Wasn’t there a movie or show where someone kept ears as trophies and wore them around their neck like a necklace?
The movie you’re thinking of is the amazing art film Universal Soldier starring the superb actors Jean Claude Van Damme, and Dolph Lundgren.
Probably. It happened in two games that I played, once in Far Cry Primal by one of the allies and once in Titanfall 2 by one of the foes.
I’d not be surprised if there’s many more such examples.
There was a String of Ears belt in Diablo 2 (2000).
In Diablo II duels, killed players would drop an ear.
Witcher 3: Wild Hunt had some Baba Yaga-type characters with strings of ears around them given as tribute
Recently there was a show called The Great which had Elle fanning which had a character that wore a necklace of ears
Daryl in the first season of the waking dead
I vaguely recall the same thing from something fantasy, but can’t recall what. I decided to brave TV Tropes to see. I got this:
[In A Song of Ice and Fire,] Chella daughter of Cheyk wears a necklace of ears from defeated enemies. Unusually for the trope, all of them had been left alive — they can come back to challenge her and get their ears back if they ever find the courage.
and then again in the TV show section:
[In Game of Thrones,] Chella daughter of Cheyk, the chieftainess of the Black Ears, stays true to her tribe’s custom of stringing the ears of defeated foes on a necklace. She can be seen taking a new pair in “Baelor”.
And in Western Animation:
At one point in Blue Eye Samurai, Heiji Shindo tries to buy Mizu off from her revenge quest, offering a fortune in gold and a position as a lord, with the price being that she must cut off her right thumb, so she can never wield a sword against Shindo and Fowler again. After making the offer, he shows Mizu and Taigen a box with a small collection of severed thumbs, in various states of decay.
In “Lair of Grievous” [in The Clone Wars], Kit Fisto and Nahdar Vebb discover that Grievous collects the padawan braids from young padawan learners he’s killed.
But that’s the best I could find. Definitely not ringing a bell for me.
There’s a squad of elite soldiers in a book series (Sword of Truth by Terry Goodkind) who collect ears as trophies, so definitely out there in some other literature as well
I remember a Vietnam movie where someone wore an ear necklace, I guess it was Universal Soldier, where Dolph Lundgren wore one.
Blood Meridian
I’ve seen it in Twisted Metal (TV series):
Ear necklace shows up about halfway through the clip.
Found the one nut who watched the ‘Twisted Metal’ TV series.
There’s dozens of us!
What? It’s great.
The only role I liked Mackie in
I’m a big fan of the OG games, namely the second one: I even had the rare PC edition. But the characters and stories always felt like thought up by a thirteen-year-old boy who’s bored in class.
In The Walking Dead, Daryl had a zombie ear necklace briefly
I’m surprised at how many other answers there are to this! I thought for sure you were referring to Charles White in Neal Stephenson’s The Baroque Cycle.
A bit of a trope I guess.
Transcription
A Tweet by “☾ luna” @Lunarnaut_M:
I told ren faire guy I had no money for axe throwing and he told me I could throw for free if I gave him an ear.
I laughed until he gestured to this corner
[A photo of a woman in elf cosplay with one ear obviously visible, displaying a long pointed ear. She has a nervous smile. Behind her, hanging from a rope on the wall, are dozens of ear prosthetics.]
Ah, a true dwarf. Never trust those knife-ears
Wow, it’s the ear collection that my childhood barber always threatened to add me to if I didn’t sit still.
Robin Hood Men In Tights: https://youtu.be/Z59AnkxekfI
And Shrek found a nickel!
