History Main / TwoFaced

* Prince Zuko in ''WesternAnimation/AvatarTheLastAirbender'' has a large burn scar around his left eye thanks to [[spoiler:his [[AbusiveParents abusive father Ozai]]]], though he [[spoiler:later fixes it to appear more attractive when he pulls a HeelFaceTurn]].

* Two-Face from the ''ComicBook/{{Batman}}'' RoguesGallery is probably the oldest modern example. Harvey Dent was Gotham City's district attorney until he had acid thrown at him, permanently disfiguring his face and giving him a split personality, between Harvey Dent and Two-Face. He now has a fixation on duality and chance, committing crimes [[DualityMotif revolving around the number two]] and making all of his decisions by tossing a TwoHeadedCoin that is scarred on one side. When faced with a moral decision he flips the coin; if it comes down scarred side up, he commits an evil act, if clean side up, he does not. In ''ComicBook/DCComicsBombshells'', Harvey Dent suffers severe freeze burns on one side of his face after being hit with a cold blast by Killer Frost. Reflecting the comic's general intention of avoiding traditional elements of Creator/DCComics that have UnfortunateImplications, the disfigurement does '''not''' cause him to go mad or evil. Some {{Elseworld}}s stories follow a similar path but with him being a nasty piece of work even before the disfigurement.

* In ''Manga/CaseClosed'', we have the novelist Hideomi Nagato. He had the left half of his face ''horribly'' burned when, as a teenager, he rescued a little girl from her burning home. [[spoiler:(A fire that ''he'' and his friend Mitsuaki caused as a DeadlyPrank, and Hideomi [[TheAtoner never forgave himself for it]]).]] Ever since then he became a ReclusiveArtist, and the few time he left his studio he [[BandagedFace wore bandages on his face.]] [[spoiler:And we only saw Hideomi's whole face when his lifeless body was found inside the Nagato mansion's fountain, hours after he committed suicide.]]

* Space Commander Travis, TheDragon from the first two seasons of ''Series/BlakesSeven'' who relentlessly pursues our heroes, [[ItsPersonalWithTheDragon seeking revenge for the injury Blake inflicted]] in their BackStory that cost him an arm and half his face, the latter covered with a molded black skin-like mask doubling as an EyepatchOfPower. Facial surgery could fix the damage, but he keeps it as a RedRightHand to remind Blake of what he's done, and to set himself apart from the deskbound staff officers he despises.

* Creator/AdamWest's version of Batman fights not only the already famous ComicBook/TwoFace in ''WesternAnimation/BatmanVsTwoFace'', but also a [[HatePlague toxin full of evil]] that will turn Gothamites into two-faced creatures like him.
* At the end of ''Toys/{{Bionicle}}'' [[spoiler:when [[TheHero Takanuva]] and [[BigBad Makuta]] merge, the resulting colossus Takutanuva has half of the former's benevolent Mask of Light and half of the latter's evil Mask of Shadows.]]
* The Mayor from ''Creator/TimBurton's WesternAnimation/TheNightmareBeforeChristmas'' who is [[VisualPun a two-faced politician]] -- one face is happy and skin-colored while the other is sad and grey, with the situation PlayedForLaughs.

* ''Film/{{Asylum|1972Horror}}'': At the end of "Frozen Fear", Bonnie pushes back her hair to reveal to Dr. Martin that the right side of her face is crisscrossed with deep scars where she used the hatchet to hack the [[HelpingHands crawling hand]] of her face.

* In Creator/PeterJackson's ''Film/TheHobbitTheDesolationOfSmaug'', [[spoiler:King Thranduil of the Wood Elves]]. While he's trying to convince [[spoiler:Thorin]] for a share of Erebor's treasure in exchange for supporting him on his quest, he shows him [[spoiler:the left side of his face with a heavy burn scar down to the bone, complete with missing cheek and a blind eye]], suggesting him that he knows perfectly what the fire of a dragon can do. [[spoiler:It's not stated if the scar is covered with a magical illusion or the scar itself was a magical illusion to show Thorin how badly damaged his face was before]].

* In the movie ''Film/SurfNinjas'', Leslie Nielsen plays Colonel Chi, who had half of his face repaired with cybernetics after having it crushed. When you first see him, he's looking to the side, showing only the flesh half of his face. He then does a FaceRevealingTurn to show his metal half.

* Creator/KAApplegate seems to like this trope - she did it with Hel in ''Literature/{{Everworld}}'', Taylor in ''Literature/{{Animorphs}}'' (although her ruined side was covered by artificial parts), and again with 2Face in ''Literature/{{Remnants}}''. Though Hel being beautiful on one side and decayed on the other ''is'' true to the ancient Norse myths.
* Creator/IsaacAsimov's ''Literature/TheRestOfTheRobots'': The original cover had a stylised figure with skin/veins on the right and natal bars/springs/wires on the left, making it half-man and half-machine from their head to their legs (and presumably lower).
* Creator/IsaacAsimov and Creator/JanetAsimov's ''Literature/TheNorbyChronicles'': Norby is [[TinCanRobot a short barrel-like robot]] built with telescoping arms that can bend in either direction, his feet attach to his telescoping legs in the middle rather than at one side, and an expressive pair of eyes both in front and in back. Essentially, he doesn't ''have'' a back, just two fronts. If he really wants to concentrate while he's looking at something, he closes the eyes looking away from it.
* Creator/IsaacAsimov and Creator/RobertSilverberg's ''Literature/ThePositronicMan'': The 1993 {{Creator/Doubleday}} cover has a small [[FaceOnTheCover portrait representing Andrew Martin]], with a half-human, half-robot face. The robot side of his face is much [[FaceFramedInShadow darker than the human half]], the better to emphasize his glowing red eye.
* Creator/MayaBanks: In ''Literature/HighlanderMostWanted'', part of the Montgomerys and Armstrongs series, the main heroine, Genevieve is stunningly beautiful, apart from the left side of her cheek which was hideously scarred [[spoiler:by her abusive psychopath captor who also raped her viciously]].
* Creator/CliveBarker's ''{{Literature/Cabal}}'': A deranged character literally peels off the skin from the lower half of his face in an attempt to reveal his "real face" underneath. Hey, it's Clive Barker.
* In Creator/DeanKoontz's ''[[Literature/DeanKoontzsFrankenstein Frankenstein]]'' [[TrilogyCreep tetralogy]], one half of Deucalion's face was destroyed by the device that was meant to kill him for attacking his maker. A friend gives him a tattoo over it to help distract people from the extent of the damage. He is not a villain, however.

** Ged from ''A Wizard of Earthsea'' has a half-scarred face from an encounter with a vaguely defined creature that he accidentally summoned. (It later turns out to be, appropriately, [[spoiler:his own dark doppelgänger]].)
** Therru in ''Tehanu'' provides a full-body example of this trope, having been horribly burned [[spoiler:by her parents]] prior to the events of the book.
* Creator/DavidEddings's ''Literature/TheBelgariad'': Torak has this affliction to a large extent, although he covers it with a living mask. Half his face was set on fire by a pissed ArtifactOfDoom, and because the gods don't have a built-in ability to heal (since they aren't generally capable of being injured) it's ''still burning'' after several millennia.

* Creator/HPLovecraft's short story "Under the Pyramids" (ghost-written for Harry Houdini): The Egyptian Queen Nitokris, described as the following; "By his side knelt beautiful Queen Nikotris, whom I saw in profile for a moment, noting that the right half of her face was eaten away by rats or other ghouls.

* Creator/AriMarmell's ''Literature/TheGoblinCorps'': Morthûl, the Charnel King, is a lich variant who is literally caught between life and death: one half of his body is a skeleton, while the other half is... still pretty unpleasant to look at, judging by the artist renditions of him, but at least it has flesh.
* Creator/GeorgeRRMartin:
** ''Literature/DyingOfTheLight'': Half of Bretan Braith Lantry's face is scarred for some unknown reason, he is known for being dangerous, duel-happy, and ''[[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking touchy]]''. The narration draws attention to just how dissonant he looks when he paces: one side is a normal if high-strung young man, the other a scarred black wasteland with a glowstone for an eye.
** ''Literature/ASongOfIceAndFire'': Sandor "The Hound" Clegane received his wounds at age six when his brother Gregor found him playing with one of his long-discarded toys and [[DisproportionateRetribution shoved his face into a brazier]]. However, while you probably wouldn't call him [[AntiHero heroic]], he's not really ''[[AntiVillain evil]]'' either -- his face often makes people automatically assume he's a monster, but he ultimately subverts the villainy associated with this trope. Also subverted with [[spoiler:Brienne of Tarth (as far from a villain as you can get) and princess Myrcella (an innocent nine-year-old girl), who were both disfigured in "A Feast For Crows." Myrcella's cheek was slashed to the bone by Gerold Dayne and she lost an ear on the same side of her head and half of Brienne's cheek was chewed off by Biter.]]

* ''Literature/MindToMind'': The 1974 cover to this {{Anthology}} has a Janus-head, representing how {{telepathy}} can merge two minds together.
* The ''Literature/MortalEngines'' series presents Hester Shaw, scarred as a child by the man who killed her parents [[spoiler:or so she thinks]] . [[{{Antihero}} She isn't ''quite'' evil]], but is shown to be [[{{Yandere}} possessive]] and [[RevengeBeforeReason vengeful]].

* Literature/{{Redwall}}'s Slagar the Cruel has one side of his face mutilated and paralysed by adder venom, and wears a silk harlequin mask to hide it. (The mask also helps since he runs a [[CircusOfFear travelling show that's a front for a child slavery ring]].) In a later book, Riggu Felis gets the lower half of his face ripped entirely off and hangs a strip of chain mail from his helmet to hide it. What with the mask and the fact that missing his nose and lips makes his voice sound really weird, he comes across as the UsefulNotes/FurryFandom's answer to [[Franchise/StarWars Darth Vader]].
%%zero context* ''Literature/{{Twilight}}'': [[TeamMom Emily]] is quite beautiful, but has a great deal of scars on one side of her face due to

* ''Literature/WarriorCats'': Brightheart had half of her face ripped off by dogs in ''A Dangerous Path''. This left her with one beautiful part and one horrifically scarred part. However, she is not evil in the slightest.
* On of the Djelibeybian gods in ''Literature/{{Pyramids}}'' is Khefin the Two Headed God of Gateways, who is presumably the Janus version.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheVentureBrothers'':

** A character named "Miss Many-Face" appeared briefly as the "partially-lovely assistant" to The Master. She has at least six faces atop her neck.

** The revival series gave us a few more examples. The Smiler robots in "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS31E2TheBeastBelow The Beast Below]]" have ''three'' faces, one for happiness, one for displeasure, and one for rage. Since their heads turn 180 degrees and not 120 degrees, they apparently have a hidden arm in the back that switches whichever faces are not in use. (They are humanoid automatons in booths, like [[Film/Big Zoltar]].)

** [[TheDragon Baron Ashura]] / [[SpellMyNameWithAnS Ashler]] takes this a step further. His entire left half is male, while her right half is female. This is carried over into Ashura's voice, which is male or female when only one half is shown but speaks in both simultaneously when both halves are visible.

** ''Arkham City'' focuses more on Harvey's background as an attorney: He's holed up in Gotham's courthouse where he conducts a KangarooCourt proceeding on Catwoman, which doesn't turn out quite as intended. Catwoman uses her claws to slash the immaculate half of poor Harvey's face, then leaves with precisely half of his loot. This version of him also has a burned arm. In ''VideoGame/BatmanArkhamKnight'', [[spoiler:the Joker hallucination]] unsubtly inquires if the burns extend to Harvey's penis as well.

* Two-Face himself has made a few appearances in video game adaptions, though not nearly as many as more popular rogues such as the Joker. His two major appearances have been in a pair of ''Film/BatmanForever'' [=BeatEmUps=], which are based on Tommy Lee Jones' portrayal, and in the ''[[VideoGame/BatmanArkhamSeries Arkham Series]]'' which (like most of the series' rogues) combines aspects of ''Film/TheDarkKnightTrilogy'' with [[WesternAnimation/BatmanTheAnimatedSeries Bruce Timm's animated universe]]:

-->''"Color me insensitive, but I've always been curious. Did ''everything'' get split down the middle?"''

* [[spoiler:Rosemarie]] from ''Manga/{{Claudine}}'' is a rare heroic example. [[spoiler:She]] ends up like this after the horrible incident where [[spoiler:her teacher Louis kills both Claudine's father ''and'' the old man's lover Cecilia (who is Louis's older sister) via burning down the place they were staying in.]]

* [[Characters/BatmanTwoFace Two-Face]] from the ''ComicBook/{{Batman}}'' RoguesGallery is probably the oldest modern example. Harvey Dent was Gotham City's district attorney until he had acid thrown at him, permanently disfiguring his face and giving him a split personality, between Harvey Dent and Two-Face. He now has a fixation on duality and chance, committing crimes [[ArcNumber revolving around the number two]] and making all of his decisions by tossing a TwoHeadedCoin that is scarred on one side. When faced with a moral decision he flips the coin; if it comes down scarred side up, he commits an evil act, if clean side up, he does not.
** In ''ComicBook/DCComicsBombshells'', Harvey Dent suffers severe freeze burns on one side of his face after being hit with a cold blast by Killer Frost. Reflecting the comic's general intention of avoiding traditional elements of DC comics that have UnfortunateImplications, the disfigurement does '''not''' cause him to go mad or evil. Some {{Elseworld}}s stories follow a similar path but with him being a nasty piece of work even before the disfigurement.
** ''ComicBook/BatmanVsBigbyAWolfInGotham'': Near the end of the series, it's revealed that [[the main villain of the comic, The Bookworm, is being used as a host by another creature, whos face is hidden under the Bookworm's hat]].

* In one ''Creator/ECComics'' storyline, a man's wife gives birth to twin girls, Penelope and Olga. He is only ever allowed to see one at a time, [[spoiler:since Olga is a face growing out of the back of Penelope's head]].

* Herr Starr from ''ComicBook/{{Preacher}}'', who was blinded in one eye and scarred by a particularly vicious school bully who wanted his face to reflect his name.

* Sister Mary, one of Stryker's Purifiers, in ''[[ComicBook/NewXMenAcademyX New X-Men]]'' and ''ComicBook/XForce'' has a pair of scars marring one side of her face she got from a run-in with ComicBook/{{X 23}} during Stryker's attack on the Xavier School.

* ''ComicBook/{{Superman}}'': [[http://www.supermansupersite.com/cyborg.jpg Cyborg Superman,]] in a probable reference to ''The Franchise/{{Terminator}}''.
* ''ComicBook/TheMightyThor'': Hela qualifies... but it's only visible if you steal her cloak. Her appearance (although not the cloak) is from the source mythology (Hela is an alternate spelling of Hel), which had her as this trope [[DependingOnTheWriter some of the time]][[note]]she was almost always, when it came up, described as half beautiful maiden and half-dead/withered, but stories and depictions that went into more detail varied between a vertical split, making for this trope, or a horizontal split, making for a beautiful face and horrific legs[[/note]].

* Enigma in ''ComicBook/Trinity2008'', who conceals the scarred half with a metal mask resembling a stylised question mark [[spoiler: because he's the MirrorUniverse counterpart of the Riddler]].
* ''ComicBook/IronMan2020Ongoing'' features ComicBook/{{Hellcat}} getting an "[[https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/S/cmx-images-prod/Item/892500/Previews/0333cd5cbecd143b4c640604bdf25797._SX1280_QL80_TTD_.jpg insane fractal burn]]" (halfway between lightning and a cracked wall) on half her face after suffering an electrical discharge by a villain.

* The ''ComicBook/{{Batman}}'' Sunday comic strip of the 1940s features its own version of [[Characters/BatmanTwoFace Two-Face]] as well. Handsome but small-time actor Harvey Apollo just happened to witness the killing of a policeman by gangster Lucky Sheldon. When Apollo testifies against the murderer, [[NoGoodDeedGoesUnpunished Sheldon throws vitriol at him]]. Batman (also in the courtroom as a witness) is only quick enough to disrupt, not block, the throw. Thus, Apollo acquires his disfigurement, his psychosis, and his hatred of Batman in one fell swoop. Apollo also gets his TwoHeadedCoin from Sheldon, though not willingly. It was evidence in the trial, dropped in the chaos of the acid attack, and acquired afterwards (somehow) by Apollo, who of course scars one side to match his own profile. When the scarred side later [[PocketProtector stops a cop's bullet]], Apollo takes it as further confirmation that he is fated for a long life of crime. Oh well, [[{{Foreshadowing}} one out of TWO]] isn't bad.

* ''Fanfic/AbraxasHrodvitnon'': A couple non-villainous examples occur. In Chapter 3, [[Characters/AbraxasHrodvitnon San]] manifests within the NightmareSequence as a duplicate of Vivienne's lost human form but with one half disfigured into a Ghidorah-like HumanoidAbomination. Later, [[spoiler:San and Vivienne are mutilated to the point where half of either of their heads are destroyed, although they get better]].

* Another nonvillain example is Creator/OrlandoBloom's character in the movie ''Film/{{Haven|2004}}'' after acid is thrown in his face.

* In Creator/PeterJackson's ''Film/TheHobbitTheDesolationOfSmaug'', [[spoiler:[[Characters/MiddleEarthFilmElves King Thranduil]] of the Wood Elves]]. While he's trying to convince [[spoiler:Thorin]] for a share of Erebor's treasure in exchange for supporting him on his quest, he shows him [[spoiler:the left side of his face with a heavy burn scar down to the bone, complete with missing cheek and a blind eye]], suggesting him that he knows perfectly what the fire of a dragon can do. [[spoiler:It's not stated if the scar is covered with a magical illusion or the scar itself was a magical illusion to show Thorin how badly damaged his face was before]].

** One half of [[Characters/GameOfThronesHouseClegane Sandor Clegane]]'s face was horribly burned by Gregor, and though it doesn't look as horrible in the show as the books indicate, it's still pretty visible.
** [[Characters/GameOfThronesHouseBaratheon Shireen Baratheon]] has the look in the form of scars from her Grayscale affliction in infanthood, but it's otherwise thoroughly averted since she's probably the sweetest character in the series.

* ''Series/{{Heroes}}'': It happens to Nathan when [[spoiler:He stopped Peter from exploding and saved New York. He got better.]]

* On ''Series/{{Nikita}}'', the title character splashes [[TheSociopath Roan]] with his own body-dissolving liquid, giving him this look.

* In ''ComicBook/{{Barracuda}}'', the evil {{pirate}} captain Morkham had his right cheek laid open by a sword slash fro Flynn during a duel. A bungled job of stitiching left him with the entire right side of his face puckered in by a wicked scar.

* ''Fanfic/AbraxasHrodvitnon'': A couple non-villainous examples occur. In Chapter 3, [[Characters/AbraxasHrodvitnon San]] manifests within the NightmareSequence as a duplicate of Vivienne's lost human form but with one half disfigured into a Ghidorah-like HumanoidAbomination. Later, [[spoiler:San and Vivienne are mutilated to the point wehere half of either of their heads are destroyed, although they get better]].

* Another nonvillain example is Orlando Bloom's character in the movie ''Film/{{Haven}}'' after acid is thrown in his face.

* ''ComicBook/IronMan2020Ongoing'' features [[Characters/PatsyWalkerAKAHellcat Hellcat]] getting an "[[https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/S/cmx-images-prod/Item/892500/Previews/0333cd5cbecd143b4c640604bdf25797._SX1280_QL80_TTD_.jpg insane fractal burn]]" (halfway between lightning and a cracked wall) on half her face after suffering an electrical discharge by a villain.