Gorgeous Gorgon: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

[[File:hotgorgon 4009.jpg|link=Clash of the Titans|frame|[[Evil Is Sexy|Wait]], ''this'' is the [[The Woobie|hideous beast]]? [[But Your Wings Are Beautiful|But her snake hair is beautiful]].]]

 

Passing through [[Adventure Towns]], [[The Hero]] hears from the [[Quest Giver]] that there's a hideous [[Mono-Gender Monsters|she-monster]] bedeviling the town. A creature ''so'' ugly she can [[Brown Note|stun those looking at her]] and make them wish they'd [[Bring My Brown Pants|brought their brown pants]], she's so repulsive. The worst part is that her monstrous mien is like a car-wreck, you can't look away. This may be compounded by her [[Hypnotic Eyes|hypnotic gaze]]...which can be triply bad if it can also [[Taken for Granite|turn onlookers into stone]].

 

Related to [[Cute Monster Girl]] and [[Hollywood Homely]]. Compare [[Beauty to Beast]], [[Bishonen Line]], and [[But Your Wings Are Beautiful]]. For the trope about Gorgons, see [[Medusa]].

{{examples}}

 

* A borderline example happens in ''[[Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha]] A's'': the [[Tome of Eldritch Lore|Book of Darkness]] is supposed to be a [[Earthshattering Kaboom|planet-destroying timebomb]] inhabited by an [[Eldritch Abomination]]...and it is, except that it also has a soul, a beautiful sad woman who in no way wants to destroy anyone or anything. {{spoiler|And the heroes have to <s>kill</s> seal her.}}

* Lucy and the other diclonius from ''[[Elfen Lied]]'' are frequently reinforced as non-human, horned killing machines that are dire threats to everyone around them and the doom of mankind...and they're pink haired Woobies with cute little horns. Yes, they may also be horned psychopaths with a genocidal instinct against mankind and able to project kinetic arms capable of ripping apart armoured soldiers as if they were made of paper...and Lucy [[The Juggernaut|does this lots of]] [[High-Pressure Blood|times]], but then there's her other personality, [[Cute Mute|Nyu]], who is harmless, innocent, and kind.

* In [[Masamune Shirow]]'s commentary for a picture of a [[Nubile Savage]] with dreadlocks in his artbook ''Intron Depot 2: Blades,'' he suggests that the legend of the Gorgons may have been inspired by this type of hairstyle.

 

* Played literally in ''[[Incredible Hercules]]'', in which Delphyne is a Gorgon born and bred, with snakes for hair and scaly skin, and also the love interest of Hercules' sidekick. As it turns out, not all Gorgons have the petrifying gaze.

* Valentina, the most iconic villain in Filipino comic book history.

* In ''[[X-Men]]'', Nightcrawler is supposed to be demonic looking enough that the vast majority of people think of him as a literal demon upon seeing him. Though the personality is enough to change people's opinions of him, it doesn't change the fact that he's drawn as a rather attractive blue elf.

** And the ironic thing is that he's very religious to boot.

 

== [[Fan Works]] ==

* In [http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5464274/1/So_You_Think_You_Had_A_Bad_Hair_Day|So You Think ''You'' Had A Bad Hair Day], more is revealed about the gorgon who joins the Ankh-Morpork City Watch. If her gaze turns flesh to stone, what happens to the stony flesh of a troll? Read on...

 

* The 2007 animated film adaptation of ''[[Beowulf (film)|Beowulf]]'' changes Grendel's mother from an ogrish sea-monster to a shapeshifter who appears as a beautiful woman based on her voice actress, Angelina Jolie.

** It's implied that her true form is vaguely draconian, however - hints to golden scales, claws, and a tail are seen in the background, and even in human form, she still has wicked talons in her feet that amusingly double as natural high heels.

** The remake still has her as a scaly, serpent-tailed thing, but her face is [[Evil Is Sexy|very good looking]], at least, until she goes to turn you to stone, at which point, her entire face ''[[Game Face|changes]]'' into something [[Nightmare Fuel|a lot less attractive]]. Put it this way: Medusa was played by Russian model Natalia Vodianova.

* Mike from ''[[Monsters, Inc.]]'' was in a relationship with Celia, a gorgon with very playful snakehair.

* The gorgon from the [[Hammer Horror]] film ''The Gorgon'' is not played by the most attractive actress in the world and has some rather pale and heavy scale makeup, but she's not exactly hideous. And that's {{spoiler|only when she's in her gorgon form. The actress who plays her human form has the sort of looks you'd expect from the lead actress in a movie.}}

* Lady Marsh from ''[[Lair of the White Worm]]'' is a [[Snake People|reptilian]] vampire, but is still played by the beautiful Amanda Donahue.

 

* ''[[wikipedia:Voyage of the Basset|Voyage of the Basset]]'', based on which ''Voyage Of The Unicorn'' was written.

* The main character of the Spanish novel ''La Dama Del Alba'' (The Lady Of The Dawn) was [[Anthropomorphic Personification|Death herself]], but she looked like a reasonably attractive woman and actually envied mortals because they could love - everything ''she'' touched died.

* In [[The Laundry Series]], "gorgonism" strikes humans randomly, from old South Asian grandmothers to young attractive middle-class girls (presumably, males also). When a gorgon looks upon a target, her gaze turns some of the target's carbon atoms into silicon, resulting in instant flaming death. Gazing upon a gorgon whose eyes are closed or covered, on the other hand, has no effect.

* In Terry Pratchett's ''Discworld'', it is revealed that Disc gorgons have a body-odour problem, because deodorising your armpits is impossible when your armpit hair keeps biting the can ths rendering it useless. Apparently the goddess didn't stop at head hair. (Our Gorgons Are Different? Or the thing with armpis having hair too has been bowdlerised from Earth myth?)

 

* Medusa in ''Voyage Of The Unicorn''.

* In a ''[[Tales from the Darkside]]'' episode entitled "Miss May Dusa", an attractive and relatively normal looking gorgon awakens after having spent several centuries as a mannequin. She meets up with a blind musician in a subway and shares her sad story, only to catch her own reflection and end up back where she started.

* An episode of ''[[Blood Ties]]'' involves a Medusa who was a very beautiful woman. The characters specifically mention that she was so beautiful that a god raped her on the steps of Athena's temple. Athena got pissed off and turned her into a monster. Hence Medusa's hate for anyone who thinks she's beautiful. She actually liked Mike because he seemed to genuinly care about her rather than her looks. She would seduce male models (usually younger than her), be their sugar mama, and then turn them into stone out of spite. When Vicki finds the statue of her latest victim, she takes it back to her office, only for the medusa's [[Mook]] to break in and destroy it. Apparently, not even [[Our Vampires Are Different|vampires]] are immune to her stone gaze. After Vicki [[Off with His Head|takes her head]] with a sword, all victims (except for the crushed one) are fine.

 

* In Menotti's ''Unicorn, Gorgon, and Manticore,'' when the secluded mad scientist lies to the townspeople and tells them that he's killed his Gorgon, the townspeople wail over "The gorgeous, gorgeous Gorgon, the pride of his age!" (These are the same townspeople who previously believed the Gorgon was the ugliest creature they'd ever seen.)

 

** On the other hand, Nymphs use their beauty as a weapon...it's the last thing any trespasser looking at them sees.

*** Well, usually, nymphs are A) highly charismatic (low to mid 20s) and B) naked. So, you know, it's a case of [[Go Out with a Smile]].

* In ''[[Scion]]'', Medusae (the result of Gorgons feeding normal humans their blood) can make themselves look pretty very easily. Unfortunately, for the big tricks to work, [[Game Face|they gotta get ugly]]. The Gorgons themselves have a ''much'' harder time fitting in.

 

 

* If you don't count her being a boss fight, a giant head having ginormous fanged teeth and trying to kill you, Medusa in ''[[Castlevania]]: Lament Of Innocence'' wasn't that ugly.

** If you want a hot Medusa from a ''Castlevania''-related source, look no further than ''Sexy [[Parodius]]''.

* Cassiopeia in ''[[League of Legends]]'' is a gorgeous Naga, but her backstory claims she was a beautiful woman who turned into a monster when she double-crossed one of the men she seduced for information. She even says "You called me beautiful once", but aside from being a naga, she's ''still'' beautiful.

* Marilith from ''[[Final Fantasy I]]'' could be seen as this. While she doesn't have the turn-her-enemies-to-stone ability, she's still the deadly powerful demon of fire, and could easily be seen as quite attractive.

 

* Aurielle Goldenscale from ''[[Monsterful]],'' she's a sexy, blond (her snakes have yellow scales) gorgon teacher, and even though she's really gorgeous, she's also a big, mean teacher. She will petrify any student that doesn't follow her rules either partially or entirely and is feared by most of the students of Addams High for this.

* Ferretina the Weasel Queen in ''[[Girl Genius]].''

* ''[[Wapsi Square]]'' has a few characters who qualify. First of all, there's Phix, who has a bit of a [[Hot Librarian]] thing going, despite being a sphinx. On top of that, an [http://wapsisquare.com/comic/another-scholar/ actual gorgon] (mildly NSFW, even though nothing is showing) seen at the library fits this trope quite well.

 

 

** Helped in that she was voiced by [[Jennifer Love Hewitt]].

* A gorgon appears briefly in ''[[Justice League]].'' Except for the green skin and snake hair, she is fairly average looking and, oddly, has a New York/Jersey accent.

* ''[[Monster High]]'' has a rare male example with Deuce, who only has scales and snakes on his head, which he fashions into a mohawk. Otherwise, he is your typical handsome teen. To be fair, "attractive monster people" is pretty much the whole theme of the series.

* In Disney's ''[[Aladdin (Disney film)|Aladdin]]'' TV series, Jasmine got turned into a "hideous snake person" by Mirage. Truth be told, there wasn't all that much that's hideous about her, but the poisoned spines were something of a turn-off...to everyone except Aladdin, who willingly dosed himself with the same potion to be with her.

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