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Boop.

Vesper Lynd: If the only thing left of you was your smile and your little finger, you'd still be more of a man than anyone I've ever known.
James Bond: That's because you know what I can do with my little finger.

The best way to show the amazing power of a character is to have them do something incredible without any effort at all. Give them the power to move mountains, even planets, and have them show this power by doing what the heroes (and the audience) would find amazing without even lifting a finger—or better yet, just a finger.

This tends to accompany the practical demonstration of The Law of Diminishing Defensive Effort. The first or second cousin of The Worf Effect. For a move that is genuinely weak but is still effective, see Cherry Tapping. See also Pressure Point, Touch of Death and Finger Gun.

The trope is named by Professional Wrestling fans after the so-called "main event" between "Hollywood" Hulk Hogan and WCW World Heavyweight Champion Kevin Nash on the January 4, 1999 episode of WCW Monday Nitro. Nash did his damnedest to play up how destructive Hulk's poke was and how he was lucky to have survived (no one was convinced).

For the inversion of this, see Fake Special Attack. Not to be confused with Giving Someone the Pointer Finger.

The next step up is Thought-Controlled Power where you don't even need to move at all to smack somebody around.


Examples:

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    Anime & Manga 
  • Invoked and Averted in 3×3 Eyes during the Lotus-Eater Machine arc: Shiva, who has just become the next Kaiyanwang, suddenly looms over the hero, Yakumo (who's currently without his signature Complete Immortality) and rises a hand, apparently to cast the deadly Sanzhiyan arts... but as Yakumo braces himself, Shiva just mockingly slaps him with his finger and floats away.
  • Bleach:
    • Shunsui Kyoraku performs this on Chad during the Soul Society arc, after batting aside his enemies' first attack and dodging the rest whilst drinking. When Chad tries to keep fighting despite the difference in their strength, Shunsui draws his swords to cut him down.
    • Kenpachi Zaraki can slice a building in half with a flick of his sword arm.
    • Sui-Feng's Shikai is almost like a dart that's worn on her finger. Two hits in the exact same location, and the target will instantly die.
    • One of Byakuya's favored moves in combat is to lightly poke his opponent in the chest...and shoot a lightning bolt through his finger via the "Byakurai" spell.
    • Aizen blocks an attack by Bankai-state Ichigo with a single finger. It's part of the reason fans refer to him as Captain Superman.
    • Anime-only villain Jin Kariya is capable of completely immobilizing enemies simply by pressing his finger on their foreheads.
    • Yammy attacks Orihime in chapter 192 with this trope.
    • To a lesser extent, Ulqiuorra seems bored in almost all of his fights and even puts less effort in all his fights than the stronger Espada. It's explained later, as he's meant to be a kind of avatar of nihilism. In his fight with Ichigo, he blocks Ichigo's Getsuga with just one hand. Hilarity Ensues (sort of) when Ichigo goes into Resurección Mode and blocks Ulquiorra's strongest attack with one hand.
    • Isshin flicks Aizen through several buildings by basically giving him the finger in chapter 398.
    • Bazz-B has fire-based powers and he's strong that he can melt Hitsugaya's ice with just a finger. He also inflicts him a fatal wound with two fingers while creating a big explosion. With three fingers, he can melt the ground into lava. With four fingers, he makes a massive Flaming Sword. With five fingers, he makes a flaming tornado.
  • The eponymous Ran of Carried by the Wind: Tsukikage Ran delivers the dreaded finger flick to a mook whom's she's dragging around by his head, after effortlessly dispatching about half a dozen of his buddies with her bare hands and without even looking at them — all the while casually talking to her sidekick.
  • A Certain Magical Index: Accelerator's ability to control vectors lets him pulverize objects as hard as concrete or metal by lightly touching it. The same can be applied to humans...
  • In Darker than Black, Wei activates his Bloody Murder powers by snapping his fingers.
  • Digimon Adventure: Vamdemon/Myotismon doesn't even need to poke. He can, among other things, block a head-on charge from a Digimon the same level as him and about five times his size by pointing at him. Similarly, there is an instance where he repels multiple projectile-based attacks (which were launched from several Digimon simultaneously) just by blowing at them.
  • Dr. STONE: When fighting Hyoga, Senku makes a taser out of wires and batteries, tied to his little finger. Just one poke sends 100,000 volts through him.
  • Very many examples in Dragon Ball.
    • There's Tao Pai Pai killing the one-time Dragon of the Red Ribbon Army with only his tongue (don't ask).
    • When Launch tries to attack Chaiotzu with a sledgehammer, Crane Hermit effortlessly blocks it with a finger, then sends her flying by extending the finger.
    • Freeza blowing up a henchman and a very wide area by only blinking.
    • Vegeta demonstrating his newfound power killing his once rival Kiwi by essentially pointing at him... the list goes on...
    • The very first Finger Poke of Doom in the entire series belongs to Goku: when competing with Oolong (who was turned into a mecha) over breaking a stack of bricks, Goku breaks the stack... with his index finger. At age twelve.
    • There's Kami flicking Kid Goku when the latter charges at him the first time they meet.
    • Piccolo flicking away a competitor during the preliminary rounds of the World Tournament.
    • The best example being where Nappa and Vegeta land on Earth, and, to cement their status as powerful enemies, Nappa blows up an entire city, by only lifting two fingers, and somewhat casually at that (an attack later monikered Giant Storm).
    • There's also the Punching Machine in the Majin Buu Saga, where the heroes show world-record-breaking strength, by casually jabbing the punch machine. Vegeta, who does not bother with this the first time around, shows why they had to do that. (Hint: You're trying not to break the machine.)
    • Used to demonstrate the results of Son Goku's Training from Hell all the way back in Dragon Ball. In the "Strongest Under the Heavens" Tournament, his first opponent is a massive wrestler. He nips between his legs and playfully taps him on the leg with a finger... which knocks him out of the ring.
    • Also used when Future Trunks first shows up, and challenges Goku to see how strong he is. As Trunks is swinging away with his sword, Goku effortlessly parries each strike with his index finger.
    • And then there's Freeza forming and unleashing an all-encompassing supernova that destroys Goku's father, Planet Vegeta, all Saiyans minus four (eight, if the Dragon Ball movies and specials are counted), and a good horde of his own soldiers…all the while sitting and laughing in his hover-chair, using only his index finger.
    • In fact, Freeza, specially in his comparatively overwhelmingly strong first and final forms, does most of his business this way. The most striking one is when he points at Gohan, Vegeta kicks Gohan out of where he was standing, and next thing seen, is that the mountain that stood a long way behind Gohan had been replaced with a mushroom cloud. Then there's his signature Death Beam, a thin, needle-sharp laser fired from his index finger that can cut a nice neat hole straight through people, specifically Vegeta and Piccolo.
    • Goten blocks a punch from Ikose with one finger.
    • Beerus from the film Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Gods, sends Super Saiyan 3 Goku flying by flicking him in the forehead, and later knocks out Vegeta with a Tap on the Head.
    • The first episode of Dragon Ball Super has Beerus literally destroying half a planet by poking a table. That was out of disappointment. In the manga he was angry and destroyed the entire thing.
    • Later in Super, some entirely-normal bandits make the mistake of trying to rob Goku. The last one standing gets knocked out with a finger flick that still catapults him into a boulder.
  • Once he gets a bit of a rein on his anger, Durarara!!'s Shizuo Heiwajima starts responding to mildly annoying people by merely flicking them in the forehead (as opposed to his previous method of sending them flying over a city block). Of course, with Shizuo being Shizuo, this still feels to the victims like someone smacked them in the face with a baseball bat.
  • Eyeshield 21:
    • Gaou, who raises a bruise on the opposing team's quarterback by managing to reach him with his little finger. The bruise is about two inches in diameter.
    • Then Mr. Don appears, and he managed to put Gaou out of commission with one strike. While weakened.
  • Fate/Zero's Iskander casually flicks Waver on the forehead whenever he wishes to dismiss him, knocking him back several feet.
  • Fist of the North Star:
    • Kenshiro, the big-eyebrowed hero, is in the habit of making bad guys' heads explode, either by Rapid-Fire Fisticuffs or other means, including forcible pokes with his fingers to activate the opponent's pressure points. He often heightens the effect by ceremonially cracking his knuckles first. In this case, it's all a matter of where you poke them.
    • Shin's favorite execution method is effortlessly driving his fingers directly through a man's chest. This is how Kenshiro got his scars, as Shin used his index finger to produce the first three points on Kenshiro's Hokuto pattern, then drove four of his fingers into Kenshiro's chest to add the rest. Needless to say, this is a very, very painful experience to suffer through.
    • Rei doesn't poke people to death, but he can do nearly the same thing by slashing men in half with his fingertips. He is (somehow) able to create a cutting force at his finger's edges. His style happens to be related to Shin's, which is why they both have bare hands able to cut stuff they normally wouldn't.
    • Yuda, whose Nanto style is related Rei's and Shin's, actually topped them: he usually does the slashing people in half with his fingertips thing, but he once slashed in perfectly symmetrical halves a henchman who had completed his job by poking the air in front of said henchman. The cut started from the back.
    • Raoh's version is the probably the most brutal — which is saying something, considering how violent the series is. Namely, he dooms Rei by striking a point on his chest with a single finger, causing the character in question to die a slow, agonizing death over the course of three long days. It's worth noting that Raoh is just as powerful with Hokuto Shinken as Kenshiro himself.
  • Gauron of Full Metal Panic! pulls this off in one of his most infamous scenes, telekinetically ripping apart a Humongous Mecha by "firing" a Finger Gun at it.
  • Quite a few alchemists from Fullmetal Alchemist fit this one.
    • Like Roy Mustang, who can create huge fireballs just by snapping his fingers. His gloves are made of a material that, when rubbed together, acts like a match on abrasive, thus requiring the motion to get a spark he can manipulate.
    • Father taking away the ability of people to perform alchemy simply by stamping his foot. Not to mention firing gigantic energy blasts by tapping his finger once he obtains God.
    • In the 2003 series, a Finger Poke Of Doom was used by the deranged State Alchemist Kimblee to give Scar his eponymous injury.
    • And of course, taken quite literally with Lust. Her nickname of "Ultimate Spear" comes from her ability to extend and retract her Absurdly Sharp Fingers to incredible lengths in less than a second. In the first anime, she can use the ability to fool a crowd into thinking someone was shot.
  • In Great Teacher Onizuka, the manga, Onizuka flicks a massive guy across the room. Then he proceeds to Arm-wrestle a hundred people in a row...
  • Seras from Hellsing politely demonstrated the fact that she was a vampire to Pip Bernadette by poking and flicking him during their first meeting. Being a vampire in the Hellsing universe means you have Super-Strength, and being poked by a vampire as a mere human is quite damaging.
  • JoJo's Bizarre Adventure:
    • In Battle Tendency Pillar Man Wamuu takes out an entire team of Nazis this way. First he uses his powers to fuse the Nazis' hands together. After they are all stuck together, Wham pokes a finger into the Nazi officer's forehead. In an instant, he absorbs all of the Nazis' flesh at once, leaving a pile of joined husks.
    • Jotaro's Stand Star Platinum, from Stardust Crusaders, possesses a technique called Star Finger. He concentrates Star Platinum's power into his middle and index fingers, and then extends them with such speed and force that they can shatter steel and break bones. At one point, he uses the attack to flick a button from his shirt through an enemy's skull.
  • In Kill la Kill, Nui Harime is so absurdly powerful that she can casually destroy a Three-Star Goku Uniform (that previously demolished the main protagonist) with her pinky. Goku Uniforms are made of Life Fibers, which are supposed to be nigh-indestructible except against the Scissor Blade and other special swords. Justified, since Nui's position as Grand Couturier means she knows how to attack the most important thread of Goku Uniforms for massive damage.
    • In the first fight between Ryuko Matoi and Satsuki Kiryuin after the latter donned her Kamui for the first time, most of the action was the type of over-the-top nonsense you would expect from the show, except for that half of it had Satsuki barely putting in effort. At one point she barely taps Ryuko with the pommel of her sword, and it's enough to send her shooting like a rocket across the absurdly large school grounds and halfway through a building.
  • Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS. It starts with Nanoha catching Subaru's Power Fist and Teana's Laser Blade using one bare hand each. It ends with Nanoha using a single finger to cast one of Teana's spells to knock her out without the help of Raising Heart, and she wasn't using her dominant hand.
  • Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid: Both Tohru and Kanna can pull these off. Tohru knocked out a thug towering over her with a single strike from her pinky and Kannna did the same to three kidnappers later. Justified as they are actually dragons.
  • My Hero Academia: Early on, Izuku learns to weaponize the intense air pressure generated from flicking his fingers when they're charged with One For All's power. An advantage to this is that he only breaks a finger instead of his entire hand by doing this, and he later gets gear designed to help mitigate this risk once he gains enough control over it. It turns out later on that All Might was actually planning to teach Izuku that trick once he got enough control over One For All.
  • Naruto:
    • Tsunade beats Naruto twice using just a flick of her fingers. Which sends him flying through the air.
      • It may have been a filler, but scary all the same: There's two massive escaped prisoners who can practically shrug off being held by both a bulked-up guy, physical shadows, and even mind control by using just sheer muscle. Tsunade shows up, and these two cower; she then does the same finger-flick to launch them a fair distance and they scamper back to prison, because in their cells they're safe from Tsunade. Cue a priceless amazed expression from Ino-Shika-Chou...
      • In one episode of the anime, Tsunade literally breaks the ground into little tiny pieces by simply tapping it with her heel!
    • Kakashi has a literal Finger Poke of Doom with his taijutsu technique, One Thousand Years of Death/Pain.
    • The Hyuga clan's Jyuuken (Gentle Fist) Style consists solely of this, being based on seemingly weak attacks that do no external damage and instead target the internal organs directly, such as when Hiashi killed a Kumo-nin kidnapper with a simple jab at the heart. There's no training to toughen up the inside of your body.
    • The Third Raikage: Hell Stab: Four-Finger Crossbeam Hand!
    • The Juubi flicked away a fully-powered Tailed Beast Bomb with one finger.
    • Fans parody Itachi's poke to Sasuke's forehead as this.
  • Negima! Magister Negi Magi:
    • In the first anime adaptation, Action Girl Ku Fei demonstrates her bookcase-destroying forehead flick, or "dekopin", in the Library Island mini-arc, much to the horror of the other girls. Ninja classmate Kaede can do it too.
    • In the manga, Jack Rakan accidentally blows up a mountain. After that, Negi is understandably freaked out by the prospect of having to fight him. And rightly so. During the fight, Jack actually uses the mountain-destroying attack on Negi. Ouch.
    • At the end of the Kyoto Arc, Evangeline shows up to save the heroes from a giant demon by blasting it with a superpowerful spell... which she activates by snapping her fingers.
    • Also when Chachamaru repeatedly flicks Negi to interfere with his spellcasting. Or pulls his face into funny faces or pokes him or... well anyway, she doesn't like outright violence much. Also, the point was to keep Negi from casting, as each attack breaks his concentration. This illustrates just how weak a spellcaster is without a partner.
    • Negi himself did this to Sextum, destroying her barrier... and her clothes.
  • One Piece:
    • The Cipher Pol 9 agents and several high-ranking Marine officers literally have a Finger Poke of Doom in their Shigan ("Finger Pistol") technique, in which what looks like a harmless poke actually carries the strength of a gunshot.
      • Sufficiently experienced Rokushiki practicioners can use Tobu Shigan ("Flying Finger Gun"), a long-ranged version. There's also Tobu Shigan Bachi (Flying Finger Gun Sting"), which can be used by flicking instead of jabbing.
      • There's a couple of rapid-fire versions: Shigan Ouren ("Finger Gun Yellow Lotus"), the one-handed version, and Shigan Madara ("Finger Gun Spots"), the two-handed version. The latter is notorious in that Lucci and Who's Who, the two known people to have used it, were in their human-beast forms at the time, making their finger pokes even deadlier by addition of their sharp claws.
    • More recently and in the same vein, Emporio Ivankov has shown off his "Death Wink!" A blast of compressed air that can rival cannon fire he creates just by blinking.
  • Overlord:
    • Ainz cows a lizardman village into immediate submission by first summoning a crapload of high-tier monsters as mere messengers, then using another spell to instantly destroy them rather than simply dismissing the spell.
    • Sebas kills Zero by hitting him in the head with the heel of his foot, hard enough to die from the head trauma moments later but not so hard that he's reduced to Ludicrous Gibs or Hammered into the Ground.
  • Pokémon: The Series:
    • Mewtwo. At the beginning of Pokémon: The First Movie, he opens his eyes, shattering the containment unit he was in, after listening to the scientists. He becomes enraged as he is just an experiment, so he clenches his fists and thus destroys the entire laboratory he and the scientists are in. He then finishes the job by turning his head three times. Other examples: Nonchalantly waving his hand to create a deadly storm, blasting a Gyarados and its Trainer to the opposite wall by raising his arm, and releasing Nurse Joy by snapping his fingers.
    • There's also the anime episode "A Marathon Rivalry", where Team Rocket is able to take down Ash's Staraptor by using mechanical hands hidden in the balloon's basket to poke it repeatedly and forcefully until Staraptor fainted.
    • As early as the third episode, after Team Rocket defeats two of his Pokémon, Ash tries to attack the pair himself. After holding him At Arm's Length, James beats him with a flick of his finger, which sends Ash flying into a tree.
  • Project A-Ko's A-Ko often does this by accident.
  • Ranma ½:
    • The "Bakusai Tenketsu" (or Breaking Point) technique. Ryōga learns this technique which lets him poke his finger into an object — even solid rock — and make it explode into thousands of little shards. Until he discovered that it only worked on rocks — the technique was designed for work in quarries, but can be re-purposed for Nigh-Invulnerability training — Ranma was afraid that he'd be shattered by Ryōga.
    • Cologne can also use this move. In fact, in the anime at least, she's also shown to be able to use it on steel (she catches a falling I-beam on the tip of her staff after landing in a construction sight, causing it to disintegrate) and wood. In a lesser version of this trope, she's also implied to have a number of Pressure Point techniques with nasty effects; she's shown to have a move that renders the victim so sensitive to heat that tepid water feels boiling hot, and where might Shampoo have learned the Xi Fa Xiang Gao technique from?
    • Speaking of Shampoo, she also knows a lesser version of the Bakusai Tenketsu... which explodes the content of take-out boxes by jabbing a fingertip at the box.
    • Ryōga destroys wood too in the manga arc where he and Ranma become babies.
  • Tsukune Aono's "sensing supernatural energy" lesson in Rosario + Vampire puts him on the receiving end of one of these from Inner Moka.
    Tsukune: (eyes closed) "What's this...? I closed my eyes and sense some kind of glow in front of me. I can feel it...! And... It's coming closer! What could it..." (opens eyes; Inner Moka is standing in front of him, fingers poised) "...be..."
    Moka: (tropes)
    Tsukune: (colliding with the white background on the other end of the panel) "Urrrrgh!"
  • Rurouni Kenshin:
    • At the very end of the series, we know that Yahiko has become a certified badass since he's become capable of blocking a blade with two fingers. Note that this overlaps somewhat with Barehanded Blade Block, but is much more badass, and is likely to generate an Oh, Crap! response from the one about to get their ass handed to them.
    • There's also the fingerpoke version of the Futae no Kawami, which can shatter rocks (and everything else).
  • Saint Seiya: Scorpio Milo's Signature Attack, Scarlet Needle, focuses all his power in his index finger, even growing a red stinger in the nail for good measure.
  • When Escanor, the Lion Sin of Pride in The Seven Deadly Sins is in "The One" form (which happens when his sunlight-derived powers are at their peak when it's within a minute of high noon), he is so ridiculously strong that his literal finger pokes (which he calls Divine Spear Escanor) are powerful enough to drop just about anything short of the Demon King himself.
  • Satan from Shina Dark does this to the first Hero group that shows up. He stops the mages by feeding them in mid battle and proceeds to flick the swordsman in the middle of the forehead. Which of course sends said swordsman spiraling through the air.
  • Slayers:
    • Xellos from Slayers Next destroys a small army of dragons by sticking out his finger and sweeping it in a sort of lazy arc, with his eyes closed.
    • Hellmaster Phibrizzo kills Gaav, who Lina couldn't stop even with the Ragna Blade, by snapping his fingers.
    • In the original novels, he vaporizes Gaav with just a smile.
  • Asura introduces himself this way in Soul Eater, in the absolute creepiest way imaginable.
  • Tekken Chinmi:
    • There's a very weird symbiosis with Giving Someone the Pointer Finger: Ryukai's Spirit Attack allows him to control a person's body from a distance, just by pointing at them. Another example closer to this trope is when one of Chinmi's mentors teaches him how to focus his qi into his fingertips, enough to flip off a bear.
    • Earlier, Chinmi also ran into a hitman enemy whose specialty is finger-poking one's pressure point to the point of stunning the enemy. Chinmi got his ass kicked because of it, but eventually managed to come up with the counter by learning to make his body Made of Iron.
  • Jiro from Toriko specialzes in in paralyzing enemy by attacking nerves and pressure points, and, because of that, he often attacks by aggresively poking the enemy. Fact, that he can blow off lomeones head, just by flicking, also helps.
  • Vermeil in Gold: The devil Vermeil is strong enough to knock a rampaging dragon out cold with a flick of her finger.
  • Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V: As a part of symbolism, D/D/D Duo-Dawn King Kali Yuga defeats the attacking Odd-Eyes Rebellion Dragon by firing his Twin Break Shot from his index finger — a powerful king ending a "rebellion" with little effort, using only his finger while sitting on his throne to stop the entire force of his enemy. Ironically, he put more effort in defeating Odd-Eyes Rebellion Dragon than its weaker form, Dark Rebellion Xyz Dragon, which he defeated by not moving at all.
  • YuYu Hakusho:
    • Younger Toguro gets a lot of these, showing that he had strength beyond any of the characters thus far. The best example was when he took off the whole top half of a corrupt businessman's head by flicking him.
    • When Sensui's "true" personality, Shinobu, arrives, the first thing he does is shake Yusuke's hand... which snaps his arm in two.
    • Yusuke gets one himself later, when two fighters charge at him and he blocks their flurry of attacks using one finger each.

    Comic Books 
  • Superman:
    • As seen in Smallville: Season 11 #6, when he finger-flicks Batman, Superman really loves this trope.
    • In Justice #12, Superman does this to Lex Luthor when the Justice League manages to catch him.
    • In Kryptonite Nevermore, a crook tries to kill Superman with Kryptonite. After laughing at him, Superman pokes his forehead and knocks him out.
    • The Life Story of Superman: After escaping from his cage, Superman disables Lex Luthor by flicking him across the room.
    • It can be real doom if Superman isn't careful. During a fight with the Weaponsmaster he becomes ill. He warns his opponent that due to being rattled from illness a casual blow could shatter a villain's skull.
    • It also happens in Superman Smashes the Klan: a Klansman has just punched Superman in the face as hard as he could, naturally only hurting his own hand while Superman doesn't even flinch. The Klansman begs that Superman not punch him back, and he doesn't — he knows it would kill him, so he finger-flicks him across the room instead.
    • Supergirl does this several times in Supergirl (2005): to Harley Quinn in Girl Power, a pirate mook in issue #11 and Bizarrogirl in issue #55.
  • Rising Stars: Subverted when a bunch of the Specials are being apprehended by the ATF. One of specials points his finger meaning to do absolutely nothing, except say "You can't do this!". Unfortunately, the ATF guys have been working themselves into a lather of panic on the way to the Specials' hideaway, so with a terrified scream of "He's POINTING! HE'S GONNA DO SOMETHING!", they open fire and slaughter a bunch of the Specials. The deaths of so many Specials powers up the rest of them higher than they had been before and a massacre commences. Afterwords, the ATF tells news reporters that the flashes of gunfire are really sunspots.
  • Watchmen: Dr. Manhattan. At one point teleports an entire mob of people with barely any effort at all. Even more impressive is that he teleported each of them to their homes. At the same time.
  • In one Marvel Universe fight between Thor and Iron Man, it took five pages and about 20 seconds of in-universe time for the fight to be over. However, the Spit You to Death, similar to this trope, came when Iron Man flew straight at him with great speed, and Thor simply stuck out his hammer, not even flinching as Tony was deflected into some power lines.
  • The Incredible Hulk:
    • During the Mr. Fixit storyline, the Grey Hulk (almost as strong as green, as smart as Banner, and totally amoral) gave a human opponent (Doctor Octopus, see below) "da Finger". A finger thump to the forehead, knocking him out.
    • While it happened off-panel, later during the Merged Hulk period he says to the Punisher, "If I had used two fingers instead of one, you'd still be out cold."
  • In Firebreather, Duncan gets revenge on a bully by breaking his nose by flicking a ball away with his finger during phys ed.
  • Also in the Marvel Universe, Black Bolt of The Inhumans is Blessed with Suck in that his whispers can level mountains.
  • Spider-Man:
    • Spider-Man once defeats dimwitted villain The Walrus with a flick of his fingers. To be fair, Spidey was showing off in front of TV cameras because the Walrus had humiliated him earlier, sucker-punching him while he was helpless because of laughter, after hearing that:
      The Walrus: Yeah, well — Don't underestimate ME, pal! For your information, I've got the proportionate speed, strength and agility of a WALRUS!
    • In Ends of the Earth, a near death Doctor Octopus was contemplating all the injuries he'd received over the years, most of which involved getting decked by Spider-Man, but one seen of the flashback montage showed Mr. Fixit casually flicking Dr Octopus with one finger. Doc Ock's comment during that panel suggested it was one of the worst injuries he'd ever received.
    • This is Miles Morales's, the second Ultimate Spider-Man, specialty. He has a time-delayed stunning power that works by touch, which he usually uses by poking his enemy with his index and middle finger. It tends to be pretty humorous because Miles will switch from trading blows with a super-powered villain to suddenly and delicately touching him with two fingers and watching him have a seizure.
  • Disney Ducks Comic Universe: Used in the Uncle Scrooge comic "Cash Flow" after the Beagle Boys have been zapped by an anti-friction ray and an anti-inertia ray — one flick from his fingers sends them sliding all the way back to the prison.
  • When Thanos is in possession of The Infinity Gauntlet, he is able to erase half the sentient life in the universe by snapping his fingers... which isn't all that easy in the first place, you try snapping your fingers with gloves on! He also does this in effect to each of the individual heroes (and Dr. Doom) sent to distract and occupy him in the main battle, shrinking the Hulk, turning Wolverine's adamantium skeleton to "spongy rubber", smashing Thor into glass, etc. Perennial Butt-Monkey Quasar doesn't even get an attack in before his patented Quantum Bands are exploded while making an unfulfilled Badass Boast. To their credit though, each of the heroes' attacks would have been a Killing Blow on anyone else... and is said so in the comic (when else have you actually seen Wolverine graphically stab someone through the chest in full view of the camera?). Thanos finally casually flicks Captain America, the last man standing in The Infinity Gauntlet, with his wrist after destroying his shield, saying: "What have I been doing? Must have been out of my mind..."
  • The Savage Dragon. The hero kills a bad guy by biting off his finger and spitting it through the evil man's brain.
  • DC Comics vampires can somehow burst a man's jugular by a snap of the fingers.
  • Dungeon: The Early Years: Herbert de Vaucanson learn to do it through training. In his case, finger-poking with one of his feathers (Herbert is a duck) flay the target's skin. Due to becoming the bearer of the Sword of Destiny but being unfit at first to wield it, Herbert was unable to use any weapon. Thus, his master trained him to use ordinary objects that were beneath the Sword's notice, such as sticks and feathers. The feather took a long time to figure out, but once he mastered it, one of the other characters pointed out that Herbert — as a duck — was covered with feathers. Unfortunately (or fortunately from the point of view of the writers), he soon discovered that his super-powerful attack had certain limitations. Come Dungeon Twilight the limitations are removed, thanks to Herbert hosting a demon in him, and not only does the finger poke works on everyone, it can be turned into a Ki Blast.
  • Quoth Bamse to two gorillas he just had made fly across a jungle clearing: "I just poked you with a finger. Now please calm down, or I'll have to poke you with two fingers''."
  • Kiden Nixon of NYX has time manipulation powers that effectively give her Super-Speed (it's complicated: Time in her bubble flows normally from her perspective and she's able to move normally, but everything else slows down. She doesn't need to eat or sleep, but her hair grows at its normal rate, and when she spent half a year in her "accelerated" state, only a few days passed for everyone else). Even light contact with another person can break bones or cause serious injury (lightly poking her high school bully, Hector's, arm in such a state snapped it like a twig). In the finale she was tempted to see what actually hauling off and slugging the Big Bad with her full strength could do, but declined the opportunity to save her teacher from falling to her death. Considering what she did to Hector with just a poke, it probably wouldn't have been pretty.
  • In Über, when General Patton insults Leah's disability, she flicks him with one finger and sends him flying a hundred feet into the air. Fortunately, he has Super-Toughness and survives the crater-making impact when he comes down.
  • Asterix: One of Obelix's favorite moves is to grab an opponent by the shirt/breastplate and simply slap them silly, which rattles even the most hardened Roman like a full-on flurry of punches.

    Fan Works 
  • Gather features this as Taylor's ultimate attack. As part of her AU powerset she can instantly kill any parahuman she makes skin contact with, stealing their powers and turning them into a nearly indestructable minion.
  • In Origin Story, Alex Harris (a Kryptonian trapped in the Marvel Universe), thumps several mooks into unconciousness, and during her Roaring Rampage of Revenge against the Thunderbolts, she takes out Songbird by jamming her index finger through the supervillain's larynx.
  • In a sidestory of Pokémon Reset Bloodlines, Tapu Koko threatens a boy named Zilant with this, by summoning a thunderstorm and channeling it into one finger pointed at his neck, for refusing a Z-Ring.
  • Parodied in the Puella Magi Madoka Magica doujin "Dorikano." The Power of Love—or lust, to be more precise—makes Homura so powerful that she destroys an invincible mega-witch with a literal finger-poke. This turns out to be only a hypothetical scenario.
  • Superboy doesn't do it to any people in Life Ore Death but he does demonstrate his powers to two Muggle friends by poking a hole in a brick with one finger.
  • Tales of the Otherverse: In "A World Without Heroes", Rogue knocks a thug out by tapping his temple.
    The punk yelped as agony shot through his shoulder. After watching his mates so easily dealt with, he felt certain that this devil woman had ripped his arm clear off. He had only a brief moment to realize that she had only dislocated the shoulder before her fingers tapped into his temple, giving him a temporary release from the pain as unconsciousness took him.
  • Vow of the King: Shunsui easily defeats Ichigo in their second fight by poking him in the chest. Though, given that they were playing the color demon game and Shunsui had just declared "Black", the damage he did was vastly greater than it normally would have been.
  • The Legend of Link: Lucky Number 13: Link punches a hole in Jonas's supposedly indestructible armor with a finger. Said armor is enchanted to be indestructible to anything less than a god, which Link is.
    • Before that, he snaps off the tip of a sword that had been hooked under his eyelid by blinking.

    Films — Animation 
  • DC Showcase – Constantine: The House of Mystery. The Spectre uses this to consign John Constantine to the House of Mystery. All John can do is give a Lame Comeback as he's sent flying.
    Constantine: YOUR OUTFIT SUCKS!
  • In Hulk Vs., Loki unleashes the Hulk from Bruce Banner by lightly "bitch slapping" Banner, which is powerful enough to throw Banner across the room. Justified since Loki's a god and Banner's a physical weakling.
  • Kung Fu Panda:
    • The Wuxi Finger Hold. We never actually see what happens when you flex the pinky, but judging from the devastation in the finale of the first movie, it must have been really something.
      "You know what the hardest part is? The hardest part is cleaning up afterwards."
    • There's also the "Nerve Strike" which can cause paralysis or possibly even death.
    • In Kung Fu Panda 3, the effect of the Wuxi Finger Hold is revealed. When Po tries using the Wuxi Finger Hold on Kai, it doesn't work because it only works on mortals. So Po decides to restrain him and use it on himself to send himself and Kai into the spirit realm. Given that Po used it on Tai Lung, as well as the fact that the latter makes a cameo on Kai's collected chi of other masters, it means that he was sent there as well.
  • Parodied in Ratatouille, where the chef Horst reportedly killed someone with his thumb.
  • Batman: Soul of the Dragon. To show Lady Shiva has what it takes to guard the Soultaker Sword, O-Sensei lets Rip Jagger duel her for the right, but tells Shiva she may only use a single finger to defend herself. She wins. In the present, she kills a man by punching his throat with her finger.
  • Megamind: Hal does this to the mayor when he attempts to congratulate Hal for "defeating" Megamind.
    Hal: Oh, I wouldn't say free. More like... under new management.
  • Superman Unbound: Supergirl dispatches one of the terrorists holding Lois Lane hostage by flicking him away.

    Films — Live-Action 
  • In Kill Bill, we have the Five Point Palm Exploding Heart Technique, which the Bride uses to finish off Bill in Vol. 2's climax.
  • Star Wars:
    • Darth Vader strangling people with only a tightening of his hand.
      • As demonstrated in Rogue One, he doesn't even need his whole hand. He managed to Force choke Krennic just by pinching his finger and thumb together.
    • And when Vader chokes Admiral Ozzel to death across a television screen - with no hand gesture whatsoever, and at presumably long distance (they were on the same ship, but said ship is ten miles long).
    • And, the scene in The Empire Strikes Back where he blocks Han's blaster shots with only his hand.
    • As he enters Jabba's palace, Luke waves his hand backwards and chokes two Gamorrean guards in Return of the Jedi.
    • Yoda gets one too: In Revenge of the Sith, he enters Palpatine's throne room, and the two Imperial Guards move to stop him. Yoda casually waves his hand backwards and they are thrown against the wall hard enough to instantly knock them out.
  • X-Men Film Series
    • At the beginning of X2: X-Men United, Pyro winks in order to turn a zippo flame into something that can engulf a man's arm.
    • Magneto often does this kind of thing during the course of the first three movies. Most notably when at one point he sends police cars flying around by essentially raising his hand.
    • X-Men: First Class: Sebastian Shaw makes a man explode by poking him, a function of being able to transfer kinetic energy by touch. In his final fight with Magneto, he sends him flying by lightly swatting at him.
    • X-Men: Days of Future Past: Quicksilver, while running around at Super-Speed, taps a guy in the cheek. The guy is sent flying like he got hit by a heavyweight boxer.
  • The Matrix: Neo, after coming back to life as The One, can stop a hail of bullets simply by raising his hand.
  • By the end of the film Kung Fu Hustle, the hero is capable of displaying examples of this trope.
  • Master Xie from the wuxia film, Ode to Gallantry. His first scene had him poking four expert fighters in their foreheads, which kills them on the spot with a small bloody hole where he touched. Later on Master Xie kills all 20 members of a rival clan by fingerpoking their foreheads, one at a time.
  • Mac has a Love Touch that works at close contact or from a distance in Earth Girls Are Easy. It is potent enough to pull up latent gay tendencies, and to make a man fall in love with a cat he loathed.
  • In Hancock, the title character manages to destroy a locomotive and derail a freight train merely by leaning into it slightly.
  • In The Presidio, Sean Connery is such a badass that he subdues a large biker dude with just his left thumb. The right one would have been just too much. He actually uses both thumbs, and his foot. He was still fighting a guy twice his size while in a uniform not designed for ease of movement.
  • Parodied multiple times in Kung Pow! Enter the Fist. At one point, The Chosen One throws a punch that stops just short of the boards held out for him — which he then blows away by extending his index finger. In the same sequence he performs pushups progressively with one hand, one finger, and breathing. As the narrator remarks, "Give me some of what he's smoking!"
  • In Momentum, one of the telekinetics kills a Federal agent with a Neck Snap by lightly waving his hand to the side from several feet away. Of course, manipulating far-away and/or heavy objects requires much greater concentration.
  • Osmosis Jones: The evil virus Thrax. His left index finger is particularly long-clawed and causes any organic matter it simply touches to combust or explode. Within moments of appearing on-screen, the first thing he does is gently prick a harmless cell worker who horrifically boils/burns alive from the inside out.

    Literature 
  • The Discworld's Death usually gets the effect he wants with a snap of his skeletal fingers. Occasionally he gestures or waves a hand, but he's no show-off. Except when the narrative requires it to abide by the Rule of Cool.
  • In The Divine Comedy, an angel taps a well-fortified Hellgate guarded by a thousand Fallen Angels with a tiny wand. The gate to the infernal fortress of Dis offers no resistance and flies open.
  • In one of the Heralds of Valdemar books, a very powerful mage knows he could quiet a raging storm from the comfort of his chair with a few little hand motions, but opts to go the dramatic route, complete with flinging open the shutters and waving grandiosely, because he knows that the lesser mage watching him will be more impressed.
  • In I've Been Killing Slimes for 300 Years and Maxed Out My Level, after accidentally overleveling, even Azusa's lightest forms of "attacking" are capable of utterly brutalizing most enemies, which she showed off to Laika as a demonstration of her power by performing a variant of Rapid-Fire Fisticuffs involving one-handedly finger-flicking an entire herd of slimes to death faster than Laika could see.
  • In the Mediochre Q Seth Series, skilled necromancers can connect to someone's life force with a single touch. Very skilled necromancers can make this into a full-blown Touch of Death.
  • In the Vorkosigan Saga short story "Labyrinth", Miles Vorkosigan demonstrates the power of a single finger to Super-Soldier Taura, by having her use just one finger to turn up the temperature settings on Baron Ryoval's genetic sample storage freezers, from deep freeze, to the "sterilize for cleaning" setting.
    Miles: And the lesson is, it's not how much force you use. It's where you apply it.
  • In Tiamat's Wrath, an alien attack leaves a character in what looks like a vegetative state, until they meet one of their aides and promptly disintegrates them by simply waving their hand in front of that aide, as if they were made from dust loosely held together.

    Live-Action TV 
  • Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Kendra is hypnotized and rendered helpless during her duel with Drusilla, who casually slits her throat with one fingernail.
  • In Kamen Rider 555, villain Kitazaki is not only a badass fighter, but also has the ability to turn everything and everyone he touches into ash.
    • In Kamen Rider in general, the finger poke is the standard move used by protagonist riders on the rare occasion they have to take out a normal human antagonist. The poke is strong enough to instantly knock a guy out.
  • Sylar from Heroes is fond of this. At one point he stands right in the path of an armored truck, and flicks his fingers. It flips spectacularly end over end. Not to mention his preferred method of stealing powers: pointing his finger to slice their skull open with telekinesis.
  • Elliott from Scrubs once sent J.D. across the room just by poking him, demonstrating that she has the finger strength of a rock-climbing jazz pianist.
  • Q from Star Trek usually preface their godlike powers with something innocuous like a snap of the fingers or a random shaking of a hand.
    • The Vulcan nerve pinch. To be fair, it looks easy when Spock does it, but Vulcans are ~3x as strong as humans and the move is based on utilizing their inate psychic abilities to stun the target's nerve system rather than utilizing brute strength.
  • Happy Days: What couldn't Fonzie do with a snap of his fingers?
  • In the Doctor Who serial "Survival", Sergeant Patterson is constantly banging on about his self-defence classes, and at one point calls after the Doctor: "One finger can be a deadly weapon!" Later on, the Doctor subdues him by tapping his forehead with, yes, one finger.
  • Deliberately invoked by Michael Weston for the cover identity "Louis" in Burn Notice. Sure, it takes advance planning and careful timing, but when he blows stuff up with a finger snap, he goes from kook in a fancy suit to terrifying quasi-supernatural figure.
  • In The Avengers (1960s) episode "The Positive Negative Man", just a touch from the villain's finger can literally knock a person through a wall. Of course, he's electrically charged.
  • Played with in an episode of The Monkees when Peter seemingly knocks out the bad guys by "shooting" at them with his finger. They really just happened to pass out at the exact moment Peter did that (from a drugged drink), but because it's The Monkees, it could have made perfect (non)sense even without the drink.
  • In Lois & Clark, Superman gets into a boxing match with a bio-engineered fighter. The fighter actually manages to hurt Superman with a barrage of punches, but Superman answers back with a finger-flick to the fighter's forehead, which knocks him out.
  • Supergirl (2015): In "Bunker Hill", Kara takes care of one of Agent Liberty's goons by rushing up to him and flicking him in the forehead. He was a normal human so some serious restraint was called for.
  • Titans (2018): In "Troubled Water," Superboy quells a rioter he has pinned to the ground this way, combining with Tap on the Head. He cocks back a fist, hesitates, and extends one finger before jabbing the man in the back of the head.

    Manhua 
  • One Old Master Q strip has the titular character inexplicably developing super-flicking powers, sending a guy several times his size flying aside with a single flick.

    Pro Wrestling 
  • The Trope Namer comes from the January 4, 1999 episode of WCW Monday Nitro. Kevin Nash, former lackey to Hulk Hogan, leader of the nWo WolfPac (the original nWo split up, with both sides fighting for supremacy), and current World Heavyweight Champion was main-eventing with Goldberg for the world title. Out of nowhere, Goldberg was arrested on bogus stalking charges. (It was originally going to be a false rape charge, but Goldberg objected to it backstage.) Nash calls out to the now-"retired" Hulk Hogan and challenges him to a match instead, putting the belt on the line. Hogan answers the challenge and gingerly walks down to the ring. Hogan pokes Nash in the chest with his finger. Nash goes down like he's been hit by a shotgun blast, Hogan covers him for three and then Nash gets up and hugs Hogan, along with their buddies. The nWo is whole once more, and Goldberg is immediately set upon by their combined forces when he makes his return from jail. If it sounds like this episode of Nitro was hastily re-written by some of its actors, you are most likely right. Fingerpokes of Doom (or "laying down for the pin") have since had strong negative connotations in pro wrestling.
    • In the fallout of the "match", Nash boasted to the press that if anyone else been on the receiving end, "it would have killed them!" Nobody was amused.
    • According to Dave Meltzer, the whole thing was a "work" between the duo wherein Nash would discredit Hogan backstage (the midcard wrestlers, like the viewerbase, were beginning to have doubts about Hogan's commitment), thereby generating support for Nash once he eventually took over as booker. In return, Nash would lay down for Hogan...? In any case, Goldberg was safetly buried, Nash never jobbed to Goldberg, Hogan got the title, the status quo was preserved, and Mick Foley caused half a million viewers to change the channel and begin WCW's downfall.
  • A much older variation more inline with examples in other folders is to attempt a pin fall by simply placing a toe or finger on a downed wrestler's chest. This shows the arrogance of the perpetrator, the lack of respect they have for the competition, and/or how severely the downed athlete has been beaten. These almost never work, by the way, but Chris Jericho and Kazuchika Okada keep trying (even after the latter nearly lost to Dalton Castle because of it).
  • Shawn Michaels lost the European title to Triple H in December 1997. After several minutes of theatrical stalling, Hunter gently pushes Shawn over, Shawn falls to the canvas like he'd been hit with a ton of bricks, Hunter runs the ropes back and forth across the ring for an absurdly long time, then drops the weakest splash in wrestling history on an immobile Shawn and covers him to win the title. This match gets a pass for a few reasons: they had something that at the very least "resembled" a match, it was for a tertiary title instead of a world title (and a tertiary title that didn't even exist before February of that year), it made sense in kayfabe for them to act this way, and the match got played up like the joke that it was. In-universe, Sgt. Slaughter had put HHH and HBK in a match to try and create tension between them and potentially cause a split-up of D-Generation X. However, Helmsley and Michaels figured out what Slaughter was planning, and mocked him by having an intentionally silly match, even cutting incredibly hammy promos when Hunter won. The result was screamingly hilarious, and played as such.
  • The Face–Heel Turn of "Mr. Wonderful" Paul Orndorff, when he betrayed Hulk Hogan ... Orndorff's delayed run-in to save Hogan from a beat-down by Big John Studd and King Kong Bundy involved two very obvious light Orndorff haymakers easily downing the two heels, who immediately crawled out of the ring (as opposed to at least taking the blows and trying to fight back). And then Orndorff helped Hogan to his feet, raised his arm that things were OK ... and the clothesline and piledriver that ended a friendship.
  • Bound For Glory is supposed to be the biggest TNA event of the year. So how do they follow on October 14th, 2010? A two hour edition of Impact with only sixteen minutes of wrestling, the first match in nearly an hour being a finger poke of doom match between Madison Rayne and her lackey, Tara, who gave up the Knockouts title belt she won at said biggest event of the year.
  • Eric Young and TNA Television Champion Gunner thought it would be a great idea to recreate the Finger Poke Of Doom, Eric Young's gimmick being that of an idiot, with Gunner in the role of Hulk Hogan and Eric in the role of Nash - but then Young pinned Gunner instead, proving not even Young was that dumb.
  • During the battle royal to determine the World Wrestling League's first Heavyweight Champion, Bobby Lashley eliminated Hércules Gómez with a finger poke to the shoulder while Gómez was on the apron, celebrating the elimination of Colt Cabana. This wasn't the end of the match, thankfully.
  • Ethan Carter III forced Earl Hebner and his son Brian to participate in a Finger Poke of Doom match to increase his undefeated streak in TNA.
  • Invoked by Radiant Rain in SHINE Wrestling, to prove Ivelisse Vélez would never try to beat her even if Rain's title belt was on the line by poking Ivelisse in the chest during their title match. There was a collective Oh, Crap! from Valkyrie when Rain got cradled when she went to pin Velez.(Unlike Gunner, Rain at least kicked out)
  • During Ring of Honor's 2016 Reloaded tour, World Champion Adam Cole announced that either Nick or Matt Jackson would become number one contender by winning the Honor Rumble in Lockport, NY, after which he would defend the belt in his home state of Florida, promising success via finger poke of doom.

    Roleplay 

    Tabletop Games 
  • In Vampire: The Masquerade, there was actually a special Discipline ability for high-level Potence users called Flick, where with a casual touch — a flick, a nudge, a gentle push — you could send someone flying. It was noted to be useful in Elysiums where the rules against Discipline use were a bit lax, as it would be quite humiliating for the target.
  • Werewolf: The Apocalypse has Falling Touch, a gift available to even low-level PCs.
  • While spontaneous magic in Mage: The Awakening requires nothing but willpower, rote spells have special hand symbols called mudras that are required when cast. A casual tap on the nose might be the mudra for setting you on fire. It's possible to learn rotes that use other bodily motions (the book specifically mentions facial mudras), but they need to be learned separately from hand-mudra rotes, which are treated as the default.
  • In Rifts cyborgs can have a small laser installed int their pinky that does 1 point of Mega damage. This is enough to kill anyone who isn't wearing armor, though admittedly, so is a stiff breeze in that game.
  • In "Heroes and Monsters of the Millenium", a Mega Crossover conversion set for the Angel RPG, the strongest listed attack, inflicting 3E12 damage (That's scientific notation there), is a finger-poke from Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann.
  • Dungeons & Dragons:
    • The finger of death spell, where you point at someone and they die. Somewhat hilariously animated in Dungeons & Dragons Online, where a black hand appears above the target and pokes downward.
    • The monk class, starting at Level 15, has the Quivering Palm class feature. It's a harmless touch attack that makes the victim drop dead if the monk wills it at any time within a certain time frame.
  • In Scion, this effect is created by the Epic Strength knack "Making It Look Easy." The knack's in-game effect is that it allows you to split your dice pool to perform multiple Epic Strength actions in a single round, something not usually allowed by the rules, because they're just that simple for you.
  • The Champions splatbook The Ultimate Brick, which explores the wonderful world of Super-Strength and how to use it, features two of these. One, the "Finger-Flick to the Forehead", is a massive attack that is limited to non-lethal damage, and guaranteed to render any non-Nigh-Invulnerable foe unconscious. The second, named coincidentally the "Finger-Poke of Doom", is rather more messy, and consists of the super-strong character literally ramming one of his fingers into the chest of his opponent as if it were a knife blade.

    Video Games 
  • The original Destroy All Humans! has many instances of this. Most infamously is the Psychokinesis ability, which has the power to kill a human in even the slightest nudge with it. Sometimes, the pedestrian may kill themselves trying to get back up. The developers may have known about this and patched it in the second game, although this leads to the pedestrians being practically immune to falling from large heights.
  • Godhand employs this trope with the Poke of God, although you'll need to whittle an enemy's health to near nothing for it to work. Still, it can even make demons explode. Specifically, this move can ONLY be performed on demons, WHEN they have only a sliver of life left, AND they are in dizzy status. So, technically, yes, any other move would kill them at this point too. On the other hand, the Poke of God is a guaranteed instant death attack and gives invulnerability frames like any other reaction command, so it's actually probably the best move to use IF you have somehow fulfilled the criteria for using it. The criteria for using it make the move generally Awesome, but Impractical, though.
  • Subverted occasionally in Worms. The "Prod" attack is reserved for the most humiliating defeats of all. It deals no damage, and is reserved for pushing enemies off the edge of a cliff — something that most other weapons can do anyway (although it may still have a niche when you want to conserve ammunition, or avoid getting caught in the blast, or even when a more powerful weapon might send them safely past the hazard). But it can also be modified in the weapons editor to force enemies through the sky with 100% damage in some games (Armageddon for example).
  • Super Smash Bros. has a few instances of this. Jigglypuff possesses an attack called "Rest", which at first appears to be Exactly What It Says on the Tin, sending Jigglypuff to sleep and rendering it inert for several seconds. However, if initiated while the center of Jigglypuff's body is touching another character, it is an extremely potent attack.
    • Peach can pull up turnips to throw around at things. Most of these are about effective a weapon as one would expect turnips to be. Occasionally, however, she will pull up an extremely potent turnip, or yet more rarely, a Bob-omb or a Beam Sword.
    • Luigi's taunt, one of the few damaging ones in the game, does exactly 1% damage, with him doing a slow, bashful kick to the ground that knocks someone a fixed distance into the air, regardless of damage. If using it on someone holding onto a ledge, however, it becomes a potent (if impractical) Meteor Move. If otherwise combined with his Final Smash, not only is the target helpless to react, but it will knock out just about anyone at very low percentages of damage.
    • One of Master Hand's moves is a literal finger poke of doom. Granted, the finger in question is abnormally large.
  • Each class in Team Fortress 2 has several seemingly harmless taunt moves, at least one of which causes instant death if it's aimed perfectly. The Pyro, for example, can do a mini-Kamehame Hadoken, producing a tiny fireball, which incinerates you if you're right in front of him (but otherwise does nothing). The Heavy has a literal Fingerpoke Of Doom: by miming a Quick Draw shot with his fingers, he can make an enemy drop dead from a good distance away.
  • BlazBlue has Azrael with his Distortion Drive "Scud Punishment," in which he does a super-powered push with his two fingers. Not only does it deal heavy damage, but leaves the opponent with two weak spots on, leaving the opponent MUCH worse for wear.
  • In the final battle of Persona 3 the main character, after being blasted repeatedly with the very essence of Death, heals himself with The Power of Friendship and raises his index finger to seal away the physical incarnation of the end of the world.
  • In Persona 4, the main character defeats Izanami-no-Okami by summoning Izanagi-no-Okami — her husband How does he do this? After crushing his tarot card, he raises a single finger. When Izanagi-no-Okami appears, he simply points at Izanami-no-Okami. Everything dies.
  • Street Fighter:
    • Normally, Sakura has the Cherry Tapping version this as her taunt: depending on the game, it may or may not be able to defeat her opponent, but it's able to damage them regardless. It's best used during Custom Combos, where it can actually hit the enemy multiple times. However, EX 3 extends this move into an actual Finger Poke of Doom, costing 3 super levels and causing her to leisurely skip towards the opponent and point and laugh at them... causing them to be blasted across the screen and lose most of their health if it connects, in addition to it being unblockable.
    • Chun-Li's taunt, her bowing and extending her hand, if performed in X-Men vs Street Fighter and if her hand touches her opponent, sends them flying across the screen. Very little damage is done, less than with a jab, but it's still over the top.
    • Gen's entire punch specials and supers are of the pressure point variety.
    • Abigail does this with his forward throw, where he grabs the opponent, uses his arm to hold them by the neck, and flicks them in the face, sending them flying.
  • Marvel vs. Capcom 3:
    • Galactus' method of forcing you to switch characters (the Snap Back move) is flicking your current fighter away with one of his fingers, when he's not zapping Power Cosmic at you with a fierce point.
    • Phoenix Wright has a very potent finger poke when in Turnabout mode, but what else would you expect from a character known for Giving Someone the Pointer Finger?
      Phoenix: Contradiction! That's illegal! See you in court!
  • The Final Fantasy series:
    • In every game from V (where they debuted) to XIII (where they turned into full-fledged Lightning Bruisers), you may encounter a creature known as a Tonberry. Aside from its unusually high HP, it seems utterly pitiful at first. It's small and (by monster standards) adorable. Its weapon of choice is a kitchen knife, in a universe where ridiculously large swords and deadly magic spells are the norm. On top of all that, it's slow; it must spend several turns at the beginning of battle just walking up to you before it can attack (the vast majority of foes can attack right away). So naturally, the first time a player ever encounters one, they may assume that it's a joke enemy, and pummel away with melee attacks.
      And then, the Tonberry reaches your Lightning Bruiser main hero, thrusts its cute little knife at his leg once... and said hero dies instantly.
      Needless to say, every player learns to take this little guy very seriously after that. Oh, but it gets worse. Rarely is the Tonberry the most deadly and tenacious monster in the game; that honor goes to its upgraded versions, the Don Tonberry / Tonberry King.
  • Sonic Battle: There are certain combo programs, one for each character, that are essentially One Hit KOs. While it usually looks like Cherry Tapping, Cream's actually looks like a literal (repeated) Fingerpoke Of Doom.
  • K' and Kula from The King of Fighters series have an attack where they stick out one finger and then clench a fist, the good ol' Bruce Lee One Inch. If it connects, it can throw the opponent so hard they bounce off the far edge of the screen (depending on what the opponent was doing when they got hit).
  • In Wu-Tang: Shaolin Style, Inspectah Deck makes his opponent's head asplode by touching it as a Fatality.
  • Pyramid Head in Silent Hill 2 has a One-Hit Kill Headbutt of Doom and Knife Poke of Doom, and he can kill you with a Touch of Death if you're low on health.
  • Kitana and Tanya's Kiss of Death Fatality in the Mortal Kombat series.
  • In Valkyrie Profile, mages in the party can only perform actions once every few turns until their CT/Mana/etc return. You can eventually allocate skill points to a technique called "wait reaction" which allows them a weak attack until they recharge. The attack is from a puny bird (or mini-dragon for the wizards). No enemy can withstand the attack of this bird. It doesn't do much damage, but it is unblockable, causes the enemy to flinch, and leaves them wide open for every warrior in the group to unleash a world of pain. Even the bipedal zombie dragon warrior who can block almost all physical attacks unless you actively attempt to break it will not block it.
  • Happens in Asura's Wrath, with the final phase of the first boss trying to do this to Asura. Said boss is bigger than planet Earth, and his finger is the size of Tennessee. It fails.
    • Happens again in a flashback where Asura has sent one of the elephant Gohma flying towards Augus: he just smirks and flicks it away with his thumb with his arms crossed, reducing it to A Twinkle in the Sky.
    • Chakravartin the Creator is able to stop Destructor Asura's punch with his finger, then breaking his remaining Destructor arms with said finger.
  • In the Doom games, lower enemies can sometimes be gibbed with melee attacks, even without the Berserk item.
  • In the original Halo: Combat Evolved, simply being tapped by a vehicle at any speed caused instant death. This was mostly removed in subsequent Halo games, though there are sometimes complaints about this happening only to teammates due to funky collision detection.
  • In the the Gears of War 3 DLC "RAAM's Shadow", players controlling General RAAM can direct his Kryll shield with a point of a finger and turn enemy Gears into a fine, bloody paste. There's even an achievement called "Finger of Doom" if you kill fifty Gears with your Kryll.
  • Fist of the North Star: Ken's Rage makes Fudoh a playable character in its Updated Re-release, with moves focusing on his Stout Strength. One of his best moves is an unblockable Limit Break which amounts to flicking a person in the face and sending them sailing across the room. This works on everyone. Yes, this means Fudoh may casually send any of the setting's many badasses sailing into the distance with a flick of his finger, and they're going to be feeling it when he does so. He even gives a jolly laugh while performing the attack.
  • Tekken:
    • In most games in the series, most incarnations of Jack have had a move called Dark Cutter, which when performed causes him to take three steps forward before tapping the opponent on the forehead with his index finger. It's unblockable and among his harder hitting attacks (though it's so slow and obvious it's Cool, but Inefficient).
    • Tekken 8: Newcomer Azucena's rage art is a series of punches that ends with her flicking her opponent on the forehead and sending them flying.
  • In Monster Rancher Golems have a flick attack where they merely flick their fingers on the opponent, and like all golem attacks it hits hard, though not as much as some of their other, less accurate attacks. Justified since golems are huge and made of rock.
  • GoldenEye (1997)'s multiplayer feature has License to Kill, a mode in which everyone dies with one hit. It also has the "Slappers Only" weapon option, which limits players to using basic melee attacks only. Combining the two leads to this trope.
  • Montana's melee attack in Battleborn is to flick the enemy with his finger.
  • Aganos of Killer Instinct has a finger flick attack. Predictably, it does minimal damage, but it has the unique function of being able to destroy projectiles.
  • In Evolution: The World of Sacred Device and its sequel, Mag Launcher has the "Magna Snap" skill, in which he uses his Cyframe to poke a group of enemies for damage.
  • Guilty Gear
    • In Guilty Gear Xrd, Kum Haehyun's Instant Kill has her paralyze the opponent with her Tuning ability, then flick them in the forehead while they're helpless.
    Haehyun: I have tuned your surroundings, down to its very core. Everything that governs you and your environment is now under my command... In your current state, I reckon even a child could flick you to defeat.
    • Series regular Potemkin has the move "F.D.B." Which is simply him flicking his index finger. But since Potemkin literally weighs a full ton and is over 8 feet tall, that flick packs a wallop so big he can reflect projectiles with it.

    Webcomics 

    Web Videos 
  • Suburban Knights:
    • Malachite finger flicks Spoony enough to send him orbiting around the world. Twice.
    • In a more parodic example, when The Nostalgia Critic's team was reunited with That Dude in the Suede, Suede effectively let Critic do this so they could move on and catch up.
      Suede: Oh, but first you must defeat me in mortal combat.
      Critic: What?
      Suede: Oh, touch my sword. [Critic touches their swords together] Oh, I am defeated, Let's get out of here.

    Western Animation 
  • Numerous Avatar: The Last Airbender examples. Physical actions are required for bending to work, but it appears that the stronger you are, the less movement it takes.
    • Toph usually does something like this by stamping her foot.
    • Bumi can also do some decent bending with only his chin.
    • Ozai can generate lightning pretty much instantaneously, whereas other firebenders are shown to spend several seconds charging it up first.
    • In a non-bending example, though it wasn't exactly a formidable opponent, Aang was once in a fight where he soundly thrashed his attacker with a polite expression on his face, and the only physical contact was with his butt.
  • In one episode of Darkwing Duck, an alien villain is an expert at "Galvarin galactic digit fighting", which is thumb-wrestling raised to the level of a martial art.
  • In the animated adaption of Dilbert, Dilbert attends a security guard training class, and is about to learn how to harm someone with only a thumb. He finds this hard to believe, but then his teacher convinces him that it is possible, when he accidentally hurts himself with his thumb.
  • Batman: The Brave and the Bold:
    • In "Return of the Fearsome Fangs!", the transformed totem characters fling each other across the horizon with casual pokes. Hell, Batman (Man-Bat?) disintegrates a huge mystic boat with a lazy tap.
    • In the "The Power of Shazam!", this happens twice. After stealing Captain Marvel's power, a villain shows off by knocking Batman to the ground with a flick of his fingers. When the villain loses his power soon after, Captain Marvel does the same trick.
  • Superman loves this: he occasionally knocks people out with only a flick of his finger.
  • In the Batman: The Animated Series episode "Day of the Samurai", Batman travels to Japan to prevent Kyoudai Ken from learning a secret martial art capable of killing a person with one blow. Said technique is called the O-nemuri Touch, where the practitioner jabs someone in a specific area of the chest and kills them instantly. Batman only survives the encounter by studying Kyoudai's practice dummy, finding the spot that had been poked repeatedly, and adding an armor plate beneath his suit.
  • Invader Zim, quite literally...
    "And now we return to our movie, Poke of Doom!"
    "Can't you see this woman has severe pokey trauma?!"
  • In Transformers: Animated, Lugnut's P.O.K.E. invokes this In Name Only, as it stands for Punch Of Kill Everything.
  • Celebrity Deathmatch has "The Man Who Puts Pinkies Through Skulls" who did just that.
  • Mighty Mouse casually flicks away alien cats with his finger without breaking so much as a sweat in "Goons From The Moon" (1951).
    • In "Spare the Rod", the leader of a gang of delinquent mice dares Mighty Mouse (disguised as a boy scout) to knock the chip off his shoulder. Mighty instead knocks the kid from under the chip with one flick of his finger.
  • Steven Universe: The Diamonds are so huge and physically powerful that they can poof a normal Gem with one of these.
  • In Miraculous Ladybug, thanks to circumstances leaving Adrien in distress and unable to transform into Cat Noir, Plagg arrives in the nick of time to help Ladybug in her time of need during "Style Queen". Here, it's established that Kwamis are able to use their powers without a human partner, but Kwamis need the latter to act as a Power Limiter. So when Plagg uses Cataclysm... he devastates Paris with a light tap to the floor. And it's implied that Plagg was holding back.
  • In the season 2 finale of The Owl House, the Collector decides to engage in a game of tag with Belos after the latter betrayed them. They poke his forehead once, and send him into a wall with enough force to splatter him into a pile of necrotic goop.
  • An episode of Star Wars: The Clone Wars sees Ahsoka killed with a poke to the forehead by The Son.
  • The Ghost and Molly McGee: Wraith Molly kills The Chairman with her ability, turning anything negative to joy. Seeing as how he's a being a pure negativity, a single "boop" is enough to completely reduce him to a pile of flowers on the floor.

    Real Life 
  • It's possible for something like this to happen in real life if you get hit in the right spot at the right angle with even a little bit of force. Doing so will compress the medulla oblongata and result in a knock out.
  • The martial art concept of pressure-point striking involves poking enemies in specific areas that will hurt far more than the enemy would expect.
  • Carotid massage is a simple procedure where an individual massages over the carotid sinus in the neck, causing a drop in blood pressure as the arteries relax. This is done very gently for five seconds. The physiology is a bit beyond TV Tropes. Urban legend says doing this bilaterally can cause almost anyone to die from cardiac problems, but most people will have no adverse effects. A few individuals may faint or collapse if this is done to them. And a tiny fraction of the population can suffer asystole, or "flatline." Do not experiment on this one.
  • This is the basis for the diving tactic in Association Football, in which in an attempt to get a free kick, penalty or other advantage, players will - after being gently touched by someone on the opposing team - feign being horrendously injured and throw themselves on the ground, hence the name. Not only is this considered both bad sportsmanship and tantamount to cheating, but diving reached such an epidemic status that several regulation bodies have gone as far as to sanction players or even whole teams to keep them out of tournaments for repeatedly attempting dives.
  • Anti Matter: A few grams of antimatter would release an amount of energy comparable to nuclear bombs when coming into contact with normal matter. Which is the reason why there has never been any observation of more than a few particles for fractions of a second.
  • Bruce Lee gave many demonstrations of a One Inch Punch, which is Exactly What It Says on the Tin. He would have a volunteer stand near him, fully extend his arm to place his fist one inch away from the volunteer's chest, and knock the volunteer completely off his feet with a simple turn of his body. It's worth noting however that it's not just a punch thrown willy-nilly at an inch's distance, it's a whole body motion as noted at the end there. Throwing a one-inch punch whilst lying down for example, won't do much good as you have zero leverage and no capacity to draw upon the considerable muscles in your legs and upper body (something MythBusters had experimented with and failed). Observing any of the rare videos of Bruce himself doing this make it all the more visible; the power comes from his legs and he carries it through his fist.
  • This is used jokingly in the Thousand-Pound Thumb: where you press down on someone as hard as you can with your thumb. Subverted in that it's not actually your thumb, but your entire arm that applies the force.
  • Less "of doom", but still fun with a single finger. Due to the way the human skeletal-muscular system works, it is very difficult to stand from a seated position without first leaning the upper body forward (or pushing oneself up with the arms). It is therefore possible to keep a person seated with as little as a finger pressed against their forehead. It's not going to keep someone restrained in a fight, but you can have fun "showing off your strength" with your friends.

 
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Raoh defies Rei's final attack

During the climax of their fight, both Raoh and Rei use techniques that will kill each other, simultaneously dying... or so it would seem - Raoh visualised these events in his head, and by using his cape to block Rei's vision, stops his plan dead in its tracks with one decisive finger poke!

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