Having failed to find a list of fictional characters in books who are left handed, I decided to look for actors, and that turned out to be a bit more productive.
Bruce Boxleitner (Sheridan in Babylon 5) is indeed left handed.
Over in the Star Trek universe, there are three members of the TNG crew who are played by left handed actors - Wesley Crusher/Wil Wheaton, Data/Brent Spiner and Worf/Michael Dorn.
In that galaxy far, far away, Mark Hamill is left handed, but I don't think that carries over to Luke Skywalker (I honestly don't remember which of his hands got chopped off - but it didn't seem to make much difference, artificial hands in that universe being pretty much indistinguishable from real ones). I've also seen it alleged that all the Stormtroopers are left handed - something to do with the way their armour and blasters were designed? It's not something that I've ever noticed myself, but I will be looking out for that next time I sit down to watch Star Wars.
Ron Perlman is left handed - so maybe Hellboy is too? And Vincent from Beauty and the Beast?
Peter Graves, the leader of the Mission: Impossible team in the 1960s, is left handed, and so is Martin Freeman (though Watson seems to be right handed, and I'm not sure about Bilbo Baggins).
Moving on to archers, Jeremy Renner (Hawkeye in Avengers Assemble) and Jennifer Lawrence (Katniss Everdeen) are both left handed.
Angelina Jolie is left handed too, which presumably covers Lara Croft.
And, coming back to Game of Thrones (mentioned in the last post I was talking about lefthanders) Arya Stark is described as left handed in the books, but Maisie Williams is right handed, so she learned to swordfight left handed on screen.
Showing posts with label lefthandedness. Show all posts
Showing posts with label lefthandedness. Show all posts
Friday, 27 December 2013
Wednesday, 25 December 2013
Left-Handed Fictional Characters
I've been working my way through episodes of Babylon 5 over the past year. I'm now coming towards the end of season 5 - and I noticed something that hadn't caught my eye before. President Sheridan is signing a sheaf of papers before a meeting - and he's left-handed.
It reminded me that I had once belonged to a book discussion forum where there was a list being made of left-handed characters in fiction - but it's long enough ago that I can't remember what the forum was called.
I do know that I contributed to the list. One of my favourite characters in children's fiction was Drem, in Warrior Scarlet by Rosemary Sutcliff. He's a Bronze Age boy with a withered right arm, and therefore does everything left-handed.
I seem to remember that there was a character in one of the Darkover books by Marion Zimmer Bradley who was left handed, too - but she wrote so many Darkover novels that I'm not sure where I saw it now.
I'm not sure how much of a spoiler it is to say that a major character in Game of Thrones is also forced to become left-handed - but after that, my mind goes blank. The list I remember had a lot more characters on it than this, but googling has so far not been helpful.
In my own fiction, I wanted there to be a genetic component to the magical powers that some of my characters have, and also for the powers to be fairly rare, so I linked the powers to left-handedness. The characters are also allergic to cold iron, which gives them a disadvantage to go with their magical advantages over ordinary mortals.
It reminded me that I had once belonged to a book discussion forum where there was a list being made of left-handed characters in fiction - but it's long enough ago that I can't remember what the forum was called.
I do know that I contributed to the list. One of my favourite characters in children's fiction was Drem, in Warrior Scarlet by Rosemary Sutcliff. He's a Bronze Age boy with a withered right arm, and therefore does everything left-handed.
I seem to remember that there was a character in one of the Darkover books by Marion Zimmer Bradley who was left handed, too - but she wrote so many Darkover novels that I'm not sure where I saw it now.
I'm not sure how much of a spoiler it is to say that a major character in Game of Thrones is also forced to become left-handed - but after that, my mind goes blank. The list I remember had a lot more characters on it than this, but googling has so far not been helpful.
In my own fiction, I wanted there to be a genetic component to the magical powers that some of my characters have, and also for the powers to be fairly rare, so I linked the powers to left-handedness. The characters are also allergic to cold iron, which gives them a disadvantage to go with their magical advantages over ordinary mortals.
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