Hands Looking Wrong

Kuzco: What do you mean, I don't look like the emperor?
Pacha: Um, do this. [holds up hand and wiggles fingers]
Kuzco: What is this, some kind of little game you country folk like to— [notices hands have become hooves] —ahhHH! It can't be!

— The Emperor's New Groove

We rarely pay much attention to our bodies. Given the vantage point of our eyes, not much of it is readily in view at any given moment. For this reason, whenever someone goes through an Oblivious Transformation of some kind the only way they will notice something is amiss is by visually inspecting themselves. Usually their hands—the easiest body part for us to inspect.

This has several advantages. It's a part of the body that can be looked at naturally without shoehorning in a mirror, and it lets the character come to a dawning realization of what's happened (happening) to them without seeing it all at once. Hands are also how we interface with our surroundings, so seeing them get deformed is immediately striking and forces some recontextualization. This is sometimes followed by the character grabbing their face when they realize it's not only their hands that have been changed.

This trope can be encouraged by having a Slow Transformation politely begin near the hands, but even when it doesn't the hands will still take center stage. Fading from existence will begin by seeing your own hands slowly become more and more translucent. Werewolves will look upon their furry hands with horror as the transformation takes over the rest of their body. An abrupt Forced Transformation will leave the victim gawking at their hands in confusion. There may also be some minor Stumbling in the New Form involved, e.g. if the suddenly transformed character tries to grab something with digits that are no longer able to do so before noticing the change.

Even in the cases where someone fully expects a transformation, they still tend to go through the motion of looking at their hands, if only to demonstrate to the audience that they recognize a transformation has happened.

This can be justified in the case of touching something that transforms the user, as the primary point of contact is typically the hands that are already holding your attention.

While hands are by far the most common way this happens, there are times when people notice other parts of their body first. Falling on your back with your legs in the air can let them substitute for example.

Compare Mirror Reveal, the other most common way a transformation is noticed (though the two aren't mutually exclusive).

May overlap with Limb-Sensation Fascination. Sub-trope of Baffled by Own Biology.

Has nothing to do with sloppily drawn hands or going Off-Model.

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Examples:

Comic Books

• Captain America: When Machinesmith's robots subject him to an Emergency Transformation and upload his mind into a robotic body, he doesn't realise anything is different until he sees his new robotic hands.
  Machinesmith: I shall never forget the sight that greeted me upon regaining consciousness! [...] I remember I felt well? even strong? although I had this incredible sense of detachment. And then, I lifted my hand to my face... but it was no longer my hand!
• Supermans Girlfriend Lois Lane #5: "The Fattest Girl in Metropolis": As part of a plan to disguise her from a murderer whose crime she saw, Superman arranges for Lois to be hit by a "growth ray" that will makes her much fatter. She first notices the change the next morning when she reaches for her alarm clock and sees that her hand is much pudgier.

Fan Works

• If Wishes Were Ponies: Harry first learns he's been turned into a unicorn when he accidentally teleports out of the hospital and tries to look at his hands, only to find a pair of hooves. Later, once he's calmed down and accepted his change, he does this again, but this time without panicking.
• Medicated: When Anne's transformation potion wears off for the first time, the first change she notices is that her arm is changing colour.
• In Must Love Ned Flanders, Naomi first realises she's entered the universe of The Simpsons when she sees that her hand is yellow.
• A New World, A New Way: Gene is first clued into his transformation when Belle explicitly tells him to look at his hands.
• The Portal: When Thomas Smith is pulled into the Dragon Realms, he places his hand on his forehead, only to feel no hair on him. He then quickly pulls his hand away to find that it has been transformed into a blue, scaly paw, causing him to realise that he is now a dragon.

Films — Animated

• In Beauty and the Beast. When the Beast transforms into a Prince, he looks at his hands.
• Coco: Miguel first notices the Land of the Dead's curse turning him into a skeleton from Papá Julio pointing out his hand. Miguel lifts it to see his finger turning to bone.
• The Emperor's New Groove: Pacha tells Kuzco to hold up his hands in front of his face and wriggle his fingers to get Kuzco to notice he's been turned into a llama.
• FernGully: The Last Rainforest: In the finale, the Leveler is shut down, depriving Hexxus of exhaust to feed off, destroying his gaseous body, and forcing him to assume his One-Winged Angel form: a giant cloaked skeleton made of Ominous Obsidian Ooze and fire. Hexxus briefly looks down at his now-solid hands, turning them over as he realizes that he's at full strength, and then looks up with an absolutely monstrous Slasher Smile.
• Home: Tip grabs Oh's wrist to show him his hand after he insists that Boov don't turn green when they lie.
• Howl's Moving Castle: Sophie first realises she's been cursed with old age when she looks at her hands and sees they're very much not those of an eighteen-year-old girl, prompting her to grab at her face in a panic and look in a mirror. Almost the same thing happens in the book, except she feels her face first and doesn't panic.
• My Little Pony: Equestria Girls: When Twilight Sparkle goes through the portal (transforming into a human), she freaks out over her transformed hands. Her ability to wriggle her fingers particularly unnerves her as she's used to having hooves.
• The Pagemaster: When Richard is transformed from live action into an illustration we get a cut from his point of view inspecting his hands before cutting back to seeing his animated face for the first time as he declares in horror "I'm... a cartoon!".
• At the end of Pinocchio, the titular living puppet first realizes his body is no longer made out of wood whilst waving his hand trying to get Geppetto's attention.
• The Princess and the Frog: When Tiana turns into a frog, we see from her perspective the first thing she notices is her now green hands.
• Scooby-Doo! and the Reluctant Werewolf: On the DVD cover, Shaggy and Scooby stare in horror as one of Shaggy's hands are transformed to become clawed and furry.
• Shrek 2: Shrek learns that the Happily Ever After potion has transformed him from an ogre to a human when he sees that he has human hands (he then confirms with a Mirror Reveal in a bucket of water).
• Spirited Away: After Chihiro has been in the spirit world too long, she starts to vanish, noticing that her hands are becoming translucent. Naturally, she starts to panic about this before Haku arrives and gives her some spirit food to ensure that she won't disappear.
• Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit. Both times Wallace turns into the titular Were-Rabbit, he realizes the transformation is occurring when he looks at his hands and sees them change into rabbit paws.

Films — Live-Action

• Back to the Future: When time-displaced Marty starts getting erased from existence, he holds up his hand to his face and sees it fading in and out.
• Enchanted and its sequel Disenchanted both feature this:
  • Enchanted: When Giselle first lands in New York from the fairy tale kingdom of Andalasia she first notices she's no longer animated when she looks at her hands.
  • Disenchanted: Conversely, when Morgan, Giselle's now teenage stepdaughter, finds herself in Andalasia she checks her hands and realizes she's become animated. She also wonders how she's become so "pointy" and with perfect eyebrows to boot.
• Freaky Friday (1976): Ellen realises she's in her daughter Annabelle's body when she notices her voice has changed and then checks her hands and sees they are Annabelle's. Annabelle on the other hand notices she's speaking with her mother's voice and instead checks her feet.
• Freaky Friday (2003): When Tess wakes up in her daughter Anna's body unaware that their minds have been switched, she is confused about waking up in Anna's room. Then she checks her hair and hands and realizes what's happened.
• Fantastic Four (2005): Invoked when Susan turns invisible for the first time during a conversation with Reed. Susan didn't notice until Reed tells her to look at her now invisible hands.
• Harry Potter:
  • Chamber of Secrets: After drinking the Polyjuice Potion, Harry looks down at his hands to see the change taking place.
  • Prisoner of Azkaban: When Harry accidentally jinxes Aunt Marge to inflate, she first notices it by seeing her finger bloat.
• Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End: As Tia Dalma reminds Barbossa that she's the one who brought him back from the dead and could send him back if she chooses to, she grabs his wrist. Barbossa's hand shrivels and turns skeletal, as when he was cursed by the Aztec gold, before returning to normal, leaving the pirate quite unnerved.
• Terminator 2: Judgment Day: After being frozen, shattered, and thawed out in quick succession, the T-1000's shapeshifting power goes haywire, which it first notices when it touches a railing in passing and finds that its hand has turned the same colour as the safety tape on the railing. It holds up the offending hand in clear confusion, studying it closely for a moment, and then forcibly undoes the change with a wave of the hand.
• X-Men: The Last Stand: Beast goes to meet Leech. Leech negates all mutations within a certain radius of himself, so when Beast reaches out to shake Leech's hand his own hand enters the radius. His normally furry hand reverts to looking human, which shocks him for a moment. It's a plot point (a retroactive one from the later-made prequels, but still) that it took Hank a LONG time to become comfortable in his blue furry form. Upon reaching back his fur returns, but Hank is still shaken.

Literature

• Animorphs #41: The Familiar: Jake's teenage mind gets sent into his adult body, in a Bad Future where the Yeerks have taken over. The first he notices that he's not in his usual body is when he catches sight of his hands.
  I stopped suddenly as I studied my fist. It was big. I mean it was rough and callused and had veins that pumped across the hairy, muscular forearm like I belonged to Gold's Gym and actually used my membership.
  It was the hand and arm of a grown man.
• The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde: As revealed in a letter from the last chapter; Dr. Henry Jekyll assumed he had maintained control of himself and successfully suppressed Edward Hyde, his evil side. The good doctor then takes a walk around Hyde Park only to realize an involuntary metamorphosis had occurred when seeing his hands transforming into the hairy, sinewy limbs of Hyde.
• The Voyage of the Dawn Treader: Subverted when Eustace puts on a bracelet he found in a Dragon Hoard. He undergoes a Forced Transformation into a dragon but doesn't initially realize it and mistakes his own scaled hands for the dragon's nonexistent mate about to attack him. It's not until he tries to flee the hoard and sees his reflection in a pool of water that he realizes what's happened.

Live-Action TV

• Doctor Who:
  • In the revival era, Time Lord regeneration tends to (though doesn't always) start with their hands glowing gold.
  • The Sarah Jane Adventures: "The Death of the Doctor" has Clyde reveal that he knows something is wrong when he says the following, "That's not my hand. 'Cuz my hand's not white." Cue Clyde being spatially replaced with The Doctor, who quickly grabs Sarah Jane and Jo Grant and flips them through space with him to an alien planet, returning Clyde to his proper place on Earth.
  • "Flux Chapter Two: War of the Sontarans": As Dan is fading away, the first hint he gets is that is hand is glowing blue and turning transparent.
• Farscape: In the climax of "Rhapsody In Blue", Crichton talks Zhaan into joining with him in Unity in the hopes that he'll be able to help her regain control in the wake of Tahleen's Mind Rape. This fusion of minds is depicted as Crichton and Zhaan merging into a single two-faced being, and Crichton—already blown away by the sensations—can be seen turning his merged hand this way and that in amazement.
• Legends of Tomorrow: Jax and Stein do this after experiencing a "Freaky Friday" Flip.
  Jax-in-Stein's-Body: My hands... they're white.
  Stein-in-Jax's-Body: And mine appear to be African-American.
  Jax-in-Stein's-Body: You can just say black, Grey.
• The Outer Limits: In the climax of the episode "Last Supper", Dr Sinclair finally creates the youth serum he always wanted... only to find too late that he gravely underestimated its potency. Shortly afterwards, an adolescent Sinclair is left staring in horror at his hand as it regresses to infancy before the next stage of his regression catches up with the rest of him. An extremely messy Death by De-aging follows.
• Star Trek: The Next Generation: In "Identity Crisis", when Geordi is mutating into a Tarchannen III alien, he sees his hands fusing from five fingers to three fingers.

Music

• Twin Tribes: In the music video for "Monolith", a woman undergoes a transformation after touching a monolith. She notices Ominous Obsidian Ooze drip from her fingers before shaking violently as it spreads across her body. In a contrastingly pure scene that depicts her and the room to be untainted and more serene, the P.O.V. Cam has her gaze upon her clean hands in welcome surprise.

Tabletop Games

• Magic: The Gathering: The card art for Ghostly Flicker shows a soldier looking at his hands as his body becomes ghost-like.

Theatre

• Finian's Rainbow: Senator Rawkins confirms the change in the color of his skin by looking at his own hands.

Video Games

• Bendy and the Dark Revival: Upon first entering The Cycle, Audrey discovers her hands appear to be entirely made of ink.
• Bioshock Infinite: Whenever Booker drinks a new Vigor, he is left staring at the various changes his hands undergo, often turning them over in fascination. This follows other transformations as well. Devil's Kiss burns his hands all the way down to the bone, Shock Jockey makes him sprout glowing crystals, Undertow causes Booker to develop octopus-like suckers, and Return To Sender converts his flesh to metal... and in all cases, Booker will be staring at his hands with a mixture of horror and fascination.
• Call of the Sea: Chapter 2 ends with Norah having a dream/hallucination of herself swimming toward a giant aquatic creature way off in the distance — and between strokes, she is shocked to see that she has the scales and webbed hands of a Fish Person, gasping and halting her strokes to look at them. Happens again to a more downplayed extent at the end of Chapter 4 and through Chapter 5, where Norah has just found out that she is actually going through a natural metamorphosis into a Deep One — when she changes again, this time in waking life, she observes her hands with fascination rather than shock.
• Final Fantasy XIV: The Warrior of Light instinctively examines their hands when Fandaniel informs them of their borrowed flesh after kidnapping them. The fact that their hands are not their own and clad in Garlean attire clearly makes alarm bells go off in the Warrior's head.
• Goosebumps: Night of Scares: The second game, Dead of Night, sees Twist infected by plant spores from Dr. Brewer's basement and subjected to transflormation, which he realized after looking at his hands and seeing them turning green and developing a wood-like texture.
• Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis: In the finale, Indy, Sophia, or Dr Ubermann can be put through the Colossus at the heart of Atlantis, transforming the character into an unearthly Horned Humanoid made of glowing green energy. The character's first response to this is to look down at their hands in fascination, and then laugh triumphantly. Unfortunately, the transformation can't be sustained, resulting in the new god losing cohesion after just a few seconds of using its powers and tearing itself to pieces, taking Atlantis with it.
• Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy: Daxter starts out as the same elf-like race as Jak, but is transformed into a weasel-like creature called an ottsel after being knocked into a pit full of Dark Eco. He first notices this by spotting the orange fur now on the back of his hands and he instantly freaks out.
• Persona 5: When Ryujii seemingly dissolves from existence, he notices his hands first become translucent before it rapidly spreads to the rest of his body. This is not the case for the other Phantom Thieves who experience symptoms after him.
• Relicta: When a person infected by the parasite looks at their hands without the mental filter the parasite imposes, there are glowing cracks in them and spikes growing out of them.
• Super Mario Odyssey: The first time Mario uses Cappy's possession powers on a frog, the player is shown a 1st person cutscene of Mario looking down at the ground and realising his hands have turned into a frog's front feet.

Web Animation

• Minilife TV: In "Season 2 Finale!", after Jack accidentally spills some of Dr. Michael Espajelly's formula to make cats smell like cinnamon on his hand, he tells Michael to look at his hand and he sees that it's turned green, and he transforms into a Blob Monster shortly after.
• RWBY: During Salem and Ozpin's backstory, when the God Brothers curse Salem with immortality, she looks down at her hands as she begins to feel the effects of it.

Webcomics

• Girl Genius: Agatha comes to the realization that she caught Hogfarb's Resplendent Immolation too — her skin having turned green — by taking out her glove and checking her hand.
• Jupiter-Men: Quintin examines himself for injuries after he and Jackie are at the epicenter of the Star Seed's explosion. He soon finds that his hands have completely melted away into green slime, the rest of his arms slowly following suit. He panics and shuts his eyes while trying to convince himself it's all in his head, finding relief when he opens his eyes to find his arms and hands intact. This is the prelude to him discovering his Elemental Shapeshifter powers.

Western Animation

• The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron, Boy Genius: In "Trading Faces", after she and Jimmy accidentally swap bodies, Cindy asks what happened to the nail polish she was applying when the switch happened.
• Arthur: In "Bugged", during Brain's Guilt-Induced Nightmare where he turns into a cockroach-bear hybrid, he wakes up feeling slightly different but thinks he's just tired from staying up late doing his homework. It's not until he sees that his arm has turned into a cockroach's leg that he realises the truth.
• Avatar: The Last Airbender: In "The Winter Solstice: Part 1", Aang only realizes he is in the spirit world by noticing his hands have become translucent.
• Ben 10:
  • In the pilot, looking at his hands is how Ben first realizes he has transformed into Heatblast, screaming before the transformation background dissipates.
  • A couple of Ben's stock Transformation Sequences have him observing his transformation starting at his arm. Justified, since the origin point is his wrist-mounted Omnitrix.
• Futurama: In "Leela and the Genestalk," Leela first notices her transformation into a mass of tentacles when her hands grow suction cups, causing her to get stuck holding onto things.
• Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts: Kipo only notices her Mute transformation upon seeing her hands have undergone a Partial Transformation.
• The Legend of Zelda: In "Kiss N' Tell", Link is turned into an anthropomorphic frog by kissing a Gibdo disguised as a maiden, but doesn't realize something's wrong until he goes to draw his sword and notices he has webbed green Four-Fingered Hands instead of regular five-fingered hands.
• Phineas and Ferb: At one point, Perry and Candace swap bodies, and Candace wonders why her brothers are now so big compared to her and why her hand is green.
• The Powerpuff Girls: In "Criss Cross Crisis", after everyone in Townsville swapped bodies, it becomes apparent when Buttercup sees Professor Utonium in her body and is further cemented from starring at her hands that are now a normal human man's rather than her usual Fingerless Hands.
• ThunderCats: One of the first things Lion-O does when he emerges from his suspension capsule on arriving on Third Earth is look at his hands. He immediately notices that they are much bigger than they were when he entered the capsule, and a subsequent glance at his reflection in a puddle reveals that he has aged from a pre-teen to an adult while in suspension.

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