Worse or worst hair day?

[katajainen]

Inspired by Roselightfairy's earlier post: which do you guys think would be a worse fate for an elf: to have all their hair forcibly cut off - or, to end up in circumstances (imprisonment comes to mind) where their hair would get in such a hopelessly bad shape they'd have no choice but to shave it off themselves?

It's for a whump story, don't judge me.

Comments

[roselightfairy]

I was actually having a discussion along these lines - not the same comparison, but similar ideas - with someone else, and we talked about the idea of having your hair forcibly removed as a violation, whereas having to remove it yourself is still scarring but it'd be more akin to like... an animal chewing off its foot in a trap. I will freely reference my own work here because I'm Like That, but I think for instance for my character Eleniel having a lot of her hair burned away, though it's still a horrible loss, isn't a shame in the way that having your hair cut off by someone else would be.

[roselightfairy]

Though I guess it would also depend on the situation that led to having to cut it off yourself, too. Basically I think the removal of the hair is scarring and traumatic no matter what happens, but the circumstances of its removal are what make it really bad, depending on what those circumstances are.