Meta: "Why We Need Thing" Part 1: Overview
Mar. 4th, 2024 05:18 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ysabetwordsmith Thing is a character in the television series Wednesday. You can read my previous posts "Wednesday TV Series (The Addams Family) Overview" and Meta: "Why I Love Wednesday Addams" Part 1: Introduction.
Meta: "Why We Need Thing" Part 1: Overview
Meta: "Why We Need Thing" Part 2: Disabilities and Differences
Meta: "Why We Need Thing" Part 3: Relationships
Meta: "Why We Need Thing" Part 4: Episodes
Meta: "Why We Need Thing" Part 5: Memorable Fanworks
Overview
Thing is a Hand, consisting only of a right hand without the rest of a body attached. In the classic television series The Addams Family, he appeared reaching out of boxes or houseplants, implying that the rest of him was either too monstrous or too shy to appear in full -- a quirk that the other characters generally accepted. In the films, advances in special effects allowed him to emerge and show himself as a disembodied hand, scuttling on his fingertips like a spider. In the recent television series Wednesday, Thing is not only a disembodied hand, he also has a bunch of scars. This implies that he was created by severing a hand from a body, that he lives a risky life and gets injured often, and/or that he doesn't heal very well.
10 reasons why Thing on Wednesday on Netflix can be your new favorite thing
10 Times Thing Was the Best Character in Tim Burton’s ‘Wednesday’
How a Disembodied Hand Stole the Show in Netflix’s Wednesday
The Man Behind the Hand: Actor Who Plays Thing in ‘Wednesday’ Shares BTS Look at the Character’s Creation
Thing Is the Beating Heart of Netflix’s Wednesday
Thing's Greatest Hits -- Best Moments in Wednesday
'Wednesday's Best Character Is a Severed Hand
Part of Thing's charm is that he exists as a mystical quirk with no explanation. This show uses classic, freestyle magic that can do just about anything. That's a nice change from the modern tendency to explain magic to the point it acts more like a science. Some things aren't mean to be explained, just enjoyed for what they are.
We can still extrapolate something about how the magic works by observing how Thing behaves in the show. For instance, although he lacks eyes and ears, he seems to have analogs of vision and hearing, so that he can navigate through the world much as an ordinary person does. He may have supernatural strength, because he seems quite strong, despite lacking most of the muscles that typically power an attached hand (located in the forearm). He could also have some psychic resonance, such as empathy and/or telepathy, to help people understand his signs and other gestures; the conversations often seem more complex than the amount of signs he makes. His scars suggest that Thing, or perhaps Hands in general, may not heal well. However, he's quite robust, having survived impalement. Note that Uncle Fester succeeded in reviving him with magically produced electricity, which would not have helped an impalement energy in an ordinary creature, but can work quite well at recharging drained magic. There are extremely few characters that are purely mystical like this, and even fewer who are fully realized characters rather than just a familiar or an enchanted object.
Enid Sinclair: Where's the rest of him?
Wednesday Addams: It's one of the great Addams Family mysteries.
-- Heroes Wiki
Muscles and Tendons in the Hand
Muscles in the Forearm
Hard vs. Soft Magic Systems
Magic Fantasy Writing Demystified: The Secrets of Magic System Writing
Making Soft Magic Systems Work
Wednesday Already Hinted At How To Solve Thing’s Biggest Mystery
Will ‘Wednesday’ reveal the truth about Thing? Thing’s origins, explained
Meta: "Why We Need Thing" Part 1: Overview
Meta: "Why We Need Thing" Part 2: Disabilities and Differences
Meta: "Why We Need Thing" Part 3: Relationships
Meta: "Why We Need Thing" Part 4: Episodes
Meta: "Why We Need Thing" Part 5: Memorable Fanworks
Overview
Thing is a Hand, consisting only of a right hand without the rest of a body attached. In the classic television series The Addams Family, he appeared reaching out of boxes or houseplants, implying that the rest of him was either too monstrous or too shy to appear in full -- a quirk that the other characters generally accepted. In the films, advances in special effects allowed him to emerge and show himself as a disembodied hand, scuttling on his fingertips like a spider. In the recent television series Wednesday, Thing is not only a disembodied hand, he also has a bunch of scars. This implies that he was created by severing a hand from a body, that he lives a risky life and gets injured often, and/or that he doesn't heal very well.
10 reasons why Thing on Wednesday on Netflix can be your new favorite thing
10 Times Thing Was the Best Character in Tim Burton’s ‘Wednesday’
How a Disembodied Hand Stole the Show in Netflix’s Wednesday
The Man Behind the Hand: Actor Who Plays Thing in ‘Wednesday’ Shares BTS Look at the Character’s Creation
Thing Is the Beating Heart of Netflix’s Wednesday
Thing's Greatest Hits -- Best Moments in Wednesday
'Wednesday's Best Character Is a Severed Hand
Part of Thing's charm is that he exists as a mystical quirk with no explanation. This show uses classic, freestyle magic that can do just about anything. That's a nice change from the modern tendency to explain magic to the point it acts more like a science. Some things aren't mean to be explained, just enjoyed for what they are.
We can still extrapolate something about how the magic works by observing how Thing behaves in the show. For instance, although he lacks eyes and ears, he seems to have analogs of vision and hearing, so that he can navigate through the world much as an ordinary person does. He may have supernatural strength, because he seems quite strong, despite lacking most of the muscles that typically power an attached hand (located in the forearm). He could also have some psychic resonance, such as empathy and/or telepathy, to help people understand his signs and other gestures; the conversations often seem more complex than the amount of signs he makes. His scars suggest that Thing, or perhaps Hands in general, may not heal well. However, he's quite robust, having survived impalement. Note that Uncle Fester succeeded in reviving him with magically produced electricity, which would not have helped an impalement energy in an ordinary creature, but can work quite well at recharging drained magic. There are extremely few characters that are purely mystical like this, and even fewer who are fully realized characters rather than just a familiar or an enchanted object.
Enid Sinclair: Where's the rest of him?
Wednesday Addams: It's one of the great Addams Family mysteries.
-- Heroes Wiki
Muscles and Tendons in the Hand
Muscles in the Forearm
Hard vs. Soft Magic Systems
Magic Fantasy Writing Demystified: The Secrets of Magic System Writing
Making Soft Magic Systems Work
Wednesday Already Hinted At How To Solve Thing’s Biggest Mystery
Will ‘Wednesday’ reveal the truth about Thing? Thing’s origins, explained
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Date: 2024-03-05 05:02 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2024-03-06 05:19 am (UTC)Yes ...
Date: 2024-03-06 05:38 am (UTC)