Sinister Schnoz

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.
Now that's a nose.


Almost anytime a character has a large nose, he's a bad guy. Villains have big noses. They might be long and pointy, or a giant hook down their face. But for whatever reason, bad guys rock the big noses. Maybe it's symbolic of how ugly they are on the inside? Maybe it's just to distinguish between the honest good guys and the less honest bad guys for the audience. No one knows.

It's one of the great mysteries of life.

This is also part of Antisemitism. In anti-Semitic propaganda, Jews are depicted with big noses, way beyond normal. This can lead to Unfortunate Implications if it is used in other contexts.

It's also sometimes done in Japanese Anime, but this is reference to Tengu, who are said to have large noses.

Examples of Sinister Schnoz include:


Anime and Manga

Comic Books

  • Iznogoud. Just look at him.
  • Rastapopoulos in Tintin.
  • Crimson from the Belgian comic series Suske en Wiske.
  • Why else Penguin would be called such, aside from his short stature?

Film

Literature

  • Harry Potter
    • Toyed with in Severus Snape.
    • Averted with Voldemort, who has two slits in the middle of his face, like snake nostrils.
  • Hotzenplotz and Zwackelmann from Robber Hotzenplotz.
  • Sherlock Holmes is a hero, but his nose is frequently described by Watson as hawk-like: large, aquiline, and pointy. Combined with his gangly physique, Holmes strikes a severe but not dashing figure. Doyle was always annoyed that illustrations made Holmes too traditionally handsome and heroic looking.

Live Action Television

Music

  • The Boogie Man from Gorillaz has an extremely long nose. It's the only facial feature visible. Murdoc also has a rather bulbous nose. He's not technically a "bad guy", though. YMMV.

Tabletop Games

  • The Gretchin of Warhammer 40,000 have ridiculously long noses that take up half their head. The same is also true for their Warhammer Fantasy Battle equivalents, the Goblins.
  • The picture shown for the Imp (a minor devil-like creature) in the Monster Manual for 1st Edition AD&D has a schnoz that would make Jimmy Durante jealous.

Video Games

  • Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney: Luke Atmey.
  • Ganondorf of Zelda could open a can of Coke with his sniffer. Interestingly, it goes from straight and needle-like to hooked and bent. Averted when he turns into his pig-form, where he gets a snout.
    • Ganondorf gets his long nose from his race: the Gerudo, a race almost entirely made of women who work as thieves. It's subverted in their case because the Gerudo are actually quite nice to Link once he proves himself.
  • Warcraft goblins are more neutral than evil, but still have long noses.
    • While the Steamwheedle goblins are just shrewd businessmen, the Bilgewater goblins added in Cataclysm are more like gangsters. Their mob boss, Gallywix, even built himself a pleasure palace in the middle of Azshara with its own mountaintop golf course.
    • In Uldaman, the main villain for most of the quests is a Goblin tresure hunter and his mercenary army that are working for Deathwing. He's named Schnoz.
  • Tengu in Dead or Alive 2. But he is a Tengu, so that is given.
  • Toujin the assassin from Battle Arena Toshinden 3.
  • Heiss in Radiant Historia.
  • Loghain of Dragon Age, who looks rather like Alan Rickman in general.
  • Patches of Demon's Souls and Dark Souls.
  • Mordroc, the Big Bad of Dragon's Lair II. Not only does he have a huge nose, there's a branch growing out of it!

Web Comics

Western Animation

Doof: Is my nose really that pointy?