Evil Hand: Difference between revisions

{{quote box|[[File:000strangelove.jpg|link=Dr. Strangelove (Film)|right]]}}

{{quote|''"You could've had it. But you didn't have what it takes. *wiggles fingers* An evil hand. I mean, come on, who here does, huh? Leon doesn't. Charlie doesn't. You do know you gave me an evil hand, right? I've been writing 'Kill, kill, kill' on everything. It's crazy. It's crazy! Anything could happen!"''|'''Lindsey McDonald''', ''[[Angel (TV)|Angel]]''}}

A transplanted limb that often grants the bearer additional powers/abilities but has a mind of its own (usually, the original owner's). Almost inevitably, it will try to completely take over its new owner. [[Artificial Limbs]] (like [[Arm Cannon|Arm Cannons]]s) -- despite not even ''having'' an original owner-- — may demonstrate this property, as well, by driving the owner into an [[Unstoppable Rage]].

There's quite a cultural basis for this effect: As humans, we've always been fascinated superstitiously by the way our own bodies work and where our own consciousness lies. Also [[Truth in Television]] as the brain condition known as alien[[wikipedia:Alien hand syndrome|"Alien Hand Syndrome"]] can cause people to lose control of a limb, which is caused with damage to the corpus callosum, especially through split-brain surgery, previously used to end life-threatening epilecticepileptic seizures.

A subtrope of [[Organ Autonomy]]. No connection to ''[[The Night of the Hunter (Film)|The Night of the Hunter]]''. If they can be removed or otherwise remain [[Helping Hands|separate entities]] they can be an [[Attack Animal]] or [[Living Weapon]].

''[[Evil Hand/Trope Co|This item]] is available in the [[Trope Co/Trope Co|Trope Co]] catalog.''

* Shinichi from the manga ''[[Parasyte]]'' wound up with a talking, shapeshifting alien symbiote hand after managing to prevent it from spreading to and consuming his brain. In a bit of a subversion, since its fate is tied to its host's survival, Migi is actually pretty cooperative and tries to look out for Shinichi's best interests, but has no concept of human empathy or standards of behavior--inbehavior—in response to his host's attraction to a girl in his class, it turns into a ''giant penis'' in the middle of a restaurant, and that's just not right!

* In the first chapter/movie of ''[[Kara no Kyoukai (Literature):|Kara no Kyoukai]]'', Shiki's {{spoiler|artificial arm}} is remotely possessed by the ghost she is following and tries to choke and throw her off a balcony.

* [[Inverted Trope|Inversion]] in the manga (and in "Season 0" of the anime) of ''[[Yu-Gi-Oh!]]!'' After Yugi and his friends cut off the hand of Yami Bakura's avatar, Zorc Necrophades, in the dark tabletop game, Ryo Bakura is able to retake control of that hand in his body, resulting in an ''evil'' character with a ''good'' hand doing its own thing. Yami Bakura tries to stop it by impaling the hand on a spire of his ornately constructed game world.

* In ''[[Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service]]'', Yata, the least openly talented of the main characters, only has one particular ability: channeling. However, he only seems to be able to channel one particular being-- anbeing—an extraterrestrial, who speaks via Yata's hand-puppet whether Yata wants him to or not. Something of a subversion in that, while he does seem to have nothing but contempt for "inferior" human life, he seems to like Yata and sometimes tries to boost his self-esteem.

* [[The Brothers Grimm (Creatorcreator)|The Brothers Grimm]] give an account of three army surgeons who use the original formula to remove and replace their own hand, heart or eyes. A sad accident led to them to having them replaced with those of a hanged thief, a pig, and a cat, respectively. The man who ended up with a thief's hand found he couldn't resist stealing.

* Dr. Strangelove from ''[[Dr. Strangelove (Film)|Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Bomb]]'' is a famous example. He was able to help start a nuclear war despite the small setback of having a hand that obeyed his subconscious urges, such as punching himself in the face and giving Nazi salutes. His notoriety is such that the common name for the aforementioned real life brain condition "alien hand syndrome" is "Dr. Strangelove Syndrome".

* An unusual variation in ''[[Battle Beyond the Stars]]''. [[Big Bad]] Sador replaces his damaged arm with a limb from one of the Nestor clones (whom he captured and tortured to death). Not a true [[Evil Hand]], as it is not independent, but still telepathically controlled by Nestor.

** Oh, it's worse than that. {{spoiler|Wormtail didn't actually help Harry at all, he ''hesitated to kill him for just an instant.''}} [[You Have Failed Me...|Voldemort takes some tropes]] [[Up to Eleven|to a whole new level.]]

* [[Stephen King]]'s short story "[http://en.[wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Am_the_Doorway:I Am the Doorway|I Am The Doorway]]" (published in the collection ''[[Night Shift]]'') was based around this trope. Although, technically, they weren't so much evil as the protagonist in a [[Cosmic Horror Story]]. We're much less likely to look upon killing mind-numbing alien terrors sympathetically when those terrors are ''[[Humans Through Alien Eyes|humans]]'', [[What Measure Is a Non -Human?|not tentacled, chitinous monstrosities.]]

* In the ''[[Bill the Galactic Hero (Literature)|Bill the Galactic Hero]]'' series by [[Harry Harrison]], Bill has his left arm blown off in battle and replaced with the right arm of his bunkmate Tembo. Yes, his left arm was replaced by someone's right arm, you read it right. Besides giving him the ability to do a unique two-handed salute, it sometimes acts of its own volition when its previous owner's pride or religious convictions are on the line. Of course, then there's Bill's foot which has been replaced too often to count, including with a "mood foot" which, because of his burning sexual desires, has transformed itself into a satyr's hoof.

* In ''[[Forgotten Realms|Tangled Webs]]'' one guy thought if a drow volunteers to replace his lost hand with a transplanted one, she does him a favour. [[What an Idiot!|Sigh]].

* Subverted in ''[[Angel (TV)|Angel]]'': Lindsey, having tragically lost his hand to a deranged vampire, gained a mystical replacement with the unfortunate tendency to write [[Room Full of Crazy|"Kill kill kill"]] on its own due to a psychic connections to the previous owner. Other than that, though, it was pretty harmless. It turns out, that it's original owner is still alive and conscious while being slowly taken apart by demonic surgeons for organ replacements, and is begging to be be killed. Once they did [[Mercy Kill|what it wanted]] it stopped acting on its own, though that didn't stop him using it as an excuse to cause havoc in a board meeting.

{{quote| [[Crowning Moment of Funny|"Stop it, evil hand, stop it!"]]}}

* An episode of ''[[Amazing Stories (TV series)|Amazing Stories]]'' called "[[Incredibly Lame Pun|Hell Toupee]]" contained... an evil wig.

* In an early episode of ''[[Red Dwarf (TV)|Red Dwarf]]'' Rimmer the hologram suffered a corruption of his program which resulted in his digital right arm turning into that of catering officer Olaf Peterson, a dead member of the crew who was, in Rimmer's words, 'a Danish moron'. Peterson didn't like Rimmer in life (no one did), and his arm kept this up in death, punching Rimmer, poking him in the eyes and finishing up by hitting him with a very low blow. Rimmer ended up in the foetal position moaning 'I hate everything', just as Holly the ship's computer assured him that he had it sorted out now.

* Parodied in the [[BBC]] series ''[[Dead Ringers (TV series)|Dead Ringers]]'', in which Michael Howard - who was leader of the Conservative Party at the time - channelled all of his evil into his left hand, which later defected to the UKIP. This forced him to cut it off, resulting in his right hand becoming evil, and subsequently defecting to the British National Party.

* On the [[Live Episode]] of ''[[Thirty30 Rock (TV)|Thirty Rock]]~=]'', Jon Hamm's character Dr. Drew (who has lost both hands) gets a hand transplant. In the East feed version, it's that of a black convict and it tries to strangle him. In the West feed, it's a woman's hand that tries to grope him.

* The [[Concept Album|first six tracks]] of Heart of a Killer by Winters Bane ([[Judas Priest (Music)|Ripper]] [[Iced Earth|Owens']] pre-fame band) tell the story of a judge who unknowingly receives a heart transplant from a man he sentenced to death. Cue possession.

* In ''[[Dungeons and Dragons (Tabletop Game)|Dungeons and& Dragons]]'' lore, the Hand of Vecna is a very powerful artifact... that eventually turns those foolish enough to use it into Vecna. Also available in Eye form.

** And then there's the [http://www.blindpanic.com/humor/vecna.htm[The Head of Vecna]] - no, wait...

** Oddly enough, while theThe headHead of Vecna is a jokefake, the heart of Vecna is a real thing and currently rests in the chest of a powerful lich.

* ''[[GURPS (Tabletop Game)|GURPS]]'' has recently provided rules (and examples) for necromancers that want to tear off their own arms and replace them with all manner of undead ones.

* Revolver Ocelot from ''[[Metal Gear Solid]] 2'' lost an arm to an unfortunate ninja attack. His replacement--thereplacement—the arm of Liquid Snake--servedSnake—served him well... until he encountered [[Rant -Inducing Slight|Solid Snake]], at which point Liquid's enraged spirit completely took over Ocelot's mind and caused him to run off with a [[Humongous Mecha]]. It seems in the sequel, the two have finally learned to coexist by merging into a single personality. Ocelot also gives a [[Historical in In-Joke|shout-out]] to Lyon, the site of the first ''traditional'' hand transplant, where he gained his transplant: "I never trust a Frenchman," he comments, as he uses his willpower to prevent Liquid taking over. {{spoiler|the truth about what really happened is, of course, [[Up to Eleven|far more complicated]] }}

** It's also implied that the arm is possessed by Vergil ''himself'' (or at least strongly connected to him, which raises all sorts of [[Luke, I Am Your Father|other implications]]), and he helps out during Nero's Devil Trigger. Notable in that Nero does ''not'' gain a [[Super -Powered Evil Side]], for after the initial awakening where Nero is clearly under the control of the [[Aloof Big Brother]] (which in of itself wasn't even that bad), Vergil seems content to lay back and enjoy the fireworks.

* [[The Dragon|Saren]] from ''[[Mass Effect (Video Game)|Mass Effect]]'' after [[Big Bad|Sovereign]] gives him 'implants'.

* Roger's hand in ''[[College Roomies From HellCRFH]]''. It starts out as the usual gag where someone paints a face on their hand and starts consulting it as a person. It goes on with the hand gaining a personality of its own. Then, Mr. Hand learns that he can make Roger sleepwalk... did I mention that this is one of the homicidal Evil Hands?

* In ''[[Digger (Webcomic)|Digger]]'', the village hag ''can'' reattach severed limbs, but they run the risk of going crazy and trying to kill their owners.

* In ''[[Futurama (Animation)|Futurama]]'', Fry swaps hands with the Robot Devil. The Robot Devil's hands attempt to choke Fry, though, but (as he says) that effect "will wear off in a couple of days".

{{quote| '''Robot Devil:''' These things are always touching me in places!<br />

* In one Treehouse of Horror episode of ''[[The Simpsons (Animationanimation)|The Simpsons]]'', recurring gangster Snake was placed in the electric chair and killed, while his hair was harvested to use as a wig, which contained his personality. Anyone who wore the wig began to act just like him as it slowly took over their body and mind.

* In the ''[[Ben 10: Alien Force (Animation)|Ben 10 Alien Force]]'' episode "The Gauntlet" one of the bullies at Ben's school finds a robot hand which lets you shoot lasers. Guess who is the baddie of the episode.

* ''[[Adventures of the Galaxy Rangers (Animation)|Galaxy Rangers]]'' episode "Rogue Arm". Pretty much [[Exactly What It Says Onon the Tin]]. The Queen comes up with a [[Magitek]] method of tampering with Zach's bionics. Hilarity does ''not'' Ensue.

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