Start with what blood does in a body: it is warm, it is red, and it is the sign that something is alive. Now take it away and keep everything else. The shape is still there, but the colour is gone and the heat is gone. That one picture opens all three uses. Take the blood out of skin and you get lips and faces that have turned white. Take it out of an event and you get a change of power where nobody was hurt. Take it out of a piece of writing or a performance and you get something that is correct in every part and has no life in it.
From the word’s history
From Middle English blodles, from Old English blodleas; by surface analysis blood plus -less, the ending English uses for 'without' (hopeless, useless). The word has meant 'without blood' from the start, and all three modern uses are that literal build applied to a body, an event, and a piece of work.
從古英文 blōdlēas 來，中古英文寫成 blodles；拆開看就是 blood（血）加上 -less（沒有…的），跟 hopeless、useless 是同一個字尾。也就是說，這個字從一開始就是「沒有血」，字面沒有變過。今天的三個意思，都是把這個字面分別放到身體上、事件上、作品上而已。荷蘭語 bloedeloos、德語 blutlos、瑞典語 blodlös 的組成方式也一樣。
Wiktionary via local kaikki extract, source_ref kaikki:3f6f69a190036ae4:1248935635 — "From Middle English blodles, from Old English blōdlēas… By surface analysis, blood + -less."
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