Top: theoretical RC isochrones from L. Girardi & M. Salaris (2001) for four metallicities, with each curve labeled by its corresponding [Fe/H] value. Isochrones are color coded by age (in gigayears). At fixed age, more metal-poor RC stars are bluer and intrinsically brighter (i.e., have smaller absolute magnitudes M_G). At fixed metallicity, RC color remains nearly constant with age, except at the youngest (≲2 Gyr) and oldest (≳9–10 Gyr) extremes, where age becomes the dominant driver of color rather than metallicity. Middle: observed RC locus in the western main disk of the LMC (﹩R\approx 4\mathop{.}\limits^{^\circ }8﹩). Bottom: observed RC locus in the western diffuse, low-surface-brightness periphery of the LMC (﹩R\approx 7\mathop{.}\limits^{^\circ }4﹩). In both the middle and bottom panels, the [Fe/H] = −0.69 dex theoretical RC curve is overplotted and color coded by age.