History Main / SouthpawAdvantage

* Literature/{{Kane}} is left-handed, although in the course of his [[ReallySevenHundredYearsOld extremely long life]] he has trained himself to be ambidextrous. Which has two benefits: his opponents are usually not accustomed to fighting a left-handed warrior; and when his dominant hand is wounded, he can use his right hand almost equally proficiently.

** During Gohan's first day at Orange High School, he takes the southpaw stance during the baseball game, which the P.E. teacher points out. Although, Gohan doesn't have much experience with baseball and he was trying to hold back (unsuccessfully), so it is possible that he was either clueless or intentionally tries not to use his dominant hand in this game.

* ''Manga/DragonBall'': Movie villain Broly is very different from regular Super Saiyans, as his Legendary Super Saiyan Form is a huge bulk of muscle with no lack of speed. He tends to use most of his attacks with his left hand. Due to him being left handed, his intended final blow on Son Goku was performed with his left fist and Goku nonchalantly catches it with his right hand.

* In ''Videogame/MechWarrior'', the non-symmetrical HumongousMecha are typically 'right handed', wielding most of their firepower in their right arm and right torso; this effects everything from seeking cover to convergence when attacking enemies. A small handful of mechs are left-biased, like the ''Thanatos'' which carries a BFG in the left hand and a smaller missile rack on the right. Great for sneaking up on enemies from unexpected angles, but terrible when corner-humping with right-handed allies who only need to expose their right side to attack. The handedness of mechs even affects how they are rated on various CharacterTiers-ranking websites like [=MetaMechs=].

* Subverted in ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'' episode "Homer at the Bat"; Mr. Burns benches ''Darryl Strawberry'' and replaces him with Homer because both Strawberry and the pitcher are left-handed, and Homer bats right-handed.

Could be the result of a SituationalHandSwitch.

* Racket sports, and tennis in particular, often have an advantage attributed to left-handed players. A good tactic in rallies is to hit to the opponent's backhand as it is (usually) weaker than the forehand. Of course, a left-hander's backhand side is the opposite to a right-hander's. Add this to the fact that rallies usually involve more cross-court shots than down-the-line, and you can easily end up stuck in a situation where you are playing from the backhand straight into the opponent's forehand every time. Plus, when receiving serve the spin of a left-hander's serve goes in the opposite direction to a right-hander's, often making for some unpredictable and hard-to-return serves.

* ''Manga/DragonBall'': Movie villain Broly is very different from regular Super Saiyajins, as his Legendary Super Saiyajin Form is a huge bulk of muscle with no lack of speed. He tends to use most of his attacks with his left hand. Due to him being left handed, his intended final blow on Son Goku was performed with his left fist and Goku nonchalantly catches it with his right hand.

* Music/RingoStarr's distinctive drumming style comes from playing left-handed on a right-handed drum set.

** A large number of players learn to shoot left-handed[[note](]in ice hockey, handedness is based on the side from which a player normally shoots)[[/note]] even if they aren't natural lefties. If they find themselves in a situation sprinting or otherwise only holding their stick with one hand, it ends up being in their dominant right giving them more control. More important, though, is shooting angles. Generally left-handed shooters will play the left wing and righties will play the right wing although it's not a hard rule and sometimes a coach will flip them depending on how he wants a play set up. It's also just a good idea to be able to handle both directions since sticks frequently break in the middle of play. If that happens your option is skate to the bench and grab one from a teammate so you can get back in quickly and it's not always going to face the way yours normally does.

* UsefulNotes/{{NHL}}:
** A large number of players learn to shoot left-handed even if they aren't natural lefties. If they find themselves in a situation sprinting or otherwise only holding their stick with one hand, it ends up being in their dominant right giving them more control. More importantly though, is shooting angles. Generally left-handed shooters will play the left wing and righties will play the right wing although it's not a hard rule and sometimes a coach will flip them depending on how he wants a play set up. It's also just a good idea to be able to handle both directions since sticks frequently break in the middle of play. If that happens your option is skate to the bench and grab one from a teammate so you can get back in quickly and it's not always going to face the way yours normally does.
** Most goalies catch with their left hand and hold their stick in their right but some do the opposite and the opposing team generally has to use a different scoring strategy against them because the types of shot a left-winger might normally take on the blocker side won't be as effective if the goalie has his glove on that side (and vice versa).

* In cricket, left-handed batters have a distinct advantage as bowlers have to correct their line when delivering to them, which breaks their rhythm. Left arm bowlers also have a big advantage bowling to right handed batters, since the ball cuts across them at a less familiar angle.

* Racket sports, and tennis in particular, often have an advantage attributed to left-handed players. A good tactic in rallies is to hit to the opponent's backhand as it is (usually) weaker than the forehand. Of course, a left hander's backhand side is the opposite to a right hander's. Add this to the fact that rallies usually involve more cross court shots than down-the-line, and you can easily end up stuck in a situation where you are playing from the backhand straight into the opponent's forehand every time. Plus, when receiving serve the spin of a left hander's serve goes in the opposite direction to a right hander's, often making for some unpredictable and hard to return serves.

* In ''Film/BackToTheFuture'', there is George [=McFly=]'s famous [[TookALevelInBadass badassery level up]] scene where he decks his lifelong BarbaricBully tormentor Biff Tannen with a big, left-handed haymaker to protect the girl he loves. In an early draft of the script, there was a scene where George discovers that his left arm is for some reason much stronger than his right (which would have been both {{Foreshadowing}} and GettingCrapPastTheRadar).

* Anthropologists have noted that societies with higher crime rates tend to have a larger proportion of left-handed people. This is not a case of ASinisterClue as it may seem, but rather, it's because criminals will assume their victims are right-handed and attack accordingly, meaning lefties who fight back are more likely to surprise them and survive the encounter. In other words, there are more left-handed people in such places because they're not being killed as often as right-handed people.

* In ''VideoGame/EternalFighterZero'', Mai Kawasumi, another IaijutsuPractitioner, is a lefty: she holds the sheath of her sword with her right hand, so she can use her left hand to draw.

* Sol Badguy in ''VideoGame/GuiltyGear'' wields his sword left-handed, in ReverseGrip no less. Naturally, he regularly defeats his right-handed [[TheRival rival]] Ky Kiske whenever they go at it. The same applies to Ragna the Bloodedge, the protagonist of Guilty Gear's SpiritualSuccessor ''VideoGame/BlazBlue'', right down to the reverse grip.

** A shining example showed up in the Swordfish finals of 2017, when Axel Pettersson handily defeated Matthys Kool. Pettersson analyzed Kool's previous matches and realized that Kool's SignatureMove simply would not work on a left-handed opponent. So Pettersson fought the final left-handed (in spite of being naturally right-handed) and ended up winning handily.

* ''Manga/DiamondNoAce'', as a baseball manga, has many lefties among its ranks. Protagonist Sawamura Eijun and major antagonist Narumiya Mei are the two most important examples. However, oddly, there's no real advantage to being a Southpaw in-series aside from the standard "slight advantage against left-handed batters"; of the strongest pitchers, fully half are right-handed, including [[spoiler:the Ace of the back-to-back National Champion Komadai Fujimaki High, Hongou Masamune]].

* Alanna from the Literature/TortallUniverse deliberately practices at using her sword left-handed after her right arm is injured during training to become a knight. She keeps up the ambidextrous sword usage even after she's healed, which becomes a ChekhovsSkill in a duel against the BigBad.

* In the ''Literature/{{Emberverse}}'' novels, Rudi Mackenzie's right arm is wounded and has to learn to use his left arm as his sword arm. When practicing with youths in the Free Republic of Richland they complain that he has an unfair advantage as a southpaw. His mentor responds "Yah hey, if someone attacks you using different moves, or if they're a leftie you're just going to say you're taking your bat and ball and going home 'cause it ain't fair? Christ, Weiss, I've known you were a dumb little punk for years, but do you have to show it off in front of strangers?"

* Literature/{{Kane}} is left-handed, although in the course of his [[ReallySevenHundredYearsOld extremely long life]] he has trained himself to be basically ambidextrous. Which has two benefits: his opponents are usually not accustomed to fighting a left-handed warrior; and when his dominant hand is wounded, he can use his right hand almost equally proficiently.

* In ''Film/BackToTheFuture'', there is George [=McFly=]'s famous [[TookALevelInBadass badassery level up]] scene where he decks his lifelong BarbaricBully tormentor Biff Tannen with a big, left-handed haymaker to protect the girl he loves. In an early draft of the script, [[{{Foreshadowing}} there was a scene where George discovers that his left arm is for some reason much stronger than his right]].

Traditionally, baseball fields were oriented so that the batter, catcher, and umpire faced east to ensure that the setting sun wasn't in their eyes. As a result, when a pitcher is on the mound facing home plate, his left hand pointed south, so lefty pitchers came to be known as [[TheSouthpaw southpaws.]] The term has since entered general usage to indicate left-handed people which is how the [[TropeNamer trope got its name.]]

* ''Franchise/LyricalNanoha'' has a few left-handed characters, including the titular character. There are two examples that fit this trope.

[[folder: Anime & Manga]]

* In ''Anime/VividStrike'', Vivio, who is right-handed, switches to southpaw style during her match with Rinne. Rinne is unable to adapt to Vivio's new style and ends up losing the match.