looks determining character

[hickengruendler]

No: HPFGUIDX 139668

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, Juli <jlnbtr at y...> wrote:
> Hickengruendler: (huge snip)
> In fact, the only ugly character, who is not evil, is Moaning Myrtle. 
> 
> 
> Juli: How about Mad-eye Moody? He's not beautiful, or Mrs Figg, or 
Mundungus? I'm pretty sure neither of them are pretty, or good looking.
 
Hickengruendler:

I think Mrs Figg is average looking (like most characters in the books, 
luckily). I don't think she is or was a beauty, but no way would I call 
her ugly. Mundungus I'm not sure about. I don't know how he looks and 
if his looks are described (I have to search the books for this again, 
all that I rememeber is that he has red hair), and I don't know if you 
really can't call him evil. Sure, he's not Voldemort like evil, but he 
certainly is not a pleasant person and nobody I wanted to have around.

Moody is ugly, but that's what he became because he fought the Death 
Eaters. It's sort of a graceful ugliness, because every scar on his 
body shows, that he is a very brave person, who fought for his and 
other lives probably countless times. (Just like Bill after the Fenrir 
attack). We don't know how he looked before he got all those scars, 
therefore I don't think his "ugliness" can be compared to that of 
Umbridge or the Dursleys or most Slytherins, who seemed to have been 
born that way, and whose outer ugliness reflects their inner one. On 
the other hand, I am aware that some of those characters are 
caricatures and therefore overdrawn on purpose, and that at least with 
the Slytherins it could now be explained with the fact, that many of 
them are probably inbred.

But I thought about Slughorn and concure, that he is another rather 
ugly character who is at least okay. He was described as "fat" by the 
narrator, in contrast to Neville, Professor Sprout and Molly, for 
example, whose worst descriptions are "round" or "chubby", much more 
harmless adjectives. Therefore I think it is likely, that Slughorn 
resembles Uncle Vernon in looks a bit. Still, that makes two characters 
(who are both anyway not the nicest one and have many flaws, although I 
love Slughorn and Myrtle), while there are countless negative examples.

Hickengruendler