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 It's a spider, so of course she's evil.
Deception.
Disgrace.
Evil as plain as the scar on his face.
You can easily tell heroes from villains by their scars.
Good guys tend to scar in an attractive, fashionable manner — usually a single neat pale line, flush with the skin and placed in one of the following strategic locations: straight across one cheek, straight down from beneath the eye (popular with tough and/or grizzled characters), or straight up from the eyebrow. A scar extending up or down from the lip can happen, but it's rare as it can give a harelipped look more associated with shifty characters. A scar straight over the bridge of the nose has the interesting effect of looking cute and warlike at the same time. They can also have a big, raised scar or a burn, but only if it's in a place where the character has to be shirtless for you to see it. Perhaps the ultimately cliche "good guy" scar is two scars forming an X across the cheek or forehead.
Bad guys can also have fashionable scars to go show off their being evil, which blurs the playing field a bit; more often than not they have big raised slashes (often running up the face, stopping just below the eye, then continuing from the eyebrow up) and mottled, discolored burns. They are not limited to one but may have two or three scars, or forty or fifty for that matter; they may have a Red Right Hand in the form of a missing eye or ear, missing teeth, or a large chunk out of the nose or chin. Anything they're missing might have an Artificial Limb as a substitute, and in fact they might be so horribly scarred that they generally wear a mask over everything.
The Anti Hero can go either way.
Doesn't do well for the 'external beauty is meaningless' school of thought.
Compare Good Hair Evil Hair, Knuckle Tattoos. See also Scars Are Forever.
Examples
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Anime and Manga
- Juumonji, delinquent turned American football lineman from Eyeshield 21, has a cross-shaped scar on his face. Mamoru Banba also got several facial scars after his mysterious summer training.
- Zaraki Kenpachi from Bleach has a scar straight down the left side of his face, going from his hairline down to his jaw. Hisagi Shuuhei has three vertical parallel scars on one side of his face (from a Hollow attack fifty years before), apart from a tatooed horizontal line across nose and cheeks and a number 69.
- One character who has scars purely for the cool factor is Tsubaki, one of Orihime's Shun Shun Rikka. He springs into existence with a cool-looking facial scar down the side of his face, despite never having fought before.
- Badass Grandpa Yamamoto is also covered in scars, which is expected considering that he has been alive and in battle for thousands of years. While he isn't evil, he isn't exactly what you would call good either.
- Mad Scientist Mayuri Kurotsuchi is shown to have what appear to be surgical scars criss-crossing his entire body in the brief scene he is shown without his creepy make-up on.
- Nel has a scar on her forehead from when Nnoitra broke her mask and kicked her out of Las Noches.
- The main character of Mahou Sensei Negima Negi Springfield received a small horizontal scar on his cheek during his fight with Setsuna during the Mahora Martial Arts Tournament.
- He also received a scar fighting a recreation of his father in the final match of the tournament. He could have had it magically healed, but he decided to keep the scar for sentimental reasons.
- Jack Rakan has a scar on each arm. We find out in a flashback that he got these when the Lifemaker attacked Ala Rubra and cut his arms off. Obviously, they have since been reattached. Negi may also have a similar scar after his fight with Kagetarou.
- Ako has a large scar on her back of the more "evil" variety of scars, even though she's anything but. It's a large part of her character background that she is ashamed by it, has a phobia of blood from the accident when she received it, and freaks out when Negi sees it.
- Giroro in Keroro Gunsou has a long straight scar diagonally over his left eye. His eye is perfectly fine though.
- Vash (good guy) in Trigun is horribly, unbelievably scarred, and has a missing arm, but his shirt (and an Artificial Limb) covers it up.
- His body is so heavily damaged that some parts of it are riveted together with pieces of metal. Figure that out.
- Not so disturbing once it's revealed that he's closer to a plant than a human.
- Balgus (good guy) in Vision of Escaflowne has numerous scars, including one dominating the left side of his face.
- In the same series, getting a scar on his face from Van causes Dilandau (bad guy) to go crazy(er). And it was very neat, good-guy looking scar, by the way.
- XIII, from the comic of the same name, has a bullet ricochet off his head that makes him lose his memory. The only result, however, is an elegant streak of grey over his temple.
- Himura Kenshin, the hero of Rurouni Kenshin, has a single X-shaped scar on one cheek (hence the alternate title for some North American versions of the show, Samurai X). By contrast, one of the series' chief antagonists, Makoto Shishio, is so heavily scarred that his body is kept wrapped and bandaged at all times, save for his eyes and mouth.
- Specifically, Shishio is burned, not mechanically scarred.
- Naraku (bad guy) from Inuyasha has a large spider-shaped scar on his back. This dates back to his days as a human (despite Naraku technically being a Hive Mind...) and extends to all his "incarnations", parts of his body given will and intelligence. (The picture above shows Kagura, one of the incarnations. Though Kagura herself evolves more into an Anti Hero than a proper villain, she is still forced to reluctantly serve Naraku out of self-preservation).
- Luffy (good guy) from One Piece has a small scar under his eye; the manga originally began with him cutting his face to prove himself to be a man, but this was cut out of the anime. His grandfather (good guy but reluctant villain) has a similar scar over his eye. Also, Coby, another good guy, received an X-shaped scar. X-shaped scars tend to pop out in the series, possibly as a tribute to Rurouni Kenshin, on which Eiichiro Oda (the author) worked on as an assistant.
- Roronoa Zoro possesses a huge scar across his chest from his first bout with Mihawk (which he tried to poorly patch up by himself at first). Later on, he gains scars on his ankles from his attempt to cut his feet off to escape a villain's trap.
- Curiously, one of the major villains in the Enies Lobby arc, Rob Lucci, has a scar on his back in the shape of the World Government's flag. It's usually hidden by his shirt, though. Lucci is an interesting case-he has a Good Guy-type scar, and is a legally licensed agent of the One Piece world's governing body, but he is portrayed as a murderous sort who greatly enjoys the killing and spying that he does in his role as a government agent.
- Yukito in AIR has a sword slash across his back from his past life, which is always hidden. Good guy.
- Ralph in Soukou No Strain has a classic Evil Scar, right across his eye. Said blind eye turns pink when he's in a murderous rage, accentuating the point.
- In Fullmetal Alchemist, the zealous, Ishabalan serial killer Scar has, you guessed it, a scar on his face, in the shape of an "X". He is a morally ambiguous character, however, since he actually helps Ed and Al on a few occasions when he could just as easily have killed them.
- On the other hand, Ed has artificial limbs, which are listed above as evil, and Al not only has, but is a giant suit of armor.
- Ed has another scar on his forehead (at least in the manga), gained from a small injury early on in the story. It's usually covered by his hair and it's only purpose is to leak blood comically whenever he gets whacked.
- Dr Marcoh has his face basically blown up. It scars as gruesomely as that implies, but despite an iffy past he is during the time the manga is set pretty much the most unambiguously good character of all. Very much a subversion.
- Riza Hawkeye has a burn scar of traumatic character development on her back.
- Not to mention the scar on Roy's hand from when he had to cut a transmutation circle into it to kill Lust.
- Manji from Blade Of The Immortal has three separate scars traveling the length of his face. One goes horizontal through his forehead, one horizontal through the bridge of his nose, and the last vertical through his right eye, which actually blinded him in that eye.
- In the anime Busou Renkin, love interest and Action Girl Tokiko Tsumura has a horizontal scar on her face, across her nose and stretching onto both cheekbones. Interestingly, the author has stated this comes from her design originally being intended for a female professional wrestler.
- Kaoru in Ai Yori Aoshi has some rather unsightly scars coming from his grandfather's physical abuse. As with most Good Scars though, you can't see them unless he takes off his shirt.
- Matsumoto Reiji's Captain Harlock has a large horizontal scar across his left cheek ending at a missing right eye. His female counterpart Emeraldas has an identical scar but retains both eyes.
- Gene Starwind of Outlaw Star is another example of a good guy with evil scars. Including two rather jagged ones running across his cheek and countless others on the rest of his body. Unlike most heroic body scars, his shirt doesn't cover all of them. It might if he has sleeves, but...
- Yamcha (good guy) in Dragonball Z Has 2 scars on his face. One over his eye and an "X" n his cheek.
- Future Gohan has similar scarring on his face and looks a lot like Yamcha.
- We actually see Tienshinhan (former bad guy) get his scar (a large cut mark from his upper right torso to his lower left.) at the hands of his former idol, Murderer/Mercenary Tao.
- In Naruto, Hatake Kakashi has a scar over his left eye, but it is usually covered by his forehead protector. It is the result of an injury to his eye that led to an eye transplant. Umino Iruka has the horizontal scar through the nose, and a large chunk of the adult population of Leaf Village has some scar or other, generally quite unobtrusive. Morino Ibiki, on the other hand, was very badly scarred in the past during an interrogation, but he is still one of the good guys (well, mostly), though he does cover the worst ones up with his bandana.
- Cho Hakkai in Saiyuki has "a scar on [his] belly". He got it during his Heroic BSOD in his Backstory.
- In a later Backstory arc we see that Sanzo's body's been covered in scars since his teenage years. Thankfully they're all below his neckline and covered up by his abundant robes, so his handsome face can resume charming fangirls like before.
- "Thanfully"? This fangirl happens to find scars hot, on-screen and IRL.
- Gojyo has two small scars under one of his eyes, from when his stepmother tried to kill him. His hair is usually long enough to hide them if he tilts his head a certain way, but he doesn't always.
- Tsume in Wolf's Rain has a large cross-shaped scar on his chest, which is seen in both his true wolf form and his human disguise. The younger wolf Toboe says it looks cool, but it is not until near the end of the series (in episode 29, one of the OVA bonus episodes) that we learn the reason he carries it. After Toboe dies, Tsume spends some time alone with his friend's body, and confesses to it (and the audience) that the other wolves of his pack scarred him for cowardice when he tried to run away instead of saving his companions from hunters.
- In Yu Yu Hakusho Sensui's scars are multiple, as you'd expect of a villain; however, they are entirely covered by his shirt, as you'd expect of a good guy (because he used to be one). Itsuki becomes scarred over his eye from taking Kuwabara's Rei-ken: a simple heroic scar. Mukuro's scars are also "bad guy" scars that cover half of her body; however, seeing as how she got them (by pouring acid over herself to prevent her "father" from raping her as a child), as well as her usual hiding of them, makes them "good guy" markings. Kurama temporarily gets a heroic X on his cheek as well (giving him a strong resemblance to Kenshin).
- In Black Jack Dr. Kuroo Hazama aka Black Jack is a good guy who sometimes poses as a bad guy to keep his reputation... and is massively scarred all over his body and face, to the point his skin has some different colored spots. He actually got these scars as a child, when a bomb exploded and almost killed him and his mother; he decided to become a doctor after finishing his rehab.
- Kakihara in Ichi the Killer. He has a horizontal scar running across his cheeks and nose, a horizontal scar across his forehead, and a vertical scar that connects both over his left eye. In addition to a glasgow smile held together by piercings at the edge of his lips. He is arguably the villain even though the good guy isn't any better than him and Kakihara gets more screen time (about 75% of the manga and film).
- Kenshiro of Fist Of The North Star has seven scars that form the shape of the Big Dipper, which were given to him by his rival Shin. The villain Jagi was so badly scarred by Ken that he wears a helmet to conceal it (and to help keep his head from exploding); he also gave himself matching scars on his chest to masquerade as Kenshiro.
- Balalaika, Black Lagoon's resident Magnificent Bastard, has a huge scar down the right side of her face (and body) from having survived a point-blank frag grenade in the Afghanistan war. The scar has given her the derisive nickname "Fry-face" amongst the Roanapur gangster community, which is only spoken in her presence by people with a death wish. Although a villain by anyone's standard, she never actively antagonizes the villain protagonists and indeed hires them on several occasions.
- Her Dragon, Boris, has what looks like a knife scar across his nose.
- Machgaogamon (good guy) from Digimon has one across his snout, but his previous forms (Gaomon, Gaogamon) don't. How that works is fodder for Wild Mass Guessing.
- Gatomon's paw gloves conceal x-shaped scars from when Myotismon disciplined her. Similar to the Machgaogamon example, these scars are not visible in her other forms. Gatomon was introduced as one of Myotismon's flunkies, only to perform a Heel Face Turn when she is revealed to be the eighth DigiDestined's partner.
- Actually she could still have these scars in her other forms, we've just never seen them. Angewomon has gloves that automatically cover almost all of her arms, Nefertimon has gauntlet like armor on hers, and we never cannonically see her Mega forms. There is also Silphymon but that's actually a combination of her and another digimon so that could be the reason.
- Good guy Mugen receives a scar (well, three parallel ones) on his cheek from an enemy with knuckle claws in the three-part finale of Samurai Champloo
- Bad guy Umanosuke, leader of the three brothers antagonizing Mugen, however, has a lidless left eye, apparently the inadvertent result of his encounter with Mugen. When his eyepatch comes off, revealing it, he becomes even more unbalanced than before.
- Kakoyin from Jo Jos Bizarre Adventure gets vertical scars from an attack by Geb, the water based Stand used by N'Dour, the blind assassian. Kakyoin, in a realistic moment not ofter seen in manga has to wear sunglasses to cope with the non-permanent damage to his eyes.
- Okuyasu has a X-scar on his face, but while he is strong and can erase things with a swing of his right hand, he also is rather... lacking in the thinking department.
- And in Steel Ball Run (Part 7), President Valentine has an American Flag scar on his back. Probably the main reason for him being a Villain With Good Publicity despite being an evil lunatic who (among many other things) forced himself onto a 14 year-old girl.
- Allen Walker, protagonist of D.Gray-Man has a scar through his left eye. He also has a pentagram-shaped scar above that, both gotten from his father when young Allen accidentally had his deceased father turned into a demon. Justified in that the scar is a curse that lets him see the souls of Akuma.
- And as of recently, he has some huge scars going across his chest from accidentally impaling himself with his own akuma-purifying sword, which wasn't supposed to hurt him, but... ended up causing him massive injuries and horrible agony. Because, yes, he's actually a Noah. Not that the fangirls minded - it provided some wonderful Shirtless Scenes and Fetish Fuel.
- Tyki has similar scars for very similar reasons; Allen tried to remove the Noah from him, but only succeeded in waking it up.
- Sousuke Sagara of Full Metal Panic! has an X-shaped scar on his cheek. Good guy.
- Also, the Big Bad of the first season, Gauron, has a deep gash of a scar down one side of his face.
- Fakir in Princess Tutu has a birth mark that is supposed to be the scar of the Knight in a fairytale that was torn in two by a monster Raven—whom he is the reincarnation of. Of course, it's always hidden underneath his shirt. Good guy, although the main heroine doesn't know that in the beginning.
- Takaya "D-Boy" Aiba of Tekkaman Blade was stabbed in the eye by the first villain. The eye got better, since he was made of Power Armor at the time, but he still got a scar. When the real Dragon showed up, he made a comment on how D-Boy's scar made it look like he was crying.
- Fafner In The Azure Dead Aggressor Soushi, good guy, has a scar on his left eye. Which is actually plot relevant when they were both children his best friend Kazuki had to claw at said eye to keep Soushi from being assimilated by the Festum. As a result there is a lot of bad blood between the two since Soushi cannot pilot Fafner due to the injury and Kazuki is in a state of self denial mixed with guilt over the whole issue.
- In the anime Dragon Drive the good-but-disreputable character Rockaku has an eye blinded by a scar (and his dragon has a matching scar). This scar represents the character's grief, anger, and thirst for vengeance for his best friend's death, and it is these emotions that make the character disreputable (getting drunk, lying to friends, diving into battle without strategy).
- Obligatory Neon Genesis Evangelion example. Misato has a huge scar on her abdomen from the Second Impact that is rarely seen and Gendo has horrible burn scars on his hands which is possibly why he wears those creepy little white gloves all the time.
- It isn't. At the very beginning, it probably was, but after "Asuka Strikes!", there's something far more gruesome under his right glove...
- Protagonist Nice Holystone of Baccano! has burn scars all over her arms and part of her face following an explosives accident when she was little. The reason why her childhood friend Jacuzzi Splot prominently tattooed his face was to draw attention away from her scars. Before you think this is a subversion, remember that no one in Baccano! is 100% good
- Anderson of Hellsing across his cheek. Odd, considering his Healing Factor (probably gained before his genetic upgrade to ultimate monster-killer).
- Above example confirmed by another Regenerator, Heinkel. Calling it a scar is debatable, considering that his/her left cheek and face was sliced open Jonah Hex-style and has stayed like that for 30 years, but it's still a permanent wound, so I suppose that it counts.
- Guts from Berserk has a small scar across the bridge of his nose, given to him by adoptive father Gambino when he tried to kill him.
- He's gained progressively more all over his face and entire body over the course of the story from numerous fights against demons. And he's missing an arm which he hacked off himself, and eye (which is depicted as permanently closed).
- The eye is probably always closed because it's still in the socket, but being punctured by a demon's claw makes it completely useless.
- C.C. from Code Geass has a scar of the Geass sigil placed beneath and partially on her left breast and completely covered if she wears even a midriff-baring top. Particularly relevant as she's got a Healing Factor that lets her come back from the dead, yet this one scar never fades, probably because it was inflicted just before she was tricked into becoming an immortal, and appropriately enough seems to heal when she loses her powers most of the way through the series.
- Glass Mask plays with the trope. Maya's mentor Chigusa Tsukikage has half her face horribly scarred after the accident that ended her brilliant acting career (bad scar), but aside of looking creepy with her hair covering the burned half of her face and being the acting version of a Drill Sergeant Nasty, isn't actually a bad person per se.
- Shiro Takamachi of Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha has numerous scars all over his body from his bodyguard days which we only catch a glimpse of when he takes a bath. He's also the kind and open minded father of Nanoha, a very Happily Married man, and definitely a good guy.
- Subverted somewhat in Gundam 00 by Sergei Smirnov, a Russian lieutenant colonel with a facial scar fit for a Bond villain...who turns out to be one of the most sensible, intelligent, and humane characters in the show.
- Gundam UC's famous Char has a scar on his forehead received in a duel with Amuro. Though, Char's intentions are prety ambigious it's not really a indication for his alignment (Though this troper believes it was most prominent while Zeta, when he was on the good side and therefore a sign of redemption)
- In xxxHoLic, Himawari receives a nasty set of scars on her back and neck in place of Watanuki, who fell from the second story of the school building and onto a shattered pane of glass.
- In his first appearance, Duke Togo aka Golgo 13 had no scars. Over the course of the series, he's collected a great deal of them on his body. They're covered by clothing much of the time. As for morality, he's best described as True Neutral (you pay him, he does the job, no moral issues involved unless you double-cross him).
- Not entirely sure if this is a proper example or not, but here goes. Hinako Aikawa, female lead of Bitter Virgin has a scar on her stomach which is the result of a C-section. Hinako was a victim of sexual abuse to the extent that she got pregnant twice before the age of 16. We see it only twice in the course of the series.
- Mello (bad guy... well, sort of) from Death Note gets a particularly nasty burn scar over half of his face from blowing up his own hideout to escape capture by the police.
- Wei in Darker Than Black is something of a Psycho For Hire and has a nasty burn over half of his face (and likely the rest of his body) following an encounter with electric-powered Anti Hero Hei. Also, Wei's power is a form of Bloody Murder and so his arms are covered with scars from his constant cutting of himself, although those scars are usually hidden under clothing.
- Domon Kasshu from G Gundam has a cross-shaped scar on his face. Jerk in several shades that go from Jerk Ass to Jerk With A Heart Of Gold, but mostly Chaotic Good.
- Domon's boss Urube Ishikawa has a scar on his face thanks to the Devil Gundam. Wears a metallic mask over it. Looks like a good guy, but turns out to be a Magnificent Bastard and very damn EVIL.
- Tokine from Kekkaishi has a scar on her hand and arm that is almost covered by her clothing, but not quite. This is still a good scar, as it's shown that she received it while saving Yoshimori's life.
- And let's not forget Yoshimori himself, whose body is COVERED in little scars all over from his constant physical training and getting tossed around by demons all the time until Tokine can bail him out. All good scars that are generally covered up by his clothes, unless he's wearing shorts or a short-sleeved shirt anyway.
- Kekkaishi is actually something of a subversion: Tokine and Yoshimori's scars look more realistic, not cool.
- In Axis Powers Hetalia, there's a strip known "Liet's scars". Three guesses as to what it's about. And since Lithuania is a good guy, he's able to hide them under his clothes. It's believed that at least some of these scars (which look like whipping marks) come from Russia's abuse.
- China has a single but very large scar on his back, apparently given to him by Japan.
- Tsukune of Rosario To Vampire has scars all over his body from several very close brushes with death. His clothes cover all of them, making him a good guy.
- Fran Madaraki has a number of scars across her body, the most notable being a Glasgow smile; they're actually still stitched, because she's a Frankensteins Monster. Despite certain Literal Genie tendencies, she is committed to saving lives like a good doctor should. It's best not to ask what kind of life - what matters to her is that you're alive.
- In Katekyo Hitman Reborn, Xanxus has scars all over his body that appear when his anger reaches its apex. He's the Big Bad for the second arc, and somewhat of a Wild Card / Aloof Ally in the new arc.
- Hayato Jin from Getter Robo receives a number of scars on his face — three on his chin, one across his nose and a couple around his eyes — which are normally invisible unless he's especially stressed, as well as countless, always-present ones on the rest of his body (which are almost always covered). He's a Heroic Sociopath, so these are Antihero Scars.
- Gouda Kazundo, the villain of the second season of Ghost In The Shell Stand Alone Complex has a horribly scarred face. He deliberately kept the scar for its intimidation value, in spite of being a Hollywood Cyborg.
- Reiji Takayama from Witchblade has a Badass scar. While he's working for a company not very moralistic at best, it serves as a hint that he's not just an armchair arms-trader, but was in some action personally; later he turns out to be a good guy as much as practical — when the responsibility (and the fact he fell head over heels for the heroine) comes to the fore, he kicks a fair share of ass for a Badass Normal.
- In Pumpkin Scissors, the male lead Randel Oland has his entire body covered by horrific scars, some of which (if this was reality) would have resulted in his immediate death. They serve as a physical mark of the horrors he's endured as a member of the Invisible 9, the nonexistant (on paper, anyway) terror troops of the Empire. They're Good Scars though, as Randel himself is a Broken Hero.
- In Romeo X Juliet, the axe fighter Curio got a nice one across his left eye by protecting a pre-teen Odin (or better said, Juliet) from abusive guards. Also a subversion: unlike many other cases, his eye was permanently damaged. And finally, Curio's Eye Scream incident is what prompts Juliet to become the Red Whirlwind.
- Ruby has a pair of scars above an eye conveniently covered by his Nice Hat. He has these because he took a claw from a frenzied Salamence in Sapphire's place. Surprisingly, the scars have less of an impact on his Character Development than they did on hers.
- Gunsmith Cats has Bean Bandit, mercenary driver, who helps criminals, bank robbers and so with his badass car, The Buff, which could put KITT into self-pity tears. He starts as a respectful antagonist who occasionally can be an ally. A bit of a hero, a bit of antihero, but the crossed scar between his eyes tells us he truly has a Hidden heart of gold. And as it was stated on his own OVA, he watches heroes movies twice a week.
- Gilbert in Pandora Hearts has a scar across his chest from when Oz accidentally slashed him with a sword at the beginning of the series. This is, in fact, what tips Oz off to his identity.
- Divergence Eve gives us Luxandra Frail, a woman who is literally covered in scars as part of her backstory. And unlike most characters with a scar across the eye who seem to have perfectly functioning, intact eyeballs, hers is revealed to have a matching scar on it when she looks off to the side, in what has to be one of the more disturbing scenes in anime. Granted, she is about as good a character as it gets, so maybe it's a subversion?]]
- There are characters with scars in Soul Eater, but these are 'good guys'. However, their scars are not all attractive. Soul has a massive scar right down his chest after being struck by Ragnarok (the black blood infection this gives him is plot-relevant), though it has not been referred to or seen recently. Stein is covered in scars due to experimenting on himself. Black Star has one across the star tattoo on his shoulder. In contrast, most of the main antagonists are not only unscarred but rather good-loooking (Medusa, Arachne, Noah isn't exactly ugly in spite of his dress sense and Asura's face is 'pretty-boy' material even if the rest of him is skeletal, skin-stretching squick).
Comic Books
- Jonah Hex, a morally ambiguous but generally heroic bounty hunter in DC Comics's Old West titles, is massively scarred on the right side of his face, to the point where he has stringy strands of flesh over that side of his mouth.
- Usagi from Usagi Yojimbo has a curved scar over his left eye. He received it during the battle where he lost his feudal lord and as a result of which he became a ronin.
- Usagi's rival Gennosuke, a rhinoceros, is missing most of his horn after an encounter with the blind pig swordsman Zato-Ino.
- Zato-Ino himself had his snout cut off in his first appearance, and has used a carved wood substitute since.
- John Gaunt, titular character of the series Grim Jack, who had a classic villain scar to highlight his role as an Anti Hero.
- John Hartigan from Sin City has a distinctive good-guy scar in his forehead... yep, also in the shape of an "X", whereas the villainous Manute has a horrible glass eye to replace the one that Marv ripped out of him in "A Dame to Kill For."
- Perhaps the most famous comic book "evil" example is Victor Von Doom. Accounts tend to vary, but the generally accepted story is that the experiment that blew up in his handsome face in his youth only caused a small scar. However, he was so vain that he chose to cover it up forever in a steel mask. The ironic thing is that he put the mask on while it was still hot from the forge, which really messed his face up, and made wearing the mask necessary.
- In issue 200 of Hellblazer, protagonist John Constantine received a single 'good scar' vertically upward on his left cheek.
- Classic comic-book example: DC's Harvey Dent (aka "Two-Face"), who went psychotic after having acid thrown in his face, resulting in massive and freakishly symmetrical scarring. Half his face is ruined—and, since he's only evil about half the time, this verges on a Lampshade Hanging.
- His face has been repaired numerous times, almost always resulting in the dominance of the "good" personality. Sometimes he's coincidentally scarred again, resulting in the return of Two-Face; other times, he's unable to keep his dark half at bay and symbolically scars himself when he gives in to his evil impulses. Only once has an unscarred face resulted in the disappearance of the good side.
- In the Dark Knight Returns his face is fully restored, but the process destroys the good half of his personality.
- Cassandra Cain, the current Batgirl, has her entire body covered in scars from her assassin father's pain-resistance training. This would be a subversion, except that the scars are never actually drawn unless Cassandra partially or fully undressed. (This happens more often than you would think, but it's okay, she's immune to Comic Book Time and is therefore an adult.)
- The same can be said for Batman himself as he is covered in scars from his many battles, but they are usually only shown he talks about them or shows them to someone.
- Avoided in Legion of Superheroes: Good guy Ferro Lad's face is so scarred that he wears a mask at all times.
- The animated version has another case of good guy with more of a bad-guy sort of scar: Lightning Lad has the scar stopping at his eye and continuing from his eyebrow, ending as a lightning bolt. It glows when he uses his powers. How he got it is unknown, as of the end of season one. He's also since lost an arm...
- In The Trigan Empire, Trigo's simple warrior brother has a very macho bashed-in nose. He is a good guy, but in one story is seduced into evil by the horrible Darak, who has a long scar straight across his eye.
- The DCU's Captain Nazi has a long dueling scar across his face that he's very sensitive about
- As does fellow DC megalomaniac Baron Bedlam
- Also from The DCU is Lord Havok, an Alternate Company Equivalent version of Dr. Doom.
- An alternate version of Lord Havok is kind of borderline. Not only are his actions ultimately for the good of mankind, but his deformities (underdeveloped limbs and a disfigured face) are much more pathetic than anyhing else. However, he hides these disabilities behind a suit of "smart metal" and an impressive array of weaponry. He also utterly destroyed his homeland of Russia... to get back at his father, the Czar, for killing his mother.
- Inversion: Snake-Eyes, of GI Joe, is horrifically scarred with burns from a window that exploded from too much heat and pressure inside the vehicle it was on. He wears a mask—not from shame, but practicality (when he doesn't wear it, bystanders tend to stare and not do helpful things like duck out of the way of the crossfire)—and unable to speak. He's firmly on the good guys' side. Though he's the type of person who can run his girlfriend through with a sword to help her cover, he strives for both honor and morality in his activities.
- In the Reloaded continuity, he's got scars all over his body—bullet wounds, burns, massive cuts. He's also reputedly insane.
- Oubliette, the daughter of villain Doctor Midas in Grant Morrison's Marvel Boy, wears a mask to hide her facial scarring; the Evil Scar trope is subverted after she rebels against Midas, then it's revealed that her face is normal, except for a rather clean fencing scar her father gave her.
- Jigsaw from The Punisher. Guess where how he earned his nickname. Making it worse is that he was previously renowned as incredibly handsome.
- Y: The Last Man: Other Beth has a scar running across the bridge of her nose, presumably an impact injury from her plane crash. And Hero's mastectomy scar is a permanent reminder to her of the atrocities she committed as a Daughter of the Amazon.
- We really made it this far without mentioning Deadpool? After an infusion of Wolverine's healing factor, the cancer that was killing Deadpool was cured... until it came back full force and left his entire body scarred. As a result of his body fighting the cancer off and the cancer coming back, Deadpool's scarred from head to toe—and because his cancer effectively is his healing factor, his exact scars and disfigurements shift and warp. The extent depends on the artist, ranging from light scratches to discolored patches to full-on tumors (onlookers who don't know what to expect often vomit at the sight of him unmasked). Plus, they work as both since he's somewhere between anti-hero and bad good guy.
- Speaking of Deadpool, there's DC's Deathstroke (Slade Wilson, inspiration for the aforementioned DP), missing his right eye which puts him in Red Right Hand territory. On the other hand, he does keep the socket covered 100% of the time, which could be why no one can seem to agree if he's a villain or a good guy (though no one would stretch to call him a hero).
- Preacher's Herr Starr is, by the end of the series, lacking one eye, one ear, one leg, his genitals, and has a scar on his bald head that makes him a walking penis joke. The eye scar is particularly ominous.
- Early in the early-2000s Image run of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles comic, Raphael has half his face shot off by the foot clan and spends the rest of the run resembling Two-Face.
- Victor Zsasz has dozens, if not hundreds of scars on his body. They're all self-inflicted, Zsasz is a serial killer who carves a tally into his skin for every victim he has.
Film
- Inigo Montoya from The Princess Bride is pretty much a textbook example of Good Scars... Two straight, clean lines, one on each cheek. They were given to him as a lesson by the man who killed his father in front of him when he was a child.
- In Spider-Man 3, when Harry gets knocked around by Spidey early on and temporarily turns good from Easy Amnesia, he doesn't even have a bruise — as Mary Jane points out. Later, after going back to the dark side, Harry fights Peter again, and gets a horrible facial scar. At the end of the movie, he undergoes a Heel Face Turn, but he's still scarred, and sure enough, Redemption Equals Death.
- Movie example and partial subversion: Tony Montana from Scarface has a huge scar on one side of his face; at the very beginning of the film, he says he got it in an accident when he was a child.
- Casablanca's Victor Laszlo has a classic Good Scar: a thin, dark line crossing right eyebrow.
- Many pirates in Pirates Of The Caribbean sport scars, but then again, with the lifestyle of a pirate, it's to be expected. Notable scarred characters are Barbossa who has a scar over his left eye and Captain Sao Feng who has a sideways "A" shapes scar on his bald head. Sparrow has the "P" burn on his forearm that Beckett gave to him, although it's covered most of the time. Originally it was going to be on his forehead as such brands were done, but the writers thought that, even if it was hidden under his bandanna, the audience would never forget it after the reveal, and it would just distract the hell out of everybody. Let's not even mention that he'd then have p on his head.
- Jack also sports two black bullet wound scars on his chest and a large branched scar on the inside of his left forearm.
- The Noble Savage villain Scar from the John Ford and John Huston Western The Searchers is known by his scarred face.
- In Star Wars, Darth Vader is (supposedly) so scarred and mutilated he can't survive long without being entirely encased in a pressurized suit of life support systems and has four artificial limbs. He chooses to armor this suit and uses it to make himself more intimidating. Han Solo and Luke Skywalker both have minor facial disfigurations (due to the real-life actors' accidents) and Luke also has an artificial hand that is almost completely indistinguishable from a real one.
- Before Anakin became Darth Vader and was pretty much made of scar tissue and mechanical replacement parts, he had a scar on the left side of his face near his eye and had already lost one arm.
- In The Dark Knight, The Joker sports a nasty Glasgow Smile, which he accentuates with red lipstick. He even offers to explain to his victims how he got his scars, though his story is different every time. And then there's Two-Face...eurgh.
- Good guy Bruce Wayne also sports multiple scars throughout his body from his expeditions as Batman. Naturally, though, these scars are conveniently in places that would be easily hidden by a shirt. It's also hinted that the reason he has scars is because he tried to fix some of said wounds himself, not even waiting for Alfred to stitch them up for him.
- When Dr. Weir comes back for the final showdown in the gravity chamber in Event Horizon, he's completely bald, completely naked, and has nasty scars all over him.
- The Big Bad in Doctor Zhivago sports a scar down half his face, received during the Cossack assault on the protest early in the film, and the book.
- Dr. Tolian Soran, the main baddie of Star Trek Generations has a long windy scar down the middle of his face.
- Nero, the villain from the Star Trek reboot, has some pretty evil scars on his head, including two rows of tooth marks and a missing chuck of ear. Many more Romulans were going to feature scars, but JJ Abrams vetoed their character designs out of fear of invoking this trope.
- Rare female example: Latika, the love interest in Danny Boyle's Slumdog Millionaire, is attacked with knives by vengeful gangsters who, presumably, intend to disfigure her as punishment for running away from her crime-lord boyfriend - and receives a perfect slim, elegant slash down the side of her face that actually manages to accentuate her high cheekbones.
- In High Noon, Big Bad Frank Miller spends most of the film offstage. Some townsfolk even defend him and insist that he's not so bad. When he finally arrives at the film's climax, he sports ugly scars to prove that he is in fact a bad guy.
- In Quantum Of Solace, Bond Girl Camille Montes has a burn scar given to her by the film's Big Bad. It's a reminder of her desire for revenge, but is usually not in sight to diminish her ravishing good looks.
- In Alien Vs Predator, the last remaining scientist scientist Alexa accepts a pair of calligraphy-clean "good scars" on her cheek as an acknowledgment of her level up during the course of the movie. Of course, this probably saves her life in the end, because the other Predators recognize the mark and understand she's one of the good guys.
- It is implied that V from V For Vendetta is covered in burns he received from his escape of the concentration camp. He normally wears a full-body outfit as well as gloves and a mask to cover himself, but his scarred hands are briefly seen when he cooks breakfast.
- Grenouille, the Villain Protagonist of Perfume bears a number of scars from his life as a tanner's apprentice. His brutish master is covered in them, giving him a monstrous appearance.
- Avatar has Colonel Badass Miles Quaritch, who has three scars across the side of his head from his first day at Pandora. He claims that while the doctors could fix it, he decided to keep them to remind him of Everything Trying To Kill You and to not get soft.
Literature
- Harry Potter's famous 'lightning bolt' shaped achey scar. It's easily covered up by his bangs. A magical quill in the fifth book gives Harry another scar, this one on the back of his hand, the words "I must not tell lies," in his own handwriting, from writing those words, over and over again, in his own blood during detention.
- In Deathly Hallows, he acquires two new scars in the same scene: a round one in his chest where Hermione had to cut out the locket-Horcrux that had stuck to his skin, and two snake-bite marks on his arm.
- Averted with Alastor Mad Eye Moody, a professional fighter of Death Eaters and other Dark wizards, who is heavily scarred and disfigured, including missing a chunk of his nose.
- Also averted with Bill Weasley after he is brutally mauled by werewolf Fenrir Greyback. His face is scarred to the point of resembling Mad-Eye Moody.
- In the extreme moral ambiguity of A Song Of Ice And Fire, hero and villain scars are sometimes played straight and sometimes subverted:
- The ferocious and morally ambiguous Sandor "the Hound" Clegane sports a hideously burned face, which has haunted all his life and turned him into the rage-filled drunkard he is. People generally see him as an inhuman monster, but he subverts his villain scars by revealing his underlying humanity over the course of the series.
- Tyrion Lannister, a deformed dwarf, gets most of his nose cut off by a sword stroke. He was already unfairly hated for his deformities, however, so he thinks of the scar is a bit of a pointless overkill. Everyone assumes that his deformity and scars are proof of his evil nature, and serve to help push him from a basically decent and generous soul into what might be a Start Of Darkness.
- Beric Dondarrion is patchwork of grisly scars - and all of them were fatal wounds (stabbed in the eye, speared through the gut, hanged with a noose), but he has been resurrected from the dead multiple times. Since most people don't know about the ressurections, the scars add onto Beric's Shrouded In Myth Folk Hero Just Like Robin Hood reputation for fighting for the people and being the man the cruel authorities just can't kill.
- Jon Snow, sometimes accused of being a Marty Stu, gets cool scars. First he gets his hand burned in a wight attack, forcing him to wear a black glove most of the time. Then he gets his face clawed by a possessed eagle, giving him some cool facial scars that women comment on.
- Kvothe from The Name Of The Wind acquires a variety of scars on his back as a result of not one but two severe whippings over the course of a rather short period of time. It's remarked in the book that they are attractive, pale good-guy-looking scars.
- Averted in the Earthsea Cycle book Tehanu, Therru (good guy) was horribly burned when her natural parents threw her into a fire. This didn't really carry over to the Studio Ghibli film Tales Of Earthsea where it became a light pink patch on her face; and she became white.
- Also from Ursula K. Le Guin, in A Wizard of Earthsea, Ged, in a calamitous attempt to summon a long-dead ghost, summons some never-exactly specified evil creature whose first business is to attack Ged and maul one entire side of his face. These scars never leave his face, and so he is reminded every day of his arrogance and the balance that he disrupted.
- However, Ged's scars are pretty clearly of the attractive-and-fashionable variety; a young man who sees them thinks them "the track of a dragon's claws and the very mark and sign of a hero."
- Sort of inverted in The Dresden Files- Harry gets his hand fried to a crisp by one smarter-than-usual baddy. However, because the shade of the fallen angel Lasciel was in his mind, a bit of skin on his palm stayed unburnt, in the shape of her angelic sigil. Definitely evil, but also sort of an antiscar.
- As of Turn Coat, he has also acquired a cliche eye scar thanks to an angry guy with a knife. This is only one of the more visible ones in his (very large) collection, which also features claw marks, bullet wounds, the aforementioned crispy-fried hand, and marks from having been beaten half to death with a chain. Hell, he's probably gotten a couple of new ones in each book, since they more often than not end up with him in the hospital or at the very least lying on the couch in his apartment, hooked up to an IV. No wonder he's The Woobie.
- Though Stacy finds them attractive in Small Favor.
- In One Hundred Years Of Solitude, Amaranta Buendía horribly burns her own hand in the stove to prove to her mother that she didn't mean to drive her first boyfriend Pietro Crespi to kill himself. She covers the scars with a black bandage until the day of her death.
- Semi-averted in Lois Mc Master Bujold's The Curse of Chalion: good guy Cazaril has both hands permanently damaged by his time as a galley slave, as well as scarring all over his back (hidden by his shirt) from a near-fatal flogging at the tail end of same. However, other characters perceive these as evil scars, since similar floggings are meted out to rapists and paedophiles. This causes him a bit of bother when he has to use a public bathhouse.
- The usual suspect averts it to a breaking point with Igors. While they sport horrible scars and work as henchmen for vampires and werewolves, they are extremely skilled doctors with high professional ethics. In fact, the scars come from their surprisingly ethical principle of testing every medical novelty upon themselves first. Female Igors—Igorinas—are universally and conventionally beautiful, on the other hand, though they may sport the occasional very fine stitching here and there. It's implied that the reason why they are so beautiful is because Igor surgical skill extends to the field of cosmetic surgery.
- Death's granddaughter Susan also has some Good Scars, in the form of three thin, white marks on her cheek that only show up when she's flushed or angry. She inherited them from her father's slap.
- Um... that is to say, from the slap that her father received from Death. Not a slap that her father gave her or her mother.
- As of Night Watch Samuel Vimes has a particularly vicious scar running up his face and across his eye. The scar and accompanying eye patch were actually a plot point in that book.
- In the James Bond novels by Ian Fleming, James Bond is often described as having a scar down his right cheek. However, in the movies based on the books, this scar had mysteriously vanished.
- Bond villains, on the other hand - along with their henchmen - are the most scarred-up bunch of mofos ever filmed, and Largo's eyepatch is the only one that could pass for remotely heroic. Le Chiffre from 2006's Casino Royale might top them all: a dead, milky blue eye that weeps blood, covered by a jagged, livid scar. Right hands don't get much redder than that.
- Father Callahan of The Dark Tower has a cross-shaped scar on his forehead; it was supposed to be a swastika, but the Neo-Nazis carving it were stopped before they could finish.
- Subversion and played straight at the same time. In Battletech, the duplicate Thomas Marik is horribly burned across the right side of his body, possibly missing a eye (Artwork seems to vary on this point). However, as a leader he strives for honor and decency, and he is also one of the strongest opponents of the genocidal Word of Blake. Thomas' scars are cosmetic surgery to make him resemble the horribly disfigured real Thomas Marik, who is the leader of the Word.
- Star Captain Trent also subverts this, as despite being horribly scarred by an Inferno Missile on Tukayyid he is one of the few remaining high ranking Smoke Jaguar warriors who clings to the old ways and tries to remain divorced from the petty politics with the clan, going on to deliver to the Inner Sphere forces the location of the clan homeworlds. Much of the skin on one half of his body (including a large part of his face) has been replaced and is obviously artificial as it is a bit more translucent than normal skin should be.
- Firesong from the Heralds Of Valdemar series by Mercedes Lackey gets seriously burned across his face by a magical explosion. He gets somewhat depressed about it, since he was the most attractive guy in his whole clan before, and wears a mask, but definitely remains a good guy.
- Lijah Cuu from the Warhammer 40000: Gaunt's Ghosts novels has a nasty scar nearly bisecting his face. It "nicely" foreshadows the extent of his treachery.
- Ibram Gaunt also bears a multitude of scars from various injuries sustained in the line of duty. A particularly impressive scar runs across his stomach, which he recieved from his uncle Dercius in a chainsword duel to avenge his father's death.
- Possible subversion in Redwall; Folgrim in Legend of Luke has a badly scarred face and a missing eye, yet turns out to be a good guy (once he's broken of his rather horrible habit of devouring his enemies - said enemies were AlwaysChaoticEvil so the good guys have no problem with killing them, but they still don't think eating them is okay).
- Scarred heroes in urban fantasy/romance is extremely common. Usually the scars aren't disfiguring and may be a wild turn-on for the scaree's love interest. In J.R. Ward's Black Dagger Brotherhood series, almost every male main character is covered in scars. Zsadist in particular has a nasty S-shaped scar cutting across his face.
- Watership Down. In the warren-dictatorship of Efrafa scars are used to identify which 'mark' (section of the warren) you belong to (as the protagonists are rabbits who obviously don't carry identity cards). After his climactic fight with the Big Bad Bigwig has so many scars it's joked the Efrafans wouldn't know which mark to put him into, as he's got them all.
- Any number of characters in the Wheel Of Time books are scarred, to differing degrees. The main character (Rand), in fact, recently lost a hand, and another is expected to lose an eye at some point in the future. The author is also fond of showing a character's battle experience with scars- one even has a missing eye, which he has replaced with a patch painted to show a horrifically scowling eye (and if you make him mad enough, his real eye will match it). Another has a nasty scar around his neck, which he covers as best he can with scarves and so on.
- In the Nightrunner series, good guys Seregil and Micum have scars aplenty, but in places that can be hidden under clothing. By contrast, the evil Duke Mardus has a big scar across his otherwise handsome face.
- Seregil and Alec acquire many more scars in Shadows Return. This trope is also averted there when they get their slave marks painfully removed.
- Doom in the Deltora Quest series has a grizzled face, complete with a scar across his eye. He's a good guy.
- Phantom Of The Opera, anyone?
- The Anti Hero Staubfinger (Dustfinger) from the novel Tintenherz (Inkheart) has three pale scars running across his face, remnants of a sadistic villain's henchman cutting up the fire-eater's face.
- In P.C. Hodgell's Chronicles Of The Kencyrath, heroine Jame picks up a classic Good Scar in book 3 (vertical below the left eye).
- Subverted with Carnival of Alan Campbell's Deepgate Codex series. Her entire body is covered in knife scars most of which are self-inflicted, and she also has a thick rope burn around her neck which is the sole physical remnant of her father's abuse. Characters who are close to her often remark that she is beautiful in spite of (and even because of) these scars, and that they show that she really is a kindhearted person despite her horrible reputation.
- Averted in Karen Miller's Godspeaker Trilogy as the scars that Hekat and Rhian have are self-inflicted.
- Averted in Mortal Engines - Hester's face was sliced in half as a small child, and the resulting scars tend to horrify people, but... she's mostly one of the good guys. However, there's an in-universe example - in Pennyroyal's heavily altered version of events, 'Hester Shaw' has an eye-patch and a 'discreet' scar on her cheek.
- Taizu in C.J. Cherryh's The Paladin has a classic Good Scar, vertically down from one eye, although it's more severe than many such and goes all the way down her neck.
- Mackenzie Calhoun in Star Trek New Frontier has a scar down his left cheek made by a Danteri in the final battle on Xenex. Kat Mueller has a thinner scar down her right cheek from a fencing incident at Heidelberg. Despite the technology to remove them, neither does.
- Both played straight and averted in Warrior Cats. Clawface, as his name implies, has many scars running along his face. He's a villain. However, Stonefur, who has battle-scarred ears, and Brightheart who has one eye and ear missing and is horrifically scarred in that area, are both heroes. Tigerstar, another villain, has a scar across the bridge of his nose and a split in his ear. Longtail, a hero, has a V-shaped cut in his ear as well. Of course, one has to take into account that almost every characer in existence is scarred somehow, but...
- Dodge from The Looking Glass Wars has a few of these running parallel to each other across one side of his face from getting bitch-slapped by The Cat as a child.
Live Action TV
- Avoided in Star Trek Deep Space Nine, when the real (i.e. good) General Martok had a missing eye and many scars across his face. (He may have received the scar as a result of his capture, though—and of course, he's a Klingon, member of the archetypal Proud Warrior Race, so the rules are a bit different.)
- However, in the original series of Star Trek, the (evil) Ensign Sulu of the Mirror Universe has a scar running down the side of his face.
- Alternate-future Peter of Heroes has a pretty evil-looking scar that runs the length of his face between his eyes (despite being able to completely heal any wound instantly). But he's an Anti Hero in that timeline, so he can get away with it.
- It's also possible that Alternate!Peter never met Claire and therefore can't heal, or that he got the scar before meeting her.
- Or he may have deliberately not healed it, since (at least at the beginning of the episode) he is deeply embittered and apathetic about the possibility of changing anything by using powers.
- General Burkhalter (one of the more competent officers) in Hogans Heroes has a long scar running down from just above his ear to his jawline. Klink also has a dueling scar somewhere, but given that this is Klink it's probably on his back.
- Exception: in Highlander: The Series, Kronos, probably the most megalomaniacal Card Carrying Villain immortal out there (and leader of the Four Horsemen), has a classic good guy scar: a single line, clean, starting above his eye and ending below it without damaging the eye itself.
- John Locke of Lost has a scar over his right eye that he received during the plane crash.
- In the alternate universe of Buffy seen in "The Wish," Doppel Buffy has a classic evil scar, extending from above her mouth, through both her lips, and down to her chin. This serves to remind us that without The Power Of Friendship, the Slayer is no fun at all.
- Spike has a very hard-to-see scar on one of his eyebrows. This is because James Marsters has it in real life and they decided to keep it in because it made the character look cooler. They had to work his vampire makeup around it and ended up accentuating it whenever he puts on his gameface. Explained in a comic book limited series as being tagged with a magical weapon so even being a vampire wouldn't heal it up right.
- Wes also has a scar, this one of the anti-Hero variety, a thin red line on his neck, from when Justine cut his throat after he gave Conner to her in order to save him. It's not always noticeable, though
- In Dollhouse, Dr. Saunders has numerous thin scars across her face as a result of an attack by Alpha. They seem to be getting less noticeable each episode, and really don't do much to detract from her beauty.
- In reason episodes, this was revealed to be the MO of the person Alpha was before he became an Active; he inflicted this on a kidnapping victim he didn't manage to kill. Later on, he did it to Victor, too.
- Similar to the Buffy example above, Jack O'Neill has a scar on one of his eyebrows. How noticeable it is varies from episode to episode.
- Alex Krycek, recurring bad guy of The X-Files, is missing an arm.
Video Games
- Video game variant: Final Fantasy VIII has Squall and Seifer sport mirror identical scars that they inflicted on each other. Seifer wasn't really all that evil, but he hated Squall and fought against the protagonists.
- Averted in Final Fantasy VI, in which Setzer, a good guy, has a pale, horribly scarred face. The scars themselves, incidentally, are not burns or chunks missing, but the standard "good guy" slash wound scars. Just...about a dozen of them.
- In Final Fantasy VII It's believed that Tifa Lockhart has a large but clean scar across her chest from the time that Sephiroth slashed her during the Neibelheim Incident.
- Basch, a good guy from Final Fantasy XII, has a thick, discolored scar that begins in the middle of his forehead, goes over his temple, and ends on his ear that he gained while being wrongfully imprisoned.
- Auron, a major good guy from Final Fantasy X, has one starting above the eyes and finishing below it, complete with apparent damage to the eye itself.
- Argilla in Digital Devil Saga has a small scar across one eye, probably to offset the cuteness of her pink hair.
- In Gungrave the somewhat titular protagonist lost his left eye when he was brutally murdered in the backstory. In place of his eye, he now has a really large, patchy scar, which is partially covered by the blacked out lens of his glasses.
- Gary, the main antagonist from the video game Bully, had a scar extending up from his eye and through his eyebrow. Strangely enough, the reason for having the scar is never explained.
- Sigma from the Mega Man X games has purple facial scars despite being a robot (and having more than one body throughout the course of the series). Originally they were given to him via a crazed Zero, but this was retconned so that that they were given to him from X during a fight. In the manga, its self-inflicted.
- In Mega Man X7 Red (bad guy) has a lightning bolt-shaped gash starting from his forehead and ending below his missing right eye, while Axl (good guy) has two clean, straight scars forming an X across the bridge of his nose. Both are robots.
- Saix, The Dragon in Kingdom Hearts 2 has a similar X scar. Xigbar also has a heavily scarred face as well as an Eyepatch Of Power.
- During the course of events in Resident Evil 4, Leon gets a small cut across his otherwise perfect face during a knife fight. Contrast his rival antagonist Krauser, who already has several scars along his face and lips.
- And then Krauser gets another one straight across his chest after a lengthy knife fight with Leon.
- In the Street Fighter universe, Sagat (a morally ambiguous fighter, but usually either the final or penultimate fight) has both a missing eye and a giant scar on his chest, the latter of which Ryu, his rival, gave him with his signature Shoryuken. Although he's presented as a Proud Warrior Race Guy (and Arrogant Kung Fu Guy, oddly enough), his boss status means that he's a Designated Villain.
- He did, however, kill Dan's father. And he works for Bison...
- Note that in the case of Dan's dad... according to a Ret Con, Sagat killed Go Hibiki because he ripped his eye off during a fight, which sent Sagat into an Unstoppable Rage. Sagat was not happy when he calmed down and found out. And about Bison, it's also retconned into him being more confused, misguided and extremely pissed off, rather than evil and fully converted to Bison's cause.
- In addition, he made a Heel Face Turn, choosing to be a Worthy Opponent rather than a Rival Turned Evil, way back in Street Fighter Alpha, which retconned his appearance in SFII as not actually working for Bison after all. Going back to Dan's dad, Dan coming after Sagat for revenge was what caused him to realize his hatred was destroying him and led him to his Heel Face Turn in the first place.
- On the good scar side, Cammy's manages to make an overly muscular woman downright adorable.
- The most over-the-top example this editer can think of is Darth Sion (appropriately called the Lord of Pain) in Knights of the Old Republic. Early in the game, a medical officer reports several THOUSAND fractures in his skeleton. Combined with that creepy music and the general dark nature of the game, it'll send chills down your spine.
- Doubly creepy later on when it becomes obvious that these injuries and scars are all self-inflicted; it's implied that Sion has mastered using pain as a source of power the way most Sith Lords use anger and passion; it would seem to work, he's effectively immortal unless someone convinces him that letting go and allowing his body to die is preferable than his existence.
- Averted in Mass Effect: the player can create a character with scars that range anywhere from tiny and stylish to monsterous gashes.
- Interestingly, no matter what background you select for Shepard, the manner in which you got that scar is never addressed.
- The sequel has a great deal of fun with this. First, Garrus gets some good scars during your initial encounter with him. Shortly thereafter, it is revealed that some of the player characters cybernetic implants are acting up. They heal based on the mood that Commander Sheperd is in. Doing Paragon actions will make the scars look alot softer to the point where they'll probably be gone after the first 10 hours. Doing Renegade actions will make you look like a Sith the entire game.
- Complete Monster Colonel Volgin from Metal Gear Solid 3 has deep scars all over his face (and presumably his entire body), and The Pain's face is one big bee sting.
- Fallen Heroes Major Zero and Big Boss both have scars across the eyes.
- The Boss also has an impressive scar on her abdomen from a C-section.
- It's said that The Fury has burn scars on over 90% of his body, but not his face.
- In Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney: Justice for All, when Matt Engarde reveals his true nature, the revelation is punctuated by him pulling back the hair covering the right side of his face to reveal nasty-looking scars across his eye, when he is sweating at the end of his case and unable to keep the hair back fully, the same scars make him look pathetic.
- Also in Apollo Justice: Kristoph is revealed to have a Skull shaped scar on the back of his hand.
- Adell from Disgaea 2 has a pair of straight lines, one on each cheek, in a textbook example of good scars. They're also the reason why he does not like girls.
- Baiken, of the Guilty Gear series, lost her right arm and an eye when she was a little girl, leaving her a good character with Evil Scars.
- Gato, a morally conflicted but typically antagonistic character of the King Of Fighters series, has three large, parallel scars on his back, apparently the result of a bear attack. The scars are typically covered up by his shirt.
- Geese Howard, following the events of the original Fatal Fury, has a nasty scar on his back, received when he was thrown off the top of Geese Tower. He shows it off in his intro pose.
- Averted in Planescape: Torment, in which the protagonist, known only as The Nameless One, is scarred horribly all over his body — his skin is almost literally made of scar tissue from all the wounds he's taken over his millennia-long existence. Of course, you can play him as a villainous monster, but the possibility exists for him to be the capiest cape that ever put on a (metaphorical) cape.
- Vaida, the Broken Bird from Fire Emblem, has a huge scar over the left side of her face. She starts out as a villain, but your Lord can make her join their side, and her supports reveal that she's no softie but does have feelings, as well as a fierce loyalty to those she cares for.
- Also, there's Hector's brother, Uther, with a scar across his forehead and another one across his nose. Black Fang's Legault has a double scar across his left eye, and Brendan Reed has dozens of them on his face alone. In contrast, the Big Bad, Nergal, has a bunch of really nasty burns all around his eye, which he hides with a turban
- Let's not even get started on Oguma's X-shaped scar on his cheek...
- In Alone in the Dark (2008), Edward Carnby has a rather large, puckered scar over his left eye. It's more prominent than most "good guy" scars, but still reasonable enough to fall into the category. At the end of the game, when he becomes Lucifer, his scar turns into a super-evil all-out rake-burn on the left side of his face. Significant, evil, "I cut my face with glass" scars are also a sign that someone has been possessed by Lucifer in the game.
- Shiki of Tsukihime has a large scar on his chest from being stabbed and killed by the eventual Big Bad, normally hidden from sight by his shirt.
- While the original game's portraits were pretty smooth-skinned, many of the NPCs in Baldurs Gate II sport scars, including returning ones. In particular, Keldorn and Imoen sport the "over the eye" scar that should be all but impossible without putting the eye out. These can be said to be symbolic—Keldorn, the grizzled veteran; and Imoen, innocent youth having learned the world isn't as nice as she'd like.
- Rikimaru, playing character from Tenchu, sports a scar over the right eye.
- Boktai's Sabata sports what appears to be a scar across his left cheek, starting at the jaw and ending just below the eye—a classic Evil Scar. Subverted in that he pulls a Heel Face Turn toward the end of the first game; double-subverted in that he winds up villainous again in the third.
- Gaia Online has at least three examples, two straight, one subverted (maybe).
- Edmund shows the classic Good Scar: an X on his forehead.
- Zhivago the Psycho For Hire vampire assassin has an obvious Evil Scar on the left side of his face.
- Marie Von Helson returned after a skyscraper fell on her face with an Evil Scar over one eye. Possibly subverted, as she hasn't been particularly evil since then.
- A minor example of Good Scar is Sam, from the Body & Parts shop. While she still doesn't hold a great importance to the plot, she is seemingly good.
- Marcus in Gears Of War has a number of scars but his most notable one would be a strong line running down his cheek which a number of vertial lines running down it, possible due to poorly done stitches or they're just deep wrinkles.
- Darth Malak from Knights Of The Old Republic wears a metal mask for most of the game, concealing the lower half of his face. When he's finally shown without it, it's more horrifying than any simple scar could be. It's not that he hides something underneath it, it's what isn't there - he's missing the entire jaw...
- Sue from Cave Story sports a scar across her nose of the 'cute and warlike at the same time' variety.
- The younger Sub-Zero from Mortal Kombat got a scar running from above his eye downwards between Mortal Kombat 2 and 3. As the series progressed, a substitute for his older brother and became a much more heroic.
- subverted by Hanako from Katawa Shoujo, who's got an unknown (all we've seen are her face and hands) but presumably significant portion of her body covered in burn scars.
- Sergei Dragunov from Tekken has several scars, his most notable being the one that runs through his lips and down his chin. He also sports one across his nose, and, if one opts to make him shirtless via customisation in Tekken 6, it can be seen that he sports numerous ones over his torso and arms, including a bullet wound on his left shoulder. He isn't exactly a bad guy, but he is at least morally ambigious.
- Kazuya Mishima, occasional Big Bad of the series, sports a large diagonal scar running across his chest in the first two games. However, upon being thrown into a volcano and subsequently coming Back From The Dead, he now has additional (and numerous) scars all over his body. His father, Heihachi, also sports a large cross-shaped scar on his chest.
- Also, Raven has a large X-shaped scar across the middle of his face.
- Steve Fox has a very large, raised scar that runs pretty much the entire length of his arm.
- Marshall Law, in the later games, has three claw-marks that run across his chest, although this is clearly a nod to Bruce Lee's famous scars in Enter The Dragon.
- Lars Alexandersson has two facial scars: one through his left eyebrow, and one on his cheek.
- From what I can tell, all three generations of Desmond's family have managed to get a single vertical scar through the right side of their lips. Altair can be excused — it's apparently Desmond's face overwriting his — but Ezio managed to get his scar during the first part of the game, so it seems to be real.
Web Comics
- Last Resort has two:
- Vaelia, a female gladiator from Drowtales has a three-clawed, down-from-the-eye scar.
- Kharisma Valetti of Something Positive has burn scars that left her face with large darkened patches. Not so much good or evil as Laser Guided Karma.
- Nimmel in Dominic Deegan, who lost his right eye and a good part of his face during an infernomancer attack. It's subverted here, because the scar is very nasty to look at.
- In Misfile Xaphrael has a large scar up the side of his face and crossing his eye. This type of scar can be good or bad, so let's check the tropes: Hammy entrance, Cryptic and vaguely threatening conversation, concealment of a crime that he has the main characters bang to rights on, evasion of direct questions, threatening to choke to death the resident Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain using his left hand. Yep, those would be evil scars.
- In Questionable Content Faye has a scar on her right shoulder that was the result of a car accident that may or may not have been intentional.
- Grey from Inhuman almost have more scars than regular skin on his body. The main reason it's just ALMOST is because his face is almost unscarred... aside from a huge scar over the bridge of his nose, which admittedly does make for the "cute but deadly" look.
- Girl Genius makes a point of both trope and subversion. Constructs (created or repaired humans) have permanent 'Frankenstein' stitchery all over their bodies. Agatha's foster parents Adam 'Punch' Clay and Lilith 'Judy' Clay, and Baron Wulfenbach all have these prominent scars (good guys), but so does R-79, one of the dangerous-looking prisoners sent to Castle Heterodyne (bad guy). Another Castle prisoner, nicknamed 'Cucaracha', has the 'evil' false-harelip sort of scar, but he gets beat up by the girl in the pink dress.
- O'Chul in Order Of The Stick has a scar running down across eye. The x-ray effect of a Disintegrate spell reveals the cut left a mark on the bone of his skull as well.
- He might be somewhat of an subversion, as he has lots of ugly, raised scars, which makes sense, as he was held prisoner and tortured for months.
- Also, in Start Of Darkness, Right-Eye has a large, jagged scar across his face which he got when his eye was stabbed out by a paladin.
Web Original
- Survival Of The Fittest character Viktor Kurchatov is horribly scarred more or less all over his body from being burned. He's both depraved and bonkers. Bobby Jacks may be a subversion in that he possessed a scar of the 'straight across the cheek' variety before the game.
- Oran of Broken Saints fame has the common vertical eye (or "tear") scar, made in his youth during an attack from American bombers in the first Gulf War. Early on in the series, he gives his childhood friend Hassan one to match whilst suffering from cabin fever and copious amounts of guilt.
Western Animation
- Zuko's scar in Avatar The Last Airbender which functions as both a bad scar (making him appear menacing) and good (showing he has suffered).
- Later Aang gets both a scar on his back and foot from being hit by Azula's lighting bolt.
- Even later Zuko gets another scar on his chest from a partially screwed-up lightning re-direction when Taking The Bullet.
- Naturally, The Lion King villain Scar has a large vertical scar across his left eye.
- Later subverted in The Lion King 2, where Kovu gains a scar identical to Scar's during his Heel Face Turn, which functions as a symbol of everything he's pledged not to become.
- In The Land Before Time the original villain Sharptooth (and his T V show parallel Red Claw) have a jagged red scar across one eye. Doc, a good guy in the 6th movie, has a similar scar, but it's thin and contrasts less with the skin.
- Gargoyles good guy Hudson has a long scar down his face. His is particularly striking in that gargoyles wouldn't normally scar, as they heal each night when they enter stone sleep. Hudson's scar was given to him by the Archmage, making it magical damage, thus likely why it did not heal—though it could also be that if such maiming damage "settles" it might not heal properly.
- On the other hand, the original (and villainous) Hunter, Gillecomgain, had three scars across his face, and while most Hunters of future generations are not so badly scarred, the masks they wear pay homage to their progenitor.
- Enzo/Matrix from Re Boot gets a scar across his left eye in his final Game cube as a kid. When the next season starts up, he and his companions have aged up via localized timeskip-the eye has been replaced with a bitchin' gold-colored cybernetic replacement, but the across-the-eye scar still remains. Matrix is very much an Anti Hero.
- Dr. Blight from Captain Planet looks perfectly normal (and in fact hot)... until she moves the fringe covering the side of her face, revealing a severely scarred face.
- Given that Transformers can be repaired perfectly even if they're missing large parts of their body, scars are pretty unnecessary. However, Transformers Armada Wheeljack retains the long scar across his Autobot symbol from the accident that led to his Face Heel Turn. However, it's also possible he made the scar himself after the accident, so it might not count.
- Ratchet in Transformers Animated also left the chevron on his forehead broken after his battle with Lockdown, most likely for personal symbolic reasons.
- Ironhide from the Transformers Film Series has a scar over his right eye.
- Also in the movie continuity, there's Strongarm
 ◊ (from the IDW comics) who has three HUGE slashes across his face (which is sometimes covered up by a face mask). Apparently he was involved in a Decepticon attack that left his entire unit dead and whilst the scars could be repaired, he chose to keep them as a reminder to the Autobots who died under his command.
- In the Big Damn Heroes moment of the season 3 premiere of Metalocalypse, we see that Charles Ofdensen now has one, from when the Metal Masked Assassin deliberately cut his face in Season 2.
Professional Wrestling
- When a wrestler bleeds from the forehead, it is typically the result of "blading", the practice of hiding a razor blade in your wristbands or taped wrists, and secretly pulling it out to cut yourself during a match to "sell" a particular attack as especially vicious. Many wrestlers who frequently blade, such as Dusty Rhodes, Brother Ray and Brother Devon of Team 3D, and "Hardcore" Wrestlers, sport very noticeable puffy scar tissue on their foreheads, indicating they are frequent bladers. This typically garners them huge respect among "hardcore" fans.
Real Life
- It was not uncommon for members of the German aristocratic and military classes to boast duelling scars as a sign of badassness. Some even scarred themselves, or encouraged the growth of scar tissue after a less serious injury, to get what we'd now call 'street cred'. The most famous scarred German was probably Otto Skorzeny, an Obersturmbannführer in the Waffen-SS who after the war created his own private paramilitary force which he hired out to countries like Spain and Argentina.
- Actors with facial scars can find themselves typecast as Big Bad, Bad Ass, or Magnificent Bastard characters. One notable example is Humphrey Bogart, who was typecast as a low-class villain in part because of his facial scar. (In real life, Bogart was the privileged son of a genteel New York society doctor and his wife, the illustrator Maud Humphrey. He got his scar when serving as a security guard in the Navy after World War I, when a sailor wearing handcuffs punched him in the face. Yes, Humphrey Bogart was a Red Shirt.)
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