Beauty Equals Goodness Discussion - Television Tropes & Idioms

"* "Partially averted in One Piece in that most of the Straw hat pirates aren't Bishonen and infact many are [[Gonk rather ugly]. Played straight in the fandom however where only the [[Bishonen attractive]] characters receive attention."

Bones: Deleted. This doesn't really belong in the 'played straight' section because this trope is mostly averted in One Piece. Disproportionate fandom attention towards attractive characters is universal, and doesn't make it qualify for this trope.

Roland: Correct me if I'm wrong, but Strider isn't described as -ugly- so much as looking roguish and scary, isn't he?

Kilyle: I don't think he's described as ugly exactly, but the combination of factors that add up to his appearance (physical looks, posture, clothes, etc.) don't add up to flashy, appealing, or charismatic. Or that's the impression I got from the whole fair/foul commentary.

I was more wondering about the application to the races. Am I recalling wrong, or did they have a fairly strict appearance/character connection in Lord of the Rings? I mean, aside from the humans and hobbits, the other races are either Good or Evil (not much variation), and the Evil ones are ugly, and the Good ones are beautiful (or at least not ugly). I'm far more certain of the Evil/ugly bit than of the Good/good-looking bit, but it's one of the ways I define Tolkien's work as being more symbolic than realistic: If you're a goblin, you're automatically ugly and Always Chaotic Evil. My personal work with valiant Hobgoblins would never fly in the setting of Lord of the Rings.

It's a stretch. Aside form the elves feeling dumb about being fooled by Sauron and even Melkor who originally appeared in beautiful form, hobbits are never described as beautiful. Tolkein seems to use the metaphor that evil things look ugly because they're corrupt versions of 'normal' things which are lovely.

Mark Z: Thrall from Warcraft is a simple aversion, not a subversion. If there's no objection I'm going to remove that example.

Concerning LOTR... the Elves are not always good. The ones we meet in LOTR generally are, because they're the survivors of thousands of years of Elves doing stupid stuff and getting wiped out. Notice that Galadriel, who's probably the most beautiful of them, is right on the edge of declaring herself Evil Overlady of Everything. I'd say the rule with Tolkien is not "beauty equals goodness", but "beauty equals power". Consider Galadriel (and possibly the Ring) in LOTR, Sauron before that (he was stronger before he got all blowed up), Luthien and Feanor in ancient times.

Yavieriel: Aragorn's appearance as a ranger seems to be a disguise rather than his true appearance; in the Tale of Aragorn and Arwen, when the two meet in Lothlorien, he is described as appearing like an elf-lord (presumably really attractive). I would say that beauty equals goodness as a general rule of thumb in Arda; exceptions to the rule are rare and generally used to make a point. Sauron/Gorthaur in his form as Annatar is one of these, his angelic appearance hiding his evil intentions. Hobbits are something of a subversion, being good but plain and homely folk; even then Frodo is described as being a particularly elvish-looking (beautiful) hobbit.

Specific elves also break the rule, but as a whole they are a race which is 'unfallen' in the Christian sense of not having fallen from grace, and thus are good and therefore beautiful. Galadriel's reaction is more an example of the power of the Ring than a tendency to do evil, and as a whole the elves are a very idealized society (at least from a Christian like Tolkien's point of view). The clearest example of a race breaking the rule is the Druedain, who are ugly but good and allies of the elves and good humans. The Black Numenoreans are the best example of beautiful people who are evil, but even then they are the descendants of heroic men - the original Numenoreans, who aided the elves.

As for beauty equaling power, the Nazgul are hideous and terrifying, but very powerful, and Morgoth loses his beauty long before he loses his power; similarly the Mayar who follow him become locked in the hideous forms they took, but do not have any corresponding loss of power. Height equals power is a much more accurate rule of thumb when it comes to Tolkien's works.

I've rambled on a good bit here; the examples for Tolkien on the page were confusing enough without me adding to it. Perhaps someone can come up with a more concise way to put it all? Feel free to move any of this text to the main page if you think it's helpful/concise enough.

—-

The entry about Harry Potter is vague. Agreed that "there are certainly ugly or plain people among both the heroes and villains" but disagree or at least request clarification that "nearly anyone described as good-looking is bound to be a villain, or at the very least the cause of a lot of trouble." There are multiple "good" attractive characters, such as the love interests - Cho, Ginny, Fleur. The biggest offender among attractive characters might be Gilderoy Lockhart, but many of the antagonists are ugly or unkempt - Snape, Voldemort, Umbridge.

Lady from Devil may cry plain looking. Sorry she looks like a typical anime girl. Balrog

I think Shrek could be considered a failed subversion, since he's not so much ugly-ugly as just large and green. —Document N

Would Trinty Blood count as a subversion on the grounds that pretty much everyone is attractive, regardless of which side they're on?

Prfnoff: Removed this pointless-looking Conversation In The Main Page:

This trope is probably one of the major causes of the overly idealized Big Badass Wolf. Wolves are not any more inherently noble than hyenas, but they sure look better on posters and t-shirts.
- This is to say nothing of popular opinions regarding lions vs. hyenas. The Lion King anyone?
  - There is some Truth In Television to this. Hyenas after all are not only ugly, but carrion eaters, and among the more vicious and aggressive pack animals as well.
  - What's wrong with being a carrion eater? If, for a moment, we go along with the fallacy of applying human morals to nature, then the scavenger is morally better than the hunter, since the latter kills its prey and the former doesn't.

Alan: If you ask me, Harry Potter isn't a subversion at all. Considering that Draco and Lucius are only ever described as handsome outside of official media, Harry and Hermione both are described as attractive later on, Bellatrix and Voldemort may have been beautiful in the past but not any more and ever other Death Eater is twisted or very flawed in some way or other the only really pretty people are Ginny and Fluer.

Same thing goes for Avatar The Last Airbender, as the most alluring characters belong on the primary antagonist side of the plate. Most notable is the long-awaited revealing of Fire Lord Ozai, the Evil Over Lord whose face had been shadowed for the past forty episodes. As it turns out, despite his menacing persona, he's actually pretty... normal-looking. If anything, he resembles an older, scar-less, Bishonen version of Zuko. However, it's often seen as a victim of this trope as most of the main protagonists also happen to be pretty attractive.
- Many think that Aang is a subversion. Even setting aside the apparently obligatory-for-airbenders shaven head he is still a scrawny kid with oversized ears.
  - You take that back!
  - As a scrawny, big-eared fellow, allow me merely to posit that these features can actually be outrageously attractive.

Lale: The first half is Evil Is Sexy. The second half is Fan Cruft Conversation In The Main Page.

Roland: I'm not sure that Thrall can be considered an aversion. While an orc and clearly nonhuman, he's not exactly ugly; as far as orcs go he's probably the closest a reasonable portrayal of a male orc can be to conventionally attractive.

Monsund:I'd Say making Draenei pretty and adding the Blood elves to the Horde for fanservice counts as this trope.

Farseer Lolotea: This:

"An example who was once a subversion: To the vast surprise of most people, Lancelot in La Morte d'Arthur and other early Arthurian works is not the handsome "Prince Charming" figure he tends to be portrayed as in modern media, but a stocky, barrel-chested walking meat wall who is notably plain in appearance."

Really? Now, it's been a while since I read "La Morte d'Arthur," and the copy that I had may have been incomplete...but I don't remember any references to Sir Lancelot's appearance at all. (I do, however, remember something in Simon Hawke's Wizard series where he was described as "rather homely and built like a fireplug," and I believe he was described as downright ugly in The Once And Future King. Does someone have these works confused, or was my copy of La Morte incomplete?)

Morgan Wick: Removed examples of Beautiful All Along that don't really explain what makes them exemplary examples of this trope (especially the "subversion"):

In Rocky, Adrian goes from a Plane-Jane to a beautiful woman simply by removing her granny-glasses and hat.
Subverted in Loaded Weapon, where a very plain-looking woman removes her glasses and unties her hair— instantly transforming her into Kathy Ireland.
- Also in Not Another Teen Movie, where a supposedly-plain loser-girl is "transformed" by simply by removing her glasses and hair-bun.

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