Covered with Scars

Those scars? He did those to himself.

"But Masada's momentum controlled Tremont! Into the barbs, his arm got caught. And just keep in mind, you get a part of your body caught in the barbwire as you're falling and there's nothing to break your fall, that will rip up your skin the entire way you're falling. It's stuck in your skin, you try to pull it out, it will rip up or down or back. This is how legends of this match, Sabu and the like, have scars up and down their body."

— Welcome to the Combat Zone

A character's entire body is covered in hundreds of scars. This trope is used to show that the character is a badass, a veteran, or a Broken Bird who lived through a lot of fights or suffered a great deal of pain and torture. Often times these scars will be linked to mental scars related to how they gained them.

If the scars are self-inflicted, expect the character to be more than a little off.

Subtrope of Rugged Scar. Related to Dented Iron, Good Scars, Evil Scars, Every Scar Has a Story, and Scars Are Forever. May involve a Scar Survey. See also Frozen Face.

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Examples:

Anime and Manga

• Baccano!:
  • Illness has countless scars under her dress as a result of SAMPLE's "worship" of her.
  • Nice Holystone also has a pretty nasty burn scars all over her body due to disastrous experiments with explosives.
• Baki the Grappler, along with several supporting characters. The most notable is Hanayama.
• Berserk:
  • With the amount of punishment that Guts regularly takes at the hands of his demonic enemies, he's accumulated quite a few scars over his career. Including a missing eye and forearm, courtesy of the horrors of the Eclipse. This gets even more pronounced after he obtains the Berserker Armor: his body is apparently so covered in scar tissue that he cannot sweat, leaving him susceptible to frequent fevers.
  • While not as extreme as Guts, there are very few places on Casca's body where she doesn't have some scars. Living as a mercenary in constant combat since the age of twelve will do that.
• Betrayal Knows My Name's Usui Shuusei is covered with nasty burn marks from when he interrupted Hotsuma's suicide attempt.
• Black Jack of the manga of the same name is covered in scars from stepping on a landmine as a child.
  • In the TV version, anyway. The original manga had an unexploded American bomb from WWII that his family's house had been built on top of by crooked developers who were too cheap to have it dismantled first.
• Black Lagoon: Balalaika has burn scars all over the front of her body, including almost half her face, as the result of surviving a frag grenade at close range.
• Manji from Blade of the Immortal and Blade of the Immortal: Bakumatsu Arc has scars on every inch of his body... which occasionally open up.
• Bleach:
  • Yamamoto Genryuusai, the commander of the Gotei 13. Some of his scars have story-significant background to them, especially the scar that was inflicted by Sasakibe, which impressed him enough to change his name.
  • Kenpachi. Due to his love for fighting, his body is absolutely covered in scars. His overall strategy seems to be that dodging is for sissies.
  • Mayuri, underneath his getup. Due to his constant doing 'modification' surgeries on himself.
• Yukiya in Code Geass: Akito the Exiled, particularly visible in the hot springs Picture Drama.
• In Cyberpunk: Edgerunners, the tattoo-like pattern on Lucy's back is revealed to be a series of scars. This came from her childhood when Arasaka exploited her and sent her to the Old Net. Lucy barely escaped an encounter with a rogue AI behind the Blackwall, but not before the AI clawed onto her back, creating the pattern she has to this day.
• In the Frieza saga of Dragon Ball Z we see that Vegeta has scars all over his chest and back.
• Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba doesn’t shy away from acquired scars after so many encounters and battles with bloodthirsty demons:
  • Sanemi, the Wind Hashira, one of the stronger demon slayers in the series, is covered in scars all over his body, from actual battles but with a spin that some he inflicted on himself, due to his blood actually being intoxicating to demons, getting them somewhat groggy to make them weaker.
  • Tanjiro goes through some serious battles over the course of the series, suffering quite some then and there, with that he has gotten some scars on his body, the Hashira Training shows Tanjiro shirtless, sporting three large scars on his chest and smaller ones on both arms.
• All three of Madaraki sisters from Franken Fran have them, due to being artificial humans.
• Riki from Ginga: Nagareboshi Gin has scars all over his body from fighting bears and other dogs.
• Kyoshiro from Ginga Densetsu Weed has scars all over his body. They're most likely from fighting other dogs.
  • There is a common misconception among fans who have watched the anime and not read the manga that Kyoshiro's scars come from his abusive father. A flashback scene in the manga proves this to be false, as puppy Kyoshiro has no scars at the time his father dies, making it impossible for any of his scars to have been from the abuse.
• Golden Kamuy: series protagonist Saichi "Immortal" Sugimoto begins the series covered in battle scars from his time fighting in the Russo-Japanese war, and acquires several more over the course of the series as he repeatedly puts his moniker to the test.
• Over the course of his series, Golgo 13 has developed a number of scars, visible when he removes his shirt. In the first chapter, he was unmarked.
• GTO: The Early Years: Toshiki Kamishima has burn scars all over his body from when Akutsu set him on fire. He gets even more when it happens a second time.
• Morito of Gun×Clover has a lot of scars on his upper torso hidden under his clothes thanks to his long mercenary career.
• As a historical series that routinely depicts warfare and combat, Kingdom will usually show any character whose fought on the battlefield to be quite literally covered in scars.
  • Arguably the first character to personify it in the series, Ou Ki showed quite an impressive number of scars stemming from a lifetime on the battlefield during his first appearance and later a Shirtless Scene.
  • Hou Ken received his titular facial story-significant background scar from Ou Ki during their first duel
  • Ren Pa's face, ears, and body are covered in numerous scars that demonstrates his experiences in endless warfare and battles as a Great General of the Heavens.
  • As proof of his combat experience, Ri Boku's entire upper body to his arms are riddled with scars which he hides underneath his robes.
• Colonel Bakuryu from Kochikame has scars all over his face and torso showing his combat and survivalist experiences.
• Shirou Takamichi from Lyrical Nanoha has lots of nasty scars all over his body from back when he used to work as a bodyguard. A shot of him back in Episode 3 of the first season shows that his upper arms are shown to be covered in knife/sword wounds and you can clearly see a bullet wound near his heart.
• Balsa from Moribito: Guardian of the Spirit, mostly apparent in one episode where she has to take her shirt off to get a wound treated.
• In addition to the four scars on his face, Lannes is depicted this way in Napoleon — Shishi no Jidai by Tetsuya Hasegawa, with bullet wounds and sabre cuts all over his arms and torso. May also be the case for Oudinot, given the number of scars drawn on his face and his real-life self's reputation, but we have yet to see him shirtless...
• Naruto:
  • Morino Ibiki was tortured as a young man and is now completely covered in scars. He hides his head with a bandana so people won't see all the burn marks and craters. Considering he hides the rest of his body with a long coat and gloves, it's safe to assume he has more of them.
  • The entire right side of Uchiha Obito's body, including his face, is one big mass of scar tissue. Some part of it may not even be his own skin anymore, and his right arm is basically a prosthetic. No surprise, given that he was crushed by a huge boulder as a child.
• One Piece:
  • Genzo's entire body has scars. They were caused by being slashed up by Kuroobi of the Arlong Pirates eight years prior.
  • Whitebeard is covered with scars on every part of his body... except for his back. The only wounds on his back are from the times he was Impaled with Extreme Prejudice since he was neither caught off-guard nor forced to retreat even once in his decades-long career. Of course, being Whitebeard (and thus being even more Made of Iron than the norm in One Piece), these were only flesh wounds.
  • Laboon the whale's head is also crisscrossed with many scars, the result of years spent angrily crashing against the Red Line. Luffy prevents it from hurting itself again by drawing his Jolly Roger on its head, so that Laboon won't crash against the Red Line anymore.
  • The first ship of the Straw Hat Pirates, the Going Merry, accumulated a huge amount of damage during their journey, which eventually all added up and making her unable to sail anymore, resulting in a Viking Funeral. This is significant because the ship does have a soul.
• Gene Starwind from Outlaw Star. It's implied that many of his scars are the result of his escape pod crash-landing on Sentinel III when he was 15.
• The Mad Artist from the horror manga Panorama of Hell cuts himself all over his body because he uses his own blood as paint and even vomits blood all over the canvasses. Squick doesn't even begin to cover it.
• Randal Oland from Pumpkin Scissors. He got most of them during the war that occurred before the series begins.
• Diabal from Radiant has large scars all over his body, including some severed fingers and his horns broken due to being tortured by the Inquisition for years after being handed over by his "brother" Piodon for asking one too many questions.
• The moneylender Sugi in Rainbow has acquired quite an assortment of what appear to be knife wounds over his ten years in the business. He says they all came from people who decided it was easier to kill him than to pay him back.
• Tsukune from Rosario + Vampire has been portrayed as this during his more recent shirtless scenes. Not surprising, considering all the things he's endured.
• Rurouni Kenshin: Shishio's full-body scarring is from one incident, but having almost all of your skin be second- or third-degree burns can't be pleasant.
• Obi and Mitsuhide from Snow White with the Red Hair both are revealed to have quite a few scars on their torsos and arms when they're seen shirtless, and Obi has his signature scar on his forehead as well.
• Soul Eater:
  • Black☆Star after his fight with Mifune.
  • Stein, in part a self-inflicted example due to the fact he sees even himself as a test subject for whatever catches his attention.
• Space Patrol Luluco: When Nova's suit burns away in Episode 12, we see that his torso is crisscrossed with nasty-looking scars and that he has an X-shaped scar on his forehead that was hidden by his bangs before (which contains the miniature black hole his master planted in his body). For what this might mean, see Epileptic Trees under Space Patrol Luluco.
• Nanashi from Sword of the Stranger is covered in scars from his days as a samurai.
• In The Testament of Sister New Devil, Basara's body is covered in scars, which are quite visible as he has several on his arms. Both Maria and Mio quickly find out that he's actually quite a skilled fighter, and those scars are a testament to the training he's received.
• Mutsuki Tooru from the sequel to Tokyo Ghoul is revealed to have a heavily scarred torso. It becomes a significant plot point when the team is investigating a Ghoul called Torso since his preferred victims are scarred women. It turns out the heavy scarring isn't the only thing Mutsuki is hiding, leading Torso to become obsessed with him.
• In Toriko, the Bishokukai member Cedre has at least 26 scars all over his body. Several of them are on his torso and back, 9 on his face, 3 on his right hand, and possibly all his body is in the same conditions. Almost all of the scars are scratches from attacks of wild beasts, as his job is to hunt them.
• In Trigun, Vash's complete upper body is basically one large scar, including his missing arm. He calls it the price for being a pacifist in a gunslinger world. His scars are so extreme that even bandits and criminals have been known to recoil in horror upon seeing them.
• Implied with the character of Cargilla in Vamp!, whose face is covered in scars. The narrator adds that if not for the heavy clothing he wears, the rest of his body would probably be covered in scars as well.
• Perhaps as part of its deconstruction of medieval era warfare, most characters with battle experience in Vinland Saga turn out to have a wealth of scars, especially if you ever see them shirtless. Whenever main character Thorfinn is seen without a shirt in his teen/adult years, it turns out that his torso and arms have extensive scarring◊, and the second and third arc will add a couple of non-disfiguring facial scars◊ as well. Thorkell, despite having a virtual "Instant Death" Radius in battle, has plenty of his own◊, and Thorgil has several prominent facial scars, numerous ones on his arms, and when he ditched his top◊ several more were seen on his torso. In the anime even Thors, who was treated as unquestionably being the World's Best Warrior and virtually untouchable in battle, was shown to have several prominent scars on his torso, shoulders, and arms.
• Himawari Kunogi from xxxHOLiC becomes this when she willingly chooses to take on the scars Watanuki would've otherwise received from falling out of a window after her Doom Magnet status influences the accident to happen. The next time we see her, we only need to take a look at Himawari's neck and shoulders to have a glimpse of what her clothes hide from our view...
• YuYu Hakusho: Sensui. A result of a combination of Macho Masochism and being completely insane.
• In the manga for Young Gun Carnaval, every time Jinpachi has a Shirtless Scene, you see that he's acquired many, many scars over the course of his career — usually bullet or knife wounds. In case you were wondering, he's an assassin. His partner, Yumika, is probably in a similar or worse state, considering her mother, but the manga doesn't show it.
• Nearly all the girls from Zombie Land Saga are heavily damaged, though most of them are only implied, the girls' visible scars suggesting what's hidden underneath their clothes and bandages. Junko is the worst, to the point of Frankenstein's Monster, and Ai's bandages only reveal her hair and eyes (implying that the lightning strike that killed her burned her so badly, she doesn't have any skin left to scar).

Comic Books

• Batman:
  • Since the 1970s, Batman's body is often shown to be covered in scars from his multiple fights. The same goes for the rest of the Bat-family, special notice maybe for Cassandra Cain, who has a lot of bullet wounds from her bullet-dodging training by her father.
  • Zsasz. His scars are self-inflicted, and each one represents one of his victims.
• Daredevil is another one who's covered in scars.
• Deadpool is covered in scars, tumors, or both, as a side effect of his Healing Factor being at war with his terminal cancer.
• Duane Cutter in Hard Time, an infamous serial killer whose body (including his face) is covered in dense scar tissue. They're the result of ritual scarification and almost look like tattoos. He considers himself an artist, and skin is his canvas; naturally, he leaves his victims in a similar condition.
• Similar to the Zsasz and Mister X examples, Warren Ellis' Jack Cross, a self-mutilating Jack Bauer Expy, is shown to have a cross-shaped scar for everyone he has killed. In his case, it's more of a punishment than a trophy.
• Kaiju Dayz: Big Mama is covered in scars—souvenirs from her career as a professional rampager.
• Maximum Absolute of King City has numerous Frankenstein-stitching-like scars, as well as a missing leg. Presumably he got these when he was in the xombie war, although he already has the one across his face in flashbacks.
• Rob Liefeld has drawn many characters covered with scars, but it is hard to tell if they are actually veins, wrinkles, or overzealous hatching and cross-hatching.
• Secret Six: Ragdoll's body is covered in scars from the hundreds of surgeries he had to replicate his father's superhuman flexibility.
• Shazam!: In the 1990s series, Freddy's back was shown to be covered in surgical scars, thanks to all the procedures he underwent to repair his spine. Like many things in the '90s, this was a source of bitterness for him.
• Marv from Sin City has many scars across his face. It's likely they're all over his body, judging from his fighting style.
• In the MonsterVerse graphic novel Skull Island: The Birth of Kong, multiple Death Jackals inhabiting Skull Island have scars criss-crossing their bodies. Most likely, their Monstrous Cannibalism tendencies have contributed to them gaining this look.
• The Spirit had no scars in his 1940s adventures in serials. However, in the Darwyn Cooke revival, one shirtless scene shows his numerous scars in the back, from his numerous adventures and crime-fighting. It's presumed he also has many on his front side.
• Jukko Hämäläinen of Stormwatch: Team Achilles is covered head to toe in scars from the period of time he spent resisting his brother's attempts to transform him into a superhuman.
• Like Zsasz, Wolverine villain Mister X also has a self-inflicted scar for each person he's killed. His, however, are arranged in an elaborate pattern.
• Wonder Woman (1987): Ares, when in his more casual black open shirt get up rather than his traditional Tin Tyrant look, looks like an attractive well-muscled man from a distance but up close his red eyes and mass of overlaying thin scars give away that he's not to be trifled with.

Fan Works

• Abraxas (Hrodvitnon): In this Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019) fanfiction, San and Vivienne Graham's first hybridized form is thoroughly covered in horrific-looking keloid scars and burns, which seems to reflect the ah, fucked in the head state that Vivienne's mind is in after being briefly killed.
• In the Soul Eater fic Alive, Crona has scars all over his body from his mother's experiments on him, from the people he killed trying to fight him, and from himself, when it all became too much to take.
• The Bridge: Subverted. Princess Luna's magic had an adverse effect on the ponified Godzilla's Healing Factor, shutting it off in their fight. Because of this, his old scars resurfaced and he was riddled with them. Fortunately after the brawl, Godzilla's regenerative powers returned and he was good as new soon. It's later implied this is how he's supposed to look but his Healing Factor just makes the scars hard to see.
• Cabinet Man [COMPLETE Evil!Spottedleaf MAP]: By the end, Hollyleaf is covered in raw, red scars.
• Crossover Chaos: Many characters are this. Killer Diller, Klinger and Jamie Farr are the three most notable ones. Justified, Missouri is a very dangerous place in the story.
• The Elements of Friendship:
  • Applejack has several scars along her back, thanks to the beasts in the Everfree Forest.
  • Fluttershy also has her share of scars, from tending to the Everfree's wild animals.
• Extra Life has Chiaki Nanami barely surviving her canon Cruel and Unusual Death thanks to Izuru's help, but her limbs and torso are riddled with scars from the experience. She initially viewed the scars as a proud testament to her survival, but after fully regaining her memories, she sees them as a shameful reminder of her reckless mistakes that got her into the ordeal in the first place.
• The Kingdom Hearts fanfic series, Instinctively Family:
  • Lea picks up several scars over the course of things. The burn scar from his sacrifice in Kingdom Hearts II, Larxene's knives in the first fic, and the large scar on his side based off a version of the events from the manga. He rarely has a Shirtless Scene because he wants to avoid upsetting his friends with the scars.
  • Even also ends up with extensive burns scars from his demise and from having the Recusant's Sigil carved into him after his attempted escape from the Real Organization XIII in the first fic.
• In I Will Remember You, Ulrich's body is heavily scarred from four years of horrific abuse at the hands of his father.
• In Red Lotus-centric The Legend of Korra fics, it's probably more common for P'Li to be covered in burn scars from collarbones to ankles than for her to explicitly not be. This is likely partly due to the fact that her canon outfits cover everything except her head and hands, partly due to the fact that it fits her Dark and Troubled Past as a Child Soldier.
• Milo Murphy's Law fanart often gives Milo lots of scars; he's mentioned having them in canon but isn't drawn with any. "What Doesn't Kill Him" is one fanfic where Zack is shocked to see how many scars Milo has under his shirt, though Milo is naturally chipper about it since they just remind him about his many adventures.
• In the Naruto fanfic Kitsune no Ken: Fist of the Fox, as a result of Training from Hell, Uchiha Sasuke has sustained slash-scars over the chest and abdomen, three stab wounds, several stitches on one shoulder, and a burn-mark in the middle of the back, in addition to having sustained two broken ribs and a fractured jaw during the first month of training alone.
• In Pokémon Reset Bloodlines, at one point Ash showers with Iris under a waterfall, and he notices that she has her fair share of scars across her body, though most of them are rather small ones and probably don't have epic stories behind them.
• The fanon Touhou Project character "Sendai Hakurei no Miko" (lit. "The previous generation's Hakurei shrine maiden") is typically portrayed with her body completely covered in scars. It is to be expected, as she comes from an era before the introduction of the Spell Card rules.
• In The Unforeseen Ally, Sasuke has scars on his back from his father, on his hands from Orochimaru pinning him down with kunai to rape him, and a burn scar on his stomach from his other rapist Deidara that spells out "mine." Every Scar Has a Story, indeed.
• In The Witch of the Everfree, Sunset Shimmer ends up covered in scars after a manticore nearly kills her.
• Dungeon Keeper Ami: From Strange Trolls: Trolls that have been training and fighting against vampires and other undead for fifteen years, have been described as:
  four muscular trolls whose green hides were covered in battle scars
• In the Naruto fanfic Sugar Plums the protagonist Ume is considered unusual because of how many scars she has as a young shinobi. In the story, it's explained that shinobi don't scar easily because as long as their chakra levels stay in a reasonable range it will heal their wounds perfectly. So when a shinobi does have scars, it's usually the result of a situation where they are injured while they have incredibly low levels of chakra and the wound started healing before it could get back up to normal which in general is very dangerous. Which says a LOT about the sort of things Ume's been through.
• Raven Queen's body is scarred in various places in The True Love Loophole. This is thanks to abuse by her mother, the Evil Queen. Raven uses magical concealment cream to cover up the scars when just wearing long clothing isn't possible.
• Earthsong9405:
  • Earthsong9405 depicts Fluttershy's body as being covered in scars. She deals a lot with wild and/or scared animals, resulting in more than a few injuries.
  • Applejack has a few scars on her face and body from dealing with bandits and timberwolves. Her brother Big Macintosh is the same way.
  • In the Rarity/Twilight Bodyguard AU, Twilight has various scars from being a soldier and bodyguard.
  • Being a part of the Royal Guard means that Shining Armor has his scars, especially on his face.
• In Shaggy the Handler, Shaggy's body is covered with scars from his time as a soldier in the Vietnam War. His clothes usually cover it up, but Velma and Daphne get suspicious about his past after accidentally walking in on him half-dressed.
• In the oneshot Chrysanthemums, Cilan and his two brothers have a lot of scars from their time working under Ghetsis. Their most noticeable scar is due to a branding they received that marked them as one of Team Plasma, which Cilan ended up scarring at the end of the fic as a way of detaching from his past.
• In Ivory Bones, most of Weiss' scars are on her back but she also has a large scar on one of her eyes. All these scars were caused by her abusive father.
• Bodyguard AU depicts Twilight Sparkle with several scars on her body and face due to her life as a bodyguard.
• In Sol Point, it's revealed that Princess Celestia uses a Glamour to hide the many scars she has obtained over the centuries. It's even heavily implied that many of those scars aren't war scars at all.
• Jack Kenway in Harry Potter Pokemon Master Series is this. A civil war and his fear of needles means that whenever he removes his shirt he is covered in old scars.
• Due to her history of Self-Harm, Elsa in Now That You're Bleeding has quite a number of scars and other injuries that won't heal.
• This Bites!: Cross is subjected to Electric Torture by Eneru in Skypeia, leaving him with heavy scarring along his limbs that need to be constantly bandaged to prevent exposure-related pain. Later, at Eines Lobby, Hattori slashes his face, opening his nasal cavity and requiring more bandages to keep it covered. And judging by the fact that his Future Badass self from the "1000th Review Spectacular" is a total Bandage Mummy, it seems he's destined to get even more scars.
• The Soulmate Timeline has magical girls be less effective healers than in canon, meaning that veterans like Mami, Kyoko, and Yachiyo have accumulated several scars over their many battles. They also have scars from before their contracts, such as Mami having scars from the car accident that killed her parents and Homura's only scars (due to time travel) being surgical ones.

Films — Live-Action

• Erik Killmonger from Black Panther (2018) has tribal markings all over his torso as a result of traditional scarification.
• In The Book of Eli, Eli is covered in scars, remnants of "The Flash", a massive rupture in the Earth's atmosphere caused by a global war.
• The Last Days of Patton: After his accident the doctors notice just how many scars General Patton has on his body when he is brought to the hospital and cut out of his uniform. They assume Patton earned all the scars in combat until Patton tells them the only scar from combat was the one on his rear end from World War I when he turned around to ensure his men were following him. He goes on to explain all the other ones were from sporting or riding accidents.
• Darkman was covered in scars from burns.
• Django in Django Unchained is covered in whip-scars from his years of being a slave.
• The titular character of Edward Scissorhands has scars all over his face from years of cutting himself with his scissor hands.
• Dr. Weir ends up bald, naked, and covered with scars for the final showdown of Event Horizon.
• Jason Voorhees of Friday the 13th is portrayed with some, depending on the film. Part VII shows off all of the wounds he'd received in the climaxes of earlier films, in addition to being decayed to the point where his spinal column is exposed.
• Godzilla's skin texture, as designed for the original film, was meant to evoke the gruesome scars that popped up on the survivors of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings, seeing as he himself is a victim of nuclear weapons. This angle was largely abandoned in the later sequels, which simply went for the typical roughly-textured reptile skin until Godzilla (2014) introduced the MonsterVerse incarnation of the character by giving him explicit and noticeable scars (speaking of the MonsterVerse, look under Comic Books folder for another example from that continuity).
• Halloween:
  • Following being lit on fire in the second movie, Michael Myers was shown with burn scars on his hands. Though we didn't see it on-screen for ourselves, the implication is that this was the case for his entire body.
  • After trying to kill Michael in a fire in the second film, Dr. Loomis shows up in 4 and 5 with a limp and burn scars on one cheek and his hands, which he hides with Conspicuous Gloves. His scars disappear in the sixth film as a result of getting plastic surgery and skin grafts.
• Hellboy: Kroenen is covered in scars as part of his addiction to surgery.
• The Hobbit:
  • Implied with Dwalin. He has a gash along his right temple, and many more scars on his visible forearms.
  • It's relatively subdued in the finished film, but the dragon Smaug was deliberately designed to have imperfections in his scales and scars on his face to make him look like he'd led a life of battling before he conquered the Lonely Mountain.
  • Azog the Defiler has multiple scars on his face and body which look ceremonial.
• Kong from King Kong (2005) has scars all over his body from all the fights he's been through on Skull Island.
• Freddy Krueger in the A Nightmare on Elm Street series with severe third-degree burns, which is just one thing that makes him so terrifying.
• The Lord of the Rings: If one looks closely at Gollum's back, you can see some nasty scars on it.
• Pilgrimage: The Mute's upper body is covered in scars, and he also has a large cross tattooed to his back. This is quite odd given his status as a lay brother in an Irish monastery. It's implied that he's a former crusader.
• The epilogue of Red Dragon has Hannibal writing to Will that he must have some collection of scars and that scars are a reminder of what we've been through. In the book, Will's face is badly disfigured but this is left out of the film and television versions.
• In Star Wars, Darth Vader beneath his iconic black armor. Most of them came from an unfortunate encounter with a lava river.
• The Terminator: It's downplayed, but Kyle Reese has a good selection of scars and would have more had he lived. Sarah has her share, too, by the end of the second movie.
• V from V for Vendetta is covered in burn scars.
• X-Men Film Series:
  • Nightcrawler, in X2: X-Men United, is covered, from his pointy ears to all four of his toes, in rather artistic-looking raised scars. They're self-inflicted; apparently, he felt the need to punish himself for... something. He appears to be part of a Flagellant sect. When asked, he says they actually a coded language originally given to humans by the Archangel Gabriel, and that he has "one for every sin." But Jean Grey is more interested in the decidedly out-of-place and perfectly circular burn scar on the back of Nightcrawler's neck, which is proof that he was exposed to William Stryker's mind-control serum.
  • In an early scene of Logan we see Logan with his shirt off revealing an assortment of scars, half-healed wounds, and nowhere-near-half-healed wounds that make it clear his Healing Factor is far weaker than what it was.

Literature

• Alex Rider picks up a collection of scars and burns on his torso as the series goes on.
• The Altar at Midnight by C. M. Kornbluth. A spacer has his entire body covered in tiny ruptured blood vessels from working in and out of low-pressure environments. He also wears contact lenses from radiation scarring.
• Anita Blake is covered with scars from years of fighting supernatural creatures.
• In Battle Royale, Shogo Kawada is covered in scars, causing the other kids to speculate on how he ended up with so many. He got them in the previous Program.
• Beloved: The network of whip scars on Sethe's back seems like a growing tree.
• In A Brother's Price, Cira has one prominent facial scar, but her back is a "mass of puckered skin and silvery scars" years after she is badly burned.
• Chronicle of the Unhewn Throne: In Providence Of Fire, a lightning bolt strikes Adare, killing many nearby her but only knocking her out. When she awakens, she's naked in bed with Lehav nearby who explains they had to cut off her clothes since the lightning seared it to her skin in places, which prompts her to survey her body and notice her skin is now completely covered in scars with intricate lightning patterns.
• Some of the Canim from the Codex Alera series have this, showing what battle-hardened warriors they are. Some are so scarred they barely have any fur. Also the Canim Ritualists, who do Blood Magic, and thus have cut themselves quite a bit. Especially Marok who only uses his own blood, as opposed to most ritualists who mostly use that of others.
• Cradle Series: Yerin has many scars, both from her many fights and from her training. In particular, her master was fond of trapping her in a ring of swords where every time she twitched, she was cut. She is covered in countless small white scars from that alone. They all go away when she ascends to Underlord, and her body is remade in soulfire.
• Carnival from the Deepgate Codex series. Most of her scars are self-inflicted (a rate of once per month tends to pile up over three thousand years), but quite a few of them are from fights with Deepgate's military, and her single rope scar is a bit of a special case.
• From Discworld:
  • In Interesting Times, Rincewind's adventures in the last new books have apparently left their mark, and when he is brought back to Ankh-Morpork, the other wizards remark that he's covered in scars — but mainly on his back.
  • 71-Hour Ahmed in Jingo, whose face is covered in scars (though it's not known whether the rest of him is.)
  • Igors believe heavily in self-improvement and frequently replace parts of their bodies with new pieces (with particularly good body parts being passed down through generations). As such most of them are a patchwork of scars across their body. Interestingly they are perfectly capable of doing the surgery without leaving scars (as evidenced by the fact that Igorinas don't look like this) but they keep the scars as part of their image.
• Doc Savage, his cousin Patricia, and four of his Fabulous Five assistants are aversions of this trope, due to "Doc's fabulous skill at causing wounds to heal without scars". Lieutenant Colonel Andrew Blodgett "Monk" Mayfair, on the other hand, embraces it; he refuses to let Doc treat him because he wants the scars to make him look even tougher.
• In Dragon Bones, Ward notices that Tisala has scars on her face and hands, and the fighting kind of scars. he's quite impressed. When he meets her again and sees her naked for the first time in the sequel Dragon Blood, her whole body is covered with wounds, thanks to Cold-Blooded Torture. She might have had scars everywhere before, but she's certain to have them after those wounds heal.
• Druss the Legend in the Drenai series by David Gemmell (although it is mentioned in Legend that he had noticeably fewer scars on his back because he always faced up to danger).
• Harry Dresden of the The Dresden Files is a subversion. Wizards like him actually have a slow Healing Factor that will turn scars back to normal flesh in six years or so. The collection of scars Dresden manages to collect even while his body is erasing them is still impressive.
• Firestarter has John Rainbird, a Native American Vietnam vet whose face was half blown off by a landmine. it was a friendly landmine, set off because everyone was stoned and screwed it up.
• Jamie of The Fold was in a motorcycle accident as a teenager and peeled all the skin off her back. The resulting scars leave her with major intimacy and personal space issues.
• The unnamed protagonist from The Gargoyle after his accident.
• Harry Potter:
  • Alastor "Mad-Eye" Moody has a collection of gruesome facial scars from years of fighting Dark wizards. He also has a wooden leg and a chunk missing from his nose.
  • Remus Lupin, too — probably self-inflicted during his painful transformations.
  • Bill Weasley during the seventh book and last part of the sixth book after he is attacked by Fenrir Greyback. It is implied that Bill was handsome before the attack, but that the scars took away a lot of his good looks. Harry even has difficulty reading his facial expressions because he has scars everywhere.
  • Harry himself amasses a small collection of scars, starting with his trademark lightning-bolt scar on his forehead. He then gets the words "I must not tell lies" magically carved into his hand courtesy of Dolores Umbridge, and the Slytherin-locket horcrux puts another scar onto his chest.
• The Healing Wars trilogy:
  • The first book has Nya find that Jeatar is scarred all across his arms and torso — she later works out that this is from his being caught in the inferno when the Duke burned the entire city of Sorille. This becomes one of the clues that tip Nya off that Jeatar is actually the missing heir to the throne.
  • Nya herself becomes this by the end of the series, due to constantly shifting pain on the battlefield without time to concentrate on proper healing.
• Early in Heralds of Valdemar novel Oathbound, a young stablegirl sees Tarma coming out of the bath, and is shocked at her scars; Tarma takes the opportunity to hammer home to her that going adventuring is not a thing to do for fun.
  • In the first chapter of Magic's Promise, Vanyel steps out of a tub to reveal numerous "decorations" from knives, swords, mage-fire, electricity, a demon trying to eat his heart, etc., uzw., and so forth.
• Austin, the protagonist of Hollow Places, is covered in disfiguring scars dating back from childhood. He was the victim of an attack drone, leaving him down an eye and an arm. He wears a now ill-fitting prosthetic to account for the latter.
• Mowgli in The Jungle Book:
  "What is there to be afraid of?" said the priest. "Look at the marks on his arms and legs. They are the bites of wolves. He is but a wolf-child run away from the jungle."
  Of course, in playing together, the cubs had often nipped Mowgli harder than they intended, and there were white scars all over his arms and legs. But he would have been the last person in the world to call these bites, for he knew what real biting meant.
• Kane Series: Efrel from Darkness Weaves is hideously mutilated, whatever is left of her skin, is covered with scars, with the sole exception of her hands and half of her face. In her Back Story, her husband, king Netisten Maril, sentenced her to be dragged through the streets by an enraged bull as a punishment for her betrayal. Being a Half-Human Hybrid, she survived but did not heal.
• Kvothe from The Kingkiller Chronicle has scars all across his body from his travels and adventures. He gains a few more in the present story fighting what are essentially razor spiders.
• The titular Knights from Knights of the Borrowed Dark are noted to usually be this, owing to fighting powerful, vicious monsters as a day job. Denizen especially takes note of Grey's scars, which run all up his arms and across one side of his face.
• Viv of Legends & Lattes mentions carrying a lot of scars from her years of adventuring (being essentially a Dungeons & Dragons barbarian).
• Kelsier from Mistborn is known for the horrific scarring on his arms resulting from his time in the Pits of Hathsin. Centuries later his followers are still scarring themselves in emulation and ‘Survivor’s Scars’ is a common curse on Scadrial. The scars are so associated with him that they’re used to identify him to readers TWICE: once at the end of The Bands of Mourning, where he’s revealed to be the Sovereign and once in Rhythm of War, when Thaidakar is referred to as ‘the Lord of Scars’, revealing him to be Kelsier.
• Shadowhunters from The Mortal Instruments are covered in scars from years of being marked with runes.
• Peacebreakers: Jackson and Camelie, both due to Cold-Blooded Torture.
• Ranger's Apprentice deconstructs this trope, with multiple expert warriors noting that a face full of scars generally denotes a man who doesn't know how to duck.
• Reign of the Seven Spellblades: Early on the first day of class at Kimberly Magic Academy, protagonist Oliver Horn catches former samurai Nanao Hibiya bathing her upper half in the fountain by the dormitories. Her body is covered with scars below the neck, which she explains as war wounds—a clue Oliver should have taken to heart given what happens when they cross swords during class later.
• In The Rise and Fall of the Sky Valley Cult, former beauty queen and current ruthless assassin Chavayress Syvier has extensive scarification on the right side of her face, left bicep, and right thigh. She did this to herself, to escape the abusive and oppressive life her father forced her into, and regular assault she's implied to have faced from men.
• In The Rogue King, Veng is described a number of times as being covered in scars thanks to having to constantly fight for his life.
• The short story "Scars" by Wrath James White. Every scar is a sign of the protagonist's unraveling mental state.
• Second Apocalypse:
  • The Scylvendi give themselves a scar, called a swazond, each time they kill someone. Cnaiur urs Skiotha takes great pride in having more swazond than any other Scylvendi warrior. By the second series, he has literally run out of skin to number his atrocities.
  • The Survivor is a horrible mass of scars due to his protracted fight against the Consult's forces.
  • The Mutilated are, except for one, gruesomely scarred from their fight against the Consult before being taken prisoner. It doesn't seem to bother them.
• A Song of Ice and Fire:
  • Strong Belwas is covered in scars. He lets each enemy he kills scar him once so that he can count the number of people he has slain over the years.
  • Beric Dondarrion also is covered in scars from every time he's been killed.
• Dalinar Kholin from The Stormlight Archive is a legendary veteran soldier and has seen more combat in his life than most. While a medic is tending to a shoulder wound, the medic openly gapes at how most of his upper body is covered in scar tissue and wonders how Dalinar's able to use his arm at all.
• Brown tabby Squeakerbane from Tailchaser's Song is so covered in scars that Tailchaser compares him to weathered wood. His Meaningful Name implies that he is a skilled hunter and, being a First-Walker, he has likely seen many fights over his life too.
• Temeraire: Will Laurence is heavily scarred from his long career as a Navy captain, Dragon Rider, and unofficial Cosmic Plaything, which takes him around the globe in often-dire circumstances. When he takes off his shirt in the second-last book, his new traveling companion goes very quiet at the evidence of all the battles he's survived.
• In Terra Ignota, there are few places on Mycroft's body aside from his face that aren't marked in some way, stemming from when his bash'house exploded in an accident when he was eight years old, almost killing him.
• Jasper from The Twilight Saga, due to his past as a Blood Knight.
• In the Vorkosigan Saga a young soldier named Koudelka is hit by a nerve disruptor bolt (which permanently kills nerves), and winds up needing to have a large portion of his nervous system replaced with artificial nerves. This leaves much of his body covered with a "tracery of thin red scars", each scar "representing a dead nerve excised and replaced with artificial silver threads". Miles Vorkosigan himself has had a ton of surgeries from broken bones and bone replacements (he suffered pre-natal damage from a chemical weapon attack on his mother, leaving him with massive birth defects, including very brittle bones) and various other injuries, up to a needle grenade to the chest. All of that has left his body covered with scars, from neat surgical scars where bones were replaced (all the way back to his childhood) to a huge ragged scar on his chest, the result of a massive combat injury. Miles is described late in the series:
  There were scars on scars on scars, mostly very fine and surgically straight, in criss-crossing layers running back through time, growing fainter and paler: on his arms, on his hands and fingers, on his neck and running up under his hair, circling his ribcage and paralleling his spine, and, most pinkly and recently, an unusually ragged and tangled mess centered on his chest.
• The superheroine Antares from Ward (also known as Victoria Dallon and formerly Glory Girl from Worm) has a forcefield that can completely nullify any damage that is inflicted against her, but goes down if the hit is strong enough and leaves her as vulnerable as anyone else for a few seconds. Due to her self-sacrificing nature and willingness to put herself in the line of fire, by the end of the story she has taken enough hits that made it past her forcefield that she has become pretty scarred up. Highlights include a gunshot wound to the arm, acid burns, claw and bite marks from giant centipedes, numerous stitch scars on her arms, legs, and torso, and a missing fingernail. Some of these she could have gotten healed, but due to her traumatic personal history with superpowered healers, she'd rather let them stay and fade naturally.
• Warformed Stormweaver: Rey has had weekly surgeries for most of his life in order to keep ahead of his disease. While the surgeries are covered under universal health care, fixing the scars is technically an elective procedure, and Rey has never had the money to spare.
• The War Gods: Kenhodan, the central character of The Sword of the South, has obviously lived a warrior's life, because his body bears so many scars that it even shocks the veteran war maid Leanna Flame-Hair. An exceptionally creepy touch is that Kenhodan didn't even know about his own scars until others saw and reacted to them, because he has no memory of his previous life.
• Warrior Cats:
  • Many cats tend to be covered in scars due to their way of life. One notable example is the Big Bad of the first arc, Tigerstar, who is one of the strongest warriors. He even has a scarred nose and an ear nearly split in two.
  • One example of a rare Non-Action Guy covered in scars is the medicine cat Shadowsight in the eighth arc. He's survived many near-death experiences, including being struck by lightning and attempted murder, and his ordeal in The Dark Forest in the previous arc left him with emotional scars too.
• The Wonderful Wizard of Oz has an odd variant. During Dorothy and her companions' trip to the palace of Glinda the Good Witch, they come across a miniature city where everything is made of fine china — including the people, who are more like living figurines than anything else. A local princess explains that while being broken isn't fatal to their kind, anyone who does fall to pieces must go to a local "mender" to get put back together, resulting in scar-like seams appearing on their bodies. On cue, a clown named Mr. Joker, who never stops trying to stand on his head, shows up; his entire body and face are absolutely covered in cracks.

Live-Action TV

• 24: At the end of the fifth season, Jack Bauer is captured by the Chinese Government and held prisoner. By the time he's released at the beginning of Season 6, he has numerous scars all over his body from the torture he was put through.
• Arrow:
  • Oliver Queen returns from his five years as a castaway with scars that cover 20% of his body, along with second degree burns on his back and arms. It takes five seasons of flashbacks before we get the full story of how he received them.
  • In Season 2, Sara Lance aka Black Canary also fits this trope. The reveal of her scars even manage to turn a Toplessness from the Back moment into a form of Fan Disservice.
• Breaking Bad: By the series finale, Jesse is covered in scars over his body and face after months of being tortured and enslaved by the Neo-Nazis. He gets the last laugh though, when Walt arrives and guns down all of the Nazis, leaving Jesse as the only survivor.
• Call the Midwife: Season 9 features a new mother whose back and shoulders are covered in small scars. Trixie removes the woman's shirt to help with a breastfeeding complication, and immediately asks, "who did that?" The mother says her ex-husband repeatedly whipped her with a belt, and the scars are from the buckle breaking skin.
• Daredevil (2015): Matt Murdock sports a wide collection of scars on his chest from his numerous fights with bad guys.
• Game of Thrones:
  • Beric Dondarrion shows his off in "Kissed By Fire", having been killed and magically brought back to life numerous times.
  • The Thenns have some pretty extensive ritualistic scars.
  • Reek, due to his extensive torture.
  • Jon Snow gains a collection of huge scars scattered over his chest due to being repeatedly stabbed during a mutiny, then brought back to life through magic.
  • Jorah Mormont's upper torso is pretty much all scar tissue, thanks to Samwell Tarly surgically cutting off all his greyscale-infected skin to save his life.
  • When Arya Stark strips off for a Pre-Climax Climax with Gendry, the latter is shocked to see the battle scars on her body, inflicted in the years since he last met her.
• The Hexer: Pretty much every single witcher that left Kaer Morhen, befitting their job. Notably, this is used to indicate time passage between certain episodes, as Geralt keeps gaining new and new scars all over his body.
• The Irregulars: The first shot of Billy is of him at an underground boxing ring waiting to join a fight, shirtless exposing all his scars. Presumably, they are from his abusive childhood at the workhouse and fights from living on the streets, but we didn't get a clear answer.
• Jessica Jones (2015):
  • Inez Green bears a high number of scars from where several glass shards lodged in her back after being attacked by Jessica's mom.
  • Jessica's mom lost all her hair as a result of Dr. Malus's reconstructive surgeries and the injuries from the car accident, and they've also left her with some nasty scarring around the back. She covers it up with a wig.
• Sharp Objects: The lead character Camille is covered in scars forming different words due to years of self-harm.

Podcasts

• In the Cool Kids Table game Star War, Ne-on the Ewok's chest is shaved and scarred, but his arms, legs, and head are still fluffy.
• In the Bad Future that the Sequinox team goes to in the Gemini arc, Chell is covered in scars she got from either saving people or getting shot at by Vivaldi so that she doesn't get killed trying to save people.

Professional Wrestling

• This trope is the sign of a Garbage Wrestler. The scars are usually most heavily concentrated around the forehead, such as Abdullah the Butcher, Masato Tanaka, and New Jack but one of the more disturbing cases is Invader #3, who has a huge scar running down the middle of his torso. Most of Invader 3's scars are hidden because of his ring attire though, especially his mask.

Roleplay

• Michael of Vampire Quest, thanks to years as a lab rat and a healing factor which appears to be better only in terms of speed, leaving him almost crippled with pain from the scar tissue.
• Capone from Warrior Cats RPG is very heavily scarred from when Gravelstar of WindClan captured and tortured her to get information on Capone's allies (the other anti-Clans) and the freedom of all the WindClan prisoners in the Elite.

Tabletop Games

• Dungeons & Dragons: Zargon's frame is covered in a long, long lifetime's worth of injuries, ranging from ancient scars to fresh, weeping wounds and festering tumors.

Theatre

• The Mrs. Hawking play series: Mrs. Hawking, from years of crime-fighting. Mary discovers them in Part I: Mrs. Hawking, when treating yet another wound Mrs. Hawking received in the line of duty.
• Luigi Largo from Repo! The Genetic Opera, although they're used to show the number of surgeries he's undergone, not how badass he is.

Video Games

• Cultist Simulator: The Colonel had been called "The Tribune of Scars" for a reason. Scars cover every inch of his body, including the eyes. It was done deliberately, to protect him from magical power of an eldritch god he had slain even before his own ascension.
• Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc: Sakura Ogami, the Ultimate Martial Artist, has numerous scars on her body that are implied to have been acquired from a lifetime of Training from Hell.
• Darkest Dungeon:
  • The Flagellant from the Crimson Court DLC is, of course, scarred from his self-whipping. Most interestingly, his "armor" is his bare body that becomes more scarred as you upgrade it, culminating in a scar shaped like the Stress symbol on his chest.
  • In The Sunken City Collection mod, the Thrall's life as a gladiator slave has left his exposed skin with a texture like a third-hand cutting board that's been used as a target in a knife-throwing act.
• In Dicey Dungeons, the Warrior has many scars, mostly in the form of missing chunks along the edges of his dice body, along with a long red scar over one eye.
• Doom (2016): The few glimpses we get of the Doom Slayer's exposed skin show him to be covered, quite literally, head to foot in scars — we see his feet during the intro and they're not pretty. To be fair, the dude has spent so long fighting the armies of Hell that it's frankly impressive that he still has skin.
• The Elder Scrolls
  • Most Giants have decorative scars carved into their bodies. While they are not known to have a true written language, these markings apparently do have some sort of symbolic meaning for the Giants. In addition to being carved into their bodies, they can also be found painted/carved on trees and rocks around their campsites and burial grounds.
  • This is an option for the Player Character during creation in some games in the series. Morrowind has scars present on a number of pre-set face models. Skyrim allows them to be added in greater volume and variety to both the face and body of the PC.
• Fable and Fable II: There's a good chance that your character will end up like this as they acquire scars rapidly when they're hurt in combat.
• Final Fantasy:
  • Final Fantasy VI: The jury's still out on Setzer — his face is absolutely covered in numerous slash scars, but, given that he is The Dandy to end all others in this game, we also never see any part of his skin other than his face.
  • Final Fantasy X: Jecht's torso and arms are covered in tens of scars, being a Walking Shirtless Scene and all.
• Hellbound have your character, a demon-slaying Blood Knight, walking around with your scar-coated, musclebound chest and torso exposed. It's not obvious in gameplay because it's an FPS, but it's clear in the title screen, promotional materials, and cutscenes.
• Katawa Shoujo: Hanako Ikezawa has extensive burn scars covering half of her body. And yes, she is a Broken Bird, since the house fire that gave her those scars also killed both of her parents and while the people from the Orphanage of Love she lived in treated her more or less well... she was heavily bullied in middle school because of them.
• Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords: Darth Sion is covered with scars, although calling them that might be a bit of an understatement — they're more like large cracks in his skin. This results from his technically being dead; his body is held together through the sheer power of the Dark Side, so his body is decomposing. Appropriately, he's known as the Lord of Pain.
• The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild:
  • Multiple characters note that Link is covered in faint scars from his battle during the Calamity, though this doesn't show up on his character model.
  • It's hard to notice in the heat of battle, but Lynels are marked by numerous scars from the fierce battles they have fought. Fighting a Lynel makes it clear why they won those battles.
• Mass Effect: Following his/her return from the dead in the second game, Commander Shepard has a large number of scars covering cybernetic implants, as they were woken before Cerberus finished complete facial reconstruction.
• Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots: Solid Snake has always been one of the poster men for badasses in video games, but here, when you actually see the toll of just how much damage has been done to his body over the years, you can't help but feel incredibly sorry for him.
• Overwatch veterans Soldier: 76 and Reinhart are both covered in several scars that you can see in alternate costumes or character videos, showing how many battles the two have been fighting since the Omnic Crisis.
• Persona 4: Arena: Akihito has become this after several months of training in the wilderness.
• Planescape: Torment: The Nameless One is the poster child for this trope. It's kind of hard to tell on account of him having so many that he hasn't got much skin left to contrast against the scar tissue.
• Quest for Glory III: The survivor of the peace mission is covered in scars after the group is attacked by demons.
• Slow Damage: Towa has many scars covering his body, including several on his face. Some are given during the 'euphoric episodes' of his clients, while some are also self-inflicted due to his penchant for pain.
• Street Fighter: Zangief, who got his scars by wrestling with bears.
• Tekken: Sergei Dragunov has two scars on his face (a large one running through his lips and a smaller one across his nose), and, if the player opts to make him shirtless in Tekken 6, it can be seen that he has several scars, ranging from large to small (including one that appears to be a bullet wound), on his arms and torso.
  • Kazuya is no slouch in the scar department either after being tossed into a volcano in 2 and returning in 4. In the beginning he simply had just one Rugged Scar.
• The Witcher: Geralt is covered from head to toe in tooth and claw marks and various other scars. Furthermore, we also see in subsequent games that other Witchers tend to be covered in scars as well. Not hard to believe considering their profession is slaying deadly monsters/beasts for a living.
• XCOM 2:
  • Your soldiers can pick up scars or burns after being seriously wounded, or you can add them yourself on their customization screens. Some can be small and stylish, while the options at the other extreme border on Facial Horror.
  • The War of the Chosen expansion introduces the Skirmishers, a faction of Rogue Drones that broke free of ADVENT's control, who engage in scarification for a practical reason — as otherwise-identical clones, it's a way to express their newfound individuality. ADVENT Purifiers are also, according to an autopsy report, covered in burn scars, many of them self-inflicted.

Web Animation

• Helluva Boss: "OOPS" reveals that Blitzo and Fizzarolli are actually covered in burn scars (or at least, make-up that covers them up) due to a fire that Blitzo caused by accident on Fizzarolli's birthday, thus leading to their friendship disintegrating.
• RWBY:
  • Fox wears a short-sleeved top that reveals his arms are completely covered in scars. There's also a vertical scar running down the left side of his mouth. He is a close-combat fighter with blades that run from his wrists parallel to his arms, but how he got those scars is unstated.
  • Hazel wears rolled coat sleeves that bare the lower half of his arms. Peeking out from underneath the sleeves is evidence that his upper arms are covered in scars that end around his elbows. He is a physical fighter who enhances his natural strength and power by stabbing Dust crystals into his arms. He can self-mutilate and overuse the Dust because his Semblance can allow him to switch off feeling any pain and carry on as if he hasn't been injured, even when he takes normally crippling wounds.
  • In Volume 8, Nora ends up like this after she's forced to overcharge her Semblance to get past an electrified door, resulting in her sustaining electrical burns all over her body. Jaune tries to help her heal using his own Semblance, but it doesn't work.

Webcomics

• Ava's Demon: Per Word of God, Ava's upper arms are covered in scars from Wrathia's attempts in getting her to commit suicide.
• Castle Swimmer: Nearly all of the shark mermaids have extensive scars covering their bodies (young children included) thanks to a Dying Curse from a minigod that was slain by a shark warrior. They receive scars from various accidents that the curse causes to befall them and it won't stop till either the curse is removed by The Beacon's prophecy or they are all gone.
• Hex of Charby the Vampirate wears long sleeves and gloves that hide his vast array of scars, at least some of which were self-inflicted when he used bits of himself in his necromancy.
• Chelsea Grinn from Chimneyspeak. Most of them result directly or indirectly from her Minor Injury Overreaction over getting the first one.
• Girl Genius:
  • The Unstoppable Higgs turns out to have this on his torso and arms; apparently there's a good reason he's called "Unstoppable".
  • Klaus also has lots of scarring, although it's not been revealed how he came by it. He may be a "construct", put together from the parts of three people.
  • Agatha's father Bill has been described as being like this thanks to all of his adventuring and Mad-Spark Wrangling.
• Thanks to a ritual from her father, Ame from Heart Core is stuck with having large permanent areas of her skin that exposes her muscles, unable to heal them through any way.
• Impure Blood: The Abomination, from the Gladiator Games.
• Kill Six Billion Demons: All of the Seven Black Emperors are heavily scarred, apart from Solomon David. Four of the other Seven normally cover theirs up using magic or abilities (Incubus and Jadis use projections, Mottom uses de-aging magic and Gog-Agog is a shapeshifter whose scars look more like tattoos or facial markings), but Mammon and Jagganoth (as well as Incubus' true form) bear theirs openly.
• Many of the characters of Knights Errant, and taken to the extreme in this guest comic.
• Humon's Niels character Agent 250 sports scars on his cheek, under his eye, up and down his arms, a large one that wraps around his right side from back to front, and a decent-sized one on his stomach. All are from injuries sustained from various missions.
• O'chul from The Order of the Stick is known for a distinguishing scar, but close inspection reveals that, despite being a stick figure, he does qualify for this trope after been tortured by Xykon.
• In Pacificators, chapter 37, we learn that there is one person who was burned in a fire as a small child. Who is the person? Muneca Powell.
• Remus's Ryan Davidson looks like this as a result of his treatment here.
• In Strong Female Protagonist, Alison's axiology teacher Gurwara has scars all over his face and hands. Their origin hasn't been explicitly revealed, but during the conversation, he has with Alison after she strongarms Max into using his biodynamic ability to help Feral, he reveals that he lived in a war zone when he was young.
• Visarah from Uncreation is covered in huge nasty scars.
• Unknown Lands: Vard has scars across his face, arms, and torso and a couple prominent ones on his legs as well. Kai helping him after he received the injuries which caused the scars that run across his face and his missing eye is why Vard owed him a big enough favor that Vard allowed himself to be dragged into the plot against his wishes.

Web Original

• Can You Spare a Quarter?: 12-year-old Jamie is covered with bruises and scars which disturb Graham, who in a phone conversation compares the scars to those from slave films.
• Cutter of The Chronicles of Taras has carved things all over her arms and back because her parents wouldn't let her get tattoos.
• Dead West:
  • The Porcelain Doctor's elegant outfit hides most of his scars. He tries to avoid others look at them since it instantly makes clear that he is not just a scrawny doctor. He received them on battlefields and hunts, and even with his Healing Factor, they look hideous. The self-inflicted ones on his face and the ones left by lighter wounds are hardly visible, but the scar left by a domesticated tiger sicced on him and another by a javelin were too deep to fade, and he has scars from the injections and the latest battle injuries, too. He hates his scarred body, both because he thinks is unattractive and because he considers them the remnant of his failures. Gervas has a different opinion and starts to realize that Niall is not just a fragile doll after seeing them. The Merry Company mistakes the scars as evidence of Parental Abuse for some reason.
  • Gervas himself ends up covered with scars after serving the MacArkills as a knight for many, many years, mostly in the battlefield.
  • Cedric also counts, although most of his scars are faded enough.
• Thanks to having easy access to skin grafts and advanced medical technology, most of the main cast of Twig avert Scars Are Forever. The exception is Jamie, who has heavy scars all along the base of his spine, an indicator of the regular appointments where he acts as an interface for a Wetware CPU via connecting directly to his nervous system through his spinal column.

Web Videos

• When the boys at Monster Factory were making their Fallout 4 character, they initially added every single one of the burns, cuts, and blemishes available on the customization menu, but the result was so horrifying that even they had to tone it down.
• The titular character of Nightwing: The Series has some very nasty-looking scars covering his chest, likely gained from his crime-fighting career.

Western Animation

• Eep as shown in The Croods: A New Age is covered with scars from her various encounters with the wildlife and being bitten by her little sister Sandy. She also has one of her pinky toes bitten off by some unidentified creature which she has replaced with a peanut shell.
• Drago Bloodfist from How to Train Your Dragon 2 is covered with scars from his days of fighting dragons, he is also missing one of his arms.
• Justice League depicts Draaga from Superman: Exile as having his skin covered in scars from batle and even reimagines his self-inflicted Mark of Shame from wearing a Superman shirt to burning an "S" onto his chest.
• Cotton Hill of King of the Hill, the few times we see him shirtless, is covered with scars from bullet and stab wounds he received from fighting in World War 2, his most significant injury being that towards the end of his duty he got his shins blown off during an ambush by Japanese soldiers, resulting in his feet being attached to his knees.
• The title character of Milo Murphy's Law is implied to have a lot of scars, due to his condition, but the art style doesn't show any.
• Downplayed, but later played straight with Hunter from The Owl House. Hunter has always had some scars, the most prominent one being a large slash across his right cheek, and "Thanks to Them" shows he has more scars on his bicep, his ankle, and both of his knees. However, he gets possessed by Belos later that same episode, and while he just barely survives, the Possession Burnout leaves him completely covered in massive swaths of scar tissue. Specifically, the scars take up a large portion of his face, a band around his right ear, half his neck, his entire right shoulder and upper arm, and his left forearm, with the implication being that he has even more scars on his torso and legs.
• Ensign Beckett Mariner of Star Trek: Lower Decks showed off multiple scars in "Temporal Edict" that she earned through multiple conflicts in her service. Despite living in a time where modern medicine can completely remove scars, she keeps them, as she sees them as trophies.
  T'Ana: Congratulations, you look like a f(bleep)ing scratching post.
• Played With in Steven Universe: Future. Steven does not have any external scars, but when he gets an X-Ray for the first time in his life, it's revealed that his skeleton is full of marks from fractures that he never noticed due to his healing abilities. We only see the top half of his torso, but he has an old fracture in his left arm, two in his right arm, and his skull seems to have been completely shattered at one point.
• Panthro of Thunder Cats 2011 is an Old Soldier with several scars, which flashbacks show him developing over a lifetime of fighting for Thundera.
• TRON: Uprising: One of the first things that lets you know just how bad the situation is? The title character is covered in dead pixel scarring. He hides them under a disguise subroutine most of the time, but it's clear the visible scarring isn't the worst part.

Real Life

• Sperm whales are usually very heavily scarred by old age from repeatedly battling the giant squid they hunt.
• Risso's dolphins are almost universally covered in many, many scars by adulthood due to intra-specific contact (read: different members of the pod bumping into one another). Older individuals tend to be near-completely white from scar tissue.
• Sharks are also often covered in scars, particularly those which take on larger prey such as tiger sharks, bull sharks, and great white sharks. Their snouts and heads are often covered in healed gouges from engagements with prey or rivals, such that you can often identify an individual by what injuries they've suffered. This particular male great white shark is often regarded as 'the most battle-scarred shark in the world' and with damn good reason.
• Often Truth in Television for victims of severe burns or other trauma. Fractal scars from direct lightning strikes also count, the branched pattern that lightning travels through the body when struck and causes blood vessels to rupture along that path, resulting in a tree-like pattern along the body.
  • This is also the result of people who suffer from "Excoriation Disorder (or Dermatillomania)", an obsessive-compulsive spectrum mental disorder that is characterized by the repeated urge or impulse to pick at one's own skin, leaving scars in the process.
• Amazon river dolphins were once thought to be a species with naturally pink skin. It's now thought that they have gray skin that scars pink.
• Manatees often bear heavy scars from getting caught by boat motors.
• When the cruiser squadron Task Force 67 put into harbor at Espiritu Santo after the first phase of the night surface battle of Guadalcanal the USS San Francisco had 26 shell holes from fighting a tangled point-blank melee with Japanese ships that almost resembled a galley battle rather than a modern one. Just getting her back into port was an achievement. Her primary opponent, the Japanese Battleship Hiei, ended up on Ironbottom Sound.
• Tasmanian devils often end up with scars across their face and body due to brutally fighting to see who gets the more nutrient-rich parts of carcasses.

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