It makes sense that what we're seeing as a scar is actually the discoloring bruise from the spear

As a self-declared bruise expert, that still doesn't make sense to me. Bruises don't make scar tissue. And I swear that was 3D. Or at least in as many Ds as the Weathertop scar.

Maybe the mithril vest had been ground into his skin by the spear?

I'm frantically fanwanking scar tissue now, aren't I?

It looked 3-D (raised, uneven) to me, too. And was really far too big to be Shelob's "stinger", unless she stung him 6 inches deep, right into his heart! I can't think of what else it would be, though. I think it was set just high enough to miss the mithril armor, although, hello, they could have just had him get stabbed in the (front of?) the neck and avoided that issue entirely.

Textually, the only scars Frodo carries are Shelob's sting and the Morgul-blade. And he celebrates each anniversary with a day in bed, moaning.

ita's right about the stinger wound having to be below the mithril shirt, or the mithril would have stopped it, too. I can accept massive bruising--how not, from that sort of blow. But it wouldn't have left a scar. So, no cave-troll spear, no spider-sting. What then? Stray fireworks spark?

Oh and Haldir was played by the lovely and talented Craig Parker.

I think in the book Frodo has a bruise at least from where the orc spear hits him. But I don't have it here so I may be wrong.

Yes, in the book, while he is not impaled by the spear, because of the mithril, he's still wounded quite badly by it. (It's rather analgous to being shot while wearing a bulletproof vest. The bullet doesn't go through you, making a bad hole, but it will still give a very deep-tissue bruise, and hurt a LOT.)

On each anniversary of all three wounds (Weathertop, Moria, Shelob's sting), Frodo becomes dark, morose, and almost ill. It's one of the things that drives him to the Grey Havens to take that journey.

On the anniversary of the Ring's destruction each year, he becomes overthrown with despair, and again bed-ridden and sort of feverish, desperate to have the Ring back.

(Whitefonted for non-booky people)

Book stuff doesn't need to be whitefonted, though, right? Just film stuff? Visuals, changes, and the like?

Anyhoo -- Sean -- I'm not sure -- are you saying the bruise would or wouldn't look like a scar?

Sean, I thought book-Frodo only got sick on October 6th and March 13th (Weathertop and Shelob, respectively)?

Anyhoo -- Sean -- I'm not sure -- are you saying the bruise would or wouldn't look like a scar?

Couldn't the flesh have been torn by the impact of the spear even with the Mithril? I think that visually that wound has to be the troll-spear - that's where he was nailed.

Well, real-life-like, I should think a deep bruise under chain mail would be a regular bruise, with the skin mashed in a chain mail pattern. So he could scar from the bruise, but it would be the kind of scarring you get from skinning your knees and then picking at the scabs, rather than a "your body nearly fell apart; please forgive it if it can't make its fixes 100% seamless".

Also, from the look of FOTR, that spear should have been in his side, or anyway his lower ribs, not front and center over his sternum.

Yeah, the spear was lower down.

And I'll take this opportunity to mourn that they didn't have Strider say the bit about how it's a good thing that people didn't know how pretty hobbit skin was (referring to the mithril vest, get your minds out of the slash) or they'd be hunted for their pelts. It was a good - perhaps the only legitimate place - for Strider to be humourous in the first book/movie.