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Boldly going where no beard has gone before.
Dave: How can you have a goatee without shaving? Does it just materialize?
Male Helen: Well, yes. I'm evil.
Lenin had a beard. Gabby Hayes had whiskers.
George Carlin

What is it about bad guys and facial hair? For some reason, we often take being clean-shaven as an indicator of being strait-laced and, under more traditional morality, a good person, pure of spirit. In older, simpler days, a traditional hero would not even have five o'clock shadow, even if he's been on the run and well away from his shaving mirror for a week.

Conversely, a man with facial hair is less pure, at the very least a Darker And Edgier Anti Hero — more often, he's an outright villain, and his chin is deliberately contrasted with the depilated chin of the hero.

Note that this generally applies to small, well-groomed beards, especially goatees. Having a huge bushy beard turns one into a Nature Hero, sailor, grizzled old prospector or Large Ham. Except, of course, for the beards recommended by certain religions that are in the public focus at the moment.

The characters who sport a Beard of Evil are usually either the Big Bad or a second-in-command. This may play into the fact that in both western and eastern culture, goatees are traditionally worn by members of the aristocracy, and authority is evil.

The Beard of Evil has a long history of being associated most closely with the Evil Twin or Evil Counterpart, and you probably already know why. It also scores extra evil points if combined with a shaven head.

Satan is also frequently depicted with a goatee (which probably came from depictions of Goethe’s Mephistopheles as a 16th-century gallant).

A subset of Good Hair Evil Hair. Not to be confused with Growing The Beard or the Badass Mustache. No real reason why a beard can't be evil and bad ass.


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