Ugly equals evil? (was:Re: Snape's Parents)

[hickengruendler]

No: HPFGUIDX 134876

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "horridporrid03" 
<horridporrid03 at y...> wrote:
 
> 
> Betsy Hp:
> Actually, I've not found that to be the case. Beautiful does *not* 
> equal good in JKR's world.  A prime example is the devastantingly 
> handsome Tom Riddle.  (Does Harry ever skip an opportunity to 
> describe him as good looking?)  The Black sisters are another good 
> example.  Both Bellatrix and Narcissa are described as quite 
> beautiful, and yet they're both very much Death Eaters.  (Narcissa 
> loves and wishes to protect her son, but she's also *very* 
> interested in Dumbledore dying.  And she was directly involved in 
> the plan that led to Sirius's death.)
> 
> Actually, what I've found interesting is that very few characters 
> are ever described as good looking.  Tom Riddle, Bill Weasley, 
> Fleur, the Black sisters, Sirius, Cho, Cedric, Blaise, Ginny and 
> possibly Lily are the only ones I can remember off the top of my 
> head.  And there's a fairly even distribution of good and evil and 
> neutral folk on that list.

Hickengruendler:

Don't forget the very handsome Gilderoy Lockhart. He would be very 
disappointed now.
 
> We can only guess that Hermione and Ron and Harry are attractive 
> because they've got admirers, and of course, Harry as hero should 
be 
> attractive according to the rules of the genre.  But generally, 
> JKR's descriptors are not all that flattering.  Even with the good 
> guys.
> 
> Betsy Hp

Hickengruendler:

I partly agree with you. Saying that all the evil characters are 
ugly, or that all the beautiful characters are good, is wrong and 
would do JKR injustice. However, I still can see where Wanda is 
coming from, it has to do with two of JKR's technics.

1: The parodistic characters

Umbridge, Rita and the Dursleys for example, are caricatures. Surely 
we can see their behaviour in everydaylife, but they are overdrawn on 
purpose. And in this case, the extreme ugliness doesn't reflect the 
evil- or at least pettiness of the characters, but it is another 
method to show them as caricatures. Trelawney as well, though she 
isn't quite as unpleasant as the ones mentioned above. On the flip 
side we have Gilderoy Lockhart, who isn't taken to be serious as 
well, but in whose case it is important that he's beautiful. 

2: The description of the background characters

While I agree with you point above, that good and evil characters are 
both, ugly and beautiful, this is not true for the Background 
characters. All the Death Eaters, who don't play a major or semi-
major part in the plot, are ugly and fat and mostly dim, this already 
starts with MacNair, the executioner, although he had a semi-major 
part in at least one book. The same is true for most of the 
background Slytherins. Here I think it is obvious, that JKR doesn't 
have the time to develop those characters as well, therefore they are 
in looks and characteristic exactly the same, and in fact not quite 
unlike Tolkien's Orks (except that they are still human). 

In fact, the first minor Death Eater were she broke that rule, is the 
werewolf Greyback, who is awful as well, and I think also looks ugly 
as well, but who is that scary and horrible, that in spite of his 
minor screentime he overshadows the other Death Eaters.

Hickengruendler