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Scars are Forever

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Top: Zuko, age 16. Bottom: Zuko, age 87. Thank his dad.

"When does the scar heal?"
"The scar never heals. It's like a medal that nobody can take from you."
"Why does the scar not heal?"
"Because it's a scar, you can't just wash it away. It's scary, but it's a good thing, too."

In fictionland, it's easier to come Back from the Dead than it is to get rid of a scar or recover a lost limb.

While it's true that Beauty Is Never Tarnished, and it's a Good Thing You Can Heal means it's highly unlikely for serious injury to happen or leave scars in the first place, there are occasions when a character can't count on that to save them, and they get badly injured in the line of duty. These injuries can be scars, lost limbs, or losing an eye... and the wounds you would expect to see in Real Life aren't reset or retconned away.

Akin to a Traumatic Haircut, but more grisly and more permanent, the injuries serve as a constant reminder of their sacrifice or failure.

A few series have ingenious ways of keeping the character spry after these injuries. Scars always look cool regardless, and Artificial Limbs are awesome, then there's Disability Superpower, or just plain taking a level in badass because Eyepatches are cool!

A few magical series may have the Healing Hands to completely cure or regenerate these wounds, but an author set on hurting their characters can find ways to avoid removing them. A few choose to keep them, or discover the wound is cursed or is too old to heal. Losing the scar can be just as momentous as well; there are wounds that "only love can heal" and will only be healed once an epiphany is reached.

To the Pain usually does not get carried out — but when it does, count on its leaving scars. Similar to Healing Hands, Psychic Surgery never leaves scars.

Truth in Television as when a person is injured, the wounded skin attempts to pull itself back together using collagen (a protein that binds the skin cells together), but for the more severe cases (deep cuts, third-degree burns, etc), the body goes in emergency mode and tends to leave an effective, but very messy and haphazardly done structure — that is the scar. Most if not all scars really are permanent — some are just more visible than others. Real scars will often fade over time, though, so having a scar completely unchanged even decades later is less likely.

See also Death by Origin Story, Every Scar Has a Story, Scar Survey, A Scar to Remember.

Often Achey Scars. Sometimes, too, an indication that the character will suffer Death by Disfigurement, especially if female or Bishōnen. If they are Playing with Fire, chances are likely they'll have some Burn Scars, Burning Powers.


Examples:

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    Anime & Manga 
  • Kaoru from Ai Yori Aoshi has a forest of incredibly nasty scars on his back. We do get to see where they came from, however: his horribly abusive grandfather is to blame.
  • Attack on Titan: Mikasa gets a cut under her right eye when Eren first tries to use his Titan form, goes berserk, and attacks her. She plays off the injury, a sign that her devotion towards him never goes away. Even after years pass and peace has come, Mikasa still has the scar in the final pages.
  • Baccano!:
    • Nice Holystone's body is covered with horrible scars. It's later revealed that she gained them (and lost her eye) in a childhood explosives accident.
    • Elmer is described as having a truly horrifying number of scars covering his entire body, as a result of his childhood during which he was raised in a cult that worshiped the concept of pain.
  • Beastars: Legoshi acquires a multitude of various injuries throughout the series but the prominent ones that remain through the end of the series are claw marks across his back and over his right eye. In a follow-up, sister series Beast Complex reveals that scars inflicted by carnivore fangs and claws don't ever heal.
  • Berserk:
    • Guts loses his right eye and his left arm below the elbow to the demons during the Eclipse. He has his missing appendage replaced with a cool metal one that doubles a repeating crossbow and cannon, but nothing can be done about the eye. He's also got the Brand of Sacrifice on his neck which acts as a lightning rod for more demons, and since the brand is a curse inflicted by the God Hand it seems impossible to remove, even by magic. Casca, his Love Interest, has the same brand on her left breast, and because she became a child-like mute with none of her old memories after the severe traumas she suffered during the Eclipse, it's even more problematic for her.
    • As the story goes on, Guts acquires more and more scars on his face and body. The manga is remarkably consistent about keeping them around. His first and most distinctive scar is the one across his nose, given to him by Gambino while he was training Guts as a child.
      • After his repeated use of the Berserker Armor (Which keeps broken bones together by piercing his flesh with spikes), nearly every inch of his body is covered with scars, or at least wounds that aren't likely to heal soon. It also gives him a streak in his hair.
      • After his fight with the Kushan Emperor, he's covered in large burns on top of everything else. However, his burn scars are magically washed away when Griffith fuses the planes of existence.
  • While the titular doctor of Black Jack has demonstrated that A.) he is a master of Magic Plastic Surgery and B.) he is skilled enough to perform surgery on himself, he has never bothered to do anything about the massive number of scars that cover his own body. Granted, the worst of them (the discolored skin graft on his face) does have sentimental value (it comes from a dark-skinned friend of his is who donated his skin to him after his death), but you have to wonder about the others.
  • Black Lagoon: Balalaika's face was badly burned during the Afghan War. Her enemies call her Fry Face (but they do so at their peril).
  • In Blade of the Immortal, Manji has two scars horizontally across his forehead and cheeks/nose, and a third going vertically through his right eye that he received shortly before he became immortal.
  • In Bleach:
    • Grimmjow intentionally employs this trope, preventing Orihime from healing the nasty chest scar he got from Ichigo during their second fight. He also kept the collarbone scar that Nnoitra gave him when he attacked him from behind.
    • Ikkaku's scar from his fight with Ichigo doesn't seem to have healed.
    • Kenpachi's scars from his fight with Nnoitra are still there. The scar over his eye is from his childhood and aches whenever he sees the person who gave it to him.
    • Unohana has a large scar between her breasts that Kenpachi gave her when she gave him the scar over his eye. She too notes it aches in his presence.
    • Yamamoto and Mayuri's bodies are littered with scars.
    • Hisagi has claw marks on his face he got from a hollow when he was still a rookie.
  • Buso Renkin: Tokiko got the long scar across her nose from a homunculus attack when she was a child. Captain Bravo has said that it could have been healed with the power of alchemy, but she wanted to keep it to signify her birth as a warrior, and as a reminder of her hatred of homunculi.
  • Case Closed:
    • Inspector Megure has a scar under his hat and his wife Midori has one on her forehead; both came from an incident many years ago, when both were run over by a Serial Killer.
    • Heiji has a scar on the back of his hand where his childhood friend/love interest Kazuha stabbed him with an arrow when they were hanging off a cliff, in a desperate attempt to make him let go of her hand... so as to make it more likely he'd make it to the top without the extra weight. He still held on, and they both lived to tell.
    • Gin has a scar on his left cheek which he got when Akai grazed Gin's face with a sniper bullet in Episode 425.
  • Both Emeraldas and Captain Harlock have iconic Dueling Scars that are so much part of their respective characters that removing them, despite access to all the advanced medical tech of the Leijiverse, is out of the question.
  • Claudine: Rosemarie's scarred face "ruined her for marriage", so she sees herself as unfit for any suitor.
  • Although they have the ability to heal and even regenerate lost limbs, Claymores have some notable examples. Universal to all is the fact that they have a massive, hideous scar on the abdomen after going through the process of having yoma flesh implanted into them. Individually speaking, Irene/Illena never regenerated her lost arm after confronting Priscilla, Raphaela, much like Chichiri from Fushigi Yuugi has a massive scar over her left eye after her awakened sister, Luciela, clawed it, Galatea likewise has an ugly scar across her eyes, which she inflicted upon herself after the Northern Campaign and which cannot be healed anymore due to age, and Miria has gotten a crossed-shaped scar that covers nearly her entire face after her botched first assault of the Organization HQ.
  • C.C. from Code Geass has a Healing Factor that undoes any damage in a matter of minutes; the only exception being a Geass sigil-shaped scar beneath and partly on her left breast, which never heals. Eventually, Lelouch (and the viewer) learn that she got it when the nun who raised her back in the Middle Ages/Rennaissance forced the Code onto her, making her immortal.
  • Jeremy from A Cruel God Reigns has scars covering his back from being whipped by his step-father during sexual assault. As the series progresses, the scars do not fade and Jeremy refuses to remove his shirt when he is working as a prostitute, changing clothes in front of others, and swimming. He even refuses to let Ian see his back despite the fact that Ian knows that the scars are there.
  • In Cynthia the Mission the fights play out with deadly realism, and many characters bare not-so-sexy scars on their necks or chests, especially since a certain killer enjoyed cutting such areas.
  • Karasawa in Daily Lives of High School Boys is covered with scars (most prominently on the forehead which he wears a baseball cap to cover), courtesy of Habara eight years ago.
  • Mello from Death Note gets burn marks on his face after blowing up his base, they seem rather permanent but he doesn't live that long after we see them anyway.
  • The anime version of Devil Survivor 2 has Yamato receive some scares in the final episode. Strangely enough, when the world is regressed to before the Septentriones attack it, he still has them, despite it not making any sense.
  • Allen in D.Gray-Man has a cursed scar across his left eye, and later a huge scar across his chest from impaling himself on his own BFS. (It Makes Sense in Context, we swear.) And Tyki never lost the scars from Allen stabbing him. So now they match.
    • General Klaud Nine has an X-shaped scar across her face.
  • Dragon Ball:
    • Tenshinhan takes a cut to the chest from Tao Pai Pai which remains for the rest of the series, even after he dies and comes back to life, which restores the hand he loses in the battle immediately previous. Goku gets a hole blown through his shoulder around the same time as Tenshinhan gets his, but that scar only stays until the Time Skip to Dragon Ball Z. Yamcha also acquires scars, but that happens during the Time Skip just before the last arc of Dragon Ball, so we never find out exactly what caused them.
    • When Broly returned 7 years later, he has a big scar on the chest where Goku delivered the punch that defeated him the last time.
    • Vegeta has scars on his body along with the one Yajirobe gave him with a sword slash.
  • In Dr. STONE, the people who were petrified and restored tend to have some scarring on their bodies from where the stone cracked, most prominently protagonist Senku having a pair of lines running over his eyes. In the third story arc all of the heroes except Senku get re-petrified by one of the "Medusa" devices and restored a second time, which reveals that the first restoration was flawed due to surface erosion, whereas the proper restoration process includes the stone actually turning back into flesh. As a result, the characters' scars are healed, though soon after they decide to put them back on via "war paint", swearing to keep it on until the day they restore all of humanity.
  • Banba of Eyeshield 21 got tons of scars after some sort of mysterious training. Many chapters later, while mentoring Kurita, we find out that his training was boxing, learning how to absorb attacks.
  • Kenshiro from Fist of the North Star is best known as the "Man with Seven Scars," due to the stab wounds on his chest in the pattern of the Big Dipper given to him by Shin, the one who defeated him and stole his love Yuria away. Unlike most examples, these scars are crucial to the plot: because so many people are able to recognize him from his scars (to the point where they nickname him "the Man with Seven Scars"), Jagi and Bat replicate them to masquerade as him. Jagi does this so he can ruin Kenshiro's reputation, while Bat does it to protect Kenshiro from Bolge in the final arc of the manga.
  • One of Fullmetal Alchemist's major plot points centers on the main characters trying to reverse this trope, as Ed lost an arm and a leg, and Alphonse his whole body, and both of them have devoted their lives to getting them back.
    • In Chapter 107, Ed's arm is restored when Al sacrifices himself in exchange. However, Edward still has the scars where his automail used to be connected to flesh. Later, Ed has a chance to also get his leg back, but he decides against it, feeling that he needs a constant reminder of his journey and, most importantly, the consequences of his actions.
    • And the character Scar, who is named for (obviously) the large scar in the middle of his forehead, received at the same time as his Red Right Hand during the Ishbalan Massacre. He's also still got a scar on his arm from when his brother's arm was grafted on to replace his own blown-off one.
    • Not to mention Riza Hawkeye, who has the scars of when Mustang, at her request, burned off the tattoo on her back that holding the secrets of flame alchemy; Jean Havoc, who was stabbed through the spine by Lust, and became paraplegic; and Lan Fan, who cut off her own injured arm to throw Wrath off of her trail, and was forced to get automail as a result.
    • Subverted in the case of Roy Mustang. To be able to fight Lust after she destroys his gloves he carves an alchemical circle in the back of his hand. This creates wounds that are visible for some time, but eventually heal.
    • Scars in general, and their permanency, are a significant motif throughout the story; characters' scars are a device continuously used to demonstrate their sacrifices, mistakes, and losses, and Rule of Symbolism means they can never be left behind, for the sake of the theme — that all things come at a price.
  • Oh, boy, is this trope followed in Full Metal Panic! — most notably with Gauron. Almost every fight he has with Sousuke ends with him receiving a new scar — to the point where his final scars and wounds leave him limbless and with only one eye. Sousuke also has a cross-shaped scar on his chin that is permanent, though it's never explained. He also has some more on his body. Not quite as noticeable in the anime, since he rarely takes his shirt off.
  • Chichiri in Fushigi Yuugi has a massive scar where his left eye used to be. He has the magic power to get rid of it permanently, but chooses not to as a form of penance for his greatest failure. Instead, he covers his face with a permanently smiling mask.
  • In Future Diary, Uryuu Minene takes a dart to one of her eyes during her introduction, and later the same eye is yanked out by the 12th diary holder. This leads to her wearing an Eyepatch of Power for the rest of the series.
  • Gundam's Char Aznable got a small scar across his forehead from the Sword Fight he had with protagonist Amuro at the end of Mobile Suit Gundam. It sticks with him through all his future appearances in the franchise. Prince Dozle Zabi has multiple facial scars (and probably scars all over the rest of his body) from a car bomb attack 11 years before the start of the series that also killed his younger brother Sasro.
  • Throughout G Gundam, Domon has a cross scar on his right cheek. It is never explained, though it`s likely that he got it during his training with Master Asia.
  • Gundam 00 generally avoids this: cellular regeneration technology allows for near-perfect healing of most injuries. However, Louise cannot regenerate her right hand after it's blown off by a Gundam Throne attack, because the Thrones' weapons use toxic GN particles that interfere with the regeneration treatments. She gets a prosthetic instead, which doesn't seamlessly integrate with her arm. This is undone at the end of Season 2 as the Trans-Am Burst healed Louise's physical damage, allowing her hand to be regrown.
    • In the Season 1 finale, Graham Aker is piloting a mobile suit using the same type of toxic GN reactor as the Thrones. When he and Gundam Exia pilot Setsuna F. Seiei take each other down, the explosion of his reactor leaves Graham with major scarring on the left side of his chest and face, which similarly can't be removed. In Season 2, he covers his scarred face with a mask, but as of The Movie he no longer hides them.
  • In Gundam Build Divers, when Riku converts the Gundam 00 Diver Ace into the Gundam 00 Sky, he retains the scar on the Gunpla's chest, covering it with a special cockpit. It serves as a reminder of his past battles.
  • Gungrave: in both anime and games, regardless of Grave's powerful Healing Factor, neither the scars from his mortal life nor his lost eye regenerated themselves after death.
  • In the Gunsmith Cats manga, Goldie gets two scars after being shot by Rally — first on her hand, then on her cheek.
  • The Heart of Thomas: young prefect Juli has a burn mark below his clavicle from a traumatic assault by upperclassmen involving a lit cigarette. He's terrified of anyone else seeing the burn since to him it's a Mark of Shame.
  • Father Anderson of Hellsing has one on his left cheek of unknown origin. It's possible that he got it before gaining his healing factor.
    • Also, Ceras Victoria, when she became a full-blooded vampire. Just before she had been beaten to hell, had her eyes slashed, and her left arm cut off. When she finally drains Pip's blood as he's already dying, her other injuries are healed, including her eyes, but her left arm is still gone... Replaced by a shapeshifting limb/wing/tentacle of raw dark energy. Which looks exactly like the Eldritch Abomination material that Alucard becomes when releasing his limiter seals enough...
  • In the original version of Hetalia: Axis Powers, the declining Ancient Rome becomes an old man with numerous scars from his many battles, which leads to his "grandson" Italy's reluctance to fight.
  • Colin has a scar covering half his face in Highlander: The Search for Vengeance. Like the Kurgan, his scar stays because it results from potentially lethal head trauma.
  • Inuyasha:
    • Sango has a big scar on her back where her possessed brother Kohaku stabbed her with a scythe and almost killed her.
    • Naraku also sports a large spider-shaped scar on his back. He inherited this scar from his mortal coil and cannot rid himself of it no matter what he does. Even puppet incarnations of himself that he creates have the scar displayed across their backs.
  • President Valentine, the Big Bad of Jo Jos Bizarre Adventure Steel Ball Run, has an American flag scar on his back, received when he was a soldier.
  • Kasane's title character gets her right cheek cut by a knife when fighting with Ichika, the first girl she steals her face from − before said girl falls to her death. The sewn scar stays on her face even in adulthood, like a constant reminder of what she has done.
  • In Kill la Kill, when Sanegeyama sews his eyes shut, he gains star-shaped scars over them, which he later covers with a blindfold. Similarly, Raygo Kiryuin has star-shaped scars all over her back.
  • Some case arcs in The Kindaichi Case Files have at least one participant among the group who had gone through some plot-relevant incident in the past, which would leave facial deformity that has persisted right up to the present time and justify them covering (part of) their own face.
  • Kuroneko Guardian: A character has a scar due to a burglar slashing her 4 years ago when she was in high school.
  • Seems like the Healing Hands in Lyrical Nanoha has a limit on what it can repair. Cinque's eyepatch covers an eye she lost back when she fought and killed an over S-Rank Mage. Meanwhile, the body of Commander Waltz, Subaru's commanding officer in the Disaster Rescue division, is covered with burn scars he got when he pushed himself too hard during the airport fire incident, an act that made him known as a hero but injured him enough to be retired from front-line duties.
    • In the original series, Nanoha's father Shirou, when seen in the bath, is covered with scars. They were received during one incident he had at his old job that resulted in him being hospitalized for a long time. Presumably, this incident was the same one that killed his counterpart in Triangle Heart 3: Sweet Songs Forever, so this Shirou got off lucky.
  • Medaka Box's resident pervert Kurokami Maguro hides many scars under his shirt which he keeps as a reminder of his past errors and as a symbol of his returning to the good side. Kumagawa healed them... because he's such a monster.
  • In Mobile Suit Gundam SEED, Yzak gets a rather nasty scar fighting against Kira and swears to keep it until he defeats the Strike Gundam. By the time of the sequel he's gotten over his grudge, made peace with Kira, and had the damage surgically repaired.
  • Monster Rancher: Tiger of the Wind has a scar cutting across his face from when he first encountered Moo. He retained this scar even after being sealed into a Mystery Disc and reborn early in the third season.
  • In Mother Keeper, Zelik lost his eye, ear, and arm on right side when he was mistaken from a rat, he has scars from chemical burns down the right side of his face, shoulder, and what remained of his arm from the same incident.
  • My Hero Academia:
    • After using One For All repeatedly on his already broken right hand, Midoriya winds up mutilating his arm to the point where, even after being receiving surgery with Healing Hands, the scars on his right hand could not be healed.
    • Todoroki received his signature burn scar about 10 years prior to the beginning of the story, and it still hasn't healed.
    • All Might has a horrific scar left by All For One that covers half of his torso, and no amount of Healing Hands can restore it to a healthy state.
    • Aizawa gains one placed under his right eye after the fight with the Nomu at the USJ.
  • My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom!:
    • Prince Gerald proposed an engagement to duchess Katarina Claes when they were both children after he was somewhat involved in her accidentally scarring her forehead, which can interfere greatly in the marriages of nobility. By the time they're both ready to enter magic high school, though, the scar has long faded despite the worries of people around them. When the setting was just a game, Katarina forced him to stay engaged because she was a shallow spoiled bitch and he went along with it to deter other suitors while in the 'real world' version Katarina wants out of the engagement but Gerald is in love with her and pretends the scar is still there so that the engagement isn't canceled.
    • Anne received burn scars in a fire when she was fifteen (the location and severity of which differ depending on the adaptation), after which she was kicked out of her house because the scar would make her useless for a political marriage. Eight years later she's bonded with Katarina only for her father to return proposing a marriage to an ugly and abusive old count because it's the most use he can wring out of her for being 'damaged goods.' However, Katarina interferes before she's forced to go through with it.
  • Naruto:
    • Sensei Iruka has a horizontal scar that crosses over his nose to just under the eyes. It's never explained and due to a flashback, we know he got it before he was about 10-years-old.
    • Kakashi got a scar during his first mission as a jounin and he lost one of his eyes.
    • Also, Gaara and his love shaped scar.
    • Obito/Tobi got his own scars during the same mission Kakashi got his. In his case, the boulders crushing half his body left permanent imprints on that half even after Madara used White Zetsu parts to replace the pieces too far gone to be saved. Especially noticeable on his face, where the spiral-shaped scar tissue heavily resembles wrinkles.
    • There is also Boruto. Who was shown with a vertical scar over his right eye in the flashfoward at the start of his story, it was later revealed that he gained it when protecting Sarada from Kawaki.
      • Boruto also has a more unusual example, after Momoshiki takes over Boruto again, he and Kawaki resort to their final plan to prevent it from happening ever again, but Momoshiki would then use the power of the karma to save Boruto's life, thus leaving a permanent mark over his chest.
  • Negima! Magister Negi Magi: Negi refuses to have a scar on his arm he received in a fight with a temporary backup image of his father healed, preferring to keep it as a memento.
    • He also didn't heal the scar Setsuna gave him on his face, keeping it as a reminder to not get so caught up in the thoughts of his father that he forgets his students.
      • However, the scar was shed off during the battle against Cosmo Entelecheia. His other ones may or may not have been removed at the same time.
    • Ako Izumi has a large scar across her back that is a source of much Angst. It's implied that it comes from an accident that she was involved in as a kid.
    • Konoka's father has several scars on his upper body, presumably from his Ala Rubra days.
    • Also Jack Rakan has a scar across the bridge of his nose, and scars from when he lost his arms to Lifemaker's attack.
  • Misato has one across her abdomen in Neon Genesis Evangelion as a permanent reminder of the Second Impact. She was the Sole Survivor of an expedition to the South Pole that was caught in the middle of the Impact itself.
    • The scars on Gendo's hands, which he got from getting Rei out of her EVA after a failed test — without any protecting gloves.
  • In Oishii Kankei, Miki has her back covered in scars from the earthquake. She uses them as a reminder to not become soft, as she believes her parents' death during the earthquake was her fault.
  • One Piece, though notorious for its Hollywood Healing, has a couple of examples of this.
    • Luffy himself has a semi-circular scar under an eye that never vanished. He cut it himself as a kid to prove to Shanks how hardcore he was. During the Battle of Marineford Luffy gets another, large X-shaped scar on his chest, delivered by Akainu while he was catatonic over the death of his older brother Ace.
    • Speaking of Shanks, he has three scars across his right eye (although the eye itself is fine. He eventually reveals that the scar was given to him by Blackbeard at some point in the past.
    • Zoro's first one is a huge diagonal scar that takes up his whole chest, from being all but cut in half, and always reminds him of his reason to fight (to defeat the man who gave it to him). The second (and third) are two matching scars around his ankles from when he tried to cut his own feet off. Oddly enough, they have absolutely no sentimental significance and haven't even been mentioned since they happened. After the Time Skip, Zoro has another scar down his left eye.
    • Nami's backstory shows that she was kidnapped as a child after Arlong shot her adoptive mother Bell-mère. Nami's Parental Substitute Genzo tried to save her but got slashed all across his body and face by Kuroobi as a result. In the present day, he still has those scars.
    • Crocodile has stitches that look as though his entire upper face was nearly cut off, and Epileptic Trees say it will play some more important soon. Fans occasionally joke that his nose itched and he scratched with the wrong hand.
    • Spandam wears a Mankind-esque mask to hide the facial scars he received from Franky eight years prior to the start of the series, after the latter pistol-whipped him in retaliation for framing him, Iceburg, and Tom for the attack on Water 7.
    • When he was 13 years old, Rob Lucci received five cannon shots in his back during a mission. Not only did he shrug it off, the resulting scar became shaped like the flag of the World Government.
    • Brook is noteworthy for having a large scar on his forehead that's still present after his death and resurrection as a skeleton, in the form of a visible skull fracture underneath where scarred flesh used to be.
    • There's also Aokiji, who got some pretty nasty burn scars from his duel with Akainu over the Time Skip.
    • Notably defied with the Sun Pirates' Slave Brand. Their captain Fisher Tiger branded himself and each member of his crew (as well as Koala) with a sun mark, masking the Slave Brand and making it impossible to tell which members were slaves and which were not.
    • Kaido is widely acknowledged to be the World's Strongest Creature, said to never lose a one-on-one fight. And yet, in the same introduction that details just how dreaded he is, he's shown to bear a massive cross-shaped scar in his abdomen — the only scar in his entire body. It's eventually revealed that he was given that scar 20 years ago in Wano Country by Kozuki Oden, who singlehandedly came the closest to killing Kaido. During the Onigashima Raid, Zoro pours everything he's got in a single attack that manages to leave a new scar diagonally across Kaido's chest, a feat that he considers impressive.
    • Saint Jaygarcia Saturn of the Five Elders bears a large scar on the left side of his face. While the Egghead arc shows that he possesses a very powerful Healing Factor, the fact that he still bears a scar proves that he is not invincible.
  • Penguindrum: In the final episode has Himari and Ringo gain a scar and a burn respectively. The reason for this is to provide evidence that Kanba and Shouma existed in their lives despite them disappearing, as Kanba became glass and cut Himari while Shouma became flames that were engulfing Ringo. Both were sacrifices to save their respective love interests.
    • Another example is Tabuki, who at one point we see with scarred fingers. Episode 18 reveals that he deliberately injured his own fingers in a misguided attempt to win the affection of his psychologically-abusive mother. It didn't work.
  • Pokémon Adventures: Ruby has a rather nasty one hidden underneath his hat that he received by protecting Sapphire when they were children. Seriously, seeing a little boy get his head slashed at and the same boy smiling with blood running down his head, saying "Look, I chased away the Salamence!" is something I really don't have words for. Of course, that scar is what makes Sapphire realize he's the same boy she met as a child.
  • Ashitaka from Princess Mononoke keeps a tiny scratch under his eye by the end of the movie, since his previous injuries (which included a musket shot to the shoulder) had occurred while he was still Cursed with Awesome, but the scratch occurs after it's been lifted.
  • Randel from Pumpkin Scissors has scars all over if you get a chance to look at him one is most evident across his nose bridge and his cheeks.
  • Lucia and Gale Glory in Rave Master both received scars about ten years before the story began. Gale's seemed to have been there more to make him look more badass, as it received no real attention even after we saw how he got it. Lucia's came from being grazed by three of god knows how many bullets were fired at him, and are used more to clue the readers in to who he is before they actually reveal his identity.
  • Xanxus from Reborn! (2004) has a bunch of burn scars inflicted by the 9th, including a huge cross-shaped one across his whole face. The thing is, they remain hidden most of the time, and only show when his anger reaches its apex. Nevertheless, they are permanent.
  • In Rosario + Vampire, Tsukune is shown in the shower with all the scars he got from attempting to protect Moka.
  • Rurouni Kenshin has a part where they talk about how supposedly scars that have strong emotions associated with them linger longer, and as a result, Kenshin's cross-scar sticks around until he reaches emotional resolution near the end of the story, and the future scenes mention how it's finally fading.
  • In Saint Seiya manga and Hades OVAs, Shiryu was rendered blind permanently. Ikki also keeps a scar on his face from his training in Death Queen Island. Contrast that with the anime, where Shiryu's blindness seems to be as easily reversed as a slight scratch in your skin.
  • Despite having received Immortality with an extensive Healing Factor, Ban from The Seven Deadly Sins received a large scar from Meliodas when he tried to take the latter's sword. The scar hasn't healed since then.
  • In Soul Eater Soul suffers a massive scar after Chrona cleaves his entire torso open when he tries to protect his meister Maka in their first fight against the swords...man...woman...person?. It retains some plot relevance since it allowed the black blood into his body.
    • Black Star gained a permanent, significantly-placed scar during his fight with Mifune. It cuts across the star tattoo on his shoulder and could have been removed by Kim's magic but he decided to leave it as it was. It could be seen as an image of how his new resolve about the Nakatsukasa Purpose has allowed Black Star to turn from the path of the Kishin, which his clan fell to and eventually destroyed them (well, figuratively speaking. Technically, Shibusen was responsible).
    • Stein has scars all over him, as he experiments on himself when he can find no suitable test subjects.
  • Lawrence of Spice and Wolf has one on his left cheek, although it is not visible all the time. He got it from a sword in Season 1 of the anime and it gets later shown in a closeup in Season 2. It also reopens when he is punched on it later on. It is just a few weeks old at most, mind you.
  • Sunday Without God has the gravekeeper Scar, who has a small scar over her right eyebrow. It's never revealed how she got it, but it's important to her, as while gravekeepers usually have no names, she's quite insistent others call her Scar, and it would set her apart from her identical gravekeeper "siblings."
  • Shizue Izawa from That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime has burn scars that magic can't heal because merging with a demon stabilized her body to its current state.
  • The sixteenth episode of Tiger & Bunny reveals that Yuri Petrov has a large burn scar in the shape of his father's hand on his face, which he usually keeps hidden with makeup.
  • Toriko: Exaggerated with Zaus' knife technique that cuts an opponent down to a genetic level. Not only will his opponent be left with a scar that they'll have for the rest of their life, that scar will get passed down to their descendants for the next few generations.
  • Trigun: Vash has an absolutely ridiculous number of scars covering his body, as well as a missing arm and a gash in his chest so deep that metal bars had to be put over it to protect it from further injury. The only one that we actually see happen, however, is the loss of his arm. His signature red Badass Longcoat hides all of these wounds, making them even more shocking and horrifying the first time they are shown.
    • It's actually an Enforced Trope; it's noted that Vash could easily heal up all these scars, but consciously chooses not to do so, considering them his price for being a pacifist in a gunslinger world.
  • Dilandau of The Vision of Escaflowne gets his scar not long after he's introduced in the series, and said scar becomes his trademark. Strangely, it disappears completely from his face at the end of the series when he reverts to Celena Schezar, Allen's sister and his original self.
  • In ×××HOLiC, Himawari gets a bunch of scars across her back when she decides to take Watanuki's scar wounds for him after he fell out of a window and onto a bunch of broken glass. Watanuki's heterochromia also count, considering that he got it to try saving Doumeki's eyesight from a curse.
  • Kija in Yona of the Dawn has dragon claw marks down his back from when his father, the previous Hakuryuu, slashed him in a moment of uncontrolled fury at the idea that his son would replace him as Hakuryuu. In a subversion, Kija does not view his scars as a sign of shame or hold any animosity toward his father because of them. As someone who dedicated his entire life and soul to being Hakuryuu, Kija understands what his father must have felt at the time. He isn't ashamed of his scars at all, but doesn't like people to see them because he doesn't like the pity they express when they see them.
  • Yu-Gi-Oh!: It's the duty of the Ishtar clan to carry the hieroglyphs of the Memory Tablet as scars on their back. It's a painful ritual that caused Malik to create his Superpowered Evil Side. To pay his sin for not taking Malik's place in that ritual, Rishid scarred his face with hieroglyphs to vow his loyalty to the Ishtar clan. In the dub, their scars are censored as "tattoos".

    Asian Animation 
  • In Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf, Wolffy has a prominent Rugged Scar on his face as the result of another character knifing him. The show has been running for well over 2,000 episodes by now and that scar still hasn't disappeared.

    Comic Books 
  • 2000 AD:
    • Tharg's Future Shocks: An old man tells someone that he used to be the most famous gladiator in the galaxy before he was finally defeated by another champion, who left a visible scar on his face. He then had his scar removed and his memory sold off to a company so people can experience his life. The man he was talking to turns out to have a huge scar over his head, as a true gladiator would never remove it.
    • Age of the Wolf: Rowan Morrigan is clawed by a werewolf on her face, though they make her look pretty cute. She retains the scars for the rest of her life.
  • Played with in the Batman graphic novel The Dark Knight Returns. A now-retired Bruce Wayne pays for the plastic surgery to fix the ruined half of Harvey Dent’s face, leaving him symmetrical and handsome again (albeit bald). However, he vanishes almost immediately after his first unscarred public appearance and soon resurfaces as a criminal with his entire head bandaged. Bruce fears Harvey has self-harmed to restore the scars and suits up as Batman again to confront and help him, but it turns out Harvey remains good-looking and unscarred, yet absolutely convinced that the doctors destroyed the good side of his face as well, deforming his whole head, and that the entire world was mocking him for it.
  • Deadpool has a healing factor which is directly responsible for his scars; it prevents him from dying of his terminal cancer, but also supercharged aforementioned cancer, making the skin all over his body kind of melty and gross. Subverted as the scars are in constant flux, healing, and getting cancerrific and healing again.
  • Doctor Doom:
    • Doom received third-degree or chemical burns to the face in an ill-fated experiment in college and later made it worse by putting on a steel mask while it was still red-hot. Why he keeps the scars is known only to him, maybe as a reminder that even he isn't perfect. It isn't for lack of restorative means; he once healed the severe burns on Storm's arm and restored nerve and muscle function after she was burned by the Human Torch, so he has the technology lying around. After decades of the scars not being seen, Secret Wars (2015) finally revealed Doom's scars... and his face is scarred and he's missing a big chunk of his nose. While these scars were healed by Reed Richards at the end of the story and Doom got a new lease on life as a hero for a few years thanks to Reeds kindness, when his plans go awry, the Hood re-scars him with his demonic powers out of spite. These new scars have not been seen in their entirety since, essentially "resetting" Doom's scar status.
    • Jack Kirby drew Doom without his mask once as he interpreted the character. Doom's scars were non-existent, except for a single light scar on his cheek. The King thought Doom was so vain that such a little scar was enough to make Doom hide his face forever.
      • John Byrne's interpretation of Doom was that there was initially only a minor scar, but Doom's ego blew that minor flaw into him being outright ugly and demand that a group of monks create a mask for him to wear to cover it. When he put the mask on before it was properly coolled, he was left with blatantly disfiguring injuries, reflecting how Doom's own ego is his greatest enemy.
    • Ultimate Doctor Doom zig-zags it. He can heal any wound or disfigurement inflicted by anything except his own spiky projectiles. An injury from one of them won't heal and scars him permanently.
    • In the sequel to Earth X, Universe X, the Human Torch is able to convince Doctor Doom that they are both dead by ripping off his mask, melting it into a smooth, reflective surface, and showing Doom that his facial scars are completely healed.
    • Scott Lang claimed that Doom can't help but scar his face again and again no matter how often he fixes it with cosmic powers because it lets Doom pretend that people hate him because he looks like a monster. Doom can't face the real reason: people hate him not because of the scar tissue on his face, but because of the scar tissue on his soul.
  • ElfQuest:
    • At the end of the first series Kahvi hits Cutter with her gauntleted fist in order to prove a point. Although Leetah could heal the scar, Cutter decides to keep it to remind him of the lesson.
    • Sun-Toucher, Leetah's father, has gone blind after looking at the sun too long too often but refuses to let his daughter restore his sight because he's quite comfortable getting by on his remaining senses. A more straightforward example of the trope is the Wolfrider One-Eye, who in the backstory lost an eye (duh) to an injury the tribe's former healer couldn't fully mend. And it's an attack coming from his blind side that kills him later in the series.
  • Fantastic Four: One storyline featured Reed Richards suffering serious burns on one side of his face when Doom grabbed at Reed with a red-hot gauntlet as Doom was being taken to Hell. The extensive nerve damage prevented Reed fixing the damage himself, and his plastic structure meant that traditional surgery wasn't an option. His face was only healed by a literal Deus ex machina; he paid a brief visit to God- represented as an illustrator- who literally rubbed out the scar and restored Reed to normal.
  • During Fear Itself, Captain America's Mighty Shield is shattered by the Serpent near the beginning of the story. After the end, Asgardian dwarfs are able to reforge it, but he and Thor notice a seam on it. Thor suggests getting it modified, but Cap decides to leave it as it gives it character. However, artists haven't consistently drawn the shield with the scar since.
  • G.I. Joe:
    • From the Marvel G.I. Joe comics, Snake-Eyes originally wore a mask because he was really ugly without it — burn scars and so on. About halfway through the comics' run, he got reconstructive surgery and looked pretty much normal afterward, except for a scar on his lip. He kept wearing the mask, mainly because he is supposed to be a badass ninja supercommando.
    • He also immediately got a cauldron full of hot coals tossed into his face by one of the trio of torturers the Baroness had hired. As an issue all of 4-5 issues before the end of the original run showed, his face was still somewhat badly scarred, just in this case it looked more like the burns were nowhere near as severe as the original ones. Which makes sense, when we balance aviation gas from a crashing helicopter versus a bunch of hot coals...
    • IDW's G.I. Joe continuity has a unique take on this with the twins Tomax and Xamot Paoli, working a Batman Gambit with undercover agent Chuckles. When it reaches its end, they've allowed him to "discover" the truth and are taunting him about it. He tries to shoot them, and find they've replaced his bullets with blanks. He grabs Xamot and holds the gun to his head, and when Tomax laughs off the threat, pulls the trigger. The hot gasses severely burn Xamot, allowing Chuckles to make his escape. Now the scar is the only visible difference between the two brothers, and Xamot seems to be going slightly mad since it happened.
  • The scarred left half of The Goon's face, a result of an incident in his Dark and Troubled Past.
  • Grimjack: Lead character John Gaunt's father slashed Gaunt's face as a child, leaving a long vertical scar. When Gaunt reincarnates as James Twilley, his buried memories of being Gaunt compel him to slash his own face to replicate the scar.
  • Zigzagged, however, with Iron Man villain Madame Masque. She was never able to find a surgeon skilled enough to heal her face, which had been horribly scarred in a plane crash, but it was healed during the Heroic Age storyline by the Hood, using the Infinity Gauntlet. (She still wears the mask, however, to retain her nom de guerre.)
  • How the Best Hunter in the Village Met Her Death: The hunter’s scars from her first encounter with the Beast remain, as do the slashes on the husband’s face after the hunter attacked him. The hunter’s scars received in animal form from her husband’s arrows are said to “never completely heal, but they fade.”
  • Mina's scars in The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, legacy of her encounter with Dracula. Far from being the discreet little hole punches of legend, her entire neck is ravaged. She always covers them up with a scarf and — until she and Allan start their affair — believes she's now so hideous no man could want to touch her.
    • She actually still has them after being rejuvenated and made immortal. Allan keeps some scars after this as well — he theorizes that they were restored to their physical primes, with any damages incurred prior to that point left as is.
    • Averted by The Antichrist in the third book, who ended up scratching his lightning-bolt-shaped scar off.
  • Several Love and Rockets characters, especially Casimira, who lost her arm when she was accidentally shot as a child, and Khamo, who was horribly burned when he tried to save his lover Tonantzín from burning herself alive.
  • In Lucifer, Lucifer is given a scar by Mazikeen when she slashes his face open in response to him leaving Creation for good. The character in question is capable of removing the scar with a thought, but pride compels him to keep it as a memento.
  • In Marvel Comics, there's also Baron Helmut Zemo, whose face looks literally like half-molten wax due to chemical burns. He has refused several chances to heal his face, stating he prefers to keep the scars as a reminder.
  • Professor Inkwell from the My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic comics has a mad, squinting eye, at first seemingly just to add to her decrepit appearance and reference Mad Eye Moody. Later we see that it was in fact gained heroically in battle, adding new sympathetic layers to her 'crazy' appearance.
  • Nick Fury and his left eye. Sure, he could have it healed or regrown with SHIELD cloning tech, or replaced with cybornetic implants, but it would make him less awesome.
  • Konstantin Romanov in Nikolai Dante gets massive eye trauma at the end of "The Master of Kronstadt" after Nikolai's bullet picks up some of Emmanuelle's vampire flesh on its flight.
  • Preacher. "A star for Starr." And that's only the beginning...
  • Katchoo in Strangers in Paradise has Z-shaped scars on her wrists, presumably from a suicide attempt, but there is no official explanation in canon. Tambi seems to have scars everywhere except on her face, but the crisscrossing ones on her hands are the most obvious. There is a canonical explanation for her scars: she used to cut herself to while in the employ of Darcy Parker..
  • Usagi Yojimbo: Miyamoto Usagi has a scar on his forehead from a wound he took at Adachigahara, where his lord died and he became a Rōnin. Due to the art style, it gives him a permanent Fascinating Eyebrow.
  • Wonder Woman Vol 1: Imperial Japan is trying to enforce this on poor Mae Wu, a Chinese girl who was tortured by them and escaped to America where she's trying to raise money for her people and hoping to have surgery to reduce her scarring, which hides a secret code. She ends up killed when she goes to see a surgeon.
  • Jono aka Chamber from X-Men has a huge gaping hole where his chest and jaw should be after his first manifestation of his mutant powers: an explosion of telekinetic power, with Jono being one of those unfortunate mutants not immune to the destructive effects of their own abilities. Jono's also missing most of his internal organs, but fortunately his power keeps him alive. His condition was briefly undone after he got a blood transfusion from his ancestor Apocalypse (which also gave him Apocalypse's trademark grey skin, blue lips, and red eyes) but he went back to his hole-where-his-chest-should-be appearance before long.

    Fan Works 
Crossover
  • BlazBlue Alternative: Remnant (BlazBlue & RWBY): In Chapter 69, Adam slashing away at Makoto's stomach after their fight left her with a permanent scar there. Even over a month into her trip across Anima and long after the events of the Fall of Vale, it's still present, as seen during Penny's POV in Chapter 77.
  • The Bridge gives several examples of varying severity. Monster X has several scars on his face and torso he can't remember how he got, because they are from his fight with Grand King Ghidorah centuries ago; however, they are obscured by his armor. Princess Luna has a long, thin scar under her wing from her teenage years fighting Lord Tirek alongside her sister. Godzilla Junior is Covered in Scars but subverts the trope because his Healing Factor makes them virtually invisible unless he's out of energy and his factor shuts off.
  • Child of the Storm: Harry has his usual forehead scar. He also acquires a pair of pale scars from Daken temporarily killing him by stabbing him in the heart shortly before the climax. In the sequel, he gets another large scar on his shoulder, with smaller marks radiating out from it, as a result of Dracula stabbing him with his own sword and then channeling lightning through it.
  • The New Recruit (The Avengers (2012) & Chronicle): During the fight in Seattle, a cop shot off part of Matt's finger. Once he escaped, all he had to treat it with was a cheap first aid kit. He takes the loss of the finger fairly well, though, partially because his SHIELD-issue hero costume includes gloves to help him hide the finger.
  • Rabbit of the Moon (Bloodborne & Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon?): Subverted. It's pointedly noted that if not for the Old Blood, Bell would be horribly scarred by his experiences in Yharnam, marring his innocent face and unblemished skin with the claw and tooth marks of the Beasts he fights and kills.
  • Star Wars Episode I: The Familiar of Zero (The Familiar of Zero & Star Wars): Done horrifically, where it's eventually revealed Kirche keeps her hair in bangs because her father once beat her with a red hot iron then shoved her face into hot coals to keep her from bleeding on the carpet. As a result, her eye's gone and her face around it is crushed and covered in burn scars.
  • The Weaver Option (Warhammer 40,000 & Worm): Taylor uses a C'tan phase blade to repeatedly stab the Daemon Fazar'nlath'hesh, the Daemon possessing Fulgrim's body, in the face before banishing him. When he revives in the Warp, the wounds have healed but the scars remain, disrupting the Daemon's link to Fulgrim and the Emperor's Children.
  • When Harry met Wednesday (The Addams Family & Harry Potter): After Death Eaters attack the Burrow, Fleur has several scars on her face from both a dark curse and an explosion which expose some of her teeth and her left cheekbone. She spends weeks keeping her face wrapped in scarves to cover them before a misunderstood remark by Morticia has her rip them off in anger.

Final Fantasy

  • It's a common fanworks belief that Tifa Lockhart from Final Fantasy VII to have a long scar across her chest from when Sephiroth slashed her with his BFG when he flipped his shit. There's even a Dead Fantasy art of it. Actual canon didn't say one way or the other until the Remake showed her chest in better definition in her dress that she conclusively doesn't have one there. The novel Final Fantasy VII Remake: Trace of Two Pasts would finally address this saying the surgery to save her life included a skin transplant to make the scar much less noticeable. Final Fantasy VII Rebirth clarifies she does have a scar, it is much lower in her sternum.

Fusion Fic

  • My Huntsman Academia (My Hero Academia & RWBY): Mostly subverted. The healing provided by Aura protects one's body and heals them rapidly enough to prevent scarring in most cases. But those born without Aura like Izuku don't have this luxury, which is why he hasn't scarred himself permanently with One For All but still has the callouses from his training to obtain it. But in cases of severe injury, even Aura might not be able to prevent scarring. Weiss' Dueling Scar and Game-Breaking Injury are both examples of this.

Godzilla

  • Abraxas (Hrodvitnon):
    • It's revealed that Rodan has a scar in his chest where Mothra stabbed him with her stinger during the events of Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019).
    • Like in movie canon, Ni (Ghidorah's right head) has a chipped horn which doesn't ever regenerate. The Abraxas: Empty Fullness prequel chapter "Damnatio Memoriae" indicates that the horn was broken billions of years ago when Ni was still the AbraxasVerse equivalent to a Dorat, implying that the damage predates Ghidorah having its Healing Factor.

Harry Potter

  • Princess of the Blacks: Jen has a rather distinctive scar on her wrist. Even replacing her arm after it's cut off doesn't get rid of it as the new one scars over immediately; according to Priest, it's because Jen's soul is scarred, not her body.

The Hunger Games

Invader Zim

The Legend of Zelda

  • The Legend Of Zelda: The Wind Waker: Link's injuries after his final fight with Ganondorf fade just before he departs with the pirates. However, one large scar on his chest is said to remain forever from where Ganondorf cut him with a darkness-infused blade.

Masters of the Universe

  • In She-Ra and the Princesses of Power, Adora gets a full heal whenever she uses her Super Mode, meaning that her injuries usually don't persist to the end of the episode, let alone past. However, in fanart, and sometimes fanfic, it's pretty common for Adora to end up with one or more visible claw marks — back, shoulder, face, fan artists seemingly aren't picky — as a visual metaphor for the emotional pain inflicted by her messy relationship with Catra. This is, seemingly, particularly common in stuff that ships Catradora, possibly to add to the emotional weight. For a couple of examples, this fancomic (which has them in bed, so be careful where you view it) gives her long scars down her back from "The Battle of Bright Moon" that prompt Catra to have an emotional moment, while the fanfic "kiss it better" has a scar give the two of them a hard time while parenting.

Neon Genesis Evangelion

  • A Crown of Stars: Shinji and Asuka had suffered plenty of physical and emotional scars during the Angel War and the conflicts of the post-apocalyptic world and they had the scars to go along with it. They went through a medical check-up the second day they were in Avalon, and the doc was distressed by what she found. Both of them had signs of malnutrition, nerve damage in several areas, numerous signs of emotional and mental trauma, and an assortment of old injuries and scars (particularly Asuka, who still bared the marks from her fight with the MP Eva's). In addition, Asuka was still nursing a recently healed gunshot wound to the gut, while Shinji had several broken ribs, a broken arm, and a hairline skull fracture from when Winthrop and his goons nearly beat him to death 3 years ago.
  • Ghosts of Evangelion: Asuka never lost her war scars. Six years after the Final Battle she still wears them:
    Asuka pulled up her shirt, revealing the scars covering her belly. "I didn't have these before," she said.
  • HERZ: After twelve years Asuka still sports the scars inflicted by the MP-Evas. They even bleed every so often.
  • The One I Love Is...: The epilogue happens four years after the Final Battle. Asuka still sports the scars from her last battle.
  • Scar Tissue: Asuka died during her Final Battle and was reborn. However, even though her physical body is new, it carries all scars she got in her battle: marks around her left eye, a line along her right arm, a bunch of dots, and cuts crisscrossing across her thorax and abdomen. After nine months they have not faded yet.

Unsorted

  • In Golden Dawn: Lost Sunrise, point of view character Tidepaw has a scar across her forehead. Strangely, it's still just as fresh as it was when she first received it, baffling the other characters. Tidepaw tells cats from other Clans that she received it when she "lost a fight with a tree", but its origins are hinted to be much more sinister.
  • In The Fledgling Year, many of the characters acquire visible scars during their journey. Aravis points out that Cor has acquired “a monopoly on the market of roguish facial scars.” A minor plot point is also made of the scars Aravis has from her encounter with the lion in the original Canon, The Horse and His Boy.
  • In Racer and the Geek, the protagonist covers himself up for this reason.
  • In the fanfic Tails of the Old Republic, a crossover/ Fusion Fic between Sonic The Hedgehog and the videogame Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, Tails the fox is covered in scars owing to a much Darker and Edgier backstory. His body is a circuit board of old bullet wounds and lacerations, and he knows them all by "date, opponent, and serial number". To him, his scars are much like the medals pinned to a soldier's uniform. Unlike Sonic, who can perform suicidally stupid stunts and escape mostly unscathed, Tails has to work for his heroism.
  • Marina Asagi of Twilight Pretty Cure has a nasty scar on her left cheek because a woman who was raped by her father attacked her with a garden trowel in a homicidal frenzy (possibly influenced by a hallucination), thinking she was her rapist.
  • Invoked with Captain Kanril Eleya of the Star Trek Online ficVerse Bait and Switch. She has prominent scars on her left cheek and belly from knife wounds she sustained when she served in the Bajoran Militia. In the prequel From Bajor to the Black it turns out her mother wanted her to get them removed, but she keeps them around as a reminder that she isn't immortal.
    "I may have popped my cherry in the back of an armored vehicle, but I didn’t lose my innocence then. That’s what the scars mark: The first time I killed, and the first time I nearly died. The first time I looked Death in the eye. The first time he blinked.

    "Someday he won’t."
  • In Thousand Shinji, Shinji lost a finger. He could have recovered it easily, but he chose to keep his injury as a permanent reminder.
  • Quicken: Emma loses her nose permanently after a thug cuts it off. Her power can heal and regenerate anything but her nose.
  • As Gensokyo 20XXV reveals, Yukari has a scar on one of her hips in the shape of "売女", the kanji for "whore", the which she gained during imprisonment [1]. Likewise, Ran has scars she had obtained during the events of 20XXII (scalded with hot water), 20XXIII (burns from nuclear blast), and 20XXIV (attempted suicide)[2] and, apparently, she was self-conscious about them, as 20XXV mentions her trying to cover them.
  • Minor character L'le in The Keys Stand Alone: The Soft World has a horrific scar cutting across her throat; she looks like she had almost been decapitated. Though she could easily have it removed, she wears it as a reminder of the only truly bad mistake she ever made (we don't find out what), and also because it's intimidating and “part of personal myth.”
  • In Risk It All, Ren gains two distinctive scars on his forehead where Black Mask shoots him, one near his ear and another that drags along his hairline. He covers this with a hood while going out as a vigilante because they're unique enough to give away his Secret Identity.
  • Harry Potter in For Love of Magic has numerous scars that can't be healed due to their cursed nature. Such scars include runes he carved into his own skin, a burn scar on his arm from a semi-botched cast of cursed fire, and lacerations on his face from a fight with a Lich.
  • In the Naruto fanfic Sugar Plums it actually explains why shinobi, despite their violence-heavy lives, don't have many scars. Their chakra will perfectly heal wounds and leave no scar tissue provided it isn't too low when their injuries are healing. Which means when a shinobi DOES get scars it's clear evidence that not only were they hurt but also they were dangerously low on chakra when it happened so they or a medical nin wasn't present to prevent the scar tissue from forming. As such the main character Ume who has lower than average chakra is Covered with Scars.
  • In the Jackie Chan Adventures fic The Ultimate Evil, the binding ceremony Shendu has in the rewritten reality with Valerie Payne, his Other, leaves on both of their left palms a white scar. It's particularly notable in Shendu's case, for his body has never been left with scars thanks to his Healing Factor. After the reality is restored, Valerie still has her scar, for the bonding between Others cannot be reversed. In the sequel called The Stronger Evil, Shendu comes Back from the Dead, and he also has his scar in the new body he has gained.
  • The Heart Trilogy: After Smaug is saved from his canon death, the scaleless spot where the Black Arrow hits him is covered by a long and twisted black scar. The scar's present in his human form as well.
  • Due to White Diamond's attempt to "bleach" Pink in Fractures (SpaceDimentio), part of her face is covered in noticeable white scars, as well as having lost the ability to produce healing tears from one of her eyes.
  • Cinders and Ashes: the Chronicles of Kamen Rider Dante has Hoshi reveal that two battles in particular have heavily scarred his body. A series of burns on his back when his powers overloaded him and bite marks from an eldritch dog. Those scars were obtained (in-universe) months before he revealed them.
  • The Harry Potter What If? fic The Dogfather has a subversion: Harry is adopted to loving, attentive Muggle Foster Parents who take proper care of his head wound as an infant, so his signature lightning-bolt scar is almost invisible.
  • There Was Once an Avenger From Krypton:
    • As shown in Chapter 26 of The Girl Who Could Knock Out the Hulk, Doctor Doom stabbing Kara through the stomach with a Kryptonite dagger left a scar, apparently a permanent one, above her belly button and a smaller, matching one on her back.
    • After Hawk Moth stabs her, Chloe is left with a small x-shaped scar on her chest, even after Ladybug heals her. She suspects that there's a matching one on her back.
  • The Pros and Cons to living a triple life: Kairi has a scar on her back and shoulder from when Xehanort killed her in Kingdom Hearts III, which still causes agonising pain at times, thanks to a lingering remnant of the χ-blade pumping magic into her.
  • Yu-Gi-Oh: Lady of Dragons: Peter gets two circular scars on his face after taking serious damage from the card Dark Snake Syndrome in his Shadow Duel with Hasker. Because the scars were left by exposure to the Shadow Realm, they can never heal. Seskera commiserates with him later in the story, as he also has a permanent scar from the Shadow Realm - the scars on his shoulder left when he was testing a false Winged Dragon of Ra.

    Films — Animated 
  • The Lion King (1994):
    • Scar's, well, scar has remained on him since adolescence.
    • At the elephant graveyard, Simba saves Nala from the hyena Shenzi by slashing her face with his claws. She doesn't have those scars a few seconds later, however. The same goes for the slashings Mufasa gave Banzai across his butt.
  • My Little Pony: The Movie (2017): Tempest Shadow has a scar over her right eye. It's later revealed she got it as a filly at the same time as when she lost her unicorn horn, when she was attacked by an ursa minor.
  • Turning Red: Grandma Wu has a visible scar on her right eyebrow. It's later revealed that her daughter Ming was the cause of it after losing control of her panda form and attacking her. However, knowing that Ming was unable to control her transformations at that time, Wu was willing to forgive her, though Ming herself couldn't bear to forgive herself for the incident. Given how massive Ming's red panda form is, it's implied to have been caused as collateral damage from her rampages rather than something Ming did directly, otherwise the scar wouldn't be quite as small.

    Films — Live-Action 
  • In 1994 Baker Street: Sherlock Holmes Returns, James Moriarty Booth still has the scar on the back of his hand that he got breaking into holmes' lab 45 years earlier.
  • Bend It Like Beckham: Jess is reluctant to wear the shorts that are part of the football team's uniform as they'll expose the large burn scar on her thigh. The coach shows her the scar on his knee from his Career-Ending Injury to assure her it's no big deal. Her wearing the shorts outside of training sessions is used as a sign of her growing confidence
  • In Beyond Sherwood Forest, Malcolm gets a cut on a cheek from Robin's father just before he kills him. Sixteen years later, the scar is still extremely prominent. Robin gives him a matching cut on the other cheek during their final duel.
  • The kung-fu film Brothers Five have the five titular protagonists receiving a single slash on their hands during their family's massacre by their enemies, where they're somehow rescued in the last minute. In the present, all five brothers are adults in their forties, and the scars remains.
  • The Joker from The Dark Knight. It is quite uncertain how he achieved those scars because of his tendency to give a Multiple-Choice Past for them. The accounts in the film are used by the Joker as a Freudian Excuse to why he is the way he is.
  • Iris from Daylight (2013) has scar tissue covering much of her upper back. Dina de Waal drunkenly spilled boiling water on her three decades ago, when she was a baby.
  • Don't Look Back: Jeanne starts with a prominent scar on her leg from a childhood car accident, but it disappears as her transformation progresses.
  • During the filming of David Lynch's Dune, actor Jürgen Prochnow (playing Duke Leto Atreides) was hurt twice. The first time was during the torture scene, when a light bulb exploded from heat near his face, scarring his cheek. He still has that scar. During the dream sequence, a device was attached to his face for making green smoke where the baron scratched him. Despite thorough testing, he still gets first and second-degree burns from the smoke.
  • In Excalibur, Sir Lancelot's sword wound never heals, eventually resulting in his death.
  • In Face/Off, Agent Archer has a scar on his chest from where Castor shot him (and accidentally killed his son). Before the surgery to change into Castor, he tells the doctors that he wants his scar back afterwards. At the end of the movie, after finally defeating Castor, he tells them he doesn't need it anymore.
  • Some of Harrison Ford's roles provide an explanation for the scar on his chin, acquired in a car accident in Real Life. Han Solo got his in a knife fight in an Expanded Universe book; Indiana Jones cut himself the first time he used a bullwhip in the flashback at the beginning of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Working Girl'', on the other hand, claims that he fainted while trying to pierce his ear and smashed his face on a toilet.
  • The scar on the Kurgan's neck in Highlander, although this is justified — immortals only die if they're beheaded, so logically neck damage would stay.
  • In Halloween II (2009) (2009), Annie Brackett has scars on her face from Michael Myers torturing her in the preceding film.
  • In the Harry Potter films, werewolf Remus Lupin has two large scars across his face that he didn't have in the books. It's possible that he's had them since he was first attacked by Fenrir Greyback at age four, although they could have been self-inflicted during a full moon since then.
  • I'm Gonna Git You Sucka — Jack, a war veteran who was only an Army accountant, is a bit intimidated by some badass action guys he's now working with — one of them has an eyepatch, and it turns out he was a wartime accountant too. He lost his eye when the guys in the office were shooting paper clips with rubber bands.
  • Zod gets slashed down the side of his face during the Krypton prologue in Man of Steel. The resulting scar is still very much visible when he shows up on Earth.
  • In Pale Rider, the Preacher's back is observed by the milquetoast husband to be covered with numerous healed exit-wound scars, none of which should ever have healed (given the fatal nature of each original wound).
  • Sean Bean received a scar above one of his eyes while filming Patriot Gamesnote . Depending on how badass Bean's characters are supposed to be, he may have it covered up or enhanced with makeup.
  • Poor Things: The initially amnesiac Bella still retains vertical scars on her belly and neck. Toinette correctly clocks the former as a C-section scar, prompting Bella's renewed curiosity in her origins.
  • In The Princess Bride, Inigo points out his facial scars, but they're hard to notice before or after unless you're looking closely. (Played straighter in the book, where they are mentioned as a prominent feature.)
  • Daniel Craig's James Bond has what looks to be a bunch of scarring on the left side of his face throughout Quantum of Solace, apparently from the massive beatings he took in Casino Royale (2006). Considering the movies are directly related in plot and are meant to portray a realistic take on the classic spy thriller, this is a deliberate change from the disjointed "continuity" of the previous twenty films.
  • Tony Montana from Scarface (1983) has a scar across his right eye from a knife fight as a kid. So did Al Capone, upon which the character was based, hence "Scarface".
  • In Serenity (2005), Mal still has scars from being stabbed by Crow and later tortured by Niska in Firefly. (In the series, however, the scars obviously are gone by the episode "Trash".)
  • In Son of a Gun, JR has a jagged scar on his forehead that he received from his abusive father when he was a child. Natasha jokingly refers to it as something to remember him by.
  • Starship Troopers: With some exceptions, most adults in the movie have lost one or more limbs, become blind due to burn wounds, or gained some other type of permanent scarring due to their military service.
  • Star Wars:
    • There's a persistent rumor that the entire Wampa scene in The Empire Strikes Back was included last-minute to explain Real Life facial scars that Mark Hamill incurred during a car accident. Hamill was in an accident, but all his injuries were on the left side — all Luke's injuries were on the right. In truth, the wampa scene was written before the accident. In the end, no explanation was given, as it wouldn't seem unusual that Skywalker would have suffered an injury between the events of the first and second movie — he was fighting in a war after all. Hamill's scars have faded with time; looking at him today you'd never know.
    • The scarring Anakin Skywalker incurred in Revenge of the Sith is what made Darth Vader's iconic appearance and SFX in the original trilogy possible — even necessary. In a bizarre reversal, the one scar on his face beforehand is the only one that did fade away.
  • In Timecop, Walker fights the ten-years-younger Big Bad McComb resulting a big cut on his face. Cut to the present McComb suddenly having a scar appear on his face.
  • Transformers Film Series: Ironhide has a small scar above his right eye befitting a 'Bot of his advanced years and Badassness. When he transforms, it becomes a ding over his headlight.
  • In the opening scene of Underworld U.S.A., the 14-year-old Tolly gets hit on the head with a brick. The scar on his forehead is still prominent when he is 32.
  • In The World's End Peter, Steven, and Andy all have scars resulting from their Glory Days with Gary, proving that they haven't been replaced. Gary apparently does as well but refuses to show it, since he really doesn't want to show the guys his arm, and thus, his hospital tag...
    • The bandages on his wrists from a recent suicide attempt are probably more the reason for this, although in The Reveal it is the hospital wristband that helps Andy put two and two together.
  • In X2: X-Men United, Mystique reveals that she still has scars from when Wolverine stabbed her in the previous film. She even retains them when she shapeshifts.

    Literature 
  • In 100 Cupboards, the burn caused when a green man is bonded to a plant becomes a permanent scar which, to second sight, moves and changes. Henry, Darius, Mordecai and Monmouth all carry these.
    • Henry also carries Darius's oak symbol scarred into his stomach from a failed ritual. Nella says this will be permanent. The scar on his face from Nimiane's blood is not only permanent, but growing.
    • Monmouth also has scars across his torso and shoulders from punishments inflicted during his training as an apprentice wizard.
  • In After Dark, Takahashi has an "eye-catching" scar on his right cheek. It was from a bike accident when he was young. Korogi, however, has several marks on her back that were made by a branding iron.
  • In the Anita Blake books, Anita has her arms and collarbone scarred from various attacks, Asher's face and upper body are half-melted due to the Church experimenting with holy water to cure him, Jean-Claude has whip scars on his back from before he was a vampire, and at least two of the vampire bad guys have holy water scars from Anita or another Marshal.
  • The Art of Being Normal: Leo's second memory is of knocking over his mother's tea and burning his chest. He still has the scar.
  • The Belgariad has a nasty case of this for the god Torak, as he was permanently burned and an eye destroyed by his attempted use of the Orb of Aldur in the backstory. Gods are near-invulnerable, so ordinarily they should not need to recover from any wounds, but if something sufficiently powerful got through that gods have no Healing Factor whatsoever, so Torak's injuries are exactly as painful as they were when first inflicted.
  • In L. B. Graham’s The Binding Of The Blade series, Aljeron suffers facial scars from a childhood run-in with an injured tiger. He lives well into his thirties believing he is unloveable as a result until one of the female characters comes out with the reveal that she’s been in love with him for years.
    • In the third book of the same series, Evrim loses an arm fighting the snow equivalent of a sea monster. He’s really depressed and awkward about it for two more books until he’s reunited with his father-in-law and wife, who are basically just relieved he’s not dead.
  • In The Book of Eve, the protagonist was scarred by scalding hot water when she was a child. The scar has permanently disfigured her face and almost blinded her left eye. She gains even more scars when she reaches into a bonfire to pull a woman from the flames.
  • In A Brother's Price, Cira has some really ugly scars. If you think her face looks bad, wait until you see her back. She got them in the explosion that killed her sisters, as she's really Princess Halley.
  • The Chronicles of Dorsa: Joslyn still bears many scars on her body from her sadist owner torturing her, and is self-conscious of them. She keeps them even after learning magical healing that can heal far worse injuries (although it's not explicitly shown whether this can remove scars).
  • The Highborn of PC Hodgell's Chronicles of the Kencyrath can heal almost any injury using dwar sleep. However, if the injury is major and a healer doesn't tend to it, it will leave a scar. This becomes a plot element in Seeker's Mask when Jame has her cheek sliced open to the bone by Kallystine's ring. Because this could cause a diplomatic incident, throughout much of the book, her keepers are trying to track her down so that she can be properly healed. Knowing of the potential incident, she intentionally avoids dwar sleep and letting the wound heal throughout most of the book.
  • Thomas Covenant in The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant lost two fingers on his left hand when his leprosy first manifested, before he'd learned how to check himself for injuries. Upon being transported to The Land, this disfigurement reminds everyone of their greatest hero of legend, Berek Halfhand.
  • Citizen of the Galaxy — Thor Bradley Rudbek mentions the scars on his back from his time as a slave in the Nine Worlds.
  • In Robert E. Howard's Conan the Barbarian story "The Phoenix on the Sword", Thoth-Amon, a once-powerful sorcerer, is taunted with this by Ascalante, who enslaved him.
    "Nevertheless," answered the outlaw impatiently, "you wear the stripes of my whip on your back, and are likely to continue to wear them."
  • In Lois McMaster Bujold's The Curse of Chalion, Cazaril carries the scars from when he was flogged; it's used once to positively identify him.
  • The Discworld book Mort exaggerates this with a scar Death himself leaves on Mort. Not only does it last for the rest of his life, his child inherits it.
    • In a less funny and more dramatic example from Discworld, although Sam Vimes manages to fight off the possession of the demonic Summoning Dark in Thud!, it leaves a scar in the shape of the dwarven symbol for it when it exits his body. Also, at least in Paul Kidby's book cover art and most fanart, the wound he receives in Night Watch Discworld leaves a scar on his face.
  • In Doctrine of Labyrinths, one of the principal protagonists, Mildmay, has had a long scar across his face since he was thirteen that distorts his upper lip and runs up to his hairline. It became infected while healing, leaving the nerves dead so that he can't move that side of his face and it slurred his speech. Neither that scar nor the ones on his leg or on his brother Felix's back have ever really faded.
    • The author Sarah Monette seems especially fond of this trope, it appears again in Companion to Wolves co-written by her and Elizabeth Bear when both the protagonist and several secondary characters are badly scarred.
  • In Dora Wilk Series, Bjorn had his entire face scarred and disfigured during an attack that wiped out most of his pack. He still has the scars when Dora meets him a few years later and it's implied that they'll never disappear, leaving him with a Berserk Button concerning his looks.
  • The Dresden Files: Wizards specifically have a minor Healing Factor that averts this trope. Their injuries don't stop healing or heal imperfectly, like a normal person's — they heal until the injury is 100% GONE, as in, no sign it ever happened. This is noted when Harry gets an X-ray; he's had a number of broken bones in his life, but his bones simply look as if they've never been broken at all. In Blood Rites his left hand effectively melts when Harry's magical shield kept out the flames but didn't keep out the heat. It basically a lump of flesh the doctors wanted to amputate at first, but over the course of several years and a bunch of physical therapy, it has healed back up to the point of being a functional hand again, albeit one with shiny red scars.
  • A recurrent theme in Jean M. Auel's Earth's Children: Ayla gets her most distinctive scars (a cave lion scratch on her inner thigh) in the first chapter, but other scars (like the nick in her neck that made her "the woman who hunts") also stay. Creb lost an arm and an eye and has a horribly scarred face because he was attacked by a cave bear. Jondalar has the scars on his inner thigh after being mauled by a cave lion, which incidentally indicates that he is the right mate for Ayla. Madroman's missing teeth are a constant reminder of Jondalar's temper.
  • Ged of the Earthsea series has disfiguring scars down one side of his face, inflicted by an evil Living Shadow he summoned as a boy. He seems to regard them as a reminder of the cost of arrogance and misuse of magic.
  • Eisenhorn, having been tortured by a Chaos cult, suffered permanent nerve damage. The most noticeable effect is in his face; the torturer promised he would never smile again, and the nerve damage did secure just that.
  • The scare on Gin's palms in Elemental Assassin. Justified because the Big Bad poured molten metal into the wounds while they were still fresh.
  • "Fairest of All": Mahon's father tried to burn him in the oven when he was two years old, thinking he was a faerie changeling. He's still covered in burn scars. His Queen rakes her poison spines over them at night to punish him for his transgressions.
  • Fallen angels from Lauren Kate's Fallen series can cure most injuries easily and without scars, the only exception being when they are burnt by blood of another fallen angel or demon. That is why Arriane has a huge scar on her neck.
  • Glokta from The First Law trilogy was tortured for two years and spent all his time between torture sessions locked in a cell too small for him to stand, sit, or lie down in. As a result, one of his legs is crippled, he's missing every other tooth (opposite teeth in each row, so that he's incapable of chewing anything), and one of his eyes is permanently squinting, prone to bouts of twitching and weeping independent of the other. His back is frequently painful. He also had his nipples and all of the toes on one of his feet cut off. As one would imagine, he becomes a fairly unpleasant person; somehow, he still manages to be awesome.
    • Then there's Logen Ninefingers (no explanation required), Jezal, Ferro... and pretty much everyone else.
  • In Gene Stratton-Porter's Freckles, Angel laughs off Freckles's advice to go to a doctor, and he urges this trope on her. She is surprised, which is played as a lack of vanity on her part.
  • During Galaxy of Fear, the droid DV-9 takes a blaster bolt for Tash and needs some parts replaced. He repairs the damage but can't polish away a long black streak on his chassis, and says he'll bear it forever. ...Or, perhaps, until he can get a replacement chassis, but no one mentions that.
  • In the Gaunt's Ghosts novels, many characters suffer permanent damage. Of particular significance is a chainsword scar across Gaunt's stomach — pointed out as noticeable even among his other scars — and Merrt's jaw, which makes his speech difficult and lost him his snipper skills.
  • Gods and Warriors: In the first book, Pirra attempts to put a stop to the Arranged Marriage she's forced to go through by placing a burning stick on her cheek, hoping she'll then be deemed too ugly to marry. After hitting puberty, she starts hating the crescent scar and tries to make it vanish without success.
  • The Goldfish Boy: The night Callum died, Matthew kept picking at a spot on his forehead, despite Penny's warnings that it would leave a scar. It did, and because Matthew blames himself for Callum's death, the scar serves as a reminder of his guilt.
  • Not quite a scar, but in Alice Hoffman's Green Angel, the title character, Green, is blinded when her house burned down and her family killed in an enormous fire. She stays like that for the entire book until she finally allows herself to mourn her family, although you're not supposed to ask how crying could possibly cure blindness.
    • Well if it is hysterical blindness, which is caused by seeing something traumatic or disturbing, then emotionally moving on would be the ONLY cure for it. Then again since you listed the example on this page I assume there is SOME physical damage to her eye region...
  • J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter novels play this trope straight with regards to wounds caused by Dark Magic and avert it in cases of mundane injuries, as these can be healed instantly.
    • Harry has a scar on his forehead in the shape of a lightning bolt. According to Tonks, it would be hard to change or cover up even with magic.
    • Mad-Eye Moody suffered many such wounds during his career as an Auror; his face is heavily scarred, he lost part of his nose, one of his eyes (replaced with a Magical Eye, the origin of his nickname) and one of his legs, replaced with a wooden prosthetic.
    • During her reign at Hogwarts, Professor Umbridge forces Harry to write "I must not tell lies" on his own hand with a bloodwriting pen specifically designed to scar the lines into the body. It's a slow and painful process that ensures that the writer would never forget. Indeed, for the rest of the series whenever something bad with the Ministry or Umbridge comes up, the scar on Harry's hand always comes up.
    • Harry manages to get two more scars during the seventh book: one on his arm from when Nagini bites him, and the other on his chest from when the Horcrux fused to him.
    • Bill Weasley's scars from werewolf attack and George Weasley's missing ear, both being cursed injuries, leave permanent scars, unlike the numerous other injuries faced on a regular basis by Hogwarts students.
    • Though it only comes up once, Ron still had scars from where the tentacle brain grabbed him when they were in the Ministry of Magic, even a year later.
    • Dumbledore has a scar that is a perfect map of the London underground. He could get rid of it, but what if he needs to find his way around the London underground someday?
  • In Heart of Steel, Alistair is still badly scarred from a car accident and subsequent self-inflicted surgical procedures from ten years ago, including a tracheotomy scar and a cardiac scar.
  • This is generally true in Heralds of Valdemar. Magic healing is a thing in the universe, but if the trauma is too bad, or the person doesn't receive a Healer's help quickly, there will be scars.
    • One notable example would be Herald-Mage Vanyel, who has his arm broken early in Magic's Pawn and 12 years later in Magic's Promise mentions that it never healed quite to what it was, but he's learned to compensate for it. The same book also describes some scars he has gained from adventures that took place between the books, including three parallel claw marks on his chest, where a demon tried to claw his heart out.
    • Also Weaponsmaster Alberich, with burn scars covering half his face (and presumably the rest of his body as well, but the face is more visible so that's usually what's mentioned) from the time he was sentenced to death by burning alive for "witchcraft". In addition to that, there's numerous smaller scars from wounds received in doing his duty as a Herald of Valdemar.
  • Honor Harrington is missing an eye and an arm, though prosthetics means that this isn't usually an issue, and is occasionally a hidden advantage, like when she uses the gun hidden in her finger to stop an assassination attempt.
  • The Hunger Games: Played straight for the average participant in the games. Averted for the victors of the games, who have every last scar on their body removed by the Capitol's doctors. By Mockingjay nobody seems to be getting that treatment anymore. Katniss and Peeta live the rest of their lives with burn scars.
  • In the Hurog duology, Tisala has scarred hands, and Ward notes that such scars are likely the result of fighting. He's impressed, as noblewomen aren't expected to fight in that setting. She acquires some new ones when she is tortured. Oreg is able to heal her hand enough so that it doesn't have to be cut off, but the scars remain. Healing magic is very demanding and healing that one hand alone exhausts Oreg.
  • Sophie from The Infernal Devices, has a huge one running down the left side of her face that distorts her beauty. She seems to be more or less okay with it, though, saying that whoever would love her now wouldn't love her just for her looks.
  • Eragon got a scar on his back in Inheritance Cycle. However, it is later removed by powerful magic.
    • Murtagh has had a similar scar on his back since he was a child when his father threw his sword at him while drunk. Unlike Eragon's case, this scar really is forever.
  • The vampire Risika in Amelia Atwater-Rhodes' In The Forests Of The Night has a scar that was made centuries ago with a magical knife. Although she has since grown powerful enough to hide it, she still wears it as a symbol of her hatred of the vampire who gave it to her.
  • Journey to Chaos:
    • Basilard Bladi's hands are covered in tiny beak scars from a typical novice mission; scoop poop out of a bird monster's nest. That was back when he was a teenager. His right palm also has a long scar from grabbing Blood Drinker by the blade, before it was his own sword.
    • Tiza invokes this by insisting that Nolien leave a scar on her shield arm from where a Xethras bit her, so she can show it off later. Sure enough, she's impressing trainee royal soldiers with it while recounting the story. More importantly, it is an emotional connection between her and Nolien, which comes in handy when Nolien mana mutates.
  • Derek from the Kate Daniels series is a gorgeous 18-year-old werewolf, who is well aware of how pretty he is. But when he tries to rescue a girl from a Deal with the Devil, he is captured, savagely beaten, and has molten silver poured on his face. His face does grow back eventually, but badly scarred and no longer attractive. Knowing that his looks have gone from teen idol to back-alley thug has a profound effect on his psyche.
  • In Language Arts, Cody's torso is covered in scars from when he accidentally set himself on fire when he was ten. He can't stand to be touched there.
  • J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings and universe:
    • Frodo Baggins is wounded by a Nazgûl blade and a spider's sting, and near the end, has his finger bitten off by Gollum. The wounds never quite heal and throb and ache every year on the anniversary of his wounding. Word of God says it's psychosomatic.
    • Merry's scar from being wounded in the forehead by an orc sword is said to have lasted for the rest of his life.
    • Sauron. Word of Gollum says that he's still missing a finger from when Isildur cut it off, even though Word of God says that he rebuilt his body afterward. It's implied that Sauron's evil means he is incapable of removing the marks of severe injuries (or possibly, injuries inflicted by a righteous cause).note 
    • Morgoth, who received numerous injuries to his body and foot during his duel with Fingolfin, as well as having his face slashed by one of Manwë's eagles, and is described as being troubled by the scars ever afterward, as well as walking with a limp.
    • Beren loses his hand permanently. It gets bitten off by a really huge magical evil wolf.
    • Maedhros loses a hand in The Silmarillion. (Then, it was a Life-or-Limb Decision, after an I Cannot Self-Terminate.)
  • Trolls from Malediction Trilogy can usually heal any injury without scars (that is, if they are powerful enough). Unless the injury was from Cold Iron. As a result, troll prince Tristan has a network of scars covering his back from the time he was flogged with iron-tipped whips.
  • At the end of the first book of The Mark of the Lion trilogy, Hadassah is mauled by lions in the arena and shows up in the second book with deep facial scars, which she keeps hidden underneath a veil because others find them disturbing.
  • In Teresa Frohock's Miserere: An Autumn Tale, Lucian's limp, and Rachael's eye.
  • In Modesty Blaise, Willie Garvin has an S-shaped scar on the back of his hand, courtesy of his nemesis Simon Delicata.
  • Hester Shaw from Mortal Engines is hideously scarred thanks to Thaddeus Valentine trying to kill her as a baby. It shaped her career as an assassin and is the principal reason why she is so screwed up, angry and violent.
  • In the New Jedi Order, Tahiri is captured by Yuuzhan Vong Shapers, who try to turn her into a Yuuzhan Vong herself as part of a program to create a Force-using Vong warrior. Since the Vong ritually scar themselves as a status symbol, Tahiri gets an elaborate design scarred into her forehead as part of the process. Even after she's rescued, though, she refuses to let the scars be removed, even though Star Wars science is well up to the task; she becomes incredibly agitated at the mere mention of having them removed, in fact. This is the first indication that the Yuuzhan Vong in her is more than skin deep after all...
    • The X-Wing series has another example in the form of Garik "Face" Loran, ex-actor turned Wraith Squadron disguise expert. He picked up a nasty facial scar during a Rebel raid on Coruscant and refused to have it removed, despite the scar being a recognizable facial feature which he had to work around every time he built a disguise; the scar, along with many of his other actions including his Rebel service, was his way of punishing himself for all of the good his acting career did for the Empire. It wasn't until much later in the Wraith Squadron cycle of books that he had it removed.
  • In November 9, the left side of Fallon's body is covered with burn scars that will never heal (it's explained that she had fourth-degree burns to thirty per cent of her body and it's not even mentioned how many second or third degree burns she suffered, so it's not surprising the scarring won't ever go away). Fallon feels extremely self-conscious about the scars, even believing that no one will ever truly love her because of them.
  • In The Odyssey, Odysseus has a scar on his foot from a boyhood hunting accident that turns out to be extremely relevant to the plot, making this one exceedingly old indeed.
  • In The Otherworld Series, Menolly had scars carved into her body before being turned into a vampire; as such, they will never heal.
  • Diana Gabaldon seems very fond of this trope — the scars of Jamie's whippings from the events of Outlander never disappear, and true to realistic form, characters who have injuries inflicted on a particularly delicate area (such as multiple small bones in Jamie's hand being broken with a mallet) have no chance of complete recovery. (Fergus also has a hand cut off, but he gets a really awesome hook. Or a glove full of bran.)
  • Inigo Montoya in The Princess Bride has two facial scars given to him by his father's murderer when he was ten years old (eleven in the movie).
  • In Ian Watson's novel Queenmagic Kingmagic, injuries inflicted by magic can only be healed by personally killing the magician who injured you. If someone else happens to kill them first, you're stuck with a permanently unhealed injury for the rest of your life. This can be very nasty if it's something like a broken arm or fractured skull.
  • Realm of the Elderlings: Fitz got numerous scars and his namesake badgerlock in Robin Hobb's Royal Assassin when he was tortured in Regal's dungeons. Later, in the follow-up Tawny Man trilogy, an out-of-control Skill-healing erases the scars, including the one on his scalp, and heals the permanent damage done by that torture.
    • However, Fitz and the Fool later restore these scars on the skin only, on the basis that their sudden absence would be highly suspicious. The only one not restored is the badgerlock, and he attributes its disappearance to sudden notions of vanity causing him to dye it.
  • The Reynard Cycle: Reynard loses his left hand and his right eye during the course of his transition from Lovable Rogue to Big Bad. His metallic artificial limb complete with Blade Below the Shoulder is an early indication that he is acquiring a Red Right Hand. A Red Left Hand in his case.
  • Subverted in Ringworld, where Speaker-to-Animals is treated by an autodoc and loses his scars, which are badges of honor to the warrior Kzin race.
  • The Saga of the Noble Dead has Chane Andraso, a vampire who has a scar around his neck from where he was decapitated by main character Magiere. While it didn't quite kill him, the scar still exists and it has left him with a very permanent and prominent rasping voice that makes almost everything come out as a whisper.
  • Han Alister from "The Seven Realms Series" has a scar above his right eye that Raisa notices often. He has yet to explain how he got it.
  • Veldan, one of the main characters in Maggie Furey's Shadowleague trilogy, was badly scarred in a fight with the Ak'Zahar. He wears a mask.
  • Sharpe: Richard Sharpe is described as having a scar on his cheek, as well as a back covered in scars from an unjust flogging. He also has a number of battle wounds. Two notable supporting characters also are scarred. The villainous Obadiah Hakeswill has a scar around his throat from an unsuccessful hanging. Captain William Fredrickson is missing an eye, his front teeth, and part of an ear.
  • In Skulduggery Pleasant, getting cut by Billy Ray Sanguine's razor will leave a scar that always looks fresh and can't be removed, but this is because the injury is magical rather than just a normal wound.
  • A Song of Ice and Fire plays this trope pretty realistically for the most part. Sandor Clegane had third-degree burns that left permanent scars, as does the wound on his leg, which leaves him with a pronounced limp but most of his other wounds he takes during the series heal without scarring. When Brienne of Tarth cuts Jaime Lannister's face during their fight, it heals without scarring, as does the leg wound he gives her, but when the Bloody Mummers cut off his hand it's a permanent injury and made worse by a bad infection, requiring a large amount of his remaining forearm to be cut away. Brienne encounters them later, and Biter takes off a chunk of her face, which also gets infected and leaves permanent scars. Strong Belwas is implied to deliberately encourage his wounds to scar, to remember his opponents by.
    • Tyrion Lannister loses part of his nose in the Battle of Blackwater. It just adds to his problems with the prevailing belief in the world of A Song of Ice and Fire that Beauty Equals Goodness.
    • Theon Greyjoy becomes Reek under the transformative and sadistic Cold-Blooded Torture inflicted on him by Ramsay Bolton aka Ramsay Snow aka The Bastard of Bolton. His admission of "not even a man anymore" is extremely chilling Fridge Horror.
  • In Stardust, Yvaine has a limp from a broken bone, and Tristran burns his hand — and as a result, both are somewhat crippled for life. Since they are in a Land of Faerie and eventually become the King and Queen, it's quite difficult to believe that no magical treatment was ever available for them. It's possible that they eventually just decided to keep their handicaps as reminders of their love and their adventures.
  • In the Tales of the Otori, Kaede has her hair set on fire, burning the back of her neck, and somehow meaning the hair could never be as long again. Takeo has two fingers cut off, along with various other scars from encounters with Tribe assassins.
  • James Bond has numerous scars all over his body, commented upon in Thunderball by both the doctor at the health farm he attends and his sweet old Scottish housekeeper. He also has a facial scar which he only bothers to hide with makeup once, in Diamonds Are Forever.
    • This is why James is so hell-bent on fighting SMERSH. At the climax of Casino Royale, a SMERSH agent carves a Cyrillic letter Sha (the 's' in "spy") on Bond's left hand, marking him as a spy forever. Despite skin grafts, the scar remains, a humiliating remembrance for Bond that he once has been spared by mere chance.
  • In Andre Norton's The Time Traders series, Time Agent Ross Murdock carries burn scars on his left hand as the result of an encounter with the Baldies. On one planet, he is known as "Firehand" (and features prominently in the eponymous book).
  • Tortall Universe
    • Lord Wyldon's face is clawed by hurroks (evil flying horses) shortly before Protector of the Small and as he believes Real Men Get Shot, he leaves the wounds to heal without magic. They ache during bad weather in later books. And in Lady Knight, Owen asks Neal not to heal a cut because he wants to impress girls and his babyface needs all the help it can get.
    • In the Trickster's Duet, Aly deliberately scars herself and breaks her nose when enslaved to avoid being sold for sex. She later complains when a god explains that this was totally unnecessary, but when the god offers to fix her nose, refuses, saying "I got this the hard way, thanks."
  • Jasper from Stephenie Meyers' Twilight has numerous vampire bite marks on his body and Bella has a small scar on her hand where she was bitten by James, the tracker vampire
    • Sam Uley's fiance, Emily, has three long, red scars running down the side of her face, a result of an unintentional attack by Sam, contorting her face slightly.
  • In the Uglies series, Tally keeps her cutting scars for the memories they provoke, even though medical technology in that future allows scars, skin and eye colour, and even facial structure to be changed.
  • Ripred from The Underland Chronicles. Later Gregor as well, which he realizes is part of his Bittersweet Ending. Five books' worth of war and adventure have left him with so many scars that he can no longer wear light clothing without looking like he's been in a major accident.
  • In Vampire Academy, Tasha Ozera has a large scar on her face from a strigoi attack about a decade before the books start.
  • Miles from the Vorkosigan Saga has a map of fine scars across his body from numerous surgeries to repair shattered bones, due to a teratogenic brittle bone disease caused by a poison encountered prenatally. He also has a spiderweb of much fresher scars across his chest, courtesy of having his chest blown open with a needle grenade; he got better. In addition, he also has a set of rings around his wrists, from trying to escape from a set of handcuffs, as he was chained to a railing while his companion was dying of asphyxiation. Both are very deep and easily visible years later, especially the latter; another character comments that he practically pulled his own hands off trying to escape from the cuffs.
  • In Warrior Cats, scars mostly are looked upon as a sign of toughness — young cats often refuse to let the medicine cat treat them so that a scar forms — but Brightheart by far has the worst scars, which make other cats uneasy rather than envious: half her face was torn off by dogs, and it has affected her for the rest of her life.
  • In The Wheel of Time, Sammael has a scar that runs from the corner of his eye to his chin. Even though the scar could have been easily removed, he elected to keep it as a reminder that it was given to him by Lews Therin 3000 years ago. Plus, in the timeframe where the books take place, the only person in the world with the knowledge to remove said scar is a twisted sociopathic torturer who extracts a toll in pain from anyone she Heals. People would tear their wrists open with their teeth when they heard they would be handed over to her as prisoner.
    • Rand, the main protagonist, has branded marks on both of his palms and an unhealing double wound on his side. Not to mention Mat with his hanging scar, and Thom, whose leg was left stiff after a fight with a Myrddraal.
    • Speaking of Rand his hand gets blown off later in the series by Semirhage and Mat gives up an eye to save Moiraine.
  • In Melissa Marr's Wicked Lovely series, Niall has a long scar from his temple to the corner of his mouth given to him by Gabriel, leader of the hounds. He also has numerous scars over his chest from where the dark fey tortured and raped him in exchange for the mortals freedom — he chose to give the court himself rather than the mortals, whom he knew wouldn't survive such things. He is adamant that the scars are proof that he survived, that he is still surviving, and remind him not to give in to what he truly is — a dark fey, just like his abusers. Also makes for bittersweet fluff at the end of Ink Exchange when Irial, ruler of the dark fey, who also commanded Gabriel and the other dark fey to do what they did, kisses him on the scar on his face. They were lovers, once. Before the mortals, before the rape, before everything bad happened. But Niall's scars, both emotional and physical, serve as tangible proof of why they can never be that way again. The one on his face, at least, is also a Wound That Will Not Heal when he isn't wearing a glamour.
  • Defied in The Witchlands, when it's mentioned at the end of the second book that Merik has to start hiding his face because his scars are beginning to heal.
  • A rather eerie example in Words of Radiance. Early in the previous book, Kaladin was branded on his forehead, marking him as a slave. Just before the beginning of Words of Radiance, Kaladin and a large number of his fellow slaves won their freedom, and the book opens with them having the glyph for "freedom" tattooed over their slave scars, marking them as freedmen. Unfortunately, Kaladin's new Healing Factor keeps squeezing out the inks, meaning that the tattoo can't be put in place. The scars, being "set", stay intact.
    • Evidence from other characters with the same healing factor (e.g. Renarin, who stopped needing glasses halfway through the same book), as well as characters with similar powers throughout The Cosmere, suggests that Kaladin's brands only remain because of his personal baggage.
  • In X-Wing Series, Garik "Face" Loran, a child actor working for Imperial recruitment, picks up a scar during a botched Imperial raid on an (unsanctioned) Rebel attempt to kill him. He could've had it removed, of course, through bacta treatment, but he keeps it for years, as a reminder of the harm he did indirectly. After Ton Phanan dies, a provision in his will requires Face to remove the scar (which he does, though he keeps a fake one for a while), which is in turn symbolic of Phanan's help convincing Face that he really shouldn't feel guilty about it.
    • For that matter, Phanan — since he's allergic to bacta, serious injuries require him to receive prosthetic replacements for many of his limbs and organs. Upon having two limbs and his face replaced, he switched out of the medical profession and became an increasingly cynical pilot, eventually telling Face that that young doctor couldn't come back. Not all of him was there anymore. After he dies, Word of God holds that although he feared death and fought against it, he didn't have anything to live for, either.

    Live-Action TV 
  • 24:
    • In between the fifth and six seasons Jack Bauer was taken prisoner in China and tortured for nearly two years, leaving numerous nasty scars all over his body.
    • David Palmer also gets the palm of his right hand scarred after he is poisoned via a concoction sent into it by Mandy at the end of Day 2.
  • Buster's hand in Arrested Development.
  • Arrowverse:
    • In Arrow, Oliver's scars from his time on the island are a major plot point and commented on by anyone who sees him shirtless.
    • Also, in season 6, Vincent Sobel/Vigilante. After being shot in the head, then becoming a metahuman seconds later, his left eye is visably damaged, and a large portion of the skin around his eye is heavily scarred. This is despite the fact that his power is near-instant healing.
    • Legends of Tomorrow has Mick's burn scars, which cover both arms from shoulder to wrist, although seasons later they no longer look as bad as they did when he first appeared in the Arrowverse. More are implied, as he sees his younger self burning his hand in the first season and adjusts his glove. Season 3 reveals that he still self harms by burning himself, but he burns his already scarred arms, which are generally covered.
  • Babylon 5:
    • G'kar loses an eye during torture and replaces it with an autonomous prosthetic that he could remove to spy on others. In the first season, a Minbari poet attacked by an Earth terrorist group refused to let the scar branded onto her forehead to be removed, insisting she should keep it as a reminder.
    • Meanwhile, a minor villain from Season 3 had a nasty scar on his face, which some people complained looked overly fake (the scar was quite real, actually).
  • Saul Tigh's lost eye in Season 3 of Battlestar Galactica.
  • The scars from the scratch that turned George into a werewolf in Being Human.
    • Nina has arm scars from the attack that turned her into a werewolf and a burn scar on her stomach.
  • Bones: Zach's mangled hands and forehead scar, the former from waiting too long to sabotage an experiment (Hodgins was in the way), and the latter self-inflicted after he learned of Dr. Sweets' death.
  • Buffyverse:
    • Xander's lost eye in Season 7.
    • The flashback in Season 5 explains the scar on Spike's eyebrow: he got it from a sword wielded by a Slayer. An Expanded Universe novel further explained that she was wielding a dragon-blessed sword (vampires have a Healing Factor and normally wouldn't scar permanently). The real scar on James Marsters' forehead was received in a mugging. Oddly enough, the scar faded over the course of the show, in a way. In Spike's early appearances, it was a prominent part of his vampire makeup, and while it remained a part of it, for less attention was called to it over the seasons.
    • Buffy has a scar on her neck from when she let Angel drink her blood. In an interesting variation, this scar is shown to be considered by Buffy as a very sexually charged testimony of her love for him. When they make love in the Season 8 comic continuation, Angel kisses her on the exact same spot, at her insistence.
    • When Riley comes back in Season 6, he has your standard Awesome McCool scar across his left eye. He also has one from when he cut out Adam's mind control chip and probably has another from when Adam stabbed him.
    • Wesley didn't do as well. His scar remained through Season 4 of Angel, often hidden by his Beard of Sorrow, but by Season 5, it was gone, possibly due to the reality adjustment spell. (Though it stays gone after he gets his memory back.)
    • Gunn from the alternate reality where Cordelia became a TV star intead of joining Angel Investigations has a prominent facial scar.
  • CSI: NY:
    • Mac's scar from being burned on the chest during his time in the Marines is seen in two episodes. (It is missing in his shirtless scene in episode 5.08, "My Name Is Mac Taylor," but that was likely justified. He was swimming, and makeup plus water doesn't always go well. Once he's out of the pool, he has a towel draped around his neck which would've hidden it anyway.) After "Near Death," he also has a permanent bullet wound scar on his back.
    • Reed's scar from the taxicab killer slicing his throat.
    • A witness has scars on her face from a perp who carved her with a knife while threatening her not to identify him.
    • Chief Carver's adult nephew still has horrible scars on his back from his mother's abuse of him as a child. The make-up department did a flawless job of matching the scars on the two actors portraying him at both ages.
  • Dead Man's Gun: In "The Healer", outlaw Dalton Coe has a distinctive scar below his left eye. In flashback, it is revealed that he received this scar from Bob Morris' lash when they were both teenagers.
  • Evram Mintz, the ship's doctor on the Antares in Defying Gravity has massive burn scars on his back.
  • Dexter: Lumen spent a month being raped and tortured by 5 men. Her back is covered with horrific scars that remain there for the rest of the season, and they don't look like they'll ever heal.
  • Doctor Who:
    • Subverted in "The End of Time". The Tenth Doctor having just flown a spaceship, crashed into a skylight from hundreds of feet in the air, battled with the Time-Lords, and eventually saving the innocent Wilfred from a radiation chamber is battered and scarred. Wilf comments that he'll have some scarring — while before his eyes, they heal. It's a signal that regeneration has begun, and that the Tenth Doctor is about to die, replaced by "a new man, who saunters away. And I'm dead."
    • Davros's right (and only working) hand is messily shot off in "Revelation of the Daleks". In his next TV story "Remembrance of the Daleks", we only see him from the neck up thanks to his new Dalek Emperor identity, but when he reappears many years later in "The Stolen Earth"/"Journey's End" he has a metal artificial hand.
  • Played straight and averted in Dollhouse. Doctor Saunders has bad facial scarring from when she was attacked by Alpha, but later one of the Dolls gets similar injuries, which the Dollhouse has fixed, something it never bothered to do for her. Eventually averted entirely; when we see Whiskey in "Epitaph One", ten years later, her scars are gone.
  • Fellow Travelers:
    • There's a large scar on Hawkins Fuller's back that he got while fighting the Nazis during World War II. His lover Tim Laughlin inquires about it in episode 3.
      Tim: (caresses the scar) How'd you get this?
      Hawk: Italy. I led a squad of four men in the push to liberate Velletri. We got pinned down by a Krupp K5. It's a heavy railway gun with a 70-foot-long barrel. The Krauts had two of 'em pointed at us. When they fired the K5, you could count the seconds after the boom to know when it was gonna hit. We all took a piece of it. By the time they got to us, two of my men were dead.
      Tim: Was it bad? The wound.
      Hawk: I needed a couple of surgeries.
    • A deep groove runs along Roy Cohn's nose which was caused by a (presumably) botched cosmetic surgery when he was only a toddler.
      Cohn: (talking to himself) Thanks for this, Ma. I was a year old and I wasn't pretty enough. You had to fix my nose? You fixed it all right.
  • Dr. Henry Morgan in Forever still has the scar from the bullet wound that lead to his first death, but his form of Resurrective Immortality prevents any other scars from his many, many deaths, so this is played straight and subverted all at the same time.
  • Game of Thrones:
    • Sandor Clegane has serious burn scars on his face caused by his brother Gregor.
    • Littlefinger recounts that he still bears a token of Brandon Stark's "esteem" from navel to collarbone.
    • Tyrion bears three prominent scars (one on his forehead, one on the bridge of his nose, and one on his right cheek) from when he is badly wounded by Ser Mandon Moore of the Kingsguard in the Battle of Blackwater. However, they are far less serious than those in the book, in which his face is virtually hacked off and he loses his nose entirely, an outcome indirectly alluded to by Cersei.
    • In addition to his missing hand, Jaime Lannister has several facial scars from his ordeal in the Riverlands.
    • Jon Snow has a few scars from Orell's eagle attack.
    • Theon's torso is mottled with scars from his Cold-Blooded Torture and he is missing a few pieces besides.
    • Shireen Baratheon's greyscale is permanent.
  • Early on in Heroes, it was revealed that Future-Peter would have one of these across his face. In "Five Years Gone", we see him with it, and it's a doozy, but how he got it — and why it won't go away despite his regeneration abilities — remains unexplained. Interestingly, it seems to be a constant across differing timelines.
  • Highlander:
    • Immortals heal most wounds without scarring, but Xavier St. Cloud's hand did not grow back when Duncan cut it off, and Kalas retained a deep scar on his neck when he was nearly beheaded. Needless to say, both of them held grudges about this afterward.
    • There was always a bit of debate among fans as to whether or not Xavier's hand would grow back with time or not. Rendered a moot point when he lost his head the next season.
    • Kalas' neck injury was similar enough to The Kurgan's that it's probably the same issue — severe neck wounds don't regenerate completely.
    • In the episode, Finale (Part 2), Christine Salzer used this to prove the existence of Immortals. She showed pictures of an Immortal dating back 150 years through several identities and even though his facial hair, hairstyles, and hair colors changed with his name, he always had the same facial scar.
  • Invoked with House's leg, but not his neck. Admittedly, the neck injury did not involve losing a chunk of muscle, though.
  • Interview with the Vampire (2022): In "In Throes of Increasing Wonder...", Daniel Molloy has a round scar on the right side of his neck which remains visible 49 years after Louis de Pointe du Lac had bit him there and nearly exsanguinated him to death for being "disrespectful" while high on drugs.
  • Literally true when it comes to the protagonists of In the Flesh. Particularly grisly when you consider they'll always look as violent as they did at the moment of death.
  • The Irrational: Mercer is heavily and visible scarred on the right side of his face; despite treatments for the injuries which caused them they're clearly permanent. He's asked frequently about how he got his scars, which Mercer answers usually by making something up.
  • Lost: John Locke receives a scar across his right eye during a plane crash in the pilot episode, which becomes signature for his character and is noticeably absent in every flashback scene.
  • Merlin (2008): The nasty scar on Uther's forehead. Anthony Head has a natural deep crease up there and the makeup artists made it a scar for the show. Its origin is still unknown.
  • Mouse (2021): Bong-yi cuts Ba-reum's arm when he tries to kill her. Over a year later the scar hasn't faded, allowing her to recognise him when she sees it.
  • My Country: The New Age:
    • Bang-won has a scar above his eye that never fades.
    • Hwi gains a scar under his eye early in the series and it stays for the rest of his life.
  • Miguel Alvarez on Oz cuts a very large scar across his face in Season 1 and it is still visible in Season 6, years later.
  • Shadow and Bone: In a universe where Corporalki Grisha can remove wounds, scars, and tattoos to the point that they are nigh-invisible, scars dealt by merzost are permanent.
  • Sharpe has a lot of scars, notably on his back and face. At least one of them is real, the result of Harrison Ford hitting Sean Bean in the face on a movie set.
  • In the second season of The Shield, Ronnie is beaten by a criminal named Armadillo and has his face pressed to a grill, leaving a nasty burn on one side of it (Armadillo did this in retaliation to Vic doing it to him earlier in the season, and Vic had done this to him in retaliation for killing one of his informants). Ronnie notably grows his beard out over it so it becomes less noticeable, but still apparent, for the rest of the series.
  • Special Ops: Lioness: Cruz still has several scars on her body from being beaten by her ex-boyfriend. She claims they're from a car accident once, but the doctor examining her soon sees through this.
  • Ronon Dex from Stargate Atlantis has scars on his back from his attempts to remove the tracking device the Wraith implanted there. His temporarily superpowered friend Rodney asks him if the scars are a badge of honor or a painful reminder, and then heals them.
  • The real Martok's scar and lost eye in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.
    • Even though Martok has the option to remove said scar he chooses not to, as this exchange indicates:
      Bashir: Turning off the holosuite safety protocols during a battle simulation is a dubious idea at best. For a man with only one eye, it's idiotic. Now, if you'd like to consider an ocular replacement...
      Martok: I do not want an artificial eye!" (He really means it)
      Bashir: Then accept the fact you have a disability and stop acting like —
      Martok: There are limits to how far I will indulge you.
      • In real life, the producers of Deep Space Nine offered JG Hertzler (the actor playing Martok) the same choice for his character, to spare him the lengthy process of applying the scar makeup. Hertzler refused, feeling that his character would never remove a battle scar. The writers went ahead and put that refusal in the script!
  • Star Trek: Picard: Hugh's face still bears several large scars around the places where his Borg implants were removed. Evidently his surgeon wasn't quite as skilled as Beverly Crusher or the Doctor.
  • Supernatural
    • In the episode "All Hell Breaks Loose, Part Two" (S02, Ep22) when Sam comes back from the dead, his internal life-threatening injuries are gone and he seems well, but he has a healed rough red scar from his mid-thoracic region to upper lumbar region and a little soreness over the scar. This is the only reminder of a fatal stab wound inflected with Super-Strength only one day prior.
    • Subverted when Castiel resurrects Dean at the start of Season 4, pulling his soul out of Hell and revitalizing his body. Dean comments that all of his previous scars and breaks are gone, and happily declares that he is technically a virgin again. Although Castiel did give him one new scar in the handprint on his shoulder.
  • Trigonometry: Gemma still has her long surgery scar which runs down her stomach vertically, a relic from the operation that saved her life after she'd been severely injured as a girl in a car accident (which killed her mom) as she explains when Ray sees her in her underwear when they try on dresses.
  • In The Wire, Omar Little and Marlo Stanfield share the real-life facial scars of their respective actors. A prequel shows a child-Omar with the same scar, while Stanfield's is never explained or commented on.
  • The Witcher (2019): Yennefer invokes this before undergoing a magical process that completely changes her appearance. The only things she asks the surgeon to leave untouched are her purple eyes and the scars on her wrists from a failed suicide attempt.
  • The X-Files:
    • Krycek's forcibly removed arm.
    • Subverted in the rest of the characters, though. In fact, in the commentary track for Season 8's "Existence", Kim Manners jokes that if all the characters had the scars from all the injuries they'd received over the series, they would look like the Elephant Man.

    Myths & Religion 
  • In the Norse Mythology, Tyr has sacrificed his right hand to bind Fenrir, the greatest of all giant wolves, until Ragnarok. It never grows back — despite Tyr being a freaking god. Of war. And honesty — which actually explains it: Fenrir was bound using deceit and Tyr's hand has been its collateral, so it had every right to claim it.

    Tabletop Games 
  • Exalted has this both ways — while Exalted eventually heal any normal injury completely, any scars or disfigurement they had before they Exalted won't recover on its own.
  • Old World of Darkness:
    • In Werewolf: The Apocalypse, werewolves had massively increased healing factor and any injury would heal more or less instantly except those inflicted by fire, silver, raw magical energy, or the fangs and claws of supernatural creatures (including other werewolves). Such injuries could only heal naturally and would leave "battle scars" which could only be removed by magical healing rituals. Especially nasty scars could permanently cripple a werewolf warrior but were also considered a mark of glory, and having them removed was considered shameful. They also included how to handle scars from radiation poisoning...
    • In Vampire: The Masquerade, vampires have the same rule for wounds inflicted by aggravated damage (sun, fire, fangs, and claws of other supernatural beings, etc.). Although vampires can spend time and blood power to cure this, it is often expensive.
  • Warhammer 40,000: Before the Heresy, Lucius the Eternal was one of the best-looking Emperor's Children, until one day his nose was irreparably broken in a fight with a Space Wolf. He later received another scar, and after the Heresy (now that he's the Champion of Slaanesh) his face is a nightmarish roadmap of scar tissue, some self-inflicted. And the "Forever" part is no exaggeration — every time he's killed, he slowly reincarnates into the killer, who is then just another screaming face in Lucius' armor.
  • Warhammer Fantasy: Subverted in the case of Sigvald the Magnificent, Slaanesh's champion. His death came after a duel left him with a wound on his face. While it would likely heal in time, Sigvald's only concern was that he wasn't perfect right now, and during this moment of distraction, Throgg the troll king killed him and pissed on his corpse.

    Video Games 
  • Desmond Miles in the Assassin's Creed games has a scar on his lip that the Animus transfers to both ancestors.
    • Ezio gets his from a rock thrown at him at the very beginning of the story. Throughout the next 20 years depicted in the game, it stays visible. In the time between Sequence 13 (one of the DLCs) and 14, Ezio grows a beard, which makes the scar even more visible since the scar stops hair from growing in that spot.
    • Altaïr's scar is visible to Ezio in Revelations and he doesn't use an animus to see Altaïr's memories. It seems to be just a coincidence that all three have the same scar.
    • One might assume that the scar is there to link all of Desmond's ancestors. However, neither Haytham nor Connor nor Edward has the mouth scar (although Edward has multiple others). On the other hand, Aveline, who is not known to be linked to Desmond's line, has the same mouth scar.
    • Much like Aveline, Bayek of Siwa has the same mouth scar again, without any known link to Desmond's ancestry.
  • Klungo from Banjo-Kazooie's face is still screwed up from Gruntilda's beatings when we see him again in Nuts and Bolts.
  • Double Subversion in Dragonsphere involving the female captain-of-the-guard, who has a large scar on her face. After Shapeshifter Pid reverts from being (and believing he is) the king to his real form, he is accused of killing the real king. The captain-of-the-guard won't let him enter the city, and will kill him if he tries unless he can give her the one thing she really wants. Pid then removes the scar using his Healing Hands, and she revels in her new beauty for half a minute before demanding the scar back. Pid returns it, but when he asks why, she reveals that the scar gave her the drive and respect needed to become captain-of-the-guard in the first place, and it is more important to her than looking beautiful.
  • Xiahou Dun from Dynasty Warriors got his eyepatch like this: When he was arrow'd in the eye during the course of battle, he plucked it out, along with the arrow. And ate it.
  • In the original Fable, taking any major hit can result in a nasty, jagged scar running along the damaged part of the Hero's body. Scars do dull over time but never disappear. By the end of the game, it's almost certain that your Hero's face and body is going to be a patchwork of faded slashes and cuts. The only way to avoid this is to use Physical Shield to avoid major injuries altogether.
  • In Fable II, when the hero's health is reduced to zero, they do not die, but instead get back up on their feet with full health and a surge of energy. They also get scarred, potentially rather hideously.
  • From the Final Fantasy series:
    • Auron from Final Fantasy X sports several rather nasty scars. Unsurprising, considering all the crap he went through.
      • So does Jecht, and his are a little more visible since he is a walking Shirtless Scene.
    • Final Fantasy VI: Setzer's face is heavily scarred and seems to have been that way for quite some time.
    • Compilation of Final Fantasy VII:
      • Crisis Core: Zack's scars are integral to his major moment of Character Development and remain in spite of his mako-infused SOLDIER abilities.
      • Final Fantasy VII Rebirth: Tifa is revealed to have gotten a scar on her abdomen when Sephiroth went mad and attacked Nibelheim. Extensive surgery kept to large a scar from developing, so it is only visible when she deliberately shows Cloud.
    • Final Fantasy VIII:
      • The game opens with Squall Leonhart and his rival Seifer both getting their scars on the same day as the game's events begin, so for once it actually makes sense for them to still sport them since the game only takes place over a short time period. That said, the trademark scars they share are so iconic they are even present for their very different roles in Kingdom Hearts, and we are given no explanation for how either got themnote  so this trope is present in a meta sense.
      • The Guest-Star Party Member Ward sports the same large scar on his face for apparently most of his life. We are given no explanation for where it came from.
    • Final Fantasy XII: Basch has a scar angled over his left eye. The scar doesn't seem to have faded at all in Final Fantasy XII: Revenant Wings, which takes place a year later.
    • Final Fantasy XVI: By the midpoint, Clive has a large scar on his left cheek, where he used to bear a Slave Brand after being captured by the Empire. Tarja, another former slave who works as the Hideaway's chief doctor, has a similar scar on her left cheek. Around the same point in the game, Gav has a large scar across his right eye, which he lost during Kupka's raid on the original Hideaway.
  • Hollow Knight: Gailen, one of the spirit bosses, died long ago fighting the beasts of Deepnest. When the player fights him, he still bears a long crack along his face and shell even as a ghost.
  • Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords: Darth Sion is almost completely composed of scar tissue and shattered bones. The only thing holding him together is the power of the Dark Side.
  • The Last of Us: Ellie has a notch in her eyebrow she got under unclear circumstances. She still has it in the sequel, that takes place five years later (and after the timeskip in said sequel, which takes about two years).
  • Legacy of Kain:
    • Despite being quite darned hard to kill, single-handedly conquering the world, (un)living some thousand years and evolving past his human form, Kain carries a scar from the sword that killed him. At least until his "firstborn" Raziel gives up his (un)life to heal and purify him. In accordance to a prophecy. No, don't ask me to explain it to you.
    • Raziel's whole body is scarred and deformed after he was thrown into the abyss (except his hair, which came out looking pretty decent, all things considered). Most prominent is his jaw having melted off. He uses the now-vacant space to devour the souls of his enemies. The only reason he can still talk is possibly due to extremely supple throat muscles.
  • The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess: Ganondorf carries the blade that was used to execute him, and he has a large glowing scar on his chest.
  • Mass Effect: Depending on player preference, any version of Commander Shepard can have a fairly prominent scar, gained during the decisive events of his or her Multiple-Choice Past (although the selection of scars available for female Shepards are overall less prominent than the ones available to males). The sequel, meanwhile, plays around with the trope; when Shepard is killed and restored to life, the process removes any facial scars they already had and leaves him or her with a whole new set. These can either heal away completely in a relatively short space of time or become even more pronounced if Shepard allows their aggressive tendencies to aggravate them.
    • Zaeed has a huge scar and a discolored eye from when he was shot in the head at point-blank range and managed to survive through sheer badassery. And Mordin has a prominent X-shaped scar on one side of his face and half a cranial horn missing. Jack also noticeably has a number of scars mixed in with her full-body tattoos.
    • Garrus Vakarian takes a missile to the face, and boy does it leave a mark. This trope applies to his armour too, which he leaves damaged, presumably to make him even more intimidating.
    • Wrex is implied to have received his scars from his father over a thousand years ago.
    • Jack still has the scars from Cerberus' experiments and her life of crime, though they're hard to see under the tattoos.
    • They're not visible to the player, but Thane mentions that he was immediately able to recognize Kaidan as a biotic because of the scars Kaidan received along with his L2 implant roughly twenty years earlier.
    • In Andromeda, Jaal can get a bullet graze scar from being shot at by a former friend. It'll remain for the rest of the game.
  • Most significant characters in Mega Man X are robots, giving ample room for head-scratching over this trope. Zero has been repaired after being torn into three pieces with nary a telltale scratch. The purple-black scars burned into Sigma's eyes, however, persist throughout all the different bodies he uses.
    • Given his personality, Sigma likely sees them as symbolic of his war and has them purposefully added to his new faces.
    • Axl's shapeshifting works by copying the DNA (read: blueprints) of his targets, but somehow his morphs bear scars which his targets had (most notably Red's missing eye) and his own scars have never healed. He doesn't have them when using his White Armor in X8, although it's not clear whether this is relevant to the plot.
    • Another prominent example is Bass.exe from Mega Man Battle Network. Being a Net Navi, and therefore made of data, he could have repaired that scar across his Navi Symbol any time he liked, but he got it in the first place when The Official Net Battlers were sent to delete him due to the (false) belief that he was the one responsible for the damage caused by the Alpha Rebellion, and he was told the decision to delete him was unanimous among Sci Lab's scientists, which included his own creator. So he keeps the scar, to symbolize this betrayal and to remind him why he thinks Humans Are Bastards.
  • Metal Gear:
    • Metal Gear Solid has four dramatically or plot-relevant scars, one in each game. The first occurs when Cyborg Ninja cuts off Ocelot's arm, an injury that stays with him until the second game where he replaces it with Liquid's. This becomes a very important plot point. He later cuts the arm back off himself because Liquid could control him through it, and his plans require that everyone only thinks Liquid is controlling him.
    • Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty also has Solidus, who loses an eye in an explosion. Amusingly enough he's absolutely thrilled with it as it makes him look like his late father. Even more amusingly it can be abused in the boss fight against him, as he has a prominent blind spot on that side.
    • We see how his father lost his eye in the prequel game Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, where it gets burned by the muzzle flash of a gun. Like Solidus he too has problems with it, his depth perception thrown off for quite a while afterwards. He also ends up with the same blind spot issue, indicated by the blackened section of the screen when aiming in first-person.
    • Snake himself gets scarred in Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots when he saves Eva from a fire and gets half of his face burnt off. It nicely landmarks the stage where Snake's age really starts to get to him, not to mention making him look all the more noble.
    • Several other characters also have distinctive scars. Drebin on the left side of his head, Zero across his left eye, The Boss on her chest, and Volgin across his entire face.
    • How about Raiden, who loses nearly his entire body by the events of the fourth game?
  • Duster the thief of Mother 3 has a limp throughout the course of the game. It is implied that Wess's intensive thief training had rendered this injury upon Duster.
  • In Pillars of Eternity, Iovara's face remains burned even in spirit form, after her soul has spent countless years in Sun in Shadow.
  • The Nameless One from Planescape: Torment is effectively immortal and his body regenerates from practically every form of damage. Despite being able to grow back arms, legs, and eyes, his skin recovers by forming scar tissue, it's basically a physical manifestation of the emotional trauma he's suffered from the endless cycle of dying, forgetting everything, and regenerating. Although the graphics make this hard to tell, in-game explanations imply that The Nameless One effectively has no skin left on his body, just overlapping scar tissue. It would certainly explain his grey skin tone. At one point, you can actually find a severed arm from one of his past lives. It's an equippable weapon, too. If that sounds worthy of then know that the eye is an armor slot. Yes, you can use eyes from previous incarnations, too.
  • John Marston of Red Dead Redemption is actually a pretty nice guy (especially considering the Crapsack World he lives in), and it would be easy to forget that he's a violent outlaw if not for his facial scars serving as a constant reminder of the kind of life he's led.
    • In the opening of Red Dead Redemption 2 we get to witness how he got those scars: by getting stranded on a mountain and being mauled by wolves.
  • During a knife fight cutscene in Resident Evil 4, Leon suffers a cut on his face that remains until the end of the game. Krauser has this more noticeably due to the fact Leon cut him across the front of his chest and he has a Shirtless Scene later on, plus the multitude of scars across his face from the helicopter accident he survived.
  • Before he got his Eyepatch of Power, a prototype Wolf O'Donnel from Star Fox had a scar over his eye instead. The eye was discolored, but the size of his profile image makes it hard to tell if he's supposed to be able to see with it or not. Interestingly, this was over the opposite eye his eyepatch ends up on.
  • In the Street Fighter series, the nasty scar on Sagat's chest that was made by a particularly nasty Dragon Punch from Ryu who was briefly dominated by his Superpowered Evil Side has been with him ever since he got it in the very first game.
    • Also, Gouken has ugly scars, probably from his last fight with Akuma.
    • Cammy has a scar on her cheek from her days at Shadaloo. In the Cammy Gaiden manga by Masahiko Nakahira, Cammy admits that she could get it removed anytime she wants to, but never gets the time to do it. The Street Fighter IV series tells us that Cammy chooses not to have her scar removed because it reminds her of who she is.
    • Abel from SFIV has several scars across his body, probably coming from his mercenary days.
    • Zangief's whole body from the neck down is scarred from wrestling with bears in the Siberian wilderness.
  • During the trickle of information for the week leading up to the Sniper/Spy class update in Team Fortress 2, Valve released the eighth in their Meet The Team series of videos, Meet The Spy, where one scene has the Spy give the Sniper a cut across the face shortly before killing him with a backstab. When the update was released, the Sniper had gained a scar across his face.
  • In Tekken, Kazuya Mishima has had a very distinct and large scar on his chest since the first game, gained as a child from when his father, Heihachi, threw him off a mountain. He got his revenge on Heihachi at the end of Tekken 1, but at the end of the 2nd game, he was thrown into a volcano by his father and actually died... but came back in the fourth game, bearing even more scars on his face and body. Seeing as he may be more evil than ever, it may represent his further corruption by Devil.
  • The Walking Dead (Telltale):
    • In Season 2, Clementine gets attacked by a dog who wants to eat the canned beans she was eating, with the dog mauling her right arm. This is actually a plot point for a part of episode one, with the cabing group she stumbles upon being unable/unwilling to admit that the wound was caused by an animal and not a walker, forcing Clem to patch herself up with stolen supplies. The scar is still there in Season 3, two years later.
    • In Season 3, depending on which ending the player chose, Clem will have either a scar on her forehead ("go with Kenny") or a bullet graze wound on her cheek ("Wellington"). Due to Season 4 being done on a much smaller budget, these two endings were merged, and when you upload a Season 3 save with the "Wellington" ending from Season 2, your Clem will have the same forehead scar as the one from the "go with Kenny" one.
  • Xenoblade Chronicles:
    • Xenoblade Chronicles 1: Dunban has horrific scars on his right side from where he tried to wield the Monado.
    • Xenoblade Chronicles 2: Flesh Eaters, Blades who have taken in human cells to unbind them from the normal rules of Blades, tend to have large scars somewhere on their bodies. One very common theory is that this scar represents the part of the human body they consumed; Jin, the strongest Flesh Eater, has a large scar over his chest, and it is confirmed that he ate his Driver's heart.
    • Xenoblade Chronicles 3: Ashera has a very large scar on her neck. In her ascension quest, she reveals that this is from when she was executed over a thousand years ago. The trauma of that moment stuck with her so much that the scar returns with every new reincarnation. She regains at least some of the memories of her old lives, but also the pain, and inevitably she goes insane and has to be put down like a mad dog.

    Visual Novels 
  • Eleonore von Wittenburg in Dies Irae, like all Ewigkeit users, has Healing Factor, but her face burn hasn't faded even in 60 years.
  • Katawa Shoujo:
    • Hanako has burn scars covering a large portion of her face and body. It's possible that we're seeing her after they tried fixing them. The scars are still an inflamed-looking purplish-red, despite the house fire that gave her the scars happening at least 8 or 9 years ago.
    • Hisao himself has a scar on his chest from when he had surgery on his heart. In Shizune's route, in which he never explicitly tells her about his condition, during the first sex scene, he's relieved that they're able to have sex without taking off his shirt, so that she won't have to see it. He also uses the scar to show Hanako that they aren't that different in her route, and when Lilly runs her hand over this scar during her first sex scene in her route, she becomes concerned about whether sexual activity is healthy for Hisao, to which he reassures her that it is.
  • Tsukihime also deserves note, as Shiki possesses a gigantic wound in his chest from the 'accident' that gave him his Eyes of Death. Like Kenshin, this wound heals up when the story is complete and He kills Roa/SHIKI. He still has Anemia, though.
  • Cove Holden from Our Life: Beginnings & Always from Step 2 onwards has a scar visible on his arm from an accident in his childhood that resulted in him having a cast in Step 1. While it does fade and shrink compared to his growing body, it never vanishes altogether.

    Webcomics 
  • In Bittersweet Candy Bowl, Augustus tries to hide his with his hair, while Alejandro got one from his former girlfriend. Kizuna had a scar on her arm, but she is never allowed to explain how she got it — something of a gag regarding the character's Original Character status.
  • Chimneyspeak:
    • Chelsea Grinn is covered in scars (especially her face), but the most important is the one across her nose, as it ruined her life (in her mind) and set in motion every event of her life that led to her getting all the others.
    • Elgie picks up a couple of impressive facial scars (especially the one through his left eye, given by Chelsea, using his own knife) and one on his belly from being shot by Suka. That one led to Elgie's friend Alice shooting Suka, who had been her lover for a while.
  • Dominic Deegan boasts Karnak, known as the Demon of Wounds before he ascended to become the King of Hell. While being a Bad Ass of high caliber to boot, his personal schtick was that not only do any wounds he inflicts invariably cause ugly scars, but most of them remain permanently open even in the face of white magic. As the Trope describes above, the character most afflicted with one of these wounds wore it as an external symbol of the depravity in his soul that he had fallen into ever since it was inflicted.
    • Szark Sturtz, owner of one of the grievous example above, has only managed to get it closed when Karnak became the King of Hell, and only then because it has since been assumed that he's now got so many new powers to play with that he can't be bothered to keep track of them all. Even then, the scar is still livid and healing seemingly in tandem with Szark's progress towards redemption.
  • The Dreamland Chronicles: Nicodemus still has the scar Alex gave him.
  • In El Goonish Shive, "Not-Tengu" is blinded in his left eye despite his Winged Humanoid form not being his base form.
  • In Ennui GO!, in order of appearance:
    • Asher cuts Hashim's face with a broken bottle, leaving him with three long, thin scars over his right eye.
    • Izzy gets shot in the left shoulder and is later is shown with a star-shaped tattoo over the entry wound.
    • Max is mauled by a mountain lion, and now has four scars over his chest and arm.
    • Noah gets bitten on his right arm by the fish girl Orca is trying to kill and now has a large scar on his bicep.
    • Hashim's brother Xoltan also has a thin scar over his right eye, though it's not known how he got it.
    • The sole exception is Venus, and that's only because Izzy paid for her plastic surgery.
  • In Girl Genius, Airman Axel Higgs has got an extensive collection of scars, accumulated during his (apparently) long and rough career as the toughest man alive. There's a reason they call him "The Unstoppable" Higgs.
  • In Goblins, Thaco had his ear cut off by Captain Goblinslayer, who keeps trophies including Thaco's ear. Captain Goblinslayer has also carved words into the heads of several prisoners, including Fumbles, one of the major goblin cast members.
    • Not just any cast member, the main comic relief character. The sweetest, nicest, kindhearted-est cast member. Bringing on a Heroic BSoD of epic proportions that he only broke out of recently in an attempt to save one of the other main cast members. And lo, there were many Manly Tears shed at that moment.
  • Gunnerkrigg Court, sort of. Antimony gets a cut on her face, courtesy of a ghostly swordswoman's rapier, but the cut completely disappears as soon as the ghost does. But then the cut reappears when any Etheric influences start acting up in Annie's vicinity.
    • It's speculated that the cut was inflicted on some sort of spirit plane, and only Annie's astral projection is scarred. It gives a nice way of saying "something weird's going on" to the viewers without telling Annie, though.
  • Heart Core: See those beautiful red marks on Ame's face, arms, and legs? Yeah, that's not paint. That's exposed muscle that she gained thanks to being forced to partake in a ritual by her father Royce, stripping her of much of her powers. To this point, no form of healing can remove them, not even devouring Heartcores, something that can replace lost limbs. All she can do is hide them when she shapeshifts into another form.
  • Kobayashi Akira of Heliothaumic was scarred while working in a smelting plant — and not by accident.
  • Homestuck:
    • Gamzee Makara has a permanent set of scars from when he dragged Nepeta Leijon's claws across his face before beating her to death. Even when he reapplies his clown makeup, they're visible.
    • Caliborn chewed off his own leg to free himself from his shackles when he started his game session. Even after acquiring incredible power as Lord English, he is still missing a leg.
  • The unicorns of Hooves of Death would look like typical pastel unicorns if not for years of fighting for humanity during a Zombie Apocalypse. The protagonist Sergeant Glitter was shown to be flawless and radiant before the outbreak began, but now sports a half-dozen deep scars and still picks up new ones. Even the background unicorns can be identified by their unique assortment of old wounds, and the sparkliest unicorn of them all, Commander Sprinkles, is literally Covered in Scars from head to hooves.
  • In Impure Blood, Mac is told she'll have a scar once her leg wound heals. She thinks it's cool.
  • I'm the Grim Reaper: Scarlet is relatively unmarked on her death, except for a small scar on her mouth. Later, she finds out she has scars all over her chest and stomach.
  • Grey of Inhuman is horribly scarred all over his body from various apparent tortures and experiments at the hands of his Rulerist captors.
  • Last Res0rt has several:
    • Daisy Archanis's leg was amputated and replaced with a bionic substitute prior to the start of the story.
      • Given she was — and technically still is — stuck inside a prison, access to limb-regenerating technology is likely not an option.
      • It's healed up on Gabriel's ship, but Daisy suspects that's part of the ship's Whimsy. No clue if it'll last.
    • Likewise, Daisy said it herself in the B-Side Comics that Meridian (Jigsaw's mother) has a similar set of robotic legs, but it's an exoskeleton because those legs weren't rebuilt properly.
    • Arikos's scarred eye is the result of an ironic attack from his own children in the Back Story. Why it's refused to heal is anybody's guess, but given that these are all Celeste we're talking about here, we're going to lean towards both "it's very big" and "It's likely magically reinforced".
  • Muted: Silvia has several scars over one eye, revealed to be the result of a failed first attempt to summon her familiar.
    • Camille has a massive red burn that covers her entire back as a result of the greenhouse fire.
    • We are later introduced to Silvia's twin sister, Sophia, who has two horizontal scars on her right cheek.
  • No Future: Andrew's future self has a lot of scars. The present version, twenty-three years earlier, already has some of them. At the rate it's going he'll end up with a different, but equally extensive collection.
  • In Off-White, Jera has never lost the scar she got from a playful puppy bite.
  • In The Order of the Stick, Right-Eye and Redcloak are both missing an eye, which is quite easily healed in-universe. There's a reason why their eyes remain missing, though.
    • Also, O-Chul has a facial scar (that goes right down to the bone!) when we first meet him. After a few months being tortured by Team Evil, he's got a whole lot more. The trade paperback even has an 'O-Chul Scar Guide'.
      • In fact, the prequel centered on him is named "How the Paladin Got His Scar". The titular moment came when Gin-Jun, General Ripper Knight Templar and the then-commander of the Saphire Guard, got enraged enough to attack O-Chul when he convinced the rest of the guard not to help him start a bloody war with the hobgoblins that would claim many innocents. He refused to have the scar healed afterward to remind himself never to sink to the lows that Gin-Jun did.
  • In Pacificators, one of the characters got caught in a fire as a small kid, and got burned real bad (bad enough to leave extensive scars). Who is it? Muneca Powell. That's one of the reasons why she dresses so conservatively and overreacts to minor injuries.
  • Milny's recent resurrection in Planescape Survival Guide did not remove the scars she'd received from recent battles, which had healed without the aid of the team cleric.
  • Faye from Questionable Content has a scar from a car accident.
  • In Roza the shadow cat has a notched ear
  • Anna in Sire scarred her face with a letter opener.
  • Abel has a scar on his lip given to him by Cain.
  • In Strays, Feral has facial scars, but it's the ones on his back that really horrify Meela.
  • Vinci of Vinci and Arty has a hole in his ear that he got before he met Arty. Its origins haven't been mentioned in the comic yet.

    Web Original 
  • The Accuser: While it's a smaller loss compared to becoming a widower, Dan Mason lost the ability to walk without the Accuser armor. Apparently, there's some hope he'll regain it but it has yet to be seen.
  • In The Chronicles of Taras, Cutter is named for the scars she put on her arms and back because her parents wouldn't let her get tattoos.
  • Dead West: Most of the characters are too young for the scars to fade totally away, and some are simply too deep to disappear. Niall is able to heal himself with very little traces, but from some angles, even the more than a decade-old scars on his face are visible. He is also quite aware that he looks horrible with a body Covered in Scars, and mistakenly believes that it makes him appear entirely unappetizing. Gervas himself states that his own scars are hardly noticeable, but still there.
  • Kanon's RomCom Mangas: Shuichi tries to confess to his childhood friend, Mifuyu, but she keeps rejecting him saying there would be no way he would like her. She has a huge burn scar on her belly and she only wants the best for him by not dating her.
  • Manga Room: Ryota have a big scar on his forehead when he tried to save a girl from a car accident.
  • Charles Matthias of Metamor Keep has a defining scar from when a demon called a screecher touched him. Justified given that it's specifically stated that the reason it won't heal is specifically said to be magic. Additionally, his fur (The curse of Metamor turned Charles into an anthropomorphic rat) will not grow back in that spot. The scar is frequently used in artwork of the series.
  • RWBY: Although Aura can heal wounds, certain characters still sport scars from particularly challenging or traumatic conflicts.
    • Weiss has a small scar on her left eye, although the eye itself is intact. The White Trailer shows that she obtained the scar in battle against an Arma Gigas. The knight hits her in the face with its armoured fist, sending her flying and slashing her eye. The fight was a test set up by her father to try and prevent her from attending Beacon Academy; by winning the fight, she is able to go to the school of her choice instead of his.
    • Towards the end of Volume 3, Blake is stabbed in the stomach by her Psycho Ex-Boyfriend, Adam, leaving her with a small scar on her stomach that is visible due to her habit of wearing midriff-revealing clothes. Yang's attempt to save her results in Adam cutting off her right arm, forcing Blake to save them both despite her own wounds. By Volume 4, Ruby is the only member of Team RWBY without a physical scar of some kind.
    • Volume 4 reveals that Cinder has a massive burn-like scar over the left half of her face that she hides with an eyepatch and her hair. During the Volume 3 climax, Ruby unlocks a hidden magical power when Cinder kills one of her friends in front of her. Volume 4 reveals that the power, which is supposed to only work on Grimm, has burned the left side of Cinder's body; it destroys her ability to speak for a while, and her left arm is destroyed completely. The power injured her because she was fused with a Grimm to enable her to steal the Fall Maiden's power; after receiving the injuries, she sports a Grimm arm, which can absorb Maiden power.
    • Adam wears a mask on his face that he never removes because it hides a scar. He was branded like cattle by the SDC, which has blinded his left eye. The SDC is infamous for its mistreatment of Faunus workers, and Adam's desire to enslave the human race stems from how the SDC treated him.
    • In Volume 8, Nora tanks an enormous amount of electricity in an attempt to break through a high security door. It maxes out her Semblance, leaving her with a web of scars across her upper body. Even though Jaune attempts to amplify her Aura to heal them, the scars remain.
  • Whateley Universe: Vamp still carries some horrific burn scars under her hairline from the torture The Necromancer used to keep her in line, and refuses to allow Nikki to heal them because some of the tortures were so unthinkable she's afraid she'll go insane without the scars to prove they actually happened.
  • In Worm, the supervillain Cricket is on a team with someone who can grant a regeneration power, but she refuses to use it to heal fully because that would mean missing out on battle-scars.

    Western Animation 
  • On Amphibia, Sasha gets a cut on her right cheek during her swordfight with Anne in the Season 1 finale, leaving a scar that's visible for the rest of the series symbolizing that things have changed between her and Anne such they won't go back to what they had prior. In the Distant Finale, she still has the scar even in adulthood.
    • In the next-to-last episode of the series, Darcy catches Grime off guard and cuts off his arm. He's shown later still missing the arm, not using a prosthetic. The same can be said for Andrias, who lost his cybernetic arm and leg in his fight with Anne and chose not to get any replacement parts.
  • Avatar: The Last Airbender:
    • Zuko's iconic burn scar, as shown in the page image. Katara offers to heal it once in the original Avatar: The Last Airbender, but owing to a combination of circumstances it never happens, and Word of God states the Spirit Water would not have worked anyway (it saved Aang's life without healing his big fat scar). 70 years later in sequel series The Legend of Korra, Zuko's scar has not changed a single bit.
    • Another example in the original Avatar: The Last Airbender is Aang's scar, incurred when Azula shoots him in the center of the spine with lightning. Even if it is on his back (where it could be easily concealed), the writers still take plenty of opportunities to remind us that, yes, Aang has a huge scar on his back. He also has a scar on the bottom of his foot, from the same injury. This is also a case of Shown Their Work since real lightning strike victims often have the electrical current exit through their feet. The scar is also a plot point, as it messes up Aang's chi and prevents him from using the Avatar State until Ozai accidentally knocks him into a rock spur right into the scar, which reactivates his chi.
    • In The Legend of Korra, Lin Beifong has two small scars on her right cheek, which she got as a rookie in the Republic City Police when attempting to arrest her half-sister Suyin, who proceeded to cut the metal whip restraining her, causing it to accidentally snap back at Lin.
  • Hudson on Gargoyles has a scar through one eye, giving his eye a permanent yellow color. He got it fighting the Archmage, who blasted him into a rock inside a cave. Gargoyles heal from most injuries when they turn to stone, but it isn't explained why his scar never healed despite this fact.
    • Word of God says that some types of injuries (loss of limbs etc.) cannot be healed even by stone sleep, and apparently losing the use of an eye falls into this category.
    • The scars on Gillecomgain's face, from when Demona struck him as a child, remained until his death some 40 years later.
    • Brooklyn also came back from his Time Dancer adventures missing an eye.
  • Gravity Falls: Grunkle Stan has a tattoo of a mysterious symbol on his back, which is always hidden by his undershirt. Dipper at one point tries to get a closer look at it, but Stan stops him at every turn. It's revealed in a Whole Episode Flashback in Season 2 that it's really a symbol from the Universe Portal's interface that was seared onto his back during a confrontation with his twin brother before the latter was knocked into the Portal.
  • Infinity Train: MT/Lake manages to cut off a small part of her right eyebrow when getting her Significant Haircut, and it never grows back.
  • On Jimmy Two-Shoes, Heloise has a scar on her forehead. How this happened is a mystery, even to Edward Kay, who only states that it adds to her twisted appearance. In the original idea for the series, she was a Serial Killer who was gunned down, so that scar was due to the fact a bullet hit her there. As they (probably) changed everything about that idea, the scar was just left there for the above reasons.
  • Kaeloo: Bad Kaeloo has a scar over her right eye. It is currently unknown how she got it.
  • Doctor Drakken from Kim Possible has a scar across his face. Considering how big it is, it's possible that it couldn't heal properly.
    • Possibly caused by whatever turned him blue, since neither scar nor color was present during the college years flashback.
  • Kion in The Lion Guard will always have the scar on his eye that Ushari the cobra gave him. He hopes it can be healed at the Tree of Life but though the venom from the bite is gone, he'll always have the scar. He comes to terms with the fact that having it doesn’t make it a "mark of evil" as lions call such scars and that he won't be like his great uncle Scar. Queen Janna helps her granddaughter Rani, who has a scarred leg, understand as well when the latter is reluctant to let Kion and the guard come to the Tree.
  • Played straight and averted on Metalocalypse. Dick Knubbler loses both eyes at the end of his debut episode and needs cybernetic replacements. Dr. Twinkletits gets similar replacements for his arms (and apparently larynx), which were eaten by wolves. However, Dr. Rockzo's nose falls off at the end of 'Cleanzo', and it seems fine next time we see him. When Ofdensen returns from his faked death, he has a scar on his cheek that vanishes by the next episode.
  • The Owl House:
    • Luz gets a scar above her left eye (going through her eyebrow) in the season 2 finale. She still has it after a Time Skip at the start of season 3, and after an even longer time skip at the very end of the show.
    • In "Elsewhere and Elsewhen", after being betrayed by him and used as bait for a Stonesleeper, Lilith socks Philip Wittebane so hard in the face that she breaks his nose, leaving it swollen, crooked, and bleeding. In the modern day, Philip - now Emperor Belos - still has a visibly crooked nose, and the wound got infected with Palisman essence and currently takes up most of his face. When he hides the magical scar using a Glamour in "King's Tide", the small scar over his nose persists.
    • In season three, Hunter and Raine end up with similar scarring as a result of being possessed by Belos. The facial scars, at minimum, are still on them in the future epilogue.
  • South Park: Parodied by "Black Friday". Officer Krum, survivor of countless mall battles, of course wears a giant scar over his left eye. When he dies, he pulls it off and hands it to Randy Marsh as a sort of commander insignia.
  • Steven Universe:
    • Sadie, Steven, and Lars spend the episode "Island Adventure" surviving on a remote island. While walking on the beach, a large, monstrous fish suddenly jumps out of the water and tries to drag Sadie in. They manage to kill it, giving them food for the night, but Sadie gets a number of cuts, including a small one under her eye that never fully heals (oddly, the much deeper bite marks on her arm do).
    • Even though his resurrection cured some serious injuries (broken bones, ruptured organs), Lars still sports a giant scar over his right eye from when he was hit with shrapnel from an explosion.
    • For a certain definition of "scar," anytime a gem gets poofed, the form she regenerates with is the one she's stuck with until she's poofed again. Any injuries that aren't severe enough to poof will heal, but anything inherent to the regeneration is stuck. Best demonstrated by Amethyst in the episode "Reformed," where she rushes a regeneration and winds up with horribly misshapen limbs, and later, more subtly, after being poofed by Jasper and again rushing a regeneration, she has one eye in a perpetual squint.
    • Pink Diamond's Pearl has a number of facial scars that resemble cracks on pottery all surrounding a non-functioning eye. She received them during one of Pink Diamond's outbursts as she stood too close to one of her glass-shattering yells. She's had the scar for millennia and in Steven Universe: Future she tries to have it fixed, but with her undamaged gem Steven concludes that the scar is more of a psychological wound made manifest onto her body. After coming to terms with her Diamond the show leaves it ambiguous if her eye ever heals (having parts of the environment hiding it from the audience) however the facial scarring is still present.
  • Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles:
    • Hun still has the scar he got from Splinter.
    • Similarly, Leonardo in the same series (at least prior to Fast Forward) lost a segment of his shell that never healed.
    • This became almost a running gag with Baxter Stockman: he gradually lost more and more of his body as the series progressed (for example, first his eye, then his legs, and so on). By the end of Season 2, he's just a brain with one eye in a jar.
    • The next series follows this trope as well, with Raphael having a crack in his plastron that he's had all his life (with a Flashback Episode revealing that he got it when Splinter was trying to escape the Kraang).
  • Panthro from the ThunderCats reboot has a noticeable scar from his right eye.
  • Ratchet on Transformers: Animated has a dinged crest and a cut in his arm despite being a robot doctor. He deliberately didn't fix the former or replace the device that went it to the former to remember "for those who can't." Most notably Arcee, who lost her memory when Ratchet was forced to wipe it so she couldn't be interrogated.
  • The scar across Wheeljack's Autobot insignia in Transformers: Armada, marking the point where he did his Face–Heel Turn.
  • In Transformers: Energon, half of Starscream's face is damaged. This is another case that probably shouldn't be because it can't be damage left over from his death the previous season. He was vaporized during his Heroic Sacrifice in Armada, and had an entirely new body created for his recovered Spark by the Alpha Quintesson. What, did Alpha Q just not have enough dark robo-god innards left to make a complete faceplate for Screamer?
  • The Venture Brothers has Baron Underbheit's missing lower jaw, part of his being an Affectionate Parody of Dr. Doom. He uses a metal replacement. Billy Quizboy lost an eye and a hand and uses an eyepatch and prosthetic. He originally had a convincing prosthetic eye but lost it. The Phantom Limb needs prosthetics after the Season 2 finale, as well.


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