The Red Death has some similarities to some elements in Edgar Allen Poe's "The Masque of the Red Death." (I will not give a summary of the story, but just some elements) First, the name. Pretty obvious that one there. Next, the coloring. The gun is kind of black and red. In the Prince's party, there were seven rooms (Bungie's favorite number). The last of which nobody entered. While all of the rooms had matching colors to stained-glass windows, the last room was black with blood-red stained glass windows. The Prince chases a mysterious figure (The red death) with a dagger. Notice, there is a dagger on the end of the Red Death. Finally, the red on the gun comes from what looks like blood. In the story, it says that the red death disease causes people to bleed from their pores.