Evil Eyebrows



Nothing says "villain" more than a pair of dark, high arching eyebrows!

It doesn't matter if a villain is smiling, laughing, crying or frowning, Evil Eyebrows will remain at a permanently high arch on his or her forehead, giving the character a constant expression of menace or disdain.

Evil Eyebrows are usually darker and curve higher than any other characters' eyebrows. The level of thickness varies - If the hero has thick eyebrows, the villain usually has razor thin ones to counter this. But if the hero has thin eyebrows, the villain's will usually be thicker than the fuzziest of caterpillars. Either way, they will still have the trademark "evil arch" that every bad guy seems to be born with.

Will sometimes have a scar crossing through one of the eyebrows to emphasize the evil.

Usually related to Unusual Eyebrows and Big Ol' Eyebrows. Frequently paired with Excessive Evil Eyeshadow.

Anime

 * Vicious from Cowboy Bebop definitely has these.
 * Hiruma of Eyeshield 21 probably has these on purpose given how genre savvy he is.

Comic Books

 * The Joker. Naturally.
 * In Paul Murry's Mickey Mouse comics, you could always tell the bad guys by their eyebrows.

Film

 * Even if you knew nothing about Jack Nicholson before seeing The Shining, you'd still be able to guess what's going to happen to him just by looking at his eyebrows alone.
 * Dr Evil from the Austin Powers series.

Literature

 * Lord Vetinari from the Discworld books is able to terrify people just by raising his eyebrow.
 * Snape from Harry Potter is often described as arching his eyebrows. He's played in the films naturally enough, by the master of evil-eyebrow-raising, Alan Rickman. Subverted in that Snape turns out to be a good guy.
 * But he's still a jerk.
 * Subverted in Georgette Heyer's Sylvester, or The Wicked Uncle. The heroine, an aspiring writer, modeled the villain of her novel after Sylvester, partly because of an unfortunate first meeting, and largely because his eyebrows looked so perfectly villainous. He's really not a bad person at all; a bit arrogant, yes, but well-intentioned (and not an extremist).
 * Subverted in Georgette Heyer's Sylvester, or The Wicked Uncle. The heroine, an aspiring writer, modeled the villain of her novel after Sylvester, partly because of an unfortunate first meeting, and largely because his eyebrows looked so perfectly villainous. He's really not a bad person at all; a bit arrogant, yes, but well-intentioned (and not an extremist).

Live Action TV

 * Robbie Rotten from LazyTown has thick, arched eyebrows to emphasize that he is, in fact, the villain.
 * Sylar from Heroes has very impressive and thick eyebrows that are more of the "low and menacing" variety. He is far from nice.
 * Subverted with Mr. Spock. Though Dr. McCoy often lampshaded that his high eyebrows, pointed ears and green complexion made him look satanic.
 * Star Trek Voyager. Homaged with Dr Chaotica, the Ming the Merciless expy in the holodeck program The Adventures of Captain Proton!

Newspaper and Web Comics

 * Emperor Ming from Flash Gordon.

Western Animation

 * Scar from The Lion King. He even has an evil scar over one of them.
 * Frollo from The Hunchback of Notre Dame.
 * Let's face it, basically every Disney villain fits this trope.
 * Jenner from The Secret of NIMH has eyebrows that arch all the way out of his head.
 * Jet of Avatar: The Last Airbender has some crazy eyebrows.

Video Games

 * Seymour Guado from Final Fantasy X.

Real Life

 * Alan Rickman as mentioned before.
 * Actor Jack Nicholson is well known for his trademark Evil Eyebrows.
 * Any picture of Leona Helmsley shows that she had the Evil Eyebrows.
 * The otherwise incredibly Moe David Archuleta has eyebrows like this.