In Xena, bad guys have prominent facial scars; good guys do not. I guess that in the Xenaverse, warlords who remain evil forever are the only ones to ever get hit in the face? Warlords and warriors who were never bad, or who may/will be redeemed someday (Xena, Marcus, Ulysses, Hercules), don't. (Well, except that one time in S2 that we did see Xena get clobbered in the face. I was totally expecting a broken nose, blood everywhere, two black eyes... Yet, nothing. Because facial marks are for bad guys.) The scar=bad thing is astonishingly regular in its execution. (Note: I've only gotten to the end of S2; maybe it reverses later. But I would fall off the couch in surprise if it did.)
There was one exception -- one! -- in the first two seasons. At the same time that Consistently Evil But Unscarred Character became immortal, she picked up a facial scar. (Because immortals don't scar, and it was the show's last chance to get a scar on her?) I hear that in a later seasons her character undergoes some major transformations: I'm half-expecting that if she goes good, that they'll find a way to get that scar off of her again.
Under Cursed with Awesome, how about Cordelia from Angel? She spends most of season getting visions of the future, visions which her mere mortal body cannot withstand, visions which almost kill her -- and so the Powers upgrade her to... yanno, I don't even remember what. Except that it goes Awesome -> Cursed With -> Fixed With More Awesome.
And within the Scooby Gang, Xander gets treated in a Fantastic-Ableism/Everyone's-Disabled-Compared-To-Slayers-and-Witches-and-Vampires-and-Werewolves sort of way. That never felt fully developed (and I wouldn't trust Whedon to develop it anyway), but I liked seeing the group work through a few of the philosophical issues of respect, contribution, and accommodation (although there's a limit to the value of that, when the character is actually abled). I've never read S8, so I don't know what happens with Xander once he becomes actually disabled.
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There was one exception -- one! -- in the first two seasons. At the same time that Consistently Evil But Unscarred Character became immortal, she picked up a facial scar. (Because immortals don't scar, and it was the show's last chance to get a scar on her?) I hear that in a later seasons her character undergoes some major transformations: I'm half-expecting that if she goes good, that they'll find a way to get that scar off of her again.
Under Cursed with Awesome, how about Cordelia from Angel? She spends most of season getting visions of the future, visions which her mere mortal body cannot withstand, visions which almost kill her -- and so the Powers upgrade her to... yanno, I don't even remember what. Except that it goes Awesome -> Cursed With -> Fixed With More Awesome.
And within the Scooby Gang, Xander gets treated in a Fantastic-Ableism/Everyone's-Disabled-Compared-To-Slayers-and-Witches-and-Vampires-and-Werewolves sort of way. That never felt fully developed (and I wouldn't trust Whedon to develop it anyway), but I liked seeing the group work through a few of the philosophical issues of respect, contribution, and accommodation (although there's a limit to the value of that, when the character is actually abled). I've never read S8, so I don't know what happens with Xander once he becomes actually disabled.