World's Most Beautiful Woman

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

Distaff Counterpart to World's Strongest Man.

She's beyond Hello, Nurse! This character is notable in her universe for having better looks than any other woman in it. She (and it's always a she) is the World's Most Beautiful Woman.

That doesn't mean her life is going to be easy, of course. These women are almost always So Beautiful It's a Curse. She may be the target of a Vain Sorceress looking to be the Fairest of Them All, has some unwanted attention or she may simply be kidnapped.

Just the fact of a character's being hot is not enough to qualify her for this trope. Indeed, many of these women fall into Informed Attractiveness. The character must be explicitly stated to be the world's most beautiful woman, hence why this trope is usually limited to fantasy and mythology, two genres that tend to go light on real-world logic (Was there a worldwide beauty contest that every woman alive was forced to enter?).

Of course, having two (or more) women contending for the title is usually not good, and you really, really, really want to limit it to mortal competitors. Asserting that a woman is more beautiful than a goddess is dangerous. Even...especially if she's another goddess.

A common trait of the Princess Classic. Note that the Real Life examples are all political in nature; this is no place to gush about attractive women, since such a title is so subjective that it's meaningless in the real world.

Examples of World's Most Beautiful Woman include:

Anime and Manga

  • One Piece‍'‍s Boa Hancock of the Seven Warlords of the Sea. The Risky Brothers claim that her beauty is only rivaled by the Mermaid Princess Shirahoshi.
    • And there is Alvida, who proclaims herself as the most beautiful woman in the world. Well, considering what she looked like before she ate her Devil Fruit...
      • Even before her transformation, she claimed to be the most beautiful woman, and forced her original crew to agree, or be clubbed.
    • A fabulously rich Wapol marries a woman referred to as "Miss Universe". Whether she actually won a world-wide beauty pageant or if that's her actual name is not known.
  • Nareesha in the OEL Manga Bizenghast is the three-time champion.
  • Word of God states that Retsu Unohana of Bleach is the most beautiful woman in all of Soul Society. That doesn't stop Charlotte Cuulhorne and Yumichika Ayasegawa engaging in a fight to the death to find out who the most beautiful person in the world is... of course, they're actually both men, but neither of them let that fact get in the way of taking this trope's intent seriously.
  • In the second Sally the Witch series, Sally's Hot Mom is specifically mentioned to be the most beautiful woman in the magical kingdoms. So much that, when she was a young princess, a Vain Sorceress put her into sleep, and Sally's dad had to give her a True Love's Kiss to save her. Hm, where have we seen this, huh? Little did the Queen know that the Witch would later return and try her hand at getting revenge, now targetting Sally and many other human girls...
  • The girls in Hime Chen! Otogi Chikku Idol Lilpri are said to be the most beautiful girls in the world by a magic mirror. Subverted in that they're only the most beautiful in the world after transforming, their normal little girl forms aren't considered.
  • In To LOVE-Ru, Lala's mother is acknowledged the most beautiful woman in the universe. She has to wear a veil to tone it down, otherwise males regardless of species will be overwhelmed by lust for her. Only one man, her husband, had ever resisted. Now make that two; Rito saw her not only without her veil but naked and still managed to control himself, making him one of the strongest-willed men in the universe.

Comic Books

  • Dongfang Xiong ("Heartblade") in the Hong Kong series Weapons Of The Gods.
  • In an issue of Green Lantern from the 1970s, Hal Jordan found the most beautiful woman in the universe on another planet. His friend Green Arrow, who was also there, however, refused to look at her face, claiming that it would spoil the sight of every other woman for him. (Note that Jordan wasn't affected that way. Also, the character's face is never shown to the reader.)
    • Bleez of the Red Lanterns was considered the most beautiful woman of seven systems. Unfortunately, this led to her getting abducted and gang-raped. She now wears a mask.
  • Wonder Woman is canonically supposed to be this in the DCU, having been blessed at birth by the goddess Aphrodite.
  • In the Rising Stars comics, there is a character who appears as the most perfect woman to anyone who sees her. The only man who sees her as she really is is the man who loves her.
  • The Sandman has Nada, who is so beautiful that there isn't a single mortal who is worthy of her. Unfortunately, this attracts Desire's attention, and we all know how he likes to mess with Dream...
  • In the last Scott Pilgrim book, Envy is shown to have gained 999 points in bust, hips and waist, making her the perfect woman. Naturally, everyone starts looking at her direction.

Fairy Tales

And she disappeared into her hut, but returned very soon and said, 'You are a mighty Prince, but at the same time you have a kind heart, which deserves to be rewarded. Would you like to have the most beautiful woman in the world for your wife?'
 'Most certainly I would,' replied the Prince.
So the old woman continued, 'The most beautiful woman in the whole world is the daughter of the Queen of the Flowers, who has been captured by a dragon.

  • Snow White, proclaimed to be "the fairest of them all".
  • Princess Kriemhild from the Nibelungenlied. Her beauty is sufficient that Siegfried is not only willing to fight in battles for her favor, but willing to deceive a queen and involve himself in plots that he likely would never take part in otherwise. This is the basis of his tragic flaw, and of her upcoming revenge.
  • Kaguya of The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter, who every man in Japan wanted to marry even without knowing she was princess of the Moon.

Film

  • Princess Tamina in Prince of Persia. Her looks are widely known and when the Persian army first sees her all the men rather hilariously go "OOOOOOOOOOHH!!!!" as if they have never seen a woman before. Ironically once she is out and about outside her palace no one else reacts like this throughout the rest of the film.
  • In The Bucket List, Jack Nicholson's character wants to kiss the world's most beautiful woman before he dies, which he plans to do by kissing a lot of women. It's sweetly subverted when he reunites with his estranged daughter and discovers that he has a granddaughter, whom he kisses, and crosses that part off the list.
  • The film version of The Voyage of the Dawn Treader contains a slightly altered version of the incident described in the literature section for that same book. Queen Lucy of Narnia has grown quite annoyed with constantly being made to feel less beautiful than her stunning older sister, Queen Susan; unlike in the book, however, she does go through with casting the spell that will make her unspeakably beautiful. The spell turns her into Susan - and eliminates Lucy from existence entirely. Of course, it's All Just a Dream, but the aesop is well learned.

Literature

  • The Princess Bride said that at age 18 Buttercup was the most beautiful woman in the world for the last 100 years. It had earlier listed who was the most beautiful woman in the world when Buttercup was born and when she was 10 and 15 years old. The book details what caused Buttercup's predecessors to lose the "Most Beautiful" title (the culprits included an abundance of chocolate, a skin disease, and, best of all, worrying too much about losing said beauty).
  • Lioness Rampant by Tamora Pierce has Kalasin, before she committed suicide. Her daughter Thayet "the Peerless" inherited the beauty, and is considered to be the most beautiful woman in Tortall.
  • Orson Scott Card's Hart's Hope. The Flower Princess, because she will never lie.
  • Dejah Thoris was the most beautiful woman on two worlds.
  • Juliet Stollop/Jewels in Unseen Academicals.
    • Assuming she qualified as a woman at all, Myria LeJean/Unity from Thief of Time probably qualified as this also, as she was designed to be gorgeous by the Auditors. As they copied her features from what was considered the most beautiful painting of a woman in the world, then improved upon them by erasing imperfections, it's likely that they created this trope without actually comprehending what "beauty" is!
      • Of course, this assumes that removing imperfections will produce beauty. Some studies have shown that faces with minor flaws—particularly slight asymmetry—are actually more attractive than "perfect" ones, which look to be rather bland. This may be a cultural thing, though, especially in the way definitions and appreciation of beauty change over time.
  • J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth: Lúthien Tinúviel is "the fairest of all the Children of Iluvatar" to ever live (The Silmarillion). At the time of The Lord of the Rings, her similar-looking great-great-granddaughter Arwen Undómiel is considered to be the fairest by many (although Gimli favored her grandmother, Galadriel).
  • Angelica, daughter of the king of Cathay, in Boiardo's Orlando Innamorato, Ariosto's Orlando Furioso, and other works by based on the Carolingian cycle by various authors.
  • In the Dragonlance novels, the elven princess Laurana is repeatedly described as being the most beautiful woman on all the world of Krynn.
  • Somehow manages to be gender-inverted in The Three Musketeers, in which the Duke of Buckingham is apparently rightly considered the most handsome man in either France or England.
  • Lucy comes across a magic spell in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader that could make her this trope. She doesn't go through with it - not because she didn't want to, but because Aslan's face appeared in the book and stopped her. Her sister, Queen Susan, was in fact said to be the most beautiful woman in Narnia, possibly ever. (This was in fact the reason that Lucy wanted to do the spell in the first place; the comparisons were getting to her.)
    • Queen Swanwhite, who governed Narnia before the White Witch appeared, was said to have been so pretty that whenever she looked into a pond, said pond would reflect her face for a year and a day.
    • Speaking of the White Witch, she was said to be the most gorgeous woman that Diggory (young Professor Kirke) and Uncle Andrew had seen. (And of course, Polly thought she was nothing special). That is, until she ate a certain forbidden fruit and her eerie paleness made her still very beautiful, but terribly creepy.)
  • In A Song of Ice and Fire, Daenerys Targaryen is rumored to be this. Note, however, that we don't know how Dany really looks: she never dwells on her appearance in the chapters written from her POV, and so far, only one POV has interacted with her: mousy looking Quentyn Martell who was sent on a quest to marry her anyway. Still, she gets bonus points for being a princess.
    • The fortune teller told Cersei Lannister that a more beautiful queen would overthrow her, and Cersei is known to be spectacularly beautiful. There are three candidates for such a "honor": the aforementioned Dany, Sansa Stark and Margaery Tyrrell; we already know about the Dany rumors, but the other girls are already known as beauties ( Sansa is a pretty redhead who looks like her Hot Mom, while Margaery is a nice-looking brown-eyed brunette).
    • The backstory often mentions people referring to Ashara Dayne like this.
  • Lanfear from The Wheel of Time is very much this. Or course, she doesn't have to worry about being kidnapped or the like, as she's also the world's most powerful woman...
  • Kaede from the Tales of the Otori series.
  • Kahlan Amnell of the Sword of Truth series, particularly according to Richard Rahl. The second book in the series introduces Merissa and Nicci, whom are stated by some characters (including Kahlan herself!) to be even more beautiful.
  • The title of "most beautiful woman of her generation" runs in the central family in Incarnations of Immortality for three generations: Niobe, Orb, and Orlene.
    • Niobe is the only one described this way, the others only come close, Blanche on the other hand is called this.
  • Melisande Shahrizai in the Kushiel's Legacy series is lauded to be the world's most beautiful womam. Even by her compatiots, who are descendants of angels and universally beautiful. Phedre waxes a lot of poetic about Melisande's beauty, even more than usually.
  • In Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace, Hélène Vasilyevna Kuragina is the most beautiful woman in the world. In a subversion of the Beauty Equals Goodness trope, she is notably depraved and evil.
  • Subverted by Neil Gaiman in "Keepsakes And Treasures" with the Shahinai, a tribe of crones whose legendary "treasure" is not an item, but the world's most beautiful person... Who also happens to be a young man. Unfortunately, he is extremely fragile, and dies within months of leaving the Gilded Cage his tribe made for him.
  • In the Chinese retelling of "Cinderella" Bound by Donna Jo Napoli, where main character Xing Xing went to the annual festival. After leaving behind a golden shoe, the shoe was sold to rich man to rich man, until finally only the prince was able to buy it. As the price of the shoe went up, so did reports of the owner's beauty. It wasn't before long she was claimed the most beautiful woman in the empire.
  • The Riddle-Master of Hed has both Raederle of An, categorised with amusing specificity as 'the second most beautiful woman in the Three Portions of An', and her (never-seen) friend Mara Croeg, who is more beautiful than Raederle.
  • Nikki Howard in the Airhead Series novels. In addition to her natural beauty, a lot is also chalked up to her taking great care of her body and features along with having great charisma to carry herself with.
  • In Megan Whalen Turner's The Queen's Thief series, Attolia is said to be extremely beautiful. Interestingly enough, she is not known for her beauty so much as her intellect and ruthlessness (bordering on cruelty) but she rarely seems to use this to her advantage.
  • Joelle van Dyne is called this by at least two characters in David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest (one calls her the Prettiest Girl Of All Time), at least until the accident that leads her to cover her face with a veil. Or perhaps not. In any case, her beauty is key to why the titular Entertainment literally makes the viewer lose the will to live.
  • In the Skulduggery Pleasant series, China Sorrows is described as the most beautiful woman in the world. Not just because she's beautiful, but also because magic makes people fall in love with her on sight.
  • In a subversion, Bunny enters a cross-dimensional beauty contest in the Myth Adventures story "Myth Congeniality". As the dimensions are home to a lot of non-humanoid races, most of the finalists for Multiverse's Most Beautiful Female aren't even bipedal, let alone attractive by human standards.
  • This is a transferable power in The Annals of the Chosen, linked to a magical talisman, and intended to be used to fight evil. Unfortunately, the talisman in question is quite clingy. The current owner constantly wears a burqa, and it only partly helps, since her voice is incredibly beautiful too. (Interestingly, the talisman also gives her Healing Hands.)
  • Played with in Snow White retelling White as Snow. Arpazia is more interested in her lost youth, which she believes Coira represents. But she does want to be beautiful i.e. find the girlhood that was stolen from her.
  • Remedios the Beauty fom One Hundred Years of Solitude, who is simultaneouly extremely beautiful and extremely innocent dumb (or extremely enlightened, if you ask her granduncle Colonel Buendía), with a penchant to go around naked and an absolute lack of concern on how others see her. Whatever action her family attempted to uglify her only enhanced her appeal, men trying to get a look at her naked body ended dying (on most cases due to being too Distracted by the Sexy), and she eventually ascends to the heavens while still alive due to being Too Good for This Sinful Earth.

Mythology and Religion

  • In The Bible:
    • An empire-wide beauty contest found Esther to be the most beautiful woman in the Persian Empire, which was a pretty good chunk of the known world at the time. Her prize was unwillingly marrying the king and using said marriage and her smarts to save the Jewish people singlehandedly.
    • In the Book of Job, Job's fourth, fifth and sixth daughters (Jemimah, Keziah, and Keren-Happuch) are said to be the most beautiful women in all the land. How gorgeous were they? First, they're three of maybe a dozen people whose looks the Bible even mentions. Second, their names were recorded. Their brothers' weren't.
  • In Irish Mythology, Deirdre was prophesied to be the most beautiful woman in the world.
  • In Greek Mythology, this title tends to get handed out a lot with the heroine of just about any given myth being described as "more beautiful than Aphrodite":
    • Helen of Troy, specifically described by Aphrodite as "the most beautiful of mortal women" and "the face that launched a thousand ships".
    • Before Helen, there was Alcmene, mother of Herakles, said to be a match for Aphrodite herself in beauty.
    • Psyche, who was so beautiful people began to worship her instead of the goddess of beauty. Naturally, this made Aphrodite very angry and she sent her son Eros, the god of love, to make Psyche fall in love with something horrible. Upon seeing her, Eros feel head over heels and married her. That's right. Psyche was so beautiful the god of love himself fell for her.
    • Cassiopea's claim that Andromeda was a being more beautiful than Aphrodite was taken so seriously, the gods demanded that she be sacrificed or her entire city would be obliterated.
    • The start of the Trojan War traces back to a competition over who was the most beautiful goddess on Olympus - Hera, Athena, or Aphrodite. Of course, all three of them tried to cheat, so the contest was really about who could offer Paris the most tempting bribe.
  • This title is frequently given to Guinevere in the King Arthur legends. The Tabletop RPG Pendragon gives her an Appearance score of 30 on a nominally 3-18 scale.
  • In Erec and Enide by Chretien De Troyes, Enide is described in this fashion.
    • And unlike Guinevere, she isn't just beautiful, but is also described as impeccably virtuous.
  • The Blessed Virgin Mary is a more innocent example of this to Catholics, being the personification of Incorruptible Pure Pureness and the highest model of virtue (after Jesus).

Tabletop Games

  • In Changeling: The Lost, female Fairest are very often contenders for this title. There's a reason their Seeming is so named.
    • Possibly played with - while all of the Fairest are incredibly beautiful, it's not uncommon for them to be unconventionally beautiful, or having looks that are physically impossible for mortal women to have. While beautiful, seeing a woman who is, for example, a living embodiment of a rainbow may not appeal so much to humans.

Video Games

  • Word of God claims that Chun-Li is the most beautiful woman in the Street Fighter series.
  • Daniella from Haunting Ground can be seen as an example of this trope, especially once it is revealed that she was created to be "the perfect woman."
  • Several of Emelone's victory titles in Yggdra Unison claim that she's the most beautiful woman in the world.
  • Milotic of Pokémon, as described in the Pokédex.
  • In the Warriors series:
    • Dynasty Warriors has Diao Chan, who is noted as being one of the "Four Great Beauties of China". In the 7th installment, she even has a stage facing off against other female characters (and Zhang He) in a battle royale for said title.
    • Samurai Warriors follows suit by giving a few of the female characters dream stages revolved around this concept.
  • In Fire Emblem: Sword of Seals, Roy pretty much refers to Princess Guinevere (aka the newly crowned Queen Guinevere of Bern) as this.

Roy: "She must be beautiful beyond words. Even when I first saw her, I couldn't believe that such a beautiful woman could exist."

Web Comics

  • Camille was Oglaf's world's most beautiful woman, until she was eaten by a crocodile. (Technically then, that crocodile is the world's most beautiful woman. Until they hold the competition again next year.)

Web Original

  • It's noted in Dragon Ball Abridged that Dodoria was once considered the most beautiful-and fertile-woman on her planet. Before Frieza blew it up.
  • Fey of the Whateley Universe is not only this, but has a faerie glamour that makes her seem even sexier. Even gay guys and straight women often feel attraction for her. As a queen of Faerie, she has even more going for her than that.

Western Animation

Real Life

  • A number of women in ancient times, including Nefertiti of Egypt and Roxana, the first wife of Alexander the Great.
    • Two inspirations for Aphrodite/Venus are Phryne, a famous courtesan, and Campaspe, reportedly a mistress of Alexander the Great.
  • Various women in modern times are proclaimed this by one person, group or magazine poll or another. The yearly contests for Miss World/Miss Universe and so on are somewhat based on this principle, but the girls are not only chosen for their good looks, but also for their personalities. The one who wins is not necessarily the most beautiful one there, or even any more beautiful than the previous winner.
    • Subverted in modern times for beauty has become much more widespread even compared to an age just 2 generations back, not just in the upper class, but even in people who practice Dirty Jobs . Not only due to cosmetics or surgery, but rather due to better nutrition, better education (which allows people to choose what is best for their health) and progressive elimination of chronic disease from society. Nowadays one has much more chances to die suddenly in an accident than wither under an inoperable cancer, MDR tuberculosis or liver cirrhosis.
  • Cleopatra, depending on who says it. She's constantly depicted as the World's Most Beautiful Woman, but in real life, she has been described as rather less so. Cicero himself, upon meeting her, said that "she is not as beautiful as many men have said." However, it should also be noted that Cicero disliked Cleopatra, and he would have gladly called her ugly if she actually was. If this bust is really her and at all accurate, Cleopatra was rather lovely by any standard, but she was alluring to so many men as much due to her charisma (and nerdiness) as her beauty. Being queen of Egypt didn't hurt either...
  • In societies with a tradition of a polygamous monarchy it was common for the King to send recruiting parties composed of trained connoisseurs to find the most beautiful women in his Kingdom for wives. In a large Empires like Persia or China, the selection was so great that the one that was finally picked as the King's favorite was likely to be almost literally the World's Most Beautiful Woman.
  • The already beautiful Empress Elisabeth of Austria-Hungary aka Sisi was widely considered as this in her time. Rather darkly, she kept herself youthful and thin by, among other things, basically starving herself to anorexic levels so she could mantain her tiny waist.
  • The Four Great Beauties of China are claimed to have each been the most beautiful woman in the world during her time. Considering China's extremely long history, the fact that they are the chosen four is saying a lot. Also, one of them, Diaochan from Romance of the Three Kingdoms, is speculated to be most likely fictitious (though possibly based on a real person.) Their beauty was so great that some of them changed history; as most know, Diaochan played a big part in causing Lu Bu to rebel against Dong Zhou, at least according to the novel.
    • Aside from Diaochan, the other three were Xi Shi, Wang Zhaojun and Yang Guifei. A famous poem describes how beautiful each of them were - Xi Shi made fish forget how to swim, Wang Zhaojun made birds drop from the sky, Diaochan was brighter than the moon, and Yang Guifei put all flowers to shame.
  • The tsars of Russia used to choose their wives via a nationwide beauty contest. The tsar would give a ring and a handkerchief to the winner.
  • Oda Nobunaga's younger sister Oichi had the term zessei no bijin ("peerless beauty") coined for her, and most historical figures of the time apparently sought her hand in marriage. Ironically Nobunaga thought she was too tall for a woman.
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