History Main / HollywoodHealing

[[folder:Film]]

* In ''WesternAnimation/{{Mulan}}'', Mulan takes a sword-slash to the side from Shan Yu. It's implied that the adrenaline of escaping the avalanche she triggered to bury the Huns powered her through, and she falls unconscious almost as soon as it's over. However, a few hours in the doctor's tent seems enough to completely fix it--not only does she run, ride, and leap around palace roofs without pain the next day, she shows no sign of fatigue from the bloodloss that resulted in her fainting.

* ''ComicBook/UltimateXMen'': Wraith shoot three bullets at gunpoint to Xavier's chest. Cornelious is removing the bullets later, to save his life. Ah, if it was that easy...

* Against all probability (and fairness), there are professional boxers who are known for their looks. For example, Floyd Mayweather's nickname is "Pretty-boy".

* Averted in''Literature/TheUnderlandChronicles'' by Suzanne Collins. Midway through the five-book children's fantasy series, the 12-year-old hero Gregor realizes to his shock that he's acquired enough scars as [[ChosenOne "the warrior"]] that he can no longer wear a swimsuit or light summer clothing without a really good cover story. By the final book, he's simply given up ... it would take a car accident or falling through a plate glass window to explain everything.

* Averted in''Literature/TheUnderlandChronicles'' by Suzanne Collins. Midway through the five-book children's fantasy series, the 12-year-old hero Gregor realizes to his shock that he's acquired enough scars as [[ChosenOne The Warrior]] that he can no longer wear a swimsuit or light summer clothing without a really good cover story. By the final book, he's simply given up ... it would take a car accident or falling through a plate glass window to explain everything.

* Averted in''Literature/TheUnderlandChronicles'' by Suzanne Collins. Midway through the five-book children's fantasy series, the 12-year-old hero Gregor realizes to his shock that he's acquired enough scars as [[ChosenOne/The Warrior]] that he can no longer wear a swimsuit or light summer clothing without a really good cover story. By the final book, he's simply given up ... it would take a car accident or falling through a plate glass window to explain everything.

* Averted in''Literature/TheUnderlandChronicles'' by Suzanne Collins. Midway through the five-book children's fantasy series, the 12-year-old hero Gregor realizes to his shock that he's acquired enough scars as ChosenOne/The Warrior that he can no longer wear a swimsuit or light summer clothing without a really good cover story. By the final book, he's simply given up ... it would take a car accident or falling through a plate glass window to explain everything.

* Averted in''Literature/TheUnderlandChronicles'' children's fantasy series by Suzanne Collins. Midway through the five-book series, the 12-year-old hero Gregor realizes to his shock that he's acquired enough scars as ChosenOne/The Warrior that he can no longer wear a swimsuit or light summer clothing without a really good cover story. By the final book, he's simply given up ... it would take a car accident or falling through a plate glass window to explain everything.

* Averted in the ''Literature/GregorTheOverlander'' children's fantasy series by Suzanne Collins. Midway through the five-book series, the 12-year-old Gregor realizes to his shock that he's acquired enough scars as ChosenOne/The Warrior that he can no longer wear a swimsuit or light summer clothing without a really good cover story. By the final book, he's simply given up ... it would take a car accident or falling through a plate glass window to explain everything.

*** Early in season 3, Wilson Fisk pays Jasper Evans to shank him as part of a gambit to manipulate the FBI into moving him to the Presidential Hotel. There's a few points, especially later in the season, where Fisk occasionally clutches his hand to his chest in the approximate location of the stab wound, implying that he still feels some lingering pain from the wound.

*** [[DiscussedTrope Discussed]] in regards to Luke. Much is made over the fact that he's able to walk away without a scratch from things that would kill a normal person. Claire mentions when she first meets him that the point-blank shotgun blast Jessica gave him in the first season of her show should've turned his brain into mush, but didn't because of Luke's durable skin. Furthermore, he recovered from that within a span of hours, not days like most people would. His quick recovery is thanks to the fact that the experiment that Luke was subject to in Seagate was meant to accelerate his healing, but due to Rackham's last-minute sabotage, ended up giving Luke his durable skin.

** By the season 6-7 all bets are off. Sandor Clegane heals multiple open fractures after falling from a cliff, which, mind you, rendered him unable to stand up or even kill himself, and being left to die in the middle of nowhere. Arya Stark recovers from multiple stab wounds to the gut, followed by a swim in a dirty river, within a few days at most. To top them all off, it takes Jorah Mormont a day to recover from having large sections of his skin flayed off.

[[folder: Advertising]]
* Averted in the Allstate "Mayhem" commercial. As the series of commercials continues, the Mayhem guy's injuries seem to accumulate rather than heal.
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* It's a subtle RunningGag in ''Manga/RanmaOneHalf'': no matter how badly beat-up the characters get, all they ever need to recover after regaining consciousness is a small first-aid kit that has some cotton wads, disinfectant, band-aids, and very little else.

** Averted when, after falling from well over a hundred feet while carrying four girls on his back, he landed perfectly on his feet and broke his legs on impact. He was laid out with casts for several weeks afterward.

* ''Manga/DeathNote'' has an interesting example. Mello appears to be an aversion, sporting a very conspicuous burn scar from being caught in an explosion... until you realise that the only means of protection he had on was some ''goggles'' and said explosion somehow miraculously left his hair alone and the rest of his body ''except'' for that one burnt section of his face. It also didn't hurt his eye, or melt the gas mask into his skin, or cause hearing loss.
** Also, the time between the aforementioned explosion, and the time between his next manga appearance, wherein he travels from LA to New York City to shake Near down for the infamous "Dear Mello" picture? Less than a week. Injuries like Mello's would realistically take ''months'' to recover from.

* Particularly noticeable in ''ComicBook/ThePunisherMAX'' arc "Barracuda", in which The Punisher (as ever) doesn't suffer any kind of permanent injury, while Barracuda loses several fingers, some teeth and an eye.
** The Punisher regularly takes massive damage. In the very first story arc of the ''MAX'' title he gets shot in the chest with a shotgun (noting that his rib is not broken, but is actually ''gone'') and afterwards a man jams his fist into the wound and tries to pull his lung out, an injury that is never referenced again. Possibly justified by the fact that each story arc takes place six months after the last one, giving him some time to heal. But this ends up being averted in the Jason Aaron run (set in the same continuity), where after a particular brutal fight he consults with a doctor he knew in 'Nam. While Frank's top priority is getting out of his hands out of their casts, the doctor tells him that he ''has'' to let them heal if he wants to keep his motor control. He also notes that if he doesn't already have arthritis he will now, that he has high blood pressure, cartilage damaged in his knees and hips, noise-induced hearing loss and most likely chronic pain from improperly healed wounds and herniated discs. He flat out tells Frank that the days of him recovering from a broken leg in three weeks are over and that despite him keeping himself in excellent shape, he's just too old for doing what he does.

** A similar problem happened in the ComicBook ''ComicBook/{{Hitman}}'', in which Hakken's hand (which he chainsawed off after it was bitten by a zombie seal) would sometimes be drawn as a stump/prosthetic and sometimes drawn in as if it were healed.
* Scars or not, ''Franchise/{{Batman}}'''s continued ability to move without agony, do incredible gymnastics, and avoid of brain damage can all be attributed to this. ''How'' many times has he been hit over the head or crudely stitched up a bloody wound and kept using the injured portion because he didn't have time to see to it properly?
** One of his most famous storylines was about his ''back being broken.'' This seems to have had no real lasting effect.
** Played straight with the Joker, who is still pretty agile for a guy who's had his kneecap blown off and most of his teeth knocked out. By all account he should be dead with all the ribs broken and concussions he got over the years.

** Subverted however with DC's [[Franchise/TheFlash Bart Allen]], who also got shot in the kneecap. It was explained to the doctors that he "heals fast, but not ''right''", meaning that the tissue damage was repairing itself, but the bone remained ruined. He ended up needing an artificial kneecap, and on the operating table the doctors had to keep breaking the bones over and over so they could be removed.
*** Anesthesia was not an option, his 'super healing' means it wears off in seconds. So he was perfectly awake for each and every re-break.
*** Possible Handwaving allowed, as the Scarlet Witch is certainly capable of making sure her [[{{Twincest}} beloved brother]] heals up nicely.
*** Subverted in the ''ComicBook/SheHulk'' comics when she's working at a law firm that employs super-powered people such as speedsters as mail clerks. It's mentioned during an attack on the firm that said speedsters will need immediate medical attention for even minor injuries. The reason being that their super speed means that the effects of their injuries will simply occur faster too. So a minor cut might still be minor... but the blood loss might be occurring at super speeds!

* Averted in ''Manga/TsubasaReservoirChronicle'' fanfic ''FanFic/{{Shatterheart}}'', [[spoiler: Real!]]Syaoran is kidnapped and tortured by {{serial killer}}s and it takes weeks for him to physically recover. It takes several chapters for his shattered kneecap and broken toes to heal and he has to be a wheelchair or a leg brace during his recovery. In one of his sex scenes, [[spoiler: Real!]]Syaoran worries about aggravating his knee. He manages to complete physical therapy in time for the TournamentArc, he still has problems with his knee.
** Also averted when Kurogane [[spoiler: cuts off his own arm in Celes.]] The half of the Nihon Arc has him bedridden for days from blood loss even with magic speeding up the process.

* Averted in ''Film/{{Skyfall}}''. Bond's shoulder wound from the opening sequence ''dramatically'' affects his performance, physical and mental, months later. [[spoiler: Mallory]] took a bullet to the arm and for the rest of the film is seen wearing a sling.

* Heavily averted in the ''Film/MadMax'' series, presumably owing to the writer and director Creator/GeorgeMiller being a former emergency room doctor. Most notably, Max gets shot in the knee in the first film, and wears a leg brace in every following film.

* ''Series/{{House}}'' had a particularly ridiculous example in Season Two when [[spoiler:Foreman]] got infected with [[spoiler:Naegleria - the brain-eating amoeba]] - and spent the greater part of a two-part episode progressing through the disease symptoms until he could be diagnosed and treated. They completely overlooked the fact that his symptoms were being caused by [[spoiler:the amoebic infection actually ''eating his brain'']], which was conveniently all healed up by the next episode. Surprising this same after-effect was ''averted'' in a previous episode regarding [[spoiler:an old lady whose brain had been getting chewed on by syphilis spirochetes and was reassured by House that her brain would stay the way it was.]]

* Usually played straight on ''Series/StargateSG1'' with characters recovering from staff blasts and the like with no scars, but it did feature a notable aversion in "Nemesis" and "Small Victories". Michael Shanks came down with appendicitis during the filming of "Nemesis", [[RealLifeWritesThePlot forcing them to write him out of most of the episode]]. The writers chose the simple solution of [[WrittenInInfirmity giving Daniel Jackson appendicitis]], then remembered to have him still recovering from an appendectomy in "Small Victories" (set a week later).
* Averted in ''Series/BreakingBad''.
** Hank gets shot and wounded in season 3. He spends the rest of the season in the hospital. Hank then spends all of season 4 in a wheelchair or assisted by a cane. In season 5, he's shown walking again but he needs a cane because he still limps a bit, and does so up until his death in "Ozymandias".
** Mike Ehrmantraut thwarts an attempted hijacking of a Los Pollos Hermanos truck in "Bullet Points," but one of the enemy gunmen's bullets damages his right ear. Mike spends the next few episodes with tape on that spot. Even in season 5, if you look closely, you can see what looks like scarring on his ear.
** Mike averts this a lot actually. He gets shot during the getaway from Don Eladio's compound. Five episodes later, in "Madrigal," we can see that the wound still causes some discomfort when he's sitting.
** To keep Hank away from the laundry in "Crawl Space," Walt deliberately drives the car into the path of an oncoming car, causing an accident. Walt spends the next few episodes with tape over his nose, while Hank spends the next episode in a neck brace.
** Jesse is victim of a brutal beating from Hank at the start of "One Minute" that leaves him with one eye swollen shut. The swelling still hasn't gone away by the time he's released, and it doesn't go away until "Kafkaesque," two episodes after the beating.
* ''Series/BetterCallSaul'' also similarly averts this:
** Mike takes a brutal beating from Tuco in "Gloves Off" and spends a few episodes with visible injuries to his face.
** Kim breaks her arm in a car accident at the end of "Fall", and spends the first half of the following season (several weeks) with her arm in a sling. It's not until the start of episode 7, and a timeskip of about a year, that the cast comes off.
** Nacho is shot by Victor and Tyrus at the start of "Something Beautiful" as part of a FalseFlagOperation that's been arranged to cover up Nacho's forced defection to Gus, as well as allow Gus to trick the Salamanca twins into taking out another gang so he can corner their markets. The Twins take Nacho to the vet that Mike and Jimmy have been using to network with underworld figures, and he patches up Nacho. During the shootout at the Espinoza compound, lingering complications from the bullet wound make it difficult for Nacho to walk when he decides to get out of the car and provide assistance to the Twins. Once again, the year-long time skip of "Something Stupid" allows most of the proper healing process to happen off-screen.
* ''Series/TheXFiles'': Mulder, Scully and Skinner get shot and beaten up very badly many times but don't worry, neither of them has any nasty permanent scars whatsoever.

** Averted in "[[Recap/TheXFilesS05E18ThePineBluffVariant The Pine Bluff Variant]]" when Mulder gets tortured. [[{{Fingore}} They broke his finger]]. In the next episode "[[Recap/TheXFilesS05E19FolieADeux Folie à Deux]]", his fingers are still bandaged.
** Averted in "[[Recap/TheXFilesS03E10SevenThreeOne 731]]": At the end of the episode Mulder's face bears very visible and believable marks from a severe beating.
* Averted when Tony gets shot in ''Series/TheSopranos''. He's in the hospital for at least a couple of episodes, takes it easy for a long time afterwards, still has a nasty scar on his stomach and mentions in the next season that he can't eat certain foods without upsetting his stomach now.
* Averted by Max in the reimagined ''Series/HawaiiFive0''. In the second-season finale he was shot in the leg by a criminal. Four episodes into the third season he's still being shown walking with a cane. It may not be a full aversion since his character is a forensic technician, not an action hero like the four main characters, who play the trope straight by often healing from pretty serious injuries within no more than a couple of episodes.
* Usually averted in ''Series/{{Grimm}}''. When Nick gets into a fight, he does carry the results for a while, such as bruises or cuts on his face.

* ''Series/CriminalMinds'' averts this usually. Reid had to deal with the results of being shot in the leg for weeks. Penelope likewise was shown to be dealing with injuries from being shot for a couple of episodes. Likewise other characters when injured usually deal with it for quite a while.
* ''Series/{{The Sentinel}}''; there is fandom speculation that Sentinels and Guides heal faster than normal humans, especially when in proximity to one another.
* Averted on ''Series/OrphanBlack'', when Donnie tells Alison at her intervention that the burns from when she (purposely) dripped hot glue on him some weeks earlier still hurt when he's in the shower.

*** Averted with Frank Castle. He spends most of season 2 with his face bruised from his fights with the mobs and Matt early in the season. Whenever he's in public after his escape from jail, like in the diner scene in "[[Recap/Daredevil2015S2E11380 .380]]", he has to wear a baseball cap so people don't see the injuries.
*** Averted in season 3, where Matt's lingering injuries from Midland Circle during ''Series/TheDefenders2017'' make it impossible for him to do any backflips, and also put him at a big disadvantage during his fights with Dex.

* Averted in ''Series/BoardwalkEmpire'':
** Nucky's hand still hurts a year and a half after having been shot through it, and despite the fact that it looks completely healed.
** Clifford Lathrop has to walk with a cane permanently after having been shot in one foot.
** Eddie Kessler uses a cane a year after surviving a shot to the gut in extremis and it is clear that it is still very painful. A punch to the gut makes him [[VomitIndiscretionShot vomit his stomach contents]] all at once.
** When Gyp Rosetti blows up Babette's, Nucky survives due to being outside the blast radius. Nevertheless, days later he still suffers from the resultant tinnitus and concussion, and the effects only worsen when he refuses to take medication to treat it.

* ''Series/MelrosePlace'': Played straight and also somewhat averted. In the show's fourth season, [[spoiler: Kimberly]] sets off a bomb at the apartment complex with almost every resident present. Played straight as the only fatality is an unrelated woman and most of the other residents suffered only a couple of scrapes and bruises (again from a ''bomb blast''), though somewhat averted in [[spoiler: Alison's]] case, as [[spoiler: she]] was temporarily blind for a couple of episodes. In the same episode, [[spoiler: Jake and his brother]] fall off a building under construction; [[spoiler: Jake]] survives, with a couple of bruises and cracked ribs, while [[spoiler: said brother]] dies; played straight as [[spoiler: Jake]] was up and at it in the next episode. Later in the same season, another semi-aversion occurs with [[spoiler: Jane]], who suffers a drug-induced stroke; none of the typical signs of a stroke appear on [[spoiler: her]], [[spoiler: she]] has no physical therapy to regain [[spoiler: her]] senses and verbal skills (in fact, they seem perfectly intact) and at best, [[spoiler: Jane]] is placed in a wheelchair for several episodes, being taken care of by [[spoiler: her unwilling sister Sydney]] during this time.
* Such a common SoapOpera trope that soap magazines have made a point of praising any aversions. In one instance, after the umpteenth "temporary paralysis" storyline , Soap Opera Digest wrote an editorial blasting the frequency of such storylines and citing how insulting they were to people who had incurred spinal cord injuries.

* Pro Wrestling sometimes averts this and sometimes plays it straight. A lot of the time it's actually inverting it. The wrestlers take longer to 'heal' from moves that don't actually hurt them much in real life.
* An aversion was followed by a ridiculous example in the Stone Cold/Triple H feud. Stone Cold was run over by a car and was put out of action for nine months (he had an injury in real life). Triple H was revealed to be the culprit and so Stone Cold retaliated by dropping the car he was in out of a forklift. How long did it take for Trips to come back? Two weeks. It was somewhat Lampshaded by his wife who said he was "incredibly lucky" not to have been killed and was coughing up blood and suffering from internal injuries whenever he was not on TV.

* ''TabletopGame/{{Exalted}}'' averts it for mortals, devoting a lot of time in the systems section to describing how long it takes for a wound to truly heal, how fast someone can bleed out, and how prone wounds are to infection. But then again, these are mainly meant to contrast mortals against the eponymous Exalted, who heal at a faster rate naturally and get access to Charms that allow upping the out-of-combat healing rate tenfold.
* Averted in ''TabletopGame/{{Cyberpunk}} 2020''. Wounds, especially serious ones, take up to weeks to heal unless someone has enough dough to buy nanotech and/or healing drugs.

** Also lampshaded with game mechanics: during the "prologue" mission, Snake's stamina reduces very slowly; it's possible to finish the whole thing with three-quarters stamina. After he gets his terrible wounds and is reinserted a week later, his stamina drains ''much'' faster. In addition, Para-Medic will remark that because he is not fully healed (or even ''partially'' healed), he really shouldn't be in the field and his performance (stamina) will suffer for it.
** And averted with losing his eye and gaining a scar to match it. But this is a prequel, and he had the scar and eyepatch in the first ''VideoGame/MetalGear''.

** Mostly averted in Hardcore mode for ''VideoGame/FalloutNewVegas'': crippled limbs require a doctor bag to repair, stimpacks heal gradually instead of all at once, and food's healing effects are sharply diminished. But you can still go from almost dead to completely healthy by [[HyperactiveMetabolism eating enough gecko meat]] (just don't expect it to heal your crippled body).

** One of the earlier ''Tom and Jerry'' shorts averted this to a degree. Halfway through the short, Tom blows the top of his scalp away with a shotgun and wears a toupee to cover for the rest of the short. He also sports more bandages as the short goes on. That being said, he's still able to go after being sawed in half (his midsection is taped together in the next scene).

** This is averted in Death Of A Propane Salesman when Luanne has her hair singed off by an explosion that results in her boyfriend's demise, though it gradually grows back over time.

* The ''Franchise/AvatarTheLastAirbender'' universe:
** Averted in [[WesternAnimation/AvatarTheLastAirbender the original series]]. Even in a world where doctors have water-based HealingHands, anything above a cut or a bruise takes a long time to heal. Case in point: Aang, who was shot by lightning and revived via magical spirit water, still needed multiple sessions before he completely healed, and after that he retained scars on his back and foot for the rest of his life.
** Averted in its sequel series ''WesternAnimation/TheLegendOfKorra''. It takes about 2 years of physical therapy for Korra to able to walk after being poisoned by the Red Lotus in the end of season 3. This was exacerbated by some of the poison still being in her system, but even after it was removed she took a long time to fully recover.

* ''Series/{{Firefly}}'s'' Malcolm Reynolds, to the point where it's a major character trait of his that he will. Not. Stay. Down. Getting shot in the arm annoys him. Getting shot in the stomach might drop him in about half an hour. Getting impaled through the gut with a sword is a minor inconvenience that ends the moment he rips it out. [[{{Determinator}} Being tortured to death....that just makes him angry.]] And by the next episode, which generally takes place maybe a week or two later, Mal is perfectly healthy again.
** Possibly justified by the power of futuristic medicine. They do have a brilliant medic on board.
** According to the movie, the episodes span 8 months. There is a little bit of time cut off at the end allowing for [[spoiler: Inara to leave and become a teacher at a school for companions and for Book to leave for Haven]].

* Contrary to the intro text, the Literature/JamesBond of Creator/IanFleming's books has a noticeable, comment-worthy scar on his face from the corner of eye down his cheek to his jawline. Various injuries acquired in the course of the stories are remarked on in later stories and recent injuries definitely affect the near-term capacity. For example, Bond spent the second half of ''Literature/LiveAndLetDie'' with his left hand bandaged and splinted after Tee-Hee broke Bond's pinkie finger.
* Played with in ''Literature/TheDresdenFiles'', particularly with Harry Dresden himself. As a wizard with a potential lifespan of centuries, he has a very slow but effective HealingFactor on his side. So, while he takes wounds and hurts that leave him with ''very'' evident damage and scarring (such as his left hand being burned to near-uselessness), he will inevitably recover from them almost completely (such as with said burned hand slowly becoming useful again). It's just going to take a few years... or decades... to reach that point.
** Generally averted in the span of a single book, however: when Harry takes a beating (and he takes a ''lot'' of beatings), it hampers his abilities for the rest of the book. While he's generally okay by the next book, they tend to take place a full year apart. It's also shown that he sometimes needs therapy after being wounded, for example training with his burned hand to recover the strength in it and needing weeks of therapy in ''Cold Days''[[spoiler: after being shot by a sniper rifle at the end of Changes]].
** Averted for normal non-magical mortals who, when hurt so badly they need surgery, never fully recovers from their wounds. [[spoiler: For example Michael, who in ''Small Favor'' have to retire from his duties as a Knight after being shot, and Murphy in ''Skin Game'' who, after being beaten up by Nicodemous, will recover but only to 90 % of her former abilities.]]
* [[JustifiedTrope Justified]] in the ''Literature/{{Animorphs}}'' series, because the morphing technology works with DNA, so any injuries to the body are irrelevant and the kids just need to morph to heal.

* Justified in ''Literature/TheHungerGames''. The Capitol has advanced enough medicine that they have ointments that heal burn wounds, deep gashes and blood poisoning. After the Games the victor is subjected to medical treatment so advanced that any scars they obtained in the arena are removed along with every other scar they have on their body. There are however limits to what they can do, as [[spoiler:Peeta loses his left leg]]. They also have no antidote for hijacking, a state of hallucinatory delirium triggered by the venom of wasps tailored by the Capitol to essentially serve as organic minefields.(FridgeLogic somewhat kicks in when one realizes the Capitol was able to ''genetically engineer said wasps'' to secrete this and yet not be able to concoct an antidote...)
** This advanced healing is only offered to a selected few. Katniss and Peeta are no longer considered important enough to get this kind of treatment in ''Mockingjay'' [[spoiler:and have to live the rest of their lives with burn scars and marks from skin grafts.]]
* Averted in ''Literature/TheWitcher''. After Geralt gets annihilated in a duel by [[BigBad Vilgefortz]] it takes a month for him to even start walking. He actually never fully recovered, as his tight and forearm sometimes reminds of themeselves with pain. Later on he was sedated with magic.

* Averted on ''{{Series/Angel}}.'' Wesley gets his throat cut in the middle of season 3, and the scar remains visible through the end of season 4, gradually becoming less severe, but still noticeable. The only reason it's gone in season 5 is because [[spoiler: the team no longer has any memories of Connor, which means Wesley doesn't remember getting his throat cut while trying to protect him.]] Apparently when Cyvus Vail [[spoiler: rewrote their memories]] he made at least one physical change, too--removing Wesley's scar.

* ''Series/GameOfThrones'': Although many characters avert the trope by suffering from limps, illnesses, and infections after injuries, Jon Snow plays it very straight. He is just a little stiff after nearly dying of ''three'' arrow wounds in the previous episode (albeit a season finale). He also receives a nasty leg wound in "[[{{Recap/GameOfThronesS4E5FirstOfHisName}} First of His Name]]" that disappears by the next episode and shrugs off a head vs. anvil confrontation in "[[{{Recap/GameOfThronesS4E9TheWatchersOnTheWall}} The Watchers on the Wall]]" that should have shattered his skull.
** By the season 6-7 all bets are off. Sandor Clegane heals multiple open fractures after falling from a cliff, which, mind you, rendered him unable to stand up or even kill himself, and being left to die in the middle of nowhere. Arya Stark recovers from multiple stab wounds to the gut, followed by a swim in a dirty river, literally within a day. To top them all off, it takes Jorah Mormont a day to recover from being, basically, ''flayed alive'' after contracting a deadly disease that, judging by his external condition, should've already affected all his innards, and yet removing the diseased outer layer of skin is all it takes.
* ''Series/LawAndOrder'' subverted this early in its run, with Det. Logan visiting his partner Det. Cerreta in the hospital as he recovered from being shot several episodes prior. Subverted further when Cerreta tells him he'll be retiring to a desk job instead of returning.
** Averted consistently in the series; one episode had a witness in a case suffer a bad gash to her forehead that required medical attention, and when she next appeared in court she was shown with stitches.

** Averted during Mal's ShirtlessScene in ''Film/{{Serenity}}'': he has various scars on his body due to injuries sustained in the series (Crow throwing a knife into his shoulder in "Train Job", Niska's torture machine in "War Stories", etc.).
** Another aversion: it was a major plot point in ''Serenity'' that [[spoiler: he has permanent damage to a nerve cluster in his side from a wartime shrapnel wound.]]

[[folder:Anime]]

* Similar to ''Series/TheWestWing'' example above, Meredith Grey on ''GreysAnatomy'' has her chest opened in order to be placed on heart and lung bypass, and not only does she not get a scar from this, she's fully healed and back to working in the very next episode, taking place ''one week'' after the procedure. Especially egregious considering it is a medical show.

** Perhaps a more mild form with Mac. It is possible to recover from aphasia over a couple of months, but it still moved somewhat quickly. Not so fast as to make it impossible to believe, especially with the six-week time cut, but a little bit. And, in real life, it can still re-surface when the person is angry or afraid...and Mac seemed fine the whole time he was worried about Christine in the crossover.

* In ''Disney/{{Mulan}}'', Mulan takes a sword-slash to the side from Shan Yu. It's implied that the adrenaline of escaping the avalanche she triggered to bury the Huns powered her through, and she falls unconscious almost as soon as it's over. However, a few hours in the doctor's tent seems enough to completely fix it--not only does she run, ride, and leap around palace roofs without pain the next day, she shows no sign of fatigue from the bloodloss that resulted in her fainting.

* Happens to a point with Danny on ''Series/{{CSINY}}''. He does walk with a cane for a few eps after ditching his wheelchair, but still seems to have learned to walk again a bit fast.

* Many straight examples occur in ''Series/KillingEve'':
** After being stabbed by Eve in the Season 1 finale, Villanelle spends half a day being stitched up in the hospital after spending days wandering around Paris. Her wound is clearly giving her serious trouble, plus she jumped on a guy's car to disguise her injuries. Apparently she can still sneak into a passerby's car and be driven across to England, in a trunk. Then, when she gets to England, she spends another few days wandering around until being taken in by Julian, without collapsing or even arousing suspicion.
** By this point, it's implied that her wound is infected, but Julian won't get any medicine for her. She spends days in his house getting sicker and sicker...but is still able to overpower and kill him when necessary. Then Raymond comes to pick her up, and he got her medical assistance in the time skip, but she manages to kill a guy by breaking his neck with his own tie merely ''a couple of days later''.
** Although a Non-Action Guy in Season 2, Konstanin appears to have suffered no ill effects of Villanelle shooting him, despite the fact that she aimed for his heart, despite the fact that he reappears to Eve mere days after the shooting, according to the show's chronology.

*** Averted in season 3, where Matt's lingering injuries from Midland Circle during ''Series/TheDefenders2017'' make it impossible for him to do any backflips, and also make it more difficult for him to take on Dex in fistfights.

** Mike averts this a lot actually. He gets shot during the getaway from Don Eladio's compound. Five episodes later, in "Madrigal," we can see that the wound still causes some discomfort when he's sitting. It even stretches back to ''Series/BetterCallSaul'' - Mike takes a brutal beating from Tuco in "Gloves Off" and spends a few episodes with visible injuries to his face.

*** [[DiscussedTrope Discussed]] in regards to Luke. Much is made over the fact that he's able to walk away without a scratch from things that would kill a normal person. Claire mentions when she first meets him that the point-blank shotgun blast Jessica Jones gave him should've turned his brain into mush, but didn't because of Luke's durable skin. Furthermore, he recovered from that within a span of hours, not days like most people would. His quick recovery is thanks to the fact that the experiment that Luke was subject to in Seagate was meant to accelerate his healing, but due to Rackham's last-minute sabotage, ended up giving Luke his durable skin.
*** Turk Barrett's second appearance in ''Luke Cage'' appears to take place ''after'' the season 2 finale of ''Series/Daredevil2015''[[note]]''Daredevil'' season 2 overlaps with season 1 of ''Luke Cage''[[/note]] where he nearly got his foot cut off by the Hand ninjas trying to get his tracking bracelet off. When Turk appears in "Soliloquy of Chaos", he doesn't even have so much as a limp when he's interacting with Zip and Diamondback, or later when Luke interrogates him for information on Diamondback's base. And the whole thing with the Hand happened fairly recently, as dialogue establishes that Claire came to Harlem immediately after the Hand attacked Metro-General.

* Particularly noticeable in the [[VideoGame/GodOfWarI first]] and [[VideoGame/GodOfWarII second'' ''VideoGame/GodOfWar'' games: Kratos gets stabbed, cut, and slammed into walls numerous times, and he bleeds, but he never seems to sustain an injury for very long. He fought Zeus after being stabbed in the gut with a giant sword! There is a reason for this, however: [[spoiler:he's Zeus's son. Being a demigod helps with this sort of thing.]]

* Particularly noticeable in both ''VideoGame/GodOfWar'' games: Kratos gets stabbed, cut, and slammed into walls numerous times, and he bleeds, but he never seems to sustain an injury for very long. He fought Zeus after being stabbed in the gut with a giant sword! There is a reason for this, however: [[spoiler:he's Zeus's son. Being a demigod helps with this sort of thing.]]