Cumbersome Claws

Hand puppets are typically easier to use when you have actual hands.

Everyone stared with eyes open wide
at the brown little monster who shuffled inside.
She wanted to dance, but her claws ripped her gown.
She stumbled,
and bumbled,
and
finally
fell
down.

— The Monster Princess

Let's say you're a character with claws. Perhaps you're a warrior or slasher with Wolverine Claws, a robot or Giant Enemy Crab with Power Pincers, or a vicious beast with long, sharp nails. When it comes to fighting, hunting, and killing, your claws make it a breeze to slice, slash, and crush whoever and whatever gets in your way.

Unfortunately, things get difficult when you try to do more mundane manual tasks.

Suddenly, those Absurdly Sharp Claws become an encumbrance rather than nifty toys. You can't pick up delicate objects without cutting or crushing them. You have to be careful when eating finger food lest you stab yourself in the mouth. Any handshake becomes an unintentional Crushing Handshake if you don't just slice the other person's hand off entirely. And you can't touch books, keyboards, or phones without poking holes in them.

Cumbersome Claws are often portrayed in a humorous light because of the juxtaposition of characters trying and failing to do normal actions with abnormal hands. This is particularly true when a non-clawed character has a "Freaky Friday" Flip or Physical Attribute Swap with a clawed character or otherwise magically gets claws and suddenly has to deal with the new impediment. But there are also times when such situations are Played for Drama, especially if it involves a would-be Cuddle Bug who can't safely cuddle others or a Tragic Monster who accidentally injures or even kills people with its claws.

Can be a form of Blessed with Suck (if the character didn't always have the claws) or Crippling Overspecialization (especially if the character can't trim, transform, retract, or otherwise remove the claws). Often a Deconstructive Parody of Wolverine Claws. May overlap with Does Not Know His Own Strength, though it's not required for dangerous claws to also be strong claws. Also compare And Call Him "George", when characters of this nature try to show affection to others and accidentally hurt them. The clawed character may need a Handy Helper.

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• Digimon Tamers: The main characters play rock-paper-scissors, with a chagrined Guilmon (a Digimon who resembles a theropod dinosaur) always losing because his long claws prevent him from playing anything besides paper.
• Gundam:
  • Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam: The RX-160 Byarlant was designed for aerial superiority and intercepting enemy forces entering Earth's atmosphere from orbit. However, the unique shape of its hands (basically three articulated claws) meant that it can't use the mass-produced weapons of other Mobile Suits and so is completely reliant on its built-in palm-mounted beam cannons or uniquely-shaped beam sabers.
  • The RX-160S Byarlant Custom that appears in Mobile Suit Gundam Unicorn is even less able to use weapons: instead of the small finger-like claws of the original Byarlant, the Byarlant Custom's forearms are gigantic claws capable of grappling with enemy Mobile Suits. However, unlike the original Byarlant, this isn't considered a flaw: the Byarlant Custom's new function is rapid assault, and so the claw arms (coupled with how the beam sabers were now emitted from the now wrist-mounted beam cannons) were deemed conducive to its function.

Comic Books

• Mega Man (Archie Comics): Crash Man's hands terminate in spikes that fire his crash bomber. Mega Man even gets in a dig on Crash about that during their initial fight. After being rebuilt Crash Man is seen in a few background panels futilely trying to help rebuild Wily's fortress, much to his growing frustration. When he finally confronts Wily about this design flaw, he's informed that his arms do actually transform into hands, Wily had simply not informed him as it wasn't needed for the original plan he'd been part of. And afterwards Wily had simply forgotten.
• Spider-Man 2099: Miguel is glad that his claws, which are extended by default, reflexively retract when he touches his own skin because otherwise going to the bathroom would be a huge chore... But he's not quite as lucky with other tasks. While he's still getting used to his claws, it was a very common occurrence for him to wake up with shredded sheets or to accidentally tear his clothes. At one point he is surprised that a mattress he'd sat down on was a waterbed and accidentally punctured it, then hastily slapped webbing on the holes to keep it from leaking. It doesn't help that unlike most clawed characters, whose claws extend vertically outwards in line with their fingertips, Miguel's claws extend horizontally, poking straight down from his fingertips, making them even more cumbersome than regular claws. It even leads to Miguel accidentally slitting the throat of his second supervillain opponent, the Specialist, by complete accident.
• Toxin: Razorfist keeps a small army of Self-Harm-addicted children to attend to him since his lower arms are replaced by blades. He's called out on it by Toxin saying he removed his arms to force the responsibility of feeding, clothing, and cleaning himself onto others.
• IDW Publishing's Transformers comics:
  • Some characters mention that Mad Scientist Scorponok's most impressive feat is being such a successful mad scientist despite having massive scorpion claws for hands.
  • The pre-war government had a habit of invoking this on people who pissed them off. The process of "Empurata" involved (among other things), the subject's hands being sliced off and replaced with bulky claws, as happened to Whirl and Shockwave. For Whirl, who wanted to be a clockmaker, it's a source of his serious psychological issues, but at the same time it's mentioned he could get them replaced with proper hands. He just doesn't because he's gotten so used to being so messed up he'd rather not.

Films — Animation

• The LEGO Movie: Since nearly all the LEGO mini figures have pincer-like hands, Bad Cop when making sarcastic Air Quotes has to verbally explain that's what he's doing since otherwise it just looks like he's waving his hands in the air.
  Bad Cop: I "believe" you too. See the quotations I'm making with my claw hands? It means I DON'T believe you!
• The LEGO Ninjago Movie: When Lloyd makes Lord Garmadon promise to leave Ninjago forever, he accuses Garmadon of crossing his fingers when he puts his hand behind his back. Garmadon has to tell Lloyd that's impossible for him to do due to his pincer-like hands.
• Madagascar: While Alex the lion is exiling himself to the far side of the island after turning feral, his newly-sharpened claws cause leaves to get stuck on his paws and then get them lodged in a tree's trunk.
  Alex: What is wrong with me?! [clutches his head] ...Owwww.
• Tangled: Hook Hand is a piano player with a hook for a hand who gets his sheet music caught on it.

Films — Live-Action

• Azumi: The second movie, Death or Love, has Azumi being menaced by a group of ninjas armed with Wolverine Claws strapped to their wrists, allowing them to climb buildings, leap all over the place and perform all kinds of summersaults without becoming loose. But this backfires for the ninja leader — as he misses a swing at Azumi, the leader accidentally stabs his claws into a guardrail, and quickly gets his entire hand hacked off by Azumi before she kills him.
• The title character of Edward Scissorhands is an Artificial Human whose dying creator was in the process of finishing his body with normal human hands. His creator died revealing the hands, leaving Edward stuck with the scissor-and-shear limbs he already had. He's able to do surprisingly artistic things with his scissor hands like bush sculpting and hairstyling, but he also has mishaps like puncturing a Wacky Waterbed and electrocuting himself when he stabs a microphone cable. His own face is Covered with Scars because of all his attempts at self-care with his sharp digits. And he always has to be careful when it comes to physical affection with others.
• Fantastic Four (2005): After Ben Grimm gets turned into a Rock Monster, his fiancée Debbie can't accept his new appearance and rejects him. She makes her intent clear in the aftermath of the Brooklyn Bridge scene by leaving her engagement ring on the ground and running off. Ben then tries to pick up the ring, but his now rocky fingers can't grip it. Reed Richards picks it up for him and swears to reverse the transformation.
• Godzilla (2014): A behind-the-scenes example actually influenced the design of Godzilla in this film. The special effects team found that the traditional length of the eponymous Kaiju's feet and talons (originally designed for the suit actor's actual feet to fit in them) made it surprisingly tricky to animate his walk cycle. To compensate, they redesigned him with short, almost elephant-like digits that wouldn't get "snagged" on stuff, which would stay mostly unchanged in later MonsterVerse entries.
• Davy Jones in the Pirates of the Caribbean films has a crab pincer instead of a left hand, which is very useful for Neck Lifts, but not for doing anything else, such as shaking hands or playing the Flying Dutchman's pipe organ. To make up for this, Jones mainly plays the organ with his tentacle beard, and uses his right hand as a holding hand. (Though that comes with its own problems, seeing as Jones' right hand has tentacles instead of fingers, and therefore he has to tug it free from Jack's hand after removing the Black Spot from it)
• X-Men Film Series:
  • X-Men Origins: Wolverine: Shortly after escaping from William Stryker's facility and taking refuge in an old couple's farmhouse, Logan decides to extend and retract his claws to test out the new adamantium plating on them. He then attempts to test his new abilities in the farm's bathroom only to accidentally slice a sink and a radiator into half.
  • X-Men: Days of Future Past: Wolverine wakes up in a Wacky Waterbed upon his Mental Time Travel to the 1970s. Later, he accidentally stabs the bed with his claws, causing water to spray out.

Literature

• Accel World: Focused around attack, Black Rose's hands are swords, completely incapable of anything but cutting her opponents to ribbons. She's unable to shake hands, clap friends on the back, or even casually hug people unlike the vast majority of other avatars, including those also infused by the black color. This actually extends from her hidden fear that she herself is incapable of doing anything but causing harm to those she loves, manifested by the Accelerated World's programming.
• Inverted in the Chanur Novels of C. J. Cherryh. Controls in the ships of the lion-like hani are intended to be used with claws, causing problems for the clawless human Tully.
• In the first Dinoverse, Mike in the body of a Tyrannosaurus Rex and Candayce in the body of a Leptoceratops struggle to use their hands for much. His are two fingered and on such short arms that they're not good for much, hers are capable of some manipulation and grasping but some of her fingers are functionally hooves and designed to bear weight, giving her some limitations. Janine, in the body of a pterosaur, has much less trouble with fine dexterity. Later Dinoverse books abandon this and just give any dinosaurs that aren't obligate quadrupeds Humanlike Hand Anatomy.
• The Monster Princess by D. J. MacHale tells the story of a furry bugbear-like monster girl who decides to dress up and act like a princess. As she descends the stairs to the ball in the castle, unfortunately, the claws on her feet rip her gown and cause her to fall down the stairs to her embarrassment.
• In The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, Eustace struggles with a severe loss of dexterity when he is transformed into a dragon. He is barely able to write a message in the sand to try to explain what happened.

Live-Action TV

• A Series of Unfortunate Events: One of Count Olaf's henchmen, the Hook-Handed Man, has a pair of hook-like prosthetics for hands. While these prosthetics are far more useful than typical hooks for hands, they can still be incredibly cumbersome at times, and he often has difficulty with grabbing/holding objects. Occasionally, he has to hold objects in his mouth while trying to place them into his prosthetic hands.
• That's So Raven: In the Halloween special, Raven and Chelsea cast a spell that causes them to slowly turn into cows. At the party, Raven breaks down when she's unable to pick up a cup for a drink after her hands morph into hooves, and Chelsea struggles to turn the spell book pages without fingers.
  Chelsea: Okay, hold on, Rae. I only have two hooves!

Tabletop Games

• BattleTech:
  • Battle Armor has several options for hands. Armored gloves let you do anything that a human could do with their hands (since they're literally just gloves over the wearer's hands)). Basic Manipulators are less dexterous and prevent the wearer from doing any tasks that require fine motor skills but are still good enough for basic tasks. And finally Battle Claws, which are weapons first and pretty dismal at any task that doesn't involve ripping enemies apart.
  • Battlemechs often have hands, but these can be replaced with claws as a melee weapon. Claw attacks deal more damage than punches but take a penalty on the attack role. On top of that, if the mech tries to use its claws for any task other than attacks (for example, trying to pick something up), they have to make a piloting skill check or accidentally hit it with a claw attack by accident.

Video Games

• In the opening cutscene of Brain Dead 13, Fritz, who has two hooks for hands, is shown damaging Dr. Neurosis' plans as he goes over them.
• Digimon Survive: Agumon wants to look at Takuma's smartphone, which Takuma refuses because he's afraid Agumon's large claws will wreck the device.
• The Mantis from FTL: Faster Than Light have large claws in lieu of hands which make them fearsome combatants up close but also lousy repairmen who have to spend twice as much time repairing damaged systems. They have no problems with using terminals, however.
• The Liar Princess and the Blind Prince: A wolf monster in a monster-filled forest attracts the attention of a prince with her Beautiful Singing Voice. The Wolf appreciates the Prince's attention but always runs away before he can see what is producing the singing. When the Prince one day manages to catch a quick glance of the Wolf, she frantically covers his eyes with her clawed hands and blinds him in the process. The remorseful Wolf makes a deal to turn into a human girl so she can tell the Prince that she's a princess from another kingdom and guide him on a quest to magically restore his sight.
• Human-turned-demon Akira in Shin Megami Tensei IV is described as awkwardly manipulating his old smartphone with his clawed hands, but manages it.

Webcomics

• Cursed Princess Club: Princess Thermidora is a lobster who was cursed into a human form, but her lobster pincers stayed the same and became an occasional hindrance. For instance, she once split a Puss-in-Boots hand puppet in half when she tried shoving a claw into it. Another time, she stuffed her claws into her pockets to hide them from someone who didn't know the true nature of the Cursed Princess Club, but when she tripped she shot her arms out to break her fall and ripped the sides of her dress open.
• El Goonish Shive: In one strip, Sarah gets turned into a Cat Girl by Tedd (voluntarily) as part of some magic research they're doing. She Lampshades that having claws on the end of human fingers is quite cumbersome, and asks if Tedd can alter the transformation to make them retractable. Tedd says he could, but if he did, her hands would become paws and she'd lose most of the dexterity in her fingers.
• Out-of-Placers:
  • Kassen is turned into a yinglet, a type of ratlike creature with clawed fingers. At one point he writes about wanting to ball his hand into a fist to punch someone, but that would just jab the claws into the puffy paw pads he has now. He also initially has trouble holding a quill, making his handwriting sloppier-looking than it used to be until he adjusts.
  • The Baxxid are serpentine insectoids with spiky limbs that, according to Ran Ste-Su G'Mindel's Val Salian Regional Field Guide, "are suited for ripping apart large, armored plains-beasts in an instant." But these are not gripping limbs, so despite having memories and language-learning skills that greatly surpass those of humans, they cannot make tools/structures or write things down like other civilized races. They have to rely on human servants to do those things for them.
• This Pokémon comic involves a Pawniard (a humanoid with metal blades in place of hands) helping its trainer at various tasks using its blade-hands. This becomes a huge problem when the trainer finds themselves hanging at the edge of a cliff... and the Pawniard has no hands to help him up.
• In Rain Burn after Saida switches bodies with Brent the volcano dragon she has some trouble adjusting to his claws. Accidentally popping Roko's balloon body for one.
• Buwaro of Slightly Damned has claws instead of fingers. Writing requires him to tie a pencil to one of his claws.

Western Animation

• Back at the Barnyard: In "The Farmer Takes a Woman", Otis and his friends try to get the Farmer a girlfriend by making an online personal ad on his computer. But because most of them have hooves, they end up typing a bunch of gibberish, so Pip (a mouse) makes the ad by hopping on the keys.
  Otis: Man, I wish we had fingers!
• BoJack Horseman: After Woodchuck Coodchuck-Berkowitz severely injures his hands, he can only get them replaced with lobster claws (after an unsuccessful attempt with gorilla feet), which makes life more difficult and lowers his approval ratings.
• Futurama: Zoidberg has a tendency to be rather clumsy at times with his claws. A notable example is in "The 30% Iron Chef" where he accidentally snaps the Professor's bottled ship in two and fails to fix it due to his claws exerting so much force.
  Professor: [after swatting Zoidberg away from the bottle] For the last time, Zoidberg! Look with your eyes, not your claws!
• In the Mega Man: Fully Charged episode "Throwing Shade Part II", Mega Man hides Suna, Dr. Light, and Sgt. Night in a sewer. When Fire Man tries to pursue them, he struggles to lift the manhole cover to get in because he has blasters for hands.
• Monkie Kid: The "Revenge of the Spider Queen" special has Mei trying to make meat buns for Pigsy's food truck, only for them to turn out mushy and misshapen due to her LEGO pincer hands. She then comments that the process would probably be easier if she had fingers.
• She-Ra and the Princesses of Power: Scorpia is a woman who has massive scorpion claws for hands. They're very strong and powerful, but too bulky for her to handle delicate tasks like pressing buttons on a keyboard.
• Lampshaded in the SpongeBob SquarePants episode "Band Geeks". After a failed band practice, Harold blames their failure on Mr. Krabs attempting to play his instrument with claws. He takes offense to this, causing a fight to break out.
  Harold: Well, maybe we wouldn't sound so bad if some of us weren't trying to play with big, meaty claws!
  Mr. Krabs: What did you say, punk?!
  Harold: Big, meaty, CLAWS!
  Mr. Krabs: Well, these claws aren't just for attractin' mates!
• Ultimate Spider-Man: One episode sees Spidey and Wolverine swap bodies. Spidey has some trouble with Wolverine's claws. Trouble that involves him stabbing himself. A lot. Thank goodness for those healing factors!

Real Life

• Long and cumbersome fingernails were a traditional status symbol in China. They signaled that you had numerous lackeys to do manual labor for you and were thus free to let your nails grow out to the point of making your hand useless. Notable individuals with nails like these included Empress Dowager Cixi and Tong leader Sai Wing Mock (a.k.a. "Mock Duck").
• Shridhar Chillal is an Indian man who once had the world record for longest nails on a single hand, with them collectively being over 900 centimeters (over 350 inches) long. The length alone made it challenging at best to grasp things with his left hand, but the weight also disfigured the hand and even caused nerve damage that lead to deafness in his left ear. He eventually had the nails cut off in 2018 (with help from a technician wearing protective gear) to put an end to the encumbrance.
• People who get long gel extensions on their fingernails often have to re-calibrate their entire life around their longer fingernails, especially in regards to unbuttoning clothes, picking up small items, putting in contact lenses, and using touch-screens. And that’s not even mentioning the fact that if you get something under your fingernails while wearing those, it’s very hard to clean.
• Primates (including humans) and only primates evolved nails instead of claws in the first place because unlike other arboreal animals, who have claws that better grip when climbing trees, claws made it difficult for them to grab smaller branches and twigs, so primates evolved nails to allow them to do what other arboreal animals cannot instead.
• Inverted with certain tasks, such as repairing wristwatches and inserting screws, which cannot be performed simply just using bare hands without the use of special tools.

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