Beauty Equals Goodness/Playing With

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Basic Trope: All beautiful characters in a work are good, and all good characters in a work are beautiful.

  • Straight: Alice, Bob, and Charlie, the three heroes, are very attractive, while all the villains are somewhat unattractive.
  • Exaggerated: Alice, Bob, and Charlie are heartstoppingly gorgeous, and the villains are all hideous, twisted monsters.
  • Justified:
    • Alice, Bob, and Charlie are shapeshifters who didn't want to take ugly forms, and the villains are a species of inhuman, deformed beasts.
    • The characters can detect whether someone is good or evil, manifest in the form of attractiveness.
    • Alternately, the villains were cursed for their evil-ness to look like monsters, whereas the heroes were blessed for their goodness.
  • Inverted: Alice, Bob, and Charlie are hideous. The villains, however, are most certainly not.
  • Subverted:
    • The heroes Alice, Bob, and Charlie seem to be the only attractive characters, but shortly after the work begins it's revealed that Charlie is in fact working for the enemy.
    • Alternately, in addition to the Two Guys and a Girl being beautiful, so is one villain, who does not have a Heel Face Turn.
    • Also alternately, one of the heroes are horribly disfigured or otherwise made ugly, and they stay good regardless.
  • Double Subverted:
    • However, as soon as Charlie turns to the dark side, he gets an Evil Makeover and is no longer beautiful like before.
    • Alternately, Charlie goes through a Heel Face Turn, bringing the trope right back again.
    • ...However they eventually turn evil or end up being revealed to work for the villain.
  • Parodied: A villain gets a plastic surgery and instantly turns good. Meanwhile, Alice is disfigured by a huge fire and instantly becomes a bloodthirsty serial killer.
  • Deconstructed: Alice, Bob, and Charlie are joined by average-looking Daryl, who feels inferior next to the beauty of his allies and soon becomes depressed.
    • Alternatively, average/ugly people are immediately pegged as inferior/evil while people cater to the beautiful, regardless of the actual conduct and behavior of either group.
    • Alternatively, Bob, who was born ugly, is treated as obviously evil no matter what he does--even if he's acting like a saint--while Alice, who is beautiful and thus the Designated Hero, can go on murderous rampages, roast kittens For the Evulz, and be generally Chaotic Evil without so much as a What the Hell, Hero?.
  • Reconstructed:
  • Zig Zagged: Heroes Alice, Bob, and Charlie are all beautiful, when it's revealed that Charlie was The Mole. He shifts into his hideous true form shortly afterward. Then, villainous but attractive Daryl shows up, but he's actually working for the heroes. As soon as Daryl returns to Alice and Bob's side, though, he changes outfits and stops looking attractive. This is shortly resolved by a makeover from Alice. Then, we meet a new Hero, Evelyn, who's rather ugly...
  • Averted: Some beautiful characters are heroes, but some are evil, and there are some average or ugly people on both sides.
  • Enforced:
    • A line of action figures based on the series is going to be sold, so all the heroes are good-looking to increase their appeal. Additionally, the villains are ugly so that people will like their action figures for the "monstrous" look.
    • "We can't have attractive villains, it'll have people symphasize with them!
  • Lampshaded: "No, you have to lose! We're much better-looking than you!"
  • Invoked: The hero recruits all the beautiful people of the land, and only them, into his army, hoping to add a level of intimidation for the villains.
  • Defied:
    • Villainous overlord Steve seeks out several attractive people to add to his army, to make sure that the hero isn't the only one with some good-looking allies.
    • Alternately, Evil Overlord Steve seeks out attractive people because PR is easier that way.
  • Discussed: "Hey, I bet when we meet Overlord Steve's army they'll all be ugly. After all, we've got all the pretty people, so..."
  • Conversed: One less-attractive character jokes that if he was in a work of fiction, he'd probably end up being evil thanks to his looks.

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