The Southpaw: Difference between revisions

 

== [[Literature]] ==

** Arya Stark. When her dominant hand is revealed to her fencing master, he reacts favorably because fighting left-handed will reverse her stance and movements, which will help confuse her opponents. Of course, her left-handedness might also be [[A Sinister Clue]] about her future.

** Quorin Halfhand learned to fight with his left hand after getting several fingers of his swordhand chopped off.

* If you ever closely watch any [[Jim Henson]] productions, like ''[[The Muppet Show]]'' or ''[[Fraggle Rock]]'', you'll notice a lot of the characters are left-handed. This is due to most of their puppeteers being ''right-handed'', which they use to control the head of the puppet. Their left hand is used to control the hands, hence why so many Muppets are left-handed. It also doubles as a [[Shout-Out]], since Henson himself was left-handed.

* Astute viewers noticed that on [[Babylon 5]], Sheridan and Garibaldi had their communicators on their right wrists, while everyone else had them on their left wrists. When asked why this was, [[Word of God|series creator]] [[J. Michael Straczynski]] explained that this is because both actors are left-handed.

 

== Music ==

** This is probably because the two of them fence, and this is the only way they can face the audience when controlled by the player instead of having their backs to them.

*** Except they do hold their backs to the camera, when on the Player 2 side. In fact, so does virtually every character.

* Luke fon Fabre in [[Tales of the Abyss]] is left-handed (which implies that {{spoiler|Asch}} is too, though he wields his sword with his right hand, and thus his sword hangs perpendicularly from his back, rather than at his side as most conventional designs go. It isn't a major plot point, but it does make for a touching moment at the end of the game, where [[Cool Old Guy]]/[[Colonel Badass]] Jade offers his own left hand for Luke to shake, despite being right-handed himself, out of respect for the [[Character Development|personal growth]] Luke experiences throughout the game.

** {{spoiler|Luke is "mirrored" from Asch due to being his replica--his hair sweeps in the opposite direction from Asch's, too, so it's only natural that they have opposite dominant hands.}}

* Aika from ''[[Skies of Arcadia]]'' wields her boomerang with her left hand.

* ''[[Chrono Trigger]]'': Crono is left-handed.

* ''[[Punch-Out!!]]'': Soda Popinski is a lefty. It's not purely cosmetic, however; [[Damn You, Muscle Memory!|dodging his attacks becomes that much trickier]].

* Guybrush Threepwood, [[The Hero]] of the [[Monkey Island]] series, is a weird example. He appears right handed on [http://miwiki.net/File:BoxartMI1front.jpg the cover of the first game], yet the same game provides us [http://miwiki.net/Insult_swordfighting this picture]. (Guybrush always fights in the same direction, so he does not have an [[Ambidextrous Sprite]].) Guybrush is [http://blog.icepick.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/insult.gif right handed in the Curse of Monkey Island] and the left handed again in the [[Tales of Monkey Island]]. (But not in the cover.) Could he be ambidextrous?

* Patrick Galloway in ''Clive Barker's Undying'' is notable as one of the few FPS protagonists to hold most, if not all of his weapons in his left hand during gameplay.

* In late antiquity/early medieval warfare, a common trick (the Saxons and maybe the Normans made good use of this) was to fight as though left handed, thus minimizing the enemies' shields and throwing them off.

* Left-handed bowlers can be seen as having a significant advantage over right-handed bowlers. Since most bowlers bowl right-handed, they're all throwing their ball along roughly the same path as each other, which can throw off the oil pattern significantly. Left-handed bowlers generally have fresh oil, since few people bowl along the left side of the lane, and are thus able to get a much more consistent shot.

* This trope also aplies to fencing, lefties are MUCH harder to hit if you're used to fighting righties due to the fact that you have to hit the opposite side of their body.

** Same goes for swordplay; in general you are encouraged to fight from your good side for the obvious advantages in free fights (but also because it is a pain to fight from your weak side - or to re-train your good side when you started learning on the wrong side.). Once you get used to how to attack a right handed opponent on his left (vulnerable) shoulder when your opening position has the sword on your left shoulder it is no big deal anymore. (However most lefties also learn to do at least the basic moves also from the right side. Which is of high advantage when your opponent finally got used to you being a leftie and adjusts his attacks... so you can attack him from the right. (still, learning from the other side IS a pain. Which, however, pays off.)

 

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