Since the Identities of Wedges thread was so successful, I figured I'd do one for the other five color triads. Shards have been canonically defined a little bit more thoroughly than wedges, but they're still fairly underdeveloped, since there aren't nearly as many flavor articles about them as mono-colors or color pairings. What are people's opinions on Bant, Esper, Grixis, Jund, and Naya?
I decided to start off the thread with an analysis of my favorite color triad, Blue/Black/Red.
UBR combines Blue's drive for self-improvement and Black's naked ambition with Red's desire for freedom and appetite for self-indulgence, resulting in a color triad that seeks power and wealth because they'll allow it to become whatever it wants to be and to do whatever it wants to do. It's about gaining and using and abusing power, or at least taking advantage of the perks that success has to offer. It's about working hard and playing hard - doing whatever it takes to get to the top and indulging your whims once you're there. It's about doing what you want and taking what you want, whenever and wherever you can get away with it - and putting yourself in a position where you can get away with it more often.
It's also the most narcissistic color triad, combining Blue/Black's manipulative tendencies with Blue/Red's desire to express its creativity and Black/Red's desire to express its identity. Blue/Black/Green is the most selfish color triad, but Blue/Black/Red is the most self-absorbed color triad. It's almost obsessively focused on the way it sees itself, constructing and refining an internal image of itself based on what it thinks it is and what it wants to be - and then trying its best to actually become that idealized version of itself. It's about gaining freedom through power, taking power through self-actualization, and finding self-actualization through freedom.
Its primary tools are opportunism, risk management, persuasion, charisma, and social/situational awareness. Blue/Black/Red has a keen understanding of power dynamics. It's well aware that power is highly circumstantial, and it's savvy enough to know exactly what it can get away with at any given time, in any given place. Like Blue/Black/Green, it understands that there's a time to stay back, study the situation, and wait to see how things turn out, and also a time to strike now, strike hard, and strike fast, without a second thought. It understands that there's a time to stay in the shadows and work from behind the scenes without drawing attention to yourself, and also a time to present yourself to the world as openly and brazenly as possible.
But unlike Blue/Black/Green, it also doesn't mind taking risks, as long as they're calculated risks that are likely to pay off. It's very skilled at anaylzing and assessing risks, using Black's pragmatism to balance Blue's caution with Red's impulsiveness. Blue/Black/Green prefers not to get involved in a fight unless it's certain it will win, and it prefers not to invest in a venture unless it's reasonably sure it'll profit. Blue/Black/Red, on the other hand, likes to play the odds so long as the odds are in its favor - and it always knows when the odds are in its favor.
Blue/Black/Red is also the most manipulative color triad, even more so than Blue/Black/Green. Blue is known for misdirection, propaganda, and strategic social/political maneuvering; Black is known for intrigue, deception, and coercion; Red is known for physical intimidation, trickery, seduction, and charm. Together, they form a color triad that has a thorough intellectual and intuitive understanding of how other people will think and act. Blue/Black/Red is a master of psychological warfare, highly capable of finding people's mental/emotional weaknesses and all too willing to exploit them.
It's also well aware of the importance of public image. It tends to be colorfully narcissistic, utilizing the social aptitude of Blue/Black and the creativity of Blue/Red and the radical individualism of Black/Red to forge a strikingly distinct, unique, attention-grabbing, and often controversial identity for itself. It's talented at maintaining this persona even when it's acting on impulse - in fact, being impulsive and unpredictable is often a key part of its public image - and it revels in grandiose theatrical displays.
Its opposed to White/Green, the color pairing most associated with community, conformity, and collectivism. White/Green views individuals as nothing more than parts of a larger whole: White values people based on what they contribute to society, while Green sees everyone and everything in holistic terms, seeing all living things as mere threads in the tapestry that is the world. They both agree that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, and that the collective good is more important than the good of any one individual's concerns. They also both agree that adhering to a natural or traditional way of life is more important than pursuing one's fickle and selfish desires. This mentality disgusts Blue/Black/Red; there's nothing more antithetical to its mindset than the idea that people need to sacrifice their own individual happiness for the sake of the common good or the natural/traditional order.
Blue/Black/Red is the least prescriptive of all the color combinations: It doesn't believe there's any particular way that the world should be, or that anyone deserves anything other than what they can take or make for themselves. It even rejects the Social Darwinism associated with Green's darker side; in Blue/Black/Red's eyes, the idea that "the strong are meant to prey on the weak" is just another arbitrary rule that tells people how they're supposed to act and what they're supposed to be. The Social Darwinist presumes that strength and weakness are inherent and immutable traits, whereas Blue/Black/Red sees them as situational conditions that are relative to circumstance and subject to change over time.
At most, Blue/Black/Red can be prescriptive about opposing prescriptive attitudes, as it wholly rejects the idea that people should be forced to act in accordance with nature or tradition or conventional morality. It has no respect for the cowards and sheep who force themselves to conform to society's standards, and it despises the self-serving hypocrisy of tyrants who seek to control others “for their own good.”
Despite lacking morals and ethics in the conventional sense, Blue/Black/Red can nonetheless have a deeply held sense of honor, and it can even be willing to die for the sake of its honor. It simply acknowledges that its honor is purely an internal construct and has no delusions about serving any kind of higher ideal or greater cause. Blue/Black/Red honor is about always staying true to one's own personal ideals, even while knowing that those ideals are completely arbitrary. It's about acting the way it likes to think it would act, even in the most extreme circumstances and desperate situations, even when everything is on the line. It's about living up to its own self-image, even when doing so is neither altruistic nor self-serving, even when doing so will only cause harm to itself and others.
While Blue/Black/Red isn't capable of universal altruism, it can feel genuine empathy and concern for the people it cares about, and it can feel genuine sympathy and fondness for the people it relates to. Unlike Blue/Black/Green, it can have deep and meaningful connections with other people that are neither exploitative nor shallow. It can even be willing to make sacrifices for other people and put itself at risk for their benefit, if it cares about them enough. However, it often sees its interpersonal relationships through a narcissitic lens, viewing others in terms of how they fit into its own narrative, and this can sometimes lead to possessive and abusive behavior.
Blue/Black/Red also doesn't care about fitting in, preferring to either stand out or not be seen at all; it's equally comfortable in the shadows and the spotlight, but hates being stuck in the crowd. It's not concerned with other people's opinions and moral judgments, so it doesn't really care what others think of it, but it greatly cares how others perceive it - partially so it can get what it wants from them, partially just because it wants to be seen by others the same way it sees itself.
At its best, Blue/Black/Red is driven, passionate, charismatic, savvy, and proudly independent. Even when it's breaking rules and violating social norms, there's something perversely admirable about its willingness to do the things we all secretly fantasize about doing. It can also be necessary, since there are times when loud, proud, individualistic rebels are exactly what's needed to shake a stagnant society out of its stupor.
At its worst, Blue/Black/Red is shameless, shallow, self-centered, spiteful, and sadistic. It can be tyrannical, caring only for its own freedom without a thought for the freedom of others. Whenever it's in any position of power, it's almost certain to abuse that power, engaging in blatant and unrepentant acts of corruption. It can also be extremely vindictive, seeking out vengenance against others for real or perceived slights, no matter how petty or trivial.
It's the color triad of social climbers and con artists, high-risk enterpeneurs and venture capitalists. It's the color triad of inventors who are smart enough to come up with practical and profitable applications for their devices, and artists who are talented enough to appeal to their audiences without compromising their creative integrity. It's the color triad of Randian Objectivism and the Nietzschean Ubermensch, of Byronic Heroes and Magnificent Bastards. Fundamentally, it's the color triad of individualism.
Blue/Black/Red characters tend to be outright villains, or at least anti-heroes, though there are exceptions. A good example of a mostly heroic Blue/Black/Red character is Tyrion Lannister from Game of Thrones, a cunning outcast who uses his quick wits and his outside-the-box thinking to outmaneuver his enemies. While basically good-hearted, he's firmly Red/Black rather than White: He's a self-indulgent hedonist with an abrasive personality, he enjoys relentlessly mocking everyone and everything, he's primarily motivated by a desire for power and revenge, and he's utterly ruthless in the pursuit of his goals. Further cementing his lack of White and Green traits is the fact that he doesn't have any real loyalty to his family or to his noble house as an institution, unlike most nobles in Westeros (although he does have very good reasons for this).
Other heroic Blue/Black/Red characters include Shawn Spencer from Psych, Patrick Jane from the Mentalist, and John Constantine from Hellblazer. All three characters take the classic Blue/Black private detective archetype and combine it with an outrageous in-your-face personality, a flagrant disregard for social conventions, a highly unorthodox approach to detective work and human interaction, and a strong impulsive streak. Edward Morra, the main character of Limitless, is another Blue/Black/Red protagonist - a creative and hedonistic genius who pursues entirely selfish and materialistic goals, yet also manages to avoid doing anything seriously unethical or hurting anyone who didn't try to hurt him first. While far from heroic, Andrew Ryan from the Bioshock series is an example of a genuinely well-intentioned Blue/Black/Red antagonist, an anti-government entrepeneur who sought to create a society where each individual could be free to pursue their own interests without interference from the state.
Blue/Black/Red villains tend to be manipulative masterminds who are equally capable of enacting complex long-term schemes and making plans on their feet in the heat of the moment. They also tend to have a cool, calm, and collected demeanor, while at the same time being driven by a white-hot emotional core of anger, hatred, jealousy, and resentment, hidden under their cold and rational facade like the molten heart of the Earth, buried in the depths of their soul under high pressure, just waiting to burst out in a volcanic eruption of pure rage. Examples include Hannibal Lector from Silence of the Lambs, Petyr Baelish/Littlefinger from Game of Thrones, Emperor Sheev Palpatine/Darth Sidious from Star Wars, and the Marvel version of Loki.
Blue/Black/Red is also the color triad of egotistical mad scientists who seek to use their discoveries and inventions to make a fortune, take over the world, or get revenge on their rivals (as opposed to Blue/Red/Green mad scientists, who are driven purely by curiosity and excitement). Dr. Robotnik from the Sonic series, Dr. Wily from the Mega-Man series, Dexter and Mandarkk from Dexter's Laboratory, Dr. Horrible from the web series of the same name, and Rick Sanchez from Rick and Morty are all examples of this archetype. Similarly, Blue/Black/Red is the color triad of rogue A.I. who are motivated by emotion - usually raw hatred for the humans who created them - rather than by a drive to fulfill any particular programming directive. The movie version of Ultron is a good example, as is GLaDOS from the Portal series and AM from I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream.
But the quintessential example of a Blue/Black/Red hero and a Blue/Black/Red villain is Walter White from Breaking Bad, who displays the best and worst aspects of all three colors: He has Blue's methodical genius and drive to improve, Black's determination and drive to succeed, and Red's creativity and spur-of-the-moment resourcefulness, all of which enable him to become a criminal mastermind and make a fortune for himself and his family. However, he also has Blue's perfectionism, Black's vanity, and Red's short-sighted impulsiveness, all of which cause him to make terrible and self-destructive decisions and ultimately cause his criminal empire to come crashing down.
WUB combines Blue's methodical nature and desire for progress with White's inherent need for order and Black's detached pragmatism. It takes White/Blue's systematic use of rules and procedures, mixes it with Blue/Black's affinity for self-improvement through the use of external resources, and uses them both in the service of White/Black's tribalistic and materialistic goals. The end result is a color triad that seeks to make improvements to itself and the world around it through incremental change, using carefully tried-and-tested methods. By doing so, it seeks to make the world a better place, albeit in a way that primarily benefits itself and those it considers to be part of its ingroup (e.g. the business it works for, the government it lives under, the nation it's part of, or perhaps just the people who share its ideological views).
Its primary tools are self-control, objectivity, foresight, planning, efficency, and practicality. It combines White/Blue's tactical and strategic mindset with Blue/Black's penchant for remaining unseen and working from the shadows. White/Blue/Black is smart enough and patient enough to always take its time when making major decisions: Rather than taking immediate action, it will stay back and maintain a distance from the situation at hand, passively observing from a vantage point above the fray where it can remain objective, impartial, and uninvolved.
It will think, plan, assess its circumstances, analyze its situation, and figure out what the optimal course of action is, all while minimizing any potential risks facing it. It prefers to take the safe and secure approach, preferring a small but guaranteed success to an uncertain chance of greater victories; it won't let itself be tempted by the allure of entertainment and exhilaration, nor will it be swayed by the promises of high-risk high-reward gambits. It thinks in highly mathematical terms, coldly calculating all of the expected gains and expected losses that its facing, running through lists of possible outcomes and the probability of each one occuring, carefully weighing its options against one another. In keeping White's need for structure and Blue's love of knowledge (and to a lesser extent, with Black's desire to “control the narrative,” so to speak), it will try to classify and categorize and quantify as many things as it possibly can.
It also knows how to manage its resources as efficiently as possible, making the most of whatever tools and materials it has. It's very skilled at minimizing inefficiency, ensuring that neither time nor energy are expended in vain, and taking care not to let any of its resources go to waste if they can be repurposed instead. Unsurprisingly, it's the color combination most associated with engineering and mass production: Blue/Red likes to run experiments just for the thrill of seeing what happens, and it likes to create entirely new things as a way of expressing its creativity, even if its inventions are dangerous, unpredictable, overcomplicated, unreplicable, or useless. In contrast, White/Blue/Black only cares about making discoveries that have practical applications, its inventions are designed to be as pragmatic, ergonomic, and accessible as possible, and it would much rather make slight improvements to an existing device than create something completely new from scratch. It doesn't have the raw creativity of Blue/Red, nor is it as flexible or versatile, but it has a far better understanding of what's useful and what's valuable. (If Nikola Tesla would be Blue/Red, Thomas Edison would be White/Blue/Black.)
Its opposed to Red/Green, the color pairing most associated with passion, spontaneity, natural authenticity, and personal concern for others. Red/Green is all about living in the moment and enjoying itself, but White/Blue/Black knows the dangers of acting on impulse. Red/Green's spontaneous approach often leads people to remain idle or waste their time and energy on useless frivolities, rather than getting anything productive done. In extreme circumstances, when the stakes are high, taking the spontaneous approach usually results in total and outright disaster. Only fools let themselves be carried around by the winds of fate; if you just go with the flow and let the river carry you downstream, you'll probably wind up far from your intended destination, and you could end up facing the edge of a waterfall. Those who refuse to plan ahead are almost certainly doomed to failure sooner or later; if you leave too many things to dumb luck, then it's only a matter of time before your luck runs out.
Red/Green encourages people to let their instincts and emotions guide them, discourages them from overthinking or obsessing over things, and warns them not to become too detached from their feelings or from the world around them. White/Blue/Black thinks this is horrible advice; it sees emotions as a hindrance and instincts as obsolete remnants from our evolutionary past, better suited for life as a hunter-gatherer in the savanna than for life as a productive citizen in a civilized society. In its view, people are better off when they learn to put aside their feelings and think. After all, it wasn't our emotions or instincts that helped us rise to dominance - it was our ability to focus on things and rationally analyze the world around us, without becoming too wrapped up in it. It wasn't our feelings that brought us out of the wilderness, it was our ability to maintain a distance from nature and keep ourselves separate from it.
Red/Green also encourages people to be true to themselves and follow their nature, but White/Blue/Black has a rather dim view of human nature, echoing the Hobbesian view that man's natural state of living is "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short." It would instead say that people should strive to overcome their nature, learning to better themselves for their own sake and everyone else's. Red/Green cares about other people for petty, fickle, and near-arbitrary emotional reasons, whereas White/Blue/Black has a rationally-constructed social calculus that it uses to assess the worth of others, judging them based on their value to it and their value to society as a whole. Red/Green is prone to love and hatred, to acts of pure selflessness and acts of utter spitefulness, but White/Blue/Black is above such foolish emotions and impulses. Of course, the flip side to this is that White/Blue/Black also has a hard time understanding emotional reactions; it believes that people will behave as self-interested rational actors at all times, and it can easily get caught off-guard when people don't react the way it expects them to.
Ultimately, White/Blue/Black thinks the world would be a much better place if people just stopped being so impulsive and short-sighted and self-destructive. If everyone just had the foresight to think ahead a little bit, to consider the consequences of their actions for a few moments before making huge and irreversible decisions, the world wouldn't be such a hopelessly messy and chaotic place. The biggest problem with the world is just that too many people lack discipline - which is why White/Blue/Black often feels the need to impose order, structure, and discipline upon others, by force if necessary. After all, neither Red's desire for freedom nor Green's respect for tradition mean anything to it; why entertain the delusions of some backwards savages? If people try to resist the forces of progress, then they'll just have to be dragged into the future, kicking and screaming if need be.
White/Blue/Black is very orderly and stable, but it's not as rigid and unchanging as White/Black/Green, nor as concerned with peace and harmony as White/Blue/Green. It's a color combination that's devoted to changing the world for the better, but it's not as impulsive or as revolutionary as White/Black/Red, nor as manic or as idealistic as White/Blue/Red. Its existence is not one of stasis and stagnation, but nor is it a frenzied leap forward to enact social and technological progress as soon and as rapidly as possible, no matter what the cost. Rather, it is a steady series of cautious and precise refinements. It's the slow but inexorable march of progress, never turning back and always moving forward, but at such a restrained pace that most people can hardly tell that it's moving at all.
It's a color combination that's dedicated to improving itself as well as its circumstances, seeking to rise to ever-higher stations in society and better its situation in life, but it's not as independent and fiercely individualistic as Blue/Black/Red, nor as morally ambivalent and self-serving as Blue/Black/Green. Its existence is not one of selfishness or self-centeredness, but nor is it one of universal concern for all sapient beings or all living things. Rather, it acknowledges that there are lot of benefits to working together with others and being part of a larger group, and it seeks to give back to the society that's given it so many advantages and opportunities, but it also values individual achievement and seeks to be compensated for its contributions to the common good.
White/Blue/Black wants everyone to be better off, but it doesn't want them all to be equally better off: It classifies others into concentric circles of concern based on their social proximity to it, with itself in the center and its closest allies right outside of that, and it seeks to benefit those core groups first and foremost. It's also highly meritocratic and technocratic, valuing others based on what they've done and what they're capable of doing, and it believes that those with greater talents and greater accomplishments deserve to be met with greater rewards and greater renown. Fundamentally, it's the color triad of cold, hard, merciless utilitarianism.
The traditional comic book version of Batman is a White/Blue/Black hero, as he combines the Blue/Black private detective archetype with the White/Black vigilante archetype. He uses a mix of stealth, espionage tactics, investigative skills, martial prowess, and sheer brute-force intimidation to fight for justice and strike terror into the hearts of criminals. He's also incredibly resourceful, and he has an almost superhuman knack for making contingency plans to cover just about any conceivable situation he could possibly find himself in.
Dr. Doom is an example of a White/Blue/Black villain, a genius sorcerer-scientist who exemplifies both White/Black totalitarianism and Blue perfectionism, with a truly indomitable will and a drive to bring humanity under his control. While egotistical to an extreme, he nonetheless views his actions as serving the greater good; he genuinely believes that humanity will destroy itself unless the people of the world are forced to unite under a single banner, and he sees himself as the only person intelligent and determined enough to accomplish the task and lead mankind into an eternal utopian golden age.
Nick Fury is an example of a White/Blue/Black anti-hero, a cunning spymaster and brilliant grand strategist who's willing to do anything to protect the world. For that matter, SHIELD itself is a White/Blue/Black institution, using Blue/Black methods (espionage and engineering) in the service of White/Blue ends (ensuring global stability). HYDRA would also be a White/Blue/Black institution, using similar Blue/Black methods in the service of White/Black ends (establishing a global fascist dictatorship).
The Institute from Fallout 4 is another example of a White/Blue/Black organization, a society of scientists and engineers dedicated to repairing the post-apocalyptic world through technological advances and creating a civilization that could allow humanity to thrive again. They're also extremely insular, living in a secure and sterile underground complex, harboring nothing but disdain and resentment toward the filthy and chaotic surface dwellers inhabiting the wasteland above. Their methods are as Blue/Black as you can get, as they rely on an army of humanoid robots to do their bidding and use espionage, sabotage, and assassination to infiltrate and subvert wasteland settlements.
The Alliance from Firefly is an example of a full-fledged White/Blue/Black government, a galactic confederacy seeking to impose law and order on its member worlds and to pre-emptively destroy any possible threats to its rule. It's all too willing to brutally quash local rebellions and terminate dissidents with extreme prejudice, and its ultimate goal is to “improve” humanity by changing the fundamental nature of man. A more benevolent example of a White/Blue/Black institution would be the Second Foundation from Asimov's Foundation series, a shadow government of social scientists who use statistical analysis to predict and control the course of human history, with the intent of rebuilding a unified galactic civilization and preventing mankind from falling into a perpetual dark age.
Grand Admiral Thrawn from the Star Wars expanded universe exemplifies many of the color triad's greatest strengths as well as its greatest weaknesses: He's a strategic mastermind and a tactical genius who's always three steps ahead of his enemies, displaying incredible foresight and a keen understanding of how rival commanders think, capable of predicting their moves and formulating a response before they can even realize who they're up against. He avoids the types of failures common to other Imperial leaders: He prefers simple but effective tactics to convoluted schemes; he prefers to devote his resources to building up his fleet rather than wasting manpower and materials on enormous projects like the Death Star that could be destroyed by a single enemy attack; he prefers to conserve his forces by deploying just as many ships as he needs to win a battle, rather than trying to crush his enemies with overwhelming force. However, he's also overly reliant on his predictions and has a lot of difficulty adjusting when things don't go according to plan, he overlooks a lot of small but crucial details in his focus on the big picture, and he consistently fails to account for the fact that people might behave in 'irrational' (e.g. emotional, self-sacrificing, or spiteful) ways.
This reminds me: I realized something recently regarding the WUB shard: The missing colours are green and red. Green is the colour of the status quo. It wants to accept the world as it is. Meanwhile, red is the colour of emotions, it acts in the heat of the moment. It is the colour of the present.
Contrast this with white, blue and black. White wants to create a better society. It wants to remove injustice. Blue wishes to learn and improve. Blue is all about hoarding knowledge and being one step ahead. Black is the colour working towards being the top dog of the hierarchy. All three colorus have a goal. They work towards an ideal state set in the future.
Green and red on the other hand don't have that. They might think about the future as well, but not in the way as plans. They act based on the present where white, blue and black act based on what they think the future should be like.
So basically, the WUB shard would be the most future oriented colour combination of all.
I know you mentioned this shard being future oriented too, Karnterrier. This wasn't a critique. I just wanted to highlight just how robust the colour pie is. Even if you approach the problem from a different angle (I focused solely on the missing pair and then only an aspect of it), you still end up in a similar space as if you had taken a different route. This is why I love musing about colour philosophies. They are flexible but far from arbitrary.
WUB really sounds like what I think of with the scientific method, which kind of exemplifies why Red/Green doesn't work. And Dr Doom as a WUB villain, not sure I ever saw him like that but I get the reasoning.
WUB really sounds like what I think of with the scientific method, which kind of exemplifies why Red/Green doesn't work. And Dr Doom as a WUB villain, not sure I ever saw him like that but I get the reasoning.
The scientific method finds out how things work with little regard for whether or not the finds will immediately be practically useful (banking instead on the idea that a better understanding of the world will eventually lead to practical benefits). The white and black aspects of WUB puts a very notable emphasis on efficiency, which, in turn, throttles innovation of the new in favor of improving what they already have.
Acknowledging that, I must agree with KarnTerrier in that WUB is far more in line with engineering than with the scientific method.
WUB really sounds like what I think of with the scientific method, which kind of exemplifies why Red/Green doesn't work. And Dr Doom as a WUB villain, not sure I ever saw him like that but I get the reasoning.
Omnirahk echoed my thoughts perfectly. Science is about figuring out how things work, engineering is about figuring out how to put that knowledge to practical use. Both are Blue, but Green is the color most associated with observation and discovery, whereas White and Black are both social colors and seek to apply their knowledge in ways that will be useful for other people (either out of altruism or for the sake of profit). Red can fit into either category, it's the color most associated with new ideas and sudden insights (which are an important part of the scientific process), but it's also associated with building inventions (which is engineering, albeit a less practical and more creative form than White or Black prefers).
And with Dr. Doom, like most comic book characters, it really depends on how he's written. A lot of bad writers portray him as a generic one-dimensional bad guy who wants to take over the world just because he's power-hungry, or simply hates the Fantastic Four because he's jealous of Reed Richards. If we're going by those portrayals, I'd say that he'd be mono-Black or Blue/Black or maybe even Red/Black (though I'd argue those versions are really just faulty Doombots). But I'm going by this portrayal of Doom, who's practically the epitome of the White/Blue/Black mentality.
Had time to do another writeup now that my midterms are over:
WUG combines White's desire for unity and social harmony with Green's belief that everything in the world is connected as part of a larger whole, and then adds in Blue's cold, calculating, sterile objectivity and its capacity for systematic improvement. It mixes White/Green's universalist and communitarian mindset with White/Blue's affinity for orderly and structured social systems, along with Green/Blue's penchant for understanding and improving upon the world through observation. The end result is a color triad that views human civilization and the world as a whole as one enormous interconnected system, and seeks to maintain and improve upon that system to keep it functioning as well as possible.
Its primary tools are altruism, shared purpose, preservation, restoration, controlled growth, and selective improvement. White/Blue/Green is completely and totally selfless, always willing to put the well-being of others before its own wants, and sometimes even before its own needs. It believes that the highest purpose in life is to ensure the greatest good for the greatest number, to ensure that everyone is kept as happy – or at least as content and free from suffering – as possible. Its adherents are all devoutly united by a shared vision of what they believe the world should be like, and each and every one of them is willing to sacrifice their freedom, their happiness, their prosperity, their standing, and even their life for the sake of that ideal.
Like White/Black/Green, it's wholly dedicated to ensuring the continuation of its way of life. However, while White/Black/Green seeks to seal itself off from the outside world and cling tightly to what it has, White/Blue/Green is willing to let things go in order to replace them with something better. Unlike the White/Black color triads, White/Blue/Green isn't tied to a particular faction or nation, which allows it to understand that the essence of a society can remain, even as the particular people and institutions and policies comprising that society change – in much the same way that living beings will constantly lose old cells and gain new ones. This fits in perfectly with White/Blue/Green's view of collective humanity as a superorganism in its own right.
White/Blue/Green all about maintaining homeostasis – repairing what's been damaged, replacing what's been lost, and keeping the system going, different than it used to be and yet somehow still fundamentally the same as always, past and present and future tied together through a shared history and shared ideals. This enables it to be more flexible than White/Black/Green, better suited to adapting to sudden changes – and also capable of self-improvement, however slow and cautious its steps forward might be. It doesn't see growth or progress as an imperative, but it does allow for continual expansion and improvement, albeit only when it's absolutely sure that changing something will result in better outcomes for everyone and won't cause conflict or disrupt the status quo.
It's opposed to Red/Black, the color pairing most associated with individualism, independence, and hedonistic indulgence. Above all else, Red/Black is determined to do what it wants. It believes it should have the freedom to live its life as it pleases, even if it causes harm to itself or others by doing so. It doesn't care about the past or the future at all; it would rather live in the moment, indulging its whims and acting on its desires, regardless of the long-term consequences. It's also prone to excess, since it doesn't care if it'll go broke from overspending, or get unhealthy from overeating, or develop an addiction from doing too many drugs.
White/Blue/Green sees this mentality as wrong on every conceivable level; in its eyes, putting yourself before others and putting emotion before reason and putting enjoyment before necessity and putting the present before the future are all horrible decisions. It doesn't care about freedom; if people will consistently make the wrong kinds of choices, that's all the more reason that people shouldn't be given a choice in the first place. Even if Red/Black takes the libertarian approach and claims that it's “not hurting anyone” or “only hurting itself,” that's just a flimsy excuse; White/Blue/Green understands that everyone and everything is connected, and that even seemingly harmless actions can have negative consequences for everyone.
Red/Black also disagrees with the idea that people are obligated to make sacrifices in order to help other people, or for the sake of some abstract greater good. In contrast, White/Blue/Green is willing to sacrifice its own freedom and well-being to make things better for everyone else. Of course, by the same token, it's just as willing to sacrifice the freedom and well-being of others if doing so will help a greater number or further a higher cause, whether they're willing to make that sacrifice or not. It may even view someone as immoral just for 'selfishly' trying to prevent themselves from being sacrificed for the greater good (and in extreme cases, it may view that very 'selfishness' as justifying the forced sacrifice of that person). Red/Black would choose to save a single loved one over saving an entire crowd of people, and it would choose to save its family and friends over saving an entire city; White/Blue/Green would choose whichever option led to the least casualties overall.
Red/Black is also deeply concerned with maintaining its sense of individuality and expressing itself, whereas White/Blue/Green seeks to curtail individual expression and keep everyone as similar as possible. It's more tolerant of diversity than White/Black/Green, but it still condemns people who deliberately choose to be different just for the sake of standing out; it would prefer everyone to instead try their best to fit in. Additionally, Red/Black tends to be rather fond of conflict, or at least not particularly averse to it; White/Blue/Green, on the other hand, seeks to prevent or minimize conflict wherever possible, since it would prefer that everyone get along and work together.
Ultimately, White/Blue/Green thinks the world would be a much better place if people could just put aside their myopic and selfish desires and work toward the collective good. In its view, the kind of rabid individualism that Red/Black exemplifies just leaves everyone worse off in the long run.
White/Blue/Green is similar to White/Blue/Red and White/Blue/Black, as they all seek to improve the world through social and technological change. However, while White/Blue/Red is largely devoted to change for its own sake and White/Blue/Black sees it as a tool to ensure efficiency and prosperity, White/Blue/Green uses change to bring about peace, harmony, and contentment. Furthermore, White/Blue/Red and White/Blue/Black always strive to keep improving themselves and their surroundings, whereas White/Blue/Green tends to improve things for the sake of solving a specific problem, achieving a specific goal, or meeting a specific standard, and it's content to stop tinkering with something once it's already been perfected. As a result, it isn't nearly as reckless as White/Blue/Red or as ruthless as White/Blue/Black in its pursuit of progress.
White/Blue/Green is also similar to White/Blue/Red in another sense, as they both have a utopian mindset and believe that a perfect world is possible. However, White/Blue/Green views White/Blue/Red's boundless idealism and total lack of cynicism as naive. White/Blue/Red believes that a perfect society can simply emerge through the voluntary interactions of free people, while White/Blue/Green sees perfection as a something fragile that needs to be carefully cultivated, maintained, and defended. As such, it does not allow for the unrestrained freedom, creativity, and experimentalism of White/Blue/Red.
Likewise, White/Blue/Green and White/Blue/Black both share an “ends justify the means” approach to morality, believing that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. However, White/Blue/Black still leaves room for individual ambition and social mobility within its utilitarian framework, believing that anyone can rise above their station and become successful with enough hard work and ingenuity, and perhaps a healthy amount of competitive ruthlessness. In contrast, White/Blue/Green considers ambition to be inherently immoral and views competition as inherently wasteful, and besides which, it genuinely believes that people are happier when they're given a set purpose in life instead of being left to their own devices. As such, White/Blue/Green supports a social order in which people's roles are predetermined and immutable.
In that regard, White/Blue/Green is similar to White/Black/Green, which also supports the idea of unchanging social roles that are assigned from birth. The two color triads also share a predisposition to rigid social systems in general; White/Blue/Green isn't completely averse to progress like White/Black/Green, but it's very slow to embrace change. That said, White/Black/Green hierarchies tend to be fairly arbitrary in nature, as they're often based on traits like race, nationality, culture, and gender, while White/Blue/Green tends to assign social roles based on more objective metrics (e.g. what types of people are better suited for what tasks). White/Black/Green is also highly insular, seeking to preserve only its own tribe/nation, while White/Blue/Green takes a universalist approach – similar to White/Blue/Black, but even more so, since it lacks any semblance of White/Black tribalism. It ultimately seeks to spread peace and order everywhere, and to bring perfection to everyone.
White/Blue/Green is the color triad of conformity and collectivism. It's the color triad of benevolent 'soft' utilitarianism, in contrast to the hard and cruel and merciless utilitarianism of White/Blue/Black. It's the color triad of Plato's Republic and Thomas More's Utopia, the color triad of the communist ideal. Fundamentally, it's the color triad of utopianism.
An example of a White/Blue/Green protagonist would be Luke Skywalker in The Last Jedi. While Luke would've been White/Red in the original trilogy, he's become a very different person by the time of the sequel trilogy: He's lost the passion for freedom and justice that he had in his youth, and he seems content to live a simple life in isolation, reflecting on his past mistakes and contemplating the nature of the Force without getting involved in the conflicts and wars plaguing the galaxy. He even considered preemptively killing his own nephew for crimes he might commit in the future (a very White/Blue course of action), which shows that Luke has changed significantly from the young knight who refused to kill his murderous tyrant of a father in the hope that he might still be redeemed. Another example of a White/Blue/Green hero would be Gandalf from Lord of the Rings, a semi-divine wizard who's capable of setting elaborate and complex plans into motion, but is also willing to go with the flow and trust that the universe will take people where they need to be. (In fact, the conflict between Gandalf and Saruman exemplifies the similarities and differences between White/Blue/Green and White/Blue/Black.) Vision from the Marvel Cinematic Universe would also be White/Blue/Green, as evidenced by his concern for the “collective good” of mankind and his belief that humanity has a role to play in the natural order of the universe.
An example of a White/Blue/Green villain would be Sofia Lamb from Bioshock 2, a psychologist and cult leader obsessed with 'purity' who views individualism as a scourge and believes that people need to put aside their self-interest for the good of humanity as a whole. She also seeks to make humans more altruistic by fundamentally altering their nature through genetic engineering and mental conditioning. Dr. Raymond Cocteau from Demolition Man is another White/Blue/Green villain in this mold, as the character was intended as a satire of both ultra-conservative moralists (White/Green) and 'nanny state' liberals obsessed with safety and political correctness (White/Blue); Cocteau is an authoritarian dictator who's responsible for establishing a society in which violence, crime, and disorder have been eradicated at the cost of virtually all personal and social freedoms, to the point where everything from guns and alcohol to unhealthy foods and sexual intercourse have been prohibited. The SYBIL System from Psycho Pass is another example, an artificial intelligence that controls nearly every aspect of society, arresting or summarily executing anyone whose psychological makeup predisposes them to violence, criminality, or subversive behavior. VIKI from the I, Robot movie would be White/Blue/Green for very similar reasons, as she aims to ensure humanity's continued safety by taking over the world and establishing a new order in which humans are effectively kept as zoo animals.
The Jedi Order is an example of a White/Blue/Green organization. It's an order of warrior monks who are dedicated to preserving peace and upholding order in the galaxy, while also encouraging its members to focus on self-improvement and spiritual growth. The Jedi seek to find inner peace and enlightenment by rejecting emotions and attachments, and believe that they can achieve a greater understanding of themselves and of the universe through dispassionate contemplation. A very different example of a White/Blue/Green knightly order would be the Brotherhood of Steel from Fallout, a post-apocalyptic militia seeking to acquire lost technology for themselves – and more importantly, to prevent it from falling into anyone else's hands – in order to prevent another cataclysmic war from breaking out. They're White because they serve in a rigid hierarchy, live by a strict code of conduct, and seek to defend humanity; they're Blue because they seek to understand and reverse-engineer and sometimes even improve upon pre-war technology; they're Green because they staunchly oppose the development of new technology, strongly regulate the use of existing technology, and seek to preserve the natural order against 'abominations' like mutants and synthetic humanoids. The SCP Foundation (from the website of the same name) would be White/Blue/Green as well: It's a rigid, authoritarian, and almost ridiculously bureaucratic secret society (White/Blue) devoted to protecting the world from supernatural threats and upholding the 'masquerade' of normalcy (White/Green), while also trying to study, classify, and understand the nature of paranormal entitites/objects through extensive scientific research (Blue/Green).
An example of an entire White/Blue/Green society would be the World State from Brave New World, a global civilization in which people are biologically engineered to better fit their roles in an absolutist caste system which allows no opportunities for social mobility whatsoever. The Community from The Giver would be another such example, a society tailored to ensure absolute conformity by making everyone's life experiences as close to identical as possible. A more benevolent example of a White/Blue/Green civilization would be the Vulcans from Star Trek, who have a strictly ordered society centered around logic, reason, and communal utilitarianism, as well as a culture that strongly emphasizes tradition and social responsibility. (Also, while I listed the Federation as White/Blue/Red earlier, I was mostly referring to the human society of the 23rd century; since the Federation is actually an alliance between humanity and the Vulcan civilization, I'd say it would actually be White/Blue overall, with some Red and Green mixed in due to the respective influence of the two species that founded it. The Federation's entire culture is basically defined by a complete lack of selfishness, so having it be Non-Black makes sense. Plus the Prime Directive is a very White/Green rule!)
I'd say Phyrexia definitely still has some of that White/Black tribalism. Also, it's only the Red faction of New Phyrexia that was forced into hiding, the Black faction submitted to the White faction's rule. That's why Atraxa is every color but Red, she was created by all four of the remaining Praetors after they'd forged their alliance. I actually see New Phyrexia as being four-colored, you can basically view it as combining Esper-style technocracy with Bant-style collectivism with Sultai-style expansionism.
On a semi-related note, I originally thought about listing the Borg Collective as an example of a Bant-colored organization, but I wasn't sure whether it should be considered White/Blue/Green (because it seeks to incorporate everyone into its 'perfect' society) or Blue/Black/Green (because it seeks to consume and absorb everyone else that exists, making everything into a part of itself). Mark Rosewater originally listed them as typical Blue/Black expansionist conquerors, but later considered them an example of the Green/Black plague-bearer archetype, and admitted that they could be seen as White/Green collectivists if you assumed their motives were benevolent (i.e. if they genuinely believed that the people and species they assimilated were better off as part of the Collective). Ultimately I'd say that, like the New Phyrexians, they're White/Blue/Black/Green. Given that the Borg's defining trait is that they completely lack individuality, I'd say that having them be Non-Red fits perfectly.
I'd say Phyrexia definitely still has some of that White/Black tribalism. Also, it's only the Red faction of New Phyrexia that was forced into hiding, the Black faction submitted to the White faction's rule. That's why Atraxa is every color but Red, she was created by all four of the remaining Praetors after they'd forged their alliance. I actually see New Phyrexia as being four-colored, you can basically view it as combining Esper-style technocracy with Bant-style collectivism with Sultai-style expansionism.
On a semi-related note, I originally thought about listing the Borg Collective as an example of a Bant-colored organization, but I wasn't sure whether it should be considered White/Blue/Green (because it seeks to incorporate everyone into its 'perfect' society) or Blue/Black/Green (because it seeks to consume and absorb everyone else that exists, making everything into a part of itself). Mark Rosewater originally listed them as typical Blue/Black expansionist conquerors, but later considered them an example of the Green/Black plague-bearer archetype, and admitted that they could be seen as White/Green collectivists if you assumed their motives were benevolent (i.e. if they genuinely believed that the people and species they assimilated were better off as part of the Collective). Ultimately I'd say that, like the New Phyrexians, they're White/Blue/Black/Green. Given that the Borg's defining trait is that they completely lack individuality, I'd say that having them be Non-Red fits perfectly.
I don't think the Borg understand themselves as benevolent bringers of perfection as evidenced by the idea that they see some species as unfit to "enhance the collective". They are, even to themselves, just an organism that grows by incorporating other things into itself in order to grow and survive, not to grant those beings a better life.
I'd say Phyrexia definitely still has some of that White/Black tribalism. Also, it's only the Red faction of New Phyrexia that was forced into hiding, the Black faction submitted to the White faction's rule. That's why Atraxa is every color but Red, she was created by all four of the remaining Praetors after they'd forged their alliance. I actually see New Phyrexia as being four-colored, you can basically view it as combining Esper-style technocracy with Bant-style collectivism with Sultai-style expansionism.
On a semi-related note, I originally thought about listing the Borg Collective as an example of a Bant-colored organization, but I wasn't sure whether it should be considered White/Blue/Green (because it seeks to incorporate everyone into its 'perfect' society) or Blue/Black/Green (because it seeks to consume and absorb everyone else that exists, making everything into a part of itself). Mark Rosewater originally listed them as typical Blue/Black expansionist conquerors, but later considered them an example of the Green/Black plague-bearer archetype, and admitted that they could be seen as White/Green collectivists if you assumed their motives were benevolent (i.e. if they genuinely believed that the people and species they assimilated were better off as part of the Collective). Ultimately I'd say that, like the New Phyrexians, they're White/Blue/Black/Green. Given that the Borg's defining trait is that they completely lack individuality, I'd say that having them be Non-Red fits perfectly.
I don't think the Borg understand themselves as benevolent bringers of perfection as evidenced by the idea that they see some species as unfit to "enhance the collective". They are, even to themselves, just an organism that grows by incorporating other things into itself in order to grow and survive, not to grant those beings a better life.
It has been some time since I saw Star Treks Borg episodes, but if I remember correctly, they are definitely seeing themselves as "bringer of perfection", they are usually just not very preachy about it (and why should they?). At least the Borg Queen made several statements in this direction. They assimilate others without making moral arguments for it because in their mind they just know that they are right, and everyone else will just see it as they see it once they are part of the collective. I think arguments can be made about the Borg being any color other than red, but I would actually say that black is also a weaker influence since they reject individualism so utterly.
I'd say Phyrexia definitely still has some of that White/Black tribalism. Also, it's only the Red faction of New Phyrexia that was forced into hiding, the Black faction submitted to the White faction's rule. That's why Atraxa is every color but Red, she was created by all four of the remaining Praetors after they'd forged their alliance. I actually see New Phyrexia as being four-colored, you can basically view it as combining Esper-style technocracy with Bant-style collectivism with Sultai-style expansionism.
On a semi-related note, I originally thought about listing the Borg Collective as an example of a Bant-colored organization, but I wasn't sure whether it should be considered White/Blue/Green (because it seeks to incorporate everyone into its 'perfect' society) or Blue/Black/Green (because it seeks to consume and absorb everyone else that exists, making everything into a part of itself). Mark Rosewater originally listed them as typical Blue/Black expansionist conquerors, but later considered them an example of the Green/Black plague-bearer archetype, and admitted that they could be seen as White/Green collectivists if you assumed their motives were benevolent (i.e. if they genuinely believed that the people and species they assimilated were better off as part of the Collective). Ultimately I'd say that, like the New Phyrexians, they're White/Blue/Black/Green. Given that the Borg's defining trait is that they completely lack individuality, I'd say that having them be Non-Red fits perfectly.
I don't think the Borg understand themselves as benevolent bringers of perfection as evidenced by the idea that they see some species as unfit to "enhance the collective". They are, even to themselves, just an organism that grows by incorporating other things into itself in order to grow and survive, not to grant those beings a better life.
It has been some time since I saw Star Treks Borg episodes, but if I remember correctly, they are definitely seeing themselves as "bringer of perfection", they are usually just not very preachy about it (and why should they?). At least the Borg Queen made several statements in this direction. They assimilate others without making moral arguments for it because in their mind they just know that they are right, and everyone else will just see it as they see it once they are part of the collective. I think arguments can be made about the Borg being any color other than black, but I would actually say that black is also a weaker influence since they reject individualism so utterly.
IIRC, the comment in question (From Seven of Nine, in reference to the Kazon) was that assimilation of the Kazon would have "Detracted from perfection." (It was also a silly throw-away line that never really made sense or served a purpose other than some stupid in-joke with the audience.) So I think that it could still fit into a "bringers of perfection to all beings" and the collective simply saw that the damage done to all other "perfected" beings by assimilating the Kazon would be greater than the benefit of perfecting them. In essence, it would have been a greater benefit to all life to eradicate the Kazon than to assimilate them.
The Kazon would clearly be a purely Red/Black race, that's why they were considered anathema to a White/Blue/Green race like the Borg. Anyway, onto the second to last entry. One more to go!
WRG combines White's demand for unity and Green's respect for tradition with Red's emotional nature and desire to be free, emphasizing strong but voluntary associations based upon personal trust and shared values. It also combines the raw authenticity of Red/Green and the zealous devotion of White/Red with White/Green's focus on maintaining a sustainable community. The end result is a color triad that lives up to its own innermost nature through its connections to other people, and through its ties to the traditions and ideals of its culture – traditions and ideals which serve to further bind it to its loved ones and neighbors. It's a color triad that never feels more like itself than when it's around others of its kind, engaging in the kinds of activities that bring them all together.
Its primary tools are earnestness, honesty, empathy, close-knit community, and natural growth. It's the most compassionate and empathic color combination, as it combines White's general altruism and Green's sense of community with Red's deep-rooted emotional concern for the people it cares about. It's also the most genuine and honest color triad, as it shares Green's belief that people have an “inner self” or a “true nature” that they should strive to follow, Red's belief that people should express their feelings and act on their emotions, and a White code of honor that demands straightforwardness and forbids deception.
White/Red/Green also manages to allow for a great deal of individuality and freedom within the confines of a strongly unified community: Its ideal community is a small and voluntary one, where people are neither forced together by some external authority nor united under the banner of some abstract ideal, but rather bound together by their personal connections to one another. In such a community, there would be no need for a top-down system of control to keep everyone in line through authoritarian means; people would simply help each other out because they actually cared about each other. Likewise, White/Red/Green doesn't believe that growth needs to be guided by some detached central planner, or that it needs to follow some carefully laid plan; it believes that growth will happen naturally over the course of time, in whatever ways suit it best.
It's opposed to Blue/Black, the color pairing most associated with cold pragmatism, phoniness and insincerity, secrecy and subterfuge and manipulation, ambition and material gain, self-improvement and social mobility.
Blue/Black constantly seeks to better its own life, to improve itself and its material circumstances – primarily through the pursuit of wealth and resources and power and influence. It seeks to gain control over physical, economic, social, and political assets that it can use to put itself in a better situation, to rise to a higher status, and to increase the number of options available to it, and it sees other people as tools to be used to further its own ends. In contrast, someone who's White/Red/Green is wholly accepting of her lot in life. She knows who she truly is, deep down, and she knows how to be content with herself rather than constantly seeking to become something better. She's learned to be content with her situation and her circumstances, to find happiness and fulfilment and even some degree of freedom in the life she was born into. She has the wisdom to be content with what she has, rather than endlessly yearning for more. She sees other people as valuable beings in their own right, rather than as means to an end, and she knows that her relationships with her loved ones and her ties to her community will last longer and bring her more satisfaction than any fleeting and shallow material gains.
Blue/Black is dedicated to carefully controlling the image that other people have of it, wanting to be seen – or remain unseen – in whatever ways will best help it to achieve its goals. It's a creature of pretense and artiface, with no real identity beyond whatever facade it puts on for the sake of its agenda. It's cold and calculating in its thoughts and actions: uninhibited by sentimentality and ethical constraints, free from the pulls of instinct and impulse, and fully in control of its own emotions. On the other hand, someone who's White/Red/Green isn't concerned with her image at all, except to the extent that she wouldn't want anyone spreading falsehoods about her. She doesn't care what strangers think about her; she only cares about the opinions of her relatives, her friends, and her neighbors, and she feels no need to lie to them, because she knows that they all like her for who she really is. From the White/Red/Green perspective, it's immoral and unethical and dishonorable to pretend to be someone or something you're not, and besides which, it's a betrayal of one's true self – and beyond all that, it's unhealthy and self-destructive and just plain exhausting for someone to repress their emotions and hide their true feelings that much.
Blue/Black is obsessed with gaining knowledge, particularly knowledge of other people, and keeping it closely guarded. It seeks to learn people's secrets so it can better understand them and predict them and exploit their weaknesses, and it's careful to hold its own secrets close to its chest in order to prevent anyone from finding out too much about it. Conversely, White/Red/Green has no desire to figure out anyone else's secrets or weaknesses; it prefers to have open and earnest relationships with its friends and to engage in fair fights against its enemies. It also hates keeping secrets, since doing so feels too much like lying through omission – not to mention it's hard for someone so open and honest to keep anything hidden for long.
White/Red/Green is similar to White/Black/Green and White/Blue/Green, as they all prefer to live in harmonious traditional communities where people are bound together by a shared cultural history and a shared set of customs and beliefs. However, it's not as strictly bound by rules or traditions: White/Red/Green opposes White/Black/Green's belief that people should bury their emotions, repress their desires, and suppress their creativity in order to adhere to tradition. On the contrary, it believes that traditions should be used to encourage people to show their emotions, fulfill their desires, and express their creativity. It also opposes White/Blue/Green's view that the concerns of individuals and small groups need to be put aside for the sake of some greater collective good; White/Red/Green believes that every person and every community has the right to stand up for their own interests, and it aims for compromise between the needs of the individual, the needs of the few, and the needs of the many. In short, it seeks a balance between harmony and freedom.
White/Red/Green also differs from White/Black/Green and White/Blue/Green when it comes to social change: White/Black/Green views society as a stone fortress, unyielding and unmoving, unchanging and immutable, static and stagnant. White/Blue/Green views society as a walled garden to be carefully tended, with growth and expansion serving mainly to preserve the existing structure of things against the forces of decay and entropy, with actual change only rarely and cautiously attempted – and only when it's absolutely certain to result in a strict improvement over the status quo. In contrast, White/Red/Green views society as a forest, living and breathing, wild and untamed – subject to grow and change over time, and not always in controllable or predictable ways. It knows that even if the customs and rituals are different, the culture itself fundamentally remains the same, retaining a sense of continuity that keeps it connected to its past.
White/Red/Green also doesn't share White/Black's tribalism or Green/Black's cynicism, making it far less insular and far less hostile to outsiders. It rejects the isolationism and xenophobia of White/Black/Green: It wants to be around others of its kind, but it wants to explore the world together with them, rather than hide behind fortified walls. It prefers the company of its own people, but it still enjoys getting to know people from other cultures, and it's capable of having friendly (or at least not-overtly-hostile) relationships with them. It's even welcoming enough to let others join its society, if they're willing to abide by its norms, follow its customs, and respect its beliefs. However, it doesn't share White/Blue/Green's universalist outlook either. It doesn't seek to spread its beliefs to the world or to force its culture on others, since it doesn't see its way of life as the only way – just as the way that happens to be right for it.
White/Red/Green can also be compared to White/Blue/Red: They're both optimistic idealists, yet they reject the conformist utopianism of White/Blue/Green, in favor of a system that allows for individual freedom. They both oppose the idea that there's any one “best” way for a society to be run, instead preferring a diverse and pluralistic world where many different cultures can peacefully coexist, despite holding a multitude of different beliefs and values. However, White/Blue/Red is always seeking to improve society and bring about a better world, while White/Red/Green is generally content with things as they are. When it does change something, it's usually for intuitive reasons; as such, its changes don't always correspond to Blue's idea of “progress.” Similarly, White/Blue/Red is strongly opposed to traditionalism, believing that traditions stifle progress and freedom and self-expression, while White/Red/Green finds traditions liberating. It would feel less capable of expressing itself without them, to the point where not following its traditions would feel stifling to it.
It's the color triad of family, of marriage, of love for one's kith and kin. It's the color triad of holidays and festivals, of celebrations that bring people together while also allowing them to express themselves, indulge their desires, and enjoy the natural pleasures that life has to offer. It's the color triad of ethical hedonism and communal revelry, of simple joys and vibrant enthusiasm for the world. Fundamentally, it's the color triad of naturalism and small-scale communalism.
A quintessential example of a White/Red/Green character would be Wolverine. Depending on circumstance, he can be a savage and near-feral beast of a man driven almost entirely by impulse and emotion (Red/Green), a loyal soldier dutifully defending a small community of people like him (White/Green), or a simple but practical man dedicated to protecting and guiding the people he cares about (White/Red). He's largely guided by his senses, instincts, and intuitions (Green), but he's also prone to almost mindless outbursts of berseker rage when his loved ones are harmed or threatened (Red) – and yet, in spite of his poor temper and brusque demeanor, he still tries his best to maintain and uphold his personal code of honor (White).
Another White/Red/Green hero would be Ahsoka Tano from the Star Wars expanded universe: Like Qui-Gon, she's an unorthodox Jedi who takes a much more spontaneous approach than the Jedi Code allows (Red). However, Qui-Gon maintains the detached serenity of the Jedi even while simultaneously living in the moment, but rejects the Order's strict moral code in favor of a more flexible approach (keeping Blue and Green but rejecting White), whereas Ahsoka retains the Order's sense of moral universalism but rejects their passivity and calculated utilitarianism in favor of direct action (keeping White and Green but rejecting Blue). Other examples of White/Red/Green heroes include Tarzan, the Disney version of Pocahontos, and Simba from The Lion King.
Unsurprisingly for the color triad of empathy, it's hard to think of many overtly villainous White/Red/Green characters. One possible archetype would be a Red/Green barbarian chieftain who uses White methods to keep his forces united; Mance Rayder from Game of Thrones is a great example. The Wildlings as a whole are firmly Red/Green, but Mance's White side is evident from his ability to unify hundreds of different tribes under his banner against a common enemy (the Night's Watch), in order to ensure their survival in the face of a common threat (the White Walkers). Another archetype would be a White/Green monster hunter who's driven to fanaticism by Red zealotry and vengefulness; Alexander Anderson, the relentless and near-unkillable vampire hunter who serves as the primary antagonist of Hellsing, exemplifies this archetype to a tee. Scar from Fullmetal Alchemist is an even better example, as he's driven to purge the world of “unholy” magic and to get revenge on the government that committed genocide against his people, but also seeks to preserve the traditions of his culture and protect the few remaining members of his race.
Yet another villainous archetype would be a White/Red vigilante with a deep streak of Green savagery. The more anti-heroic portrayals of Venom fit into this category: The Venom symbiote is Green to the core, as it's a primordial lifeform that only cares about its own survival – and it survives by feeding off the adrenaline of its host, encouraging them to engage in risky and impulsive behavior and to give in to their instincts. Its host, Eddie Brock, is a delusionally self-righteous vigilante who's determined to enforce his own twisted brand of justice on the world. Despite being a murderous psychopath, I would still consider him White/Red due to his absolute and unwavering conviction that he's doing the right thing and serving the greater good (although in his original, purely villanous portrayal he was more of a Black narcissist who only cared about getting revenge on the people who personally wronged him). Together, they form a composite entity that fights against real and perceived evils with the most brutal methods possible, and hypocritically claims that it's only reluctantly doing “what needs to be done” while clearly relishing every moment of the violence and destruction it causes with gleeful abandon.
White/Red/Green societies often reflect the ideal of the Noble Savage; less primitive versions tend to be Arcadia-style small town rural communities. The Ewoks from Star Wars and the Na'vi from Avatar are both examples of the former, while the Shire from Lord of the Rings is an example of the latter. They're not always necessarily opposed to technology; the Minutemen from Fallout 4 would be a rare example of a high-tech White/Red/Green faction (although they're still fairly low-tech by the standards of the setting). Zion, the underground city of the human resistance in the Matrix films, is about as large and technologically-advanced as White/Red/Green societies get; the humans living there are devout freedom fighters (White/Red), they maintain a thriving community based around personal loyalties and family ties (White/Green), and they celebrate their independence with massive debaucherous revels (Red/Green).
I think Ozymandias from watchmen would also count as a white/blue/black character. I also think you meant to type that Simba from the lion king is a white/green/red hero, not scar.
One thing I noticed when you were describing Blue/black/red is the description seems to fit Niv Mizzit and Ral Zarek very well. We might see a Grixis card in the future from one of them.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Modern
JundBGR
RW Blood MoonRW
Pauper
Delver U
Elves G
Control B
Commander
Edgar Markov BRW
Captain Sisay GW
Niv-Mizzet, Parun UR
Tymna and Ravos WB
I agree that, going by personality alone, Niv Mizzit and Ral Zarek would be Grixis. Likewise, Momir Vig from the original Ravnica block would probably be Sultai. But from a gameplay perspective, having the cards for guild leaders be differently colored than their guilds would be a terrible design mistake. Although I can see Ral having a Grixis card if we ever see him in a non-Ravnica set.
And yes, I meant Simba from The Lion King, I think I got mixed up because I was using Scar from Fullmetal Alchemist as another example of a White/Red/Green character.
UBR combines Blue's drive for self-improvement and Black's naked ambition with Red's desire for freedom and appetite for self-indulgence, resulting in a color triad that seeks power and wealth because they'll allow it to become whatever it wants to be and to do whatever it wants to do. It's about gaining and using and abusing power, or at least taking advantage of the perks that success has to offer. It's about working hard and playing hard - doing whatever it takes to get to the top and indulging your whims once you're there. It's about doing what you want and taking what you want, whenever and wherever you can get away with it - and putting yourself in a position where you can get away with it more often.
It's also the most narcissistic color triad, combining Blue/Black's manipulative tendencies with Blue/Red's desire to express its creativity and Black/Red's desire to express its identity. Blue/Black/Green is the most selfish color triad, but Blue/Black/Red is the most self-absorbed color triad. It's almost obsessively focused on the way it sees itself, constructing and refining an internal image of itself based on what it thinks it is and what it wants to be - and then trying its best to actually become that idealized version of itself. It's about gaining freedom through power, taking power through self-actualization, and finding self-actualization through freedom.
Its primary tools are opportunism, risk management, persuasion, charisma, and social/situational awareness. Blue/Black/Red has a keen understanding of power dynamics. It's well aware that power is highly circumstantial, and it's savvy enough to know exactly what it can get away with at any given time, in any given place. Like Blue/Black/Green, it understands that there's a time to stay back, study the situation, and wait to see how things turn out, and also a time to strike now, strike hard, and strike fast, without a second thought. It understands that there's a time to stay in the shadows and work from behind the scenes without drawing attention to yourself, and also a time to present yourself to the world as openly and brazenly as possible.
But unlike Blue/Black/Green, it also doesn't mind taking risks, as long as they're calculated risks that are likely to pay off. It's very skilled at anaylzing and assessing risks, using Black's pragmatism to balance Blue's caution with Red's impulsiveness. Blue/Black/Green prefers not to get involved in a fight unless it's certain it will win, and it prefers not to invest in a venture unless it's reasonably sure it'll profit. Blue/Black/Red, on the other hand, likes to play the odds so long as the odds are in its favor - and it always knows when the odds are in its favor.
Blue/Black/Red is also the most manipulative color triad, even more so than Blue/Black/Green. Blue is known for misdirection, propaganda, and strategic social/political maneuvering; Black is known for intrigue, deception, and coercion; Red is known for physical intimidation, trickery, seduction, and charm. Together, they form a color triad that has a thorough intellectual and intuitive understanding of how other people will think and act. Blue/Black/Red is a master of psychological warfare, highly capable of finding people's mental/emotional weaknesses and all too willing to exploit them.
It's also well aware of the importance of public image. It tends to be colorfully narcissistic, utilizing the social aptitude of Blue/Black and the creativity of Blue/Red and the radical individualism of Black/Red to forge a strikingly distinct, unique, attention-grabbing, and often controversial identity for itself. It's talented at maintaining this persona even when it's acting on impulse - in fact, being impulsive and unpredictable is often a key part of its public image - and it revels in grandiose theatrical displays.
Its opposed to White/Green, the color pairing most associated with community, conformity, and collectivism. White/Green views individuals as nothing more than parts of a larger whole: White values people based on what they contribute to society, while Green sees everyone and everything in holistic terms, seeing all living things as mere threads in the tapestry that is the world. They both agree that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, and that the collective good is more important than the good of any one individual's concerns. They also both agree that adhering to a natural or traditional way of life is more important than pursuing one's fickle and selfish desires. This mentality disgusts Blue/Black/Red; there's nothing more antithetical to its mindset than the idea that people need to sacrifice their own individual happiness for the sake of the common good or the natural/traditional order.
Blue/Black/Red is the least prescriptive of all the color combinations: It doesn't believe there's any particular way that the world should be, or that anyone deserves anything other than what they can take or make for themselves. It even rejects the Social Darwinism associated with Green's darker side; in Blue/Black/Red's eyes, the idea that "the strong are meant to prey on the weak" is just another arbitrary rule that tells people how they're supposed to act and what they're supposed to be. The Social Darwinist presumes that strength and weakness are inherent and immutable traits, whereas Blue/Black/Red sees them as situational conditions that are relative to circumstance and subject to change over time.
At most, Blue/Black/Red can be prescriptive about opposing prescriptive attitudes, as it wholly rejects the idea that people should be forced to act in accordance with nature or tradition or conventional morality. It has no respect for the cowards and sheep who force themselves to conform to society's standards, and it despises the self-serving hypocrisy of tyrants who seek to control others “for their own good.”
Despite lacking morals and ethics in the conventional sense, Blue/Black/Red can nonetheless have a deeply held sense of honor, and it can even be willing to die for the sake of its honor. It simply acknowledges that its honor is purely an internal construct and has no delusions about serving any kind of higher ideal or greater cause. Blue/Black/Red honor is about always staying true to one's own personal ideals, even while knowing that those ideals are completely arbitrary. It's about acting the way it likes to think it would act, even in the most extreme circumstances and desperate situations, even when everything is on the line. It's about living up to its own self-image, even when doing so is neither altruistic nor self-serving, even when doing so will only cause harm to itself and others.
While Blue/Black/Red isn't capable of universal altruism, it can feel genuine empathy and concern for the people it cares about, and it can feel genuine sympathy and fondness for the people it relates to. Unlike Blue/Black/Green, it can have deep and meaningful connections with other people that are neither exploitative nor shallow. It can even be willing to make sacrifices for other people and put itself at risk for their benefit, if it cares about them enough. However, it often sees its interpersonal relationships through a narcissitic lens, viewing others in terms of how they fit into its own narrative, and this can sometimes lead to possessive and abusive behavior.
Blue/Black/Red also doesn't care about fitting in, preferring to either stand out or not be seen at all; it's equally comfortable in the shadows and the spotlight, but hates being stuck in the crowd. It's not concerned with other people's opinions and moral judgments, so it doesn't really care what others think of it, but it greatly cares how others perceive it - partially so it can get what it wants from them, partially just because it wants to be seen by others the same way it sees itself.
At its best, Blue/Black/Red is driven, passionate, charismatic, savvy, and proudly independent. Even when it's breaking rules and violating social norms, there's something perversely admirable about its willingness to do the things we all secretly fantasize about doing. It can also be necessary, since there are times when loud, proud, individualistic rebels are exactly what's needed to shake a stagnant society out of its stupor.
At its worst, Blue/Black/Red is shameless, shallow, self-centered, spiteful, and sadistic. It can be tyrannical, caring only for its own freedom without a thought for the freedom of others. Whenever it's in any position of power, it's almost certain to abuse that power, engaging in blatant and unrepentant acts of corruption. It can also be extremely vindictive, seeking out vengenance against others for real or perceived slights, no matter how petty or trivial.
It's the color triad of social climbers and con artists, high-risk enterpeneurs and venture capitalists. It's the color triad of inventors who are smart enough to come up with practical and profitable applications for their devices, and artists who are talented enough to appeal to their audiences without compromising their creative integrity. It's the color triad of Randian Objectivism and the Nietzschean Ubermensch, of Byronic Heroes and Magnificent Bastards. Fundamentally, it's the color triad of individualism.
Other heroic Blue/Black/Red characters include Shawn Spencer from Psych, Patrick Jane from the Mentalist, and John Constantine from Hellblazer. All three characters take the classic Blue/Black private detective archetype and combine it with an outrageous in-your-face personality, a flagrant disregard for social conventions, a highly unorthodox approach to detective work and human interaction, and a strong impulsive streak. Edward Morra, the main character of Limitless, is another Blue/Black/Red protagonist - a creative and hedonistic genius who pursues entirely selfish and materialistic goals, yet also manages to avoid doing anything seriously unethical or hurting anyone who didn't try to hurt him first. While far from heroic, Andrew Ryan from the Bioshock series is an example of a genuinely well-intentioned Blue/Black/Red antagonist, an anti-government entrepeneur who sought to create a society where each individual could be free to pursue their own interests without interference from the state.
Blue/Black/Red villains tend to be manipulative masterminds who are equally capable of enacting complex long-term schemes and making plans on their feet in the heat of the moment. They also tend to have a cool, calm, and collected demeanor, while at the same time being driven by a white-hot emotional core of anger, hatred, jealousy, and resentment, hidden under their cold and rational facade like the molten heart of the Earth, buried in the depths of their soul under high pressure, just waiting to burst out in a volcanic eruption of pure rage. Examples include Hannibal Lector from Silence of the Lambs, Petyr Baelish/Littlefinger from Game of Thrones, Emperor Sheev Palpatine/Darth Sidious from Star Wars, and the Marvel version of Loki.
Blue/Black/Red is also the color triad of egotistical mad scientists who seek to use their discoveries and inventions to make a fortune, take over the world, or get revenge on their rivals (as opposed to Blue/Red/Green mad scientists, who are driven purely by curiosity and excitement). Dr. Robotnik from the Sonic series, Dr. Wily from the Mega-Man series, Dexter and Mandarkk from Dexter's Laboratory, Dr. Horrible from the web series of the same name, and Rick Sanchez from Rick and Morty are all examples of this archetype. Similarly, Blue/Black/Red is the color triad of rogue A.I. who are motivated by emotion - usually raw hatred for the humans who created them - rather than by a drive to fulfill any particular programming directive. The movie version of Ultron is a good example, as is GLaDOS from the Portal series and AM from I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream.
But the quintessential example of a Blue/Black/Red hero and a Blue/Black/Red villain is Walter White from Breaking Bad, who displays the best and worst aspects of all three colors: He has Blue's methodical genius and drive to improve, Black's determination and drive to succeed, and Red's creativity and spur-of-the-moment resourcefulness, all of which enable him to become a criminal mastermind and make a fortune for himself and his family. However, he also has Blue's perfectionism, Black's vanity, and Red's short-sighted impulsiveness, all of which cause him to make terrible and self-destructive decisions and ultimately cause his criminal empire to come crashing down.
Its primary tools are self-control, objectivity, foresight, planning, efficency, and practicality. It combines White/Blue's tactical and strategic mindset with Blue/Black's penchant for remaining unseen and working from the shadows. White/Blue/Black is smart enough and patient enough to always take its time when making major decisions: Rather than taking immediate action, it will stay back and maintain a distance from the situation at hand, passively observing from a vantage point above the fray where it can remain objective, impartial, and uninvolved.
It will think, plan, assess its circumstances, analyze its situation, and figure out what the optimal course of action is, all while minimizing any potential risks facing it. It prefers to take the safe and secure approach, preferring a small but guaranteed success to an uncertain chance of greater victories; it won't let itself be tempted by the allure of entertainment and exhilaration, nor will it be swayed by the promises of high-risk high-reward gambits. It thinks in highly mathematical terms, coldly calculating all of the expected gains and expected losses that its facing, running through lists of possible outcomes and the probability of each one occuring, carefully weighing its options against one another. In keeping White's need for structure and Blue's love of knowledge (and to a lesser extent, with Black's desire to “control the narrative,” so to speak), it will try to classify and categorize and quantify as many things as it possibly can.
It also knows how to manage its resources as efficiently as possible, making the most of whatever tools and materials it has. It's very skilled at minimizing inefficiency, ensuring that neither time nor energy are expended in vain, and taking care not to let any of its resources go to waste if they can be repurposed instead. Unsurprisingly, it's the color combination most associated with engineering and mass production: Blue/Red likes to run experiments just for the thrill of seeing what happens, and it likes to create entirely new things as a way of expressing its creativity, even if its inventions are dangerous, unpredictable, overcomplicated, unreplicable, or useless. In contrast, White/Blue/Black only cares about making discoveries that have practical applications, its inventions are designed to be as pragmatic, ergonomic, and accessible as possible, and it would much rather make slight improvements to an existing device than create something completely new from scratch. It doesn't have the raw creativity of Blue/Red, nor is it as flexible or versatile, but it has a far better understanding of what's useful and what's valuable. (If Nikola Tesla would be Blue/Red, Thomas Edison would be White/Blue/Black.)
Its opposed to Red/Green, the color pairing most associated with passion, spontaneity, natural authenticity, and personal concern for others. Red/Green is all about living in the moment and enjoying itself, but White/Blue/Black knows the dangers of acting on impulse. Red/Green's spontaneous approach often leads people to remain idle or waste their time and energy on useless frivolities, rather than getting anything productive done. In extreme circumstances, when the stakes are high, taking the spontaneous approach usually results in total and outright disaster. Only fools let themselves be carried around by the winds of fate; if you just go with the flow and let the river carry you downstream, you'll probably wind up far from your intended destination, and you could end up facing the edge of a waterfall. Those who refuse to plan ahead are almost certainly doomed to failure sooner or later; if you leave too many things to dumb luck, then it's only a matter of time before your luck runs out.
Red/Green encourages people to let their instincts and emotions guide them, discourages them from overthinking or obsessing over things, and warns them not to become too detached from their feelings or from the world around them. White/Blue/Black thinks this is horrible advice; it sees emotions as a hindrance and instincts as obsolete remnants from our evolutionary past, better suited for life as a hunter-gatherer in the savanna than for life as a productive citizen in a civilized society. In its view, people are better off when they learn to put aside their feelings and think. After all, it wasn't our emotions or instincts that helped us rise to dominance - it was our ability to focus on things and rationally analyze the world around us, without becoming too wrapped up in it. It wasn't our feelings that brought us out of the wilderness, it was our ability to maintain a distance from nature and keep ourselves separate from it.
Red/Green also encourages people to be true to themselves and follow their nature, but White/Blue/Black has a rather dim view of human nature, echoing the Hobbesian view that man's natural state of living is "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short." It would instead say that people should strive to overcome their nature, learning to better themselves for their own sake and everyone else's. Red/Green cares about other people for petty, fickle, and near-arbitrary emotional reasons, whereas White/Blue/Black has a rationally-constructed social calculus that it uses to assess the worth of others, judging them based on their value to it and their value to society as a whole. Red/Green is prone to love and hatred, to acts of pure selflessness and acts of utter spitefulness, but White/Blue/Black is above such foolish emotions and impulses. Of course, the flip side to this is that White/Blue/Black also has a hard time understanding emotional reactions; it believes that people will behave as self-interested rational actors at all times, and it can easily get caught off-guard when people don't react the way it expects them to.
Ultimately, White/Blue/Black thinks the world would be a much better place if people just stopped being so impulsive and short-sighted and self-destructive. If everyone just had the foresight to think ahead a little bit, to consider the consequences of their actions for a few moments before making huge and irreversible decisions, the world wouldn't be such a hopelessly messy and chaotic place. The biggest problem with the world is just that too many people lack discipline - which is why White/Blue/Black often feels the need to impose order, structure, and discipline upon others, by force if necessary. After all, neither Red's desire for freedom nor Green's respect for tradition mean anything to it; why entertain the delusions of some backwards savages? If people try to resist the forces of progress, then they'll just have to be dragged into the future, kicking and screaming if need be.
White/Blue/Black is very orderly and stable, but it's not as rigid and unchanging as White/Black/Green, nor as concerned with peace and harmony as White/Blue/Green. It's a color combination that's devoted to changing the world for the better, but it's not as impulsive or as revolutionary as White/Black/Red, nor as manic or as idealistic as White/Blue/Red. Its existence is not one of stasis and stagnation, but nor is it a frenzied leap forward to enact social and technological progress as soon and as rapidly as possible, no matter what the cost. Rather, it is a steady series of cautious and precise refinements. It's the slow but inexorable march of progress, never turning back and always moving forward, but at such a restrained pace that most people can hardly tell that it's moving at all.
It's a color combination that's dedicated to improving itself as well as its circumstances, seeking to rise to ever-higher stations in society and better its situation in life, but it's not as independent and fiercely individualistic as Blue/Black/Red, nor as morally ambivalent and self-serving as Blue/Black/Green. Its existence is not one of selfishness or self-centeredness, but nor is it one of universal concern for all sapient beings or all living things. Rather, it acknowledges that there are lot of benefits to working together with others and being part of a larger group, and it seeks to give back to the society that's given it so many advantages and opportunities, but it also values individual achievement and seeks to be compensated for its contributions to the common good.
White/Blue/Black wants everyone to be better off, but it doesn't want them all to be equally better off: It classifies others into concentric circles of concern based on their social proximity to it, with itself in the center and its closest allies right outside of that, and it seeks to benefit those core groups first and foremost. It's also highly meritocratic and technocratic, valuing others based on what they've done and what they're capable of doing, and it believes that those with greater talents and greater accomplishments deserve to be met with greater rewards and greater renown. Fundamentally, it's the color triad of cold, hard, merciless utilitarianism.
Dr. Doom is an example of a White/Blue/Black villain, a genius sorcerer-scientist who exemplifies both White/Black totalitarianism and Blue perfectionism, with a truly indomitable will and a drive to bring humanity under his control. While egotistical to an extreme, he nonetheless views his actions as serving the greater good; he genuinely believes that humanity will destroy itself unless the people of the world are forced to unite under a single banner, and he sees himself as the only person intelligent and determined enough to accomplish the task and lead mankind into an eternal utopian golden age.
Nick Fury is an example of a White/Blue/Black anti-hero, a cunning spymaster and brilliant grand strategist who's willing to do anything to protect the world. For that matter, SHIELD itself is a White/Blue/Black institution, using Blue/Black methods (espionage and engineering) in the service of White/Blue ends (ensuring global stability). HYDRA would also be a White/Blue/Black institution, using similar Blue/Black methods in the service of White/Black ends (establishing a global fascist dictatorship).
The Institute from Fallout 4 is another example of a White/Blue/Black organization, a society of scientists and engineers dedicated to repairing the post-apocalyptic world through technological advances and creating a civilization that could allow humanity to thrive again. They're also extremely insular, living in a secure and sterile underground complex, harboring nothing but disdain and resentment toward the filthy and chaotic surface dwellers inhabiting the wasteland above. Their methods are as Blue/Black as you can get, as they rely on an army of humanoid robots to do their bidding and use espionage, sabotage, and assassination to infiltrate and subvert wasteland settlements.
The Alliance from Firefly is an example of a full-fledged White/Blue/Black government, a galactic confederacy seeking to impose law and order on its member worlds and to pre-emptively destroy any possible threats to its rule. It's all too willing to brutally quash local rebellions and terminate dissidents with extreme prejudice, and its ultimate goal is to “improve” humanity by changing the fundamental nature of man. A more benevolent example of a White/Blue/Black institution would be the Second Foundation from Asimov's Foundation series, a shadow government of social scientists who use statistical analysis to predict and control the course of human history, with the intent of rebuilding a unified galactic civilization and preventing mankind from falling into a perpetual dark age.
Grand Admiral Thrawn from the Star Wars expanded universe exemplifies many of the color triad's greatest strengths as well as its greatest weaknesses: He's a strategic mastermind and a tactical genius who's always three steps ahead of his enemies, displaying incredible foresight and a keen understanding of how rival commanders think, capable of predicting their moves and formulating a response before they can even realize who they're up against. He avoids the types of failures common to other Imperial leaders: He prefers simple but effective tactics to convoluted schemes; he prefers to devote his resources to building up his fleet rather than wasting manpower and materials on enormous projects like the Death Star that could be destroyed by a single enemy attack; he prefers to conserve his forces by deploying just as many ships as he needs to win a battle, rather than trying to crush his enemies with overwhelming force. However, he's also overly reliant on his predictions and has a lot of difficulty adjusting when things don't go according to plan, he overlooks a lot of small but crucial details in his focus on the big picture, and he consistently fails to account for the fact that people might behave in 'irrational' (e.g. emotional, self-sacrificing, or spiteful) ways.
Contrast this with white, blue and black. White wants to create a better society. It wants to remove injustice. Blue wishes to learn and improve. Blue is all about hoarding knowledge and being one step ahead. Black is the colour working towards being the top dog of the hierarchy. All three colorus have a goal. They work towards an ideal state set in the future.
Green and red on the other hand don't have that. They might think about the future as well, but not in the way as plans. They act based on the present where white, blue and black act based on what they think the future should be like.
So basically, the WUB shard would be the most future oriented colour combination of all.
I know you mentioned this shard being future oriented too, Karnterrier. This wasn't a critique. I just wanted to highlight just how robust the colour pie is. Even if you approach the problem from a different angle (I focused solely on the missing pair and then only an aspect of it), you still end up in a similar space as if you had taken a different route. This is why I love musing about colour philosophies. They are flexible but far from arbitrary.
The scientific method finds out how things work with little regard for whether or not the finds will immediately be practically useful (banking instead on the idea that a better understanding of the world will eventually lead to practical benefits). The white and black aspects of WUB puts a very notable emphasis on efficiency, which, in turn, throttles innovation of the new in favor of improving what they already have.
Acknowledging that, I must agree with KarnTerrier in that WUB is far more in line with engineering than with the scientific method.
Omnirahk echoed my thoughts perfectly. Science is about figuring out how things work, engineering is about figuring out how to put that knowledge to practical use. Both are Blue, but Green is the color most associated with observation and discovery, whereas White and Black are both social colors and seek to apply their knowledge in ways that will be useful for other people (either out of altruism or for the sake of profit). Red can fit into either category, it's the color most associated with new ideas and sudden insights (which are an important part of the scientific process), but it's also associated with building inventions (which is engineering, albeit a less practical and more creative form than White or Black prefers).
And with Dr. Doom, like most comic book characters, it really depends on how he's written. A lot of bad writers portray him as a generic one-dimensional bad guy who wants to take over the world just because he's power-hungry, or simply hates the Fantastic Four because he's jealous of Reed Richards. If we're going by those portrayals, I'd say that he'd be mono-Black or Blue/Black or maybe even Red/Black (though I'd argue those versions are really just faulty Doombots). But I'm going by this portrayal of Doom, who's practically the epitome of the White/Blue/Black mentality.
Spirits
WUG combines White's desire for unity and social harmony with Green's belief that everything in the world is connected as part of a larger whole, and then adds in Blue's cold, calculating, sterile objectivity and its capacity for systematic improvement. It mixes White/Green's universalist and communitarian mindset with White/Blue's affinity for orderly and structured social systems, along with Green/Blue's penchant for understanding and improving upon the world through observation. The end result is a color triad that views human civilization and the world as a whole as one enormous interconnected system, and seeks to maintain and improve upon that system to keep it functioning as well as possible.
Its primary tools are altruism, shared purpose, preservation, restoration, controlled growth, and selective improvement. White/Blue/Green is completely and totally selfless, always willing to put the well-being of others before its own wants, and sometimes even before its own needs. It believes that the highest purpose in life is to ensure the greatest good for the greatest number, to ensure that everyone is kept as happy – or at least as content and free from suffering – as possible. Its adherents are all devoutly united by a shared vision of what they believe the world should be like, and each and every one of them is willing to sacrifice their freedom, their happiness, their prosperity, their standing, and even their life for the sake of that ideal.
Like White/Black/Green, it's wholly dedicated to ensuring the continuation of its way of life. However, while White/Black/Green seeks to seal itself off from the outside world and cling tightly to what it has, White/Blue/Green is willing to let things go in order to replace them with something better. Unlike the White/Black color triads, White/Blue/Green isn't tied to a particular faction or nation, which allows it to understand that the essence of a society can remain, even as the particular people and institutions and policies comprising that society change – in much the same way that living beings will constantly lose old cells and gain new ones. This fits in perfectly with White/Blue/Green's view of collective humanity as a superorganism in its own right.
White/Blue/Green all about maintaining homeostasis – repairing what's been damaged, replacing what's been lost, and keeping the system going, different than it used to be and yet somehow still fundamentally the same as always, past and present and future tied together through a shared history and shared ideals. This enables it to be more flexible than White/Black/Green, better suited to adapting to sudden changes – and also capable of self-improvement, however slow and cautious its steps forward might be. It doesn't see growth or progress as an imperative, but it does allow for continual expansion and improvement, albeit only when it's absolutely sure that changing something will result in better outcomes for everyone and won't cause conflict or disrupt the status quo.
It's opposed to Red/Black, the color pairing most associated with individualism, independence, and hedonistic indulgence. Above all else, Red/Black is determined to do what it wants. It believes it should have the freedom to live its life as it pleases, even if it causes harm to itself or others by doing so. It doesn't care about the past or the future at all; it would rather live in the moment, indulging its whims and acting on its desires, regardless of the long-term consequences. It's also prone to excess, since it doesn't care if it'll go broke from overspending, or get unhealthy from overeating, or develop an addiction from doing too many drugs.
White/Blue/Green sees this mentality as wrong on every conceivable level; in its eyes, putting yourself before others and putting emotion before reason and putting enjoyment before necessity and putting the present before the future are all horrible decisions. It doesn't care about freedom; if people will consistently make the wrong kinds of choices, that's all the more reason that people shouldn't be given a choice in the first place. Even if Red/Black takes the libertarian approach and claims that it's “not hurting anyone” or “only hurting itself,” that's just a flimsy excuse; White/Blue/Green understands that everyone and everything is connected, and that even seemingly harmless actions can have negative consequences for everyone.
Red/Black also disagrees with the idea that people are obligated to make sacrifices in order to help other people, or for the sake of some abstract greater good. In contrast, White/Blue/Green is willing to sacrifice its own freedom and well-being to make things better for everyone else. Of course, by the same token, it's just as willing to sacrifice the freedom and well-being of others if doing so will help a greater number or further a higher cause, whether they're willing to make that sacrifice or not. It may even view someone as immoral just for 'selfishly' trying to prevent themselves from being sacrificed for the greater good (and in extreme cases, it may view that very 'selfishness' as justifying the forced sacrifice of that person). Red/Black would choose to save a single loved one over saving an entire crowd of people, and it would choose to save its family and friends over saving an entire city; White/Blue/Green would choose whichever option led to the least casualties overall.
Red/Black is also deeply concerned with maintaining its sense of individuality and expressing itself, whereas White/Blue/Green seeks to curtail individual expression and keep everyone as similar as possible. It's more tolerant of diversity than White/Black/Green, but it still condemns people who deliberately choose to be different just for the sake of standing out; it would prefer everyone to instead try their best to fit in. Additionally, Red/Black tends to be rather fond of conflict, or at least not particularly averse to it; White/Blue/Green, on the other hand, seeks to prevent or minimize conflict wherever possible, since it would prefer that everyone get along and work together.
Ultimately, White/Blue/Green thinks the world would be a much better place if people could just put aside their myopic and selfish desires and work toward the collective good. In its view, the kind of rabid individualism that Red/Black exemplifies just leaves everyone worse off in the long run.
White/Blue/Green is similar to White/Blue/Red and White/Blue/Black, as they all seek to improve the world through social and technological change. However, while White/Blue/Red is largely devoted to change for its own sake and White/Blue/Black sees it as a tool to ensure efficiency and prosperity, White/Blue/Green uses change to bring about peace, harmony, and contentment. Furthermore, White/Blue/Red and White/Blue/Black always strive to keep improving themselves and their surroundings, whereas White/Blue/Green tends to improve things for the sake of solving a specific problem, achieving a specific goal, or meeting a specific standard, and it's content to stop tinkering with something once it's already been perfected. As a result, it isn't nearly as reckless as White/Blue/Red or as ruthless as White/Blue/Black in its pursuit of progress.
White/Blue/Green is also similar to White/Blue/Red in another sense, as they both have a utopian mindset and believe that a perfect world is possible. However, White/Blue/Green views White/Blue/Red's boundless idealism and total lack of cynicism as naive. White/Blue/Red believes that a perfect society can simply emerge through the voluntary interactions of free people, while White/Blue/Green sees perfection as a something fragile that needs to be carefully cultivated, maintained, and defended. As such, it does not allow for the unrestrained freedom, creativity, and experimentalism of White/Blue/Red.
Likewise, White/Blue/Green and White/Blue/Black both share an “ends justify the means” approach to morality, believing that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. However, White/Blue/Black still leaves room for individual ambition and social mobility within its utilitarian framework, believing that anyone can rise above their station and become successful with enough hard work and ingenuity, and perhaps a healthy amount of competitive ruthlessness. In contrast, White/Blue/Green considers ambition to be inherently immoral and views competition as inherently wasteful, and besides which, it genuinely believes that people are happier when they're given a set purpose in life instead of being left to their own devices. As such, White/Blue/Green supports a social order in which people's roles are predetermined and immutable.
In that regard, White/Blue/Green is similar to White/Black/Green, which also supports the idea of unchanging social roles that are assigned from birth. The two color triads also share a predisposition to rigid social systems in general; White/Blue/Green isn't completely averse to progress like White/Black/Green, but it's very slow to embrace change. That said, White/Black/Green hierarchies tend to be fairly arbitrary in nature, as they're often based on traits like race, nationality, culture, and gender, while White/Blue/Green tends to assign social roles based on more objective metrics (e.g. what types of people are better suited for what tasks). White/Black/Green is also highly insular, seeking to preserve only its own tribe/nation, while White/Blue/Green takes a universalist approach – similar to White/Blue/Black, but even more so, since it lacks any semblance of White/Black tribalism. It ultimately seeks to spread peace and order everywhere, and to bring perfection to everyone.
White/Blue/Green is the color triad of conformity and collectivism. It's the color triad of benevolent 'soft' utilitarianism, in contrast to the hard and cruel and merciless utilitarianism of White/Blue/Black. It's the color triad of Plato's Republic and Thomas More's Utopia, the color triad of the communist ideal. Fundamentally, it's the color triad of utopianism.
An example of a White/Blue/Green villain would be Sofia Lamb from Bioshock 2, a psychologist and cult leader obsessed with 'purity' who views individualism as a scourge and believes that people need to put aside their self-interest for the good of humanity as a whole. She also seeks to make humans more altruistic by fundamentally altering their nature through genetic engineering and mental conditioning. Dr. Raymond Cocteau from Demolition Man is another White/Blue/Green villain in this mold, as the character was intended as a satire of both ultra-conservative moralists (White/Green) and 'nanny state' liberals obsessed with safety and political correctness (White/Blue); Cocteau is an authoritarian dictator who's responsible for establishing a society in which violence, crime, and disorder have been eradicated at the cost of virtually all personal and social freedoms, to the point where everything from guns and alcohol to unhealthy foods and sexual intercourse have been prohibited. The SYBIL System from Psycho Pass is another example, an artificial intelligence that controls nearly every aspect of society, arresting or summarily executing anyone whose psychological makeup predisposes them to violence, criminality, or subversive behavior. VIKI from the I, Robot movie would be White/Blue/Green for very similar reasons, as she aims to ensure humanity's continued safety by taking over the world and establishing a new order in which humans are effectively kept as zoo animals.
The Jedi Order is an example of a White/Blue/Green organization. It's an order of warrior monks who are dedicated to preserving peace and upholding order in the galaxy, while also encouraging its members to focus on self-improvement and spiritual growth. The Jedi seek to find inner peace and enlightenment by rejecting emotions and attachments, and believe that they can achieve a greater understanding of themselves and of the universe through dispassionate contemplation. A very different example of a White/Blue/Green knightly order would be the Brotherhood of Steel from Fallout, a post-apocalyptic militia seeking to acquire lost technology for themselves – and more importantly, to prevent it from falling into anyone else's hands – in order to prevent another cataclysmic war from breaking out. They're White because they serve in a rigid hierarchy, live by a strict code of conduct, and seek to defend humanity; they're Blue because they seek to understand and reverse-engineer and sometimes even improve upon pre-war technology; they're Green because they staunchly oppose the development of new technology, strongly regulate the use of existing technology, and seek to preserve the natural order against 'abominations' like mutants and synthetic humanoids. The SCP Foundation (from the website of the same name) would be White/Blue/Green as well: It's a rigid, authoritarian, and almost ridiculously bureaucratic secret society (White/Blue) devoted to protecting the world from supernatural threats and upholding the 'masquerade' of normalcy (White/Green), while also trying to study, classify, and understand the nature of paranormal entitites/objects through extensive scientific research (Blue/Green).
An example of an entire White/Blue/Green society would be the World State from Brave New World, a global civilization in which people are biologically engineered to better fit their roles in an absolutist caste system which allows no opportunities for social mobility whatsoever. The Community from The Giver would be another such example, a society tailored to ensure absolute conformity by making everyone's life experiences as close to identical as possible. A more benevolent example of a White/Blue/Green civilization would be the Vulcans from Star Trek, who have a strictly ordered society centered around logic, reason, and communal utilitarianism, as well as a culture that strongly emphasizes tradition and social responsibility. (Also, while I listed the Federation as White/Blue/Red earlier, I was mostly referring to the human society of the 23rd century; since the Federation is actually an alliance between humanity and the Vulcan civilization, I'd say it would actually be White/Blue overall, with some Red and Green mixed in due to the respective influence of the two species that founded it. The Federation's entire culture is basically defined by a complete lack of selfishness, so having it be Non-Black makes sense. Plus the Prime Directive is a very White/Green rule!)
Spirits
On a semi-related note, I originally thought about listing the Borg Collective as an example of a Bant-colored organization, but I wasn't sure whether it should be considered White/Blue/Green (because it seeks to incorporate everyone into its 'perfect' society) or Blue/Black/Green (because it seeks to consume and absorb everyone else that exists, making everything into a part of itself). Mark Rosewater originally listed them as typical Blue/Black expansionist conquerors, but later considered them an example of the Green/Black plague-bearer archetype, and admitted that they could be seen as White/Green collectivists if you assumed their motives were benevolent (i.e. if they genuinely believed that the people and species they assimilated were better off as part of the Collective). Ultimately I'd say that, like the New Phyrexians, they're White/Blue/Black/Green. Given that the Borg's defining trait is that they completely lack individuality, I'd say that having them be Non-Red fits perfectly.
I don't think the Borg understand themselves as benevolent bringers of perfection as evidenced by the idea that they see some species as unfit to "enhance the collective". They are, even to themselves, just an organism that grows by incorporating other things into itself in order to grow and survive, not to grant those beings a better life.
It has been some time since I saw Star Treks Borg episodes, but if I remember correctly, they are definitely seeing themselves as "bringer of perfection", they are usually just not very preachy about it (and why should they?). At least the Borg Queen made several statements in this direction. They assimilate others without making moral arguments for it because in their mind they just know that they are right, and everyone else will just see it as they see it once they are part of the collective. I think arguments can be made about the Borg being any color other than red, but I would actually say that black is also a weaker influence since they reject individualism so utterly.
IIRC, the comment in question (From Seven of Nine, in reference to the Kazon) was that assimilation of the Kazon would have "Detracted from perfection." (It was also a silly throw-away line that never really made sense or served a purpose other than some stupid in-joke with the audience.) So I think that it could still fit into a "bringers of perfection to all beings" and the collective simply saw that the damage done to all other "perfected" beings by assimilating the Kazon would be greater than the benefit of perfecting them. In essence, it would have been a greater benefit to all life to eradicate the Kazon than to assimilate them.
WRG combines White's demand for unity and Green's respect for tradition with Red's emotional nature and desire to be free, emphasizing strong but voluntary associations based upon personal trust and shared values. It also combines the raw authenticity of Red/Green and the zealous devotion of White/Red with White/Green's focus on maintaining a sustainable community. The end result is a color triad that lives up to its own innermost nature through its connections to other people, and through its ties to the traditions and ideals of its culture – traditions and ideals which serve to further bind it to its loved ones and neighbors. It's a color triad that never feels more like itself than when it's around others of its kind, engaging in the kinds of activities that bring them all together.
Its primary tools are earnestness, honesty, empathy, close-knit community, and natural growth. It's the most compassionate and empathic color combination, as it combines White's general altruism and Green's sense of community with Red's deep-rooted emotional concern for the people it cares about. It's also the most genuine and honest color triad, as it shares Green's belief that people have an “inner self” or a “true nature” that they should strive to follow, Red's belief that people should express their feelings and act on their emotions, and a White code of honor that demands straightforwardness and forbids deception.
White/Red/Green also manages to allow for a great deal of individuality and freedom within the confines of a strongly unified community: Its ideal community is a small and voluntary one, where people are neither forced together by some external authority nor united under the banner of some abstract ideal, but rather bound together by their personal connections to one another. In such a community, there would be no need for a top-down system of control to keep everyone in line through authoritarian means; people would simply help each other out because they actually cared about each other. Likewise, White/Red/Green doesn't believe that growth needs to be guided by some detached central planner, or that it needs to follow some carefully laid plan; it believes that growth will happen naturally over the course of time, in whatever ways suit it best.
It's opposed to Blue/Black, the color pairing most associated with cold pragmatism, phoniness and insincerity, secrecy and subterfuge and manipulation, ambition and material gain, self-improvement and social mobility.
Blue/Black constantly seeks to better its own life, to improve itself and its material circumstances – primarily through the pursuit of wealth and resources and power and influence. It seeks to gain control over physical, economic, social, and political assets that it can use to put itself in a better situation, to rise to a higher status, and to increase the number of options available to it, and it sees other people as tools to be used to further its own ends. In contrast, someone who's White/Red/Green is wholly accepting of her lot in life. She knows who she truly is, deep down, and she knows how to be content with herself rather than constantly seeking to become something better. She's learned to be content with her situation and her circumstances, to find happiness and fulfilment and even some degree of freedom in the life she was born into. She has the wisdom to be content with what she has, rather than endlessly yearning for more. She sees other people as valuable beings in their own right, rather than as means to an end, and she knows that her relationships with her loved ones and her ties to her community will last longer and bring her more satisfaction than any fleeting and shallow material gains.
Blue/Black is dedicated to carefully controlling the image that other people have of it, wanting to be seen – or remain unseen – in whatever ways will best help it to achieve its goals. It's a creature of pretense and artiface, with no real identity beyond whatever facade it puts on for the sake of its agenda. It's cold and calculating in its thoughts and actions: uninhibited by sentimentality and ethical constraints, free from the pulls of instinct and impulse, and fully in control of its own emotions. On the other hand, someone who's White/Red/Green isn't concerned with her image at all, except to the extent that she wouldn't want anyone spreading falsehoods about her. She doesn't care what strangers think about her; she only cares about the opinions of her relatives, her friends, and her neighbors, and she feels no need to lie to them, because she knows that they all like her for who she really is. From the White/Red/Green perspective, it's immoral and unethical and dishonorable to pretend to be someone or something you're not, and besides which, it's a betrayal of one's true self – and beyond all that, it's unhealthy and self-destructive and just plain exhausting for someone to repress their emotions and hide their true feelings that much.
Blue/Black is obsessed with gaining knowledge, particularly knowledge of other people, and keeping it closely guarded. It seeks to learn people's secrets so it can better understand them and predict them and exploit their weaknesses, and it's careful to hold its own secrets close to its chest in order to prevent anyone from finding out too much about it. Conversely, White/Red/Green has no desire to figure out anyone else's secrets or weaknesses; it prefers to have open and earnest relationships with its friends and to engage in fair fights against its enemies. It also hates keeping secrets, since doing so feels too much like lying through omission – not to mention it's hard for someone so open and honest to keep anything hidden for long.
White/Red/Green is similar to White/Black/Green and White/Blue/Green, as they all prefer to live in harmonious traditional communities where people are bound together by a shared cultural history and a shared set of customs and beliefs. However, it's not as strictly bound by rules or traditions: White/Red/Green opposes White/Black/Green's belief that people should bury their emotions, repress their desires, and suppress their creativity in order to adhere to tradition. On the contrary, it believes that traditions should be used to encourage people to show their emotions, fulfill their desires, and express their creativity. It also opposes White/Blue/Green's view that the concerns of individuals and small groups need to be put aside for the sake of some greater collective good; White/Red/Green believes that every person and every community has the right to stand up for their own interests, and it aims for compromise between the needs of the individual, the needs of the few, and the needs of the many. In short, it seeks a balance between harmony and freedom.
White/Red/Green also differs from White/Black/Green and White/Blue/Green when it comes to social change: White/Black/Green views society as a stone fortress, unyielding and unmoving, unchanging and immutable, static and stagnant. White/Blue/Green views society as a walled garden to be carefully tended, with growth and expansion serving mainly to preserve the existing structure of things against the forces of decay and entropy, with actual change only rarely and cautiously attempted – and only when it's absolutely certain to result in a strict improvement over the status quo. In contrast, White/Red/Green views society as a forest, living and breathing, wild and untamed – subject to grow and change over time, and not always in controllable or predictable ways. It knows that even if the customs and rituals are different, the culture itself fundamentally remains the same, retaining a sense of continuity that keeps it connected to its past.
White/Red/Green also doesn't share White/Black's tribalism or Green/Black's cynicism, making it far less insular and far less hostile to outsiders. It rejects the isolationism and xenophobia of White/Black/Green: It wants to be around others of its kind, but it wants to explore the world together with them, rather than hide behind fortified walls. It prefers the company of its own people, but it still enjoys getting to know people from other cultures, and it's capable of having friendly (or at least not-overtly-hostile) relationships with them. It's even welcoming enough to let others join its society, if they're willing to abide by its norms, follow its customs, and respect its beliefs. However, it doesn't share White/Blue/Green's universalist outlook either. It doesn't seek to spread its beliefs to the world or to force its culture on others, since it doesn't see its way of life as the only way – just as the way that happens to be right for it.
White/Red/Green can also be compared to White/Blue/Red: They're both optimistic idealists, yet they reject the conformist utopianism of White/Blue/Green, in favor of a system that allows for individual freedom. They both oppose the idea that there's any one “best” way for a society to be run, instead preferring a diverse and pluralistic world where many different cultures can peacefully coexist, despite holding a multitude of different beliefs and values. However, White/Blue/Red is always seeking to improve society and bring about a better world, while White/Red/Green is generally content with things as they are. When it does change something, it's usually for intuitive reasons; as such, its changes don't always correspond to Blue's idea of “progress.” Similarly, White/Blue/Red is strongly opposed to traditionalism, believing that traditions stifle progress and freedom and self-expression, while White/Red/Green finds traditions liberating. It would feel less capable of expressing itself without them, to the point where not following its traditions would feel stifling to it.
It's the color triad of family, of marriage, of love for one's kith and kin. It's the color triad of holidays and festivals, of celebrations that bring people together while also allowing them to express themselves, indulge their desires, and enjoy the natural pleasures that life has to offer. It's the color triad of ethical hedonism and communal revelry, of simple joys and vibrant enthusiasm for the world. Fundamentally, it's the color triad of naturalism and small-scale communalism.
Another White/Red/Green hero would be Ahsoka Tano from the Star Wars expanded universe: Like Qui-Gon, she's an unorthodox Jedi who takes a much more spontaneous approach than the Jedi Code allows (Red). However, Qui-Gon maintains the detached serenity of the Jedi even while simultaneously living in the moment, but rejects the Order's strict moral code in favor of a more flexible approach (keeping Blue and Green but rejecting White), whereas Ahsoka retains the Order's sense of moral universalism but rejects their passivity and calculated utilitarianism in favor of direct action (keeping White and Green but rejecting Blue). Other examples of White/Red/Green heroes include Tarzan, the Disney version of Pocahontos, and Simba from The Lion King.
Unsurprisingly for the color triad of empathy, it's hard to think of many overtly villainous White/Red/Green characters. One possible archetype would be a Red/Green barbarian chieftain who uses White methods to keep his forces united; Mance Rayder from Game of Thrones is a great example. The Wildlings as a whole are firmly Red/Green, but Mance's White side is evident from his ability to unify hundreds of different tribes under his banner against a common enemy (the Night's Watch), in order to ensure their survival in the face of a common threat (the White Walkers). Another archetype would be a White/Green monster hunter who's driven to fanaticism by Red zealotry and vengefulness; Alexander Anderson, the relentless and near-unkillable vampire hunter who serves as the primary antagonist of Hellsing, exemplifies this archetype to a tee. Scar from Fullmetal Alchemist is an even better example, as he's driven to purge the world of “unholy” magic and to get revenge on the government that committed genocide against his people, but also seeks to preserve the traditions of his culture and protect the few remaining members of his race.
Yet another villainous archetype would be a White/Red vigilante with a deep streak of Green savagery. The more anti-heroic portrayals of Venom fit into this category: The Venom symbiote is Green to the core, as it's a primordial lifeform that only cares about its own survival – and it survives by feeding off the adrenaline of its host, encouraging them to engage in risky and impulsive behavior and to give in to their instincts. Its host, Eddie Brock, is a delusionally self-righteous vigilante who's determined to enforce his own twisted brand of justice on the world. Despite being a murderous psychopath, I would still consider him White/Red due to his absolute and unwavering conviction that he's doing the right thing and serving the greater good (although in his original, purely villanous portrayal he was more of a Black narcissist who only cared about getting revenge on the people who personally wronged him). Together, they form a composite entity that fights against real and perceived evils with the most brutal methods possible, and hypocritically claims that it's only reluctantly doing “what needs to be done” while clearly relishing every moment of the violence and destruction it causes with gleeful abandon.
White/Red/Green societies often reflect the ideal of the Noble Savage; less primitive versions tend to be Arcadia-style small town rural communities. The Ewoks from Star Wars and the Na'vi from Avatar are both examples of the former, while the Shire from Lord of the Rings is an example of the latter. They're not always necessarily opposed to technology; the Minutemen from Fallout 4 would be a rare example of a high-tech White/Red/Green faction (although they're still fairly low-tech by the standards of the setting). Zion, the underground city of the human resistance in the Matrix films, is about as large and technologically-advanced as White/Red/Green societies get; the humans living there are devout freedom fighters (White/Red), they maintain a thriving community based around personal loyalties and family ties (White/Green), and they celebrate their independence with massive debaucherous revels (Red/Green).
One thing I noticed when you were describing Blue/black/red is the description seems to fit Niv Mizzit and Ral Zarek very well. We might see a Grixis card in the future from one of them.
JundBGR
RW Blood MoonRW
Pauper
Delver U
Elves G
Control B
Commander
Edgar Markov BRW
Captain Sisay GW
Niv-Mizzet, Parun UR
Tymna and Ravos WB
And yes, I meant Simba from The Lion King, I think I got mixed up because I was using Scar from Fullmetal Alchemist as another example of a White/Red/Green character.
I haven't watched Legend of Korra, I've only seen the original show.