Four-Fingered Hands

Are aversions of Four-Fingered Hands in Western Animation notable enough to be listed? I know that in the classic era of cartoons, it used to be the norm, but cartoons seem to do it less and less these days. For example, The Boondocks is listed as an aversion, but give that the show is Animesque and generally realistic, I wouldnt have expected the characters to have four fingers in the first place.

Edited by antenna_ears on Sep 3rd 2020 at 7:58:40 AM

Aversions in this case can surround creator styles changing with a new work, such as Butch Hartman going from four fingered Fairly Odd Parents to five fingered Danny Phantom.

The specific Boondocks example is iffy, but it references its origins as a comic strip where it does buck the overall trend. By itself it isn't notable but its source material and the medium it comes from is.

I can agree with that, but the thing is The Boondocks comic strip isn't on the page, and I'm thinking that aversion is more notable as comic strips are still dominated by cartoony artstyles with Four-Fingered Hands like Garfield, Foxtrot, etc. edit: speaking of, Garfield isn't in the comic strip folder either, so I'm gonna quickly make an example

Edited by antenna_ears on Sep 3rd 2020 at 10:01:36 AM

This should probably go to the Appearance thread, but I'm not sure "characters have these" encourages good example writing. The well-written examples (see the Monster Cereal and Oreo entries in the Advertising folder specifically) describe some sort of In-Universe discrepancy between four and five fingers.

Link to TRS threads in project mode here.

Ok, I think thats a sign to move this discussion to that thread. Thanks. edit: I just realized that the appearance thread focuses on only one thing at a time. All I want to do here is quickly discuss Four-Fingered Hands, which I consider a relatively minor issue.

Edited by antenna_ears on Sep 4th 2020 at 6:59:31 AM

Maybe No Straight Examples, Please!?

Rock'n'roll never dies!

I consider this to be a stylistic choice like Amazing Technicolor Population or Thick-Line Animation rather than personal appearance like Red Right Hand. Many examples point to robots and aliens as furthering non-human qualities, which means the trope has multiple uses besides just "this shows up."

No straight examples would be pointless because the trope is already pointing to something that is atypical to reality, which would only direct the trope back to being about realistic number of fingers.

Agree, the reason I posted is because I considered aversions to be pointless, not straight examples.

The problem with this "trope" is that it is almost entirely without artistic meaning or intent. As such, it's difficult to come up with examples that have any interesting context.

Straight examples are not allowed because of ubiquity but also because they are boring. "Characters in this work have four-fingered hands." Whoopee. But the aversions are also uninteresting. "Characters in this work have five-fingered hands." Give me a minute to mop up my gushing nosebleed.

Looked at from this perspective, it's a subtrope of a truly PSOC idea: Characters in animated works are depicted with hands and fingers. I know... I wasn't ready either. As with any omnipresent concept, the only examples worth discussing are the ones where it is used in a unique way, played with, or called out.

Edited by Fighteer on Sep 5th 2020 at 6:54:14 AM

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

I think that counts as zig-zagged; "these characters have four fingers because [context], but these characters have five fingers because [context]", so they would still be allowed with a No Straight Examples rule.

Link to TRS threads in project mode here.

Yes, I know this isnt the most exciting thing ever, but I think straight examples should at least be noted, but aversions are usually not noteworthy to me, because people in real life have five fingers, just like how People Sit on Chairs in real life.

Edited by antenna_ears on Sep 5th 2020 at 4:13:43 AM

The only examples should be those that are historically significant or that are played with or called out in some way. This particularly includes lampshade hanging.

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

You know what, looking at things for your perspective, I can somewhat agree. Honestly, would you notice that characters have four fingers instead of five if it was never pointed out? But I still think aversions totally need to go, and thats what Ive decided to focus on cleaning up.

Edited by antenna_ears on Sep 5th 2020 at 4:20:00 AM

I vaguely recall a few trope pages that demand "interesting examples only".

Maybe Four-Fingered Hands should go with it?

We can never truly eradicate the coronavirus, but we can suppress its threat like influenza

Sampling is another example of that.

Rock'n'roll never dies!

All tropes should have "interesting examples". That's not exactly novel. The issue here is that some of these technical and visual tropes (related to art styles, costumes, and other production elements that aren't directly involved in storytelling) don't have much context by their inherent nature. This is where we run into conflicts with our major rule that all examples have adequate context.

That rule is based on the principle that the wiki should be fun to read, not a dry recital of trope names. It may be factually accurate that a work employs Four-Fingered Hands, but unless there's something entertaining to be said, there's no point in enumerating it.

Edited by Fighteer on Sep 5th 2020 at 9:38:55 AM

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

Before we get too far, this isn't exactly a TRS thread so it is straying from the original question.

I understand the aversion to Zero Context Examples, but not every trope has to be earth shattering and different people have different interests (I'm amazed at how expansive our section on pinball games are). Obviously we have limitations (porn, mostly) but the difference between a good and bad trope is often just inserting a list of how this impacts the story, characters or tone.

Appearance tropes are popping up precisely because there are people who love reading about and discussing character designs, wardrobe, hair and makeup topics. Four-Fingered Hands is written as a stylistic choice done for different reasons (easier to animate, differentiate from robots and aliens, heighten an uncomfortable factor) and manifests in different ways (sometimes three fingers, sometimes six).

I don't think interesting context means "earth shattering"; it just means that you'd actually get something interesting out of reading the example. Reading that a cartoon character only has 4 fingers isn't all that interesting, but describing the style, any lampshade hanging, or why the character looks the way they do, that's interesting.

Basically, it's information beyond "trope exists". Why it exists and what impact it has is far more fun to read about.

Edited by WarJay77 on Sep 6th 2020 at 4:50:00 AM

Currently Working On: Incorruptible Pure Pureness

"Why it exists and what impact it has is far more fun to read about."

Primarily, it's because it's less complicated than drawing 5 fingers. (A reasoning that can't be really put in example writing, by the way, because it's more of a Trope in Aggregate)

At least in the west, it has (rightfully) gone through a decline, but not completely - either because of said ease, or just out of habit.

But then the page says another reason - it may denote that the character is not a human (anthropomorphic animals, or aliens, etc). It's actually distinct from the first reasoning... (And, frankly, more interesting to read and explain)

We can never truly eradicate the coronavirus, but we can suppress its threat like influenza

"Less complicated to draw" is only an interesting reason if it is novel for the work in question. When it's the baseline expectation for the trope, it's no longer interesting; it's redundant.

Edited by Fighteer on Sep 6th 2020 at 6:50:19 AM

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

Saying the trope is uninteresting is more personal preference than a trope lacking context or not being notable. Thing is, the trope exists because it is unrealistic and uncommon (used mostly for caricature art styles), non-straight examples are about lampshading how unrealistic it is, so it seems strange to label it as not notable to begin with.

You're conflating "reason this trope exists" with "reason this work uses the trope".

---

This example goes into detail about a conflict created by drawing both four and five fingered hands.

Link to TRS threads in project mode here.

Right, that's what I meant by "Why" the trope happens.

Currently Working On: Incorruptible Pure Pureness

Hey, if more people have a problem with this, even though that wasn't my intention when first posting, I'd be willing to start a TRS.

That is an ideal example. And this wouldn't be the first trope we've designated "omnipresent" such that only significant or played with examples can be added.

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"