Basic Trope: Four-fingered hands. A common simplification in cartoons.
- Straight: Bob and his friends from the cartoon The Tropers have four fingers on each hand.
- Exaggerated:
- Bob only has one finger... And it's still as functional and versatile as a five-fingered hand!
- Even though the art style in The Tropers is realistic/semi-realistic, the characters in it still have 4-fingered hands.
- Even though characters have four fingers per hand, they still mention they have five.
- Downplayed:
- Bob and his friends' hands are missing part of their fifth finger.
- Bob is the only one among his friends that has four fingers; the rest have five.
- Justified:
- Bob is a Starfish Alien, or a Robot.
- His four-fingered hands are a birth defect.
- He is a finger amputee.
- He is a cartoon character.
- Bob is a Funny Animal of a species of animal that only has four fingers in real life.
- Inverted: Bob has six fingers on each hand.
- Subverted: Bob seems to have four fingers, but the hand was viewed at an angle that the fifth finger will seem to have been missing.
- Double Subverted: The fifth finger is a prosthesis.
- Parodied:
- Bob's world has everything modified for a four-fingered species, including five-string guitars and a base 8 counting system.
- Bob's world freaks out at people having five-fingered hands, considering them as bizarre and crudely made people.
- Zig Zagged:
- Bob is stated to have four fingers on each hand. He really has five, but the fifth finger is a prosthesis… but only for one hand.
- Some characters have four fingers, while others have five.
- Averted: Everyone's hands have five fingers.
- Enforced:
- Low budget forces animators to draw only four fingers per hand.
- The artist finds it easier or more simplistic to draw four-fingered hands.
- Finger amputee Ink-Suit Actor.
- Lampshaded:
- "Have you ever wondered why we have four fingers? Why not five? Why not three?"
- Bob proclaims that an event will happen in five minutes, holding up all of the fingers on one hand. He then realizes that he's only holding up four fingers, and raises a finger on his other hand.
- Invoked: A spell is made removing the pinkies of everyone's hands.
- Exploited: A villain uses the spell, taking advantage of everyone's unfamiliarity with four-fingered hands.
- Defied: A four fingered genetic engineer decides to make a new life have five fingers.
- Discussed: "I can't pick up my sword! Stupid four-fingered hands!"
- Conversed: "I wonder who started drawing people with four fingers on each hand."
- Played For Drama: Bob is seen as deformed or disgusting for only having four fingers on each hand (possibly due to stigma around the number four).
- Played For Horror: Bob looks like a human at first glance, but he's not actually human... and his four fingers are a giveaway.
Back to Four-Fingered Hands.
