What the title says. What is the difference between those two? How are they defined?

As I understand it, most people use it as an 'and', not an 'or'.
Meaning: "Black Trenchcoat and Mirrorshades" (as in Matrix, think Neo for the imagery) standing for professional operators, planning in a very detailed way and covering all bases, VS "Pink Mohawk" for weird, funny, punk playstyle with little to no regard to cause and effect, or consequences.

Suffice it to say, most playing styles fall somewhere in between.

Some excellent movie examples of the Mirrorshades (even though actual covert operators by and large wouldn't be caught dead in actual mirrorshades) style of game are John Frankenheimer's film "Ronin" (1998) and Michael Mann's films Heat (1995), Collateral (2004), and Miami Vice (2006). I especially like using Heat as an example because it shows very well how much carnage can be done by trained people with nothing heavier than an assault rifle towards the end of the movie.

The Matrix, while being full of people wearing both Black Trenchcoats and Mirrorshades, is very much Pink Mohawk.
Which is a good thing. If you're black trechcoat, and you're sword fighting on top of a truck while involved in 50 cars being wrecked on the freeway in the middle of the day on a tuesday with 500 people watching, you failed. If you're pink mohawk, that is exactly how you describe a victory

Michael Westen and friends are Black Trenchcoat; The Sons of Anarchy are Pink Mohawks.

Michael Westin yes. Fiona, not so much =)

SoA is the diet cola of Pink Mohawk. Only one calorie, but not quite Pink Mohawk enough! Sam Cro sweats the cops waaay too much for it to be a true blue Pink Mohawk setting.

I was tempted to say that Fiona was "Pink Mohawk", but she's a little too professional, and towards the later seasons the writers decided that she suddenly wanted to settle down and raise kids instead of blowing stuff up.


Re: SOA...their cop concerns are well-founded, and the fact that they busted into a crowded church with AK-47s and were a) able to easily make bail and b) only did like two years seems to suggest we're in a pretty Pink Mohawk setting to me.

Then again, I think the show has been going downhill since Season 3.

Fixed that for you.

Precisely when I stopped watching it.

Naaaa... It is still a pretty awesome show. It has a few ups and downs, of course, but it is pretty good nonetheless.

The way I understand it, Black Trenchcoat is more along the lines of the professionals and serious tone, whereas Mirrored Shades is much the same but with an emphasis on planning and contingencies - the shades hide your eyes so your enemy doesn't know what you're focusing on kind of thing going on.

Think of it as a triangle, with the three points being Black Trenchcoat, Cloak and Dagger, and Pink Mohawk, with Mirrored Shades being somewhere between Cloak and Dagger and Black Trenchcoat.

EDIT: Black Trenchcoat is House Stark, Mirror Shades is House Baratheon, Cloak and Dagger is House Lannister, and Pink Mohawk is the Vale.