Adaptational Attractiveness / Literature

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• For Chinese literature, this tends to happen to the main characters in modern Asian adaptations of Jin Yong's work. One rather noticeable example can be found in a 2008 adaptation of Legend of the Condor Heroes, where the protagonist Guo Jing is played by teen idol and heart throb Hu Ge. Guo Jing is normally described as being a rather stout, muscular man who is not exactly known for being incredibly handsome or refined. Hu Ge, on the other hand, is a Real Life equivalent of a Bishōnen. Needless to say, it can be rather unnerving for certain fans to see other characters mention how "manly" and "plain" Guo Jing is, when he◊ looks◊ prettier◊ than some of the female cast.
• In the novelisation of Star Trek: First Contact the Borg Queen is described as being dark-haired and beautiful, while Data with human skin grafted to his body is described as being brown-eyed, tanned and handsome.
• Les Misérables provides a Older Than They Think example with Cosette. In the text she’s described as a child as being filthy, ugly and malnourished due to abuse she’s suffered under the Thenardiers’ hands. Yet the famous Émile Bayard illustration of Cosette frequently used for the cover of the book and is adorable and clean.
• One of the integral elements of Beauty and the Beast is that the titular Beast is hideous-looking and Beauty needs to learn to love him in spite of his appearance. This hasn't stopped a number of modern book adaptations, including Cruel Beauty, from making the Beast physically attractive from the start with his "beastliness" lying in his personality and/or reputation instead.
• Clarice Starling in the Tom Bagshaw‘s illustrated edition of The Silence of the Lambs, in the text Clarice isn’t given any real description, but she’s implied to be fairly attractive. Bagshaw’s painted depiction of her though is hauntingly beautiful especially compared to the live action portrayals of her. Clarice is also given red hair in the illustrations perhaps in reference to the climax where Buffalo Bill hunting Clarice in his dark basement finds her hair “glorious”.
• Bridge of Birds has an in-universe example: Lotus Cloud is described as not being conventionally beautiful, having "thick legs" and a "flat face" and her only exceptional feature being her bewitching grin, but the ancient myth about her true goddess identity describes her as "the most beautiful girl in the world". When this discrepancy is pointed out to Master Li, he dismisses it as a "mere literary convention" and says that physical beauty has always been a highly overvalued trait.
• The character Stitches in The Tale Of Magic is stated to have an abnormally large mouth and her eyes are not only mismatched in color but in shape. On the cover for the second book, she has none of those things except for the heterochromia.
• Doctor Who Expanded Universe
  • The Doctor Who Eighth Doctor Adventures novels tend to describe the Eighth Doctor, played on the show by Paul McGann, as tall, skinny Pretty Boy. McGann is 5'8" and 160 lbs, with a solid build. To put this into context, he only has a couple of inches on the Second and Seventh Doctors (Patrick Troughton and Sylvester McCoy), who are canonically seen as "funny little men". (Publicity photos for the TV Movie, however, had McGann standing on a box so that he appeared more substantially taller than McCoy; the resulting staged imagery may have been the origin point for this trope in the books.)
  • The books tend to describe the Fourth Doctor as thin as well. Tom Baker was quite thin when he was first cast for the role, but took on a more solid build soon after.
  • The First Doctor is commonly described as imposingly tall, when he's 174cm tall, the same height as Paul McGann and about an inch taller than the Second Doctor, considered to be short and weird-looking. The fact that the Second Doctor wore baggy versions of the First Doctor's clothes in the show and has a symbolic scene of him losing his ring from his now small fingers may make this a case of Informed Attractiveness as well.
  • Jon Pertwee was sensitive about his large nose and used to request all illustrators making images of him draw it smaller as part of the deal for using his likeness. This affected the Target book covers, contemporary comics, and other such ephemera like the promotional deal Doctor Who made with Sugar Smacks cereal.
  • The 1979 Annual described the Fourth Doctor as 'handsome' in one story. He's far from unattractive, but 'handsome' is a major stretch.
  • The book version of "Shada" has Chris describe Romana as 'the most beautiful woman he had ever seen' as part of his initial description of her, which is a description hard for anyone to live up to, even the gorgeous Lalla Ward. However, he notes that he doesn't find her sexually attractive, but awesome. The Animated Adaptation of "Shada" makes Chronotis rather more handsome and makes Clare into a punk with pink hair, leather and studs. And the Big Finish version runs up against it accidentally - replacing the very weird-looking Fourth Doctor with the conventionally handsome Eighth Doctor.
• In-universe example in Mortal Engines: When Pennyroyal writes a book about his travels with the protagonist, Hester finds an illustration of her counterpart in the story. Hester has a large disfiguring facial scar that's destroyed her nose and cost her an eye, the scar tissue has further twisted her face. Her counterpart is a beautiful air pirate with an eye patch and light cheek scar.
• Elphaba from Wicked is based off the MGM version of the Wicked Witch of the West. While she's still lanky and boney, and has a large nose, she's considerably less warty and unattractive.
• Neil Gaiman complained about the unattractiveness of the actress playing Hunter in the commentary for the first episode of Neverwhere. He said he imagined the character to be the most beautiful woman you've ever seen and wrote her as such in the novelization.
• Five Nights at Freddy's tie in novels tend to make Circus Baby look more like a teenage or adult Sexy Jester, like the Baby version in the original trilogy and Eleanor in Five Nights at Freddy's: Fazbear Frights. Five Nights at Freddy's: Sister Location had her looking like a toddler or baby, hence her name.
• The King's Avatar:
  • The original web novel mentions that Ye Xiu has pasty skin, unkempt hair and puffy eyes from staying up late. Contrast to his Animated Adaptation, live action drama and Manhua appearances, he has become a Bishounen.
  • Similarly, his avatar Lord Grim in the web novel is described as wearing disgusting, randomly colored mix-match of whatever high quality equipment Ye Xiu got his hands on. In the Animated Adaptation, Lord Grim has a very nice looking black, silver and gold armor set with a red scarf throughout the story.
  • Wang Jiexi's unevenly sized eyes are highlighted in the web novel and in the live action. However the animation and Manhua make the difference hardly noticeable.
• The title character of Horatio Hornblower has a low opinion of his own looks (when his wife Maria informs him of her first pregnancy, Hornblower hopes for the kid's sake that it won't look like him or have his morose personality). While he is described more neutrally by the narrator as "neither handsome nor ugly", he was played onscreen by Gregory Peck and Ioan Gruffud.
• Shimoneta: Oboro's degree of femininity differs between his original appearance in the manga and how he's drawn in the anime adaptation. In the manga, he's a slender androgynous looking male with shoulder length hair. Whereas the anime gives him a woman's face, waist length hair, a swimsuit model's figure, and what appear to be a perky set of B-cup breasts - even when he's stark naked!
• Calvin Evans in Lessons in Chemistry is described as gangly and lopsided, though with an amazing smile. In the series, he is played by the rather handsome Lewis Pullman.
• An in-universe example in The Seven Citadels: the kingdom of Galkis has stories about a beautiful but evil Enchantress in the jungle who ensnares men. These turn out to be based on rumours of the sorceress Tebreega, who, in addition to being a lot nicer than her fictional depiction, is also very unattractive, and content to be so.

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