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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.
Examples:
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Anime & Manga
- Gendo Ikari from Neon Genesis Evangelion has a beard in pretty much the same configuration as Xanatos and The Master. That particular style seems to be a favorite of Magnificent Bastards.
- That Guy from Excel Saga.
- Episode 12 of Dennou Coil offers an example worthy of "I Am Not Making This Up" when beards start appearing on the (pre-adolescent) main characters. These beards are actually Illegals, virus programs that occasionally cross over into reality and are generally antagonistic. These particular Illegals are sentient, forming their own mini-civilizations on each person's face and revere the person they exist on as gods. They then go on to launch missiles and wage civil war on each other and, once that's stopped, "interplanetary" war. After realizing the futility of war, the Illegal beards leave their hosts to find their Promised Land.
- General Regius of Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS. Fat frame, beady little eyes, nasty demeanor, and neatly maintained beard give him all the markings of an obvious villain. So naturally, he turns out to be a Well Intentioned Extremist who just found himself too entangled in the TSAB's darker secrets, with his final scenes showing him filled with guilt when he realized how far he had fallen.
Comic Books
- Averted in both the comic book and movie versions of Iron Man, in which Tony Stark wears a neatly trimmed signature Van Dyke. Although depending on your opinions of Tony Stark, this may or may not be a aversion.
- The movie also plays it straight with Stane, who has a full beard and a bald head.
- Serial killer/rapist Mr. Gone from The Maxx combines Bald Of Evil with a wild Beard Of Evil. After a Time Skip during which he does a Heel Face Turn, he no longer has any facial hair.
- Rasputin in Hellboy has a Beard Of Evil and Bald Of Evil.
- As contrasted with Hellboy himself, who combines Topknot-but-Bald Of Awesome with a Soul-Patch-and-Muttonchops Combination of Moral Ambiguity.
- Although Aquaman has never been truly evil, he was at his most unsavory throughout the 1990s, where he, with his ZZ Top style beard, was exemplary of the Nineties Anti Hero craze and bordered on a Darker And Edgier parody of himself at times.
- Seven Soldiers features the nefarious Subway Pirates, rival factions of which are led by the barbaric Allbeard (whose incredibly thick, long beard covers up pretty much his entire face) and the slick Nobeard (who has a Bald Of Evil and is incapable of growing hair anywhere on his body). Mentions of other pirates from bygone eras of subway privateering are also made, including luminaries like Falsebeard and the like.
- Marvel's Avengers old time villains Count Nefaria and Graviton.
Film
- Fu Manchu's evil beard was so famous that the mustache style is named after him.
- Although in the original novels, he is clean shaven.
- In Batman Begins, Ra's al Ghul's and Henri Ducard's fu manchus are our first clue that the League of Shadows is evil. (Well, the first clue for those who hadn't read the comicbooks.) Bruce Wayne also sports a rather scraggly beard at the beginning of the film, but it's gone by the time he disavows killing and severs ties with the League.
- Doctor Smith in the film of Lost In Space gave away his role in what plot there was.
- Zod did much to increase the fame of this style in the second Superman film.
- Though a lion and therefore ineligible for a beard, Scar in The Lion King has an appropriately shaped mane.
- Tut-tut. Perhaps you haven't noticed the beard-like tuff on Scar's chin, a tuff missing from every other (good) lion in the movie. Considering how longer chin fur is how most artists depict "beards" on Funny Animals, it's appropriate that the villain should have one.
- While we're talking about Disney villains, Jafar in Aladdin deserves a mention. Not-evil men like the sultan and captain of the guard also have beards in the movie, but Jafar's is not only a goatee, but twisted.
- Hugo Drax of Moonraker plans to remake the world to make it a better place to have an evil beard in.
- Pirates Of The Caribbean, naturally. Jack Sparrow, Hector Barbossa, and Davy Jones (who has a beard made of tentacles) are all rather shifty, but the real Big Bad is clean-shaven, as is his second-in-command.
- Of course, Will Turner also has a goatee. He's considered one of the "good guys".
- Captain Corso of Titan A.E. had a goatee, and true to form turned out to be The Mole. Subverted partially in that he ends up doing a Heel Face Turn and then, of course, suffering Redemption Equals Death.
- In nearly 80% of all kung fu movies made in China in the 60's and 70's from Run Run Shaw or Golden Harvest, the villain was always the old guy with a white beard.
- Parodied in Kill Bill Vol 2., with Pai Mei.
- In Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian the Telmarin aristocrats are bearded and bad, except for the eponymous Caspian, who is clean-shaven and a good guy.
Literature
- The Inheritance Cycle: Galbatorix has a beard in the film adaption. During Brisingr, Eragon seems to assume that Galbatorix has a beard when he mentions him.
- Semi-averted in the Discworld universe, wherein Lord Vetinari is commonly depicted with a tidy goatee. At worst, he is Lawful Neutral rather than evil.
- Parodied in Making Money, where the Head of
Necromancery Post-Mortem Communications is described as having tried to grow a beard like this, but not being evil, ended up just looking sheepish.
- From the same book, we have the delusional Cosmo Lavish. He tried to copy the Vetinari beard of evil, but on him, it just ended up looking like a pubic chin.
- In the Corellian Trilogy, the chief feature distinguishing Han Solo from his evil cousin Thrackan Sal-Solo is the latter's beard.
- Alatriste: While beards and moustaches were fashionable for 17th-century Spaniards, badass good guys (like Alatriste) tended to choose the BadassMustache differentiating themselves from mere sidekicks (Squire Íñigo or Alatriste's shaved friend Copóns) while more evil characters (Count-Duke of Olivares; conspirator Alquézar; professional assassin Malatesta; corrupt cop Saldaña; and goatéed-but-unmustachioed Inquisitor Bocanegra) hid their chins. Certain friendly characters (Quevedo, Guadalmedina) used mustache plus goatée but not beard.
Live Action TV
New Media
- Gaia Online has both mocked this and played this straight. (But mostly mocks it)
- On the serious side: Vladmir Von Helson, the arguably most evil character in the story line, had a particularly sinister goatee before he was ashed.
- On the other hand, recent micro updates starring Mr Wizard parodies Dr. Singh and Timmy have featured several characters with beards of evil (which is either The Virus, or a case of Body Snatchers). However, one of them is a 10 year old boy, the other is a Labtech who grew his beard on the outside of his face mask. And they both seem to be more concerned with getting into Singh's pants than actually doing anything evil. Hilarity Ensues.
- The tabletop game Warhammer 40k has a homebrew version called "Brighthammer 40k", where the endless GRIMDARK of the Warhammer universe is flipped on its head into NOBLEBRIGHT, and everyone is a generally pleasant, good group of people to be around. The Emperor of this NOBLEBRIGHT (yes, spelled like that 'every single time') universe, hilariously, subverts the very idea of a Beard of Evil- he wears a Goatee of Good, and is something like a million times more upstanding and noble than his Warhammer counterpart. He's also not dead and stuck in a chair, which counts for something, certainly.
Newspaper Comics
- Ming The Merciless in Flash Gordon, perhaps unsurprisingly, sports what is known as a Fu Manchu.
- In the comic strip Mark Trail, Beard Of Evil is played straight but Bald Of Evil is subverted: Story-arc-specific male characters have a full-on inverse relationship between levels of evil, and levels of hair on head and face. One arc featured an immoral bearded man (and another, with mutton chops), a very moral completely bald man (so moral, he was keeping his construction company from leveling a field because of ONE FAMILY OF DUCKS he found), and a morally conflicted balding man.
Theater
Video Games
- Amusingly subverted in the Warcraft universe; it seems almost as if the opposite is true and male facial hair is directly proportional to goodness.
- Kane in Command And Conquer complements his evil beard with his complete lack of other hair on his head.
- This seems to be a defining character trait in the God of War series, with all of the main villains (ie. Ares, Zeus, etc.) having massive scruffy beards. Kratos also has a Beard Of Evil, which is pretty damn appropriate.
- Lampshaded in Tales Of The Abyss, where a skit involves Anise spinning a tale to Natalia how the Big Bad's beard is a source of his evil powers. Just one source, mind you: You don't want to know what his ponytail does.
- The Evil Zombie Pirate LeChuck from the Monkey Island series has a rather impressive beard for being, well, dead, and therefore technically not having hair growth. And this one is actually a source of his evil powers, as Guybrush discovers in the second game.
- Bitores Mendez, one of the villains of Resident Evil 4, was both bearded and bald. In fact, he looked a lot like Rasputin.
- Played straight and inverted in Half Life. Dr. Breen, when you finally see him, has a full beard and is allied with the Combine. Gordon Freeman, the hero, has what is best described as a Goatee of Asskicking.
- The Older And Wiser Wind Waker version of Ganondorf sported an orange beard on charcoal-colored skin, and made it work. He retains the beard in his Twilight Princess incarnation.
- Averted in most games that allow the player to create their own character—unless said games have a Karma Meter and the player decides to play The Dark Side.
Web Original
Webcomics
- In Order Of The Stick, Elan's Evil Twin brother Nale has a blond beard to serve as his distinguishing villainous mark.
- As Vaarsuvius pointed out after dealing with Kubota
 , "that mustache did not do him any favors" when trying to determine wheter Kubota was to be considered an enemy of the Order.
- In Darths And Droids, Qui Gon suspects Sio Bibble (or "Bubble", as he calls him) of being evil due to his beard and position as Amidala's trusted advisor. He is, as usual, 100% wrong.
- Having established his firm belief in the Beard Of Evil as a guaranteed indicator of a character's untrustworthiness, Qui Gon's player refuses to let anyone see his character sheet, claiming the Jedi knight is clean-shaven.
- This is also mentioned in a later comic with Bail Organa.
- In Questionable Content, the characters are joking about a series of events leading to the creation of Martin's "EvilTwin". He mentioned the frustration said twin would encounter, given that he's "incapable of growing a decent goatee."
- Invoked by Van Von Hunter when Van drew a goatee on his evil twin so that they could be told apart.
- In Mac Hall this was inverted here and then played straight here
- In Dinosaur Comics, everyone has a beard in the mirror universe. And the strip is backwards.
- In Irregular Webcomic!, strip #2470 is a repeat of #2461 in the Mirror Universe, complete with backwards layout and goatees. Unfortunately, the Nazis are the same. (Maybe not.)
- And of course the comic links here. Yet for some reason, although it has been up for more than 50 hours now, nobody has reported it here. Come on, people, let's get it together now!
- In The Adventures Of Doctor Mc Ninja, Victor the obvious spy has one.
Western Animation
- Pastiched on South Park: in their mirror universe, everyone has a goatee.
- Including the Alternate Cartman, who, as the opposite of the "real world" Cartman, is polite, helpful and a genuinely good person.
- And yet, they refer to the bearded Cartman as "evil Cartman", despite him being good. The unbearded Cartman rips of his beard (as a unit...) after he finds out that Stan and Kyle want to send him to the alternative universe and keep the "evil Cartman".
- David Xanatos, of Gargoyles fame and well known for his convoluted plans sported such a beard. He bore more than a passing resemblance to his actor, who played Commander Will Riker and whose beard was notable for another reason.
- Though it should be pointed out that Xanatos was not "evil" per se. He was fairly self-serving, and manipulative, but he never held a grudge, was Affably Evil even when he was the bad guy, and did a Heel Face Turn later in the series.
- In one dream episode set 40 years in the future, Xanatos has gone all Big Brother on Manhattan. He's still using his Steel Clan robot minions, but they now inexplicably have Riker beards.
- In Transformers, Unicron the giant planet-eating robot chaos god had a mustache and goatee. He also gave one to his minion Scourge, along with a lovely set of pink fingernails.
- In the Futurama episode "Lesser of Two Evils", Fry assumes that Flexo, a bending unit who looks identical to Bender except for a pointed beard, must be Bender's Evil Twin. He isn't of course, Bender is his evil twin.
- Vlad Masters from Danny Phantom. Also Skulker and even Danny's Evil Counterpart Dark Danny sports one.
- Averted also by many, many, many real-life, movie, and comic book stage magicians, only some of whom are evil.
- This is played with in The Venture Brothers, with the character of Dr. Orpheus, a good guy who looks evil (the eponymous brothers describe him as looking like "a Dracula.") The Monarch and Dr. Venture, on the other hand, are both rather unsavory characters with beards.
- Several Birdman villains have this kind of beard, most notably Number One, the leader of F.E.A.R.. This is useful, since apart from this and a small skull insignia, he looks exactly like all of his henchmen.
- In an episode of The Tick involves the mystery of a mobile moustache super-weapon. When asked by Arthur why the government brought such a horror into the world, the only response he got was:
- The beard turns out to be the moustache's Capulet Counterpart, and they fall in love and settle down together on one man's face.
- The Tick notes that the look works quite well for the man.
- Chad Ghostal in Space Ghost Coast To Coast. He's actually a parody of this trope; as Space Ghost's Evil Twin, his facial hair is different every time he's on screen.
- An episode of Kids Next Door featured this trope with Mirror Universe; the kids are sent into an Alternate Universe via a neighborhood swimming pool, where the KND is feared and evil and who's leader is an evil version of Number 4, who wears a goatee. The original Number 4 calls him out on this, claiming that since he—the original—is brave, then the evil one must be a coward.
- Fire Lord Ozai in Avatar The Last Airbender.
Real Life
- Anton LaVey, the founder of the Church of Satan grew a diabolical goatee to go along with his Bald Of Evil and to fit in the part. He was seriously lacking in the actual evil-department, though.
- Depends on who you ask (though he was probably just a major douchebag at his worst).
- Attila the Hun, the notoriously cruel barbarian warrior known (in Western history) as the "Scourge of God," reportedly wore a beard.
- ...As did the Mongolian ruler Genghis Khan, who is remembered throughout Eastern Europe and the Middle East as a brutal, genocidal warlord (but considered a hero by his own people).
- The Romans had a fear of uncivilized peoples (for good reason, as it turns out). They marked civilized men as shaved, and unshaved ones as barbarians, making this Older Than Dirt.
- The Emperor Hadrian grew a beard. During his reign he was often considered to be something of a tyrant. (His modern image as a placid old queen with a passion for architecture and pretty boys wouldn't be shared by the Jews he persecuted and drove out of Jerusalem, or the senators he executed without a trial...)
- Lenin had a very sinister-looking goatee as well as being bald. Trotsky had a matching goatee, but he had hair and Nerd Glasses (and thus looked a little less evil).
- Gaal of the black metal band Gorgoroth is infamously known as the most evil man in norway. That he has a very impressive beard of evil◊ certainly helps.
- Blackbeard. How could you make your beard any more evil than stuffing it with burning firecrackers?
- Italo Balbo, a Fascist militant and an Italian air marshal in the Mussolini era, sported a well-groomed goatee.
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