Multi Armed And Dangerous - Television Tropes & Idioms

So, you've got a character that you want to show is really dangerous. You could give him/her the normal two arms or legs, but that's just not enough. Maybe you could replace one of those arms with a really big gun, or a sword, or have it transform into something else.

If that doesn't work, you can always give a character extra arms... because four arms good, two arms bad, right?

For obvious reasons, normal humans don't get this treatment, because it would look pretty awkward having to do bodily cleaning...and having four arms to go around would be a tailor's nightmare. If you're a mutant or an evil genius, you don't have to worry about this, because Freaky Is Cool.

Multi Armed And Dangerous characters come in two flavors: 1) The extra arms are a regular part of the body. 2) They're made from prosthetics/synthetic materials that are usually attached to the person.

They're usually associated with Super Strength. Combat Tentacles are a subtrope. Occasionally you'll see such characters fighting with a weapon for each of their hands. Can sometimes be used as Spider Limbs.

This isn't what they mean, by the way, on the news when they say "The local bank was robbed by four armed men", but "To be forwarned is to have four arms."

It should be noted that recent research shows the (still very expensive) technology that allows a person to control an artificial limb with the same mental process as an organic limb, can be used to control extraneous limbs with only a minimal period of adjustment. It's only a matter of time. . .

Examples:

Anime and Manga

One Piece has Nico Robin whose Devil Fruit ability allows her to grow vast numbers of replicas of any of her body parts (she almost always uses it to make more arms); and Hatchan, an octopus fishman, who has six arms.
- Roronoa Zoro has also developed a technique that, via unknown means, grants him three heads and six arms, for a total of nine swords (one in each hand, and one in each mouth)
  - Not a true example. His Asura technique is really Super Speed that allows him to use each sword as if there were three of them. It follows his religious Theme Naming.
Itsuki from Yu Yu Hakusho.
Enkidudu, the final and most powerful version of Viral's Ganmen from Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann.
- A parody drama CD (100% official, just not canon) also has a six-armed version called Enkidududu and and an eight-armed Enkidudududu.
Kidoumaru, one of the Sound Four ninjas from Naruto.
- Masashi Kishimoto likes this trope; one of Big Bad Pein's multiple bodies has six arms, and on top of that, THREE FACES.
  - Also from Naruto is Kankuro who's main puppet Karasu is the definition of this trope having switchblades in each of it's body parts, as well as daggers and poisonous smoke bombs.
One of the one-off characters in Ranma ½, Rouge, fell into "The Spring of Drowned Asura". Asura is a Hindu god (or demon) with three faces and six arms. Rouge and Pantyhose Taro manage to destroy the Tendo home in a fight over therapeutic magnets.
Ten Shin Han used a technique that had him grow 2 additional arms to fight Goku in Dragonball.Goku countered by sprouting 6
Bleach offers Nnoitra Jiruga, whose released form allows him multiple arms, as well as regeneration powers. Initially he has four arms, and four scythes to go with them. When one of his arms is promptly sliced off by his opponent, the regeneration kicks in and he also ups the arm count to six.
You can't get much more dangerous than the diclonius in Elfen Lied, who have multi-arms in the form of telekinetic vectors which they use to slaughter humans in various horrifically violent ways.
In Franken Fran, Fran occasionally affixes as many as four extra arms to her body for particularly delicate procedures; Apparently, turning a mutilated human into a giant catterpillar with a human head is fussy work.
Mobile Suit Gundam has fun with this trope in several series.
- Asura Gundam from G Gundam is an intentional Hindu reference.
- The O, personal mobile suit to Big Bad Paptimus Scirocco of Zeta Gundam has a pair of beam saber wielding sub arms in its skirt armor, thus turning the massive Mighty Glacier looking machine into a Lightning Bruiser melee combat monster as it can wield four beam sabers at once with perfect control thanks to its mentally controlled biocomputer.
  - That's because The O was designed by no one else than Mamoru Nagano, who is a great fan of this trope.
- Gaplant TR-5 from Advance of Zeta also have skirt-armor subarms, while Gundam Hazel can be equipped, in addition to the aforementioned skirt-armor subarms, hcan mount two giant wire-guided rocket arms developed from Psycho Gundam on its shoulder and wire-guides arm-shield on its forearm. Take that, Seravee!
- Xeku Zwei from Gundam Sentinel have two more sub arms for melee and shooting giant beam bazooka.
- Neue Ziel from Gundam 0083 has six arms, each capable of wielding giant beam sabers.
  - UC, usually considered the most "realistic" of the various Gundam Alternate Continuities by its devotees, ironically is even more guilty of overdoing with arms than even Gundam 00.
- Seravee Gundam from Gundam 00 has four BFGs, two on its shoulders and two in its knees. These all are capable of sprouting hands equipped with beam sabers in addition to the Seravee's normal pair, allowing Seravee to simultaneously fight with six beam sabers at one time.
Mahou Sensei Negima had a multi-armed demon as part of the Canis Niger group of bounty hunters. A one panel tournament opponent also had four arms.
The Orphan in the sixth episode of Mai-HiME had, surprise surprise, six arms.
Justice from Afro Samurai has three arms, one of which is kept hidden.
Tien of Dragonball had the ability to grow two extra arms. He only used this once while fighting Goku, and it was never seen again, unfortunately.
Mamoru Nagano is probably the king of this trope, because if he designs mecha the chances are that they will be multiarmed. In his own series, The Five Star Stories, the biggest, nastiest and most heavily armed mecha of all times, the Jagd Mirage, had not just two like The O, but four deployable sub-arms, which, together with its two additional sub-legs, drove the limb count to ten. These sub-arms could be used to wield swords of guns, but generally were used to manipulate shields (called veils there) to cover the mecha and brace it against the immense recoil of the two truly titanical cannons it carried as its main armament.

Comic Books

Spiral from the Marvel Comics universe.
- Furthermore there's henchman types Barbarous and Forearm, who are practically indistinguishable from one another. Marvel likes this trope.
Deadeye Duck, the irritable four-armed gunner from Bucky O Hare's Five Man Band. Capable of quadruple-wielding and prefers to shoot first and ask questions later.
Stryker from Image Comics' Cyberforce was a mutant born with four arms... three on one side. After an accident resulted in the loss of all three right arms, he was fixed up with cybernetics, once again, for all three. Not only is he a pretty normal guy aside from a slight temper problem, he gleefully uses his three right arms to tripe wield pistols in combat.
Rip Roar, a bad guy from Young Justice.
Spider Man once attempted to get shot of his superpowers...but the attempt failed rather spectacularly, giving him six arms. Not conspicuous at all.
- And let's not forget the venerable Dr. Octopus.
In the 'Manga Shakespeare' version of Macbeth, Macduff appears to sport two extra cybernetic arms under his normal ones, allowing him to use four katanas at once.
- I must've missed that bit in the original play, it sounds awesome.
  - It is.
In Rebuild Of Evangelion 2.0, the Ninth Angel Bardiel, in control of Eva Unit 03, reveals a second pair of arms when its first pair are already occupied.

Film

General Grievous from Star Wars has arms that can both split in two. He's a cyborg, so it kind of makes sense. In Star Wars Clone Wars he could hold lightsabers with his feet, too.
- The Expanded Universe has more than one multi-armed alien race; the Codru-Ji, for one.
  - Gasgano appeared in Star Wars: Episode 1 as one of the podracer pilots.
Maybe not as dangerous, but used as a surprise: Zaphod tags Arthur with a surprise lower left (or is it centre) in the movie version of The Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy.
- According to the novel, Zaphod had the extra arm fitted to improve his ski-boxing. Sounds dangerous to me.
The Golden Voyage of Sinbad. A statue of the Hindu goddess Kali is animated, "grows" a sword out of each palm of her six hands and fights Sinbad and his crew.
Six-Gun in the Puppetmaster movies is a cowboy puppet with six arms and as many little revolvers.
During the final chase sequence in Terminator 2, the T-1000 can briefly be seen operating the helicopter's controls with two arms while reloading and firing his submachinegun with another two.

Literature

The "Moties" from Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle's The Mote In God's Eye have asymmetric limbs — two small arms on the right, and one massive arm (the "gripping hand") on the left. (This is thought to be a result of having their genes cluttered with millions of years of mutations from the endless cycles of nuclear wars caused by their biological need for constant pregnancy. The latent genes for four limbs are still present, as the Warrior and Watchmaker castes still show.)
- Which allows arguing nerds to use the phrase "on the gripping hand". Sweet.
The Drummer from Wild Cards. His multiple arms aren't exactly combat-specific, but he can use them that way quite effectively.
The green Barsoomians of Edgar Rice Burroughs's John Carter Of Mars books are four-armed killing machines fourteen feet tall. They love to quadruple-wield BFSes as well.
- The White Apes of those stories also had four arms.
  - Technically speaking, both species have two arms, two legs, and two "intermdeiate limbs" that can be used as both.
Jack from What Is This Black Magic You Call Science can have up to eight arms, each one representing one of his eight tails, since his human form is an illusion covering his true form.
The Wreed from Calculating God have arms in front and back as well as two on either side. They escape the "two eyes" problem by having a single optical strip that runs around their entire "head". They suffer from multiple cognitive deficits as a (dubious) result, though.
Zaphod Beeblebrox has three arms. He wasn't born that way; he got the third one added on to help with his "ski-boxing".
The Last Battle shows that the Calormene god Tash has four arms.
The Shrike from Hyperion is a 3-meter tall, 4-armed, time-manipulating killing machine (literally) covered in spikes. Granted, having 4 arms instead of 2 doesn't make it much more dangerous than it would already be, as it can stop time and wipe out entire armies.
The Chaos creature Skarhaddoth from the Warhammer 40000 Grey Knights novel Hammer of Daemons has four arms. In his first appearance he wields two meat cleavers along with two shields, and in his second he uses four scimitars. There are other multi-armed Chaos beasties stalking Draakasi. Dark Adeptus has various Techpriests with mechadendrites running around.
The indigenous aliens in David Weber's March Upcountry series had four arms, which along with being huge, allowed them to carry BFGs that the humans had used on their now-defunct power armor.
The warrior drone cho-ja in Janny Wurt's Empire trilogy. Their multiple arms also end in blades.

Live Action TV

When Piper and Leo got posessed by a couple of Hindu gods in one episode of Charmed, Piper grew four more arms.
Michio Kaku's design for a super suit in Sci Fi Science included an extra pair of arms that were attached to the back and controlled by the user's brain (technology which is now developing.
Kaku: Why does Dr. Octopus get to have all the fun?

Myth And Legend

Almost all Hindu deities, making this one Older Than Dirt. Giving a large number of arms to a supernatural being just seems to be a popular way of indicating it's menacing and powerful (take a gander at the hundred-armed giant Hecatoncheires of Greek mythology).
- There also exists a Buddha with a thousand arms.

Tabletop Games

The "Type V" or "Marilith" demon in Dungeons And Dragons, which was likely inspired by the above deities (and the demons they frequently battled in myth).
- Glabrezu demons. And consequently Draegloth.
  - Arrow Demons, who use ~~Guns Akimbo~~ Bows Akimbo.
- Also in Dungeons And Dragons, Sahuagins are a race of evil fishmen. The normal ones are dangerous enough, but some of them also sprout an extra set of arms.
- Thri-Kreen ("mantis warriors") - badass race of social mantis-hoppers living in arid lands, abundant in (but not limited to) Athas, the Dark Sun setting. Has inheritance memory, poisonous bite, low water requirement, hard exoskeleton, derives construction material from saliva, jumps like grasshopper, throws big shurikens... and can wield small or medium weapons in each of 4 hands.
- The Xill, insect-like outsiders. They have four arms.
- Second and third edition had the Modrons, Outsiders and embodiments of Law and Order who had geometric shapes based on their caste, and a number of limbs equal to that caste. Tridrones, Quadrons and Pentadrons, the most intelligent of the 'base' Modrons, had three, four and five arms respectively (as well as an equal number of legs).
Adeptus Mechanicus Techpriests from Warhammer 40000 have "mechadendrites" attached to them, but they normally are not very Badass. No, the real multi-limbed Badasses are Techmarines and higher Tyranid organisms. Also, to some extent, Warp Spider Exarchs with their armour-mounted, independently fired weapons.
- That depends entirely what part of the Adeptus you meet. There's your garden variety cog-head and then there's the Mechanicus Secutor who tends to be a walking tank with several gun mechadendrites modified to not carry holdout laspistols but flamethrowers...
  - Techno-magos Darioq was a perfect example. He weighed four tons, had four heavy weapons (two heavy bolters and 2 plasma cannons), multiple heavy melee weapons, and around 10 mechadendrites. In the course of the novel Dark Apostle, he rips off a Chaos Terminator's arms and cuts him in half. after being bathed in flames for several seconds.
  - And then there's Sulphus, the techmarine from Warrior Coven who has three mechanical arms and one organic one. These arms allow him to fly a speeder and use the turret at the same time as well as firing his bolter, something that would normally require three people. At one point, he uses two of his arms to hold on to a spinning Talos and the other two to rip an armour plate off. He then jumps inside, blows it up and does a walking out through the flames sequence like in the first Temrinator.
- Greater Daemons of Slaanesh (Keepers of Secrets, as they're known) have two regular arms (and often carry large swords or whips) and two arms with huge pincers. The Masque of Slaanesh is a Daemonette special character with three arms (one normal, one small pincer arm and one large pincer arm).
  - Some of the parts in the current Chaos Spawn kit have things like arms splitting into several limbs or big spiky tentacles coming off the back. But then, this is Chaos, of course there is.
Four Burning Fists and the Shiva Squadron from the "Glimpse of the Abyss" supplement of Feng Shui have multiple arms, the former having four arms and the latter having eight arms like their Hindu god namesake. In addition, anyone who has the Creature schtick "Multiple Arms" can be Multi Armed And Dangerous as well.
- Plus there's "Three Pistol" Sammy Chung from a Feng Shui fansite, who's a demon with three arms (the third one in the center) that, as his nickname implies, specializes in a rather freaky form of three-gun Guns Akimbo.
The Old World Of Darkness game Werewolf: The Apocalypse has the Ananasi werespiders, whose hybrid form has either six arms, six legs, or four of each (the player picks one at character creation). However, it takes a fairly high-level spell to be proficient at multitasking. It's also worth noting that the Bagheera wereleapards/panthers' most powerful spell is the Juddho form: a 12-foot, six-armed monstrosity in a state of frenzy for the spell's duration and wielding a flaming sword in each hand. Um yeah, one of multiple reasons why Vampires were never strong in India.
- In the new World Of Darkness Promethean setting, Pandoran transmutations are capable of granting extra limbs. There is also a Sourcebook which provides a multi-armed fighting style.
The Ahazu, in Talislanta.
Exalted has Sol Invictus (The Unconquered Sun), the most powerful of the gods. He's invulnerable, cannot lose at anything and sports a pair of extra arms.
- Further, some Lunars and Fair Folk can obtain a second pair of arms as a mutation. Even some mortals might end up afflicted with it, if they're unlucky enough to stay in the Wyld for prolonged periods (ie, more than 5 seconds).
In warhammer fantasy battles Slaanesh is found of this. His Greater daemons have this and his heralds can be given it.

Video Games

The four-armed Shokan race from Mortal Kombat, which includes Goro, Kintaro, and Sheeva.
- The comics once showed a six-armed Shokan named Grum. He got his ass kicked by Sub-Zero, despite wielding six nunchaku.
Gilgamesh from Final Fantasy V and Final Fantasy VIII. Cameos in others, although not in mega-hit Final Fantasy VII.
- Started waaaaaaay back in the original Final Fantasy with Marilith, who went on for a cameo in Final Fantasy IX. As the Fiend of Fire, she's a six-armed Naga who wields swords and knives in each hand.
  - Marilith (named Kary in her first appearance to prevent lawsuits is taken from Dungeons And Dragons, mentioned below.
Some Pokémon gain extra arms in their most powerful forms — namely Machamp.
- Oddly enough, Geodude gains an extra pair of arms (as well as a pair of legs) when it evolves in to Graveler, but goes back to having two arms (but retains legs) when it evolves again into Golem.
- Golbat gains an extra pair of wings when it evolves into Crobat, if that counts.
Another Hindu-inspired demon is the Shivarra from World Of Warcraft. Despite the name, they appear to be based off of the goddess Kali (or perhaps her much less evil but not much less scary aspect Durga).
Subversion: Star Overlord Valvoga from Makai Kingdom certainly looks like it could be completely menacing, if not for the fact that multi-armed Micky is a complete pushover and is always bullied around by his other parts, the mad dragon-head Dryzen and the temptress Ophelia.
Solidus Snake does battle in a mechanized suit gives him two rocket-launching multipurpose tentacles in addition to his normal arms at the end of Metal Gear Solid 2.
In Metal Gear Solid 4, Laughing Octopus wears powered armor that gives her four extra Combat Tentacles.
Lord Recluse from City Of Heroes, who has four extra giant spider-like claw-arms affixed to his back.
- According to the Book Of The Game, those are part of his body. The mutated Arachnoids have the same claw-arms.
- The extra arms of the Crab Spider Soldiers are purely mechanical, though, although they are surgically attached and connected to the soldier's nervous system.
- This troper would like to point out while Crabs have four extra arms, Lord Recluse has a full eight.
A mini-boss encountered multiple times in the second level of Tomb Raider 3 (a similar enemy appears in The Movie) is a Living Statue with four arms, each one with a BFS.
Max the six-limbed robot dog in the MDK game series.
Asmodeus, the Final Boss of Mace The Dark Age, is a four-armed dragonlike demon lord that possesses the Mace of Tanis that every one of the fighters is seeking for their own reasons.
The Demon-at-Arms enemies in the Dragon Quest series not only have four arms, but also have the ability to attack twice per turn.
Warcraft games have the above-mentioned Shivarra demons, aswell as female Nagas (male Nagas have only 2 arms). Undead abominations have a small extra arm sticking from their shoulder (they're created by patching together a bunch of corpses).
The bosses and Bonus Boss Kali, Ravana, and Asura from Vagrant Story are either humanoid constructs with four arms and three faces, or the actual goddess herself.
Insectohumanoid T'Rang race in Wizardry games. Hsssst!
The Übermutant boss in Spear of Destiny has four arms holding enormous meat cleavers and a chest-mounted gatling gun.
Mehrunes Dagon, Daedric Prince (read: god) of destruction of The Elder Scrolls, is always shown with four arms, each holding a different weapon. Judging from his mythologies, he's apparently another Shiva-inspired example.
Kazdan Paratus of The Force Unleashed built himself four mechanical limbs to crawl around Raxus Prime like a mad bug.
Planescape Torment has Nordom, a Rogue Modron (see the Dungeons And Dragons example above) of the Quadrone caste, who uses his secondary set of arms to allow him to use two crossbows simultaneously. This makes him unique in the game, as all of the other Quadrones seen are "Messenger" variants, who have chosen to replace their second set of arms with wings that let them fly instead.
Averted in Unreal: the locals of Na Pali (the Nali) have four arms and two legs, but are hardly dangerous.
- Odd considering various critters (cow and rabbit equivalents)have only two limbs total, both legs. They also have floating 'gasbags' which consist of a wide head and two arms.
In the trailer for the No More Heroes sequel, Desperate Struggle, a female assassin faces Travis, whose Doc Ock style Spider Limbs each ends in a Beam Saber. Then again...
Alduran Reptiloids and Ugh Zan III in Serious Sam both have four arms.

Webcomics

Baron Wulfenbach's secretary Boris in Girl Genius wields four swords to great effect against the Hive Engine bugs.
Subverted in Schlock Mercenary, where it's pointed out that a four-armed alien has the same type of eyes as a human, and as a result, even if he can handle four guns at a time, he can still only aim at one target, same as everyone else.
- Played straighter with the titular Sergeant Schlock who can extrude additional arms as needed. We never did get to see the twin sawn-off multi-cannon and plasma gun combo in action though
Grontar in the webcomic Zap!: a huge four-armed mechanic.
In Order Of The Stick, this is one of Durkon's fears concerning trees: they have so many "arms" that they'd be able to attack you dozens of times per turn. That trees don't actually move doesn't dissuade his fears.
- They're just waiting for the right moment to overthrow us all.
The main characters in the furry webcomic At Arm's Length come from a race of magical beings that naturally is four-armed. The ladies kick monster behind to protect mortals while keeping their magical origins secret from society at large.
The Nemesites in The Inexplicable Adventures Of Bob, being insectoids, naturally have four arms.

Western Animation

One of Ben's most frequently used forms in Ben 10 is Four-Arms, a hulking red brute with Super Strength and a really deep voice.
- From Ben 10 Alien Force, Spidermonkey.
The Third Arm Sash in Xiaolin Showdown acts as, well, a third arm for grabbing onto things.
Mecha-Shiva from The Venture Bros.
Avatar The Last Airbender had a really weird "daydream" of Aang's that had Appa standing on his backmost pair of legs while the other four each had a katana.
- He also saw Guru Pathik with six arms.
Arex the three armed navigator from Star Trek The Animated Series.
An unused (read: toy-only) character from the Beast Machines / Transformers Robots In Disguise cartoons named Bruticus (not to be confused with the G1 gestalt of the same name) could pop out a second pair of arms in robot mode. Appropriate, since his alt-mode was Cerberus.