Evil Is Sexy

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.
Lust indeed.

"The usual dilemma crops up: why does Lady Anne give in to Richard?
"'Easy,' says a quiet and rather beautiful young man. 'Evil is erotic.'"

Antony Sher, Year of the King, rehearsing Richard III for prisoners

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. Often a consequence of Power Is Sexy, since Mooks aren't that attractive.

Even though Beauty Equals Goodness, some villains are just gorgeous. They ooze sex appeal and carnality in a way that represents how seductive and tempting evil can be. 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. (Okay, maybe that last Pothole went too far.)

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, um, style?

A good guy temporarily tempted by evil tends to suddenly wear skimpier clothes and be more sexually assertive. Many fans will find him sexier this way and perhaps dread the return to purity that will accompany his return to goodness.

An opportunity for Fan Service of all kinds. Also sets the stage for Unfortunate Implications, especially given the gender differences it frequently invokes.

This is especially problematic because it is guaranteed to garner loads of entirely undeserved sympathy from fans. Still, it's so ingrained in certain cultures that it's not going away any time soon.

As a trope, understandable. Evil characters are rarely just the type to say, "I choose evil!" (Though even characters who do have that as their motivation may be sexy.) Even if a character has misgivings, the Big Bad should want to be what he or she is...and what better way than to make evil seductive? Storytellers have understood this for millennia.

People have been going a little far with this trope, though. Evil in general is presented as something that is physically enticing. (In American film, this is probably related to that period way back when when only evil was allowed to be sexy—since sex sells regardless.)

This trope is often reconciled with Beauty Equals Goodness by making the good characters' beauty more genuine and the evil characters' appearance more focused on inspiring lust. That is, they consciously try to separate beauty from sexiness. Thus, the hot chick likely was Evil All Along, or has made a Face Heel Turn; the constant heroine, while beautiful, is not sexy because she exudes Incorruptible Pure Pureness even if she's gonna end up a wife and mother.

Mostly applied to female villains, because most male villains are rather hideous. Attractive male villains are becoming more common, though, especially in series geared toward females.

If the heroine-cum-Love Interest is the initial Ms. Fanservice, then The Baroness or The Vamp has to take it to the next level, sometimes immediately.

The following tropes all relate to this concept; please add examples there rather than here when possible:

See also Evil Tastes Good, Evil Is Cool, and Evil Is Easy.

Compare with Beauty Equals Goodness. Both a cause of and a result of Jerkass Dissonance.

No real life examples, please; This is an issue wherein discussion about attractiveness and discussion about evil are both involved, and, sometimes, the whole can be more touchy than the sum of its parts, despite combining an insult with a compliment. In any case, Rule of Cautious Editing Judgment should be taken into account here, even for some of the fictional examples.

Examples of Evil Is Sexy include:

General

  • Most vampires everywhere, if they can pass for human at all. There may be permanently monstrous vampires, but one never seems to run into a pimply, fat vampire. Outside of Discworld, that is.

Buffy: I've fought more than a couple pimply, overweight vamps that called themselves Lestat.

    • Vampires in the movie Vampire in Brooklyn are all very sexy, even when played by Eddie Murphy. The heroine gradually becomes sexier as she becomes one.
    • Played straight with Irrylath the vampire in Meredith Ann Pierce's The Darkangel Trilogy.
    • The distinguishing feature of the antagonist vampires in Christopher Pike's The Last Vampire series was his face full of acne scars.
    • Parodied in this Sluggy Freelance strip. "Wow! When you become a vampire, men become broad-shouldered and muscle-bound and women become tall and thin! You ever think of selling this on QVC?"
    • Also subverted (probably; those sprites make it hard to tell how anyone really looks) with nerdy Vilbert von Vampire in Eight Bit Theater.
    • Subverted in the Castlevania series (particularly Symphony of the Night and the Sorrow arc) with Alucard, the half-vampire son of Dracula, though the subversion lies in his alignment rather than his appearance.
    • Averted in The X-Files with a fat vampire who delivers pizzas.
    • The first Blade with Wesley Snipes, does feature one vampire, the Big Bad's archivist, who is obscenely, can't-cross-room-without-forklift obese. Still, on the whole, most of the vampires tend to be at least fairly attractive.
    • Amelia Atwater-Rhodes justifies this trope in her vampire novels: vampires usually only choose to turn pretty people, and the transformation process removes imperfections.
    • Evangeline, the shape-shifting girl vampire from Mahou Sensei Negima.
    • Averted in True Blood. Eddie, while actually a very nice guy, isn't particularly sexy. Neither is Area Five's magistrate. On the other hand, Eric and Bill are apparently walking sex gods.
    • Under the D&D rules, vampires gain a boost to Charisma, which measures among other things physical attractiveness and sex appeal, when transformed. This was parodied entertainingly in an early Antiheroes for Hire strip.
    • Doubly subverted by Carmilla in Castlevania: Lords of Shadow. The vampire queen prefers a woman's shape, but her deathly pallor and bloody red eyes place her easily into the Uncanny Valley. Her Absolute Cleavage comes off as more wanton than alluring, and her deep voice is harsh and commanding. Her true form amounts to a shaggy, hideous batlike thing that walks like a woman with flabby breasts...all in all, it's probably not a surprise that the heroic knight Gabriel is above her wiles.
    • Averted in F. W. Murnau's Nosferatu and it's dark retelling, Shadow of the Vampire. the Graf von Orlok is distinctly not attractive.
  • With the exception of those based on the original Norse and Scottish mythologies, most "Dark Elves" in almost any Fantasy fiction. All of them. Especially the females. The Dark Eldar from Warhammer 40,000 are actually meant to be naked, but Games Workshop aren't permitted to sell nude figures to under-18s (a major part of their customer base), so they have just enough clothing to cover their naughty bits. Daemonettes of Slaanesh don't, though.
    • For that matter, most elves in the original mythologies were barely good and hardly the beauty that modern works have them.
    • There are a few exceptions; they appeared as tiny little demons in the first Final Fantasy.
  • Apparently this trope is strong enough to make some of the most evil and sadistic psychopaths in fiction sex icons for a surprising amount of women (in a lot of cases though, it's simply the actor playing the psychopath that attracts the audience). Unlike Real Life psychopaths who have a distinct disorderly narcissism and a crudely aggressive personal style, which in most cases would turn off women romantically (depending on the woman), the cool self-possession and unflappable personal style of many film psychos attract quite a few fangirls, despite their... flaws. These characters include Jason Dean in Heathers, David McCall in Fear, Anton Chigurh in No Country for Old Men, and Hannibal Lecter (yes, it's possible to make even Anthony Hopkins sexy) in The Silence of the Lambs, Red Dragon, Hannibal, and Hannibal Rising.
    • An unfortunate case of Truth in Television. See Bonnie and Clyde Syndrome.
    • The Joker has fangirls. Yes, that Joker. The one with the Glasgow Smile and the sloppy makeup and the sing-song-y voice. The one who pencil-ed someone in the face. He also receives a large number of Mary Sues in Fanfic.
    • Forget Fanfic, Harley Quinn basically incarnates this trope going both ways and she's Canon. And, yes, both meanings of 'both ways.' She spends a lot of time with Poison Ivy.
    • You think lust for the Joker is bad? Clive Barker has commented that women still send him letters saying that they want to have Pinhead's baby. Urgh.
  • Succubi, Incubi, or any other kind of Horny Devils.

Advertising

  • Subverted in a nicotine gum ad, where the initially sultry and seductive personification of tobacco turns into a little repulsive demon after the addict uses the gum to resist his craving.

Anime and Manga

  • Trinity Blood is a master at this. Talking to you, Cain Nightroad, Isaak Fernand von Kämpfer and Dietrich von Lohengrin. Radu Barvon could also count.
  • Speed Grapher rather enjoys playing this trope as straight as possible, then immediately deconstructing the idea as brutally and horrifically as possible.
  • These examples should give special notice to Japanese Kawaisa, which values cuteness sometimes even to the detriment of Western perception of sex appeal; "sexiness" isn't necessarily more attractive. However, when comparing villainesses with heroines, or female characters pre-turn / post-turn, there's a marked drop in the cuteness quotient. The only exceptions are deliberate subversions.
  • Dio Brando, from JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, elevates this trope to practically a superpower. Many of his subordinates follow him just because of his charisma and beauty. Many of them (of both genders) outright wanna jump his bones, and some succeed (Vanilla Ice and Enrico Pucci). To be slightly fair however, he was already extremely attractive BEFORE he became completely evil, and its implied that he is using his Stand Power to aid him in this. Dio's beauty is so amazingly mythical leveled that it even seduced a blind man.
    • He has also fathered at least 6 children (all from different women), including the Part 5 protagonist, Giorno.
  • Fullmetal Alchemist: The homunculus Lust (pictured above) is literally this trope incarnate.
    • Sloth in the first anime. Just as good-looking as Lust, though admittedly she doesn't ooze sex appeal.
    • Greed, who is introduced with two attractive women hanging on either arm.
    • In the manga, Father's form after absorbing the Truth is that of a Bishonen.
  • Itachi and Sasuke from Naruto of course. In fact, most of the Akatsuki qualify for this trope, especially Sasori and Deidara. Also, Kabuto.
  • Maddy from Mega Man NT Warrior counts for this in spades, considering she has a great figure and also multiple scenes where she shows it off, including a scene with her in a white bikini.
  • In D Gray Man most of the Noah that exemplify this trope, specifically Tyki Mikk (Pleasure of Noah) and Lulu Bell (Form of Noah). Oddly averted in their comically round but nonetheless badass leader, The Millennium Earl.
    • As of chapter 187, plays this trope straight with his human form.
    • And in recent chapters, evil Allen qualifies.
  • Take one look at Pretty Sammy and her antagonist, Pixy Misa, and tell me which is the evil one.
    • It's even worse in the alternate universe spin-off Sasami: Magical Girls Club. When she is possessed by evil, Misao goes from being a 10-year-old girl to a voluptuous 20-something with very little clothing.
  • All the Sailor Moon villains with the notable exceptions of Queen Metallia, Death Phantom, Pharaoh 90, and Zirconia are handsome Bishonen and seductive Femme Fatales.
    • Most directly played in the 2nd season. Chibiusa is a typical six-year-old girl (physically anyway). When Death Phantom captures her and brainwashes her into the evil Black Lady, she becomes a well-endowed woman in her 20s.
    • Similar remarks apply to Hotaru's transformation into Mistress 9 in the third season.
  • Let's examine Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha. Nanoha, main protagonist, wears a white schoolgirl uniform with a long white skirt and long white sleeves, a costume that's cute but conservative. Fate, main antagonist, wears a black swimsuit with very interestingly placed red belts and a pink skirt that's barely there, a costume that's basically sin incarnate. When panty shots are applied, Nanoha's are pink, while Fate's are Black Bra and Panties (save for that one instance with the pink thong).
  • Yu-Gi-Oh GX: While he played up the White-Haired Pretty Boy trope just fine when he was good, Johan Anderson was arguably much more kawaii in the outfit he got while possessed by Yubel—sleeveless trenchcoat, baggy jeans, and leather straps everywhere, all in a fashionable shade of dark slate blue-gray.
    • Camula is one of the only women who can be evil, sexy, and play cards at the same time.
  • Played straight in Yu-Gi-Oh with Kaiba, Pegasus, Yami Bakura, and normal Marik. Completely subverted, however, with Yami Marik, who is prone to having veins randomly pop up on his face, usually while his eyes are out of proportion and his tongue sticking out.
  • Kaname and Momomi from Strawberry Panic are the only characters in a series full of Schoolgirl Lesbians who actually have a sex life, played for much Fan Service. Their "good" counterparts, Hikari and Amane, clearly have sex with each other as well. Maybe it's a yin-yang thing.
  • In Princess Tutu, Rue demonstrates a classic case of this: when she transforms into her evil alter ego Princess Kraehe, her previously fairly standard ballet costume is now something strapless, backless, and cut down to her bellybutton in front.
    • Also, once Mytho is infected by the Raven's blood in season 2, he becomes much much more sexually assertive. He flirts openly, tracing his fingers over girl's hearts, draping his arms around one woman's shoulders, and essentially coming on to every girl he meets in an attempt to take their heart from them as a sacrifice. Although towards the end of the series, when it takes him over more and more, he becomes less sexy and more squicky.
  • In Monster, Johan Liebert is by far the most attractive man in the entire series. He is also, without a shadow of a doubt, the most evil.
  • Dakki, the Big Bad of Houshin Engi. She's well-formed, and often wears revealing outfits. Her magic weapon even gets a power boost when she strikes sexy poses.
  • In Record of Lodoss War, both Deedlit and Pirotess are extremely attractive, but the latter Dark Action Girl shows way more skin.
  • The Winged Ones of Mermaid Melody Pichi Pichi Pitch cater to the Villainous Crossdresser, Dragon Lady and Lolicon niches, and with titles like "the wings of desire and pleasure", as well as Lady Bat's Kiss of the Vampire and Alala's anime-only career as an Idol Singer with an army of fanboys, they know it. Don't Forget Sara's manga exclusive form Black Pearl Voice.
  • Akio Ohtori from Revolutionary Girl Utena. He's quite the charmer (whose wiles know no gender limits), and is privy to many a Shirtless Scene.
  • One Piece:
  • To a mild extent in an early episode of the Rockman.EXE anime, where the baddies temporarily turn Roll evil - while her outfit doesn't change, she gets a whip and a dominatrix personality for the duration of this effect.
  • Paptimus Scirocco in Zeta Gundam and Haman Kahn in Gundam ZZ are extremely sexy and attractive. The former is also an egotistical Magnificent Bastard with a Utopia Justifies the Means mentality, who thinks nothing of using everyone around him (specially pretty women with huge piloting skills) and tossing him/her away after having outlived their usefulness, and the latter is an Baroness who wants to revive the old Principate of Zeon with herself standing on top, manipulating her ward Princess Mineva Zabi for her own gain, and take control of the Earth Sphere as an added bonus...
  • Code Geass has got Mao, Prince Schniezel, Prince Clovis, Younger Emperor Charles, Cornelia, The Majority of the Knights of the rounds and Marianne, along with some morally in-between cases such as Lelouch, Suzaku and C. C. for good measure.
  • Pretty Cure rarely takes this approach, with the female characters generally balancing out the positive aspects of their looks with things like odd-looking eyes, conspicuously odd skin tones, and so on. Eas, though...
  • Grimmjow Jaggerjack and Tia Halibel from Bleach.
    • Doesn't stop there; feast your eyes on Cirucci Thunderwitch: Busty chest, curvy figure, attractive voice (when she's speaking calmly), and whip-toting, with a dominating personality.
  • Aion from Chrono Crusade plays with this, particularly in the anime adaptation, where he goes from being attractive and charismatic to willing to sleep with Anything That Moves. However, this trope is also used in the anime to make him creepy and squicky—he not only happily seduces those that are willing to sleep with them, but is implied to attempt to rape many of the ones that aren't willing (and may have even succeeded in one case).
  • Many people find Baccano!!'s Ladd Russo and Huey LaForet to be sexy.
  • Though more case of nuts and misunderstood, Gun X Sword features ex-prostitute Fasalina, who is still gratuitous enough to reveal some of her ample bosom (though not so Stripperiffic), fights on a strip pole, long gorgeous hair... Guess which side she's on.
  • Light Yagami from Death Note is much hotter when evil than when innocent.
    • Misa Amane, Teru Mikami, Kiyomi Takada and Mello also qualify.
  • Governor General Godel of Mahou Sensei Negima is arrogant, manipulative, underhanded, and undeniably evil from the first time we see him. He also has a stylish suit and glasses and is very hot even while tormenting Negi.
  • Slan and Griffith are pretty hot, especially considering what most of Berserk's demons look like.
  • In Slayers we have Eris and Mazenda.
  • The human members of the Team Rocket trio (even though they don't qualify as evil), especially in the earlier episodes of Pokémon before they became Comic Relief—James provides 100% of the series' Bishonen quotient while Jessie has the largest set of breasts on the screen.
  • Digimon has LadyDevimon, and by extension her possible evolved form, Lilithmon of the Seven Great Demon Lords. Indeed, LadyDevimon was probably thrown into Digimon Adventure as a Monster of the Week just to invoke this, being that she promptly gets into a Cat Fight with Angewomon. Also of note is Archnemon ( at least in human form; her spider form, not so much), and Ranamon until she slide-evolves into Calmaramon)
  • Alucard from Hellsing is this trope taken to the utter extreme. It's difficult to be more evil than someone who essentially orgasms from ripping people into pieces and has consumed approximately four million souls over his centuries of existence, and it is just as difficult to be sexier. As someone on TV Tropes once noted:

The entire battle of Alucard VS Rip Van Winkle is the lovechild of Fetish Fuel, Does This Remind You of Anything?, Freud Was Right, and Nightmare Fuel.

  • Mitsuko Souma and Kazuo Kiriyama, the two main villains of Battle Royale are described as being the two best-looking students in the class.
  • Doronjo, and all female members of Terrible Trios in the Time Bokan series. But their male henchmen and bosses are hardcore aversions, being cartoonishly ugly.
  • Medusa and Arachne from Soul Eater (ever better, Medusa when she possesses Arachne's body). Also, Asura when he appears more "pretty boy" than Eldritch Abomination. Mosquito in the form he uses to slice Kid's arm off. This doesn't seem to have stopped some fans liking him.
  • Angel Blade is an erotic anime, so of course evil will be sexy. Mistress Nailkaizer is especially popular, but you've also got Chloe, Elaine, and the Black Widow from the sequel. The grand prize, however, is won by the Dark Mother, by far the sexiest thing to ever come out of the Evil Overlord trope and the one bossing around (and doing other things to) the above four. Precisely how hot she is is impossible to accurately describe (and not work safe on top of that). All have the Most Common Superpower and are masters of Shapeshifting Squick if you're in to that.
  • Violinist of Hameln. The biggest monster (literally and figuratively) in the entire manga, Chestra, also is the one of most gorgeous-looking men there (when he is whole, of course). Also, Sizer wears a very modest outfit normally and a Stripperific one when Brainwashed and Crazy / tapping Super-Powered Evil Side.
  • Adiane and Cytomander from Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann. Also, Nia's Anti-Spiral outfit is much more form-fitting than the pink dresses she wears most of the time.
  • Kaaya from The Tower of Druaga wears a more form-fitting outfit and generally looks more grown-up and sexual after her Face Heel Turn
  • The meanest characters in Eyeshield 21 aren't necessarily sexy themselves, but are constantly surrounded by lust and are definitely not virgins. Agon seems to sleep with a plethora of slutty women, in contrast to the equally popular (but nicer) Sakuraba who would never think to take advantage of his fans (most of them are more cute then sexy, as well). Supreme Jerkass Mr. Don regularly hangs out at strip clubs.
  • Quite a few manga artists like to play up how sexy Miyo Takano of Higurashi no Naku Koro ni is, though she's already quite sexy once you get past her standard expression.
  • Rosario + Vampire follows this trope to the letter, since most antagonists (Ishigami, Ririko, Kuyou, Kiria, Hokuto, Miyabi and Gyokuro come to mind) are very attractive. But then, thanks to Art Evolution, everyone in the series looks CLAMP gorgeous these days.
  • Ranma ½: Many people think Akane Tendo is sexier after she's possessed by the Vengeful Doll. She's seductive, acts nicer, and even strips in order to invoke Distracted by the Sexy.

Ranma: (to Akane) You were nicer when you were evil. Cuter, too. Definitely more sexy.

Comic Books

Batman: Why are all the gorgeous ones homicidal psychopaths? (Batman & Robin)

    • Catwoman has been rendered more sympathetic as a character over the years, but she's a Spy Catsuit-clad whip-toting villainess who's not above killing when she has to. 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.
    • 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 gets 'upgraded' to a latex version.
  • 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. Saying she lived up to the title in the story would be an understatement.
    • And then there's Blue Eyes and Mariah, the Colonel's assassins. Blue Eyes' specialty is Death by Sex, even.
  • Elf Quest 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.
  • One half of the modus operandi of Moonstone/Karla Sofen of the Masters of Evil and the Thunderbolts. The other half is being a complete psychopath. She was all over this when she became the "new" Ms. Marvel.
  • Archie Comics Sonic the Hedgehog: Most people seem to hold this view in regards to Lien-Da, if only because she's constantly wearing leather. Also, Fiona Fox switched sides because she preferred Sonic's Alternate Universe Evil Twin Scourge and this is the reason she gave for it (although, considering this is Fiona we're talking about...)
    • On the male spectrum, there's Dr. Finetivus.
  • Vanity (the devil half of the Conjoined Twins superhero Divangelic) is definitely sexier (dressed) than her sister Charity, an angel.

Fan Works

  • 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 Exclusively 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.
  • Zig-zagged in Naruto Veangance Revelaitons. Taliana, when she's first introduced, is portrayed as quite beautiful, and then goes through several alignment changes before settling on the side of evil. In her last two appearances, however, around the time the author was breaking up with the girlfriend he based her off of, she is described as "ugly". Played straight, however, with the female German member of the Council.

Film

  • Dreamworks' Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas featured a particularly potent example in the villainess Eris, goddess of Chaos. She had the evilness of Ursula, and the good looks of Megara rolled up into one evil, but compellingly seductive package, a character who's both manipulative and unapologetically sexy.
  • Subverted with Ursula in The Little Mermaid but also played straight (or double-subverted, if you will) with her human form.
  • Judge Claude Frollo may be an old man and a Complete Monster, but the voice of Tony Jay helps make us forget that. His Villain Song helps kind of a lot, too.
    • Frollo comes across as an attempt to subvert this, though, seeing as how he is a wrinkly old man, not to mention rather thin and weak as far as male Disney villains go. That, and resorting to sexual harassment toward Esmeralda made him look desperate.
  • Maleficent is an unconventional but considerably notable case of this, especially in scenes earlier in the movie. See for yourself. She might not have a noticeable rack or rear, but her feminine looks, graceful style, and seductive voice (provided by Eleanor Audley) combine to create a sense of macabre beauty to her, which really sets her apart from most other major female Disney villains, at least ones known up to that point. (Whom, for whatever reason, tended be portrayed as unattractive.) Note that various Maleficent-related youtube videos yield comments like "Maleficent was hot, I'd let her dominate me any day!"
  • Gaston from Beauty and the Beast. His sheer brawn, good looks, and manliness are enough to make him the leader of his village.
  • Tai Lung. Sweet mother and second cousin of fanservice, Tai Lung.
    • Lord Shen, the sequel's villain who's rather effectively voiced by Gary Oldman, has also been garnering fans in this regard.
  • Lieutenant Helga Katrina from Atlantis the Lost Empire. It helps by the fact that she's voiced by Claudia Christian of all people!
  • Gothel from Tangled. Well, at least until Rapunzel's hair gets cut.
  • Hexxus from Fern Gully is considered by many to be sexy. Which is quite the feat considering he's a giant cloud of smog. It helps that he's voiced by Tim Curry and he gets an incredibly sexy villain song.
  • What, no mention for Doctor Facilier from The Princess and the Frog? Not only was he a villain with the same sheer coldness, style and refined composition (at least on the surface) as Maleficent.. he was voiced by Keith David's smooth, smooth bass. Plus, let's not forget his song.. or his behavior around Tiana in his final appereance.

Anne: Oh! You gotta believe in God! But I don't believe that God created Man in His image. 'Cause most of the s--t that happens is because of men. Naw, I think men was made in the Devil's image, and women were created outta God. 'Cause, after all, women can have babies, which is kinda like creating. And which also accounts for the fact that women are so attracted to men. 'Cause let's face it, the Devil is a helluva lot more interesting. I've slept with some saints in my day, and believe me, I know what I'm talking about. Egh-boy! So, the whole point of life, the whole point of life, I think, is for men and women to get married so that God and the Devil can get together -- and work it out. Not that we have to get married or anything. God forbid.

  • Dracula is often portrayed as having a magnetic, sexualized presence, fueled by the erotic overtones in the original book.
    • In Ed Wood, Bela Lugosi says he turned down the role of Frankenstein's monster because it wasn't sexy, like Dracula.
  • End of Days: the real threat of Satan is that the female protagonist finds him so damn sexy.
  • Many of the villains in the James Bond series are sexy women. Notable examples include:
  • Parodied in Annie Hall where Woody Allen's character is shown to be sexually attracted to the Wicked Queen from Snow White.
    • Well, she is apparently the second-most beautiful woman in the world...
  • Captain Hook, circa the 2003 Peter Pan. Far too much sexy for a kid's film. It helps that he's played by the smouldering Jason Isaacs.
    • It also helps that he's briefly shirtless.
  • In the 2007 Beowulf, Grendel's mother is changed from a sea-hag to a sexy monster in the form of Angelina Jolie.
  • Mrs. Coulter, at least as played by Nicole Kidman in the movie of The Golden Compass. In the original book, Lyra has quite a bit to say about how glamorous she is initially. Nicole Kidman portrayed the character pretty accurately.
  • Subverted in the third Spider-Man movie. When Peter Parker flirts with the The Dark Side due to the symbiote costume, he acts more sexually assertive and seems to think he's suddenly the hot stuff. To the objective gaze and the befuddled look a random girl gives him in the street, he just now looks like a more sleazy dork. He's still fundamentally himself, after all. No matter how self-confident and sexually assertive he's acting, he remains a nerd and has no idea how to carry himself otherwise. Furthermore, in a neat little bit of irony that underscores this point, the only women who he does manage to charm with his new assertive manner were already attracted to Peter when he was "good" anyway.
  • The Harry Potter films have a few examples. Tom Riddle, despite having no nose, is played by the smouldering Ralph Fiennes and shows up wearing a very sharp black suit. Christian Coulson fits the trope to some degree. The movies emphasized the trope on Bellatrix Lestrange after Helena Bonham Carter had the costume redesigned to stand out.
  • Prince Septimus from Stardust. Also, Lamia starts out as an old crone but becomes young and sexy due to digesting the remains of a star's heart. Subverted in that each time she uses magic, she regresses more and more back to her previous, hideous state.
  • In The Devil's Advocate, Satan is played by Al Pacino as a powerful attorney with a forceful, magnetic personality that seems to drive women wild. Connie Nielsen plays his daughter, who tries to tempt Keanu Reeves to the dark side with her super sexiness.
  • Elizabeth Hurley is a very sexy Satan in Bedazzled.
  • The X-Men series give us Mystique; a female mutant who's a) on the bad guys side, b) perpetually naked since those clothes aren't really clothes, c) very flexible and d) played by Rebecca Romijn, a swimwear model.
  • In a similar sense as Albert Wesker, Agent Smith may be this. He's got a cool, well refined attitude, and a great laugh to boot! In the Matrix sequels, he even spreads it around!
  • The fan reactions to Pavi and Luigi, two of the antagonists in Repo the Genetic Opera, have a substantial in-universe fanclub based around their alleged attractiveness.
  • Basic Instinct and Basic Instinct 2. Catherine Trammell is a dangerous, manipulative, sociopathic nymphomaniac and compulsive multiple murderer, but still portrayed as a sexy woman who can charm both men and women into her bed.
  • Tim Curry often finds his way into this trope:
  • Many Hammer Horrors, especially ones directed by Terence Fisher, not only have evil as sexy but evil as overtly sexual—though this was always a popular subtext in vampire stories.
  • A Discussed Trope in The Courtship of Eddie's Father, where the son tells his father that bad women can be identified in comic books by skinny eyes and big busts.
  • Conversed verbatim in The Devil Wears Prada:

Christian: You, my friend, are crossing over into the Dark Side.
Andrea: I resent that.
Christian: You shouldn't. It's sexy.

  • John Waters' Female Trouble subverts this. Donna and Donald Dasher discover Dawn Davenport (a 300-pound juvenile delinquent turned career criminal) and get her to work as a model to prove that "crime is beauty". Dawn endured such things as acid being thrown on her face by her ex-husband's lesbian aunt while the Dashers kept saying that the gravity of her crimes was making her more beautiful than ever before.
  • When Sam Rockwell's character does his Face Heel Turn in the first Charlies Angels film, he gets a stylish Evil Costume Switch and reveals himself to be far more hip and self-confident than he had previously let on. He's also got a super-sexy girlfriend.
  • Star Wars in general averts this trope. With the dark side anyway. The deeper you go into the dark side, the more horrible you look. This is especially obvious in some of the games (at least in Knights of the Old Republic games) the more you slide down to the dark side on the morality scale, the more their eyes turn yellow, their skin becomes sickly pale, and... well, let's just say that seeing a female dark jedi in a metal bikini isn't as sexy as it's supposed to be.
    • Though it kinda depends on the author... See Tavion, of the Jedi Knight games, and Githany, a Sith contemporary of Darth Bane. Some authors play the trope straight, others subvert it. Then we've got Asajj Ventress, whether it's played straight or not. Some cases just have the dark side turn your eyes red (or yellow), like during Anakin's big emo slaughterfest in Revenge of the Sith. The Fate of the Jedi book series has an entire planet full of Sith who play this straight (being obsessed with beauty), and especially the Keshiri natives.
    • Bane's apprentice Darth Zannah also seems to play this trope straight, if the "Personality and traits" section in that Wookieepedia article is to be believed...
    • Also Darth Talon. Note that every single example of Darkside Force users not being hideous is female, though there are still some (such as Gethzerion) who are still horrible looking.
    • And, even in the Knights of the Old Republic games, Bastila has no appearance changes for turning except for her clothes.
      • The Handmaiden's dark-side appearance is exactly the same as her light-side except she is wearing a black jumpsuit and black lipstick instead of white and red.
  • Jackson Rippner from Red Eye. He's a bad, bad man but he has buckets of charm.
  • The Specials: Deadly Girl; can summon demons, and she hisses at people.
  • Inglourious Basterds: The more brutal each Basterd is, the sexier he is (according to the fanbase). Oh, Hi, Donny, Aldo raine and Stiglitz!
    • In fact, considering the fact that the Basterds are essentially Sociopathic Heroes, let's just put all of them, along with von Hammersmark and Shosanna. Especially Shosanna.
    • Now how can you post Inglourious Basterds in the Evil Is Sexy Trope and forget Hans Landa? For shame.
  • Jennifer Jason Leigh in Single White Female: Nerd=sexy; Evil=also sexy; Evil nerd? I'm going to the basement...
  • Col. Tavington is supposed to be the result of when the ultimate Evil Brit is also a Complete Monster. Being played by Jason Issacs (aka Lucius Malfoy) makes it kinda hard to root against him (though he does ultimately manage it.)
  • Doesn't anyone think that Candyman is pretty hot? He has that awesome voice, and he's so handsome and tall. While he mercilessly hacks everyone else to death, his pursuit of the heroine is overtly seductive.
  • Eragon had a fair few Durza fangirls since the movie came out. That is, until he turns all corpse-like halfway through for no apparent reason.
  • From Dusk till Dawn: Santanica Pandaemonium, played by Salma Hayek. First appearance in the film? Performing a slinky dance whilst dressed only in a bikini and a boa constrictor. She indulges in a lot of stroking people with her feet during this, as well.
  • The Lair of the White Worm revolves around the gorgeous Amanda Donahoe as an evil vampiress.
  • Oddly enough, Halloween's Michael Myers fits this trope. According to Word of God, Tony Moran's "angelic" face is exactly why he was hired to play Myers in the brief unmasking scene. And the scar on Michael's eye wasn't supposed to be as ugly as it turned out to be, but prosthetics got a bit carried away when applying it to the actor's face.
    • The spa scene in Halloween II could also count as this. After Michael kills a male nurse, he sneaks up behind the nurse's girlfriend who is waiting naked in the spa for him. But instead of killing her straight away, Michael rests his hand on her shoulder. Assuming it's her boyfriend's hand, the woman caresses it and rubs it gently across her face. The scene is...almost sensual. Until Michael drowns her.
  • Mini of Mini's First Time is a very sexy seductress (she's played by Nikki Reed), and she is also evil to the core. She is, in fact, a parricide.
  • All four members of the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad in Kill Bill (including the vengeful protagonist, though she could be considered less evil than the others). Of course, this is to be expected, as they are all portrayed by A-listers.[1]

Literature

  • In Tolstoy's Anna Karenina, the hero is arguably an aristocrat named Kostya Levin. He is a rich handsome nobleman who spends all his time thinking of how he can best use his riches to benefit poor people and humanity in general. Amazingly, this hunky millionaire has trouble attracting women. Meanwhile, Anna Karenina, while not perhaps evil—she doesn't go out of her way to be bitchy—is totally selfish and ruins everyone's life. Men are drawn to her as moths to fire. Probably not one in ten thousand people have ever heard of Kostya. But every literate person in the world has heard of Anna Karenina.
  • William Sleator's Strange Attractors features this rather prominently. A boring scientist and his plain daughter have evil duplicates, which are nearly identical, just evil and slightly older. They're presented as incredibly sexy and interesting, to the point that the protagonist rebuilds a device which may destroy all time just to be with them.
  • Villains in Mercedes Lackey's Valdemar books are frequently mages who gratuitously make use of magic to make themselves ridiculously attractive, to the point where the nastiness of a particular character can be discerned from how attractive the main character finds them. That is, physically attractive. Those sorts of mages hardly ever get (voluntary) dates.
    • This is similar to sorceresses in The Witcher who are chosen by being gifted in magic. Since noble families are the ones most sorceresses come from and would better benefit the family to be married off to other nobles ASAP, the only ones sent to receive training in magic are ones who are somewhat lacking in the looks department. And one of the first things they learn is modifying their own body. Not all sorceresses are evil, of course, but most of them sure as hell are bitter.
  • Lanfear of The Wheel of Time is a singularly attractive and alluring woman, supposedly one of if not the most beautiful in history, who makes all the male leads drool and the female leads envy. She's also reputed to be the most powerful female dark mage in the world. She's in good company; her fellow Forsaken aren't too harsh on the eyes either. Graendal's a voluptuous temptress whose perverse kinks are the stuff of legend, Rahvin's a dashing ladies' man, and all the rest scrub up pretty well except Aginor and Balthamel and Balthamel is eventually placed in the body of a beautiful young woman and assumes the persona of a brazen (but seemingly harmless) hussy. Most female Darkfriends are hotties, most of the Black Ajah are (at the very least) imperious and regal, both aspects of Slayer are attractive (since they're both said to strongly resemble their good looking relatives), and all the biggest Knight Templar jerks in the Children of Light are exemplars of rugged aryan manhood. Then again, there just aren't many ugly people in The Wheel of Time, period.
    • Interestingly in Slayer's case, he's Lan's uncle. Lan isn't known for his beauty, but his good (well manly, rugged and so on) looks. In "A Crown of Swords," Nisao Sedai states that "women have been chasing Lan since he was a beardless boy...He was quite a beautiful boy, however hard that might be to believe now."
  • With a penchant for wearing things that show off his sixpack and well-muscled arms, curious-but-hey-it-works-for-him fashion sense, cheerful and polite manner, and general air of Affably Evil, Jarlaxle displays the ability to seduce even human would-be paladins while flamboyantly drow on the surface, which (twenty years ago, anyway) would have been cause for a lynching for a less charismatic and bold dark elf.
  • The Stainless Steel Rat: Crook turned galactic agent 'Slippery Jim' diGriz falls for the villainess he's pursuing not just because she's beautiful, but because he genuinely admires her brilliant criminal mind. If only he could get past the fact that she's a sociopathic killer...
    • Angelina used to be extremely ugly in her youth and used the crime money for drastic plastic surgery to gain super model looks (cosmetic surgery is even better in the future). diGriz only met her after she was beautiful. How much insults from others about her ugliness led to her life of evil is a good question. While he did fall in love with her while she was evil, he then brought her to justice so she could be "cured" of her evil (psychological) thanks to some future Applied Phlebotinum. After the cure she no longer approves of killing, although she enjoys robbing (non violently and only the rich) with her husband (in between their constant saving of the galaxy).
  • The Dresden Files plays this one straight and subverts it with vampires: White court vampires are made supernaturally sexy by their inner demon - Lara Raith is described as so beautiful that it's hard to describe her actual features as they are obscured by her beauty (hence her success as a porn star), Thomas Raith is described as "The Forgotten Greek God of Body Cologne," and his very evil father is described in much the same terms. The Red Court subvert it: On the outside, they look beautiful, but under their flesh-masks they are hideous, slimy bat-things. The Black Court, on the other hand, avert this trope entirely; they are desiccated corpses, complete with dried eyeballs, missing limbs and rotting hair.
  • The Draka seem to spend as much time screwing (their slaves and each other, in just about every permutation imaginable) as they do fighting and conquering. The books also include lavish descriptions of their well-muscled warrior physiques (especially the bisexual female ones).
  • Andrea, from The Zone World War III novels by James Rouch, uses her incredible beauty and sociopathic skills of manipulation to get the other male soldiers to teach her new means of killing. Major Revell, the commanding officer of the unit, is obsessed with her, even though he knows full well she's a crazed killer.
  • Probably the most famous reversal of this trope is The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde, in which the protagonist's wrongdoing causes him to age and become ugly - except that it's the eponymous picture to which this happens. Until the end, that is.
  • The White Witch from The Chronicles of Narnia is described as being the most beautiful woman ever by many men in the books, despite having brought about the complete depopulation of her home world and a hundred years of perpetual winter to Narnia.
  • In Harry Potter, Tom Riddle was originally very attractive, and used his looks to his advantage. However, even before his resurrection, experiments with dark magic ruined his looks to the extent that people can't even recognize him anymore.
  • The Sword of Truth series had the Mord-Sith, a cadre of gorgeous, leather-clad women... whom the Big Bad had psychologically broken and uses to torture his enemies. When he is deposed, they become Dark Is Not Evil retainers to the heroes.
  • Warrior Cats: Due to the status of the fanbase, you can't really find a majority opinion on anything, but most major villains have their own fanbases that think their sexy, with some even being elevated to Memetic Sex God status. The less villainous characters? Well, a bit, but not as much...
  • The Stand: Possibly. It can be said that Randall Flagg is an example of this trope, in his control of Nadine. She would have gone to the good side in Boulder, she says, were she not madly lusting after Flagg. Nadine can also be an example, in that it is difficult for men to resist her, and she uses sex to keep Harold evil.
  • White-Haired Pretty Boy Pollution in Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman's book Good Omens is the PERFECT example of this Trope. Not only the way he speaks: Pollution smiled, wistfully. "Very pleased..." he breathed. "Oh, that would be wonderful..." is hot, but, according to some fanarts, he is the best-looking of the Four Horsepersons/Bikers of the Apocalypse.
  • The Belgariad gave us Queen Salmissra of Nyissa. Well, the most recent Queen of Nyissa to bear the name, at any rate. Swathed in a diaphonous gown and jewelry reminiscent of a belly-dancer's outfit and portrayed as highly sexually active as well as being prepared to sell Belgarion out to Torak.
  • Laharl’s aunt Yasurl from the Disgaea Novels. She is evil to the bone and abused Laharl then he was in her care, this affected him so much that he has had vile allergic reactions to sexy women ever since.
  • Toyed with in Animorphs in the person of Taylor, a deeply disturbed girl who allowed a Sociopathic Soldier of a Yeerk to take over her mind in exchange for a new face. She's described as being very attractive in the physical sense, but is so artificial and emotionally screwed up that no one cares. Pointed out by Tobias when he morphs Taylor and receives far more positive male attention than the real thing:

"We were mirror images, literal carbon copies. But I was alive. Taylor wasn't. Not really. I had a sense of humour. Taylor had a coldness that enclosed her like a shield. The kid could see this. Anybody could."

  • Quite firmly inverted in The Lord of the Rings: the Forces of Evil are composed of mutant versions of good races, terrifying Dark Lords, and the odd borderline Eldritch Abomination. Played straight in The Silmarillion with Sauron, although it is more properly a case of Evil Is Charismatic than flat-out "sexy". Before his Mode Lock, Sauron could charm his way out of almost any situation. He won the trust of the Elves of Eregion with nothing but his craftsman's skills, and he managed to go from prisoner-of-war to chief advisor to the King of Numenor in a few short years. It was only after the Fall of Numenor that he lost this ability, and had to rely purely on intimidation and military force.

Live-Action TV

  • The female Cylons from the revived Battlestar Galactica. In particular, Chip Six and Caprica Six. Of course, all the Sixes got decreasingly evil.
  • While it's a very mild example, in the Stargate Atlantis episode "This Mortal Coil", "Dr Keller" is revealed to be a Replicator. Once this is revealed, "her" jacket is unzipped. No cleavage or anything, but someone's invoking something...
  • The Stargate Verse has plenty of stronger examples. The Goa'uld in particular.
    • Probably justified in the case of the Goa'uld. They are Body Snatchers, so naturally they are going to try and snatch the best bodies they can find. A former host said that beauty is considered a curse on her world because of this.
    • And then there's Adria in season 10. As Vala (her mother) put it "Origin is about to become much more appealing to the males of this galaxy." Indeed...
    • Commander Kiva of the Lucian Alliance from Universe. But what can you expect when she's played by Rhona Mitra??
  • Not especially "evil" but Blackadder got a lot sexier once he became a total bastard. The flattering clothes, a nicer haircut and the amount of the leather he wore in series II might have had something to do with it.
  • The Master from Doctor Who, at least as played by Ainley, Delgado and Simm.
    • The Rani wasn't all that bad looking herself, even getting a stint in one serial as The Baroness.
    • Murderous psychopath Melody Pond.
  • Torchwood has Captain John Hart (Captain Jack's Evil Counterpart), who is the Whoniverse's even kinkier version of Spike.
  • Theodore Bagwell from Prison Break. He's a pedophile, rapist, and a murderer, and relatively plain looking, but has a sexy exaggerated southern accent.
  • There's a reason why the Supernatural fandom loves "Skin", "Devil's Trap", "Born Under a Bad Sign" and "Dream a Little Dream of Me" so much. It's because Evil!Sam/Dean/John ooze sexual appeal (even more so than when they're being good) and also because they seem to touch each other a hell of a lot more.
    • Also, it has been announced that Mark Pellegrino is going to be playing Lucifer in season 5.
  • Blakes Seven: Servalan, the cooly calculating and sociopathic Supreme Commander of the Federation. her wardrobe alternates between slinky dresses with Absolute Cleavage and a thigh-high slit or elegant attire for hunting people through a BBC Quarry.
    • Kerr Avon, The Starscream of Blake's crew, was significantly more popular with the fandom than Roj himself, despite being a self-serving, snarky jerkass who'd cheerfully have left his 'captain' to die if someone else hadn't been keeping an eye on him.
  • Most of the population of the Mirror Universe in Star Trek. Turned Up to Eleven for the Mirror Universe version of Kira; a catsuit-clad Depraved Bisexual version of a character who's normally portrayed as being extremely moral.
  • Sheriff Buck of American Gothic falls under this trope, and his schoolteacher girlfriend Selena Coombs embodies it.
  • Heroes has Nikki's Super-Powered Evil Side Jessica, who manages to be infinitely more sexy than her good counterpart despite looking exactly the same, and Serial Killer Sylar, who has acquired a significant Draco in Leather Pants following because of said sexiness.
    • Adam Monroe. Evil Brit for a sexy foreign accent. And, be it in armour or in that suit with the shirt opened a significant way down, he's a snappy dresser. Nevertheless, he suffers from delusions of grandeur and believes that culling the human population with plagues is a good idea.
    • The show was clearly TRYING for this with Evil! Future Claire in season 3. Unfortunately, their ideas for sexing up Claire were limited to an all-black wardrobe, a different hairstyle, and a TON of lip gloss.
    • And then there's Samuel. Maybe it was the fact that he's played by the same actor who played Magnificent Bastard T-Bag, or maybe it's the accent, or the charisma, but he is just sexy. The eyeliner and the Badass Longcoat just add to it.
  • Angel/Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Angelus and pre-chip Spike, 'cause there is just something so hot about those particular bad boys - then again, it might also be that Angelus' wardrobe tended more towards the leather-pants side (which is in fact lampshaded by one character). Oooer.
"I'm so evil! And skanky! And I think I'm kinda gay."
Willow Rosenberg, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, "The Wish."
    • Warren Mears is, of course, somewhat of an aversion, unless, that is, he shoots you in the back. Of course, it's justified, as not being particularly attractive was part of what led to him being evil.
    • Angel's Lilah Morgan really works this trope, especially in the fourth season, during her relationship with Wesley.
    • And then there's Glory, a.k.a Glorificus. She wants to destroy the world, but that doesn't keep her from being pleasurable to look at!
    • Lindsey may be a corrupt lawyer, but he is also incredibly pretty.
    • Not to mention First!Buffy, who was, of course, the Big Bad who seemed to prefer to take the form of Buffy in order to torque with Spike. She previously took the form of Drusilla, but Spike saw through that form, saying that she wasn't nearly crazy enough to be Drusilla.
  • Prince Dirk Blackpool (played by the luscious Duncan Regeher) the black leather clad villain of Wizards and Warriors.
  • While the heroic Taja wears reasonable clothing, all the villainous females of Mortal Kombat Conquest wear revealing outfits—Omegis to the point of wearing nearly nothing. The well-built Shang Tsung usually wears a vest over his muscular body, but spends a lot of time with his shirt off.
  • Power Rangers had some valiant efforts in Scorpina and Divatox, but with Astronema, it really took hold, as she had a liking for black leather and changed her hair style and color every five episodes or so (if you're watching episodes out of order, it's a great way to check where you are in the plot). Every other season since has featured someone similar to her. Made more evident because Astronema was actually The Hero's amnesiac sister. When she reverted to the nice and pure Karone, she had straight blonde hair and modest clothes. When Brainwashed and Crazy to become Astronema again... form fitting black leather and cropped red hair. When Karone returned in Lost Galaxy as the Pink Ranger, she evoked Evil Is Sexy by dressing up as Astronema to get back the Pink Ranger's Quasar Saber, but was still shown to wear black leather in her civilian form. Even though the show has an almost ludicrous devotion to Color Coded for Your Convenience, the only pink things she ever wore were hair clips and ponytail holders... in eight or so episodes, she managed to have more unique hair styles than Kendrix and Maya combined...
  • For the Super Sentai series, the King & Queen of this trope goes to Juken Sentai Gekiranger's Rio & Mele, although near the end they turn good. Stupid Sexy Rio is a Bishonen who dons a full-leather armor, and Mele is another leather-wearing girl, and her clothing were also in style of Stripperiffic Chinese Girl style.
  • From The BBC Robin Hood we get Guy of Gisbourne and his sister Isabella. Guy is a Draco in Leather Pants (literally) right from the start, but Izzy is initially introduced as an ally to Robin. As soon as she throws in her lot with the bad guys, her outfits (which were always designed to make her Ms. Fanservice) also become leather. On the same show, when Allan-a-Dale turns traitor, he gets an Evil Costume Switch (the sheriff actually says "upgrade this boy to leather"), along with a new influx of fangirls.
  • Wilhelmina Slater from Ugly Betty. Fair enough, she's played by Vanessa Williams, who was Miss America, but there's a certain lustful nature about her being evil.
  • Rigaud from BBC's miniseries Little Dorrit has his own, small legion of fangirls. Yup, a murdering psychopathic Frenchman played by ANDY SERKIS who loves to sleep with women and give them a slight case of death afterwards.
  • Malcolm and Jamie from The Thick of It. Two loud, rude Violent Glaswegians who bully everyone around them...in the sexiest way possible.
  • Ronnie Gardocki from The Shield qualifies, supplying a helping of facial hair Fetish Fuel with the character's mustache and an evil Nerds Are Sexy vibe that helped him stand out from the rest of the Strike Team. Also a subversion of sorts, as after he is disfigured, he grows a beard that managed to, in the eyes of some fans of the show, make him even cuter
    • On the other side, there is Curtis "Lem" Lemansky, who was a walking poster for Mr. Fanservice with his sleaveless shirts and muscular form.
    • Of course, Vic Mackey himself also qualifies. Although he is not what you would call conventionally handsome, he had a peculiar charisma that made him very successful with a lot of female characters on the show. More than a few female viewers seemed able to understand why.
  • There are plenty of ugly baddies in Farscape but Crais, Grayza, and even Scorpius (for the kinky among us) work this trope. Special mention goes to Grayza who unabashedly uses her sex appeal (and self-created Love Potion) to her advantage.
  • In Merlin, Morgause is really quite sexy. Cendred, with his leather pants qualifies too.
  • All over the place in Charmed. Mainly because evil has more revealing outfits. There's even a Demonic Strip Club. In any case, Julian McMahon and Charisma Carpenter are in Charmed, and both as demons.
  • How did we get this far and not mention Ares?
  • The female fanbase has this attitude towards Smallville's Lex Luthor and Davis Bloome. Tess Mercer is the female variant.
    • Clark falls into this trope as well when he's under the influence of red kryptonite
  • Nikola Tesla of Sanctuary, so very much. He's a part-vampire with plans for world domination. This makes him sexier. He has developed quite the fanbase, too. The fact that he is played by Jonathon Young does not hurt matters.
  • While not evil per se, Celia Hodes on Weeds does somehow manage to make being an insufferable cunt oddly sexy.
  • Sherlock has a few of these. Jim Moriarty has quite a few fangirls, as he most graciously notes.

Moriarty: Suddenly, I'm Mr. Sex.

  • While not exactly evil, the alternate Olivia Dunham in the parallel universe of Fringe is frequently seen wearing a rather sexy tight-fitting leather jacket, cargo pants, and combat boots.

Music

Oral Tradition, Folklore, Myths and Legends

  • Loki is also supposed to be devilishly handsome.

Professional Wrestling

  • Pretty much a requirement for heel divas.

Tabletop Games

  • Dungeons & Dragons, in its various incarnations, has had not only incubi and succubi, but also alu-fiends, cambions, drow, erinyes, mariliths, and tieflings, not to mention the ruggedly handsome Archfiends Asmodeus, Graz'zt, Mephistopheles, etc.
    • Don't forget the Devil Princess of Baator herself; Glasya. Considering that basically anytime his group runs an evil campaign he plays a cleric of her.
  • Warhammer Fantasy Battle and Warhammer 40,000 have the servants of the daemon god Slaanesh—a being of pure sexy evil whose sexy cultist' sexy hat is being perversely sexy. Or rather, they tend to view themselves as this trope while the "gift of Chaos mutations causes them to grow scales, claws, the occasional extra limb and anything else Slaanesh might find amusing. Basically they take pretty much every potential kink, then take them beyond sanity, morality, or anything someone in their right minds would find appealing.
    • Actually, Slaanesh does make its followers appear sexy or lovable to others, so much so that some of the psychic powers it can give to its followers 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 Elves play this trope much straighter; on a not entirely unrelated note 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.
    • The Vampire Counts have their own version of this. In fact, the original vampire bloodline is entirely composed of this in the present day of the Warhammer fluff. Lahmian vampires are specifically known to use their seduction to enslave entire populations rather than using outright force. And, to add into the mix, all Lahmian vampires are female.
  • The Abyssal Exalted have a choice: as they get more powerful, they either become decayed and corpselike, or deathly but alluring.
  • The current poster girl of this trope in Magic the Gathering is Liliana Vess. She a vamp, happily engages in Foe Yay, wears Stripperiffic outfit or gorgeous gothic dress, and is a Necromancer.

Theatre

  • "Whatever Lola wants, Lola gets!" The devil's sexy Fosse-dancing sidekick in The Musical 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 (literally) outfitted in tight red leather pants.
  • 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.
  • The Mae West-inspired "temptress" character briefly assumed by one of the female cast members of Godspell for the song "Turn Back, O Man".

Video Games

Web Comics

  • MAG-ISA -- Lucia is evil but sexy.
  • Pretty well exemplified in this guest comic of Eight Bit Theater done by Mookie, the artist behind Dominic Deegan.
  • And speaking of Dominic Deegan, Helixa. And Szark's idea of Evil Luna. Evil Jayden. Amelia Sturtz. And The Infernomancer. And Celesto. And early Jacob. Honestly, you cite Mookie, acknowledge he has his own strip, and then fail to cite the numerous examples in that strip?
  • The Sins. If you are the Anthropomorphic Personification of Lust then you are automatically a candidate for this trope.
  • Jack on the other hand averts the trope hard. All the Sins are pretty horrific, with the titular character being the least hideous. The resident Sin of Lust, Drip, is either the ugliest of the Sins or close to it.
  • 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. Of course, 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.
  • Dreamkeepers has Tinsel, who practically defines this trope all on her own.
  • Lackadaisy has Serafine Savoy, who embodies this idea completely according to the fans.
  • 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 Stripperific 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.
  • Satan for Casey and Andy. She has "many forms" however.
  • 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.

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!

Web Original

  • In the That Guy With The Glasses fangirl-fandom, Mechakara, Ask That Guy, and Dr. Insano are all arguably more popular than their "good" counterparts.
    • We can now add Black Lantern Spoony and Dr. Linksano to that list.
    • And love for 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 and a lot of his stuff in Web VideoKickassia comes to mind.)
    • Let's face it, 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, ammoral 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 to that list.
    • Dark Paw as well.
    • The Other Guy abuses his younger, oh-so-pretty-when-he-suffers brother. The fanladies go wild.
    • 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.
  • 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 Nietzsche Wannabe Magnificent Bastard. And it's obviously not just the fangirls who think that, because Codex/Cyd sleeps with him in the third season finale. Also, it's Wil Wheaton, and Nerds Are Sexy.
  • Mostly averted in the Whateley Universe, where highly attractive 'exemplar' mutants are seen on both sides of the fence and the current acknowledged hottest girl at Whateley Academy is Fey, who's firmly on the side of good.
    • Not to mention Fey's 'evil' twin Carmilla, who looks like the goth version of Fey, has a Lust Aura, is an eldritch abomination and a daemon goddess of sex... and one of the good guys.
  • Cinder Fall from RWBY.
    • Her minion Emerald Sustral, too. (At least until her Heel Face Turn.)
    • If you can overlook the non-human elements of her appearance, Salem.

Western Animation

  • The Trix from Winx Club practically define this.
    • Baltor from the third season is this show's best example. Shame he was only around for that season only.
    • A lot of male fans went crazy over Evil Bloom in season two.
    • The Fairy Hunters from the fourth season.
  • Avatar: The Last Airbender Big Bad Fire Lord Ozai, especially during his shirtless scenes in the series finale. And his daughter Azula.
    • Admiral Zhao and Long Feng have a sizable following as well. It helps that they're voiced by Jason Isaacs and Clancy Brown, respectively.
    • Azula bears special mention, because it's rather clear the creators did so intentionally. Either that or they hilariously misjudged how a lithe, sexy, raven-haired, busty teenaged girl who talks like The Vamp at all times would go over with the mostly young teenaged boy viewers.
    • Azula is also unusual in that she seems to be unaware of the above facts. The one time she ever flirts with someone on purpose, it's not part of any plan, she's really bad at it, and she actually needed to ask someone else for advice. Apparently either she's The Vamp entirely by accident or any attempt at acting like a normal teen is doomed to failure.
    • Which if you think about it is even sexier: most villainesses have to try to be The Vamp on purpose, Azula was doing it without even realizing it.
    • Ty Lee, who fills the role of Ms. Fanservice (among other things). Ty Lee isn't evil, though, she's just initally on the wrong side.
  • In Avatar‍'‍s sequel The Legend of Korra, this trope (and a helping of Ron the Death Eater) is what convinced much of the fandom that Asami was evil. She's highly attractive, heavily made-up and wears dark colors - looking somewhat reminiscent of the page image, in fact - leading a lot of people to assume that she was a Femme Fatale and Equalist spy.
  • In an episode of the Aladdin TV series, Princess Jasmine is turned against the heroes by Harmless Villain Abis Mal. She gets the dominatrix Whip It Good AND the black, as-close-to-dominatrix-gear-as-Disney-will-allow outfit AND the dominatrix attitude. Evil is Sexier With Princesses!!
  • The Legend of Tarzan has a definite example of this trope: Queen La.
  • Danny Phantom:
  • Storm Hawks gives us Dark Ace, Master Cyclonis, Repton, and Ravess. Thank you Storm Hawks.
  • In Captain Planet and the Planeteers, Dr. Blight is pretty sexy except for the acid burn on her face that her hair covers.
  • Chase Young from Xiaolin Showdown. Even his beast-form is sexy. And Wu-Ya looks very nice once she gets a body. She even strikes some Male Gaze poses to seduce young Raimundo into continuing to work with her. Katnappe might also count.
  • Gargoyles:
    • When Elisa goes undercover as a crooked cop demanding protection money, she wears a black jacket, tight black pants, and a blue top that shows her midriff, displays cleavage, and nicely accentuates her breasts. No wonder she quickly charms mob boss Tony Dracon into letting her join his crew.
    • In Gargoyles: The Goliath Chronicles, evil Shape Shifter Proteus disguises himself as Elisa and all but seduces Goliath into trusting him.
    • Demona. To the point where it was clearly a conscious choice by the creators to make her look that way.
    • There's also Hyena, who's pretty sexy in her own right. Even after she becomes a cyborg.
    • She's more morally ambiguous than Demona or Hyena, but Fox still counts on both the evil and the sexy - even the tattoo on her eye doesn't hurt. Especially if you like redheads. Her husband - David Xanatos himself - isn't an eyesore either, in a rather ruggedly-handsome way.
  • Heather, the all round bitch from Total Drama Island and Duncan, one of the most popular characters. See Draco in Leather Pants. Also, Alejandro in Total Drama World Tour.
  • ReBoot:
    • Post-Time Skip AndrAIa was already hot stuff to begin with, but when she gets infected with the Daemon Virus she becomes downright seductive, going as far as calling Matrix "lover". Pretty shocking for a supposed kids' show.
    • Daemon herself. The accent is probably part of it.
    • Hexadecimal, when she's not wearing the scarier masks. Of note is the time Megabyte rebuilt her with a costume that featured a good deal of black leather. Her response: "WHO MADE ME LOOK LIKE THIS?! IIIII...like it."
  • Shego in Kim Possible. The one episode when she turned good she was sweet and all, but when she's evil she is sexy! Not to mention that she wears a swimsuit, at work, in the same room as her boss, and his companion, several times.

Wade: Her name is Shego. She is wanted in eleven countries.
Ron: Make that twelve!