Why do people think that demons should be ugly and unappealing? They're supposed to be seductive and appealing, luring humans over to the side of evil. The halo effect is a well-known psychological effect and it would be silly for creature of evil whose sole goal is dragging humans to hell to not take advantage of this.
Why do people think that demons should be ugly and unappealing? They're supposed to be seductive and appealing...
Evan Peterson
Aaron Davis
Depends on the setting.
In D&D they're literal manifestations of pure chaos, evil, and destruction. No reason that has to be pretty. Except for inccu/succubi, which are supposed to and are.
Sebastian Anderson
This is assuming that demons have the same aesthetic preferences and standards as humans.
Ian Martin
>touhou
Grayson Peterson
Races in general should be ugly and unappealing.
Races that physically cannot be (elves) should be persecuted and genocided.
Only like this we can combat the Mary Sue menace.
Leo Sullivan
An arms dealer doesn't need to be pretty to peddle their wares.
Grayson Campbell
They correctly recognized that succubi make absolutely no sense as demons in the D&D sense of the word. They switxhed to lawful evil in 4e and are now neutral evil free agents in 5e.
Jaxson Martinez
They're temptations, you don't need to be pretty to tempt people to do awful things. Most demons and devils didn't seduce with their looks, they did it with paranoia, promises of power and control.
Jacob Kelly
Because they represent nastiness and wrong doing. It's human nature to perceive and want to illustrate representations of these things as hideous and unappealing in appearance. Even if they are beautiful as a trick and temptation it's often pointed out how such an appearance was simply a glamor and beneath it they are revolting or monstrous. It goes against people's sensibilities of right and wrong that someone who is wicked should be truly beautiful.
The inverse is also true in fantasy where a kind, virtuous person is cursed to be hideous when deep down they're beautiful and the person who recognizes those traits and loves the individual for them reveals that beauty.
David Jackson
I'm pretty sure I've seem more attractive demons (hell's lawyer and succubus type) or badass ones (Doom type) than ugly and unappealing ones. Their ugliness comes from the danger they represent to mortals, which might as well translate into mesmerizing beauty.
Carter Howard
>They're supposed to be seductive and appealing
This is only true of succubi. And succubi have a longrunning association with Asmodeus for both the medieval and ancient versions of Asmodeus, they only ended up on the demon side of the divide because early DnD never bothered to look up any of their mythology.
Elijah Moore
That's wrong on so many levels, and requires you to retroactively apply 4e's dumbified idealogy. Not simplified, dumbified.
In 4e, demons are chaotic stupid, not just chaotic evil, and Chaos=Stupid is something they really tried to hammer home with Demons being primarily brutes while Devils are controllers/soldiers.
It's all sorts of stupid and excessively reductionist, and shits on all previous understanding of Law and Chaos in D&D, where Chaotic creatures could be intelligent and scheming with plans that take centuries to come to fruition.
Also, while succubi got turned into devils, they completely ignored Glabrezu, the other of the major Demon tempters, the one's who tempted mortals with power rather than sexual temptation. Since the 4e writers just looked at the picture and didn't bother even thinking about the lore, they were just given generic Brute stats.
Luke Roberts
It's actually because Succ/Incubi were supposed to rise up and attack people via the night air, and Asmodeus was the most prominent wind demon and prince of lust.
There are excellent reasons to argue that Asmodeus himself shouldn't be lawful evil, but so long as he's the king of the nine hells, the succubi should be there as well.
Robert Anderson
t.Elf
Aaron Long
Vilification of sexuality and temptation mostly
Daniel Price
It's possible to have both of these sides in play at the same time, the way I do it is; demons who's sole point is to torture inmates who are already in hells are usually utterly hideous, while demons who's goal is luring/alignment-changing are only sometimes utterly hideous, and have the possibility of being beautiful or handsome.
Anthony Garcia
I read somewhere that some old timey demonologists thought asmodeus farted hurricanes, I "shit" you not (OH! THANK YOU, THANK YOU!)
Kevin Phillips
>(((rugrats)))
Blake Robinson
I have it that the more powerful and evil the demon, the less human it appears due to how much of its former humanity is essentially thrown away in the pursuit of greater power.
In that case, weaker more human demons find themselves better infiltrators filling the role of succubi/incubi. Not only do they look the part, they still have enough of their humanity intact to be able to convincingly empathize with and tempt mortals. In addition, being as weak as they are, they are easily culled, replaced, or killed whenever they brazenly attempt betrayal of their own kind.
Camden Nguyen
>they completely ignored Glabrezu, the other of the major Demon tempters, the one's who tempted mortals with power rather than sexual temptation
>they were just given generic Brute stats
Hmm.
Jose Foster
I will always felt the seductive ones or ones based around temptation should look attractive, otherwise it's up in the air
Kayden Young
Thomas King
>They're supposed to be seductive and appealing, luring humans over to the side of evil.
Says who? You?
Jacob Miller
This sounds confused, nowhere that demonologists lived had hurricanes. Asmodeus was associated with sandstorms in his earlier desert rage spirit incarnation though.
Jaxson Jackson
4e Asmodeus is a weird blend of the mythological Asmodeus and a version of Milton's Lucifer who figured out how to kill God but then God's 15 brothers showed up and kicked his ass.
Pure mythological Asmodeus would probably be a demon who "reformed" to Lessful Evil after realizing that it was more fun to fuck with humans than just sandblast them into oblivion.
Luis Ramirez
It probably was confused, I may have simply misremembered it.