History Main / HelpingHands

For other lopped off yet functional body parts see: LosingYourHead, OrganAutonomy, and BrainInAJar.

* In the anime ''Anime/VampireHunterD'', we have the title vampire hunter's left hand, which has somehow gotten a Demon embedded in it. Said demon is shown by having a ''face'' in the palm of the hand, including eyes, nose, and mouth. After being severed in a rather gory scene that includes D being staked through the heart, the hand crawls back to D's body, reattaches itself to D's arm, ''pulls out the stake'', then attempts to revive D by a) eating earth for energy (with accompanying belch afterward), b) sucking wind to give him breath, then pounding on his chest to restart his heart. All this while a monster approaches that would be the [[DeaderThanDead Final Death]] for D. Naturally, he wakes up in time to kill the monster and progress through the story. Of course, all this is helped by the titular D being a ''dhampir'', a half-human half-vampire hybrid.[[note]] ''{{Dhampyr}}s'', from Balkan folklore, are the children of male vampires and female humans, with all the powers of vampires and none of the weaknesses. (The word was transliterated into Japanese as "danpiru", which was then transliterated back into English as "dunpeal" or "dhampiel", leading to all kinds of interesting confusion.)[[/note]]

* Sirene in ''Manga/{{Devilman}}'' can detach her arms and control them independently of the rest of her body with psychic abilities. The 1990 OVA takes this up a notch by having the detached arm capable of [[EverythingsBetterWithSpinning rotating at such high speed]] that it can become a DeadlyDisc while in flight.

* ''Webcomic/{{Paranatural}}'' has [[MeaningfulName Lefty]].

* ''Anime/{{Doraemon}}'' have a gadget called the Spray-on Hands, that when applied on it's user's, manifests as a pair of disembodied, floating hands that carries out whatever given tasks. Nobita uses this gadget to slack off as his floating hands does his homework for him, only for the gadget to (what else?) backfire hilariously - forgetting Doraemon's advice to re-apply the spray once the task is complete, Nobita, waking up from a nap, finds out his floating hands have scribbled a ''hole'' in his maths book.

* In ''WesternAnimation/{{Coraline}}'', the Other Mother's disembodied hand, which is a spindly abomination made of sewing needles, pursue Coraline all the way to the real world.

* In the first ''Literature/FightingFantasy'' book, ''Literature/TheWarlockOfFiretopMountain'', you will come across a room full of tiles in the shape of hands, or stars. If you stepped on a hand tile, you'll be attacked by dozens and dozens of ghostly hands materializing out of those tiles, which you must destroy in order to reach the other end. The star-tiles on the other hand are harmless.

** Also from ''Book of Vile Darkness'', the spell ''Garz'zt's long grasp'' detaches the hand of the caster and sends it flying around. It can flank or grapple, though its main interest is to transmit touch spells, making it a superior (but riskier) version of ''spectral hand''.

* The first supernatural entity encountered in ''Literature/MoDaoZuShi'' is a severed left arm reanimated by resentful energy, killing several people and replacing their left arms with itself in its quest to find its original body. When finally subdued, it demonstrates the ability to point to the locations of its other body parts like a compass, kickstarting the overarching scavenger hunt/murder mystery of the novel.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheNightmareBeforeChristmas'' gives us Sally, a sentient doll made from leaves and cloth bags. [[spoiler:She detaches her hands to untie Santa's binding while one of her legs attracts Oogie-Boogie, the Boogey man.]]

** The Floormaster and {{Wallmaster}} enemy types in games resemble gigantic disembodied monster hands.

** The ''Book of Vile Darkness'' has the "Grim Revenge" spell, used by undead caster, to sever (painfully) the hand of a living victim, and then animate it as an undead monstrosity bent on draining the lifeforce of its previous owner.
** TabletopGame/ForgottenRealms adds a lot of variations, such as Alcimer's Flying Fist or Daltim's Flaming Fist (the signature spell of a Halruaan [[PrivateMilitaryContractors mercenary]] [[PlayingWithFire pyromancer]]: the same general idea, but [[IncendiaryExponent on fire]]) and a few grasping and/or attacking claw variants, such as Caligarde's Claw and Manshoon's Xorn Talons. There are also more tricky and obscure spells like Halaster's Grappling Hand (door-sized force hand selectively intercepting magical attacks and creatures with magic items, but passing through non-magical matter) or Duhlark's Long Reach (large arm remotely formed from any present material that can grab, smash or pull ''and'' conducts spells like Spectral Hand).

** There is also an unnamed recurring character (name is always given as a string of question marks) in a few games who is a ghostly hand.

* The Floormaster and {{Wallmaster}} enemy types in ''Franchise/TheLegendOfZelda'' games resemble gigantic disembodied monster hands.

** The detached Cyberman arm and octopus-head-thing in the episode "The Pandorica Opens". They even shoot out tranquilliser darts!
** An android does this when his hand blocks a door in "The Robots of Death". The person in the room later uses the hand against another [[spoiler: heroic]] android, which leads to the immortal line, "Please do not throw hands at me!"

[[folder:Web Original]]
* In ''WebVideo/AtopTheFourthWall'', [[spoiler: Mechakara]]'s hand has to contain a stupendous amount of technology for [[spoiler:Lord Vyse]]'s escape plan to work -- technology that does not seem to serve much purpose being installed in a ''hand''. Of course, as it turns out, this is exactly what he needs, so ...

** From the book ''Castle Death'', the Rahkos is a floating, undead hand fond of eating brains. Unfortunately for Lone Wolf, he's confronted to it in a NoGearLevel, and it's rather hard to put down without a magic weapon.

** The infamous "Hand of Sutekh" from the episode "Pyramids of Mars". While this is only really a stagehand's hand holding down Sutekh's cushion when he first stands up, it has become an in-joke among ''Series/DoctorWho'' fans.
** Played straight for a spell in the classic story "Hand of Fear".
** A living plastic mannequin's arm in the first episode of the new series tries to strangle the 9th Doctor.

** "Bigby's Many Hands" line of spells, which summon the disembodied hands of, presumably, the Wizard Bigby, which do various "things" depending on the spell. Similar spells are "Mage's Hand", which is for non-combat purposes, the "Spectral Hand", and others, including one even called "Helping Hand".