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

[templar1112002]

No: HPFGUIDX 135009

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.
> 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 

> Hickengruendler replied:
> 
> Don't forget the very handsome Gilderoy Lockhart. He would be very 
> disappointed now.
> 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.


****Marcela now:  We should also watch the pattern that Jo's 
designed for the 'fates' of all those characters described 
as 'beautiful':

- Lily = got killed by Voldie.
- Tom Riddle = beautiful but born evil, no redeeming trait 
whatsoever, as a matter of fact, Jo turned him uglier the more evil 
he got.
- Lockhart = got sent to St. Mungos, still there.
- Cedric = got gratuitously killed by Voldie's orders.
- Cho = she turned into a human hosepipe and then into a harpy.
- Bill Weasley = the coolest character, got desfigured and turned 
semi-werewolf.
- Bellatrix = sent to Azkaban and not pretty anymore, remained evil.
- Sirius = need I explain?
- Fleur = the girl that'd go for looks only got shot down a peg or 
two by being engaged with poor Bill.  

With Fleur's character Jo has  redeemed her superficial personality 
twice already, in GoF and HBP.  Funny thing is that Jo does it as 
a 'punishment': Fleur's character only redeemed herself to the 
readers because she had suffered a loss of some kind which would 
allow us to see beyond her superficial self.

I wonder if Jo's got something bad awaiting Ginny's character's 
fate...

Marcela