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Zoro: So, how's it look, Doc? Give me a few bandages and call it a day? Chopper: I'm afraid this is quite serious. You've taken heavy damage to your abdomen — We're going to have to remove most of your colon. Zoro: What's that, Chopper? "Band-Aids heal everything"? Chopper: This is going to be your new rectum. Zoro: Heal everything.
No matter how badly he's injured — be it from gunshot, blade, burning, acid, you name it — an action-adventure hero never ends up with permanent scars anywhere that is normally visible to the audience. (Although he may have one or two hidden under a shirt so he can take it off and reveal just how tough he really is.) You'd expect at least one missing tooth or broken nose in a lifetime of fighting crime. Yet Bruce Wayne's corporate headshots are perfect time and time again, and James Bond never shows up at an embassy dinner with two shiners and a wad of gauze over his nose, even if he's just been hit in the face by an iron bar.
This gift for complete and utter regeneration of wounds no doubt contributes the hero's ability to get up and beat the villain to a paste after suffering a concussion, third degree burns, and a compound fracture of both legs in the previous scene. (See Made Of Iron.)
The Big Bad may also be similarly indestructible, but his badness always results in hideous scars or mechanical limbs whenever he gets injured.
Either way, the damage suffered is often shrugged off as Only A Flesh Wound.
Between them, Made Of Iron and Hollywood Healing cover the two extremes of the Action Hero — the Terminator-type that can walk unscathed through a bomb blast, and the hero who gets hurt badly but somehow always manages to come back and triumph in the end.
Compare Bottled Heroic Resolve.
Also known as " The Cinematographic Law Of Heroic Injury ◊".
For video game examples, compare with Heal Thyself and Walk It Off. Contrast Healing Factor, Healing Hands, where this level is justified.
Examples
Anime
- Spike from Cowboy Bebop was constantly suffering gunshot wounds or severe beatings that would have him wrapped up head-to-toe in gauze, but he'd be perfectly fine in the next episode. This might be realistic because there is no actual definition of time between episodes. With the exception of two-parters, Spike may have had more than enough time to heal. Still doesn't explain how his gunfighting or Kung-Fu abilities don't suffer for all the damage beyond his natural status as a Bad Ass.
- Future medical advances are sure great!
- Priss from the original Bubblegum Crisis OVAs was bad for this, especially in episode 6: "Red Eyes". She is nearly hit by an orbital strike, thrown from her bike, stabbed in the gut, has her own railgun spike driven through her shoulder, is thrown through a window to fall several stories, is beaten by three large cyberdroids, hit by a multi-spectrum laser that strips most of her armour off, and still wins the fight. Of course, she was supposed to die in that episode.
- In Naruto this is justified for the main character as he has a Healing Factor that can heal most wounds overnight (he was once chased by the medical staff and tied to his bed after he tried to get up too soon after a particularly bad beating). The rest of the cast has to undergo normal healing time.
- Subversion; Roronoa Zoro in One Piece has suffered major injuries to his torso in swordfights, and while he is still standing after injuries that would have probably killed any normal human (keep in mind that he's a
Badass Normal user of Charles Atlas Superpower), he occasionally gets strokes of pain, and the ship doctor constantly warns him from continuing.
- It's important to note, however, that he's still managed to recover from halfway hacking his leg off, and the fact that he manages to survive said torso wound, especially since he nearly has his guts fall out.
- He retains a big ass scar from a particular (plot relevant) torso wound, though not from any other wounds he receives (and there are many).
- He has scars on his ankles from when he tried to hack through his legs (referenced above).
- Very heavily used in Hellsing, mainly by Seras Victoria. This is somewhat justified by the fact that she's a lesser vampire, though, and it's only Hollywood Healing for her because the horrible injuries she receives look like paper cuts next to what Alucard and Father Anderson suffer on a regular basis (in their case, they benefit from a natural Healing Factor). Subverted when she loses her left arm to Zorin; although the shadows that she gained afterward can be shaped into a new arm, the arm itself does not actually regrow.
- Also, Integra doesn't flinch (or miss) when she gets shot in the eye.
- Subverted in Trigun, where, underneath his Badass Longcoat, Vash the Stampede's body is absolutely riddled with scars. Badly. Some patches are actually held in place by metal implants.
- Plus you know, he's missing his freakin arm! The only odd thing is that his face stays suitably Bishonen.
- This trope is kinda subverted in Afro Samurai when at the end of the first episode the title character is blasted by an RPG. The second episode is a flashback episode where Afro is completely healed by a woman who was a childhood friend of Afro's. In the third episode onwards Afro doesn't have a single scratch on him.
- Subverted in Dragonball, of all places. When the magic healing beans/"bacta" tanks aren't available, the characters heal (or not) normally. The Saiyan characters' tails don't grow back after being cut off (though this might be the author simply forgetting about them), several characters bear scars suffered early in the series, Goku once spent a month in a full-body cast after fighting Vegeta before the magic beans had grown, and an Alternate Future Gohan had lost his arm in battle.
- Saiyan tails do grow back, particularly in times of need. And then Akira forgot about them after the Saiyan saga.
- Berserk Abridged parodies this:
Doctor: I'm afraid you've suffered some very serious injuries. You'll need several weeks of bed rest, followed by months of intense physical therapy, and even then, there's a very real possibility that you may never make a full recovery.
Casca: Are you sure?
Doctor: Of course I'm sure! I'm a doctor! I've got my doctor hat on! I'm always sure!
Casca: Well, you know, he is the main character of an action anime.
Doctor: Oh! Well hell, that's different then. I'm sure he'll be up and about very soon.
- It's a subtle Running Gag in Ranma 1/2: no matter how badly beat-up the characters get, all they ever need to recover after regaining consciousness is a small first-aid kit that has some cotton wads, disinfectant, band-aids, and very little else.
- At one point, early in the series, Ranma was sent flying into a wall hard enough to leave a sizable crater; the foes claimed he had broken every bone in his body, and, indeed, his bones and joints kept popping and snapping audibly. However, he recovered from these injuries (even after being turned into a girl) only a few minutes later, and was still in perfect condition to punch through ice boulders, take Ryouga's kicks and suplexes, and even have a skating rink's worth of ice collapse on top of him with no ill effects.
- Averted when, after falling from well over a hundred feet while carrying four girls on his back, he landed perfectly on his feet and broke his legs on impact. He was laid out with casts for several weeks afterwards.
- Black Lagoon is absolutely full of this. Revy gets a few gunshot wounds and several stab wounds that are wrapped up and never mentioned again. The most blatant example, however is her bare fist fight with Roberta, which literally lasts for hours, resulting in only some bruising, black eyes and bloody noses. By the next episode, she's fine. But she, like all the other characters is Made Of Iron and fueled by Rule Of Cool so it's to be expected.
Comic Books
- Particularly noticeable in The Punisher arc "Barracuda", in which The Punisher (as ever) doesn't suffer any kind of permanent injury, while Barracuda loses several fingers, some teeth and an eye.
- Exception: While John Constantine has healed himself of several horrible injuries in his time, in issue 200 he received a large scar on his left cheek that remains to this day.
- More of an editorial oversight than true Hollywood Healing, but still: in the first volume of The Invisibles, Dane MacGowan gets the tip of his little finger cut off and devoured. Subsequent artists forgot this and would draw it in from time to time.
- I think it was intentional. It was consistently drawn missing until he used his powers to heal King Mob from the brink of death, and the very next time that hand is shown, his finger is healed also.
- A similar problem happened in the Comic Book Hitman, in which Hakken's hand (which he chainsawed off after it was bitten by a zombie seal) would sometimes be drawn as a stump/prosthetic and sometimes drawn in as if it were healed.
- Somewhat subverted by Batman. Many times he takes off his costume around others and they are shocked at the massive amount of scars he has, mostly around his back (which the reader does not see properly). However this varies from writer to writer...
- Herr Starr in Preacher is an exception, he gets progressively mangled as the series progresses.
- Starr isn't exactly the "action hero" of that comic, of course. The real subversion is Jesse Custer, when God bites out his eye
- Snake-Eyes, from GI Joe, is a walking subversion of this trope, or at least started out as one; his face was horribly burned in a helicopter crash. Meanwhile, in the "Reloaded" Alternate Universe, he doesn't reveal what happened to his face or why he wears a mask, but the rest of his body is suitably wrecked...and he's still the biggest Bad Ass Normal around. It might help that he's outright insane in that universe, though.
- Several speedsters have a Healing Factor as a side effect of their speed, by the reckoning that their body's metabolism works fast enough that they heal faster (questions about why they don't, say, age faster tend to get Handwaved). However, this explanation still invokes Hollywood Healing, since they recover from injuries that would /never/ heal as an extension of natural healing processes, no matter how sped up. One especially blatant instance, from Ultimate Marvel, is Magneto blasting Quicksilver point-blank in the kneecaps with a shotgun, which puts him out of action for the rest of the miniseries but doesn't leave any permanent damage at all.
- Possible Handwaving allowed, as the Scarlet Witch is certainly capable of making sure her beloved brother heals up nicely.
- Subverted in the She Hulk comics when she's working at a law firm that employs super-powered people such as speedsters as mail clerks. It's mentioned during an attack on the firm that said speedsters will need immediate medical attention for even minor injuries. The reason being that their super speed means that the effects of their injuries will simply occur faster too. So a minor cut might still be minor... but the blood loss might be occurring at super speeds!
Film
Literature
- Subverted in Eulalia!, one of the newer Redwall books, in which we meet the Badger Lord Asheye, who in his youth was prone to berserker rages that allowed him to plow through vast hordes of enemies without stopping... and is now crippled and blind from the many, many wounds he had received in doing so.
- Cregga was also blinded in battle, Finbarr Galedeep lost one eye, and Folgrim's face got bashed up pretty badly.
- Variation in one of the Ringworld books: when Chmeee (Speaker-To-Animals) is placed in a nanotech healing capsule, it erases his scars. When he discovers this, he's furious: for a Kzinti, battle scars are proof of maturity and fighting prowess.
- Contrary to the intro text, the James Bond of Ian Fleming's books has a noticeable, comment-worthy scar on his face from the corner of eye down his cheek to his jawline. Various injuries aquired in the course of the stories are remarked on in later stories and recent injuries definitely affect the near-term capacity. For example, Bond spent the second half of Live and Let Die with his left hand bandaged and splinted after Tee-Hee broke Bond's pinkie finger.
- Subverted in Harry Potter, although nearly all injuries in the books can be healed through magic without scarring (as in all of Harry's Quidditch injuries and various other things that happen to other characters through the books, usually overnight), it's shown in Mad-Eye Moody as well as in George Weasley that some injuries result in permanent scarring, loss of limbs/body parts, and can take extended recovery time. It's also seen in Bill Weasley's facial scarring after being attacked by the werewolf Fenrir Greyback. Even so, it seems to be all non-magical injuries and illnesses are cured with potions or spells, including the common cold and whatever healing that Tonks would have had to do after giving birth such a short time before the final battle she took part in, as well as every injury that Harry himself ever gets aside from the lightning bolt scar he got as a baby. And although there's no mention of any magical measures to prevent pregnancy or sexually transmitted disease, an entire school full of very poorly supervised adolescents is miraculously baby-free, even without any kind of sexual education for the students through the course of their schooling from ages 11-18.
- Must be something in the water...
Live Action TV
- Law And Order subverted this early in its run, with Det. Logan visiting his partner Det. Cerreta in the hospital as he recovered from being shot several episodes prior. In even further subversion, Cerreta tells him he'll be retiring to a desk job instead of returning.
- Exception: In 24 the palm of David Palmer's hand is noticeably scarred after an assassin shakes his hand while wearing a glove coated in acid. By season 6, Jack Bauer's hand is similarly scarred, though the circumstances of his injury are unknown to the audience. Jack also has a gang tattoo on his arm from when he went undercover in a Mexican drug cartel between seasons 2 and 3; rather than spend extra time in makeup every day, Kiefer Sutherland got the tattoo for real.
- Of course, these are a few exceptions, and Jack Bauer can be shot, caught in an explosion, electrocuted, and tortured to near death, and still be able to totally kick ass half an hour later. But hey, he's Jack Bauer!
- But Truth In Television: the palms of hands are actually surprisingly regenerative. This troper fell during a bike race aged eleven and damaged the palms of both hands severely enough to remove all the skin and some flesh (kids, if you must race over gravel? Wear gloves). Her hands were unusable for some weeks while they healed, and the skin grew back leathery and inflexible at first. But after about a year, no scarring was visible at all.
- Another person with stunning healing abilities is Tony Almeida. He's back to work merely an hour or so after waking up from surgery (which he had 'cause someone shot him in the neck).
- The 2000s Battlestar Galactica has also featured several exceptions, most notably Col. Tigh's eye.
- Torchwood's particularly bad at this. In one episode half the characters were shot at and beaten up by canibals, and in the next they were scratch-free. While Owen's death-related injuries were consistent in the second season, in a scene where he was shirtless he showed no signs of the gunshot wounds he received at the end of the first season and the start of the second.
- Exception: Tony in the British Soap Opera Hollyoaks received a scar on his forehead after a car crash in a storyline in the mid-90s - the scar remains to this day.
- Averted in Day Break, a show with a Groundhog Day Loop premise, of all places. In the second episode, Brett is shot in the chest. Unlike most Groundhog Day Loop stories, any changes to his body (injuries, hair growth, etc.) are kept as the day repeats, so he almost bleeds to death when the day resets and his bandages disappear. For the next several episodes, he has to bandage the wound as soon as he wakes up. It does heal, but at a pretty realistic rate.
- Although most characters in Angel are able to shrug off crippling injuries with no long-term effects, a notable exception occurs in the second season, when a gunshot wound to the stomach leaves Wesley wheelchair-bound for several episodes.
- Likewise, when Drusilla makes a guest appearance in a season 5 episode of Buffy The Vampire Slayer, she is still recovering from and bears the marks of having been set on fire by Angelus.
- Averted in Babylon 5. At two separate points in the show's run, a character broke a limb. Both eventually recovered, but not before spending a few episodes on crutches and with a cane, respectively. Note that this is also a case of Real Life Writes The Plot, as the actors were injured doing action scenes.
- Scripted injuries tended to disappear without a trace, however.
- Marcus suffered no permanent injuries after being beaten more than half way to death by Neroon.
- Delenn got away without as much as a scar after being stabbed in the back.
- Characters on Lost get shot, have appendectomies, and have blast doors crush their legs, but are traipsing around the jungle the next episode. This is sometimes addressed in the dialogue and attributed to the island's proven healing powers. At other times, it's Scotch Taped with a throwaway "You can't go running off into the jungle! You just had surgery!"
- Averted in CSI; in the episode "Fannysmackin'" Greg Sanders is brutally beaten by a mob (clip of the aftermath). Subsequent episodes show him with bruises still on his face, even when he's able to return to work.
- And unsurprisingly played straight, goofy, and narm as hell on CSI:Miami. Eric Delko gets shot in the head and is back to work in a few weeks with no apparent ill effects beyond a shaved head and intermittent, plot-convenient memory problems.
- This troper feels the need to say that in the exact same episode, someone was shot in the abdomen and died in seconds.
- Subverted in Heroes, season 2; when Dr Suresh gets his nose broken from being punched in the face by Niki, he wears a nose bandage for the rest of the series. (There was an additional dramatic reason for this: a prophetic painting by a now-dead precognitive showed the bandaged Mohinder having shot another character, apparently fatally, so the presence of the bandage signified the closing in of a fatal destiny.)
- On Bones, Booth was shot in the chest; a couple of weeks later he was completely fine with only a tiny bandage to show for it.
- Both played straight and averted in The Sarah Connor Chronicles; Derek Reese has a lot of scars and obvious signs of poor medical treatment, while Cameron and Cromartie frequently suffer serious damage to their skin but heal without any obvious signs of damage. the latter case is quite justified, as they're both Terminators whose skin heals very fast.
- ... Strangely unlike the very first film Terminator, whose skin quite realistically didn't heal, leading to some rather nasty odors issuing from his hotel room.
- Firefly's Malcolm Reynolds pretty much epitomizes this trope, to the point where it's a major character trait of his that he will. Not. Stay. Down. Getting shot in the arm annoys him. Getting shot in the stomach might drop him in about half an hour. Getting impaled through the gut with a sword is a minor inconvenience that ends the moment he rips it out. Torturing him to death....that just gets him angry. And the next episode, which generally takes place maybe a week or two later, Mal is perfectly healthy again.
- Possible Handwave and/or justification: He has a very good doctor with futuristic medical technology. Also, in at least some cases it's not clear just how much time passes between episodes. The fourteen episodes could stretch out over a span of a few months... but they could plausibly take quite a bit longer.
- According to the movie, the episodes span just about 8 months. There is a little bit of time cut off at the end allowing for Inara to leave and become a teacher at a school for companions and for Book to leave for Haven
- House had a particularly egregious example in Season Two when Foreman got infected with Naegleria - the brain-eating amoeba - and spent the greater part of a two-part episode progressing through the disease symptoms until he could be diagnosed and treated. They completely overlooked the fact that his symptoms were being cause by the amoebic infection actually eating his brain, which was conveniently all healed up by the next episode. Surprising this same after-effect was averted in a previous episode regarding an old lady whose brain had been getting chewed on by syphillis spirochetes and was reassured by House that her brain would stay the way it was.
- Similar occurrence when Thirteen was back to doctoring a couple of days after surgeRy to remove a brain tumour.
Tabletop RPGs
- Surprisingly, played straight in the 4th edition of Dungeons And Dragons. In order to avoid forcing one of the players to play the "Cleric" "with a blunt weapon", the designers decided to embrace this trope and give every player character the ability to spend "Healing Surges" at will when they have a five minute rest. This is one of the most controversial changes in the game, but this editor in particular, loves it.
- They can also do it once in the middle of a fight, not to mention the Warlord powers that let you shout people back to health in the middle of combat. This absurdity is somewhat justified by the abstract nature of D&D's hit points.
- Clerics are much more fun to play now. Most of their healing powers can be used without sacrificing an attack, and they get Frickin Laser Beams for a basic attack.
- And to top it off, they have full Trauma Inn action going on, except that you don't even need an inn. One night's rest will restore you to full HP, full Healing Surges, and cured of all non-permanent afflictions, except for diseases.
- All this is in the name of keeping the game focused on the "fun stuff", because nobody likes having their hero spend 4 months in traction.
- Averted hard in the old World Of Darkness, at least for mortals. You get dropped to Incapacitated from Lethal damage, you're in a coma for six months and it'll be another six 'til you can walk properly again. If you live. Played straight for many of the supernaturals, and is an actual stated ability of the Defender type of Hunter (by the name Rejuvenation).
- In GURPS the Advantage Very Rapid Healing not only does exactly what it says on the tin but allows total recovery from essentially anything but death or having a limb removed.
Video Games
- In Metal Gear Solid 3, Snake receives a broken arm in the animated intro sequence and has to be airlifted to hospital, but is back in the field two weeks later. During the game, Snake can set broken bones and sew up injuries without any problems.
- As a bit of a subversion, it's implied that only Snake can do this, because of his special configuration of "soldier genes" — sort of like having Hollywood Healing as a semi-superpower.
- Also lampshaded with game mechanics: during the "prologue" mission, Snake's stamina reduces very slowly; it's possible to finish the whole thing with three-quarters stamina. After he gets his terrible wounds and is reinserted a week later, his stamina drains much faster. In addition, Para-Medic will remark that because he is not fully healed (or even partially healed) he really shouldn't be in the field, and his performance (stamina) will suffer for it.
- And averted with losing his eye and gaining a scar to match it. But of course, this is a prequel, and he had the scar and eyepatch in the first Metal Gear.
- Averted in the fourth game when Snake's face is burned in a cutscene, it stays that way the rest of the game.
- Particularly noticeable in both God of War games: Kratos gets stabbed, cut and slammed into walls numerous times, and he bleeds, but he never seems to sustain an injury for very long. Hell, he managed to fight Zeus after being stabbed in the gut with a giant sword! There is a reason for this, however: he's Zeus' son. Being a demigod helps with this sort of thing.
- Not to mention he literally climbs out of Hades through sheer determination and anger.
- Subverted in Devil May Cry with resident Badass Normal Lady, who gained scars in the backstory that are still visible, plus the ones she gains in the third game are still present in future installments. Dante gets off due to his Healing Factor.
Webcomics
- Subverted in Johnny Saturn. When he was shown with no shirt on, he is horribly scarred with cuts, bullet wounds, and burns. He is also addicted to pain killers just so he can fight. In fact, one of his spinal disks is herniated, so he needs morphine just to move.
- In addition to the quote at top, VG Cats subverts this big time in this strip.
Western Animation
- Avatar The Last Airbender averts this late in the first season, with antagonist Prince Zuko (who already has a villain scar) barely escaping an explosion with bruising and cuts on his face. These injuries do not vanish for several episodes — until the beginning of the next season, in fact.
- The Joker in Batman The Animated Series consistently loses teeth when he's punched. They all grow back. Then again, those are very white teeth. They could be fakes.
- Earlier portrayals show diseased yellow teeth. On the other hand, those could also be fakes...
- Considering it's the Joker who, despite little training on the matter, can make a variety of chemical and mechanical devices of high complexity, he may very well have no teeth at all and just replaces them with other people's teeth (or whatever).
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For video game examples, compare with Heal Thyself and Walk It Off. Contrast Healing Factor, Healing Hands, where this level is justified.
