Intro needs some work: Bloody Handprint

Specifically, a source for that quote and some tweaking of the actual intro to give a bit more detail.

I suspect the quote is original since it's Alice and Bob, or Generic Names A and B as they get known.

What details would you like to add to the description?

The quote is original — not a quote as such. I think it is too long — the joke can be made in a couple of lines.

The article has something on the order of forty examples. Of these about ten or so are not quite the trope, as written.

As written: A bloody handprint used directly to indicate that a character is badly hurt.

Sometimes taken as: A bloody handprint used as an emblem, sometimes a threatening one, sometimes not. For example a work with horror elements might use one on the cover. Or a savage tribe might use it as a symbol. But we've also got Wilson◊ from Cast Away.

And some examples combine the two. Should the trope be expanded to all uses of a bloody handprint?

edited 28th Feb '11 4:00:36 AM by Camacan

How is this for a shortened quote?

—> Gouge marks, trailing off into the darkness, filled with the same red substance... Could it really be... No. No! NO! "ALICE!?" ...

New theme music also a box

I was thinking of: —>Bob knelt and examined the strange, red, five-pronged sigils painted on the floor. "Looks like a mitt-full o' sausages, glued to a ham," he mused to himself. Then it dawned on him. "No! NO! ALICE?" —>— Bob And Alice Buy The Farm

edited 28th Feb '11 4:25:37 AM by Camacan

I'd think so. The first thing that came to mind was in Gary Jennings' Aztec; one of the side characters is a painter who signs his work by slapping his hand on a board that's covered in obsidian slivers and then putting his bloody handprint on the painting.

edited 28th Feb '11 6:04:29 AM by Willbyr

I would say that the use of a bloody handprint as a symbol is playing with this trope, since it's a reference to violence even if not literally being caused by it.

I've fleshed out the trope. See what you think.

Looking good.

I wonder if anyone familiar with the literature examples could dig out an actual quote from one of the books to save poor Alice and Bob?

I guess that quote's all we get for now. Do we get a lock?