Angelic Beauty

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

We all know angels run the gamut from being light-based Eldritch Abominations to the basically human, and the human flavor are divinely hot. This rule is almost without exception.

You could almost describe them as an... Angelic Beauty.

Compare Horny Devils, for this trope's infernal counterpart (which may be literal, in some cases). Their boss(es) may also be (a) Hot God(s) as well. Also compare Beauty Equals Goodness, which fits this (almost) perfectly. See also But Your Wings Are Beautiful. Not related to Lovely Angels.

Examples of Angelic Beauty include:

Advertising

  • An ad campaign for Lynx deodorant used the tagline "angels will fall", and showed hot female angels plunging from Heaven to Earth to be near the guy spraying on Lynx. Axe ran a similar campaign in the US.
  • The Victoria's Secret Angels

Anime and Manga

Comic Books

Film

Live-Action TV

  • Ambassador Kosh in Babylon 5, and other Vorlons apparently, although those are more Fallen Angels.
    • Mind you, this is All According to Plan on the Vorlons' part. They've manipulated the younger races for aeons, genetically and psychically, to always see them as beautiful divine beings. Every person who sees them sees his own image of celestial perfection.
      • Also, in a later season, we are shown this is not the Vorlon's true form, or that the Vorlons need to do something to make the other races see them as divine.
  • Several examples in Supernatural: Castiel is this to many fans; Michael, in the form of Michael Cohen and Jake Abel; Anna from Season 4 and 5; Season 6 briefly introduced another female angel named Rachel. Averted with Zachariah. These may not count as this trope however. They use hosts, so technically the fanbase is finding the human hosts pretty, not the actual angels. The only angel whose celestial form is explicitly described in-story as "beautiful" is Lucifer. The angels themselves are actually of the Eldritch Abomination variety, but the show has never shown their true forms.

Literature

Music

Tabletop Games

  • A number of angel pictures on Magic: The Gathering cards fit this, with the first Serra Angel picture (up to 4th edition) just being a mild one.
  • Half-celestial races in Dungeons & Dragons, currently known as devas, are known to have an otherworldly beauty.
    • For related reasons, Aasimars (those with a celestial being in their ancestry) are also frequently quite beautiful.
  • While most demons in Demon: The Fallen drive mortals who witness their true forms insane with horror, the few who still have low Torment do so with the angelic beauty they retained since the Days of Creation.

Video Games

  • Kyra, the Angel of Light, from the mythology of Septerra Core.
  • Most angels of the Disgaea universe, most prominently Archangel Flonne and Vulcanus(?).
  • Any time a being of angelic origins shows up in the Neverwinter Nights modding community, she will be in possession of Angelic Beauty. Evanine in Tales of Arterra, Anera in Shadowlords, Melissa in Trials of the Academy, any others I haven't mentioned yet...
  • Pokémon: Gardevoir apparantly has a huge fanbase because of its/"her" feminine appearance. According to Word of God, it/"she" is supposed to resemble an angel.
  • The Shin Megami Tensei series largely averts this. The root-standard "Angel" is a young winged woman... covered in bondage straps, including one over her eyes; it's actually pretty creepy. After that, angels come in two categories: harsh, masculine warrior, or Humanoid Abomination (in other words, close to the Biblical depiction). The only angels that could be described as pretty are Gabriel and Lucifer's angelic form (the one Persona 3 FES dubbed "Helel").
  • While not exactly an angel (more like a member of the Heron, a Winged Humanoid race), Leanne from Fire Emblem Tellius fits in nicely. Her older brother Reyson is a Rare Male Example.
  • The Violated Hero series has Tides in the first game and Ariel in the fifth.

Western Animation