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Lois: Call me crazy, but I've always been a firm believer that beauty... it's on the inside. (gets knocked out)
Dr. Elain Fine: The people that say that are the ones who already have it on the outside.
Blossom: This is bad. He's clearly an evil monster. A monkey that talks, plus he has a dark aura! And he stinks. So since I'm wearing pink, I'm a righteous transforming heroine that defeats villains! This is Japanese common sense.
Every hero worth his salt must be physically attractive, or at the very least, better-looking than half of other people his or her age.
Let's face it: despite that ongoing Aesop of not judging a book by its cover, readers and watchers relate better to good-looking heroes than ugly or even only plain-looking ones. Even so-called geeks and undesirable people will be far more attractive than the norm or undergo a makeover to reveal that — ta-dah! — they were Beautiful All Along, so that's okay.
This practice goes as far back as the ancient Greek expression "Kalos Kagathos", abbreviation of "Kalos kai Agathos", which means "Beautiful and Good." In several other languages (including most of the appropriately-named Romance languages), the word for "good" actually also means "good looks."
This standard is more relaxed for side characters who can be truly ordinary-looking or even literal aliens, but expect the lead character to be pleasing to look at, even if he is the alien.
The heroes who are truly unattractive do not fare as well as their prettier counterparts. Often, they're saddled with emotional and psychological problems that would make the most embittered Anti Hero blanch. If they're lucky, they become The Grotesque and die with dignity. Even if they survive, they often do not get all they want or must sacrifice something: the prime example would be Disney's version of The Hunchback Of Notre Dame where the deformed hero gives up his love interest to a better-looking man (the book had an even crueler ending). It seems that to have a truly happy ending, his appearance must be converted to a more attractive one, a la Beauty and the Beast.
A biological "justification" for this shallow standard is that humans are naturally drawn to the most physically fit of their kind, whose indicated health and vigor would make them ideal mates. Or the readers and viewers unconsciously put themselves in the shoes of the hero and would like to fancy for a while that they're a badass, devilishly handsome man who gets all the beautiful girls. Of course, Fan Service might have something to do with it too.
Sometimes, presumably to disguise this standard, the villain will be made attractive too. But even if he's given all the Kick The Dog moments, his pretty face will always make him beloved in the fandom, who will inevitably rationalize or downgrade his evilness, and there's no guarantee that the producers themselves won't cave in and make him Pet The Dog. They also tend to be more prone to anti-heroism than unattractive villains who are just bad, because surely a beautiful person can't be all bad! While it could be considered an effect of Evil Is Cool, it's much easier to imagine a villain do a Heel Face Turn if he's got the kind of face associated with a hero, just like he becomes okay to kill off in a more monstrous form. Of course, unrepentantly evil and attractive villains will benefit from this trope making others horrible judges of character.
This standard is even more mandatory for heroines, especially those starring in male-oriented series.
What constitutes as "attractive" for the lead varies with society: while American guys drool over impossibly skinny cheerleaders or curvy sexpots, the Japanese prefer their cute schoolgirls and Troubled But Cute bishonen. The message is pretty much the same all around, though: you can't be truly happy or heroic unless you look the part.
Such is life.
It almost goes without saying that this is very old; an attempt was even made in the 19th Century to quantify this attitude into the "science" of physiognomy, which posited a direct correlation between appearance and moral character.
Literature has more success averting this trope than visual media, for obvious reasons. It's easier to read about a guy who is allegedly unattractive, than it is to actually watch somebody and be constantly looking at said unattractiveness. A vast majority of "ugly" book characters end up surprisingly attractive in movies. Just wait for the Fail Polish.
For the Inverted Trope, see Evil Is Sexy, although the two aren't mutually exclusive. For animals and more nonhuman characters, see What Measure Is A Non Cute.
Examples:
- In Jaqueline Carey's Kushiel's Legacy, we are sympathetic (politically) towards the D'Angeline people, who are all beautiful. That is not to say that there aren't D'Angeline villains, and non-D'Angeline heroes, but for the most part, this fits into the trope.
- More often than not, Non-D'Angeline characters of importance are either attractive or 'skilled' enough for their heritage to not matter.
- In Atlas Shrugged, all the protagonists are strikingly beautiful, while the villains' ugliness is often mentioned in connection with their ridiculous beliefs.
- In the Earth's Children series by Jean Auel, Ayla is considered hideous by her Neanderthal foster family, though she is described as being tall, muscular, blond, and blue-eyed - stereotypically lovely - though she suffers from her adoptive Neanderthal family treating her as ugly throughout Clan of the Cave Bear. It isn't until the second book, after she is exiled from her clan, that she runs into someone who looks like her and treats her as if she's beautiful. Strangely, though she is raised by the Neanderthals and considers herself ugly, she has no problem adjusting to other tall, light-haired people and never considers them unattractive.
- Perhaps surprisingly, given its self-awareness, Buffy The Vampire Slayer often falls victim to this trope. Apart from the Slayers themselves (who are all stunning), all the other major good guy characters are attractive, even Hollywood Homely Willow, while the demons are usually hideous. True, there are some good looking villains, (Spike, Angelus, Faith, etc.), but most of these characters were either very minor or ended up performing a Heel Face Turn, or ended up really, really monstrous. Really, Glory is the only good-looking seasonal Big Bad who was presented entirely without sympathy. (Although The First, able to look like anyone it wants as long as it's dead and given to appearing like Buffy, might count.)
- On Justice League (and Justice League Unlimited), only two of the big seven are even remotely not conventionally attractive. J'onn, while green, is a shapeshifter who can look however he wants, and Hawkgirl's "weird" look is angelic wings. Now, let's take a look at the villains: Gorilla Grodd, Ultra-Humanite, Parasite, Shade, the White Martians...
- Played straight in Drakengard. Another layer is added on with the impossibly beautiful and pacifistic elves and the Nightmare Fuel-inspired design for the monsters, who are bloodthirsty and primitive. These other creatures are rarely seen however. And really, what's more beautiful than a baby?
- In The Wizard of Oz, the Good Witch is pretty, and the Wicked Witches are ugly. Glinda says straight up that "Only bad witches are ugly".
- While pretty much everyone on Supernatural is ridiculously pretty, this trope was referred to in the episode Folsom Prison Blues where Dean and Sam are thrown in jail. While their female lawyer keeps hearing that Dean's a monster, she changes her mind completely and even helps them out when he uses his looks to convince her he's innocent.
- Jack Kirby's Eternals are physical specimens of literally godlike perfection, while the Deviants are hideously mutated.
- Real life example: in Spanish, "to be" can be translated as two different verbs (ser and estar) "ser buena" (to be good) means to be a good/nice person, and "estar buena" (litteraly translated also: "to be good") means being physically attractive (although usually "hot" more than "beautyful")
- This troper is predicting that Vaarsuvius will have a Face Heel Turn soon based mostly on his appearance in the latest comic. She's looking more and more like Darth Maul as more time passes and V misses more "trances".
- Heroes is a pretty big offender. You can always tell the new character is a good guy if they look like a model.
- Heavily subverted with the introduction of Sylar, however.
- As of the most recent episode, that subversion's looking awefully dead.
- Played uncomfortably straight with the Cylons on the reimagined Battlestar Galactica - the good (or at least sympathetic) Cylons are played by attractive young actors and actress (Six, Boomer/Athena, D'Anna, Anders, Chief Tyrol) while the more morally doubtful (Leoben, Tigh) are older and less conventionally attractive and the outright evil (Cavil) is the ugliest and oldest of the lot.
- Played almost laughably straight with Hester Pryne of The Scarlet Letter, who's beauty the narrator goes into ridiculous amounts of detail describing. On the opposite side, her neglectful and vengeful husband has mildly deformed shoulders and becomes more malevolent looking as the book goes on.
- The goddess Sune of the Forgotten Realms seems to wholeheartedly buy into this trope. Supposedly the goddess of love, she's also the goddess of beauty and earlier editions had game mechanic rules stating that her clergy had to satisfy a minimum level of physical attractiveness (as measured by the charisma stat) in order to serve. Apparently Sune thinks that only beautiful people deserve love, even though Word Of God is that she's Chaotic Good.
There are aversions (and even some subversions), however note that virtually none of these come from live-action sources:
- The Shrek series has an ogre as the hero, and the love of his life becomes an ogress herself at the end of the film. By contrast, the handsome Prince Charming (from the second and third films) is a bratty, immature, villainous twit. Of course, Fiona is stunningly beautiful for an ogress(though she is a fairly chubby), and Prince Charming's features are exaggerated to the point of caricature, so it's hard to say which one is supposed to be "attractive" and "ugly." Hey, they tried.
- Ben "The Thing" Grimm is one of the most popular characters in the Marvel Universe, despite, or perhaps because, he's a massive rock creature.
- Same thing goes for the Anti Hero mutant Wolverine—longstanding, undisputed favorite of the X-Men franchise. Five-foot-nothing, slightly hunched, enough hair on his body to wonder why he didn't wind up with the "Beast" codename, and reportedly, poor personal hygiene (even though you know was well as I do he couldn't maintain hair like that without being half-metrosexual).
- The titular heroes of Gargoyles are superficially ugly monsters (especially Brooklyn) which barely hides their heroic natures. Some fans of the show find them rather cute.
- Goliath - if you can get past the wings, fangs, and talons - could meanwhile be seen as downright handsome. And let's face it, any man with Keith David's voice is going to have less trouble with the ladies than he might otherwise.
- Brooklyn - if drawn in the right way and angle - gets points for his exotic nature as a Furry.
- Furthermore, the gargoyles of the London Clan are obviously furry themselves and sometimes stunningly good looking, such as Staghart.
- In The Fellowship of The Ring — the book, mind — Aragorn/Strider is described as looking rather weatherbeaten and intimidating, with Frodo's famous line about how an actually evil person would "look fair, but feel foul". That didn't stop the movie-version from putting the handsome-in-a-weatherbeaten way Viggo Mortensen in the role; however. Frodo's line still works in a way (as he is implying that looks should not be used as a judge of character) but something is lost in the adaptation.
- Of course, because Strider's knocked-about appearance is mostly a result of his hard life up to this point, with every step he takes towards claiming his kingship he seems to become more physically handsome. This could be because he's decided to bathe and wash his hair, though.
- The series provides many examples of this trope, with virtually all bad guys appearing deformed and ugly. Beautiful good guys that turn bad often lose lose their beauty
 , like Morgoth and Sauron.
- On the other hand, the Orcs and Trolls are all hideous and Always Chaotic Evil. Though the Ents are pretty ugly yet still good guys, so go figure.
- A milder subversion occurs in Jane Eyre; the author stated that she deliberately created the heroine to be "as poor and plain as myself" in contrast to the beautiful and elegant romance heroines of her time. Consequently, the titular character Jane is never mistaken as anything else but plain and unassuming, except in the eyes of her beloved - who in turn is not particularly handsome, but is loved by Jane for his sharp-pricked devotion to her.
- In Elf Quest, the distinction between in-group (elves) and out-group (humans and trolls) has been striking from the get-go. Elves are the embodiment of otherworldly beauty, while humans are ugly and idiosyncratic and trolls are bulbous and warty. While a few humans and the occasional troll are easy on the eyes, they are nothing compared to the elves — even evil elves, even genocidal elves, they're never ugly. See, humans are The Enemy and trolls are untrustworthy, but "All elves are one." You can kill humans and trolls in self-defense, but Elves Don't Kill Elves no matter the provocation.
- Still, recent years have seen these principles change. More and more humans have been joining the list of allies, so the in-group/out-group distinction is weakening significantly. The "Elves Don't Kill Elves" prohibition has been broken on a few occasions and no longer elicits the agonizing guilt that Strongbow felt over Kureel (the first such killing).
- Now that Wendy Pini isn't [always] doing the art herself, certain artists draw humans all but indistinguishable from elves. To the point where a human wearing ceremonial elf ears leaves you wondering, not about the ears, but if his thumb and four fingers are a mistake — a confusion that would never have been possible in the early books.
- 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 has come to be portrayed as in modern media, but a stocky, barrel-chested walking meat wall who is notably plain in appearance. (He's also a mentally-unstable berserker given to complete psychotic breakdowns at the drop of a hat. Naturally, since John Cleese is an Arthurian scholar, Monty Python got him completely right.)
- Well, almost completely right - John Cleese may not be Viggo Mortensen, but he's a pretty good-looking guy. They pegged the personality, though.
- T.H. White takes this even further in The Ill-Made Knight, the third volume of The Once And Future King, and makes his version of Lancelot extraordinarily ugly, so much so that he is said to resemble an ape.
- Bernard Cornwell's Warlord Trilogy retained the good-looking "Prince Charming" Lancelot and then thoroughly subverted it, turning him into a cowardly, snivelling, petulant bastard with no redeeming features whatsoever. He didn't even have the good grace to be magnificent about it. One could argue in fact that Lancelot is the major villain of the series- he's certainly one of the least likeable.
- The Discworld books take this entire concept, set it in the street, and kick it until it runs squealing. Consider how three of its major characters are usually drawn: Rincewind looks like an older Shaggy from the Scooby Doo franchise; Sam Vimes resembles a cross between a craggier, unshaven Clint Eastwood and Pete Postlethwaite; and Granny Weatherwax, while blessed with excellent bone structure, is (in the words of Terry Pratchett himself) a crabby old woman. Regardless of personal tastes, they're not exactly what you would call "universally attractive"... and they're also three of the main heroes of the Discworld (although Rincewind is not one by choice).
- Compare to how elves are portrayed: beautiful and otherworldly... but here, "otherworldly" is used in the sense of "not from this world", i.e. disturbing and wrong. Elves in the Discworld universe are vicious dimensional parasites. Of course, they don't actually look like that; it's also part of the Psychic Powers.
- In Witches Abroad, the evil Lady Lilith (Granny Weatherwax's elder sister) is described as, essentially, looking like Granny would if she was a few years younger. This is partially an extension of Granny's subversion of the trope, and partly a straight-up Vain Sorceress.
- On the other hand, a lot of younger female heroes are portrayed as quite attractive, especially love interests; look at Angua, Sacharissa, Susan (who basically has the classic Mary Sue setup of 'attractive with a tiny flaw that doesn't detract from her appearance' in the form of her black and white hair), Adora Belle Dearheart, and Cohen the Barbarian's daughter Conina.
- Yet apart from Angua, their looks are never given considerable attention—and Angua is a police officer, one of the few professions where being an attractive woman probably doesn't help as often as it hinders. And it's a bit hard to imagine Adora Belle fitting in the image of conventional beauty, either; this troper initially mistook her picture on the cover of Going Postal for a man.
- In the manner of middle ground, Moist von Lipwig, one of the more recent protagonists, is described as being utterly unmemorable, a trait he used to his advantage in his previous job...as a con man.
- Unmemorable to the extent that his own mother previously took the wrong child home from kindergarten, and he has to attract attention to himself while shaving.
- Not that there aren't any good-looking heroes or unattractive villains on the Disc; for instance, Captain Carrot, The Cape, is as handsome as fits the character type (described by a female vampire as having godlike proportions—the better class of god, even), and Mr. Teatime, from Hogfather, is boyishly handsome but has one glass eye, and one "normal" eye that's even more disturbing. Sensibly, there's no easy way to tell alignment from appearance on the Disc.
- A Song Of Ice And Fire subverts this trope with Sansa Stark's expectation of Prince Joffrey and Queen Cersei Lannister to be noble and kind characters because of how beautiful and magnificent they are, to be cruelly disappointed when they turn against her. Even her bastard brother, Jon Snow, is taken in and, comparing King Robert to Jaime Lannister, thinks Lannister looks more the king (though he is, in fact, a Kingslayer, an oathbreaker, and commits incest regularly; which is not to say Robert is a good king by any means). On the other hand, she finds some measure of kindness at the hands the ugly dwarf Tyrion Lannister, the drunken homely knight Ser Dontos (although he was paid to do so by Littlefinger), and the horribly disfigured Sandor Clegane (not a nice person, but kinder to her than most). Other subversions occur with characters like Brienne of Tarth and Samwell Tarly, who are heroic and definitely not handsome. There are also attractive people who are heroic: Daenarys has the exotic-looking Mary Sue part down; Catelyn, while not beloved by fans, is at least well-meaning at first and described as quite lovely; Jon Snow is pretty good-looking; and eventually, Jaime Lannister does a Heel Face Turn. In short, Martin says "f*ck cliches".
- Sherlock Holmes was not described as terribly good-looking — and in fact his creator Conan Doyle criticized the stories' illustrators for their portrayals of the character, saying that he had always imagined Holmes as "uglier" than they had depicted him in their drawings (though he added that "perhaps from the point of view of my lady readers, it was as well.") Watson was supposed to be the attractive one (and quite a ladies' man to boot). Unsurprisingly, this is generally ignored in screen adaptations.
- Despite Fan Girl squeeing over Hugh Laurie's eyes, House got this bit quite right: House is far less conventionally attractive than his sidekick Wilson.
- Apart from the Granada adaptation (then again, this troper has had a rabid crush on Edward Hardwicke for years, go figure). Also, I doubt anyone, however devoted a fan of Jeremy Brett, could have called him handsome.
- This was subverted in Byzantine Christian art, where most Saints are drawn somewhat ugly to accentuate their Inner Beauty, represented by their halo.
- Played straight in the original series of Star Trek with captain Kirk, but Roddenberry attempted to avert it in The Next Generation with the elderly captain Jean Luc Picard. Gene Roddenberry was originally opposed to casting a bald lead due to this trope, but changed his mind after seeing Patrick Stewart's audition. The fact that Stewart was later called the "The Sexiest Man on TV" by TV Guide with his bald head and all is very telling itself.
- To be perfectly blunt, Krillin from Dragon Ball Z is a midget with no nose. He has died more times then anyone else in the entire series and went from being a main character and Goku's best friend to the Butt Monkey. If it's any consolation, he was acknowledged as the series' strongest human and married the hottest woman on the show.
- Seemingly subverted in Star Craft. One of the few attractive characters (most of them being alien or plain) does a Face Heel Turn, and probably the closest thing to good guys in the game are aliens who are somewhat humanoid...except for Jim Raynor, a classic rough-hewn hero and with one exception easily the most moral person in the entire series thus far.
- Spider-Girl, in her identity as May Parker, started out as a star basketball player with short hair, a major subversion from just about all the mainstream superheroines who've ever gotten their own series. Since that time, while May has grown her hair a little longer, what little Fan Service exists is rather mild, if not non-existent compared to what many readers have come to expect.
- Played straight and inverted in Lady Lovely Locks, the hero, ''Lady Lovely Lock" is good, while her enemy is Duchess Raven Waves, a beautiful princess but a troublemaker. Well, this series was made to appeal to young girls.
- Played around with quite a bit in Death Note, in just about every permutation:
- Villain Protagonist Light Yagami is popular, impeccably groomed and dressed, has girls fawning over him everywhere. He turns into perhaps the worst serial killer in history, and a Magnificent Bastard who manipulates everyone around him with no consideration for their feelings.
- Perhaps? By the time it all ends, his body count has got to be at least two orders of magnitude greater than his closest competitor. And that's without including everyone killed by people being manipulated by him or people working on his behalf.
- In contrast, L, the detective chasing Kira, is gangly, funny-looking, has permanent bags under his eyes, most girls won't even look at him twice, he has no friends, but he's the world's greatest detective, with a strong determination to take down the murderer, albeit using somewhat questionable methods.
- Misa Amane is a supermodel, who turns into a serial killer, though she thinks she's doing it for a good reason, and she's genuinely kind and friendly aside from her actions as the second Kira.
- Ryuk, the Shinigami, plays this trope relatively straight, he looks like a monster, and he's a Chaotic Neutral nut who doesn't care who lives or dies as long as he's entertained and uses humans as playthings. He'd be a Magnificent Bastard if he weren't so lazy.
- Shinigami Rem still looks somewhat scary, but softer and more feminine than Ryuk, and she does what she does out of a sense of duty to a fallen friend, along with genuine compassion for Misa leading to a Heroic Sacrifice.
- Then there's Sidoh, who's ugly as normal for a Shinigami, but isn't so much evil as pathetic and pitifully stupid.
- And Light's father Soichiro is handsome enough, and described by the creators as the only good character.
- Both played straight and averted in Wild Cards, where most of the characters have hideous mutations. Most of the humans are not spectacular, either; the Turtle is a plain, chubby nerd, Fatman is, well, fat, and private detective Jay Ackroyd is so good at blending in because he looks entirely average and nondescript. Golden Boy is handsome and has eternal youth to boot, but he's almost universally despised as a traitor. Doctor Tachyon, of course, is handsome, as are his (mostly backstabbing) relatives, as Takisians are bred for beauty, and thus he often has trouble dealing with the less attractive Jokers since he was raised to believe that this trope was gospel truth. His psychotic grandson Blaise is described as the most attractive and evil character in the series.
- Played straight, averted, and seriously subverted in the Whateley Universe webfiction. At the Super Hero School Whateley Academy, the six original protagonists are all between 'really cute' and (in one case) 'planetary-level gorgeous'. But they see themselves as freakish because they know they're the only kids in their grade who were transgendered by their mutation. Similarly, the 'pretties' may be superheroes (like Thunderbird and Stormwolf) or downright diabolical (Solange, Don Sebastiano, Hekate, ...), and the hideously ugly may turn out to be heroic or at least good guys. One of the later protagonists in the series is a chubby, blind, black kid whose eyes are solid white, while his fellow goodguy (and roommate) looks like a really disturbing cross between a human and a velociraptor.
- Hellboy was started out when the creator, Mike Mignola, wanted a hero that looked like a villain. Hence, Hellboy looking like an demon.
- Averted for the most part by Warhammer 40000. While descriptions of most Space Marines fit the "ruggedly handsome" image, there's the slight fact that they're the result of massive genetic engineering, and are described by most normal humans as strikingly inhuman. Sisters of Battle and Eldar are often portrayed in artwork as beautiful, but books, official content, and Word of God all agree that they're anything but. On the other hand, physical beauty is one of the most common gifts for Chaos God Slaanesh, Prince of Excess and Debauchery, to bestow...
- If I remember right, the reason for the SOB being not up to their model appearance is scarring, tattoos, weight and missing body parts. And the fact they don't give a damn about personal appearance.
- X5s in Dark Angel tend to be attractive, but that's down to genetic engineering (as well as being played by Jessica Alba or [[Jensen Ackles]]), much like the Space Marine example above. Although most are protagonists, the only one with significant screentime that's not given any bad traits is Tinga. Other Manticore transgenics with far more bizzare appearances are also generally good guys.
- In the game Raze's Hell, the cute and cuddly Kewletts are an Evil Army on a genocidal campaign to destroy those not cute enough by their standards.
- Although none of them were exactly victims of a savage beating with the ugly stick, most of the actors who have played Doctor Who are or were at least unconventionally handsome. Especially of note is Tom Baker, who was not exactly what you'd call the most traditionally handsome of men, yet was easily the most popular and well-recognised of the Doctors (or at least the classic series ones, at any rate). The current Doctor, David Tennant, receives a fair bit of female attention, but this seems to be largely because Nerds Are Sexy. It's notable, though, that the younger, more classically handsome Doctors - Peter Davison, Paul McGann, Tennant - tend to be the ones who get more attention from the Shippers.
- Discussed in Gundam Wing: When OZ goes to apprehend Duo's space shuttle, Lady Une muses that they should kill the pilot if he's attractive but let him live if he's ugly. Her reason is that they can use an ugly pilot as a scapegoat when they do bad stuff, but if the pilot is handsome, the people would be more likely to sympathise and follow him. Her orders, however, are just to kill him. In the actual series, pretty much everyone is attractive.
- The major subplot of the American Gothic episode "Eye of the Beholder" is all about playing with and then toeing the line of this trope, from the heroic perspective of a minor character. In order to obtain custody of his 'son' Caleb, Sheriff Buck tries to discredit Dr. Crower as a potential legal guardian by revealing his past difficulties with alcohol. To attest to this, he needs the aid of an orderly at the hospital who worked with Matt before he came to Trinity. When the orderly refuses, Buck sends his wife a magic mirror which swiftly turns her into a tempting seductress. The orderly breaks the mirror...which also horribly disfigures his wife. Freed from the spell, she urges him to refuse Buck's deal and stand by his friend Matt instead, and he professes to love her no matter what she looks like. But despite this, and the name of the episode in question, the orderly inexplicably does Buck's bidding—and even though his testimony is as unbiased as possible, and Buck doesn't get his hands on Caleb due to a delicious Bait And Switch Chekovs Gun from earlier in the episode, the sheriff still keeps his end of the deal by rewarding the orderly, restoring his wife's beauty so they can leave town in peace and good conscience. Sigh.
- The Japanese-developed Ace Combat 5: The Unsung War subverts this. The player-character with his god-like flying abilities is never seen. The attractive female lead is a pacifist and will tell you, at great length, that she hates being at war even if it's necessary. Chopper is the exact opposite of a bishonen right down to his age. The actual bishie, Grimm, starts off as largely ineffective and has no emotional baggage beyond the same battle fatigue as the others, to the point where he scoffs at the idea of favoring his ground-pounding brother with unneeded air-support that would save soldiers elsewhere.
- Subverted very cruelly in Audition, when the lonely, widowed male lead discovers that his beautiful, demure bride-to-be is Axe Crazy.
- See the above quote from Demashita Powerpuff Girls Z. When they first encounter each other, Blossom and Mojo Jojo get along just fine, and Blossom instructs Mojo on a good way to eat a sandwich cookie. However, when they both realize that one of them is beautiful and the other is ugly, they realize that they must be enemies in the story, and they start fighting.
- "Pirate Empress" Boa Hancock of the Shichibukai from One Piece is shown to be an utterly repulsive excuse for a human being with everything she does. She kicks kittens, destroys childrens' gifts because they're "ugly", and disrespects the elderly. She crosses the Moral Event Horizon when she turns an entire crew of Navy Marines into stone to avoid her responsibilities as a Shichibukai member, and just gets worse when she turns several of her own soldiers into stone just because they unwittingly brought Luffy onto the island. Yet she gets away with most of this crap because of this very trope; other people find her so beautiful that they forgive her for anything. Of course, Luffy isn't the least bit impressed.
- Then subverted when she becomes a Defrosting Ice Queen. Still, it looks like she's still a bitch to people who aren't her sisters of Luffy.
- The Ace Attorney series has twice used a Sibling Yin Yang to play this straight while also subverting it. Dahlia and Iris in the third game and Klavier and Kristoph in the fourth.
- The psychopathic Complete Monster Johan is easily Monster's best-looking character.
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