the Harry Potter handsome men’s club
i’m not even kidding, I went on a word search rampage, motivated by an initially serious thought train about how JK Rowling depicts & portrays conventional attractiveness vs. non-attractiveness (inspired by me finally reading the Robert Galbraith books) and how it contributes to her characterizations. It has resulted in this:
The only characters ever outright called “handsome” by either the narration or another character, in the order of “handsome” appearance:
Gilderoy Lockhart: Actually indirectly called handsome: introduced as “very good-looking”; handsomeness only mentioned in that “he didn’t look remotely handsome anymore” and Ron going “*cough*Lockhart*” when accusing Hermione of only liking people (aka Cedric) for handsomeness’ sake.
Tom Riddle. Not introduced as handsome by 12-year-old Harry (16-year old Harry makes up for it by calling young Tom Riddle handsome EVERY time he is mentioned), just as a boy “much taller” than Harry with the same jet black hair. Dumbledore makes the handsome explicit* when at the end of CoS he refers to how most people failed to connect Voldemort to the “clever, handsome boy” Riddle had been.
Sirius Black: Pre-Azkaban, in the wedding picture: “handsome, full of laughter”; his “handsome, laughing face.” In the flashback, after we’re reminded he’s very good-looking he sits around looking: haughty and bored “but handsomely so”. Our last look at him alive is of his “wasted, once-handsome face” (this is where I cry); in the picture on his wall we see Sirius looking “carelessly handsome … slightly arrogant”, and of course break-our-hearts-one-last-time-Resurrection-Stone Sirius looks “tall and handsome” with a grin on his face and even walks handsome, really: “loped with an easy grace.”
Cedric Diggory: uh, Cedric may actually be the best-looking, according to the text.
Cedric alone gets adverbs of degree; he is “extremely handsome” and “exceptionally handsome”, thank you, fourteen-year-old Harry Potter. Cedric also gets called pretty boy at least twice, once by Seamus Finnegan, and once by a jealous Harry in his thoughts. Yet he is one of the few members of this club who shows no signs of a) evil b) vanity or c) arrogance. Cedric is downright lovely; poor Cedric.
Firenze: he’s confirmed as the “handsome centaur” in HBP, but we assumed as much before from Parvati & Lavender, whose giggles are probably the best non-explicit* barometer of male handsomeness in-text.
Bill Weasley: 14-year-old Harry actually calls long-haired Bill “cool”, not handsome. But we gather more information from Fleur’s eyeing him up: aka by “cool”, Harry, I think you meant “hot”, or possibly, since this is UK-set, “fit”. Hot/fit, being of course a distinctive category of literary attractiveness, it can, but does not always, crossover with “handsome”.
Mrs. Weasley (painfully) confirms Bill’s handsomeness after his face is ruined: “very handsome little b-boy”, “always very handsome”. Again, the handsome is there to make us sad- but not too sad this time, since it’s a glorious set-up for Fleur’s epic good-looking-enough-for-the-both-of-us moment of true <3.
Tom Riddle Sr. - the “handsome” Muggle, whose son looks like his “handsome father in miniature”; his handsomeness is both a huge plot point in Merope’s story and further re-emphasis of T.R. Jr.’s own looks.
Gellert Grindelwald - yes, the other Dark Wizard was also a card-carrying member of the handsome club. We first get him stealing the Elder Wand with “delight upon his handsome face”; later as Dumbledore’s “handsome companion,” “merry-faced” and “smiling lazily” in his picture. You wouldn’t remember it from the Very Serious version of the photograph used in the movies, but it’s also noted in the photograph Dumbledore and handsome friend Grindelwald are both “roaring with laughter”.
…which, interesting: the association of handsome + laughter is explicitly connected, repeatedly, with only one other character: Sirius Black.
-and not to go all psychoanalytic literary criticism, but THAT adds an angle to Dumbledore’s distrust of Sirius (offering to be the Potters’ Secret Keeper instead, buying into Pettigrew’s frame job) and how Dumbledore & Sirius have little rapport, especially compared to Dumbledore & anyone else from Sirius’ generation.
Am I making the ridiculous statement that Dumbledore didn’t like Sirius because he was handsome? …actually, sort of, yes.
Keeping in mind that Sirius and James are pretty confirmed to have gone around the school hexing people, that Grindelwald was kicked out of Durmstrange for much-more-extreme “near fatal” attacks on other students, and that Sirius did in fact set a “near fatal” situation up by telling Snape about the tunnel as a prank…
I think there’s a reasonable argument that Dumbledore looked at a clever, handsome boy, and thought of other clever handsome boys he’d known and how they’d turned out- particularly the one who was briefly part of his own laughing double act - and did not trust Sirius Black. And so offered to be the Potters’ Secret Keeper instead. And bought into Pettigrew’s frame job. And even later (in one of Dumbledore’s many What the Hell, Hero moments) letting that whole Sirius-confined-at-Grimmauld-Place situation build, and critiquing his character ten minutes after he’s dead. Sirius is one of the few characters in the series who Dumbledore never seems to give a fair shake, even while able to analyze him to a T…
But I digress, so back to the handsomeness:
11-year-old Dudley Dursley- looking v. “handsome and grown-up” in his uniform, but since it is Aunt Petunia saying so, and Harry is choking on laughter, HEAPS of salt from the narrative here.
Ron Weasley, assured he is “very handsome” by, of all people, Slughorn. Grain of salt for love-potion circumstances, but giggling sixth-years suggest it is not much of an exaggeration.
Regulus Black is “rather less handsome” than Sirius. While not 100% confirming handsomeness, given how often it comes up regarding Sirius, a remaining degree of reasonable handsomeness is implied.
Madame Maxime! at least three “handsomes” to her name
other “handsome” things: Fawkes except on Burning Day, silver platters, roaring fires, leather-covered books, tawny owls, a Christmas tree, and the face of the “noble-looking” from a distance but up-close vacant wizard of the Fountain of Magical Brethren, etc
*any other male characters’ handsomeness is either implicit, fanon, or movie-driven assumptions. There’s plenty of strong implicit arguments to be made, though, through the lovely showing-not-telling of attractiveness. But no one else is explicitly “handsome”, unless I missed one, in which case, do tell.
generally, though, if you are handsome in a Harry Potter novel, you are either evil or something terrible is going to happen to you. But handsomely so!
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