ArtsAutosBooksBusinessEducationEntertainmentFamilyFashionFoodGamesGenderHealthHolidaysHomeHubPagesPersonal FinancePetsPoliticsReligionSportsTechnologyTravel

Ugly as Sin or Ugly is as Ugly Does

Updated on September 18, 2015
gmwilliams profile image

Grace loves to write commentaries on psychocultural and sociocultural dynamics in their myriad forms.

Words have associations in its positive & negative meanings & contexts.When one says a person is good looking, it denotes beauty and the person is easy to look at.To describe a person as angelic looking denote a high level of physical attractiveness.
Words have associations in its positive & negative meanings & contexts.When one says a person is good looking, it denotes beauty and the person is easy to look at.To describe a person as angelic looking denote a high level of physical attractiveness.
From time immemorial, beauty have been associated with goodness, purity, and goodness while ugliness have been associated with evil, inquity, and darkness.
From time immemorial, beauty have been associated with goodness, purity, and goodness while ugliness have been associated with evil, inquity, and darkness.
In the bible, Michael the Archangel handsome appearance is reflected in his character which is considered pure, virtuous, and beyond reproach. Again, beauty/handsomeness is equated with goodness and virtue.
In the bible, Michael the Archangel handsome appearance is reflected in his character which is considered pure, virtuous, and beyond reproach. Again, beauty/handsomeness is equated with goodness and virtue.
In the bible, Lucifer was portrayed as handsome in the heaveny realms as beauty=good. With his ejection from the heavenly into the hellish realms, his physical appearance started to reflect his evilness. Lucifer became Satan a/k/a THE DEVIL.
In the bible, Lucifer was portrayed as handsome in the heaveny realms as beauty=good. With his ejection from the heavenly into the hellish realms, his physical appearance started to reflect his evilness. Lucifer became Satan a/k/a THE DEVIL.
The Devil is the main archetypal prototype of evil.  This is reflected in his ugly, repugnant appearance. The Devil's ugly appearance is supposedly a reflection of his insidious and iniquitious personality.
The Devil is the main archetypal prototype of evil. This is reflected in his ugly, repugnant appearance. The Devil's ugly appearance is supposedly a reflection of his insidious and iniquitious personality.
Besides being portrayed as ugly, evil characters can have a sinister appearance.  This sinister aspect reflects what deviousness is lurking within the character.One is advised to be highly wary of the character for he/she is definitely up to NO GOOD!
Besides being portrayed as ugly, evil characters can have a sinister appearance. This sinister aspect reflects what deviousness is lurking within the character.One is advised to be highly wary of the character for he/she is definitely up to NO GOOD!
Many movie villains are portrayed as having a demonic appearance. Why not? After all the devil is the PROTOTYPE of pure & unadulterated evil. Evil is also equated with ugliness & bestiality.The devil & demons are portrayed as bestial looking.
Many movie villains are portrayed as having a demonic appearance. Why not? After all the devil is the PROTOTYPE of pure & unadulterated evil. Evil is also equated with ugliness & bestiality.The devil & demons are portrayed as bestial looking.
There are EVIL characters that one can describe as good looking, even beautiful/handsome. However, this beauty is of a demoniac quality.There is something EVIL in their appearance -their eyes, nose, mouth, or other physical characteristics.
There are EVIL characters that one can describe as good looking, even beautiful/handsome. However, this beauty is of a demoniac quality.There is something EVIL in their appearance -their eyes, nose, mouth, or other physical characteristics.
Beyond physical ugliness, the evil character exude a dark, demonic, and otherwise sinister aura. One is smart to be wary before entering to any type of interacting w/him/her.EVIL is natural to him/her as breathing is to us.
Beyond physical ugliness, the evil character exude a dark, demonic, and otherwise sinister aura. One is smart to be wary before entering to any type of interacting w/him/her.EVIL is natural to him/her as breathing is to us.
Evil characters have a repugnant & off putting presence. THAT serves a purpose.They DON'T want  others to come to them, they prefer to COME to others.No, they want to chase,subdue, & destroy others. This is part of the evil character's game plan.
Evil characters have a repugnant & off putting presence. THAT serves a purpose.They DON'T want others to come to them, they prefer to COME to others.No, they want to chase,subdue, & destroy others. This is part of the evil character's game plan.
Ugliness in presence/personality is manifested in the evil character's predatory nature. HE/SHE is nothing if not a predator and YOU are a prey for his/her use, no more no less.He/she wants you under his/her ultimate power.  Your dignity is nothing!
Ugliness in presence/personality is manifested in the evil character's predatory nature. HE/SHE is nothing if not a predator and YOU are a prey for his/her use, no more no less.He/she wants you under his/her ultimate power. Your dignity is nothing!
There are evil characters who are amoral. Right & wrong are for others, not THEM. They will DO as they please,not caring how THEY impact others.They are soulless & consciousless.
There are evil characters who are amoral. Right & wrong are for others, not THEM. They will DO as they please,not caring how THEY impact others.They are soulless & consciousless.
There are evil characters who make ugliness & other forms of depravity quite beautiful & attractive. However, their uglier & darker side will surface in one way or another. Their "beauty/goodness" is covering up their true ugliness/evil.
There are evil characters who make ugliness & other forms of depravity quite beautiful & attractive. However, their uglier & darker side will surface in one way or another. Their "beauty/goodness" is covering up their true ugliness/evil.
Evil characters are portrayed by the physically unattractive because such is viewed as darker & more sinister.Evil characters encompass all types of ugliness.They repel,repulse,&  perversely attract people simultaneously. What MORE can be said?
Evil characters are portrayed by the physically unattractive because such is viewed as darker & more sinister.Evil characters encompass all types of ugliness.They repel,repulse,& perversely attract people simultaneously. What MORE can be said?

Putting the UGLY in Ugly

Words have associative meanings in its positive and negative contexts. Beauty and attractiveness have always been associated with goodness, purity, wholesomeness, and virtue. It is also has been associated with innocence and friendliness. Beautiful and attractive people are deemed to be nicer and more genuine because of their appearance. Beauty and other forms of physical attractiveness has always been according the most positive attributes.

To go even further, when one states that one has an angelic and/or cherubic appearance, this means that his/her appearance is pleasant and he/she is good looking. Being good looking has always been associated with pleasantness and positiveness. Unattractiveness and ugliness have negative connotations. Unattractive and/or ugly people are considered to be flawed somehow. Ugliness has long been associated with evil, sin, and other forms of iniquity. Many people see physical unattractiveness and ugliness as quite sinister, even evil.

From time immemorial, looks have been associated with either good or evil attributes, even characters and prototypes. Characters and prototypes In the bible, Michael the archangel was portrayed as handsome as befitting his morally sterling character. Lucifer was good looking when he was in heaven with God. However, after his expulsion from the heavenly realms into hellish realms, his appearance transformed from handsome to hideously ugly to reflect his changed character. The saying ugly as sin reflects the correlation between an ugliness and an evil or less than positive character.

The devil is the most villainous character of all time which is reflected in his bestial appearance. The devil is the prototype for sinister and evil characters in books, plays, and movies. If a character is a villain, in many cases, he/she is not good looking to downright ugly. The ugliness is a physical reflection of the evil personality lurking underneath.

Besides being portrayed as unattractive, villains are often portrayed as sinister looking. Of course, the sinister aspect is a metaphor for his/her evil persona. Villains have been portrayed throughout history as ugly in order to teach people that evil is undesirable, even repugnant and that goodness is something that should be continuously strive for. Evil characters in books, plays, and movies are sinister looking to detract others from emulating them.

There are evil characters in books, plays, and movies who are actually portrayed as demonic looking. This is quite apropos for the course. After all, the devil is the ultimate prototype of evil. So evil is equated with the demonic in the mass consciousness. Evil is viewed by many to be in the lower realms and levels of being. In these lower realms and levels, it is supposedly unpleasant. This unpleasantness can be physical, mental, or spiritual depending upon what the respective individual and/or collective consensus is. The supposed denizens of the lower realms are at the lowest possible consciousness, near the bestial level. This bestiality is reflected in their appearance. One can aptly say ugly is as ugly does.

Beyond just demonic looking, there are evil characters who are good looking in a dark, demoniac way. Even though they are attractive, they have one feature which gives away their evil aura. It could be their eyes, nose, mouth, or other physical attributes. Such evil characters attract and repel people simultaneously. Attractive, evil characters may be beautiful on the outside but they are repulsive on the inside. They are not really beautiful as their inner ugliness have an impact on their beauty and/or attractiveness in one way or another.

Ugliness does not have to be a physical component to evil characters. Even if they are not physically unattractive and/or ugly, they exude a dark, demonic, and/or otherwise sinister aura which lets others know who THEY are and to be wary of interacting with them. Such characters have no compunction of using their evil to achieve their individual purpose. They breathe evil as regular people breathe air.

Besides exuding an ugly and/or dark aura, the evil character has a dark and off putting presence. When he/she enters the room, one is totally repelled by him/her. That is what he/she wants. He/she wants people to be repelled by his/her presence. After all, this is what gives him/her power. He/she does not want people to come near him/her at all. The purpose of being repelled by him/her is to make him/her come towards the object of his/her attention. He/she wants to do the chasing. He/she wants to conquer, subdue, and/or perhaps destroy the object of his/her attention.

There is yet another negative facet to the ugliness of the evil character in books, plays, and especially in movies. The evil character is predatory in nature. He/she sees others as pawns to do with as he/she likes. Other people are viewed as weak and of no consequence. Nothing makes the evil character happier than to demoralize and other strip others of their humanness and/or decency. Such words are total anathemas to the evil character. When others are completely stripped of whatever dignity they have, they are under the evil character's power.

The predatory evil character loves to be in charge and dominant. Besides using dominance to demoralize others, evil characters love to dehumanize others. Others are just pawns in their macabre game plan. They exist to be the prey. They see it as inconsequential to use others until they cannot be used anymore physically, emotionally, psychologically, and/or mentally. Others are NOTHING to the predatory evil character.

The predatory evil character can also destroy those whom he/she deem to be a threat or too weak. Such evil characters see others as nonentities to be disposed of when he/she believes that the latter is not useful and/or in his/her scheme of things. The concept of survival of the fittest is taken to an abysmally ruthless level. If others are destroyed in his/her quest for dominance, well, that's THEIR weakness.

There is the evil character who is amoral. The normal concepts of right and wrong matter to him least. To him/her, such concepts for the meek, weak, and gullible. He/she intends to live and do what he/she pleases regardless of the dire consequences incurred. In fact, this evil character could not care one iota about consequence and as to how his/her actions impact others. His/her disregard for rules of ethics is highly unconscionable for others but it is okay with him/her.

One can say that amoral evil characters simply have no conscious at all. They are in their own perverse world and that is the way they like it. Others do not matter to them in the slightest. In fact, these characters are quite incognizant of other's existence. It is really their universe to do and be as they wish.

Some evil characters have a knack to portraying ugliness and other forms of darkness to be quite attractive and alluring. These characters may appear to be welcoming, friendly, and sophisticated. They may even be sweetly seductive to the opposite gender and deceptively kind to the vulnerable. However, sooner or later, their true ugliness seeps to the surface much to the dismay of everyone. This is one of the most insidious evil characters. They can effectively mask their ugliness under a facade of utter gentility.

They also have the gift of using kindness as an allure to the unsuspecting. They pretend to be kind to draw you in. They know that there are gullible people out of there who only want to see only the very best of humankind. They present a beautiful exterior to beguile you, never revealing a dark, uglier, more demonic side until they have you proverbially where THEY want YOU to be.

In conclusion, there is a reason why evil characters are portrayed by people who are deemed less attractive, even ugly people by societal standards. Evil is the antithesis of good. Evil represents extreme imperfections and flaws. People who are less attractive and ugly are considered flawed appearance wise. Furthermore, physical unattractiveness, even ugliness, have quite a negative connotation. There is even the saying ugly as sin. Ugliness is oftentimes equated to sin hence evil.

Evil characters have oftentimes been portrayed as physically ugly in order to make them repellent and undesirable. They also have been portrayed as physically unattractive in order to make the context of evilness very destructive and unprofitable. The negative physical appearance of the evil character is a method to deter people from wanting to be less than positive in their lives and their dealings with others.

Besides, being physically ugly, evil characters can be emotionally, mentally, psychologically, or psychically ugly. Ugliness in evil characters is not contained to physicality, it encompasses all areas of the persona. This psychic ugliness can including possessing an odious, repugnant, even borderline psychopathic personality. The evil character does not necessarily have a blatant evil personality, many disguise their truly ugly personality to appear nice and sweet on the surface until they get what they desire.

The evil character is ugly physically and/or other ways for many reasons. They are the anti-hero and anti-heroine. They represent the darker, demonic, and more sinister side. Such characters are created to make the public want to HATE them and wish for their just desserts. Last of all, people LOVE evil characters for they are departure from the usual all around everyperson character.

© 2013 Grace Marguerite Williams

working

This website uses cookies

As a user in the EEA, your approval is needed on a few things. To provide a better website experience, hubpages.com uses cookies (and other similar technologies) and may collect, process, and share personal data. Please choose which areas of our service you consent to our doing so.

For more information on managing or withdrawing consents and how we handle data, visit our Privacy Policy at: https://corp.maven.io/privacy-policy

Show Details
Necessary
HubPages Device IDThis is used to identify particular browsers or devices when the access the service, and is used for security reasons.
LoginThis is necessary to sign in to the HubPages Service.
Google RecaptchaThis is used to prevent bots and spam. (Privacy Policy)
AkismetThis is used to detect comment spam. (Privacy Policy)
HubPages Google AnalyticsThis is used to provide data on traffic to our website, all personally identifyable data is anonymized. (Privacy Policy)
HubPages Traffic PixelThis is used to collect data on traffic to articles and other pages on our site. Unless you are signed in to a HubPages account, all personally identifiable information is anonymized.
Amazon Web ServicesThis is a cloud services platform that we used to host our service. (Privacy Policy)
CloudflareThis is a cloud CDN service that we use to efficiently deliver files required for our service to operate such as javascript, cascading style sheets, images, and videos. (Privacy Policy)
Google Hosted LibrariesJavascript software libraries such as jQuery are loaded at endpoints on the googleapis.com or gstatic.com domains, for performance and efficiency reasons. (Privacy Policy)
Features
Google Custom SearchThis is feature allows you to search the site. (Privacy Policy)
Google MapsSome articles have Google Maps embedded in them. (Privacy Policy)
Google ChartsThis is used to display charts and graphs on articles and the author center. (Privacy Policy)
Google AdSense Host APIThis service allows you to sign up for or associate a Google AdSense account with HubPages, so that you can earn money from ads on your articles. No data is shared unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy)
Google YouTubeSome articles have YouTube videos embedded in them. (Privacy Policy)
VimeoSome articles have Vimeo videos embedded in them. (Privacy Policy)
PaypalThis is used for a registered author who enrolls in the HubPages Earnings program and requests to be paid via PayPal. No data is shared with Paypal unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy)
Facebook LoginYou can use this to streamline signing up for, or signing in to your Hubpages account. No data is shared with Facebook unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy)
MavenThis supports the Maven widget and search functionality. (Privacy Policy)
Marketing
Google AdSenseThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
Google DoubleClickGoogle provides ad serving technology and runs an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
Index ExchangeThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
SovrnThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
Facebook AdsThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
Amazon Unified Ad MarketplaceThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
AppNexusThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
OpenxThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
Rubicon ProjectThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
TripleLiftThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
Say MediaWe partner with Say Media to deliver ad campaigns on our sites. (Privacy Policy)
Remarketing PixelsWe may use remarketing pixels from advertising networks such as Google AdWords, Bing Ads, and Facebook in order to advertise the HubPages Service to people that have visited our sites.
Conversion Tracking PixelsWe may use conversion tracking pixels from advertising networks such as Google AdWords, Bing Ads, and Facebook in order to identify when an advertisement has successfully resulted in the desired action, such as signing up for the HubPages Service or publishing an article on the HubPages Service.
Statistics
Author Google AnalyticsThis is used to provide traffic data and reports to the authors of articles on the HubPages Service. (Privacy Policy)
ComscoreComScore is a media measurement and analytics company providing marketing data and analytics to enterprises, media and advertising agencies, and publishers. Non-consent will result in ComScore only processing obfuscated personal data. (Privacy Policy)
Amazon Tracking PixelSome articles display amazon products as part of the Amazon Affiliate program, this pixel provides traffic statistics for those products (Privacy Policy)
ClickscoThis is a data management platform studying reader behavior (Privacy Policy)