This chapter explores how blood and disfiguration in Kathakali and Kutiyattam performances challenge the aesthetics and moral frameworks of the classical canon. Focusing on ninam as a performative form rather than as mere content, it examines how characters like Shurpanakha and Simhika embody violence and disrupt conventional representations of gender, power, and beauty. The chapter also analyses how performance codes, training, and aesthetic choices marginalise these portrayals, framing ninam as both a visual spectacle and a site of contestation within the evolving definition of the classical. It further highlights the affective labour of performers, the politics of classicisation, and how blood functions as both content and form in reconfiguring the classical canon.