Giant Hands of Doom

Jazz hands, everybody!

A character, usually a video game boss, who fights only with giant hands. Due to the versatility of the human hand, this provides a large variety of attacks, not to mention the inexplicable bombs, missiles, etc. they'll inevitably drop. Sometimes, the hands will be accompanied by a giant head. Expect this to be the weak spot, especially the eyes. Bonus points if the hands have eyes on them, too. Expect a certain number of common attacks across games:

• The ever-popular punch.
• Grabbing your character and squeezing.
• Walking on two fingers.
• Laser beams (especially popular if the head appears).
• Making a gun with its fingers and somehow firing a real projectile.
• And whatever the designer thought of by waving his hands around, basically.

Often done by way of Cognizant Limbs. Sometimes done with Raymanian Limbs. Compare Creepy Long Fingers.

Examples of Giant Hands of Doom include:

Nintendo examples

Nintendo absolutely loves this trope, to the point that only a handful of its franchises do not have it in some way.

• Andross from Star Fox 64 uses these. He's almost always depicted as a giant floating head and hands, with no explanation of how he got that way.
  • His nephew Andrew tries to ape his uncle's "head and hands" schtick in Assault by transforming his flagship into a giant head and hands. Falco notices the similarities and calls him "An Andross wannabe."
• One of the bosses from Super Mario 64 is Eyerok, two hands made out of rock with large eyeballs on the palms. Unsurprisingly, these eyes are also a weak point.
• Super Mario Galaxy had Bouldergeist, a big blockheaded ghost with giant destructible (but regenerating) hands of stone. He also shoots rocks that turn into exploding ghosts. He was loads of fun in Daredevil Mode.
• Wham Bam Rock and Wham Bam Jewel from Kirby Super Star and Super Star Ultra. Many of his attacks were eventually used for Master Hand (and his insane left handed counterpart, Crazy Hand) in Super Smash Bros.
• Magolor's One-Winged Angel form in Kirby's Return to Dream Land.
• Bongo Bongo from The Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time
  • Gohdan from The Legend of Zelda the Wind Waker (pictured)
  • Ramrock from The Legend of Zelda Oracle Games (of Ages)
  • Mazaal from The Legend of Zelda the Minish Cap, who is pretty much like Gohdan in 2D, except that you have to climb inside the head to damage it.
  • As well as the infamous Wallmasters.
  • Zant's Hands from The Legend of Zelda Twilight Princess are just as creepy.
• Haunter from the Pokemon series
• Super Smash Bros. has Master Hand, and from Melee on, Crazy Hand, too. And sometimes you have to fight them both at the same time.
  • By the way, that list of attacks up above? Master Hand can do them all and then some (well, it couldn't squeeze you or shoot lasers before Melee, but yeah). The only of those that Crazy Hand cannot do is walking on two fingers.
    • Instead, he crawls on all five fingers, rather like a spider.
• The final boss of Wario Land 3. The "grabbing and squeezing" attack is also the only way to get a Game Over.
• The first form of Zoda from StarTropics, fought at the beginning of the last stage, is essentially this. He attacks with Giant Hands Of Doom and then brings the head out for some fireball action, at which point you can use your blaster or your Super Nova on him.
  • Just the blaster, because you only have three hearts for this battle, and using the Yo-Yo against him is insane.
• Cackletta's Ghost, the final boss of the first Mario & Luigi game, is styled this way. You have to destroy the head and hands before the heart is revealed.
• A good example are the disembodied Psynergy hands in the Golden Sun games. While the old generation used them to move or lift objects, the new generation have weaponized them to crush boulders or slap stuff silly.
  • In Brawl, Isaac appears as an Assist Trophy and uses Move. To push your opponents. Off the stage.
• In Donkey Kong Country Returns, Tiki Tong uses this strategy.

Other examples

• Okami
  • The final form of Yami, the final boss is a giant hand attached to an orb.
    • This is repeated in Tatsunoko vs. Capcom, where Yami is again the final boss. Its grab super is downright lethal.
  • His successor in Okamiden, Akuro, goes with the more standard approach to this trope in his first form.
  • In the sunken ship area, there is a room where a giant seaweed-monster thing lives. When you enter the room, two gigantic hands rise out of the water and attempt to crush Ammy and/or push her off into the waters below. Fortunately, the monster can be killed by draining the water from the room, and then rolling spiked cylinders across its face until it dies.
• Queen Zeal's second form from Chrono Trigger, though her head also fires spells.
  • Giga Gaia and Lavos's second form are also like this.
• Several Mega Man X and Zero games have the final boss transform into their giant form, then attack with massive hands and lasers... and hands shooting lasers.
  • 2 Keeper minibosses in Mega Man 10 in Strike Man's stage is a good example of giant hands punching a ball and Mega Man in order to attempt to do damage.
  • The final boss of Mega Man 3 sometimes takes a break from raining projectiles on you and tries to punch you. You can jump on the fist to reach his head and attack his weakpoint.
• In Dragon Quest VI, the final boss Deathtamoor, "discards this worthless body" and becomes a giant demonic head and pair of hands in his last phase.
• The final boss of Pulseman for the Genesis is another "Head and Hands" type boss who shoots energy balls from his hands, punches, and pounds the ground to summon minions.
• Bomberman Generation has one as a boss in one of the desert stages.
• The third Boss in Contra III.
• The first Boss in Illusion of Gaia.
• Sonic the Hedgehog:
  • Sonic 3 and Knuckles
    • Lava Reef's miniboss is comprised of two threats, one of them being a giant hand that rises from the lava below and tries to crush Sonic.
    • In the first stage of the final boss fight, you must destroy all six of its Malicious Fingers.
  • Sonic 3D Flickies Island
    • The boss of the Rusty Ruin Zone attacks solely by trying to crush Sonic with its conveniently platform-shaped paws.
    • One stage of the final boss features two disembodied hands that first try to crush him, then to run him over by racing across the arena.
  • Sonic Advance Trilogy 2's Sky Canyon boss is basically a rotating doughnut wheel thing with the cockpit and weak point, a laser, and a gigantic hand on a springy arm. The hand hurts like hell, and if it hits you directly, you are likely to die instantly. Makes this That One Boss.
  • The final boss of Sonic Advance Trilogy 3 is a Humongous Mecha that attacks with such hands, and you have to use them as platforms to hit the boss.
• The fourth level boss of the licensed Tale Spin game for the NES, the massive "invisible gentleman". It defends itself with punches from its floating, white-gloved hands. The weak point? The bow tie, obviously.
• The Red Dragon from the Dungeons and Dragons arcade games is much like this. Tower of Doom's Flamewing attacked not only with the claws, but with fireballs, rockfalls, and his fire breath. He was by far the toughest boss in the entire game.
• The final form of Julius in Final Fantasy Adventure is technically one of the "disembodied head and hands" variety, even though all he did was teleport and shoot fireballs. This was apparently a fan-favorite boss, however, as one of the most common complaints about the remake Sword of Mana is that this form wasn't present.
• Kologarn, a boss in World of Warcraft's donjon Ulduar. He's an entire giant golem, but most of his attacks come from his two hands (which are also directly killable). Also, yes, his eyes shoot laser beams.
• While not exactly giant, the titular Glover and the Big Bad Cross-Stitch were gloves. Cross-Stitch was certianly a lot more Doomy, though.
• The final battle versus Abaddon in Guild Wars Nightfall.
• Vysage, Lefty, and Righty are usually found together in Final Fantasy VIII. At one point, though, the three make up the first stage of a boss battle.
• Eversion. Any more description would be a spoiler.
• The Clock Tower boss in Epic Mickey is this type of boss.
• The Boss battle with Electro in Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions does this with electricity-shooting hands.
• Stlunko from Stinkoman 20 X 6.
• Ys has several:
  • The Shrine boss, Dorman, and Jabir's second form in V.
  • Orjugan in The Ark of Napishtim.
  • Galbalan in The Oath in Felghana.
• The Super Fighting Robot from Scott Pilgrim attacks with detachable hands, which also happen to be the only parts you can damage. Meanwhile the rest of the body chills in the background, invincible but still attacking you with lasers, missiles, and a flamethrower.
• Balore from Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow punches at you with his hands at first, then switches to a laser fired from his eye (which is his weakpoint). The sequel as well as Portrait of Ruin also feature Balore, but he's a little different and only alternates between his laser and hands.
• Alice: Madness Returns uses this for the final encounter.
• The first boss in Catherine is a pair of Katherine's hands holding a giant fork.
• The player can use these in the Deception series as a type of trap. Typically, the either grab an invader to lock him in place for a while, or they bash him/her around to cause high amounts of damage.
• Defense System Gepetto from Nie R, being an Expy of Gohdan, has two giant floating hands as his main weapons. They can not only smash you, but they also shoot Frickin' Laser Beams from their fingertips.
• One of the early level bosses from the Amiga classic Turrican is a giant mechanical fist flying around trying to crush the player.
• In Valis IV for the Turbo Grafx 16, the second stage boss is a floating head and pair of hands.

Anime and Manga

• Strength in Black Rock Shooter.
• In the Narutaru manga humanity meets its end being slapped away to oblivion by gigantic hands coming out from the Earth itself. Seriously.
• In Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, the heroes face loads and loads of Moon-sized, hand-(or foot-)shaped mechas. With faces. Thank you, Anti-Spiral.
• In Yu-Gi-Oh 5 Ds, Z-one uses these and a giant Deck to duel.

Comic Books

• The Teleporter in Buck Godot is shown this way. He can generate as many hands as he needs.

Film

• In the 1963 movie Captain Sindbad starring Guy Williams, the final peril at the top of El Kerim's tower is a giant mechanical hand.

Literature

• The novel "The Philosophical Strangler" by Eric Flint has an entity called "Even Worse Hands." Picture a giant pair of disembodied hands. Got it? These are Even Worse.
• In Bridge of Birds, The Hand That No One Sees ( it's actually a giant invisible spider).

Tabletop Games

• Dungeons and Dragons has the Bigby's Interposing Hand spell and its more powerful variants.
  • Vaarsuvius from Order of the Stick uses a special variant, the "Flicking Finger".
    • And the "Expressive Single Digit".

Western Animation

• The Dragon to the Blue Meanies, The Dreadful Flying Glove.