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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.
If a character is beautiful, then that character is a good person, either publicly or secretly. If a character is good, then that character will either be beautiful or be treated as beautiful.
Or to put it another way, 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. 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.
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. That, and lead actors break the curve, Hollywood Homely tends to cover the real-life range from pleasant-looking to chiseled marble Apollo. A vast majority of "ugly" book characters end up surprisingly attractive in movies. Just wait for the Fail Polish.
Ugly Hero Good Looking Villain is a specific subversion of this. The failed subversion of Suetiful All Along is common. 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. The trope Ugly Guy Hot Wife both subverts this and plays it painfully straight- unattractive men are shown to be good husband material, yet it still works on the assumption that because the wife is hot, that he was lucky in love even if nothing else is known about her. Gorgeous Gorgon may play this trope straight or just plain play with it depending on the gorgon.
May not apply in the case of The Beautiful People if they are so beautiful that they don't seem human.
See also Expecting Someone Taller.
As this trope is ubiquitous, please only add egregious cases. Invoked and defied examples are the best ones. Historical Hero Upgrade often leads to Historical Beauty Update because of this trope.
(Mostly) Straight examples:
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Anime and Manga
- 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: 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 sympathize and follow him. Her orders, however, are just to kill him. In the actual series, pretty much everyone is attractive, so it's the same difference.
- In Naruto almost any ninja whose special abilities involve some sort of physical abnormality is a bad guy. The average member of the Sound village is likely to have some sort of implant that they use as a weapon, and a large number also have cursed seals who's second stage gives them monstrous forms. Villains with sympathetic origins who turned evil were originally normal looking, but have grown deformed (Sasori, Pain). Villains with no sympathetic angle include a shark-man, a guy covered in mouths, and a guy with a patchwork body that's filled with ropes.
- While their bodies are quite deformed, both Sasori and Deidara's (the aforementioned "guy covered in mouth") faces are quite Bishonen. As a side note, the members of Akatsuki weren't even originally planned to be human, which has a noticeable impact on the average member.
- Jugo is a great demonstrator of this as he is monstrous look only when he's evil.
- There are only two ninja clans in Konoha whose abilities involve any form of physical abnormality; the Akimichi clan and the Aburame clan. Choji Akimichi is constantly derided because of his weight, even though his powers require him to be heavy. Shino Aburame's body is filled with bugs, and he uses them to great effect. He is among the least commonly shown of the Rookie 9, and his most notable trait is that everybody seems to think he's creepy.
- This actually exacerbates the trope, since Aburame wear sunglasses and trench coats to obscure the openings for their insects and the Akimichi just look fat. there's also the Hyuuga, with their blank white eyes that have bulging veins when activated, which have a house system that screws you over if you're a second-born or the descendant of one. not actually EVIL, but once again, this is the token "good guy" village.
- Bishonen Rokudo Mukuro from Katekyo Hitman Reborn, shown before to be a horrible, Manipulative Bastard with no regard for human life, is later given a few humanizing traits and is depicted as not being completely evil, with hints that he's just being stubborn with hiding that he doesn't really hate Tsuna anymore (most notably stated by Tsuna, who is convinced that he is, deep down, not such a bad person). He's still pretty darn evil, though.
- In the manga Bio Meat, the older and uglier you are, the more likely you will be a completely nasty person who gets eaten alive.
- 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, and they start fighting.
Comic Books
- Jack Kirby's Eternals are physical specimens of literally godlike perfection, while the Deviants are hideously mutated.
- Subverted, as about half of the Eternals are jerks, or Complete Monsters, while the Deviants aren't that evil.
- In an Early arc of X Men Spinoff The New Mutants, one of the characters, Karma was possessed by the evil Shadow King, who caused her to become morbidly obese from overeating. In the following arc (after Karma rejoins the team), Karma is promptly (and conveniently) dropped into a desert where she sheds her fat in record time and become a total babe.
- X-Men is often pretty good about averting this by having heroes like the Beast who have really freakish mutations, or Wolverine (arguably the most famous of the X-Men) being depicted, both in the art and by the other characters, as a "short, square-built, hairy and smelly man".
- However, note that almost all of the "grotesque but benevolent" mutants in the X-canon are male. There's a definite double standard there.
- 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.
- 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 (which means as beautiful as elves). They look so similar that 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.
- A lot of Batman villains are deformed in some way - the Joker's skin is bleached white and he has a permanent smile, Two-Face is scarred down half of his body, Mr Freeze's skin is an unearthly white, Clayface is a giant goop monster, Killer Croc is reptilian in appearance and the Penguin resembles his namesake animal. In fairness, though, most of the time these deformities are part of what caused them to become villainous in the first place, and there are a few better looking villains like Poison Ivy.
- Tintin ("The Calculus Affair"). Tintin and Captain Haddock witness their friend Professor Calculus being carried off by mysterious figures, when another group ambushes them. When Haddock asks which side they should help, Tintin evokes this trope by telling him to hit the ugliest ones. Haddock is then confronted by two brawling mooks, each as ugly as the other. So he bangs their heads together. (As it turns out, the "rescuers" are trying to kidnap Calculus as well).
- Played laughably straight in almost anything by Jack Chick. In fact, people go ugly as soon as we find out they disagree with Jack. The only subversion This Troper can think of is that strange tract about homosexuality, where Satan is constantly shirtless and has obviously been working out. Is there something you want to tell us, Jack?
Film
- This trope is sadly borne out by (as opposed to in) the Sergio Leone film Once Upon a Time in the West, in which the villian, "Frank," is a ruthless, cold-blooded murderer played by Henry Fonda; however the film was not well-received, because the audience did not believe that anyone as handsome or kindly-looking as Fonda, could be truly evil— despite that his actions prove him to be, without a doubt, the most evil man in any Western: in the film's opening scene alone, he ruthlessly wipes out an entire family, including a young child, for hire; and throughout the film he likewise murders and tortures men, women and children in dispicable ways, including the film's leading man Charles Bronson. But still, audiences did not care, because he looked like Henry Fonda, and Beauty Equals Goodness.
- In The Wizard of Oz, the Good Witches are pretty, and the Wicked Witches are ugly. Glinda says straight up that "Only bad witches are ugly". (This sentiment is deconstructed and subverted hard by Wicked.)
- Played painfully straight in The Sequel to Zenon. When the aliens finally show up at the end, they are Energy Beings who travel in a butterfly/manta ray style space ship that shifts between pastel, easter egg colors of pink, blue, yellow, etc. When a characters asks if these aliens might be hostile, Zenon replies, with no irony and a completely straight face, "Nobody could have a ship that beautiful and be evil."
- At the start of Unbreakable, Samuel L Jackson describes a comic cover in art-critic detail, commenting on the villain's inhumanely big head. At the end of the movie, Mr. Glass realizes he was always meant to be the villain because of his brittle bones.
- This trope is always so much fun to observe whenever Elizabeth and Mary, Queen of Scots pop up. If the story is focusing on Mary, she will be rather pretty, whilst Elizabeth will look like an ugly old hag. But if it's Elizabeth in the spotlight, she's always portrayed as having far more grace and beauty, whilst Mary is transformed into a woman whose bitterness is shown quite clearly on her plain (if she's lucky) face. Expect the ugly one to have crows' feet, and any ugly Elizabeth will have hair exactly the wrong shade of red and far too much white makeup on.
- The irony of this is that both Elizabeth and Mary would have been seen as absolutely freaking gorgeous in our time at age twenty-five - they both resembled Nicole Kidman in face and in body. Neither of them aged as well, but what can you expect in the 16th century?
- This comes in three layers in The Tale Of Despereaux. The cute mouse and porcelain-skinned princess are good, the plain but not hideous Mig and Rascuro are susceptible to evil urges, and the ugly other rats are Always Chaotic Evil.
- Star Wars, obviously. At the end of Revenge of the Sith, Sidious is left looking like a wrinkled old man while Vader suffers third-degree burns that never heal properly. This is further lampshaded in the Expanded Universe, where Luke's an old man using lightning on the cover of The Swarm War but, back in the light, he's only slightly older than Ben in Outcast.
- In Fantastic Four, Victor Von Doom becomes ugly, with his powers turning his face and body to scarred metal. Meanwhile Ben Grimm is likewise turned ugly, and so becomes the group's comic relief. Meanwhile the other characters are very good-looking, and so are the "real" heroes.
Literature
- In English literature, the most common Older Than Radio example of this trope is The Picture of Dorian Gray, even though it is a deconstruction. Wilde was critiquing the commonly held belief during the 19th Century that physical appearance both reflected and was influenced by morality, piety, and social status.
- 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.
- Naturally, played for laughs in The Hitch Hikers Guide To The Galaxy:
In all this ancient and mysterious history, the most mysterious figures of all were without a doubt the Great Circling poets of Arium. These Circling Poets used to live in remote mountain passes where they would lie in wait for small bands of unwary travelers, circle around them, and throw rocks at them.
And when the travelers cried out, saying why didn't they go away and get on with writing some poems instead of pestering people with all this rock-throwing business, they would suddenly stop, and then break into one of the seven hundred and ninety-four great Song Cycles of Vassillian. These songs were all of extraordinary beauty, and even more extraordinary length, and all fell into exactly the same pattern.
The first part of each song would tell how there once went forth from the City of Vassillian a party of five sage princes with four horses. The princes, who are of course brave, noble and wise, travel widely in distant lands, fight giant ogres, pursue exotic philosophies, take tea with weird gods and rescue beautiful monsters from ravening princesses before finally announcing that they have achieved enlightenment and that their wanderings are therefore accomplished.
The second, and much longer, part of each song would then tell of all their bickerings about which one of them is going to have to walk back.
- In Atlas Shrugged, all the protagonists are strikingly beautiful, while the villains' ugliness is often mentioned in connection with their ridiculous beliefs.
- For those who doubt Ayn Rand's belief in this trope, consider what she wrote in defense of William Edward Hickman
 , a man who kidnapped a 12-year-old girl and, when her parents paid the ransom, returned her minus her internal organs. She derisively described the jury in his murder trial as: "Average, everyday, rather stupid looking citizens. Shabbily dressed, dried, worn looking little men. Fat, overdressed, very average, 'dignified' housewives. How can they decide the fate of that boy? Or anyone's fate?"
- In the Earth's Children series by Jean Auel, Ayla is considered hideous by her Neanderthal foster family. She is described as being tall, muscular, blond, and blue-eyed - stereotypically lovely - but 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.
- Played almost laughably straight with Hester Prynne of The Scarlet Letter, whose 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.
- A bit of a subversion exists, though, in that the main narrative thrust of the book centers around the fact that Hester is a sinner and an adulteress, and how she suffers for her actions; it's somewhat debatable as to just how much sympathy Nathaniel Hawthorne has for his character.
- This applies even more straightly to Hester's daughter (who is even named Pearl), though, as among other things Hawthorne drives home the fact (with a piledriver) that the sins of the parents do not apply to the innocent children. And in the mid-19th century, some people really needed to be told that, to be honest.
- In J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth world non-("evil")ugliness and beauty was the original natural default. The 'evil'-ugly creatures/things are the result of malicious corruption (by others or the self), e.g. the orcs (who are not a natural race, but made by the first Dark Lord). On the other hand, there are also people/creatures which appear or can appear as extremely beautiful and are nonetheless evil or comitting atrocities, e.g. Sauron and various Elves. Sometimes other peoples are percieved as ugly by the POV-peoples, but in these cases it is most often not an extreme-evil-ugliness, and sometimes just acknowledged cultural bias.
- InThe Fellowship of The Ring — the book, mind — Aragorn/Strider is described as looking rather weatherbeaten and intimidating; he inspires 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; 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.
- 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.
- Tolkien uses beauty to represent purity, not morality; for example, Eru's (i.e. God's) creations are beautiful, but those that are corrupted by Morgoth or Sauron become deformed and hideous. Dwarves are likewise less beautiful because they are only crude copies of Eru's Children, and Elves are more beautiful than Men because they are bound forever to the world and have less freedom of choice. In this way, Sauron tempted the Elves to forge the Rings of Power in order to preserve things in their pure "unstained" form, but in doing so they also kept them from progressing, and so fell into Sauron's trap— and the Men who later wore the Rings likewise became his Nazgul. This did not mean that change is ugly or bad, but only that it entails a sacrifice of giving things up as they used to be— from which the various characters erred by trying to have both, ending up with neither; as Denethor says at the end, "But if doom denies this to me, then I will have naught: neither life diminished, nor love halved, nor honour abated." The book's main characters were typically less beautiful than the less heroic ones; for example, Sauron originally could assume a very fair form, and so the Elves assumed he was good. Likewise, Aragorn's description was "all that is gold does not glitter," as well as "looking foul" and "his looks were against him" (while servants of Sauron would "look fair but feel foul") while Boromir was externally near-perfect to look at. Denethor was also described as looking much more like a great wizard than Gandalf did, more kingly, beautiful, and powerful;" meanwhile Sam, the story's true hero, was described as having a "plain" face, and by no means handsome even among hobbits— whose faces were likewise said to be "good-natured rather than beautiful—" and who were fond of the phrase "handsome is as handsome does." The movie, meanwhile, naturally ignores this intent, and follows the "Beauty Is Good" formula to the hilt; Aragorn becomes handsome, Boromir becomes considerably uglier, and Gimli the Dwarf likewise becomes a fool, while Legolas and Arwen become near-gods.
- 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. (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 likable characters.
- He did have good PR, though - so much so that Derfl (the narrator) was told his description of Lancelot was "Wrong", despite the fact that the critic hadn't met Lancelot and Derfl had.
- The series Twilight is especially notorious for this trope, seeing as Bella's narration does nothing but describe other characters' physical appearances and how wonderful or horrible it makes them as a being. Depending on how they look. You can tell how important and "nice" a character's going to be based on how Bella finds them attractive. The only exception to this rule is Rosalie, who's depicted as shallow and vain, but that's just Meyer expressing her blonde-female hate.
- Bella never gets over her prejudice for looks. In Breaking Dawn, an Amazonian vampire vows to protect the Cullens against an invasion and offers to train Bella to fight and use her superpowers. Bella's response is to never feel comfortable around the woman because her "wild" looks "scared me to death". The Amazonians ultimately prove loyal, but Bella never apologizes or admits that she was wrong.
- Are you kidding? The only person she considers "helpful" instead of "annoying" in the first book is Mike who acts exactly like everyone else, except he's the cute jock versus the nerd and the eccentric.
- In Pride And Prejudice the first thing characters note about one another is how physically attractive a person is. Considering the original title of the book was First Impressions...
- Phantom of the Opera, anyone?
- The adaptations have various stages of decay on Erik's deformity. He still is a Complete Monster, though.
- Subverted in The Bible where Lucifer is described as the most beautiful of all the angels. (Sadly played straight in later, less creative depictions of the prince of darkness).
- This trope is believed by the fairies in Jonathan Strange And Mr Norrell, and the person he's specifically applying it to is indeed good. But otherwise the trope isn't particularly in play.
- The Riftwar books avert this trope hard with Pradji, who is the described as the ugliest man the main character has ever seen.
- Partly lampshaded, partly averted in The Man Of Feeling by Henry Mackenzie, where many times, instead of giving the reader a physical description of characters, Mackenzie simply has the main character Harley employ his knowledge of "physiognomy" (the science of determining personality by someone's appearance), and goes straight for the moral judgement.
- With the possible exception of The Lost Symbol, most Dan Brown novels have a female lead who's an expert in her chosen academic field and is impossibly attractive to boot. Of course, the vaguely handsome nerd ALWAYS gets the girl at the end.
Live Action TV
Professnional Wrestling
- All Japan Women's pro wrestling had a tradition of having larger, less attractive wrestlers as Heels (e.g Dump Matsumoto, Bull Nakano, Aja Kong), and pitting them against smaller, cuter Face wrestlers.
Close Professnional Wrestling
Tabletop Games
- 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.
- To the contrary — Sune's dogma is to promote beauty and love even among the ugly. The vanity and prejudice is chiefly the result of her clergy's collective vanity refusing to train clerics who were unattractive; a cleric could independently venerate Sune and receive clerical abilities even if he/she had low charisma. He/she just wouldn't find a welcome in the church.
- The Hero System games, most notably Champions, postulate that the average man on the street has stats of 8 in all categories, including physical appearance. Player Character on the other hand get a 10 in each category, because they are the heroes. So your "average hero" is notably better looking than a regular schmoe. The stat that reflects your good looks is also by far the easiest one to buy up, so most heroes end up having supermodel good looks because there is very little downside to it.
- Dungeons And Dragons' Fourth Edition removed or uglied up every attractive monster in the game. (Dryads? Now look like small Treants with breasts. Yes, trees with breasts. Nymphs? Removed entirely.)
- More Dungeons And Dragons: Orcs, goblins, trolls, ogres, and other "savage" humanoids are bestial in appearance and almost always portrayed as always evil in official game material and most campaigns. Of course, individual DMs may portray them however they want, and there's nothing stopping you from running a game with a tribe of noble, heroic orcs.
- However 4th edition half-orcs look a lot better than previous versions, the females are approaching Cute Monster Girl territory.
- Also, Drow, attractive and usually evil.
- Taken Up To Eleven in Magic The Gathering by the elves of Lorwyn. Beauty determines status in their society, with the most beautiful known as "perfects". They also hunt down and kill anyone they consider too ugly to live. And then there's her, an assassin whose goal is apparently to cut your face, because that's as bad as killing you.
Video Games
- 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 Star Wars: Knights Of The Old Republic, if the player character goes to The Dark Side, s/he develops pale whitish skin and yellowed eyes. In the sequel, the player character can influence his or her allies to go Dark, causing a number of changes in their appearances (none of them good).
- Persona 4 hits this trope hard; Hanako, Mistuo, Morooka, and Kashiwagi (who isn't specifically ugly, but has a tendency toward drastic, overly-exaggerated and unattractive expressions, and a crap personality), have no particular positive qualities and the heroes have no sympathy for them. The exceptions are Adachi, who the player is supposed to trust, and Izanami, whose true form is legendarily hideous but appears as an attractive lady.
Web Comics
- This guy. One guess whether he's good or evil.
Western Animation
- 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...
- Except the female ones. And Luthor.
- Not surprising, given that they're based on comicbook characters (easily the worst offender anywhere). Ultra-Humanite happens to also be a subversion in the comics as his power is stealing bodies and he did once steal the body of a beautiful woman.
- The eponymous 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 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.
- And most of the females? Not really ugly at all (although the one we see the most is not all that good either).
- Played straight and inverted in Lady Lovely Locks: the hero, "Lady Lovely Locks" is good and has lovely blonde hair, while her enemy is Duchess Raven Waves, a beautiful princess and troublemaker. (This series was made to appeal to young girls.)
- In a sort of Redemption Equals Beauty, Bramble, the villain of the Bitsy Bears pilot is relatively unattractive, with a dry bob haircut, but the instant she thinks about reforming, she suddenly becomes more attractive with long, wavy hair. (Seriously, it changes between frames. You can see it starting at 3:45)
Real Life
- During the Victorian era, this concept was widely held to be true; a person's physical appearance was a reflection on their morality and social standing. The introduction discusses 19th Century quackery discourses of Phrenology and Physiognomy as an attempt to quantify and qualify these dubious claims. While the latter discipline was not unique to the 19th Century, its influence and popularity reached a zenith during the Georgian, Regency, and especially, Victorian eras.
- 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" (literally translated also: "to be good") means being physically attractive (although usually "hot" more than "beautiful").
- The Birth of Venus (so effin pretty it hurts).
Toys
- A lot of LEGO themes are like this, with Agents probably being the worst offender in that the vast majority of the villains are disfigured, cyborgs, or both. The Adventurers' Baron von Baron/Sam Sinister is a stereotypical Nazi officer with a monocle, handlebar moustache, dueling scar, and hookhand, while the only other Adventurers villain who could be considered attractive in the conventional sense is Alexis Sanister. Ogel, of Alpha Team, has some kind of red glass eye, and of course a hook, while his Mooks are skeletons. The Evil Wizard from the recent Castle sets has the same face as Ogel, so that's another one. The Bulls of Knight's Kingdom have are scarred, clad in rusted armour, and have silver eyes. Things get far worse, of course, if you consider the Pirates to be bad guys, what with the hooks, peglegs, eyepatches, and scars. To give LEGO some credit, they have had scarred or deformed heroes, like Rock Raider's Chief (prosthetic arm), Power Miner's Rex (facial scarring), Dino Attack's Viper (more facial scarring), and Lego Island's Captain Click (a pirate skeleton). Still, ugly villains greatly outnumber even unattractive (if they were real) heroes.
Subversions and played-with examples:
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Anime and Manga
- 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 has gone 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 he married the hottest woman on the show.
- 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 seems good at first, but turns into the worst serial killer in history and a Magnificent Bastard who manipulates everyone around him with no consideration for their feelings.
- In contrast, L, the detective chasing Kira, is gangly, funny-looking, and has permanent bags under his eyes; most girls in-story won't even look at him twice, and 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; 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 he uses humans as playthings. He'd be another Magnificent Bastard if he weren't so lazy.
- Shinigami Rem still looks somewhat scary, but she's 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 which leads 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.
- Light's father Soichiro is handsome enough and described by the creators as the only good character. In the Live Action Adaptation films he is portrayed by the same man who does Chairman Kaga; how this fits into the trope depends on the viewer.
- The psychopathic Complete Monster Johan is easily Monster's best-looking character.
- Beautifully averted in Paprika. The obese Tokita appears to have no deep and dark issues with his weight, being a happy, brilliant, affable scientist, and it turns out the girl of his dreams, Chiba, is plenty enthralled with him as well, and they get married!
- Commonly subverted or played with in One Piece. Ugly characters often turn out to be stalwart and good in their own right, and more conventionally attractive characters can be really, really awful or kind of ambiguous at best.
Comic Books
- 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.
- The Anti Hero mutant Wolverine—longstanding, undisputed favorite of the X-Men franchise—was originally supposed to be a subversion. 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).
- 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.
- Hellboy was started when the creator, Mike Mignola, wanted a hero that looked like a villain. Hence, Hellboy looks like a demon. Your Mileage May Vary on how successful this was.
- Fables has the actual Prince Charming as a major character and also shallow, heartless, bastard. Goldilocks is very attractive and turns out to be murderously violent. Bluebeard is well Bluebeard. Beauty is beautiful but happens to be a total bitch. Bibgy's looks are up for debate but his actions support him being a subversion whether you thing he's good looking or not.
Film
- Subverted very cruelly in Audition when the lonely, widowed male lead discovers that his beautiful, demure bride-to-be is Axe Crazy.
- Subversion: 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.
- Inverted in the 1953 sci-fi movie It Came From Outer Space where the hideous one-eyed aliens are not launching a covert invasion of Earth; they only want to quietly repair their spaceship and leave without conflict.
- E.T., anyone? An alien that can at best be described as wrinkled and stubby, and also one of the most sympathetic and beloved characters in cinema history.
Folk Lore
- In Byzantine Christian art, most Saints are drawn somewhat ugly to accentuate their Inner Beauty represented by their halo.
Literature
- Shakespeare's Sonnet CXXX, pretty much a poetic Take That towards his contemporaries (and predecessors. and successors.)
- Charlotte Bronte stated that she deliberately created Jane Eyre to be "as poor and plain as myself," in contrast to the beautiful and elegant romance heroines of her time. Consequently, Jane Eyre herself is never seen as anything 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.
- And, of course, the novel's prettiest characters are all extremely problematic in one way or the other. Blanche Ingram is a self-involved Gold Digger; Rosamond Oliver, while sweet, is nevertheless represented as a fluttery socialite-type; and St. John Rivers, although not a villain, is extremely manipulative and egotistical.
- Terry Pratchett's 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).
- To be fair, none of the three are typical heroes, either. Vimes and Weatherwax are constantly wrestling with their own potential for evil and Rincewind is selfish and cowardly by his own admission. Imperfect visages for imperfect heroes.
- 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. Not to mention that Angua periodically transforms into a werewolf, Adora Belle is a perpetual chain-smoker with a spectacularly caustic personality, and Conina, well, she'd better be in amazing shape as she has to keep up with her Badass Grandpa.
- However, speaking of younger ones, there's also Agnes Nitt (fat but with nice hair, so fairly average looking overall), Magrat Garlick (bit pathetic and mousy looking), and Tiffany Aching (whose looks are mentioned once at the start of the first book, when she's nine, so it's impossible to guess how attractive she is in later ones).
- 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.
- Not even if said appearance is standing on top of a massive pile of skulls... because said person might just happen to be Cohen the Barbarian.
- A Song Of Ice And Fire both follows and subverts this trope with various characters. Many of The Beautiful People are admired for their regal or exotic appearance, such as Cersei Lannister or Joffrey Baratheon, but are actually quite incompetent and cruel. Others are mocked, belittled or hated for their ugly appearance, including Brienne of Tarth and Tyrion Lannister, but show far more compassion and integrity than many others. However, other characters follow this trope straight. Many heroic characters are described as being quite handsome or beautiful, such as Daenerys Targaryen and Jon Snow. Many villainous characters are also quite hideous. In general, a character's appearance is more likely to be an influence on their personality rather than a reflection of it.
- 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.
- Both played straight and subverted in Wild Cards, where most of the characters have hideous mutations. Most of the human leads are not spectacular, either: the Turtle is a plain, chubby nerd; Fatman is, well, fat; and private detective Jay Ackroyd is 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 (he didn't know the youth was eternal when he did it). Doctor Tachyon is handsome, as are his (mostly backstabbing) relatives, because Takisians are bred for beauty; thus, he often has trouble dealing with the less attractive Jokers because 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.
- Subverted wonderfully in Lois McMaster Bujold's Vorkosigan series, in which the main character, thanks to his mother being poisoned while pregnant with him, is a brittle-boned dwarf who is considered worse than unattractive by his mutation-horrified homeworld. Unsurprisingly, most of the women who look past that are 'galactics'; one of these is a genetically engineered prototype-soldier who's eight feet tall and as strong as two men. Eventually, even more subversive to this trope, Vorkosigan marries a woman from his own planet who loves him much more than her former, physically-attractive-but-a-total-jerk husband and thinks he's perfect the way he is.
- Subverted and played straight in The Dresden Files. Subverted with vampires of the White Court, succubi and incubi; for the most part, they are by nature impeccably beautiful and normally evil, cold, evil, manipulative, and evil. There are some notable exceptions, however: Thomas Raith, Harry Dresden's half-brother, is in a gray area. The Faeries, and especially the High Sidhe, are also perfectly formed but can be either nice or very not nice.
- Deeply subverted in Graham Mc Neill 's Warhammer 40000 Ultramarines novel Dead Sky Black Sun. Confronted with the Unfleshed — twisted, hideously malformed, with no skin on their bodies — Vaanes is horror-struck ("Look at them. They're evil"), but Uriel tells him he's not certain. He remembers the innocent children he saw herded to the process that transformed them, and sees that they have remembered the God-Emperor. Vaanes deserts him, but the Unfleshed are willing to support him in his quest. When most of them have died carrying it out, the handful of survivors need only be assured that the Emperor is pleased to be delighted.
- In William King's Warhammer 40000 Space Wolf novel Wolfblade, Ragnor reflects on how his Wolf Lord is the very image of a great hero, and his opponent in dispute is rather less preposing. Then, the opponent also had to be a great warrior and leader, to reach the same post as Berek — and while the opponent is arguing against Ragnor partly out of rivalry, by the same token, Berek is defending Ragnor partly from the same motive.
- In Madeleine L'Engle's A Wrinkle In Time, they escape to the planet Ixchel where they encounter the faceless tentacled aliens, who look after and protect them. Indeed, one, in charge of Meg, is surprised by the terms she uses, such as "beast" to describe them, and Meg ends up referring to her as Aunt Beast.
- Technically subverted in the Karavans series by Jennifer Roberson, as The Beautiful People are mostly evil. Pretty much everything ugly is evil too. Indeed, Always Chaotic Evil is rather a common species trait in these books...
- The Doomsday Book by Connie Willis included as one of the heroes a villainous-look priest who is clearly presented as one of the finest people in the tale.
Live Action TV
- In a Saturday Night Live skit, an angel comes to a woman in the hospital and asks her to take his hand so he can heal her, but she's extremely distrustful of him because he's dressed in all black, has black wings, and, well, he's played by Christopher Walken. He points out that if he was trying to deceive her and take her life, he'd be more subtle about it and come disguised as a beloved dead relative. Moments later, her late grandmother appears and kills her.
- Subverting this trope is the basis of much of the humor of comedienne Sarah Silverman. When performing, she has the appearance, mannerisms, and voice of a sweet, innocent young woman. It takes a while for what she is actually saying to sink in...
Tabletop Games
- Subverted and muddied in Warhammer 40000. Descriptions of most Space Marines fit the "ruggedly handsome" image, but 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 as beautiful in artwork but books, official content, and Word Of God all agree that they're anything but. Physical beauty is also one of the most common gifts bestowed by Chaos God Slaanesh, Prince of Excess and Debauchery.
- The reasons that the Sisters of Battle don't look as good as their tabletop models are scarring, tattoos, weight, missing body parts, and them not giving a damn about personal appearance.
- "Though there was no disguising his inhumanity [...] there was the overgrown gigantism of the face, that particular characteristic of the Astartes, almost equine". That's Captain Loken, the definitive Good Guy of the first Horus Heresy book. Also, the book gives us an idea how much Space Marines stink after some time in their powered armor. On the other hand, most Primarchs, who are even taller than Marines, are godlike beautiful.
- An even harder subversion in Warhammer: See that really hot, half-naked elf woman? She's the Dark Elf Hag Witch who kills children and bathes in their blood. That fat frog guarded by the huge, frightening lizards she's fighting? The frog's a Slann Mage-Priest, and those lizards are Temple Guards, among the noblest soldiers in the world.
- Played straight to the point of absurdity however (naturally) with the literal Always Chaotic Evil servants of Chaos, who have an explicit rule that the more they devote themselves to Chaos the more mind-warpingly horrific they become, with the final fate of any Chaos follower being either a gibbering Chaos Spawn with more limbs than IQ points or a massive Daemon Prince with dominion over their own slice of hell.
- Completely averted with D&D Tieflings. 2e Tieflings are sexy, usually evil, and possess only a few 'subtle' signs of their heritage (small horns, glowing eyes, etc). 4e Tieflings are hideous and almost always good.
- Are we looking at the same 4e Tieflings?
- Also, the Book of Exalted Deeds in 3.5 subverted this with an Always Lawful Evil mind flayer reforming. Tentacles notwithstanding, those things are about as attractive as Cthulhu.
Video Games
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- Subverted and played straight in Lunar: SSSC with Phacia and her sisters. Then, played straight in Lunar: EBC with Lucia. In fact, some NPCs in the game express disbelief at how someone that beautiful can be the Destroyer (which Lucia isn't, but oh, well...).
- The various games in the Warcraft series have both subverted this trope and played it straight. Of particular note is Warcraft III, in which the stereotypically ugly orc Thrall rises to become one of Azeroth's greatest heroes, while stereotypically handsome human Arthas falls to irredeemable evil (though he becomes less handsome when he becomes a Death Knight.
- Many of Warcraft's protagonists aren't traditionally attractive and all but Turalyon and Thrall have been older men. Even Malfurion, an Elf, was a large elderly man with a long grizzly beard. The Antagonists are almost always pretty ugly however.
- The Persona games subvert this with Igor, a diminutive hunched old man with bulging, bloodshot eyes, pointed ears, a fiendish grin, and a foot-long nose, who helps the good guys develop their powers while claiming he's just fulfilling his own obligations. This troper was convinced he was going to reveal some sinister motive when he played Persona 3 and 4 the first time... but no, Igor's genuinely delighted to be of assistance, especially when it comes time to give the heroes the power to defeat those that can't be defeated and save humanity.
- Oddly averted in Yggdra Union partially due to the artstyle; every badguy from the lowest mook to the cruelest boss is cute as hell.
- Almost 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 only somewhat humanoid... except for Jim Raynor, who is a classic rough-hewn hero and, with one exception, easily the most moral person in the entire series thus far.
- From another viewpoint, Star Craft can be seen to be completely neutral in this respect, as every race and character is crafted to be both good and evil, in one way or another. The Protoss are noble, but are all but undone by their traditions and hubris; the Terran are very versatile but are almost constantly fighting amongst themselves for power and resources; the Zerg are the stereotypical 'evil' race, but are the only race that's striving to better themselves, and being a hivemind, they have the highest 'integrity' of the races (until a human enters the Swarm and the Overmind dies, which results in said human fighting with the Cerebrates for control over the Swarm...). As far as attractiveness is concerned - beauty is in the eye of the beholder... or in this case, the player. Take, for instance, the release of the Zerg models for Star Craft 2 by Blizzard - the entire fanbase was falling over themselves in adoration of their favourite spiny, scaled and virulent units.
- Arguably played straight in World Of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade, where the draenei were revamped from the toadlike Lost One model into uncorrupted eredar. And the Horde got the pretty, fine-featured blood elves, presumably for the sole purpose of fanservice. Somewhat subverted by the fact that although the four original Horde races are less pretty, the Horde isn't evil.
- And that the blood elves are one of the most unpleasant of the Horde races.
- Played straight in a Horde quest in the latest expansion, where players help overthrow a cruel but incompetent Orc commander in favour of her more noble sister. The tyrant uses one of the "ugly" Orc female faces with red eyes and a perpetual snarl, while the sister has the most conventionally attractive face available to Orcs.
- Played totally straight in Valkyria Chronicles. All the villains have exaggerated, ostentatious, or just plain ugly faces, unless the game presents a reason for the player to sympathize with their tragic plight, while everyone in Squad 7 ranges from plain to rugged to just plain gorgeous. (The bad guys do, however, wear some truly awesome-looking officers' uniforms).
Real Life
- Nazi propaganda continuously portrayed the regime's enemies as shrunken, deformed subhumans, and eulogised the handsome, dashing, blond haired blue eyes Aryan hero. The regime itself was obssessed with its image. Even Hitler himself had adoring fangirls.
- Not just them, the US portrayed the Japanese as fanged snake people in cartoons and comics.
- And, turnabout being fair play, the Japanese depicted the British and Americans as demonic (tricky shapeshifters or brutish oni).
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