On a gathering storm Comes a tall handsome man In a dusty black coat With ared right hand. —Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, "Red Right Hand"

There are heroes and then there are villains. And the audience needs to know which is which, even before anyone gets toKick the Dog orPet the Dog ordoes anything involving the metaphorical dog. The hero, in order to be properly heroic, will besickeningly handsome. The villain may be good-looking as well, but if they are, they will often have some type ofphysical defect or tip-off to their monstrous nature.

People sympathize less with others who have a physical defect.

Often, the defect will be vaguelySatanic.Fritz Lang was fond of these, as is theJames Bond franchise. Kids' shows usually use slightly off-white eyes and teeth in their villains, presumably doubling as a lessAnvilicious reminder for kids to brush. Supernatural critters often have specific forms ofGlamour Failure inherent in their evil nature (thinkFangs Are Evil andFemme Fatalons) which they often use tointimidate enemies and prey.

The phrase originally comes from Horace, a reference to Jupiter's wrath.

Many evilshapeshifters have one as well, atelltale sign that they aren't who they say they are. Of course, thescariest and most effective shapeshifters andpuppeteer parasites are the ones that avoid this trope.

SinceEvil Is Cool, a Red Right Hand may occasionally overlap withFashionable Asymmetry.

Arguably a deliberate trip to theUncanny Valley, using the minor defect to provoke a negative audience response. Bonus points if the villain also turns out to be a demon/alien/shapeshifter etc. masquerading as mentioned above.

In heraldry, a red right hand denotes eitherthe province of Ulster or a baronet's status, although thatprobably has no direct connection to this trope.Nobody likes baronets, after all.

Not to be confused witha Red Right Ankle, nor withA Date with Rosie Palms. For the more blatant examples, seeObviously Evil. See alsoCame Back Wrong. Does not count if said hand is red because it'sburning and telling you to defeat your enemies.

Related toGood Scars, Evil Scars,Scary Shiny Glasses andHypnotic Eyes. If this appearance also comes with labored breathing or a cough, it'sVader Breath. If this appearance carries discolored veins, it'sTainted Veins. Of course, you should be more scared if youdon't see the villain at all. AWhite-Haired Pretty Boy, theundeathly pale and anEvil Albino will typically fall under this category. ContrastThe Grotesque, whose outer deformity hides an inner goodness, although Grotesques may occasionally be given a Red Right Hand, usually symbolic of their struggleagainst inner evil or madness. May bejustified with depicting the villain as having become evilbecause of being bullied or mocked for the deformity in question (the best known example of this is probablyFrankenstein's Monster). If it's a sign of demonic possession, seeMark of the Beast. Also Contrast withHidden Evil.

Anime and Manga

• Most if not all villains inGinga: Nagareboshi Gin and itssequel have at leastscars of some kind, butKaibutsu fromWeed takes the cake on this one. He's a former dogwho has been turned into a monster by genetic engineering and as a result is agiant semi-dog like creature who has near-impervious skin. On the other hand, he hasno skin at all on the left part of his upper body.
  • A close second would have to beAlam/Aramu who is an ordinary German Shepherd by breed but is missing both his ears as well asthe skin on his muzzle, resulting in a rather terrifying look.The trope gets subverted when he has aHeel Face Turn, though.
• Ralph Werec inSoukou no Strain is a creepy albino witha scar across his eye, which turns pink when he's angry. However, when he wassane, his skin was less pale, his hair was blond and more meticulously hair-gelled, and he didn't have the scar.
• The Noah fromD.Gray-man look normal in human form. In Noah form, they have a line ofcross-shaped marks across their foreheads.
  • Oh ho, let's not talk about Noahawakened form.
  • While only Allen can see it, all Akuma are powered by a bound human soul protruding from their bodies.
  • Played with with Allen, whoseleft arm is twisted and red, with a big cross on the back of his hand and occasionally a will of its own. His parents abandoned him because it was so freaky. Not only is hea wonderful person, the scary arm is actually a holy weapon for destroying Akuma.
    • His other 'mark' is his funny-looking cursed right eye, which is a mark of sin but also one of hismessianic attributes, since it causes him suffering and keeps him from ever forgetting there are innocent souls within the Akuma who he wants to save.
    • HisSuper-Powered Evil Side, on the other hand, has leftno physical mark on him at all. Although his hair gets wavy when The Fourteenth comes out to play. Is wavy hair a deformity?
    • His skin gets darker as a noah.The artist may not have thought that part through all that well...
    • It becomes less unfortunate an implication when one reads that the darker skin is considered superior by design. Or it simply swings the other way. Technically this is correct however, darker skin providing more resistance to the sun. It's minute, but the fact is there.
• Scar ofFullmetal Alchemist has aTattooed Right Hand, which was a sign of hisearly evilness.
  • The Homunculi all have their Ouroboros tattoos, as well.
• When not wearing his gloves, Gendo Ikari fromNeon Genesis Evangelion has what looks like a fetus fused unto his hand. He has his reasons...
• Haji ofBlood+ is a subversion. Although he is the onlychiropteran to have a permanent, visible indication of his inhuman nature - a literal red right hand with monstrous claws - he is unequivocally a good guy, and the only chevalier in the series who never fully transforms into a monstrous chiropteran combat form, insteadlimiting himself to transforming his other hand andgrowing batlike wings.
• InHellsing theevil Nazi Doctor known only asthe Doctor has a sixth finger. However, it's not very noticeable unless you pay much attention to his hands.
  • Played with whenSeras gains her shadow-arm.
  • Zorin Blitz's right eye is almost completely black and in a permanent squint, while the other is bright green and is able to move around normally.
  • The Anime hasIncognito, a cone-headed vampire with a massive left eye.
    • And a pierced vagina on his forehead.
• The left hand of the titular character ofHell Teacher Nube is actually a sealed Oni, Baki, which replaces the left hand he lost fighting said Oni. Most of the time, it looks like his regular hand wearing a black leather glove; when his students are threatened by spectral horrors, he will reveal it as a monstrously large, dark red hand with visible tendons and black claws. However, he constantly seeks a way to seal it permanently, as only the influence of his childhood teacher prevents the Oni from taking over his entire body.
• Most of the villains inBerserk have something of the sort, even if they don't start as demons. Father Mozgus, for example, has an unnaturally flat face (revealed to be the result of him slamming his face into the ground two hundred times every day during his daily prayers). Guts, having a touch ofGenre Savvy, sometimes marks his enemies by looking for this sort of trait.
  • The Godhand, theBig Bad Duumvirate ofBerserk, is a very literal case. The podium that they present themselves to would-be sacrifices from is ared right hand.Genius, you say?
• Towa Kannagi fromMermaid Saga is aWhite-Haired Pretty Girl that always keeps her right hand heavily bandaged.What's under there isn't so much a hand as it is a mottled, pulsating claw she received after drinking mermaid's blood. The constant physical pain it leaves her in (not to mention her forced isolation because of it) has left her more than a little deranged.
• Inuyasha has Naraku, whose incarnations are marked by a spider-shaped scar on the back.
• Red Left Hand in the case of Yubel fromYu-Gi-Oh! GX.
• Ryo Takatsuki ofProject ARMS has a literal Red Right Hand, which is a nanite-based AI prosthetic known as the Jabberwock. Like that's gonna work out well. When the hand starts spreading over the rest of the body,run...now.
• InDarker than Black, it's fairly obvious that we shouldn't trustWei orMaki, even though a big deal isn't made about it. More explicitly, theRed Eyes, Take Warning effect that accompanies a contractor using their powers is definitely a bad sign. More literally, the leader ofThe Syndicate turns out to have two prosthetic hands.
  • In case the red glowing eyes of a contractor weren't enough of a hint that it's about to hit the fan, they alsoemit synchrotron radiation when activating their powers. This isnot something that normal humans are supposed to do.
• A villain with a literal Red Right Hand is Devimon, the firstBig Bad ofDigimon Adventure. It's far from the only characteristic that identifies him as evil.
• You Higuri's mangaCantarella features a possessed Cesare Borgia with a color-vague demonic arm,which eventually had to be lopped off to stop him from becoming an avatar of Satan. Mind you, while the explanation is textbook Red Right Hand, the arm subplot seems to have been included entirely so that Cesare's faithful servant had an excuse totie him to the bed.
• Some of the less thinkyDetective Conan episodes use this trope to show who amongst them is the killer, like the sinister looking head librarian who exudes 'evil boss' vibes from the moment he appears on-screen in the book drug trafficking episode.
• In part Three ofJojo's Bizarre Adventure,J. Geil and his mother,Enya Geil, figure as fairly prominent villains. Both of them are distinct with having two right hands.
• Sora, in an arc ofNaruto Shippuden, has a demonic-looking right hand. He wasn't necessarily evil, just aJerkasswho also happens to be a vessel for some of the Nine-Tailed Fox's chakra that has been cultivated and injected into Sora by the real villain.
  • When Naruto tries todefeat the Kyuubi on his own, he has his former inner hatred shoved into his face, and then Naruto's left eye transforms into that of his inner evil counterpart. On the outside, he develops a 2-tailed fox cloak on the right side and a 2-tailed V2 cloak on his left.^[1]

Comic Books

• Satan as portrayed inThe Sandman had an aura of Grecian beauty, but his hair kept forming little horn-shapes. His resemblance to David Bowie upped the creepiness level yet further. Also the nightmare calledThe Corinthian, who hid his eyes opaque sunglasses because instead ofeyes he had two tinymouths with actual teeth, which he used to eat the eyes of his victims to learn anything they had seen.
  • The Corinthian gains normal eyes after he was temporarily made mortal and developed compassion for others.
• OneThe Legend of Zelda comic book has Link's hand turn red when he takes the Triforce of Power. Sure enough, he soon discovers thatWith Great Power Comes Great Insanity.
• In theDick Tracy strips, the most famous enemies are the grotesque ones and their hideousness reflects the fact that almost all of them are unrepentant murderous scum.
• Herr Starr, theBig Bad of Garth Ennis'Preacher (Comic Book), starts with a nonfunctional right eye and five scar lines around it. As the series goes on, the "redness" only increases: He gets his left ear shot off, a nasty (and phallic) line is cut into his scalp, he loses his right lower leg to cannibals andhis penis gets bitten off by a dog.Crosses the Line Twice when he says "My cock is in the bitch's mouth. And not in a good way."
• Batman's rogue's gallery has three big examples of this.The Joker is often depicted with a permanent freaky grin on his chalk white face, The Penguin has a distinctly birdlike appearance (sometimes including flippers for hands), and Two-Face has half of his face horribly scarred by acid.
  • Another example is Killer Croc, and he becomes more and more of an example as time goes on. When he first appeared, he looked like a normal person, save for green scales covering his body. The official story is that he has a bizarre version of atavism, which gets worse as time goes on, making him look more and more reptilian.
• The French comic bookLe vagabond des limbes once featured this - Axle, the hero, spends most of the series looking for Chimeer, a mysterious woman that is obviously in love with him, and upon failure to have God himself locate her Axle puts him to the task of creating her. The resultingbloody pile of randomly fused red flesh seems to be the source of the hero's truly memorablehorrified stare... but no! There is the unmistakable arm and voice of Chimeer coming out of it, and her arm is the only thing not red and horrible! This is obviously a subversion as the newly created "Chimeer" is genuinely in love with Axle and only means well...
• Superman: Yes, Lex Luthor, yes, mechanical right hand. Ironically enough, from his kryponite ring (of hate). Also,Bald of Evil.
• InX-Men Reverend Stryker finds the remains of a Sentinel from the future and uses the robot's glowing PINK hand as a glove and an apparent weapon. He dies before he gets to use it. Just goes to show you need to get a real red hand. No one respects you with a pink one.
• DC Comics'Heroic Fantasy heroClaw the Unconquered had a literal demonic hand, hidden under a red glove to reduced its evil influence on him.
• Dr. Doom, whose face is so horribly scarred that it's never shown.
  • Almost averted. According to Reed Richards, the scar on his face was only slightly superficial. But Von Doom's ego was so great, that even the slightest imperfection was enough to vow vengeance on Richards.
    • Later, upon receiving his armor from Tibetan mystics, he didn't even wait until the metal had cooled before trying on the mask, which is the true cause of his now hideous deformity.
• Ghost Rider, the titular character has a skullon fire for a head to show what aBadass he is.
• Conan's ally Fafnir Hellhand twice lost his arm, and twice had it replaced with a demonic substitute that had a will of its own.
• Watchmen: Former stage magician turned criminal mastermind Moloch has pointed, satanic ears. He resemblesOrlok.
• Hideaki'sright hand man fromSilent Dragon has a pair of cybernetic arms that are designed to look reptilian and dragonlike.
• The pirate-turned-Imperial officer whocaused the deaths ofWedge Antilles' parents, Loka Hask, had aCorellian limpet, basically a sort of eyelessoctopus,latch on to his face when Wedge blew up his ship. He never has it removed, and it just sits therecovering one eye and ear, appendages going intohis nose and mouth. Even if it had devoured a good amount of his face, you'd think he'd just have itcybernetically rebuilt, but no. No one ever mentions it. It's just there as a visual aid to hisComplete Monster status.
  • Delak Krennel, who later featured in the novels, had a literal prosthetic right hand that glowed red.Card-Carrying Villain to the core.
  • Captain Semtin has obvious, creepy prosthetic eyeballs and mechanical thingies in his ears. He abandons some of his soldiers on Ryloth, which has local rules that offworlders with no influence or transportation get sold into slavery. The soldiers promptlyswitch sides.
• A prominent character in theHellblazer series (particularly in the trade paperback, "The Red Right Hand") develops a literal red right hand (occasionally drawn as hisleft hand) aftermurdering his girlfriend and recklessly causing the terrible demise of several innocent people, includingchildren, infants, and young parents. The hand becomes redder and darker in accordance with changes to his character as the story progresses.
• New Mutants member Josh Foley aka Elixir was a golden skinned mutant whose Omega-level power over biology granted him incredible healing abilities. When he used those powers tokill a villain who orchestrated his girlfriend's assassination his skin turned black and he entered a catatonic state. He got better eventually, but ever since his golden skin is marred by a splotch of darkness that keeps moving around his body—a permanent reminder that he killed someone and that he can kill again.
• InPlanetary,John Stone has a literal red right hand, the "Devil's Paw," hidden under artificial skin, with which he battles Jakita Wagner."I hacked it off of someone tougher than you twenty years ago. It had killed 180 people before I laid eyes on it."
  • Likely a reference toNick Fury, whom Stone is anExpy; Fury's archfoe Strucker used a red mechanical gauntlet called the Satan Claw, and after beating Strucker and capturing it Nick has sometimes used it as well. The Satan Claw, then, is another example of the trope.
• InCross Gen comicSojourn, Mordath's evil nature warped the Sigil he recieved, so instead of a red-and-yellow yin-yang symbol it was entirely red. Recieving the Sigil in the first place brought himBack from the Dead, so he's also a zombie.
• Justified example inCreature Tech. Jameson exchanged his hand for that of the demon Hellcat so he could gain demonic powers.
• Iron Man's enemy and former lover Whitney Frost, aka Madame Masque is a terrorist leader with an origin similar to Doom's; a plane crash horribly disfigured her face, forcing her to wear a golden mask to conceal it. The scars have since been healed via surgery, but she still wears the mask to continue using hernom de plume.
• Captain America's arch-enemy the Red Skull. Originally, hisSkull for a Head was a mask, but after cheating death by transferring his soul into a clone of Steve Rogers, hefell victim to his own Dust of Death, causing his head to take the shape of a living red skull.
  • Another of Cap's foes who wasHoist by His Own Petard this way, Baron Zemo. His face is horribly scarred due to being doused in Adhesive-X, a caustic chemical of his own design.

Film

• ManyJames Bond villains:
  • Dr. No has mechanical hands.
  • Karl Stromberg has webbing between the fingers.
  • Jaws has metal teeth.
  • Scaramanga's superfluous third nipple.
  • Le Chiffre's eye weeps blood.
  • One of the most literal is Red Grant of the book version ofFrom Russia with Love whose nickname besides referencing his allegiance to the Soviet Union, refers to his unpleasantly red skin tone which indicates the evil behind otherwise handsome features.
  • Zao fromDie Another Day has diamonds seared to his face.
  • Zorin fromA View to a Kill has eyes that are different colors, much likeChristopher Walken himself.
• Azrael, the secondary villain inDogma, has little tiny horns. Though this is less a physical defect and more that he's literally a demon.
• In the movieMystery Men, Casanova Frankenstein has creepy fingernails.
• The pimp inTaxi Driver has long fingernails, apparently for cocaine.
• Kevin the cannibal, fromSin City, had claws. And then there's Yellow Bastard, which should be pretty self-explanatory.
• The six-fingered Count Rugen fromThe Princess Bride, as well as his albino assistant. In the book, though not the film, Vizzini is a hunchback as well.
• Doctor Strangelove: His right hand tried to strangle him and would compulsively do a Nazi salute. Unusually for this trope this is played entirely for comedy.
• Deformed superheroDarkman restores his left hand before his right, and spends a few scenes with the right completely devoid of skin. Shortly thereafter, he has something of a nervous breakdown.
• Torgo's knees inManos: The Hands of Fate. They were supposed to make him look like a Satyr, which is more often lost on people who have only watched theMystery Science Theater 3000 version, which frequently cuts off his "hooves."
• In theX-Men movies, Mystique can look like anybody she feels like, but she can't cover up the scarsWolverine gave her in the first movie. Also, her eyes occasionally flash yellow. This is contrary to the comics, where she has total control over her physical appearance, butWolverine can still identify her because she can't mask her scent.
• In John Carpenter'sIn the Mouth of Madness (1995), readers of the books of hack horror writer Sutter Cane go insane and develop strange physical afflictions, like a second pupil in their iris, or bleeding from their eyes. And berserk homicidal tendencies, of course. Over the time, these minor affliction develop into serious bodily mutations- including tentacles, distended jaws, and reversible joints.
• The main villain of the thirdDeath Note live actionAlternate Continuity film,L: Change the World, has a cloudy blue left eye.
• 2007'sBeowulf gives Grendel's Mother the power to assume the pleasing form ofAngelina Jolie, but she has a prehensile and whiplike ponytail, as well ashumorously high-heeled feet.
• Used with great gusto in300, in which Sparta'sCorrupt Church, the traitor Ephialtes, and much of the Persian empire are monstrous or deformed people. This is generally explained as the result of anUnreliable Narrator who is delivering propoganda to Spartan soldiers before a battle.
• Darryl Revok, the villain ofScanners, has a very noticeable scar on his forehead, from where he oncedrilled a hole in his skull to let the voices out.
• The Wizard of Oz: The Wicked Witch of the West and her iconic green skin.
• Dr. Rotwang fromMetropolis has a mechanical right hand.
• InNosferatu, Count OrlokLooks Like Orlok.
• InRevenge of the Fallen, the resurrected Megatron has an enormous right arm—and a pitifully gimpy-looking left one. The enormous right arm is later torn off.
  • InDark of the Moon he's missing about half of his face.
• InCoraline, everyone in the Other World appears to be more attractive than their real-world counterparts with the exception of thosegoddamn button eyes.
• The elite Nazi mooks inOrder of the Black Eagle have decidedly non-Nazi traits, such as flaming red hair worthy of a Celtic warrior of legend, or being as bloated as a sack of potatoes. The only elite mook who actually looks like a bonafideNazi Aryan superman is, of course,the traitor. The amazing thing about this movie is that its made in the late 70's prior to any FPS game being released, otherwise the elites being markedly different would definitely have counted as aShout-Out toFPSes like Wolfenstein, so it was simply a stylistic choice to remind you who the officers were.
• Enter the Dragon has two examples:Mr. Han is missing one hand and likes to replace it with various killer prosthetics (such as a literal iron hand or the claws that inflicted the iconic scratch mark injuries onBruce Lee's character). HisDragon, O'Hara, also has a jagged scar on his face that we soon discoverwas inflicted by Lee's father in an attempt to stop O'Hara from raping Lee's sister.
• Star Trek II the Wrath of Khan features Khan, the genetically augmented superman makes a spectacle of removing a glove from his left hand, but never removes the right glove throughout the rest of the movie.
• Kinda inInglourious Basterds with Aldo marking Nazi soldiers with a Swastika on their foreheads so that everyone will know what they did even when they are out of uniform.
• In the early 90'sCaptain America (comics) film,Red Skull has a prosthetic hand, but had underwent plastic surgery to get red of his skull-face.
• InSurf Ninjas Colonel Chi has a mechanical arm, and this is used to make jokes obviously referencingDr. Strangelove.
• InStar Wars films, people's eyes turn yellow when they become Sith. Emperor Palpatine also became further deformed when Mace Windu used the energy of his lightsaber to deflect his own force lightning attack back onto him.
• Gremlins and its sequel feature this by way of showing some pre-Gremlin mogwai having extra tufts of hair: Stripe and Mohawk.
• InThe Dark Knight Saga, the Joker hasmouth-scars in the shape of a smile.
• Frank D'Amico inKick-Ass has an unusual scar on his forehead that looks like a cross between a spiral and parentheses. This is never explained.
• InFlash Gordon, Ming'sDragon Klytus wears a golden gauntlet on his right arm, making it all the more noticeable that it seems to be paralysed, possibly in aShout-Out toRichard III.
• InMad Max, each member of the biker gang, including the Nightrider at the beginning, has a prominent facial mole.
• InDune, Baron Harkonnen has diseases injected into his face for some reason, which gives him giant facial pustules. This was invented for the film, though both book and film versions are also morbidly obese.
• InContagion, Krumweide (played by Jude Law) is given crooked teeth to foreshadow the revelation that he's a crook and a liar. His name also helps.
• InCube Zero, Jax has a cybernetic implant fitted where his right eye used to be. It's never shown or explained what abilities it gives him; it's only ever used to identify him as a villain.
• The Bug Alien inMen in Black disguises himself and attempts to pass as a normal human. But while his disguise is good enough thatMuggles would never suspect he's not human, he certainly comes across as being quite abnormal. Not only are many of his behaviors creepy, not only does he walk with a lopsided, unnatural gait; but he also has hundreds of cockroaches living inside his clothes and vehicle, and every minute or so a cockroach will crawl out, to the disgust of any human who sees it. It's rather reminiscent ofThe Worm That Walks, although it's not that trope (when his true form is finally revealed, he's a giant bug, and the smaller cockroaches are stated to be his immature brood).
• An inversion of the trope was used by the Mole character inAustin Powers in Goldfinger. His main characteristic was a large mole on his face. Despite this, he's actually one of the good guys (a double agent that was officially serving Dr. Evil's organization, but his actual employers were Austin Power's organization), and was largely responsible for Mini-Me'sdefection.
• In the orginialTexas Chainsaw Massacre The Hitchhiker has a large and prominent birth mark on the side of his face.

Literature

• Precision, fromHells Children by Andrew Boland, literally has a red right hand. He also has a catastrophic plan.
• In theSilmarillion, Morgoth has incurable burns on his hands from handling the Silmarils. And he was also eventually cursed with a permanent ugly appearance.
• The main villain of Derek Landy's novelSkulduggery Pleasant literally has a red right hand—that is to say, there is no skin on that hand, only muscle and bone. He can use this to channel a torturous killing curse.
  • The second and third books have Billy-Rae Sanguine, who has two black holes where his eyes should be. Creates a particular dissonance, since he is otherwise a fun-natured (albeitAx Crazy) Texan. AlsotheFaceless Ones cause the faces of those they possess to melt in a manner which destroys all of their features, the source of their name.
• In thebooks, Hannibal Lecter had six fingers on his left hand (later in the series, he had the extra finger removed because it made him recognizable) and maroon eyes. Creepy.
• The title character ofPhilip K. Dick novelThe Three Stigmata Of Palmer Eldritch has horizontally slitted metal eyes, metal teeth and a mechanical right arm: all physical signs of his metaphysical transformation into something very other than human.
• InTerry Pratchett'sHogfather, the villain Mr. Teatime is described as "quite pretty," except forhis eyes: one is blank glass, while the other (consideredfar more disturbing) is yellow-white with a pinpoint pupil.
  • In other Discworld novels it is stated that the Gods can look like anything they choose, but that the one feature they cannot disguise is their eyes.
    • Not just gods, it applies to transformed mortal creatures too. InWitches Abroad, Greebo retains cat's eyes in human form, and the Duc has to wear dark glasses becausehe's still got the eyes of a frog.
  • And the Cunning Man fromI Shall Wear Midnight has no eyes - not blank skin or empty sockets, you just can see what's behind his head through the spots where his eyes should be.
• T. H. White does this with Mordred inThe Once and Future King, and explicitly makes a comparison toRichard III.
• Saint Dane's chilling ice-blue eyes inThe Pendragon Adventure.
• Harry Potter series:
  • With a snake-like face that nosedives into the deepest, darkest bowels of theUncanny Valley, you can tell at first sight thatVoldemort is evil.
  • Dumbledore's left hand is blackened and scarred after trying to remove one of Voldemort's curses. But Dumbledore is decidedly on the good side.It does represent his moral failings, though.
  • Peter Pettigrew,on the other hand sacrifices his hand to reconstitute Voldemort. He gets a beautiful silver hand in payment.But the hand is loyal to Voldemort only and ends up strangling Pettigrew to death when the latter hesitates--yes, onlyhesitates--out of a debt to Harry.
• Similarly Harry Dresden in theDresden Files has one of his hands blackened and useless for several books.There was one area of his hand that wasn't burnt. And it was shaped likeLasciel's seal.
• Jander Sunstar, vampire hero ofRavenloft novelVampire of the Mists, got permanently scarred (in some sources up to the bone) hand afterwielding the holy artifact of Lathander against another vampire, Strahd Von Zarovich.
• Lord Foul's eyes look like "yellow,carious fangs", betraying his true nature. Significant in that his usual form is all but concealed but for those eyes, and when revealed but for them he looks pretty noble.
• Keys to the Kingdom series:
  • Mister Monday, Grim Tuesday, and Drowned Wednesday have all been corrupted and are significantly diminished.
  • And then there's the Skinless Boy, which isn't an entirely accurate name, but is close enough. It has a red (okay then, ochre), skeletal half.
  • Lord Sunday's eyes are entirely dark.
• Cinder of the Chandrian inThe Name of the Wind is aWhite-Haired Pretty Boy with solid black eyes. He also has anightmare-inducing grin.
• Outcast of Redwall features Swartt Sixclaw and his son Veil, who each have an extra digit on their left paw. Veil also ends up with a literal Red Right Hand, and red left hand too.He's tricked into staining them with beetroot juice in a trap set to find a poisoner which plays on his temporaryOut, Damned Spot! mentality.
  • Quite a fewRedwall villains have this.
  • Cluny the Scourge has anabnormally long tail which he uses as a weapon
  • Tsarmina is a cat, which is unusual for a character inMossflower.
  • Slagar the Cruelhad half his face ripped off by Asmodeus back in the first book.
  • Feragho the Assassin has those charming blue eyes.
  • Urgan Nagru is a silver fox.
  • Swartt Sixclaw surprisingly hassix claws.
  • Ublaz is a hypnotist, apart from being the only pine marten in the book (and one of the three in the series).
  • Damug Warfang is twice the size of a normal rat.
  • Mokkan (and the other Marlfoxes) are all pure white.
  • Ungatt Trunn is the only cat in the book.
  • Princess Kurda is an albino.
  • Raga Bol has aHook Hand from his encounter with Lonna Bowstripe.
  • Gulo the Savage is a wolverine.
  • Riggu Felis also has half his face ripped off, by Pandion.
  • Vizka Longtooth is a golden fox with aMeaningful Name.
  • Korvus Skurr doesn't really have a Red Right Hand but is still notable as the only birdBig Bad.
  • Vilaya is a sable, as is Zwilt the Shade.
  • Razzid Wearat is aweasel/rat hybrid.
• InUrsula K. Le Guin'sTehanu, a young and horrifically injured girl falls victim to this trope: a withered and nigh-useless hand, missing one eye, besides the fact she's traveling with a foreigner who brought magic items from a distant land while in the company of great wizards.
• The titular character of theVampire Hunter D series has a parasitic creature that takes the form of an obnoxious, ugly little face in the palm of his (left) hand. The symbolism is of a hero with inner demons.
• In J. Michael Reaves' fantasy novelThe Shattered World, the evil sorceress Ardatha has made a pact with a demon, which transformed herleft hand into the likeness of a demon's hand, with claws and black scaly skin. The hand is the source of great magical power, supplementing Ardatha's own considerable power, and can glow with unholy fire. It's a source of both pride and terror for Ardatha.
• Sword of Truth
  • Emperor Jagang is pretty thuggish looking anyway, but it is highly unusual and disturbing eyes which mark him out as something special and evil. They aretotally gray, with no irises (though you can still tell when he is focusing on you apparently), with murky shapes moving across the gray.
  • Darken Rahl was also described as incredibly handsome except for his side, which was horribly burned. You can also tell by the way his name is Darken.
• In theDeltora Quest series, the shapeshifting Ols must always travel in pairs, and have a mark on their body that they can't get rid of. And when you get to suspecting every pair of twins (and twin-like sorts) they come across... well, maybe you don't stop to think that the pairs don't have to look anything like each other.
• A bogeyman-ish torturer in theSeventh Tower series has half of his body replaced by a living mass of shadow.Of course, this is thanks to hisboss removing that half of his body in the first place to ensure his loyalty, but that's hardly a burning issue to the people whose minds he's wrecking through their nightmares.
• A Song of Ice and Fire:
  • Sandor Clegane is first introduced as a thug, with half of his face grotesquely burned. This seems to be a Red Right Hand until further characterization shows how conflicted Sandor is, mostlybecause of his disfigurement.
  • Tyrion Lannister (loosely based onRichard III) in the minds of the people of Westeros. While Tyrion isn't a villain (yet), the fact that he's a particularly ugly dwarf causes just about everyone to view him as "the twisted little monkey demon" and the evil power behind the throne.
  • Victarion Greyjoy has a literal example with his burned arm. After Moqorro the Red Priest healed his festering hand wound, the relevant arm became permanently burned to the elbow, but functions perfectly well and is implied to now be super-strong, at one point doing aNeck Lift on some poor bastard with enough force to rip the man's throat out. Oh, Victarion also gotreal fond of human sacrifice after this.
• Crowley inGood Omens is only moderately evil, but he does have yellow snake eyes (hence theCool Shades). Since he gets given human bodies to blend in on Earth, the implication is that he/Hell can't change these. He also has snake-skin boots that are implied to not be boots and he can "do interesting things with his tongue", both of which are suggestive of his origin as the Snake which tempted Eve.
• The book version ofThe Phantom of the Opera has Erik's deformity cover the whole face, in that it makes his head look like a skull. Unlike the film adaptation, he is presumed to have been born this way.
• Inverted in theWarhammer 40,000 novelGrey Knights, wherethe Allking of Sophano Secundus and his retainers appear normal at first, but only reveal their Chaos mutations once the truth is guessed at.
• InThe Magicians, The Beast (AKAMartin Chatwin) appears completely human except for three or four extra fingers on each hand.
• Dan Brown seems to be fond of this, as he has a DeafDragon inDigital Fortress, and anEvil Albino Dragon andEvil CrippleMan Behind the Man inThe Da Vinci Code.
  • And theBig Bad inThe Lost Symbol has tattoos over literally his whole body. When he goes incognito, any skin not covered by clothes has to be heavily coated in makeup to hide them.
• The race of trolls inGoblin Moon andThe Gnome's Engine appear mostly human, save that each sports a Red Right Hand or two (clawed hand, cloven hoof, fox muzzle, etc). These may be a legacy of their origins, as some claim they were once humans who became contaminated by their overuse of dark magic.
• In aPirates of the Caribbean prequel novel, there is a pirate named "Left-Foot Louie", who literally has two left feet.
• Several examples in Terry Brooks' works.Rimmer Dall ofThe Heritage of Shannara keeps his left hand covered in a glove.Mr. Meeks ofMagic Kingdom of Landover is missing an arm. The demon from Running With The Demon looks perfectly normal, except for his curiously pale, washed blue eyes.
• Dimitri, the protagonist of a Brazilian novel released in English asTwelve Fingers: Biography of an Anarchist has... guess it. (and since he's really clumsy, they sometimes screw him over: healmost startsWorld War I, but jams both index fingers in the trigger, allowing for Gavrilo Princip to shoot... and the original title isThe Man Who Killed Getúlio Vargas because the extra index"suicides" a Brazilian dictator)
• In theRevelation Space novels, people infected with the Haussman Virus spontaneously bleed from their right hands in stigmatic imitation of the crucifixion of Sky Haussman, which helps in tracking acertain character through multiplememory gambits and deep covers
• Charles Dickens often used this trope. Uriah Heep inDavid Copperfield is anEvil Redhead with maroon eyes, no eyebrows, sweaty palms and a squirmy way of moving; Wackford Squeers inNicholas Nickleby only has one eye; Mr. Quilp inThe Old Curiosity Shop has a head too big for his body.
• InThe Lord of the Rings, about the only physical description given of Sauron's current form is that he is missing a finger on "the Black Hand." (It was chopped off after one of his previous defeats.)
• Most of theBig Bads in theAlex Rider series don't exhibit this, yet it is quite common withDragons.
  • Mr Grin has aGlasgow Grin.
  • Mrs Stellenbosch is a particularly ugly and buff woman.
  • Conrad had half his body replaced with metal due to a bomb exploding while he was carrying it.
  • Yassen Gregorovitch hasa scar on his neck from when Ian Rider saved him from a black widow, conveniently revealed in the fourth book where he becameThe Dragon.
  • Nile is a black man with a disease that puts visible white blotches on his skin.
  • Kaspar has his head tattooed to resemble a globe.
  • Ash has a scar on his abdomen area, which he received after being shot by Scorpia agents
  • Erik Gunter has a disfigured body shape and a limp because of war injuries andJulius Grief is physically identical to Alex.
• InInterview with the Vampire, Lestat is said to have fingernails the texture and color of glass. Presumably, this was simply a side effect of vampirism.
• In the original version ofThe Silence of the Lambs and its sequel, Hannibal Lecter has an extra finger on hisleft hand. This was considered for the film version, but later dropped because the FX would have been too expensive.

Live-Action TV

• OnThe League of Gentlemen,Serial Killerbrother-sister couple Edward and Tubbs Tattsyrup both have piggy noses. There's alsoMonster Clown Papa Lazarou's blackface makeup, which is later hinted to be his actual skin color.
• OnSupernatural, both demonic possessions and shapeshifters are indistinguishable from the real person except for occasionally discolored eyes.
• InDollhouse Topher'sslightly less moral counterpart Bennett Halverson has a red left hand, her dead arm kept in a sling.
• Rankel, Ming's vizier in the 2007 remake ofFlash Gordon, wears a long robe that obscures his legs, and does not walk, but ratherglides along the floor. Additionally, and less subtly, he has a glass plate on his head which exposes his brain. In a twist from the usual, though,it seems he's going for aHeel Face Turn, or has been plotting likeThe Starscream
• Doctor Who: Davros has a mechanical right hand, after the original was shot off. He can fire energy bolts from it. Not to mention hisEyeless Face,Bald of Evil, andforehead sensor thing.
  • Lucius Petrus Dextrus from the same series has a, er,petrus dextrus^[2] of his own, but he'sGenre Savvy enough to keep it hidden under a cloak. The Sybilline sisters are well on their way, too, but their symptoms are less extreme, more easily concealed - appropriate, as they're equally a little more neutral than Lucius.
• Inverted inLost, where Locke gets aDr. No-like scar across his eye from the plane crash andwas a paraplegic. He's the good guyuntil the last season.
• Kenny onKenny vs. Spenny is missing the tip of one of his fingers. Kenny often employs "evil" tactics like irradiating Spenny so he can't produce semen.
• InSmallville's variousBad Futures,President Evil andMan in WhiteLex Luthor is typically shown with one black-gloved hand. The effect is...unsettling.
• Ankh fromKamen Rider OOO. To an extent.
• InBuffy the Vampire Slayer, vengeance demons and Dark Willow are both explicitly described as "veiny". When Warren acquires a talisman of super-strength, Andrew is disappointed that it didn't make him "all huge and veiny".
• InThe Invaders (1967–68), the aliens (at first) can't bend their pinkies.

Music

• As quoted above, the song "Red Right Hand" byNick Cave and the Bad Seeds is about such a character. This character goes around doing good deeds, giving people their hearts' desires, but only as the prelude to some unspecified plot. (The song was inspired by Milton's use of the phrase...which was, despite the vaguely Satanic implications of much of the uses of the trope and indeed the song itself, referencingGod.)

You're one microscopic cog In his catastrophic plan Designed and directed By his red right hand

• Lupe Fiasco's concept characters all have these. "The Cool" has a skeletal right hand, "The Streets" hasglowing dollar signs for pupils, and "The Game" has dice for eyes and breathes out crack smoke.
• The music video for Rammstein's song "Ich Will" has this - the band members perform a robbery, and most of them have a physical defect to show them to be the bad dudes - club foot, plastic hand, blind in one eye.
• Laura Branigan's "Self Control" has a character with two red hands who tempts and seduces the singer.
• TheLemon Demon song "Atomic Copper Claw" is supposedly about a person who's seemingly friendly, but is actually planning to murder the singer with the eponymous instrument. However, there's a fairly strong implication that the singer's just paranoid.
• Used word for word in the opening stanza of "The Writhing South," by Say Anything. Not that the narrator's intentions are dubious in the first place, though.

Newspaper Comics

• Most ofDick Tracy's foes have some sort of odd physical deformity, like Flattop's flat cranium, Pruneface's wrinkled face, the Brow's large, rigged forehead, and so on.

Mythology

• In old English myth, the barghest—a monstrous, ghostly black dog—could look like anything, but it would always haveglowing red eyes.
• In many old English folktales, the devil could take any form, but couldn't disguise his clubfoot/cloven hoof. Perhaps some sort of high heeled shoes?
• The original ghouls of Arabic lore had a similar deal, only they couldn't hide their cloven hooves.
• The somewhat less evil (though still dangerous) hulder of Norse legends looked like ordinary people, except that they had little cow tails. If they became "good," their tails would drop off (some versions also gave them a hollow back).
• Similarly,Kitsune can't hide their tails, or in some variations, their tiny paws instead of feet. In some Chinese versions of the same concept, this inspired foot binding.
  • It was also claimed that Kitsune couldn't pronounce 'moshi-moshi' when speaking, even in human form. This led to the tradition of using 'Moshi-moshi' as a greeting in Japan.
• In folklore of India the Rakshasa, tiger-headed demons, can masquerade as humans, but their hands always point the wrong way (palms up instead of down, and their thumbs point outwards).
  • They retain this distinguishing trait inDungeons & Dragons.
• In Eastern European folklore, the werewolf will have fur growingbeneath his skin in his human form, fur that becomes visible when you cut him. SomethingVan Helsing got right, shockingly.
• In Jewish folklore as well as some Eastern European traditions demons and vampires look like normal people except that they have bird's feet.
• Several types of malevolent spirits in English and Celtic mythology looked like horses or cows with hooves pointing backwards. Indian folktales had female spirits with the same defect.

Tabletop Games

• InVampire: The Masquerade, the Tzimisce do this to themselves using their unique ability of "Vicissitude", AKA "Fleshcrafting".
  • Also in Vampire, vampires from the Gangrel clan gained a physical animal traits each time they raged. A kind Storyteller would make you into this trope while a more vindictive one would have you sprout a tail or a frikkin' beak.
  • In the same universe'sDemon: The Fallen, the character Harvey Ciujilo (a.k.a. the demon Hasmed, a recurring character in the setting) has one normal eye and one eye full of blood and pus, referred to as his "Evil Eye".
  • In theNew World of Darkness, Freaks and Mutants are types ofslashers, though some may lean towardsThe Grotesque.
  • The version ofdhampyrs presented in the NWOD bookMirrors are all marked by a minor supernatural deformity.
• Marks of Chaos inWarhammer Fantasy Battle andWarhammer 40,000 start as this, and may become full-onOne-Winged Angel.
  • Although the Soul Drinkers are good guys, many of them still have mutations from a close call with Chaos, providing a constant reminder of how close they came to damnation. Luckily, they have uses for them - Sarpedon stabs people with his eight spider-like legs, for example.
  • In bothWarhammer Fantasy Battle andWarhammer 40,000 there is a deity called Kaela Mensha Khaine, the Bloody-Handed God. In 40K, the Avatar model is usually shown with a blood-dripping left hand.
  • His hand is constantly bleeding with the blood of one of the greatest Eldar Heros who he murdered and was cursed for by the way.
• Ubiquitous in theRavenloft setting, where committing an evil deed and then blowing a Powers check wins you a Red Right Hand of your very own.
• Dungeons & Dragons:
  • demon lord Graz'zt is described as having shiny black skin, yellow eyes, fangs, six fingers on each hand, and six horns on his head. According to his entry onThe Other Wiki, "These fiendish traits are apparent, regardless of whatever form Graz'zt chooses to take."
  • Members of the binder class in 3.5 gain power by channelingvestiges, and can end up with Red Right Hand traits if they botch the checks involved.
• In theLankhmar supplement for 1st and 2nd edition ofDungeons & Dragons,black wizards are afflicted by disgusting deformities each time they level up.
• InNobilis, Lord Entropy (a.k.a. The Darkest Lord, Imperator of Scorn, Desecration, and Destruction, and the leader of Earth's Imperators in the War for the survival of Creation) has hands that constantly drip blood due to the sheer evil of the deeds he has done in the service of Creation.
• In thePlanescape setting, tieflings are not always evil, but are decended from fiends, and often have some physical feature that reflects their heritage. While their full description is as varied as humans' the setting'sMonstrous Compendium describes them as "superficially human, their appearance always betrays them: some sport small horns, other have pointed ears, scales, a cloven hoof, or just a wicked gleam in their eye that never leaves."

Theatre

• Older Than Steam: One of theparagons of this isShakespeare'sRichard III, who has a whole set: hunchbacked, with an atrophied arm, one leg shorter than the other, and born with all his teeth already in place. The real Richard III did not have these deformities.
• Almost literal in Friedrich Durenmatt'sThe Visit, in which Claire, the villain, has an artificial hand and foot to symbolize her inhumanity.
• Averted with green-skinned misunderstood political activist Elphaba fromWicked. Of course, everyonethinks she's evil, even giving her the name Wicked Witch of the West, since it's a retelling ofThe Wizard of Oz. Played straight with herYandere sister, wheelchair-bound Nessarose.

Toys

• Bionicle has Takanuva gain one when his light is drained, his right hand having shadow powers. The mix of light and shadow in him during that period creates a lot of conflict inside.

Video Games

• The Prince/The Tall Man ofChzo Mythos has no skin on either of his hands.
• InBaldur's Gate II, the player must take a side in a mob war between a regular crime syndicate and a creepy lady with red eyes and a soft voice. Simply to drive the point home, she will only agree to meet you at the local graveyard, at midnight. Also, she has fangs. And not thenice kind.
• In an expansion toNeverwinter Nights the player can opt for the Pale Master prestige class; one of the features of this class is that after a number of levels, the player's right arm is replaced with a skeletal arm which can kill foes with just a touch.
• Mass Effect has Saren, who looks just like a normal Turian except for Geth parts grafted onto his armor and his lack of clan markings.
  • The Illusive Man has strange blue markings in his eyeballs much like Saren'shinting at a shared history of coming into contact with Reaper technology.
  • Kai Leng inMass Effect 3 doesn't have proper eyes, just a strange cybernetic strip that runs across his face at eye-level.
• Nero fromDevil May Cry 4 has the Devil Bringer, a red-and-blue-with-glow demonic right forearm that can project a spectral hand for powerful attacks. He attempts to hide it from others at first, but it is eventually known to all. It proves instrumental in defeating the villains and his love interest learns to look past the deformity and accept him for who he is.
• Trias the angel fromPlanescape: Torment looks precisely as a being of pure good should... But his wings have burned away and been left a charred, skeletal frame.
• Chiaki inShin Megami Tensei Nocturne gets one after she undergoes herEvil Makeover.See it here.
• Morphs inFire Emblem 7 look completely human, except their pale skin and golden eyes give them away. One such character even earnestly believed herself to be human, but her appearance gave her away. Then there's Nergal's scar and exposed eye.
• Sho Minamimoto has a black left handand in his second incarnation, two black arms due to his being half Taboo Noise inThe World Ends With You.
• King of Fighters features Rugal Bernstein, who gets a cybernetic hand and eye.
• Wolfgang Krauser also bore an X-shaped scar on the top of his head. Geese Howard has a sizable scar on his back that he shows off by removing his shirt before battle, gained when he was punted out a window at the end ofFatal Fury. K' has a literal red right hand, as his real one was "incinerated" during the first "live firing" after Kyo's blood was infused into him. He's more of theAnti-Hero though.
• Hitting the obscure, Doll Master fromThreads of Fate had a massive, evil right hand of death.
• In one of theAce Attorney games, theBig Bad isyour defendant, Matt Engarde. He looks innocuous enough, until he pullsThe Reveal, which consists ofgivinghimself a phone call, pulling back his hair to reveal scars on his eye, and pullinga glass of brandy out of nowhere just to swirl it around while grinning evilly.
  • In the final case ofApollo Justice: Ace Attorney,Kristoph Gavin has a scar on the back of his handthat looks like a skull when he flexes his fingers a certain way.
  • While not an unusual feature,Dahlia Hawthorne'sred hairis the only difference between her and her good-natured twin sister Iris.
  • Frank Sahwit has a mole in the middle of his forehead
  • Furio Tigre's red skin
  • Shelly De Killer has stitches down the middle of his face.

Phoenix: A baseball has stitches! Are you saying all baseballs are suspicious because they have stitches?!

• In theSoul Calibur series, Nightmare has a bulky demonic right arm that is passed on to anyone he possesses. Siegfried's arm is restored by Soul Calibur, butPyrrha's appears to be permanent even after she turns good again.
  • Don't forget Zasalamel's gold left eye...althoughno one's sure he's one of the villains or not.
• In theGeneforge series, canister addicts have faintly glowing skin and cold, glowing eyes. Those that have been using canisters for a long time have translucent skin, with their glowing muscles visibly reshaping themselves at all times.
• InIn Famous, Kessler has a mechanical gauntlet covering his entire right arm, presumably to enable the long-range energy blast he uses in his boss fight. HisPsycho Ex-Girlfriend Sasha basically has Cthulhu for a tongue.
• I don't know if this was the same in the old version, but inTomb Raider Anniversary, the first time you see Natla, you know she'll be the villain. The really really long nails are a dead giveaway. Did I mention they were bright red, too?
  • Not to mention that rather long (yet surprisingly sexy) face with the sharply slanting eyebrows.
• The Legend of Zelda: Even as a normal human Ganondorf had unusual green skin. How green depends on theartist and game. Chancellor Cole inThe Legend of Zelda Spirit Tracks has twin top hats worn on his head, which very obviously cover up the devil horns he's seen with later. And reverse colored eyes.
  • Ganondorf's skin tone might just be because he's a Gerudo. And a very rare male Gerudo at that. It might be normal for male Gerudoes to have olive skin.
• You don't really need any sort of hint concerning the Overlords of theOverlord series, what with their spikey, face-concealing helmets, theShoulders of Doom, clawed gauntlets, etc. all quite obviously screaming "villain" from the CD cover. But considering the title, do you even need the hint?
  • The Overlord ofOverlord 2 has blue skin as well, but this is the result ofthe old tower heart blowing up around the time he was born.
• Fate Stay Night: True Assassin aka Hasan-i-Sabbah sports a literal example of this.Its primary use was to assassinate targets by making a fake heart of the target out from ether and then crush it, destroying the original along with it.
• Yuri inCommand & Conquer: Yuri's Revenge. Bald guy with tattoo on the forehead? Check. Cybernetic implant? Check. Evil goatee and mustache? Check and check. Psycho gaze? Check. Creepy voice? Check.Performed by Udo Kier? Check.
• Gol and Maia haveFacial Markings, purple skin, and Gol has scaryArtificial Limbs.
• InMetal Gear Solid 3,Colonel Volgin has lightning-shaped scars
  • And inMetal Gear Solid Peace Walker, Galvez actually does have a (prosthetic) red right hand that doubles as a handy lighter as well. Snake and Millerpretty much figure him as KGB in the first cutscene alone, quickly dimissing his cover story as a professor in a university.
• Team Fortress 2: the Engineer has a mechanical right hand. According to canon, hesevered his own flesh and blood hand in order to replace it with a machine one that his grandfather designed. Somewhat averted, though, as Engie is still more or less the nicest guy on the Team. (Which isn't saying much.)
• The titular Crystal Bearers inFinal Fantasy Crystal Chronicles Crystal Bearers have some part of their body replaced with crystal, which provides easy identification for the purpose ofostracizing them. InLayle's case it's a small growth on his cheek that provides conveniently justifiedBishie Sparkle, but hisEvil Mentor Blaze has his right eye and the surrounding area hideously deformed into crystal, and theBig Bad has aliteral Red Right Handhidden under his gauntlet.
• In theKingdom Hearts series, anyone completely immersed in darkness, including all incarnations of Xehanort, have striking amber eyes.Tellingly, the amnesiac Xehanort inhabiting Terra's body doesn't have them. Oddly, the real Ansem the Wise has them too, which makes his true identity somewhat of a mystery throughoutChain of Memories andKingdom Hearts II.
• The Slayer class ofDungeon Fighter Online sports a red demonic left (or right) arm, making this another literal case of Red Right Hand
• The Dragon fromDeus Ex, Walton Simons, has unpleasant-looking blue veins covering his skin as a result of his nanoaugmentation upgrades. (It's implied that JC and Paul would, too, if they shaved the sides of their head like Simons does—they certainly have similar markings elsewhere.)
• Averted by Sephiroth ofFinal Fantasy VII. He has striking green eyes with catlike pupils but he had them even before hisFace Heel Turn. Played straight with hissingle wing which manifests to show how inhuman he has really become inAdvent Children.
• Ragna the Bloodedge's right armis the corpse of anEldritch Abomination.

Web Comics

• Charby the Vampirate has the author having a right red hand (complete with black spikes and claws!) added to the author's sexy and nice self portrait in the first page to remind everyone she draws a wickedly evil webcomic that kills characters off AFTER they've been around long enough for you to get attached.
• InComedity one of Garth's personae, number 47, literally goes by "The Red Right Hand" and while not strictly evil is all of Garth's violent tendencies embodied.Hello again, Natalia.
• Dominic Deegan: Dominic's older brother Jacob is missing most of the flesh from one arm and the bottom half of his face due to his screwing around with necromancy. Though it's been restored a couple times, as well as being turned pitch black (momentarily) by absorbing pure undiluted Undead Blight.
  • Eventually Jacobgets his body completely restored, and seems to be keeping it that way after aHeel Face Turn.
• Nature of Nature's Art: SV spends quite a bit of time in self-imposed exile, seeking the power of malice... and that ended up taking priority over his own well-being. So when he returns to civilisation, his fur is really messy, his incisors have becomeextremely long (and they curveout of his mouth in an unnatural way), and one of his eyes... well, it's either completely red or completely black. The greyscale art makes it hard to tell.
• Trace ofTwokinds has ended up with ablack and clawed left hand (sinister, huh?) after using potentially mind destroying dark magic.
• Drucilla the shape-shifting succubus ofPibgorn (from the creator of9 Chickweed Lane) has reddish notched elf ears that she can't alter even if she's just in other people's dreams.
• InHomestuck, whoever wears one of the Queens' rings gain physical features of each player's prototyped spirit; ie, wings, long tentacles and a sword through their torso. After Jack becomes the only one left wearing the ring, he gets a literal Red Right Hand. It's covered in the blood ofWV, who Jack punched through the stomach to get the uranium he ate.
  • Many characters, including Jack, are also missing an arm and an eye. Not all of the others are evil, though.

Web Original

• Linkara's robot double Mechakara inAtop the Fourth Wall has a mechanical left hand.Which makes for an absolutely wonderful piece of foreshadowing later on.

Western Animation

• Dr. Claw fromInspector Gadget. He uses it to pet hisRight-Hand-Cat.
  • Parodied by the Onion with Dr. Lester Mordock and his army ofsuper-crabs.

Commentator: You know, it's so inspiring the way he found success after that tragic military accident that left him using a robotic claw for a hand.

• In an episode ofThe Simpsons, a cigarette company executive has horns which he tries to pass off as a football injury. He also occasionally turns into a gigantic red devil.
• Mozenrath, a villain in Disney'sAladdin television series, wears a magic gauntlet that stripped away the skin and muscles of his hand leaving a skeletal hand thatstill continues to feel pain from the gauntlet. He's furious that Aladdin got "easy" power through his Genie, as opposed to the sacrifice he made and suffering he endures.
• Most of the villains and villainesses inJacob Two Two have poor dental hygiene and off-white eyes. Those that don't are unbearably cleansmug snakes.
• Dungeons & Dragons
  • One-shot villain, Queen Syrith, in the episode "Child of the Stargazer", had a literal red hand (it eventually turned out that an entire half of her body was like that, but her hand was her only visible deformity for most of the episode).
  • This is cleverly subverted in another episode. The heroes are warned by Dungeon Master that Venger will try to fool them but they can recognize him "by his white hare", implying that he has a Red Right Hand in the form of white hair. Butnote the spelling in the warning. Venger's disguise is actually bald, but he carries what they assume is a white rabbit, but is actually a hare; they don't realize that's what Dungeon Master had meant until it's almost too late.
• InAvatar: The Last Airbender, Zuko'sscar andhair are used to mark him as a bad guy.After turning good, he changes his hair to make his scar look less ugly.
  • • Really, once we learn how Zukogot the scar (Fire Lord Ozai burned his face as punishment for speaking out of turn during a war meeting (against using new recruits as cannon fodder) before banishing him), it came to be a mark of Zuko as avictimand hisfather true villain.
  • Azula, on the other hand, is obsessive about her personal appearance, and hasperfectly manicured fingernails she sharpens into claws in the second season, before her arrival at Ba Sing Se.
  • Bato, one of the Southern Water Tribesmen has a large red burn on his right arm and hand. (Probably from an encounter with a Firebender.) He however, is a good guy.
  • Both Combustion Man's right forearm and lower leg are prosthetic. It's implied this is because he blew them off while learning to master hisspecial firebending talent.
• Blackwolf, the scenery-chewing villain of Ralph Bakshi's 1970s sword-n-sorcery opus "Wizards," takes this to such an extreme that he is almostThe Grotesque. His skin is grey, his eyes are blood red and glow in the dark, and—inexplicably—both his arms are bare bones between wrist and mid-bicep.
• He-Man and the Masters of the Universe: Skeletor: He has a skull for a head, people.
• Doctor Blight, one of the majorCaptian Planet villains was perfectly normal, even icily attractive...until she moved her fringe, and we saw that all the face around her left eye was hideously burned. All the other villains took this so far as to becomegrotesques (Verminous Skumm was literally a rat-man) except for Zarm, who was a standardEvil Overlord, and Looten Plunder, who was aSmug Snake crossed with aCorrupt Corporate Executive, though the fact that his suit was trimmed with what appeared to be zebra skin might count as an eco-sensitive version of this trope.
• Phantom Limb fromThe Venture Brothers hasboth arms turned into invisible glowy dispensers of death. His legs, too. And "something else" that The Alchemist decided to keep at the end of season 2. In fact, a lot of minor villains fromThe Venture Brothers fall into this trope. Baron Ãœnderbheit has a prosthetic iron jaw and hideous grey skin. Scaramantula has ascar or birthmark shaped like a spider on his face and eight fingers on one hand. Brainulo (a hyper-intelligent time traveller from the future) has a grotesquely swollen, bald head covered in little blinking lights. Even the Monarch, while otherwise normal-looking and even handsome, has long antenna-like eyebrows.
  • While not visual,Dark Mistress Doctor Girlfriend has a man's voice.
  • Spoofed in the episode "Now Museum, Now You Don't", where, in a flashback, Scaramantula assembles a Fraternity of Torment of villains who were spurned by society due to their deformity. Dr. Venture Sr. infiltrates them disguised as a stereotypical Chinese/Japanese villain with a supernumerary nipple (on his chin).
• Akin to the Venture Bros. "Fraternity of Torment" example isChairface Chippendale, foe ofThe Tick (animation), and his speech to his cohorts about their various deformities uniting them in evil.
• Shego onKim Possible has a greenish cast to her skin and hair and can shoot green plasma from her hands. (Originally this was written as being due to gloves, but they turned out to be her own powers.)
  • Drakken has pale blue skin as well, but he can't shoot anything out of his hands. Apparantly he's blue simply because he is evil, as in one episode him and Ron switch moralities through a machine (don't ask) and Ron turns blue while Drakken looks like a normal person for once.
  • Let's not forget Monkey Fist's surgically attatched monkey hands and feet
  • Sheldon "Gemini" Director has a prosthetic hand that launches miniature missiles.
• In an episode ofOsmosis Jones, an allergen serving as theMonster of the Week had two thumbs
• Van Kleiss,Big Bad ofGenerator Rex, has a mechanicalleft hand that's made far creepier by the fact that its nails elongate into the syringes he uses to leech the nanites he needs to survive out of his victims.
• InMulan, the Huns have gray skin and yellow eyes.
• OnJimmy Two-Shoes, Heloise has ascar on her forehead. According toEdward Kay, it's largely a design choice to make her look twisted.
• InThe Lion King Scar is the only lion in the pride with a different color scheme and to have his claws bared all the time, and of course, he has a scar over one eye.
  • Also, in the German version of "Be Prepared", he sings "Meine Zähne sind blank wie mein Neid", which translates as "My teeth are uncovered like my envy".
  • The sequel both subverts it with the protagonist Kovu (who has more or less the same color scheme as Scar, and even acquires a scar over his eye about halfway through the movie), and plays it straight with the other outsiders, most notably Zira (who has a vertical stripe on her head). Before the end battle, the outsider lionesses all walk through mud, just so we (and maybe they themselves) can tell them apart from their prideland counterparts in the heat of the battle. By the time they realize there's really not all that much of a difference between the two groups, and reunite, they're all clean again, though their distinguishing drawing style remains.
    • In the sequel the distinct appearances actually make sense, as the Outlanders live on much poorer diet than the Pridelanders, and in result are leaner and have duller coats of fur.
• The Argentinian cartoonLas aventuras de Hijitus by Manuel García Ferré had a villain called "Dedo Negro" (Black Finger), a master of disguise easily who despite his uncanny ability to pass as other people, was identifiable by his black left index finger. One of his exploits included, with the help of Professor Neurus, to hammer all people's index fingers in the city of Trulalá (!) to render impossible the identification by this means. More informationhere.
• Grune, one of the villains fromThundercats andThunderCats (2011), has only one fang, which is notable, since he's asaber toothed cat.
• Many villains introduced in Season 1 ofCodename: Kids Next Door had some sort of deformity, often an animal-like feature. Mr. Boss has a hunched back. Mr. Wink has buffalo-like horns, and his partner Mr. Fibb has walrus-like tusks and flipper-like hands. Mrs. Goodwall has an ox-like tail and nose and a hairstyle that suggests horns. Mr. Warburton claimed he had planned for an episode explaining this odd trend, butbut it was scrapped.
  • Professor XXXL has a different mutation in every one of his appearances, although in his case it can be attributed to being aMad Scientist who tends to be lax on safety. He's a crab-like arm in the pilot (which was torn off in his ill-fated attempt to confront the PTA), a turtle's shell in his second appearance, and squid's legs in the third; cameos show him with additional mutations, including the lower body and shell of a snail, a beaver tail and teeth, and moose antlers

• Trope
• Red Right Hand
• Evil Tropes
• Obviously Evil
• Personal Appearance Tropes
• This Index Is Not an Example