So where does that leave Yellow and Purple?
As the closest colors to black and white in terms of their difference, this is the clearest contrast on any colorspace. Thus it is used to indicate light and darkness, sun and moon, day and night, shades of electricity, Good Colors, Evil Colors (particularly if they are royal factions, as gold and purple are historically reserved for royalty), or any other Color-Coded Characters or motifs that can be imagined (compare the aforementioned).
Warning signals are almost always indicated by some shade of yellow or gold. Depicted positively, it signifies spirit, spirituality, a Primary-Color Champion, earthiness, and a sense of warmth, and bees. Depicted negatively, it signifies body neglect (such as a gold tooth), cowardice, and greed. And again, bees. Among others, wealth, blondes, and physical power can go in either direction.
Supernatural and mysterious elements tend to be indicated by purple or violet. When depicted positively, it signifies wisdom, depth, and balance (particularly between the Onis). Depicted negatively, it signifies poison, dark magic, a Secondary-Color Nemesis, or excessive pride. Either way, Purple Is Powerful (and/or graceful).
Also compare Color-Coded for Your Convenience, and Color-Coded Emotions, in which yellow usually portrays happiness and purple portrays melancholy (while both can portray types of fear).
NOTA BENE: To qualify as an example, both colors must be used simultaneously to symbolize an In-Universe relationship (in other words, context). If they are merely displayed colors, such as on an athletic uniform, it does not fit.
Examples:
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Anime and Manga
- Cardcaptor Sakura: Eriol created Spinel Sun to be a contrast to Kerberos. While Kerberos is a happy-go-lucky Sweet Tooth who has a golden body with white wings and red highlights, Spinel Sun is a stoic yet hyperactive-when-eats-sweets who has a black/purple body with blue highlights.
- Faye Valentine in Cowboy Bebop makes prominent use of this trope in her character design, with her dark purple hair popping out against her primarily vivid yellow outfit. Spike Speigel also has shades of his trope in his own design, featuring a banana-yellow shirt underneath an indigo suit.
- Digimon:
- Digimon Adventure 02: Digmon is an insectoid Digimon with purple accents on his yellow armor.
- Digimon Tamers: Renamon has yellow fur and purple sleeveless gloves. Her mega form Sakuyamon is a human woman in yellow and purple armor.
- Dragon Ball:
- Goku and Frieza's Battle Auras are this, with Goku's Super Saiyan transformation aura being yellow/gold and Frieza's true form having a purple aura; they even show this when they team up during the final clash against Jiren in the Universe Survival Saga.
- In Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Gods and its retelling in Dragon Ball Super, the latter half of Goku and Beerus' second fight has their Battle Auras, Goku's yellow/gold Super Saiyan aura contrasts to Beerus' purple aura, while Goku's Super Saiyan God power ran out, he was still able to keep up with Beerus, with both fighting more evenly than their first battle, though Beerus was still holding back.
- In Dragon Ball Z: Resurrection 'F' and its Dragon Ball Super adaptation, Frieza's new Golden Super Mode has his body turning gold with his face, hands and feet turned purple instead. The purple bio-gems on his body doesn't change color but some of those changed their shapes or completely disappear instead.
- Fairy Tail:
- The Guild Masters of Fairy Tail and Phantom Lord contrast each other, with both their magic power and spells, with Makarov’s being yellow and Jose’s being purple.
- Makarov and Hades/Precht’s strongest magic attacks contrast each other as they’re each other’s counterparts, Makarov’s Fairy Law is a light magic spell that’s yellow in color, and Hades’ Grimoire Law, is a dark magic spell that while mainly black, has purple highlights.
- JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Although there is no consistent canon colors, much of the color schemes perceived in popular media has the Joestar clan often clad in blue and purple as they fight against the blonde golden-clad megalomaniac Dio Brando.
- The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords (2004):
- Each of the four Links has blonde hair, while their counterpart Shadow Link has purple hair. The Links are heroic, if dysfunctional, while Shadow is a petty and destructive villain until Princess Zelda, who is also blonde, convinces him that Dark Is Not Evil.
- Vio (the purple Link) has a purple tunic to contrast his hair, showing that he is simultaneously the most effective Link (The Smart Guy and the team's best swordsman) as well as The Millstone ( plots a Fake Defector plan without telling anyone else, fails to destroy the Dark Mirror, etc.).
- Lyrical Nanoha: Fate Testarossa has both gold-colored magic and hair, which contrasts with the purple magic and hair of her biological mother Precia. Appropriately, Fate's character arc throughout her entire life is shaped in part by the shadow that Precia cast over her.
- Naruto:
- Naruto and Sasuke contrast each other with their respective forms in Shippuden, with Naruto’s newer transformations being mostly yellow and Sasuke’s Susanoo being purple in color.
- This also applies to Asura and Indra Otsutsuki the sons of the Sage of Six Paths, the former having a yellow Six Paths Avatar and the latter also having a purple Susanoo, and Naruto and Sasuke are the respective reincarnations of Asura and Indra.
- Naruto and Hinata contrast each other with their respective chakra and Signature Moves in the Canon movie The Last, with Naruto's Rasengan being yellow and Hinata's Eight Trigrams Twin Lions Crumbling Attack being purple. Also, in the official color manga and Kishimoto's official artwork, Hinata's hair color is indigo, which contrasts with Naruto's blond hair.
- In Transformers: Energon, Shockblast (Shockwave) and his brother Sixshot have this going on, with Shockblast being purple as usual and Sixshot being yellow.
Asian Animation
- Lunabory of Noonbory and the Super 7 has yellow skin and wears a purple jumpsuit. Of course, being the Super Sensor of sight, it's fitting that she has an eye-catching contrast in her appearance.
Comic Books
- In the short lived Aquaman: Sword of Atlantis, Dr. Sydney Allard, an inhabitant of Sub Diego and Black Manta minion, is exposed to a strain of Joker Toxin which he drops and is driven to madness, murdering a home's inhabitants. Inspired by a purple and yellow fish at the home and said insanity, he grabs a pair of waterproof markers, colors his entire body yellow and purple, and dubs himself the Clownfish, symbolizing his insanity and philosophy of life as a joke.
- Mister Mxyzptlk, a recurring foe of Superman, is sometimes portrayed wearing a yellow and purple tunic to emphasize his chaotic nature and contrast the preferred colors of his favorite playmate, a Primary-Color Champion.
- Transformers: In almost every continuity, the Decepticon Shockwave is purple and has a yellow eye. However, in the Shattered Glass universe, where the Decepticons are the good guys and the Autobots are the villains, Shockwave is yellow.
- In Black Hammer, the cosmic deities Starlok and Anti-God wear gold and purple armor, respectively. The two are brothers and bitter enemies who respectively embody light/good and darkness/evil.
Fan Works
- Abraxas (Hrodvitnon) Recursive Fanfiction Abraxas: The Clash of Silver
: Amongst the two Mechagodzilla's, the main/actual Mechagodzilla emanates purple light, while Kiryu emanates yellow light much like the Toho movie portrayals. Mechagodzilla's purple light signifies the excessive pride of Apex for making it in the way that they did, and also the Mecha's unnatural possession by the half-Draconic Abomination Zmeyevich. Kiryu's yellow light on the other hand signifies his positive possession by a more heroic consciousness, him following in the footsteps of the Godzilla whose image the mechs were made in by him acting to defend the world instead of destroy it, and his earnest Robot Buddy bond with Aleksandra.
- The Kedabory Verse:
- Discussed in Ma Fille: When Marie explains the colour wheel to Katrina, she specifically uses yellow and purple as an example of contrasting colours.
- In Twinkling in the Dark, when Kurumi asks Akaoni how he found her and Urara, he responds that yellow (Urara) and purple (Kurumi) are on opposite sides of the colour wheel, and that anyone could see them.
Film — Animation
- In Coco, The Land of the Dead is always dark, with a purple haze all throughout. The bridges that lead back out of it are made out of orange-gold marigolds.
- Despicable Me 2: Gru's yellow Adorable Evil Minions were subjects of an experimental potion that makes a Face–Monster Turn to any living creature in contact with it. So, the Big Bad Eduardo "El Macho" Perez, with the help of Dr. Nefario, kidnapped most of the Minions and exposed them to the potion, converting them into "Evil Minions", which are purple thanks to the substance and are the Evil Counterpart to Gru's uninfected yellow Minions.
- In Frozen II, Anna and Elsa's nightgowns are colored light yellow and dark purple, respectively.
- In The Hunchbackof Notre Dame Disney, Captain Phoebus wears gold-plated armor, while Esmeralda wears a white, teal, and purple dress.
- Moana: To obtain Maui's hook, Moana must enter through the cave of Tamatoa at the Realm of Monsters. The gold that the materialistic Tamatoa hoarded from his shell glistens so shiny, like a treasure from a sunken pirate wreck, against the supernatural purple ambience of the realm.
- Snow Whiteandthe Seven Dwarfs: Snow White's dress includes a yellow skirt, while the Evil Queen wears a dark purple dress.
- Gold and purple is a recurring Color Motif in Tangled, being the colors of the kingdom of Corona; the gold associated with the sun, and the purple associated with the royal family. Rapunzel, is a graceful, spirited young lady whose long blonde hair has healing powers, and she wears shades of lavender and mauve to signify her kindness to people and her status as the long lost princess.
- In Turning Red, The stoic Priya wears yellow and is the polar opposite in personality to the sassy Abby who wears purple.
Film — Live Action
- Disenchanted (2022): During the climactic Wizard Duel, Malvina's magic is deep violet while Giselle's is golden.
- DodgeBall: A True Underdog Story: The Average Joes' uniforms are predominantly yellow-colored, while their rivals the Purple Cobras are self-explanatory.
- Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019): King Ghidorah is given a dark gold color for his scales and his Gravity Beams are a blinding yellow. In Godzilla vs. Kong, his decapitated left skull glows purple when it reanimates and turns Mechagodzilla into an undead monster under its control.
- Marvel Cinematic Universe
- Black Panther (2018): The main character, T'Challa wears the Black Panther suit with purple undertones, while his adversary and Foil, Killmonger wears the Golden Jaguar suit that is very similar but has yellow undertones. Both suits use their accent colors to symbolize royalty, but while T'Challa prefers the purple suit for stealth, Killmonger wears the flashy Golden Jaguar suit.
- Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings: Wenwu's rings glow indigo and purple when in use. After he dies protecting his son Shang-Chi, the hero empowers them with the power of Ta Lo which, besides increasing their power, turns them yellow.
Literature
- One of the Jeremy James stories is called "Yellow and Purple", describing young Jeremy James's first visit to the barber's. When his daddy leaves him there alone, he sees a man being given a yellow and purple mohican haircut. He fears that he is going to receive such an Improbable Hairstyle himself, so when his turn comes, he runs out of the salon, and finds the barber and the Yellow and Purple customer running after him.
- Shadows And Strongholds: Heavily implied in this novel by Elizabeth Chadwick. At their wedding ceremony, Fulk Fitzwarin wears a tunic of "plum-coloured twill", while his bride Hawise de Dinan wears a gown of "saffron silk".
Live-Action TV
- In The Boys (2019), Starlight and Stormfront are both female rookie members of The Seven. While Starlight has yellow accents on her costume and has powers based on yellow light, Stormfront has a purple-and-black suit and can project purple lightning. While they get along at first, their aspirations are completely at odds; Starlight genuinely wants to do good, while Stormfront is a Neo-Nazi whose atrocities go all the way back to the Third Reich.
- Breaking Bad: Yellow is often used to symbolize corruption and the drug trade, while purple represents morality and lawfulness. For instant, Jesse and Gus, two criminals deeply embroiled in the meth trade, are often seen wearing yellow. Meanwhile Marie, the character with the least connection with the criminal underword, wears purple almost exclusively.
- In The Flash (2014), Iris West is a Badass Normal who wants to become a reporter, while the titular character is a somewhat impulsive CSI and gives off yellow lightning when using his Super-Speed. When his power is temporarily transferred to her, she gives off purple lightning. Their Kid from the Future, XS, has both colors.
- How I Met Your Mother:
- Very deliberately used in the seventh season episode "No Pressure", where Ted finally decides he wants to let go of Robin, the entire cast is seen wearing purple for the episode. However, in the end, after Ted makes his decision, he steps outside to a sea of people — all of them sporting the Mother's iconic yellow umbrella, symbolizing how moving on from Robin was the only way for Ted to fall in love with his future wife.
- In the episode where the Mother's face is revealed, she's carrying her signature prop, the yellow umbrella, and she's wearing a dark purple dress, which symbolizes her moving on from mourning for her first boyfriend, Max, who died prematurely. The weekend she meets Ted is significant for her as because she finally let go of Max, and thus she and Ted are finally ready to meet each other mere hours later.
- Jessica Jones (2015): Luke Cage is associated with yellow, Kilgrave with purple. This is reflects their opposing relationships with Jessica. The lighting even gets in on it, with Jessica's default lighting being a cold blue, reflecting her isolation and anti-social tendencies, moving to warmer yellows as Luke helps her cope with some of her trauma, but to blatant purple as Kilgrave throws her into PTSD flashbacks. Also, the flash drive containing critical information on Kilgrave is yellow.
- Kamen Rider Build's Best Match NinninComic Form uses the Ninja and Comic halfbodies. The purple Ninja halfbody has the Onmitsu scarf that can wrap Build's entire body to camouflage himself with the local scenery, but the yellow Comic halfbody do the opposite with its flashiness when it creates highly visible Manga Effects when using its powers. The form's description as "Shinobi Entertainer" in its Transformation Name Announcement lampshades the contrast; a shinobi operates in concealment while an entertainer thrives in the spotlight.
- Tipi Tales: The rambunctious youngest cousin, Sam, wears a yellow shirt, while the prim eldest cousin, Elizabeth, wears a purple dress and pants.
- Yellowjackets: In the Season 2 premiere adult Lottie's first scene in the series is her addressing a crowd at a wellness retreat/cult compound. Her bright goldenrod yellow dress marks her as a leader and contrasts with the muted purple of the enthralled audience's different outfits.
Music
- We Can't Dance by Genesis invokes this trope to carry a day/night theme throughout the album art, featuring "day" scenes with predominantly yellow backgrounds and "night" scenes with predominantly blue and purple ones. In both cases though, blue is used to represent the silhouettes of the father and son figures that appear on the cover art.
- Three of a Perfect Pair by King Crimson features an abstract reinterpretation of the Larks' Tongues in Aspic album art, with blue analogs of the sun and moon figure against a stark yellow backdrop; the colors themselves invoke a similar day/night dichotomy.
- Tubular Bells II by Mike Oldfield features a yellow version of the iconic "bent bell" icon against a blue backdrop. In this case, the yellow color of the bells acts as a substitute for gold, thus upgrading the bent bell from its silver predecessor, while the blue background acts as a reinterpretation of the first Tubular Bells's oceanic background.
Video Games
- This trope pops up in two early major conflicts in the Dynasty Warriors series. Firstly, in the Yellow Turban Rebellion, the two forces clashing are the Imperial army and the Yellow Turban rebels, who have armies clad in purple and yellow, respectively. Secondly, in the battle of Hu Lao Gate, the two forces involved are the anti-Dong Zhuo coalition, and the Imperial army, now lead by the tyrannical Dong Zhuo. The coalition is lead by Yuan Shao, who has his troops wear gold coloured armour, while the Imperial army retains their purple colour scheme.
- In Final Fantasy VI, Kefka's god form has purple skin which contrasts to the gold/yellow sky above that shines down on him.
- Five Nights at Freddy's:
- Throughout the franchise, the colors yellow and purple are frequently used to give prominence to the most important and/or dangerous characters in the story. Sometimes these characters are in conflict, others the character features both colors at once in some way. The original Five Nights at Freddy's, for example, has Golden Freddy, a yellow version of Freddy Fazbear that behaves much more supernaturally than the other haunted robots, appearing and disappearing at will and, in the first game, crashing your game if he kills you. On the other side is William Afton, colloquially known as "The Purple Man" for the sprite used to represent him starting from Five Nights at Freddy's 2. He is the Greater-Scope Villain of the franchise, whose indulgence in child murder kicks off the entire plot of the games, as his victims' souls are what haunt the animatronics out to kill you, and who used a yellow animatronic suit to lure children to their deaths.
- Gameplay-wise, the first game has this in the form of Bonnie and Chica, a lavender-colored rabbit mascot and a yellow chicken mascot respectively. Both display contrasting AI behavior when making their way to your office:
- Bonnie will always try to enter your office through the left doorway. He's also the quickest and most persistent of the two, often being the first to exit the stage and capable of skipping past multiple rooms, even appearing right next to your office at the drop of a hat. While this means you have to deal with a big purple bunny trying to kill you constantly, he thankfully tends to give up and retreat rather easily once you shut the door in his face and wait for him to leave.
- Chica will always try to approach you from the right side of your office, and can only make her way towards you one adjacent area at a time, making her somewhat slow. Once she reaches your location, however, she'll prove to be much more patient and stubborn compared to Bonnie, waiting right outside your office for longer periods of time. This requires the player to drain more power keeping the door closed in order to keep Chica at bay.
- Golden Freddy doesn't appear in Five Nights at Freddy's 3. Instead, a yellow version of Bonnie the Bunny nicknamed "Springtrap" is your main foe. However, the trope still kicks in as scenes between the levels reveal that the Springtrap is Afton the Purple Man, trapped and maimed inside the animatronic yellow rabbit.
- Five Nights at Freddy's 4 is a departure from the lore in many ways, with the Purple Man making only a brief cameo unrelated to the plot. However, purple and yellow are still prominent in Fredbear, an animatronic who replaces all the others once he becomes active, moves at fast speeds, and is second only to an all-black version of himself known only as "Nightmare". His design is similar to Golden Freddy, a yellow Freddy Fazbear, but with a purple top hat, bow tie, and buttons instead of Freddy's and Golden Freddy's black.
- Five Nights at Freddy's: Sister Location has as its last big reveal a second "Purple Man", William Afton's son Michael, who seems to actually be purple due to being rendered undead following possession by a rogue animatronic, Ennard, who expelled itself from Michael. The game ends on a monologue by Michael saying the last thing he must do is track down his father, at which point Springtrap appears on the screen. In the following Freddy Fazbear's Pizzeria Simulator, it's heavily implied that Michael is the player character making a last stand against Springtrap, identified in the credits as William Afton, and the remaining animatronics once and for all.
- To cap it all off, there's Ultimate Custom Night. The way it's presented means there's little concrete confirmation, but popular speculation is that the game is William Afton's Ironic Hell and that he is being tortured by one of his victims, identified only as "The One You Should Not Have Killed", and implied to be Golden Freddy, as he appears fading and twitching should you challenge all of the animatronics at their hardest difficulty and win.
- Flight Rising: Opposite elements Light and Shadow are represented with yellow and purple, respectively.
- In Golden Sun, the Earth element is associated with the color yellow, while its polar opposite, wind, is associated with the color purple.
- Two of the Dashing Prince's many Cousins showcase this in Katamari Damacy:
- Velvet, one of his Royal Cousins, has a violet dress with a flared skirt that makes her resemble a bell or a UFO, with a golden yellow ring around its outer hem and matching yellow for the frame around her face. She's noted to be one of the haughtiest of his cousins, priding herself on her supposed maturity and acting like an Ojou.
- Second Cousin Miki, meanwhile, wears bright, sunshine yellow with purple tights and is a Spirited Competitor who aims to place in the top three of any contest she enters. Though she tends to only place in the top six instead, she doesn't let that get her down. This also creates a Tomboy and Girly Girl contrast between her and Velvet.
- In Kingdom Hearts, the primary forces, light and darkness obviously contrast each other, with light being white and yellow most of the time, and darkness being mostly black and purple.
- The King of Fighters: K9999 and Nameless contrast each other in color schemes: the former wears a yellow shirt and as Krohnen, a yellow biker jacket, whereas the latter wears a purplish-black bodysuit. Both characters are 9999th clones (K9999 of Kyo and Nameless of K', respectively), have almost identical movesets, and in a meta sense, the latter was created as a Suspiciously Similar Substitute for the former.
- The Legend of Zelda:
- In The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, the in-game maps depict Link as a yellow arrow. Whenever he has a companion follow him in a dungeon, like Medli or Maker, they are represented by a purple dot. The order is switched whenever the player uses the Command Melody to take control of a companion.
- In The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds, Zelda's golden-blonde hair contrasts with Hilda's dark purple hair. As cross-dimensional counterparts, this also shows in Zelda's magic being associated with light while Hilda's is associated with shadow. Late in the game, it's revealed that Link and Ravio have a similar contrast.
- The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword: One of the dungeons, the Ancient Cistern, uses yellow colours and a well-lit environment in the upper parts, giving an aura of purity and goodness. However, the deeper parts of the dungeon are littered with undead creatures and poisonous water, using purple colours and dim lighting to emphasise a feeling of death and decay. The dungeon boss, Koloktos, follows the same theme. It is a golden divine-looking automaton, but when Ghirahim corrupts it, a purple substance invades Koloktos’ body and instantly turns it against Link.
- In Metroid Prime: Hunters, the purple, Lawful Good Noxus is contrasted with the yellow, Ax-Crazy Kanden.
- Overwatch:
- Zenyatta's abilities include Orb of Harmony, which is yellow and heals its target over time, and Orb of Discord, which is purple and increases the damage its target takes.
- Moira's primary weapon is a pair of biotic gauntlets with opposing uses; the left one shoots a yellow healing mist, while the right one shoots a purple Life Drain tendril. Her Biotic Orb allows the player to choose between one of two Pinball Projectiles to launch; a yellow healing one, or a purple damaging one. Her Ultimate, Coalescence, shoots a giant beam flashing with both yellow and purple, which quickly heals allies and damages enemies who are inside of it.
- The Blacklight Barbican in Pandora's Tower juxtaposes the bright, yellow energy from the Dawn Tower with the dark, purple energy from the Dusk Tower. It serves as the core of the two aforementioned towers (which pay homage to the god of light and the goddess of darkness respectively), and is there where the protagonist battles the Dual Boss (the Master who employs light energy and the one who employs dark energy, again represented respectively by yellow and purple) of both towers. The Barbican also provides the gateway to the the Centrum (the whereabouts of the Final Boss).
- Pokémon:
- Pokémon Sword and Shield, Amped Toxtricity has this color scheme going on, as it represents a guitarist, who's typically supposed to stand out more from the music.
- Pokémon Scarlet and Violet: While one might expect Armarouge and Ceruledge to be more red and blue respectively (though they have those colors in their designs), they're actually more this, with Armarouge being yellow and Ceruledge being purple.
- The first Saints Row game had the purple-clad Third Street Saints as the protagonists trying to clean up Stillwater and take out all other gangs, the most powerful of which is the Vice Kings, a yellow-clad gang that deals in vice-relates crimes like prostitution or gambling with a legitimate hip-hop record company as a front. They were even formed to combat Los Carnales and their leader Benjamin King used to run with the Saints' leader Julius.
- Shoujo Kidan: The Genre Refugee Sword and Sorcerer duo that star in the Joke Ending have contrasting color schemes, as indicated by their hair colors: AAAAAA is purple, while BBBBBB is yellow.
- Sonic the Hedgehog:
- The respective Token Fliers of Team Sonic and Team Dark are Tails and Rouge. Tails is a friendly fox with yellow fur while Rouge is thieving, sly bat who wears a purple outfit.
- Tails' yellow also contrasts with Wave, a snarky, aggressive purple swallow who serves as his equivalent on Team Babylon as their Flight-type member and tech expert.
- Splatoon:
- Splatoon 2: This is the only ink color set available when the Color Lock is active.
- Splatoon 3 has this as its signature color scheme, much like the first game's orange and blue and the second game's pink and green. This also applies to its newscasting trio Deep Cut, with Shiver being a purplish blue, Frye being yellow, and Big Man being a neutral gray (with his ink color being red).
- Spyro the Dragon is a purple dragon with yellow horns, scales and underbelly. Depending on the era, it can either reflect his being a hero with an occasionally arrogant and combative personality, or being a noble character without the experience or knowledge expected of him.
- Super Mario Bros. Just as Mario and Luigi share a Red/Green Contrast, their rivals Wario and Waluigi share a Yellow/Purple one. Wario's yellow applies nicely to his greed and desire for gold and money. Waluigi's dark purple goes in likeness to his vanity, sense of pride and brooding nature.
- Super Mario Galaxy and its sequel has the Purple Coin comet missions, which require the player to collect 100 purple coins (as opposed to gold-colored regular coins) within a time limit in order to obtain a Power Star.
- In Super Mario Odyssey, regional coins are colored purple, as opposed to gold like regular coins.
- Super Smash Bros. Ultimate: A subtle example can be found in World of Light, where after being defeated, Galeem and Dharkon crash into the ocean and explode in yellow and purple respectively.
- Twisted-Wonderland: Vil has blond hair that fades to lavender at the tip. This is likely meant to emphasize his "queenly" image.
- World of Warcraft: Two of the most dominant forces in the World of Warcraft universe are Light and Void/Shadow, and unsurprisingly, the Light has white, and yellow/gold motifs (and occasionally pink or violet), while the Void/Shadow uses black, and dark purple for its color scheme.
Webcomics
- In Homestuck, the kingdom of light Prospit, whose job is to protect Skaia from Derse, is decked out entirely in yellow with the inhabitants in white, and players who visit Prospit in their dreams wear yellow pajamas. The dark kingdom Derse, which is at war with Prospit, is themed in purple with the inhabitants in black, with its dreamers wearing purple pajamas.
Web Animation
- The Amazing Digital Circus: Jax is purple, and his eyes, buttons, teeth and gloves are yellow. He's also the Token Evil Teammate among the trapped players, pulling sadistic pranks on them for his personal amusement.
- Very common in David James Armsby's (of Autodale and Dinosauria fame). Merry Madness and Scary and Strange (the prequels to Autodale) contrast the benevolent rat in earthy yellows and the malicious hound in bright purples, while Sharp Teeth (the short that inspired Dinosauria) uses it to demonstrate the opposite, that there is no good and evil in nature as the dinosaurs assume either palette depending on the POV.
- Happy Tree Friends: Cuddles and Toothy are the most common pairing in the series. Cuddles is a yellow cheerful righteous rabbit and Toothy is a purple beaver whose role may change with every episode.
- RWBY:
- Yang is mostly associated with yellow and tan, but has noticeable purple (mostly her eyes, as well a purple sash on her left leg). In the case of her eyes, it represents the mingling of her father's blue eyes and her mother's red eyes. Taiyang notes Yang has a lot of her mother's qualities, but Yang also takes a lot after her father (and as a result, is a much better person than Raven).
- Yang and Blake of Team RWBY has a few of these, their Aura colors are yellow and purple respectively, Yang is cheerful and energetic while Blake is quiet and mysterious, their eye color's Blake's being yellow and Yang's are purple, and during their time in the Ever After, Empathic Environment they were in also has a different sky color on each side, the sky is yellow on Yang's side, and purple on Blake's.
- The Brother Gods of Light and Darkness contrast each other with the elder brother being the God of Light who is yellow in color and his powers are light based, while the younger brother being the God of Darkness, who's dark purple in color and the creator and original master of the Grimm.
Western Animation
- The Backyardigans: Tasha the bossy yellow hippo and Austin the shrinking violet kangaroo. They are the two who appear least often on the show, and occasionally, when they do appear together, they're paired up as a team, such as the mountain cavemen in "Cave Party", the mad scientist and her assistant in "Scared of You", the Ice Lady and her worker in "The Secret of Snow", or the tourists in "The Swamp Creature".
- Chowder: The dynamics between Chowder and Panini can be this, with Chowder as the ambitious, excitable, yet danger-prone apprentice who is abhorred by Panini's advances, and he wears purple clothing, and Panini who is a more reserved apprentice who is obsessed with Chowder, and she wears yellow clothing.
- Darkwing Duck is a heroic character with a huge ego befitting the varying shades of purple in his outfit. His Evil Twin is the greedy Negaduck, who wears a yellow jacket (and red and black accessories).
- Fanboy and Chum Chum: A variation. While both ditzes, Fanboy is the slightly more sensible of the duo and his costume is mostly purple with a lime green bodysuit, while Chum Chum is a joyful Keet whose costume is mostly yellow with an orange shirt.
- Grossology: Abby wears a yellow bodysuit when on the job and a purple shirt and skirt combo in her civilian life. While purple-clad civilian Abby is an everygirl who wants to be popular, yellow-clad Grossologist Abby is a rough-and-tumble tomboy with no gag reflex and an iron stomach.
- Jelly Jamm: The Queen of Jammbo has purple skin and hair (purple is the colour of royalty) and wears a yellow dress (she is a warm, happy individual).
- The Legend of Korra: Spiritbending is a highly specialized waterbending technique that allows the bender to induce a balance or imbalance within spirits. Has some overlap with Good Colors, Evil Colors: When balancing the spirit's energy, the bender's water glows yellow; when causing imbalance, the water glows purple.
- The Lion Guard: The song "Beware of the Zimwi" utilizes a yellow and purple palette, helping to accentuate the creepiness of Rafiki's description of the mythical creature.
- Monsters at Work has Tylor and Val, who are respectively purple and yellow monsters who share a Savvy Guy, Energetic Girl dynamic.
- My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic:
- When going on Friendship Missions, purple-coated Twilight Sparkle and yellow-coated Fluttershy go along. Both are shy but intellectual ponies, with Twilight as a socially awkward yet analytical Bookworm, and Fluttershy as a timid yet a great animal caretaker.
- Mane-wise, blonde Applejack, and violet-haired Rarity, though polar opposites, go together on Friendship Missions with Applejack providing hard work, strength, and integrity, and Rarity providing style, charisma, and a sense of charitability.
- Ninjago: The powers of creation and destruction manifest as gold and purple energy respectively.
- Transformers: The Autobots' and Decepticons' projectile weapons fire yellow and purple lasers, respectively.
- VeggieTales: Larry the Cucumber's superhero alter-ego, Larry-Boy, wears a costume consisting of purple mask and yellow bodysuit.
- The Venture Bros.:
- The Monarch — nominally the show's main antagonist but in practice more of a Villain Protagonist — wears a mix of shades of orange and yellow. His rival villain for the first two seasons, Phantom Limb, wears purple.
- Hunter Gathers created SPHINX when he left the OSI to fight supervillains that weren't affiliated with the Guild, and this group's colors are yellow to fit with the original SPHINX's Egypt theme. Phantom Limb created the Revenge Society after a failed coup to take over the Guild from the Sovereign, and the group's colors are purple to fit with its leader. Interestingly, the two teams never fought on-screen.
Other
- The Morton Salt girl wears a sunny yellow dress and a lavender colored umbrella in front of the indigo blue background. Her yellow dress and sunny disposition even when it rains emphasizes the "when it rains, it pours" motto of the brand.
- The Los Angeles Lakers are most prominent in wearing the gold and purple combo since 1967. Their Away/Icon jerseys are yellow with purple accents, while it's vice versa on their Statement jerseys. The then-new owner Jack Kent Cooke said that the colors gave a regal connotation. Their most iconic players, such as Kobe Bryant, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Shaquille O'Neal, Magic Johnson, and LeBron James, fill up half of every top 10 list of the best basketball players ever. In tribute to Kobe Bryant, the major landmarks of Los Angeles were lit up with purple and gold lights.
- The NCAA teams for Louisiana State University (LSU) all use purple and gold, with the Tigers football team adding in white for their "home" jersey (inverting the normal "dark = home, light = away" format because it's a cooler summertime shade and late Spring through early Fall gets really hot in their home turf). According to legend, LSU chose the two colors due to their association with the New Orleans Mardi Gras festival, which uses purple, gold, and green as its official colors. LSU called dibs on the former two while sister school Tulane adopted green.
- The nonbinary pride flag includes a yellow stripe, meant to signify people whose gender identities sit outside the male/female binary, and a purple stripe, meant to signify people whose identities mix or sit between male and female. These are paired with a black stripe for agender identities and a white stripe for identities that encompass all genders, fitting yellow and purple's proximity to black and white in terms of color space.
- The intersex flag is a purple ring atop a solid yellow background. Those colors were chosen as they were viewed to be free from gender associations, representing how intersex people are not aligned with either biological sex.
- Tyrian purple dye was one of the most expensive substances in the ancient Mediterranean region, and thus limited to the very wealthy. Writers from the Greek and Roman worlds sometimes used the description "purple and gold" (or some variation of these words) to indicate excessive wealth. This labeling was typically meant to indicate that the writer's culture was based on moderation, virtue, and sobriety, in contrast with the decadent "other" being disparaged.
- This Very Wiki has two flavors of prose; Purple Prose, where the narrative is lavishly sprinkled with flowery Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness like wisterias in the full April springtime, and Beige Prose note note , which is brief and on-the-point.
- In 2023, the popular, luxurious ice cream brand Magnum launched two flavors with a Day and Night theme. Double Sunlover, which is mango dipped in white chocolate and coconut sprinkles, is branded with an orange and yellow label for those who enjoy the day, and Double Starchaser, which is caramel dipped in dark chocolate and popcorn sprinkles, is labeled purple and magenta for those who relish the night.