Deceived by Appearances

Recently, I wrote an article on being deceived by appearances, as it applies to someone who appears weak or powerless. Today, I am writing about being deceived by the appearance that someone has all the positive attributes of life, such as charm, power, strength, intelligence, and kindness.

I really hadn’t planned to write a second chapter for this lesson, but while I was stuck indoors due to bad weather recently, I watched a movie that I have long enjoyed. The lesson of the movie was so much in line with my prior article that I just couldn’t pass it by.

Without going into the plot, one of the main characters throughout the movie is handsome, extremely charming, and appears very trustworthy. Throughout the movie, the cast is searching for the villain. But, near the end of the movie, it is revealed that the person who was thought to be the hero was actually the villain. The quote that identified the character as the villain was, “You keep getting fooled by appearances. He was cast right out of central casting for the hero.”

I can’t tell you how many times I have watched this movie through the years, and still, even knowing the plot, find myself a little sad when it is shown that the hero is the villain. As I considered this, I realized that we often want to believe the best or worst of someone based on what we see or perceive. We need to realize, however, that doing this can cause great pain if we judge someone too harshly or incorrectly. Likewise, if you incorrectly judge someone who has attributes you consider positive, it may be you who feels the pain when you are deceived.

The lesson in my prior article is the same. Looks can be very deceiving or misleading, and it goes both ways. We often see someone who looks weak, and we assume their looks are an insight into who they are. On the opposite side, we see someone who looks strong, or in this case very charismatic, and we assume that is what they are. It's hard to put someone’s looks aside and judge them for what they really are, and not by how they appear.