.
- Smiling Friends: In "Friend-Bot (Version 12589218731809213528796879521)", a client is a humanoid entirely colored blue before being cheered up by Friend-Bot, after which they turn yellow.
- SpongeBob SquarePants: Squidward Tentacles is greenish-blue, and he can be quite the downer, especially in "Are You Happy Now?", when he goes into a Heroic BSoD upon realizing that he can't remember his best memory.
- Steven Universe: Blue Diamond is the melancholic member of the Diamonds. At the height of her power, she releases a blue Emotion Bomb that causes other Gems to cry, debilitating them.
- Superjail!: In "Superhell", Ash's fire powers turn into healing blue flames when he draws upon his most painful memory. The other inmates do the same to gain his sadness powers, and they end up restoring Superjail from the hellish state it had become.
- The Tom and Jerry cartoon Blue Cat Blues was made during the declining years of MGM's animation department. Tom Cat's fur went from grey to blue over time, and in this cartoon, a very blue Tom tries his best to woo pretty kitty Toodles, but cannot compete with wealthy Butch. Morose and in deep debt, Tom ambles to some railroad tracks to await certain doom, having lost the will to live.
- Unikitty!: Unikitty herself usually turns a cyan color whenever she's sad.
- Winnie-the-Pooh: Zigzagged with Eeyore, the trope namer of The Eeyore. He is sometimes depicted with blue fur as opposed to his usual gray in merch.
- Wow! Wow! Wubbzy!: In "Widget Gets the Blooey Blues", Widget is gloomy because she can't get one of her inventions to work, and her fur turns blue. It turns a darker shade of blue the sadder she gets.