Other factors being equal, evil characters are sexier.
Evil does strange things to people. It can be pleasurable, delicious, or addictive, it can make you more badass, and it even makes you more sexy.
Even though Beauty Equals Goodness, some villains are just gorgeous. They ooze sex appeal and carnality in a way that represents the sin of Lust as well as the lust for power that evil promises to its prospective followers. They tend to have looser sexual morals. They are as handsome as they are arrogant (much to the heroes' annoyance). They hide their demonic soul behind the face of an angel. And they're not afraid to use their beauty, wiles, and sex appeal to seduce the hero and carry out their nefarious plans. Their outfits tend to show more skin and have more leather, fetishist hangups, lace, on occasion, or even gorgeous and functional Femme Fatalons. Hey, what's the point of being evil if you can't do it with class? Or failing that, overdo it with style?
A hero temporarily tempted by evil tends to suddenly wear skimpier clothes and be more sexually assertive. Many fans will find them sexier this way and perhaps dread the return to prudery that will accompany their inevitable return to goodness. If the Love Interest is the initial Ms. Fanservice, then The Baroness or The Vamp has to take it to the next level, sometimes immediately.
Often used as a storytelling device; what better way to show how seductive evil is than by making evil literally seductive. When paired with Beauty Equals Goodness, this is reconciled by making the good characters' beauty more genuine and the evil characters' appearance more focused on inspiring lust, separating "pure" beauty from sex appeal. Thus, the hot chick likely was Evil All Along, or has made a Face–Heel Turn; the constant heroine, although beautiful, is not sexy because she exudes Incorruptible Pure Pureness even if she's going to end up a wife and mother.
An opportunity for Fanservice of all kinds. Also sets the stage for Unfortunate Implications, frequently invoking various Double Standards attached to the sexuality (and the "goodness" of that sexuality) of a character depending on their gender. This is mostly applied to female villains, although attractive male villains are becoming more common, especially in series geared toward a female audience. This character's almost guaranteed to garner loads of entirely undeserved sympathy from fans, but is so ingrained in certain cultures that it's not going away any time soon. In American film specifically this is probably related to the period way back when when only evil was allowed to be sexy — since Sex Sells regardless. A bare midriff is more or less essential, especially for females.
The following tropes all relate to this concept; please add examples there rather than here when possible:
- Dominatrix
When portrayed in fiction, Bondage Is Bad. Real ones usually aren't. - Evil Costume Switch
- Sexier Alter Ego
Applies when the alter ego is evil. - Villainous Fashion Sense
- All Girls Want Bad Boys
- All Men Are Perverts
- All Women Are Lustful
- Alpha Bitch
- Apocalypse Maiden
- The Baroness
- Beauty Is Bad
- Blood Bath
- Consuming Passion
- Crazy in the Head, Crazy in the Bed
- Dark Action Girl
- Draco in Leather Pants (fandom downplays a character's evilness rather than embrace it)
- Dragon Lady
- Evil Diva
- Femme Fatale
- Femme Fatale Spy
- Fetishized Abuser
- Gorgeous Gorgon
- High-Heel Power (when that power is used for evil)
- Hot as Hell
- Kichiku
- Kichiku Megane
- Kiss of Death
- Lesbian Vampire
- Literal Maneater
- Madonna-Whore Complex
- The Man Behind the Monsters
- Sensible Heroes, Skimpy Villains
- Sex Is Evil
- Sex Is Evil, and I Am Horny
- Showing Off the New Body
- Succubi and Incubi
- Troubled, but Cute
- Vain Sorceress
- The Vamp
- Vampires Are Sex Gods
See also Evil Tastes Good, Evil Is Cool, and Evil Is Easy. Compare with Beauty Equals Goodness. Contrast Evil Makes You Ugly and Heroic Seductress. Often a consequence of Power is Sexy, since Mooks aren't that attractive. Part of the appeal of Forbidden Fruit. Both a cause of and a result of Jerkass Dissonance.
Example subpages:
- Anime & Manga
- Film
- Literature
- Live-Action TV
- Video Games
- Web Animation
- Western Animation
Other examples:
- A Jaguar television commercial celebrates the trope, having actors Ben Kingsley, Tom Hiddleston and Mark Strong (all known for playing Evil Brits) personify it.
- The Fallen Angel: Several reviews of this painting agree that Cabanel painted Lucifer as a beautiful, classical Tragic Hero. This is only highlighted by the fact the angels in the background are drawn with less detail, so they can hardly be considered attractive.
- Batman:
- Poison Ivy's an insane, plant-obsessed eco-terrorist whose only human friend is Harley Quinn, The Joker's on-again, off-again love interest and partner-in-crime. Her interests include eliminating humanity to make the world safe for plants and poisoning people by kissing them. She was modeled on Bettie Page, generally appears clad only in something skintight and a lot of leaves, and is even tempting enough for Batman.
- Catwoman is a Dominatrix coded Classy Cat-Burglar who wears a skintight Spy Catsuit and even wields a Whip of Dominance as her weapon for the domineering appeal. She also acts like The Tease to anyone she interacts with, often taking advantage of her sexual prowess to manipulate others. Like Ivy, she too proves attractive for the Dark Knight, sufficiently so that someone seeking to break Batman hired an actress to dress up as Catwoman and seduce him. She became so popular she was rendered as a more sympathetic character over the years, being often an Anti-Villain or even an Anti-Hero.
- Harley Quinn: Former Arkham Asylum psychiatrist who falls head over heels for The Joker and reinvents herself as a catsuit clad, female version of him. Happy to murder henchmen at the drop of a hat and always drawn in a painted-on harlequin jester's outfit that frequently got 'upgraded' to a latex version, and later got replaced with a skimpy corset and microshorts.
- White Rabbit's costume is basically lingerie.
- Depending on the Artist, The Joker can be a lean, well-dressed Monster Clown with the bleached skin being handsome instead of nightmarish.
- Like the Joker above, several artists seem to enjoy drawing The Riddler as rather attractive, usually accentuating this by putting him in very flattering, well-cut green suits.
- Though Bane is a prison-raised force of nature who has crippled Batman at least once, his enhanced musculature, torso-baring outfits, and Hispanic accent has resulted in plenty of fans gushing over him.
- Disney Ducks Comic Universe: Magica De Spell was created by Carl Barks specifically to counteract the "ugly witch" stereotype. Among the people/characters that inspired her design were Morticia Adams and Sophia Loren.
- ElfQuest has Winnowill, who is incredibly hot and just gets more and more deadly. Also the warlord Grohmul Djun, who's a massive hunk, and Door in the "Forevergreen" arc, who's a psychotic pretty boy.
- From Empowered, Vanity (the devil half of the Conjoined Twins superhero Divangelic) is definitely sexier (dressed) than her sister Charity, an angel.
- Femforce: Evil sorceress Alizarin Crimson
is as much known for how little clothing she wears as she is for her alliances with various dark gods and demons.
- Darth Talon from the Star Wars Legends comic series Legacy. A heavily tattooed female Twi'lek Sith who has a serious Foe Romance Subtext with Anti-Hero Cade Skywalker.
- In Legion of Super-Heroes, Shrinking Violet falls under the power of the Emerald Eye, and, well... this...
happens. (Her breasts appear to get larger, but that might just be the effect of that push-up bra.)
- Nightmare Rarity from My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic (IDW), as nicely detailed here
(major spoilers, of course).
- High Heel, a mare shoe thief from My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic (IDW) Annual 2014 staring the Power Ponies.
- Ava Lord, stereotypical vamp/Femme Fatale from Sin City story "A Dame to Kill For" is most sexy when posing next to her dead husband whose death she caused, all the while faking stories of the guilty of her crimes on the phone and smiling all the way.
- Blue Eyes and Mariah, the Colonel's assassins. Blue Eyes' specialty is Out with a Bang, even.
- Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics) has Dr. Finitevus. Female examples include Breezie the Hedgehog, Regina Ferrum a.k.a. The Iron Queen and Fiona Fox, after her Face–Heel Turn.
- Anti-Villain Namor is the incarnation of temptation for virtuous Susan Richards. Speaking of Sue Richards, when she was possessed by Malice, an evil mutant, she clearly fits this trope, and how! The aspect of her personality remained with her and popped back up again years later, resulting in her Darker and Edgier outlook when she became more of an Action Girl.
- The Supergirl from Krypton (2004): After being brainwashed by Darkseid, Supergirl replaces her modest outfit with black, tight leather clothes which show her figure off.
- New Teen Titans has Raven when she is possessed. Yes, despite the infamous Bill Jaaska art. Where else are you going to find a canon example of a nearly-naked Raven pulling a cleavage-baring Starfire close and passionately kissing her?
- From the Thunderbolts and later Dark Avengers, Moonstone (Karla Sofen). She's an amoral psychiatrist who causes her patients to commit suicide for fun, her powers come from an object that she convinced her patient to hand over to her, she literally killed her own mother, and she's both franchises' biggest example of Manipulative Bitch and is a psychopath. She also wears a skintight suit and has a body to rival Ms. Marvel's (to the point where she was able to pose as her).
- Overlord, who appears in The Transformers: Last Stand of the Wreckers and The Transformers: More than Meets the Eye, with his handsome (for a giant robot) looks and campy, charismatic, and theatrical mannerisms. One defining trait of Overlord has been his luscious lips. Possibly lampshaded by IDW themselves with the alternate cover for issue 15 which is basically a close-up of Overlord's lips.
- Vampirella: No, not Vampirella herself, who is definitely sexy but is also a Friendly Neighborhood Vampire. However, a number of her foes such as Dracula, the Blood Red Queen of Hearts, and even her mother Lilith at times are very seductive characters who, especially in the case of the women, are usually as underdressed as the main character.
- Wonder Woman Vol 1: While Diana's costumes tend to show more skin than those of her male contemporaries her Golden Age female villains wore far less and Clea's minuscule costume always included sheer pants. Clea was also only one of several whose main weapon was a whip.
- X-Men:
- Magneto. The chiseled, aristocratic features, the silver hair, the tragic past... he's thrice her age and still makes Rogue weak in the knees. (They married, had kids, one named after Charles Xavier himself, and were insanely happy in an Alternate Universe, to the displeasure of the Gambit of the main universe.)
- Mystique. Given she's a shapeshifter it is almost certainly deliberate.
- The Hellfire Club evoked this trope in their earliest appearances, with the White Queen, Tessa and both Black Queens wearing leather fetish gear. The gentlemen of the club were of varying degrees of attractiveness, but they did manage to be well-dressed at all times.
- Dark Phoenix. The good Phoenix was already wearing the ultimate in Form-Fitting Wardrobe gear, but Dark Phoenix has unearthly beauty and a habit of combining Interplay of Sex and Violence with Earth-Shattering Kaboom. As Rachel Summers (the next host of the Phoenix, and despite being a sometimes Hot-Blooded Anti-Hero, entirely heroic) remarked when she chose to adopt the Dark Phoenix costume, Dark Phoenix might have been evil... but she had great taste in clothes! Of course, it should be said that Rachel had a repeatedly lampshaded penchant for impossibly tight red clothing to begin with.
- Madelyne Pryor, evil clone of Jean Grey. Where Jean tended towards more practical clothing, Maddie pioneered the underboob look, daring choice in villain fashion. As she explicitly tells Jean during a crossover with X-Man, "I have lived the darker side of us", remarking that men are just toys to her and Jean. Since she was, at this point in time, hanging around with Nate Grey and playing him like a fiddle in a fashion that had more than a few sexual overtones (despite the fact that he's the alternate counterpart of her son - something which disturbed Nate, but didn't seem to bother her in the slightest, going by her If I Can't Have You… Yandere attitude) and shortly after became de facto consort of Sebastian Shaw, Black King of the Hellfire Club, she wasn't kidding.
- Scarlet Witch tends to dress in more revealing clothing as well. Then there's this line from her first appearance:
Angel: Wow! What a dish! If she's an evil mutant, I want an application blank!
- In Young Justice, teen heroine Arrowette nearly murders a man, causing her to abandon superheroics and break down for fear that she'll become evil and have to get a black leather costume that shows off her cleavage... and, for that matter, cleavage. Later, in an alternate universe, evil teen heroine Arrowette has a black leather costume, and massive cleavage.
- Lt. Vixen from Squirrel and Hedgehog. Much to the delight of American fans.
- The White Hair, Black Heart Long Haired Prettyboy from Yo-Yo Man.
- Equestria Girls: Friendship Souls: In-universe example with Katrina, Chrysalis, Thorax and Pharynx. Adagio describes Katrina as "having the kind of figure that starts wars" while Chrysalis apparently makes her look plain by comparison. In contrast, Thorax has looks that would make most girls jealous, and Pharynx is described as a chiseled Hunk.
- Guys Being Dudes: In-Universe, Spark isn't intimidated by Arlo's hammy threats, but he does find them attractive.
- In The Return Alexia and Akumi clearly believe Evil should be Sexy, but they both take it to such extremes they end up as a Fashion-Victim Villain and are soundly mocked by the heroes about their dress sense. The trope is played somewhat straight in that anyone converted into a succubus becomes a Perky Goth, but this is immediately subverted in that they are not Always Chaotic Evil and are free to choose whether they are good, evil, or indifferent.
- In A Very Potter Musical, Voldemort is played by a shirtless young man in tights.
- Queen of All Oni: Right, one of Jade's Shadowkhan bodyguards/enforcers, is described as being "oddly handsome" once he takes his mask off. Surprisingly subverted with his twin, Left, who while described as not being ugly, is mostly blunt looking.
- In The Hunger Games fanfiction Some Semblance of Meaning, the girl from District One, Amber, plays up the "alluring" angle in her interview, is very attractive and flirtatious, and also happens to be one of the most depraved tributes.
- Invoked by many crossover Disney/Non-Disney Fan Vids. Jasmine from Aladdin, Esmeralda from The Hunchback of Notre Dame, and Elsa from Frozen are the most common characters to be be written as antagonists. Esmeralda's sex appeal is a large part of her character, Jasmine has her infamous red outfit scenes, and Elsa just happens to ooze sensuality during certain parts of "Let It Go" (in fact those segments are leftovers from when it was a Villain Song).
- Elsa from Frozen was originally depicted as an antagonist. Fans have taken a special interest in her spiky, black-haired design ("Onion!Elsa", "Evil Elsa") and she's typically played up this way.
- In-Universe in Teen Titans: Witch-Hunt; When Donna is (mostly) brainwashed into becoming a Hot Witch, her boyfriend Conner pauses between trying to talk her down to compliment the new slinky black dress.
- RWBY: Epic of Remnant: Angra Mainyu directly references this trope when he meets Salem.
- The White Witch of Rose Hall: The titular Black Widow, slave-owning witch was often described as being a very beautiful woman.
- "A Touch of Evil" by Judas Priest. Also an Intercourse with You.
- "I Wish I Had An Evil Twin" by The Magnetic Fields. It's Exactly What It Says on the Tin, and apparently, in Stephin Merritt's fantasy of an Evil Twin, said twin would "stink of sex appeal" and "all men would writhe under his scythe" (presumably, this includes normally straight ones), who would then "bring the pretty ones to me/and they would think that I was he" (which leaves one wondering how exactly the twin "stinks of sex appeal" and he doesn't and realizing that evil really is THAT sexy).
- "How could I love a man so purely? Even prophets forgive his crooked ways." Come to think of it, a lot of Gaga songs are about this.
- The wizard rock band Voldemort released an album titled Evil is Sexy.
- Vocaloid:
- Evillious Chronicles: A few of the "sinners" (and plenty of characters outside of that particular series). Them being played by Vocaloids, they were bound to look appealing from the get-go. The ultimate example, however, would be Duke Sateriasis Venomania
, played by the uber-Bishōnen with GACKT's voice Camui Gackpo, in this PV drawn to look even more attractive. Though he only looks this way because of a Deal with the Devil. His actual face is horribly deformed.
- Gackpo plays one of these an La Rouge Est Amour
. Though made by a different producer entirely, he plays a similar role in it, and even his outfit looks similar sans the mask and hair decorations; except here he's a vampire who kills his prey. Probably.
- Evillious Chronicles: A few of the "sinners" (and plenty of characters outside of that particular series). Them being played by Vocaloids, they were bound to look appealing from the get-go. The ultimate example, however, would be Duke Sateriasis Venomania
- In the Animated Music Video for Me! Me! Me!, the villains' Mooks are clones of a Ms. Fanservice, whose main moves are sexy dancing, either in thong bikinis, or nothing but piercings, and machine guns hidden in their huge boobs.
- Thumpasaurus has "Evil," which ponders this trope in its lyrics.
"Why is death so goddamn sexy?
Why is hate so goddamn sexy?
Why is having fear so sexy?" - David Bowie's cocaine-created alter-ego from Station to Station, the Thin White Duke
, is an unpleasant, crackheaded, pro-fascist sociopath who came close to destroying Bowie's reputation from becoming Lost in Character. However, to say that he's the very definition of a Sharp-Dressed Man would be an understatement.
- Man on the Internet: Kylie Ann's voice for Dark Samus in "Brinstar Depths
" is surprisingly seductive, in no small part thanks to her Assimilation Plot, with her calmly reassuring that the listener will feel no pain when they're with her.
Dark Samus: Why do you struggle? You know you cannot resist me.
- Fergie's psychopath stripper character in the music video for "Beautiful Dangerous", with Slash. Not only does she succeed in drugging him, tying him to a bed, and all that junk, but also kills him at the end with her knife!
- Pamela Anderson's giantess character in the video for Miserable doesn't seem evil at first, merely sexy. What with lounging around in high heels and a bikini while the band climbs all over her hips, legs, high heels and rump. However, the evil comes in in the second half when out of nowhere she decides to start eating the guys alive one-by-one as they run from her in terror, and being either indifferent or amused by their attempts to struggle or beg for their lives.
- The Anthropomorphic Personification of Death in the music video for Pearl Jam's "Do the Evolution" is a conniving Dark Chick who consistently leads humanity to mass destruction, yet never fails at being flirtatious and voluptuous at the same time.
- On International Wrestling and in the Dominican Wrestling Federation, this role was most associated with Amarillis "Pour Water", a manager associated with "The Evil Genius" Lightning Hernandez that was none the less easy on the eyes.
- Rick Rude wants all you guys scrolling down this page to be quiet while he takes off his robe and shows all the lady tropers what a real man looks like!
- Despite being the most despised woman in Ring of Honor, fans still voted Simply Luscious to be the hottest woman in the promotion over the otherwise much more preferred Alexis Laree.
- The Impact Zone and TNA crowds in general tended to be against The Beautiful People throughout majority runs of its three lineups. When the original members reformed, the crowd booed. When they promised to strip, the crowd was very supportive (naturally they did not keep this promise, making them booed more.) Not so much the case with the Angelina Love and Winter pairing, who sort of worked "face" on occasion but didn't get any pops for anything "sexy" they did, up to and including kissing each other... perhaps because they broke up the Beautiful People.
- The "Hoopla Hotties" associated with The House Of Truth in Ring of Honor tend to be just as conceited and depraved as stable leader Truth Martini is. They also tend to be big breasted and eager to show it off, as well as adverse to wearing pants.
- Cody Rhodes, despite having few redeeming qualities (he was a decent competitor who loved his dad... that was about it), was voted most handsome superstar when the WWE divas were polled. This went to Cody's head and he started giving out grooming tips to "the WWE universe" about how they too could be "dashing". Ironically, when this period came to an end and Cody reemerged as a supposedly disfigured, "undashing" man upset that he was now as ugly as everyone else, he was also the closest thing on television to the Beautiful People's Spear Counterpart.
- For a while, this was true of about half of the women in the Pro Wrestling Syndicate, but that's to be expected when you name your women's show BLOW. The first, and fan-supported, PWS Bombshells Champion Missy Sampson lost her title to the less supported La Rosa Negra in a crooked finish because it was believed a better-looking champion would be better for business, even if her looks were about the only thing anyone liked about her.
- Alexa Bliss was a Cute Bruiser and Kid-Appeal Character as a face. Upon a Face–Heel Turn she shed a lot more clothing and played up her sex appeal.
- The "Oedo~tai dance" of World Wonder Ring STARDOM is based on this trope, but the individual standout is Hana Kimura, despite her wrestling in more clothing with the group than when solo. Toni Storm was once so put off by Kimura's "dancing" in particular that she forcibly tagged out of a match without even attempting to engage Kimura.
- Invoked on commentary and crossed with Fetish during AIW Women's Champion
Allysin Kay's title defense
against male wrestler Kobald at AIW The End of the World on December 12, 2012. At one point, the action spilled out to the floor. Allysin grabbed Kobald's valet Veronica Ticklefeather's batonnote and was beating up Kobald with it, and one of the commentators said, "I'd pay to have her do that to me."
- Brad Dykens' review
of the DVD for ROH Glory By Honor VI Night 2 called Sara Del Rey "devilishly sexy."
- Taeler Hendrix runs on this as a heel, wearing skimpy, revealing clothes and being a proud Large Ham. She even has a page
on the Evil Babes Wiki on fandom.com.
- Holidead, who was initially The Friend Nobody Likes among even Oedo~tai. Reinforced by the pictures on her Instagram
of her in either bikinis or underwear while holding knives.
- WWE NXT's Toxic Attraction. Especially with the indie antics of Gigi Dolin (formerly known by her real name Priscilla Kelly), newcomer Jacy Jayne, and Mandy Rose's love for leather.
- Dungeons & Dragons, in its various incarnations, has had not only incubi and succubi
, but also alu-fiends
, cambions
, drow
, erinyes, mariliths
, and tieflings
, and the ruggedly handsome Archfiends Asmodeus
, Graz'zt
, Mephistopheles
, etc.
- The Devil Princess of Baator herself, Glasya.
- Fierna, the nominal ruler of the fourth layer. She's an embodiment of Lust, after all.
- Dungeons and Dragons tends to vary wildly over how straight it plays this trope: Drow and succubuses are generally always depicted as sexy, but sometimes mariliths, erinyes, and even the Demon Princes and Archfiends like Graz'zt and Fierna are instead shown as having ugly, sinister features to let you know how evil they are.
- Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000:
- Slaanesh has this reputation, being the God of Evil representing sensations in all its forms. Unfortunately, while a cultist might start out like this, their senses are quickly burned out by so much excess that they have to go to even greater extremes to feel anything at all, to the point that eyes for nipples seem a reasonable option. On the other hand, one of Slaanesh's many "gifts" make its followers appear sexy or lovable to others, so much so that it can cause an enemy to fall in love with them and refuse to harm them, become so attracted to them that they won't run away even when they're being massacred, and force them to go wherever the psyker wants, even through minefields.
- The Dark Eldar of 40K wear either skin-tight leather or barely anything at all, especially for Lelith Hesperax and the entire Wych sect, and are the fetish faction. This makes sense given that their ancestors created Slaanesh by essentially orgying so hard they tore open a hole in reality. The original Warhammer Dark Elves play this trope much straighter; there seems to be a correlation between how powerful a Sorceress is and how much skin she shows. And the Death Hags look about as far from the usual use of the word 'hag' as it is possible to get, provided they don't skip on their regular Blood Bath.
- The Vampire Counts have their own version of this, and the original vampire bloodline is entirely composed of this in the "present-day". Lahmian vampires are specifically known to use their seduction to enslave entire populations rather than using outright force, and all Lahmian vampires are female.
- Exalted:
- The Abyssal Exalted have a choice: as they get more powerful, they either become decayed and corpselike, or deathly but alluring. "...One's not much better than the other, really."
- Of the five signature Infernal Exalted, one's a White Hair, Black Heart type and one's a freaking bondage nun. Oh, and Manosque Cyan, who's hard to describe in these terms but is damn good-looking anyway.
- The current poster girl of this trope in Magic: The Gathering is Liliana Vess
. She is a vamp, a Necromancer, happily engages
◊ in Foe Romance Subtext, and wears Stripperiffic outfits or gorgeous gothic dress
◊.
- "Whatever Lola wants, Lola gets!" The devil's sexy Fosse-dancing sidekick in Damn Yankees certainly fits the bill.
- Referred to almost by name in the Toxic Avenger musical, in the song "Evil is Hot", where the mayor seduces a scientist into telling her the titular monster's weakness.
- Méphistophélès as sung by baritone John Relyea in Robert Lepage's production of Berlioz's La Damnation de Faust is a handsome devil outfitted in tight red leather pants.
- Méphistophélès in Faust and the same character in Boito's Mefistofele often get this treatment, too. (Bare-chested Samuel Ramey
, anyone?)
- Méphistophélès in Faust and the same character in Boito's Mefistofele often get this treatment, too. (Bare-chested Samuel Ramey
- As does Baron Scarpia in Tosca.
- The titular character of Don Giovanni has managed to seduce over a thousand women.
- The Killer Queen in We Will Rock You is often played by someone tall and desirable or a Big Beautiful Woman. She also sings "Fat-Bottomed Girls".
- The Phantom in Andrew Lloyd Webber's The Phantom of the Opera is very sexy until you take his mask off.
- Though she starts out ugly, after a spell at the end of the first act, the witch in Into the Woods gets damn hot. And usually gets a costume during the second act that shows this off plenty.
- Death in Elisabeth. Wears skintight leather clothing (has a white costume and a black one, but the black one shows up the most), typically portrayed by either pretty androgynous actors (e.g. Uwe Kröger, the original Death) or ruggedly handsome ones (e.g. Mark Seibert, second Vienna revival and tour). Seduces both the titular character and her son to commit suicide.
- The Mad Hatter from the Broadway musical Wonderland absolutely fits the bill. Played by the stunning 5'11" Kate Shindle, Hatter wears a lot of black and red, including a corset, and walks with an elegance and grace that is almost hypnotizing. Every second she's on stage, she has your complete attention. She's charismatic and funny, so much so that you almost root for her to win by the end.
- One of the ways that the SQUIP in Be More Chill is able to control its host. When Jeremy first gets his SQUIP, one of the options for appearance is "sexy anime female" (and in later versions, sexy anime catgirl with tail), though he does not pick it.
- Junko Enoshima of Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc is the most deranged, and the most attractive character in the entire cast. The rightful holder of the title of the Ultimate Fashionista, her leggy outfit oozes sexuality, even while she's oozing insanity by changing her personality at the drop of a hat. Her major fetish for despair, and her charismatic knack of pushing everyone's buttons until they're quaking in said despair certainly help in making her a very, very twisted hottie.
- Deus Machina Demonbane takes over half the stuff from the Cthulhu Mythos and gives it this treatment if it was a canonical asshole (or at least antagonistic to humanity to begin with) in the source. That said, the queen of this trope is Nya(ralathotep). It's hard not to find the Crawling Chaos hot when it appears in the form of a Hot Librarian with a Navel-Deep Neckline who can also be a Hermaphrodite and bisexual. For bonus points, she has some creepy sexy going on during her most dickish moments.
- All the love interests in Demonheart are evil to some extent, especially the males.
- Raze is a shirtless half-demon with a shady past who collects whips and chains and is rather possessive of the player.
- Brash is a domineering evil knight and a cold hearted murderer with whom the player can have a hot and cold relationship, possibly leading to a love confession.
- Ari, while shy and kind on the outside, is an evil witch's apprentice and lover, and a demon worshiper, and she has nice cleavage.
- Doki Doki Literature Club!: Monika is incredibly attractive, less because she's outwardly sexy, but more because she has such a pleasant personality and genuinely loves the player for who they are as a person. And all of this is despite her tampering with the game's code, driving Sayori and Yuri to suicide, and erasing Natsuki from existence in the name of her love.
- In Fate/stay night, the 'Obviously Good' female Servant, Saber, turns out to be the least sexiest out of the other enemy female Servants, though she still qualifies for being beautiful. Really, compare her with Rider, or Caster (especially with her hood down), though Rider has the excuse of just merely being an opposing Servant, not aligned as evil like Caster. It become especially becomes obvious when she's corrupted into Saber Alter in Heaven's Feel.
- Gilgamesh too, regardless of him being listed with a "Chaotic Good" alignment. And Archer in UBW.
- Hatoful Boyfriend:
- Dr. Iwamine Shuu is portrayed human-style as an elegant older man with purple eyes, glasses, and long, curly brown hair. It's hard to see his actual form (a Chukar Partridge, dubbed "Fat Bird" by the fans) as sexy in the same way, but the player character seems to be attracted without seeing him as human.
- Holiday Star makes it clear that Hitori Uzune, whom we'd grown to know and love in Nanaki Kazuaki's stolen identity, is also quite evil. Who'd have imagined a game about dating birds would include so many evil Bishōnen?
- Higurashi: When They Cry:
- Miyo Takano, who doubles as a Hospital Hottie and the mastermind behind the Hate Plague gripping Hinamizawa Village.
- Shion Sonozaki, the taser-wielding Yandere who in one instance licks the nails she was going to drive into Keichi's hands.
- Vera Oberlin and Damien LaVey in Monster Prom. The former is a money-loving Gorgeous Gorgon who's involved in a variety of illegal activities, the latter is a Hot as Hell demon whose hobbies include arson, knives, and casual murder. One could argue that their cruelty and villainous actions just make them more appealing.
- The Sins. If you are the Anthropomorphic Personification of Lust then you are automatically a candidate for this trope.
- Drusilla, the succubus from Pibgorn, somehow manages to be a lot more seductive than the title character even though they are both attractive, slender women walking around (flying around?) wearing nothing but bodypaint.
- Lucrezia Mongfish in Girl Genius, at least as she's played in the Heterodyne Shows and seen in flashbacks, dressed much more provocatively when she was evil than after she married William Heterodyne. After she possesses her daughter's body as The Other, the Big Bad of the series, one of the first things she does is strip to her underwear to admire the body she now controls and begin flirting with the son of her most ardent (and now dead) supporter with no shame whatsoever.
- Sandra on the Rocks: Judging from
these
posts
on the comic's official forum, the readers certainly think so when it comes to Eva.
Why? Because despite being Zoe's evil arch-rival, there's no denying that Eva's drop-dead gorgeous and has a bangin' bod, they'd like to bang.
- Las Lindas has Alejandra Coldthorn, who is closer to The Rival, than a real villain, but still serves as an antagonist for her mean streak and some of her less than ethical actions, although this has been subverted as of recently.
- "Shown off", as it were, to great effect in this
◊ Stripperiffic Exiern banner ad. It even lampshades it: Because Evil is Hot. Also a really good example of Theiss Titillation Theory in action.
- Laughably Evil Tabitha in Boy Meets Boy: Satan's Daughter, the Antichrist, and the main characters' landlady.
- Between Madeline, Lethe, Issac, and Grey, the bad guys in Demonology 101 have this down. The Magdelines use this as a weapon.
- Nodwick hung a lampshade on an aversion, with Countess Repugsive.
Repugsive: Evil girls are only taken seriously when they're hot. When I was alive, I didn't look much better than I do now.
Zorion: This explains the "nice personality" you were famous for. - This
What's New? with Phil and Dixie comic explains it succinctly:
Phil: You're changing alignment? But why?
Dixie: Are you kidding? The perks are fantastic! Better hair — bigger bust — bitchin' outfits — plus I get my own minions! - Almost all the characters in Ménage à 3, of whatever moral standing, are more or less good-looking, but Senna, a raging egomaniac with a very distant relationship with the truth, is the one with the international modeling career. (Matt, who is merely a bit of a Jerk at times, appears to get slightly lower-level modelling jobs.) She certainly appears to think that evil is sexy herself; in her highly unreliable account of her relationship with her former assistant Sandra, planning treachery changes Sandra from a mouse to a vamp.
- In Sluggy Freelance being turned into a vampire not only strips away most of a person's morals, but it also turns the men into muscle-bound hunks and the women into thin bombshells. They consider putting this feature in their infomercials.
- In Shadowgirls, for a grandmother, Moria's looking pretty good, even if it is partly glamour.
- Misfile has the traditional evil conscience female uniform
, as well as any appearance by Cassiel.
- The Devil Girls
◊ from Sinfest. Indeed Fuschia's slow Heel–Face Turn is largely represented by her making attempts to not be sexy. Both Fuschia
and Satan
invoke this trope, the joke being that they don't believe it themselves.
- Sabine the succubus of The Order of the Stick. Also Tsukiko (and Samantha).
- The Condesce from Homestuck is quite an example of this trope in her alluring catsuit.
- Heartcore features demons as central characters; although they run the gamut from Anti-Hero to Card-Carrying Villain, all of them are good-looking, especially the demonesses such as Amethyst, Nyx, Teodora, Lilium, and Sukina.
- Although how evil he is can be up to interpretation, this is the general consensus for Phirre Lotus from Nightmare Factory. This
◊ is his first appearance. Even Line Webtoon
agreed with a commenter who said he was basically hot as f*ck.
- Tower of God:
- Hwaryun is certainly sexy, though YMMV on how evil she is.
- White is irredeemably evil and incredibly sexy.
- Rachel, while using her Icarus Avatar qualifies, although her actual appearance is rather average. This effect diminishes when, after detonating the bomb in Khun's chest, she pulls her standard off-smile, and the facial features of Icarus do nothing to help.
- Khun Maschenny Jahad is both incredibly attractive (as standard for Jahad Princesses), and also more psycho than any other female character in the series- including Rachel; she's just usually subtle about it.
- In El Goonish Shive, Susan's character in a videogame she's playing sports horns and a forked tail after she commits acts the game considers evil. One NPC sees these
, especially the tail, as sexy.
- Channel Awesome:
- Black Lantern Spoony and Dr. Linksano.
- The Nostalgia Critic seems to jump from Woobies Are Sexy when he's suffering and this trope when he succeeds at being sinister. ("Bratz" review, "The Review Must Go On", and a lot of his stuff in Kickassia comes to mind.)
- The Nostalgia Chick is hot when she shows her sociopathic side.
- Dark Nella wears leather and eyeliner, has demonic powers, and is really pissed off at the Chick for abusing her.
- Dr. Tease is a horrible, amoral person who creates woobie sexbots for funsies. This just makes her all the hotter.
- The Spoony One somehow becomes about 10 times sexier when he's cheerfully raping his fellow reviewers in the "Spooning with Spoony" videos.
- Add Judas Liz and Dark Paw to the list.
- The Other Guy gets another go with Carl Copenhagen in Demo Reel, as he's intimidating, very good with weapons and has a sexy German accent.
- The Big Bad from Suburban Knights is considered this both in and out of universe.
- Even Doug gets his turn in the advertisement for the third DVD, playing with a knife while shirtless and torturing a guy he's kidnapped.
- Mara Wilson.
- Subverted by Devil Boner, who looks the part in leather and eyeliner, and was certainly always considered attractive, but he only got an outpouring of love after his feminist rant to the meninists in Mad Max: Fury Road.
- The main character of Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog usually doesn't qualify, being a rather conservatively dressed and nebbishly awkward dork (albeit one played by Neil Patrick Harris). But during the song "Slipping" he takes a level in charismatic and holds a room in fearful thrall while singing in a quiet, hypnotic, borderline-seductive voice. Including leaning in and grabbing the chin of a bashfully frightened bystander to force her to look at him, in an almost Romanticized Abuse manner. Even lampshaded by the actress, who croons in the commentary that "This is my favorite scene."
- Fawkes from The Guild is pretty hot for a Straw Nihilist Magnificent Bastard. Codex/Cyd obviously thinks so.
- Hunter: The Parenting: Pyotr, the Arc Villain of the first few episodes, transforms from a spindly and animalistic man with a face like a road accident to a hulking, swaggering mountain of a man with a face like a road accident who's almost bursting out of his clothes after diablerizing his fellow vampires, and despite the aforementioned face is still seen as sensual by viewers. As Big-D says, some Nosferatu make it work.
- Everyone in The Lizzie Bennet Diaries is hot, but George Wickham and Caroline Lee play it up to a new level.
- RWBY: All the damn time.
- Cinder Fall, who is hot both figuratively and literally. Her sultry voice and the red minidress she wears note probably had something to do it.
- Cinder's two Co-Dragons Emerald Sustrai and Mercury Black have their own devoted fanbases as well, Emerald for her well-proportioned hips and Mercury for his gymnastic appeal.
- Their reluctant ally Roman Torchwick is definitely this.
Roman: Hello, kitty cat. Ya miss me? You know, we really ought to stop meeting like this. People are gonna talk.- Neo, Torchwick’s ally, is a beautiful Pint-Sized Powerhouse whose good looks always carry over into her various disguises.
- After the Wham Episode that was the Volume 3 finale, Cinder's boss Salem, the Bigger Bad of the series (so far), may or may not qualify as this depending on who you ask. On the one hand, Humanoid Abomination; on the other, Most Common Super Power...
- Whether Raven Branwen is evil, precisely, is still a divisive question among the fans. But she's got plenty of blood on her hands, and well, she is Yang's mom...
- While Adam did have his villainous appeal, and has a slick, stylish fashion sense to boot, Adam is seen as this, even after the Wham Shot that revealed the brand on his face, his attractiveness levels increased significantly. It helps that the brand barely harms his looks at all - being spread over a small area, consisting of a scarred eye and burn marks on the target spot. As one commenter put it:
- As well as holding the firm belief that Evil Is Cool, Kakos Industries is peppered with talk of endless availability to amazing sex with beautiful people. Even the most mundane of announcements sound oddly seductive due to the smooth, deep voice of the narrator.
- Red vs. Blue: Agent Connecticut. She becomes disillusioned with Project Freelancer's methods and defects to the group that the Director told his agents were insurrectionists. She also wears the bulkiest chest piece available in Halo 3, with the animators at Rooster Teeth stating that was intentional in Season 9's commentary. There's also her lover, the Leader of the "Insurrectionists", who removes his helmet to visibly mourn her after she's killed by Agent Texas, who then dons her armor, begins calling himself C.T. and many years later becomes the main antagonist of Season 7. He happens to look a little like Soap from Modern Warfare.
- Given that the Reds and Blues were really just simulation troopers meant to test the Freelancers in live fire situations many of the Freelancers can be seen as this, as pretty much all of them who have had their faces revealed are quite good looking.
- Once Chrovos gets a female form\voice in Season 17, it definitely fits. Donut outright describes the result as "a big and sexy frightening lady".