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'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.
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.
::: spoiler 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.]
:::
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).
https://diablo2.io/uniques/string-of-ears-t950.html
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
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:
and then again in the TV show section:
And in Western Animation:
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.
Daryl in the first season of the waking dead
Recently there was a show called The Great which had Elle fanning which had a character that wore a necklace of ears
I've seen it in Twisted Metal (TV series):
https://youtu.be/L7AFM4zTSZM
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.
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.
Blood Meridian
In The Walking Dead, Daryl had a zombie ear necklace briefly
::: spoiler Transcription A Tweet by "☾ luna" @Lunarnaut_M:
[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
Robin Hood Men In Tights: https://youtu.be/Z59AnkxekfI
Wow, it's the ear collection that my childhood barber always threatened to add me to if I didn't sit still.
And Shrek found a nickel!