So Beautiful It's a Curse/Playing With

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Basic Trope: A character is so gorgeous that she starts to wonder if people are only nice to her for her looks.

  • Straight: Alice is absolutely gorgeous, and as such, receives an out-sized portion of attention from the opposite sex. Because of this, she is afraid that people are only nice to her because she's attractive.
  • Exaggerated: Alice is mindblowingly stunning. Men throw themselves at her feet, pay for her coffees, wave her into traffic, listen to her overly intently at work, et cetera. After a while, she starts to worry that she's only getting by on her good looks.
  • Justified: It actually does have some grounding in reality; beautiful people can occasionally have their contributions overlooked because it's assumed they got by on their looks. They can also be subject to a lot of unwanted attention and harassment, or jealousy.
  • Inverted: Alice is hideous, but is a model employee and citizen. People still treat her like gutter trash because she's ugly.
  • Subverted: Alice turns out to have several friendships that are not a result of her attractiveness - the people are genuinely into her for her personality.
  • Double Subverted: ...However, those people turn out to be blind, so they really had no standard of attractiveness to begin with.
  • Parodied: Alice is a movie star who is not much of an actress - clearly only hired because she's attractive. As she counts her piles of money, she laments that people are only into her for her looks.
    • Alice is extremely vain, and her complaints about how her beauty is a curse are played to humorously underscore her overall narcissism... and hypocrisy, because she constantly exploits her good looks and the way people react to her for her own benefit, while still complaining about it.
    • A failed spell actually turns Alice (more) beautiful.
  • Deconstructed: It turned out to be true - people only enjoyed Alice for her beauty. When she ages or otherwise loses her looks, the prior attention vanishes, leaving her an emotional wreck.
    • Alternatively, Alice has never been in a long-term relationship because most suitors consider her out of their league and don't even try talking to her. Or they only want her for her body, to which she either turns them down or has a string of one-night stands.
    • It drives people insane, knowing they saw the most beautiful person ever and everyone else (including themselves) looks scarringly ugly in comparison. (Cue Stalker reverse Narcissism)
  • Reconstructed: However, that just gives her the chance to legitimately display her skills for real.
  • Zig Zagged: Alice is so impossibly beautiful that when someone looks at her, their face melts off and their eyeballs burn out of their head. Alternately, Alice is a Gorgeous Gorgon, and anyone who gazes upon her awesome beauty turns to stone, so she must always wear a veil in order to protect others.
  • Averted: Alice is quite beautiful, but receives no special recognition from it.
  • Enforced: "My totally awesome character needs some sort of flaw, but I can't think of any. I'll just have her say that no one takes her seriously because she's beautiful. This is gonna be the best fanfic ever!"
  • Lampshaded: "Oh, all he saw in me was a gorgeous body and a huge pair of boobs."
  • Invoked: Alice doesn't do anything in the way of acquiring skills - she just stands there and looks attractive.
  • Defied: "Huh, maybe they like me for my personality."
    • Alice wears a mask and loose-fitting clothing so that nobody knows what she looks like.
  • Discussed: "Wait...really? You really think they're only into you for your looks? Are you insane?
  • Conversed: "Well, that fanfic was already pretty terrible, but what really put it over the top was the lead's constant whining about how she was so beautiful, it's a curse."
  • Played For Laughs: Alice isn't even that attractive to begin with - but when Bob, out of pity, buys her coffee, she starts insisting that he was only into her for her looks and that she has nothing to offer society.
  • Played For Drama: Alice's bosses are smitten with her and keep promoting her until she gets into a position where she has no idea what she's doing.
    • Alternatively, the office gossips insist that the actually competent Alice has not been a victim of the recent round of layoffs due to her good looks.
    • Alice starts carrying a Hand Cannon to deter *ahem* unpleasant types.
    • Alice gets no support and has no friends in the workplace because regardless of how hard she works, everyone assumes that because she's so beautiful she had to have screwed her way to the top and are deeply resentful of her for it.
    • Genetically Modified Clones are bred to be beautiful. Cue a long chain of assassinations and insane attacks by obsessed clone 413-Alice.