Legends of Windemere

Bruce Lee in Enter the Dragon

It’s actually taking me an hour to find a picture for this post.  I never realized how hard it is to find a character with scars that aren’t over the top, barely visible, or on a character that’s simply over done.  Basically I wanted to avoid Harry, Joker, Freddy, Scar (Lion King), and Scar (Fullmetal Alchemist).  We’ll see what I grab after I write this post and go back on the hunt . . . eh, fudge it.  Bruce Lee will work because you know those wounds won’t heal completely.

I recently hit a point in my series where the heroes got brutally trashed.  Just writing up the injury list was painful and only one of them was in a condition that wasn’t life-threatening.  So this brought my mind to the idea of physical scars.  Luke is already sporting 2 and might be getting a third.  Timoran has a bunch and Nyx is sporting one after an earlier incident.  Then there’s Sari . . . I don’t know what to do here.  It’s hard to put a scar on her because of her personality and the importance of her physical beauty.  This isn’t going to be an easily seen mark though, but it does feel like I can’t casually give her one.  Right now I’m leaving it up to her, but it’s really hard to believe that she wouldn’t be scarred because of this.  Healing magic could do it since she was the one person not to be hit by a spell in the beat down.  Of course this brought my mind to a few other things when it comes to scars and characters:

1. Scars on heroes are typically made to look and sound attractive/noble.  Scars on villains always seem to be scary and intimidating.  Any good guys with ‘ugly’ scars tend to be gritty and angry like Jonah Hex.  At least in American culture since Vash (Trigun) and Kenshin have scars and are nice.  Yet we seem to see scars on a heroes as a sign of prowess and manliness.
2. Very few heroines have scars and those that do fall into two categories.  Barely visible and you simply have to take their word for it.  I forgot the movie or show where a man and woman are comparing scars, but I couldn’t see what the woman was pointing at even when I paused the TV.  If it isn’t barely visible then it looks like somebody tore up the woman’s face with a vengeance.  The trade-off ends up being the body of Aphrodite, the combat skills of Ares, and the mind of Athena.  There’s rarely a middle ground with female characters that are scarred.  Again, this might only be in America since I know some anime woman with scars that are in the middle.
3. It’s funny how authors can overlook an injury that should scar, but doesn’t.  Even stranger is how readers don’t notice either.  Imagine if scar-worthy injuries actually got the scar in comic books.  Every superhero would be a walking scar instead of the unblemished skin of a baby that they seem to have.  In non-visual fiction, it rarely crosses our minds that an injury can’t be fully healed.  Yet it happens all the time in real life even with wounds that aren’t life-threatening.  Burns are a big one in here because those can scar easily outside of fiction.  In fact, fictional characters are hard to set on fire unless the story calls for it.  How does Spidey never ignite when he’s running through a burning building in spandex?
4. Does a scar really take away from a character’s attractiveness?  In real life, we notice blemishes and it alters our perception.  Some people wonder about the story behind the scar or the hygiene of someone riddled with acne.  Keep in mind that it is rude to make these thoughts public.  Yet I don’t know if this carries over to books since you don’t see the character.  How many people remember that Luke is scarred if I don’t mention it when he takes his shirt off?  What about the scar that Nyx keeps hidden? Some readers didn’t even pick up on her losing her long hair in Family of the Tri-Rune.  So do we really have to worry about scars in our books outside of our own interest?  This entire thing might only be to satisfy my own curiosity and thoughts when the readers gloss right over it.

So, what do people think of characters earning scars in fiction?  Is it necessary?  Would you even notice a severe injury not leaving a scar?