Having a Heart

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

Stock Phrase/conversation that usually goes something along the lines of this:

"I have the heart of a true hero!" "Really?" "Yeah, I keep it in a jar somewhere."

May substitute other body parts and other locations.

Sometimes features in parodies of Queen Elizabeth I's "I have the body of a weak woman, but the heart and stomach of a king" speech.

Not to be confused with Soul Jar, in which a character keeps his own heart in a jar somewhere to gain immunity from death. If somebody professes to putting some heart into their cooking it just may be Made From Real Girl Scouts. If he gets the heart himself, that's Human Resources.

Examples of Having a Heart include:

Anime and Manga

  • There is a short piece (sixteen pages or so) from a Hentai Doujinshi which initially appears to be about a girl having bondage sex with her boyfriend, whom she's tied to a chair. At the very end it turns out that he's not her boyfriend, but the last "donor" she needs to finish assembling the perfect boyfriend for which she's been collecting parts.

Comic Books

Film

Gomez: He has my father's eyes.
Morticia: Gomez, take those out of his mouth.

  • The first Hot Shots movie: "I have my father's eyes."
  • Played with in The Wizard of Oz, obviously.
  • Re-Animator was advertised with the Tagline: "Herbert West has a very good head on his shoulders . . . and another one in a dish on his desk!"
  • Might be implied in Repo! The Genetic Opera. Mag comments that Shilo has her (dead) mother's eyes and... hair. It is common for people to be compared to their parents that way... except for that Shilo, because of her treatment, wears a wig.
  • In Dr. Giggles, this is one of the dark jokes made by the villainous doctor. "Have a heart! *tosses a real human heart at someone*"

Humor

  • A (less squicky) variant in this joke:

Junior walks into the kitchen and asks his mother, "Mom, you know how you said that my new baby sister has your eyes and Dad's nose?"
"Yes," the mother answers. "What about it?"
"Well, now she has Granddad's teeth!"

Literature

  • Terry Pratchett loves this trope.
    • "People said Nobby had the body of a 20-year old, only no one knew where he had hidden it..."
    • Vimes, in Discworld's Night Watch, is told that he has "the eye of a mass murderer". When his younger self asks if it's true, he says "In the pocket of my other suit, yes."
    • Taken to the logical extreme in Discworld by the Igors. What goes around comes around.
  • "The Warlock's Hairy Heart" from The Tales of Beedle the Bard.
  • In A Song of Ice and Fire, Tyrion was having a bad day. The maester tried to cheer him up by saying "take heart", but a cranky Tyrion simply said "Whose?"

Live-Action TV

  • On The Drew Carey Show, Mimi is described as having a crying little girl deep inside her...and it's giving her indigestion.
  • One Benny Hill gag featured a family cooing over a baby while saying things like "he's got his father's nose". Then Benny says "Never should have given him that bloody penknife" (paraphrase). End of sketch.
  • Attention Scum: "I have the eyes of a hawk, the legs of a cheetah, and the cock of a hippopotamus! All I need now is some glue."
  • In Kamen Rider Dragon Knight, Kamen Rider Strike uses this as an insult towards Sting, a wannabe Marine with asthma:

"You've got heart, kid...but no lungs!"

  • In a MythBusters test involving human skulls, the team has difficulty locating one. Eventually Adam brings in his father's skull... meaning, the narrator quickly states, a skull his father owns.

Music

I hold your hand in mine, dear,
I press it to my lips.
I take a healthy bite
From your dainty fingertips.
My joy would be complete, dear,
If you were only here,
But still I keep your hand
As a precious souvenir.

    • As well as his "Masochism Tango":

At your command
Before you here I stand,
My heart is in my hand, ...ecch...
It's here that I must be.

  • Jimmy Buffett's "Schoolboy Heart." It starts out with puns ("I've got a schoolboy heart, a novelist's eye ...") but ends with Buffett speculating on how such diverse parts must have been assembled by demented aliens from the dismembered corpses of shipwrecked sailors.

Tabletop Games

  • From Duel Masters, this is the card description for a creature called Gigabolver: It looks like a hideous monster, but there's really a sweet little girl deep down inside. In its stomach.

Toys

Tarix:You have to admit- For a Jungle type, he has guts.
Strakk: Yes. And I think we're about to see them.

Video Games

Membrillo: The secret to my happiness, Manuel, is I have the heart of a twelve year old child. I keep it in a jar over here. Would you like to see it?
Manny: No.
Membrillo: Sorry, old coroner joke.

Kochamara: Fine, take control of this freaky toad! I don't need him to nab children for me anymore. I've got the brain of a little girl (Raz begins to laugh) back in my lab that's strong enough to power a whole army of psycho-blaster death tanks- (he finally realizes Raz is laughing) What?!
Raz: You've got the brain of a little girl?
Kochamara: I said: In my lab!
Raz: I think you've got the muscles of a little girl, too!
Kochamara: Grrr... Good one.

  • Apparently, Tim Schafer (the designer of both Grim Fandango and Psychonauts above) likes this joke as much as Terry Pratchett. His Emperor Doviculus from Brutal Legend literally keeps enemies' body parts within his own body, e.g. Drowned Ophelia's heart, however briefly. Also, if you lose the final battle against him, the game gives us a Nonstandard Game Over where he quips "You have your mother's eyes. And soon, so shall I... On a necklace, I think." before shoving his fingers into Eddie's eye sockets.
  • Samurai Shodown IV has a variation of this in a post-battle-quote for Bust-Jubei: "You've got guts. Pick them up!"
  • Terry Bogard in King of Fighters '95 also indulges into this: "You had guts, kid. Now wipe 'em off the pavement!"
  • Rokhan in Warcraft III offers this unit response gem: "I've lost me head! It was about, ah, yea big, I was keeping in on my spear. If you find it let me know."
  • A conversation in X-Men Legends 2 goes something like this:

"Sabretooth has a good heart!"
"That's only because he ripped it out of someone else."

  • There is one mission in Grand Theft Auto IV called "Have a Heart", in which Niko, under Elizabeta's orders, has to take the shot-dead bodies of Manny and his cameraman to a doctor-slash-organ dealer, falling more under this trope than what one could expect.
  • From Radiant Historia: "After he'd spilled his guts, well... he spilled his guts."
  • One of the opening lines from the Combat Commentators in Fossil Fighters: Champions is along the lines of "One fighter will emerge with the heart of a champion --IN HIS TEETH!"

Web Comics

Web Original

Western Animation

  • Batman: The Brave And The Bold has Scarlet Scarab doing this.
    • He's evil alternate Jaime Reyes Blue Beetle, and the line is "I've got the heart of a real hero!" while talking to himself. Batman (skulking through the shadows) pricks his ears up. "I keep it in a jar in my closet." Batman is not amused.
  • The Simpsons Halloween episode, they had Kodos and Kang saying they had the hearts (splat!) and minds (plop!) of the Earth people.
  • In Futurama, "Insane in the Mainframe", after Fry recovers from thinking he's a robot, Bender tries to compliment him by saying that even though he's human, he has the heart of a robot, adding "just like inside my cold, hard exterior is the heart of a human." Which he pulls out. Everyone else is disgusted, but Bender just asks "What?"
    • Also, Professor Farnsworth keeps his business plan right next to his heart... which is to say, in a filing cabinet.
  • Robots: Mr. Copperbottom mentions that the newborn Rodney "got your mom's eyes and my dad's nose. I knew we were smart to save those parts."
    • Dr. Doofensmirtz from Phineas and Ferb is somewhat distressed to discover that his alternate-dimensional self wears an eye-patch. They then do this trope in song!

Doof: I thought I'd have both my eyes...
Doof-2: Its in this pouch!
Doof: ...ouch!

Real Life

  • Robert Bloch, who wrote Psycho among other stories, liked to say he had the heart of a little boy...in a jar on his desk.
  • Stephen King has also said that he has the heart of a small boy...in a jar on his desk.
  • An Irish comedian (think his name was Bill Murray)[please verify] once said "I have the body of an eighteen-year-old. I keep it in my fridge."
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