Okay, so. The idea of Agent 47, the main character of all the Hitman games, is not that he is some sort of superhuman. He is just, like, an extremely good human. The best human. He has been scienced into a perfect human and therefore is the best a human can be at everything. That does mean he has incredible healing abilities, since he heals like a human would, only faster and better. This is shown in gameplay, obviously, but that can be taken as gameplay. It is also shown many times outside of it, where he's recovered with remarkable speed from injuries both large and small. That's not happened particularly often in the World of Assination trilogy (the most recent games), but it's still implied often enough to be inferred by the player with little knowledge of the franchise beforehand (me). The logical extension of this, to me, is that all scars of his would also, eventually, disappear with enough time. While some especially severe injuries might leaves scars maybe for even a matter of months, even normal humans can largely reduce or even erase scarring with enough money, time, and/or science, so 47 should be able to. I just... went on with assumption with no real thought to the contrary for a while.

But, of course, I do have the fan-fiction brain worms in me, which means I revisit cutscenes and such more often than most healthy individuals. While rewatching one in particular (Homecoming from Hitman 2 to be precise), I had the great misfortune of noticing "wait... what the fuck does he have a scar from childhood‽" ∑(‘0‘!) Indeed, at 2:21 in the video above, 47 looks at a long, jagged scar in the palm of his left hand that he is supposed to have made in a blood pact when he was maybe 12 at most, but probably even younger (though I'm going mostly off looks here). This was a bizarre revelation to me to say the least that then sent me frantically Googling (well, DuckDuckGo-ing because Google has become useless, but that hardly has the same ring to it, does it?) variations of 'Hitman "scar"' and 'Agent 47 "scar"' and doing a ctrl+F on his fan Wiki page. I did not find anyone else talking about this particular cutscene and scar. Instead, I found something else that made the entire thing even more confusing. One singular person on Reddit, u/pandacula, is the only person I know of to have noticed (or at least mentioned) the fact that Agent 47's model in Hitman III gained a tiny little detail alongside the graphical upgrades. And yep! You guessed it. It's a barely visible scar on his bottom lip. This further begged the question... where the Hell did it come from?? Did he gain it in the interim between Hitman 2 and Hitman III¹? Is it supposed to have been there the entire trilogy but only the PS5 in all its glorious detail could reveal it to us? How long is it supposed to be there for, like, canonically speaking? Hitman III, thanks to the Freelancer game mode, spans a period of time from January 10th, 2021 to January 20th, 2022. He has that teeny, tiny, little faint scar for over 2 years?? (๑-๑;)

Now, of course, I know none of this matters. The real truth of the matter is: the lip scar is there for added detail. The hand scar is there for illustrative purposes. I am taking all of this far, far too seriously. But goddamnit I care anyway! And I'm gonna talk about it! Cause I wanna! So here are some further details and possibilities in a list because... because!

Fact #1: Agent 47 has had scars in the past that have completely healed. Hitman, unlike some other game series, doesn't have too messy a timeline. Each game takes place after the other in release order and they are all canon and rarely, if ever, contradict in any meaningful way. Because that's true, we know that he had quite a few scars in Absolution (the game before the World of Assassination trilogy) that were healed over by Hitman (2016). For the record, none of those scars were similar in location to the current lip scar he sports in Hitman III. So all that being said, we know that at least some of his scars heal. That leads us to...

Theory the First: For some reason, the scar from childhood couldn't be healed/47 is somehow able to choose not to heal it. The former is far more likely and the latter comes from a much more... well lets say fan-fic-y⋆˙⟡ perspective. Ahem, the former would be the idea that at the time 47 was just too young to heal the palm scar properly and therefore it does not benefit from his ability to heal away scars. That being said, I think this explanation fails for two reasons. #1, 47 was marked as the successful Clone right from the start and things such as a failure in his healing ability would be obvious and regretful. #2, I hate to point this out, but it really feels like a hand scar that was so important really would've been shown/mentioned at some point in time before the reveal. I don't even mean in previous games since Lucas Grey likely wasn't even a twinkle in their mind's eye and besides he wears gloves so often that it's hard to imagine where it would get brought up. But at least teased in (2016) or earlier parts of 2. By then the developers certainly would've had the scar in mind. So that brings us to the latter option, which is that 47 may have at least some control of his healing ability. While he'd have no reason to withhold healing for anything we've ever seen, perhaps it can be imagined he'd have something nagging at the back of his mind that the scar in the palm of his hand is important even without his memories. Therefore he doesn't allow it to heal, either by force of will or cutting that spot repeatedly so it remains scarred over time. This reasons isn't really anymore compelling, but is at least slightly more plausible if only because emotional reasons can always handwave away things more easily than logical ones. Anyway, neither of these have anything to say on the lip scar, but we'll address that separately anyways.

Fact #2: The cutscene where we see 47's hand scar jumps between the past and present. So therefore...

Theory the Second: The scar we see on 47's hand (and Grey's, the man with him) is not actually there in the current day. Instead, it's something 47 is imagining into the current day as he tries to make sense of his hazy memories of that period of his life as it was erased from his brain with a serum. While this makes a lot more sense than the first theory, it still isn't something I can fully embrace unfortunately. First of all, the cutscenes in 2 are in a motion graphic style thanks to it's throttled budget compared to 2016. Because of this, the moments in the past vs the moments in the present are very clearly telegraphed with effects and differences in illustration. We don't have any indication that we have been moved back to the past before we see the scar. Secondly, it is clearly the hands of adult 47 and adult Grey that we see in this scene and I think that if the intent was to have 47 be looking back into the past, then we would see their younger selves here, as we do multiple times in the other parts of this cutscene. Thirdly, even if it's just the scar being brought into the current day, there's no effects to imply that either. Nothing like the scar fading in and out of existence or glitching or weird cuts like in the rest of the cutscene. So I still don't think this explanation fits. I think the implication in this cutscene really is supposed to be that both 47 and Grey both have this scar from when they were boys now that they are both in their 60s (kinda, sorta. Being a perfect human, how 47 ages is up in the air too of course).

Fact #3: Now we're at the lip scar! So, as I somewhat established, the lip scar is not present on Agent 47's model in (2016) or 2. It isn't until the release of III that it appears. In full, the World of Assassination trilogy takes place between September 2019 and January 20th, 2022. And now here's where things get confusing... In real life, the players first saw the lip scar when III was released (or maybe revealed, but I am not so entrenched in this that I am going to go frame by frame in reveal trailers to see if you can see it there... at least I don't think anyway), so on January, 20th 2021. However, in game, timeline wise, it first appears on October 7th, 2020. But the last time we see 47 without the scar is November 2020. ◉‿◉ Do you— Do you see the problem here? This is thanks to the fact that Oct. 7th is the day that III's DLC (Ambrose Island) is known to take place, which uses 47's model from that game obviously. However, the Nov. date is DLC from 2 (Haven Island) which of course would use his model from that game. So what on God's green Earth are we supposed to do with this information?

The lip scar can't be 100% canon as it is. To my deep, deep sorrow, at least one (non-)instance of the lip scar has to be non-canon. Either its absence in Nov. is a mistake, or its presence in Oct. is. Which is which can honestly just be boiled down to personal preference, I think, though I would be inclined to argue that the latter makes more sense because of the chronological irl appearance. An argument that the scar was supposed to be there from the start of the trilogy, but not added due to graphical limitations, would also hold water too though. Now, since we have to admit at least one appearance of the scar is non-canon, then it opens a lot of possibilities around its existence in general. But I want to establish something else before that.

Fact #4: For those not in the know (though what are you doing here? like, genuinely, kindly, I am curious. please leave a note if I've bothered to set up a chat or something yet), anyone who owned or buys a copy of III had/has it automatically updated to Hitman: World of Assassination. That means that you don't just get the contents of III, but (2016) and 2 as well! Perhaps you see where this is going, but don't get ahead of me. This, by consequence, means that the entire trilogy is generally played with the III 47 model. („• ֊ •„)੭ "Great!" perhaps you are saying, "Doesn't that just mean that we can close the book and say he has the lip scar for the entire trilogy?" But don't... don't you do that to me. I haven't written all of these ridiculous words for you to do that to me...

(2016) and 2 still exist ( ;´ - `;). Just because you can play these levels in III doesn't mean that it makes sense to take them as the canonical versions of the levels, or 47 in that case. While level changes are minimal between the games, especially between 2 and III, they do exist. One infamous example for its inconvenience is that (2016)'s Paris gains an Enforcer (a guard who can see through all disguises) on the party patio. This is to show off a new mechanic, which is that you can hide in crowds (and also foliage, though not relevant there), which is of course also new to the level. So, the logical takeaway is that the changes to the level are for new mechanics = graphical limitations = lip scar is canon in all the games. Let's move the fuck on. Okay but I'm still confused!! .·°՞(˃ ᗝ ˂)՞°·. Why though?? We know he can heal scars so why is that one, tiny, barely visible scar still hanging around for 3+ years?? It doesn't make sense!! It doesn't even have the threadbare sentimental argument to hang onto like the hand scar, or the "it's one cutscene with weird editing" argument. And on top of all this, it can be safely assumed that the lip scar will be gone in whatever the next Hitman game will be, since it was likely added into this one for ~flavor~ like I mentioned. So so... I'm just a wreck okay. This has broken my brain and it's not even for good reason. It's for dumb reason. Because no one cares. No one cares about Hitman lore my dudes, let alone these stupid fucking scars...

Fact #5: Jesus... Jesus fucking Christ I thought I was almost done but I forgot to establish this... Given the huge number of injuries 47 has sustained in the course of duty canonically, but also just logically given the line of work he's in, no matter how incredible he is at it, if he couldn't heal scars then we'd fucking know. Even aside from the loss of his Absolution scars on his (2016) model, he'd have more remnants of them that'd be hanging around. He goes without medical attention in a reasonable time frame far too often for him to have happily healing scars on a regular human scale, especially since he started work in the 1960s. So... I've just gone in a loop haven't I... he can heal scars... but he's got scars... that makes no sense..........

So where does this all leave us? Well. Me. Because, as established, no one else cares. I... I don't know. I'm a mess, okay? I've written over 2,000 words about this non-issue and I feel like I have no more insight into it than when I started. _(´ཀ`」 ∠)_ There are no actual answers here, because there are no good ones that tie a neat bow on the issue. At least we do have an answer to whether or not he can heal scars in general and the fact that these two scars are an anomaly can be said definitively. I'm gonna line up, as best I can, what we're left with for those anonmalies if you are, for some reason, like me and want to have your own headcanons about them.

The lip scar: It can be safely assumed that the presence, or lack thereof, of this scar is a coding/graphical limitation. If the former, it's only around in earlier missions in WoA because it's frankly stupid to have a whole thing set up where only certain levels use a certain scarless head model that only 0.5% of players notice anyways, and likewise it'd be stupid to try and erase it from Freelancer for the same reason. It's a scar he obtained in the few weeks between Nov. 2020 and January 10th, 2021, or otherwise in the course of III, wherever you think it'd be endearing for him to obtain it, and it would've healed by the time of Freelancer in Jan. 2022. If the latter, it was a nice little detail that was always planned to be apart of this 47's design, but had to be put aside as time and effort was put into the detailing of other things for the until the devs had a better handle on things and could bring it on in III. This scar could be taking an exceptionally long time to heal, or it could be failing to heal for other reasons, choose your own adventure. Personally, I think the former explanation is more what I imagine to be the case as I don't think the scar is that much of a detail as to have needed to wait to be added, but I am not a developer so my opinion should not be taken seriously. ¯\_ (ᵕ—ᴗ—)_/¯

The hand scar: Oh gay hand scar, my belovedathed. The nonsense that started it all. Honestly, I am going to chose to ignore this scar entirely. Fuck this scar in particular. Ahem. I think the options here are 1) to choose to believe the scar is a figment of the past brought into the present, 2) to think it's something that failed to heal in his youth, or 3) to believe it's a scar he purposefully keeps... somehow. I'm going for the secret fourth option, which is to pretend I do not see it. (≖_≖ ) None of the explanations make sufficient sense to me, and I just don't like that it exists, so therefore, I declare it doesn't. What else do I, a fanfic author, exist for if not to make such declarations, after all?

¹ If you're wondering why it's Hitman 2 and Hitman III, me too man... Me to... I'm not doing that arbitrarily though that's just what they're actually called.