Misused: The Southpaw

I agree with shimaspawn; this trope should be renamed, and "Situational Southpaw" is distinct enough to be a Sub-Trope.

Definition rundown:

1. A character being mainly left-handed: chairs.
2. A character being left handed but is revealed to be right handed all along: I Am Not Left-Handed
3. A character whose left-handedness give him an edge: Southpaw Advantage or Lefty Advantage
4. A character whose left-handedness creates problems for himself: Lefty Problem
5. A character who's forced to use their non-dominant hand because something happened with the dominant hand: Situational Southpaw (although not limited to left or right)

Any more?

Number 2 can be left or right, the quote just happened to use left-handed.

I don't know if a lefty is chairs really. At least in media with complete creative control like animated works, it is something that is very different from the norm and some of them are kinda heroes for actual lefties. It's one of those character design tropes that tends to be a pretty big detail. IE Link from Zelda.

I Am Not Left-Handed is only related to that, that is purposefully holding anything back and later just take it up a notch. Let's not go tropenamer syndrome on that one. A non-combat reveal would not be that trope as would many others.

edited 18th Mar '15 7:10:47 PM by Memers

so you're arguing that being lefty in itself makes someone recognizable?

That... sounds tropable, but also shallow.

It could be made into something akin to Significant Green-Eyed Redhead, something like Unusual Left Handed Character

Also of note for IRL example: being left handed is ONLY an advantage in melee combat if "Rare Allele Advantage" is in effect. The advantage is lost if the numbers are reversed.

I think the reason some are making a big deal about characters like Link from The Legend of Zelda being left-handed is because it's a reference to a key person in the production being left-handed. A number of characters in The Simpsons is left-handed because Matt Groening is left-handed, for instance. (In the case of Link, Shigeru Miyamoto is actually ambidextrous but prefers to use his left hand. Nevertheless, that's quite the show of defiance in his country, as in Japan there is still forced right-handedness, resulting in one of the lowest lefty populations among industrialized countries.)

With these cases like these, perhaps examples of characters being left-handed—especially in media that isn't live action or mo-cap—should belong in Trivia. The people making the work have to go out of their way to depict a character as left-handed, after all. Of course, the character has to be depicted as consistently left-handed for such a list. I've seen a number of drawn works where the artists frankly aren't concerned with hand orientation, and most of the characters are seemingly ambidextrous as a result.

edited 30th Jun '15 9:37:15 PM by ZombieAladdin

Special Southpaw?

I don't know if it's related, but another trivia-related reason for some characters to be left-handed is because the creator wants the left-handed character to be a foil to another (usually the hero). Because the hero is inevitably right-handed, the foil is deliberately made left-handed.

One such example is Tite Kubo, who made Ichigo's foil, Uryuu, left-handed to contrast Ichigo. The only reason we know that is because the creator acknowledged it. His left-handedness plays no significant story-based role and is never commented on in-universe, but it was a deliberate design decision made by the creator.

What about something like Southpaw Design Decision, which would be Trivia only, and cover instances where the creators deliberate make certain characters left-handed because a member of the production team is left-handed, or because the creator wants the the character to be a visual contrast to another character (to the reader/audience) but not plot siginificant.

edited 17th Nov '15 5:28:31 PM by Wyldchyld

Bumping so this can stay open.

I don't think a character being left-handed, in and of itself, is a trope. But characters being lefties can signify several things:

• Being evil (A Sinister Clue)
• Being artistic/creative (Do We Have This One)
• Being special in some way, but only, and only, if this is evident by other characteristics (e.g, The Chosen One is left-handed)
• Being mentally ill

IMHO, this trope should be re-purposed a example-less supertrope, and the above made into subtropes.

There have been a lot of suggestions for subtropes in this thread. I'd support making this an exampleless definition page, creating the proposed subtropes and listing them (along with some tropes that already exist) on it.

Edit: For subtropes, we have:

• The Southpaw: Any left-handed character Exampleless supertrope.
• A Sinister Clue: Character being left-handed is a sign of them being evil.
• I Am Not Left-Handed: Character who appears to have one handedness is revealed to have the other handedness.
• Left-Handed Mirror: Character and their counterpart have different handednesses.
• Right-Handed Left-Handed Guns: In FPSes, characters hold left-handed guns with their right hands and vice versa.
• Ambidextrous Sprite: In Video Games that use sprites in general, character sprites are almost always ambidextrous.
• Southpaw Advantage/Lefty Advantage: Left-handedness being an advantage.
• Situational Southpaw: Character is forced to use one hand because something happened to their other hand, such as if they're forced to be left-handed because they lost their right arm and their left leg. Forced right-handedness would also fall under this.
• Lefty Problem: Left-handedness being a problem...in which case the character will probably switch to using their right hand and become a Situational Southpaw.
• Forced Southpaw Because Of Right Arm Quirk (needs better name): Character is forced to use one hand because of a character quirk with their other hand, such as if they're forced to be left-handed because their right hand has a Blade Below the Shoulder, an Arm Cannon, a Combat Tentacle or another Natural Weapon.
• Artistic Southpaw: Left-handedness being a sign of being artistic/creative.
• Unusual Left Handed Character/Special Southpaw: Character being left-handed makes them special/stand out.
• Southpaw Design Decision: Trivia, why a character has a certain handedness (like if they're left-handed because they're the Author Avatar of a left-handed creator). This trope would go under the Real Life Writes the Plot index.
• Left Handed Foil: Character is left-handed because they're the foil to a right-handed character and vice versa. (Actually, right-handed hero, left-handed foil seems to be far more common than left-handed hero, right-handed foil, although I don't doubt that examples of the latter exist). This trope would go under the Foil index.
• Naturally Ambidextrous: Character being naturally ambidextrous either makes them special/stand out or have a certain skill, such as playing the piano.
• Ambidextrous Because Of Lazy Artist (needs better name): The creators do not care about Character X's handedness and, as such, they appear to be ambidextrous. This is excused if, for example, they are a member of an alien species that is always ambidextrous (in which case it would probably be intentional). This trope would go under the Lazy Artist index.

Edit: Crowner for what to do with The Southpaw. When it's decided, we'll have a crowner for the subtropes I proposed in this post.

edited 17th Jan '16 11:00:12 AM by Lymantria

Bump for opinions.

Bump.

Bump.

Whatever. Can someone hook the crowner?

It is now hooked; thank you.

Great.

Berrenta's a mod?

Since when?!?

This.

To answer your question:

I became one recently. I won't change that much; don't worry.

Well, now that that's answered, can we get back on topic with the thread?

Progress has been made to avoid the purge. Now we just wait for votes.