Feather Fingers: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

{{quote|''"Hey, I'm '''trying''' to pass the potatoes! My forelimbs are as useless as yours!"''|'''A T. Rex''', ''[[The Far Side]]''}}

But because [[Most Writers Are Human|Most Animators Are Human]], they have a tendency to fall back on making the very different anatomy of animal characters -- even those who [[Talking Animal|aren't, strictly speaking, anthropomorphic]] -- do things they'd be physically incapable of in order to closely mimic human actions. Therefore, every animal forelimb, no matter how little it resembles a human hand, is prehensile.

There is a variant of this trope in which thumbs appear on the front paws of many cats and dogs (and sometimes other animals) when grasping something or gesturing, but disappear when the front paws are just used for four-legged walking or otherwise in a default pose.

== [[Anime]] and [[Manga]] ==

** Which is kinda funny since even big cats can sheath their claws. Usually only doing big stretches do claws automatically pop out.

* Perhaps justified in ''[[One Piece]]'', in which Tony Tony Chopper, the Devil Fruit-enabled human-reindeer has obvious hooves, but never seems to have any trouble doing human tasks that would seem to require hands, even play [http://onepiece.wikia.com/wiki/Hito_Hito_no_Mi#Trivia Rock Paper Scissors].

== Film ==

== [[Literature]] ==

== [[Tabletop Game]] ==

* [[Yu-Gi-Oh Card Game|Neo-Spacian]] [http://yugioh.wikia.com/wiki/Neo-Spacian_Air_Hummingbird Air Hummingbird] avoids feather fingers by having his [[Winged Humanoid|wings come out of his back]]. He has talon hands instead.

** Then again, this is in line with some of the films, in which Ghidora's heads are essentially hand puppets.

* The [[Everything Is Better With Penguins|penguins]] in ''[[Runescape]]'' have no fingers. So in the quest where you have to teach them to make music (for the National Anthem, no less), you have to make instruments that does not require fingers. You end up with a cowbell and a bongo.

** And then on the subject of the actual movie, the trope is played around with. Rafiki being a monkey, he does have real hands. Zazu sometimes gestures with his wings, which sometimes become hand-like, but at least he doesn't pick anything up with them. The lions use their dewclaws as thumbs, sometimes using them as hands. This is most obvious with Scar, as seen when he's tormenting a mouse (he even raises his pinky!) and in his [[Villain Song]]. Timon the meerkat is a bit odd. Meerkats in real life have very long, black claws at the ends of their stubby beige paws, so the animators gave Timon perfectly humanoid hands with black fingers to represent these. He pretty much always walks upright; from the waist up he uses his hands like a human would, both grasping and gesturing often.

* Averted with [[Owl Be Damned|Lechuku and Nechkuku]] in ''[[Okami]]''. While their outfits do have kimono-style sleeves for the wings, they also have a set of more humanoid arms for holding their weapons, and one of their attacks involves them grabbing Amaterasu with their hindclaws like a normal owl.

* [[Embarrassing First Name|Pecker]] in the ''[[Jak and Daxter]]'' series might be a justified example, as he is a [[Mix and Match Critter]] known as a "monkaw," a monkey/macaw hybrid.

* Jet the Hawk, Storm the Albatross, and Wave the Swallow in ''[[Sonic the Hedgehog]]'' have the same cartoon arms everyone else does in the series, with no obvious wings in sight. Meanwhile, Rouge the Bat has both arms ''and'' wings, presumably because combining them would look strange.

** [http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Farfetch%27d_%28Pok%C3%A9mon%29 Farfetch'd].

** Inverted with Lugia; by all appearances, instead of having feather fingers, it has finger feathers!

== [[Web Comics]] ==

* ''[[I Am Not an Animal]]'' is a British animation about a bunch of superintelligent animals who are released from a research facility. The nominally smartest of them, a horse, is mortified that he can't put on his pants by himself now he's outside the research facility. He uses magnets on his hooves to hold knives and forks, and the sparrow somehow attaches plastic fingers on sticks to his wings to allow him to type and play keyboard.

* Probably the strangest example would be ''[[My Little Pony Tales]]''. The Ponies are not normally anthropomorphic or human-like in the least; aside from the fact that they talk, they are quadrupedal equines with hooves. And yet, in this series, they live in a human-like 1980s suburbia, and can carry and use objects that have obviously been designed for humans -- sometimes with their teeth (which wouldn't be ''so'' weird except for the fact that there don't seem to be any humans around), but most frequently just by just using their front hooves as if they were hands, and the objects either somehow sticking to them (like pencils or mugs) or just working without any apparent explanation (like guitars or keyboards), without even any attempt at a [[Hand Wave]]. (The original [[My Little Pony]] cartoons kept a couple of humans around for such things, so [[Feather Fingers|Hoof Fingers]] weren't necessary) [[Bellisario's Maxim|Just breathe, just breathe...]]

* Averted -- for the most part -- with the fish in ''[[Finding Nemo]]''. Not so much with Nigel the pelican. His primary feathers are fully rendered in extreme detail, so they are practically a [[Lampshade Hanging]] on how odd this looks.

* Somewhat related is one of the major criticisms directed at ''[[Happy Feet]]''. The result of using motion capture footage of humans to animate penguins tap-dancing [[Uncanny Valley|ends up very strange, due to the wildly different anatomy]].

** Granted, if you pay attention to the anatomy of the "hand" next time you eat chicken wings, it ''does'' look like a mitten... [http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2e/Budgerigar_baby02.jpg sort of]. But play with the Alula ("thumb") a bit and you'll note the range of motion is very restricted.

* In ''[[The Little Mermaid]]'', the fish characters avoid the [[Tailfin Walking]] subtrope for almost the entire movie. Then they start dancing on their tails during "Under the Sea" and it just looks odd. (And, of course, Scuttle is one of the [[Trope Namers]].)

* Dr. Zoidberg on ''[[Futurama]]'' is an lobster-like alien with claws for "hands". Generally he's about as clumsy as you'd expect, occasionally even snapping things he's trying to hold in two. He does manage to write without too much trouble, and in a couple instances actually ''holds a needle and sutures a wound''. That's probably just [[Rule of Funny]], or simply years of practice. (If you had pincers all your life, you'd pick up a few tricks over time.)

* On ''[[Fish Hooks]]'', the characters' fins actually change shape between semi-normal fins and hands.

* Used in one of [[Robot Chicken]]'s shorts parodying the Muppet Show and the Muppet Babies. When the murderer (who happens to be Skooter dressed up as his homicidal sister, Skeeter, to seek bloody vengeance on the other muppets after they drowned her when they were baby muppets and kept it a secret throughout their lives) corners and is ready to kill the remaining muppets Kermit and Miss Piggy, Carmilla the chicken (Gonzo's love interest before he was killed off first) threatens him with a drawn bow and arrow, prompting the incredulous Skooter to call out on this trope: " You can't shoot me! Chickens don't even have fingers!" (is shot dead).

* Most of the cast of ''[[Birdz]]'' has mostly arm-like wings which they use just like normal arms despite also being capable of flight. Strangely, one episode has them bowling with their feet.

* ''[[Scooby Doo]]'' sometimes did this, especially in the earliest cartoons. He would normally walk around on all fours, with very dog-like paws, but when a zany scheme was involved, he'd stand up on his hind legs with no difficulty, and thumbs would mysteriously appear on his front paws.

* ''Family Guy'''s Brian the Dog is perfectly canine in every respect (other than speech and bipedal movement), but he still has hands with thumbs -- but these turn to normal front paws without thumbs when sitting on the floor on all fours like a dog.

** But averted with the Warner Sibs in the few instances that they're standing on four legs. They not only retain their thumbs when they're on four legs, their hands still look like hands on the floor.

* Pooh and Tigger from ''[[Winnie the Pooh]]'' have [[Powerpuff Girl Hands]] with thumbs that appear when they grasp something or gesture.