Horned Hairdo



Hair, that infallible representation of a person's moral compass. In an effort to shape the world of fiction into something more logical than the unpredictable real world, authors have long given their characters physical traits that provide artful hints about where said character stands on the good-evil spectrum. Triangular shapes are the preferred way of telling the audience that a character is one bad dude or chick, but few are more unsubtle and in-your-face than a threatening hairstyle. And as far as that goes, you can't get much more direct than likening them to Old Scratch himself. A hairstyle shaped like horns is almost always a surefire sign of a heart as black as soot.

Not to be confused with a joke seen in cartoons in which a character's hair (feathers, if it's an avian character like Donald Duck) come together briefly into little devil horns whenever they have a truly malicious idea.

Anime & Manga

 * Ox Ford from Soul Eater. In no way evil, though.
 * The president of Lala's fanclub in To Love Ru sports such a hairdo when she (apparently) goes Super Saiyan and starts beating up Rito.
 * Andore of Team Unicorn from Yu-Gi-Oh 5 Ds, who's not quite evil, but more of Manipulative Bastard. As you might guess by his team's name, his hair has a very prominent unicorn horn, which begs the question: how can he wear a biker helmet with that thing sticking out of his head?
 * Sailor Moon. Chibi-Usa/Rini has pointed buns that evoke her Trickster nature and certainly apply as an indicator of malice when she transforms into Black Lady/Wicked Lady. They also evoke the horns of a crescent moon, and her heroic nature as a moon princess.
 * In the case of Chibi-Usa, the hairstyle is meant to evoke the image of a rabbit. Cooan would be a more straight example.
 * Elyse in My Balls is a demon with real horns that turn into gravity-defying Princess Curls when she disguises herself as a human.
 * Akira in Shiki. He's not evil though; just a victim of a series with crazy amounts of Anime Hair.
 * Turles, the Evil Counterpart of Goku, has Goku's hairstyle with two horns.
 * Videl, the daughter of Mr. Satan,has her hair point up into horns occasionally when she's flustered or angry. This is mostly just part of the pun, though, as her name is actually an anagram of "devil".
 * Lord David, one of the many villains whom Kenshiro meets during his journey in Fist of the North Star.

Comic Books

 * Daredevil as he appeared in Marvel 1602.
 * In The Sandman comics, Lucifer looks this way. Also, Cain and Abel.
 * Daimon Hellstrom had horn-hair in the front during his Bronze Age Son of Satan years. As Hellstorm he's let them go and just worn his hair long. In Ultimate Marvel he's a minor character with emo spikes.
 * Subverted by Banana Man -- his civilian alter ego Little Eric has horned hair, but it's supposed to represent the shape of a banana, instead of having anything to do with the devil. And far from being evil, he's a bumbling superhero.
 * Former The Dandy character "Lil Imp" has bunches that form horns.

Comic Strips

 * The Pointy-Haired Boss from Dilbert, although he's not evil so much as grossly incompetent. Well, he's still evil enough to steal credit and shift blame from/to his underlings.

Fan Works

 * The succubus Sunshine in The Return gains a literal pair when Odango Hair are braided over her horns.

Films -- Animation

 * Maleficent, the evil fairy from Disney's Sleeping Beauty. It's also entirely possible that it's not actually hair and those are genuine horns.
 * In Pinocchio, the Coachman's hair actually becomes like this during the scene where he says "They'll never come back... ...as BOYS!!!"

Films -- Live-Action
"Ace: All right...that's it! This "White Devil" thing has gone far enough. Nobody! Messes! With the 'do!"
 * Uma Thurman as Poison Ivy wears her hair like this in Batman and Robin.
 * A Wachootoo warrior arranges Ace Ventura's normally duckbilled hairdo like this during Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls, in mockery of his nickname of "White Devil". Ace does not take it well.


 * Raven at the end of Cecil B Demented has this. She loves everybody, but she's still a Satanist.
 * Will Ferrell as evil fashion maven Mugatu in Zoolander.
 * One of Grace Jones' many, many styles in A View to A Kill is a red outfit and hairdo shaped like devil horns. Subtle.

Literature

 * "Ole Devil" Hardin, in the novels of JT Edson, deliberately combs the hair over his temples into horn shapes to emphasise his Mephistophelean appearance.

Live-Action TV

 * Bandora / Rita Repulsa from Kyoryu Sentai Zyuranger / Mighty Morphin Power Rangers.
 * Vyvyan's tangerine tri-hawk on The Young Ones looks a lot like horns.

Music

 * Melanie "Scary Spice" Brown of the Spice Girls.
 * French singer Mathieu Chedid has this, but whether he's evil is questionable. His stage name being "M", the hairdo (with a widow peak) is rather to suggest this letter.
 * The Prodigy: "I'm the firestarter! Twisted firestarter!"

Theater

 * Ms. Lovett in the original Broadway staging of Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. She has it in the movie too. They're hidden in the general rat's nest of her hair, but she definitely has pointy odango there.

Video Games

 * There's a hidden model in Warcraft 3 of an Orc warrior, who's bald with very long horns of hair on the sides.
 * Seems to be a genetic trait of the Mishima bloodline in Tekken. Most obvious in Heihachi and Kazuya, but Jin occasionally shows signs of it too.
 * Final Fantasy
 * Ultimecia from Final Fantasy VIII and Dissidia Final Fantasy.
 * Possibly also The Emperor from Final Fantasy II, although some of them might be actual horns. Maybe. He was designed by Yoshitaka Amano in the eighties, it can be hard to tell.
 * Mewt Randell from Final Fantasy Tactics Advance, when he gets to be the Royal Brat in Ivalice.
 * Juri Han from Super Street Fighter IV, fits since she's a sultry cyborg assassin working for Big Bad Seth.
 * In the 2009 SaGa 2 / Final Fantasy Legend II remake, New God(dess) Venus is redesigned to have these.
 * Flemeth's character redesign for Dragon Age II includes these. Also, in both games she transforms into a dragon, meaning she has actual horns at certain points.
 * Catherine and her really weird Mega Twintails that just add to her mystery.
 * Viola from Eternal Sonata.
 * Batreaux from The Legend of Zelda Skyward Sword has these once he's transformed from a demon into a human. Its actually so hornlike that it takes a bit for the player to realize that's hair, not horn.

Web Comics

 * Charby the Vampirate, though nowadays he has become somewhat non-evil. Still not a nice guy, however.
 * Elijah and Azuu has main character Azuu (and all of his family) sporting some variation of horned hair. Has crossed over with Charby above, which joked about the hair.
 * Zebra Girl, who has real horns a well. While basically good, Zebragirl has been transformed into a demon, with the darkness and violence that entails.

Western Animation

 * Jinx from Teen Titans. She starts out as a villain, but the horned hairdo stays after she has a change of heart.
 * The Simpsons
 * One episode sorta does this: Mayor Quimby is making a speech of some sort, but he's extremely sweaty, so when he passes his hand through his hair, he ends up looking like the Devil. Naturally, the TV crew filming him add hellfire surrounding him.
 * Similarly, in "Lisa the Buddhist", while the town is discussing fund-raising ideas to rebuild the church, the shadow of a horned figure falls upon them. It is then revealed that the silhouette belongs to Mr. Burns, who quickly slicks down his hair.
 * Mandy from The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy.
 * Klarion the Witch-Boy from Young Justice sports a particularly pointy hairdo.
 * Jimmy's evil clone from The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron Boy Genius.
 * Averted in Futurama: Unlucky Everydude Fry has vaguely horn-shaped hair (even referred to as his "hair-horn" once), yet is undoubtedly good.
 * Danny Phantom
 * Vlad Plasmius sports this in his ghost-form.
 * Likewise, Penelope Spectra also sports a similar hairdo. Hmm...perhaps they go to the same stylist?
 * Aunt Trudy in The Amazing Spiez, an annoying, but not evil, example.

Real Life

 * One well-circulated press photo of Heather Mills McCartney sees the wind do this to her.
 * Many Aztec (or Nahua in general) women wore their hair like this, mostly those who were married.
 * First Lady Mamie Eisenhower wore this hairstyle to her husband's inaugural ball.
 * Inverted with rhinos. Their horns are actually made of the same substance that makes up hair and fingernails.