Now That's Using Your Teeth: Difference between revisions
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{{trope}}
[[File:
''[[Jimi Hendrix|And Hendrix played guitar with his teeth]]''</poem>|'''Billy and the Boingers''', ''[[Bloom County]]'', "I'm A Boinger"}}▼
Hard as it may be to imagine, having two hands with opposable thumbs can actually be pretty restrictive. For one thing, everybody knows that you can do stuff with your hands. No one in their right mind is going to do something like point a gun at a person's arm, because you're pretty much just begging them to [[Bullet Catch|grab a bullet out of thin air]] and [[
▲{{quote|''[[The Doors|Jimmy dropped his pants]]''<br />
▲''[[Ozzy Osbourne|And Ozzy dines on bats]]''<br />
▲''[[Jimi Hendrix|And Hendrix played guitar with his teeth]]''|'''Billy and the Boingers''', ''[[Bloom County]]'', "I'm A Boinger"}}
▲Hard as it may be to imagine, having two hands with opposable thumbs can actually be pretty restrictive. For one thing, everybody knows that you can do stuff with your hands. No one in their right mind is going to do something like point a gun at a person's arm, because you're pretty much just begging them to [[Bullet Catch|grab a bullet out of thin air]] and [[Right Back At Ya|throw it at you]]. So once a character is sufficiently strong, he needs a new way to catch an opponent off guard, and that means giving him a third arm. And what better place to have a third arm than with those shiny white things in your mouth?
In terms of story and narrative development, this is a fairly popular method of showing a character as being unbelievably strong- at any rate much better at what they do than pretty much any nameless [[Mook]]. In actual practice, this is a trope that usually falls strictly under the domain of [[Rule of Cool]]. Are there people in the world who can use their teeth to do practically anything? Maybe. Teeth are pretty strong, after all, and can exert more force than a hand. Still, one can't help but wonder how those teeth manage to continue to stay pearly white even after they've grabbed every filthy, dangerous, explosive object under the sun. Ah well. [[MST3K Mantra|Best not to dwell on it too much]].
[[Cutlass Between the Teeth]] is a subtrope, when someone uses their mouth to wield a weapon. Contrast [[Biting the Handkerchief]].
See [[Man Bites Man]] for the ''other'' use of the teeth in battle.
{{examples}}
▲== Anime & Manga ==
* In ''[[Detective Conan]]'', it looks like an old man had committed suicide in his room; then Conan deduces that {{spoiler|the victim had his hands bound behind his back, and then the rope that was looped around his neck was also threaded through his teeth so that if he called for help or his jaw gave out he would hang himself}}.
* Ranma Saotome of ''[[Ranma ½]]'' has on many an occasion blocked opponents' attacks with his teeth, most notably against Ryu Kumon.
* In ''[[D.Gray-man]]'', Krory stops Lavi's [[Drop the Hammer|Hammer Drop]] attack (which involves Lavi jumping above him and growing his hammer to roughly the size of a small building) with his teeth. Lavi is duly impressed.
{{quote|''Lavi'': Nice teeth.}}
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** He also bit an Apostle during the Eclipse.
** Then he uses them again against Rosine.
** ... And again against Mozgus's henchmen.
*** Hey: [[Badass|the guy]] has an impressive set of choppers. It'd be a shame if they went to waste.
* In ''[[Michiko to Hatchin]]'', Michiko pulls up a rope with her teeth to save a man from falling to his death while her hands are tied on her back. If that isn't a [[Crowning Moment of Awesome]], I don't know what is.
* [[Battle Butler|Roberta]] from ''[[Black Lagoon]]'' makes use of this trope to catch a thrown knife from Shenhua in mid air with her teeth. She then proceeds to ''shatter it with her teeth'' while giving a giant [[Slasher Smile]]. ''[[Crowning Moment of Awesome|Awesome]]''!
** Heihachi Mishima does much the same thing with a thrown axe in the OAV of [[Tekken]].
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* ''[[Irresponsible Captain Tylor]]'' catches a nail shot from a nailgun in his teeth. If that isn't bad enough, the nailgun actually had enough power to shoot the nails from halfway across a room with enough force to ''pull him out of the way of a falling scaffold and nail his jacket (with him still in it) to a wall several meters away''.
* [[Mahou Sensei Negima]] has Jack Rakan, who {{spoiler|when confronted with knives surrounding his head in his fight with Negi, decides to bite them. The knives SWEAT!}}
* ''[[One Piece]]'',
*
** It's not his teeth that are so strong, it's his jaws, as Luffy comes to find out when he puts a set of Arlong's teeth into his mouth and his one bite attack isn't that strong.
** And recently, The New Fishmen Pirates captain Hody Jones, a Great White Shark fishman, has destroyed a whole pirate crew ''and'' their ship using only his jaws.
*** His crewmate Daruma is a Cookie-Cutter Shark Fishman that threatens to eat offenders. He regularly tunnels underground with them.
** Zoro's unique swordfighting technique, where he fights with a sword held in each hand and a third held with his teeth.
* The 7th from ''[[Mirai Nikki]]'' blocked Yuno's knife with his teeth. Partially justified because he [[Scry vs. Scry|knew it was coming]].
* In a bonus novel for [[
* In the second ''[[Durarara!!]]'' OVA, Shizuo catches a knife (thrown at him by Izaya) with his teeth ''twice'', shattering it one of those times.
* In ''[[Rave Master]]'', Haru catches an arrow with his teeth that an enemy fired at ''point blank range''.
* In one ''Saiyuki'' Reload chapter, {{spoiler|Goku, in his Seiten Taisei form}} catches a bullet by his teeth.
== Comic Books ==
* [[Green Arrow]] has been shown using his teeth to draw back his bowstring when one of his arms is incapacitated.
== Fan Works ==
* One chapter of ''[Yu-Gi-Oh! The Thousand Year Door, Redux]'' starts with Francesca [[Strapped to An Operating Table]]; Ms. Mowz appears and frees her using "The old trick the guy used in 'The Pit and the Pendulum'" claiming it is "One advantage to being a rodent."
== Film ==
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* [[Ichi the Killer|Kakihara]] loves showing off his [[Glasgow Grin]]; in one street fight, he yanks the pins from his cheeks and catches a man's fist in his horribly wide maw. ''Chomp.''
* In ''[[You Don't Mess With The Zohan]]'', when fighting terrorists, Zohan catches two bullets with his hands before catching a third one with his teeth. He then [[Serial Escalation|catches a fourth one with his nose.]] This is all seen as pretty mundane to Zohan.
* Parodied in ''[[UHF (film)|UHF]]'', where the bullet is not only caught with the teeth, but it is then crunched and shot back from the mouth.
== Literature ==
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** As an example, in ''The Ersatz Elevator'' she used them to scale a wall.
** In ''The Miserable Mill'' Sunny actually uses her teeth as pseudo-swords to fight off the villain in a 'swordfight,' and the most impressive thing about it is that they were pretty much equals in the fight, despite the fact that the villain had a longer reach, was using an actual sword, and was fighting a ''baby''.
* In ''[[
* Lincoln Rhyme, in ''[[The Bone Collector]]'' and other novels in the series, is essentially quadriplegic throughout the series. In the first book, he's about to be killed by a psychotic madman, so he uses the only weapon he has left, his teeth. As noted below in [[Real Life]], that's more than enough to rip out a throat...
== Video Games ==
* In ''[[Wild
* [[Battle Butler|Winfield]] of ''[[Demonbane]]'' does boxing. This apparently grants him the power to catch a katana with his teeth (one wielded by a [[Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot|demonic samurai-sorcerer]], no less). It's OK, though: boxing explicitly makes you superhuman in that world. Because.
== Western Animation ==
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* The first time Molotov appears in ''[[The Venture Brothers]]'', Brock throws a knife at her and she catches it in her teeth. Then she licks the blade and tries to stab him.
* Ubiquitous to the point where the vast majority of its uses fall under [[Mundane Utility]] in [[My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic|My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic]]. Completely justified since, as ponies, they have no hands with which to manipulate objects.
* ''[[The Owl House]]''; Eberwolf (the Beast Keeper Coven head) has teeth strong enough to bite through chains, as he does to free Luz of shackles in "O Titan, Where Art Thou".
== Real Life ==
* [[Truth in Television]]: As noted in the page quote, [[Jimi Hendrix]] could play guitar with his teeth. If that doesn't count, nothing does.
** Buddy Guy will perform the same feat when covering Jimi's songs live. He can also play covers of [[Eric Clapton]] with a handkerchief, or just play solos of his own making [[Beyond the Impossible/Music
** The above [[Truth in Television]] is referenced in ''[[K-On!]]'', in which the advisor of the titular club turns out to be able to perform the same feat.
** So can Krauser from ''[[Detroit Metal City]]'', though Souichi notes that it's not good for himself.
** Zack Wylde of [[Heavy Metal]] band [[Black Label Society]] shows off this ability as well during solos in live sets.
** Ryyuske from ''[[Beck Mongolian Chop Squad|BECK]]'' as a homage.
* Humans have very impressive jaw strength compared to many animals, comparable to most attack dogs in terms of pounds per square inch exerted.
** And yet, only in the direct bite - human jaws are quite feeble otherwise.
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{{reflist}}
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[[Category:Combat Tropes]]
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