Subcultural engagement for the 21st Century...
Barbelith is a new kind of community (find out more)...
You can login or register.

Underground > Comic Books >

Hand of Glory

14:48 / 27.11.03

Just noticed something very interesting. I was wondering what the "Dane boils a glove" bit has to do with the Hand of Glory was all about and then noticed something. In all but two or three frames where the Hand is seen SOMEONE in that frame has one of their hands out of shot or hidden. Is this something like saying that the hand is just what people want it to be, and it is in fact just their own hand in Dane's fake glove and they don't realise it?
Ummmm.... A little thin, but whole theories have been spun round less..

17:23 / 27.11.03

never noticed that. good idea, would fit in with dane's 'makes your hand look like a dead claw' bit which links it in to the mouse /cursor idea.
also remember in counting to none where oscar (play acting admittedly-but then hey aren't they all) describes the hand to boy as an impotent object, puts the gun in her hand and says hers is the hand of glory, kill king mob now. (apologies for shite paraphrasing).
also the seance where it's kind of implicit that the five fingers relate to the five cell members and their elemental attributes 'maybe it takes five of our minds to make one of there's' (see earlier aside).
how would this link in with miles lopping off beryl's hand?

17:37 / 27.11.03

Also another little bit. In the scene where we see Edith on the steps where the gentleman says something like "its hand is moving, it's trying to be born", Dane is in the background doing the glove thang. Odd place to have him.
Do we ever see Beryl's hand becoming the Hand? It's just sort of assumed, isn't it? Perhaps it's just a red herring, and the Hand comes from the Harlequinade because Dane gave it to them somehow.

17:29 / 08.01.04

Dane surely isn't actually in Harrods. Notions of space break down- king mob travels smoothly from his old house to takashi's workshop via a series of smooth transitions.

Anyway.

The whole thing about 5 fingers-
The lovecraftian Old Ones (an imitation of which appears in the church in philadelphia) had heads with 5 squidlike tentacles. (there's a description in the early pages of "beyond the mountains of madness" which i'm sure you can find in text on the web somewhere.

There's this kind of 5-pointed star shape when the invisibles of the 1920s use the hand of Glory. I think this may be the same thing.

Looking at some other people's posts, there's this whole thing about the archons manifesting as timesuits or something like that. I've probably got it worng.

In the last issue, Edith says something like "so the hand unsticks the timesuit"

Bronze

14:21 / 09.01.04

isn't the hand of glory ritual an old voodoo spell that allows those involved to trespass in places where they otherwise would not be able to go?

i'm sure someone told me that a couple of years ago.

14:51 / 09.01.04

isn't the hand of glory ritual an old voodoo spell that allows those involved to trespass in places where they otherwise would not be able to go?

i'm sure someone told me that a couple of years ago.

IIRC, it's traditionally the severed hand of a condemned man, which allows the holder to trespass in other's houses by putting the inhabitants into a deep sleep when you stand outside and wave it at the house.

to me, that resonates not only with the whole opening-spacetime aspect of the Hand in The Invisibles but also with the whole sleeping vs. waking up theme. i'm not sure how it all fits together.

things i don't understand about the Hand of Glory, but want to:

- the relationship between the Hand and the Harlequinade

- the relationship between the Hand and Beryl

- the relationship between the Hand and Billy Chang

- the relationship between the Hand and the timesuit, which it "unsticks," but how? and when (if that question even makes any sense)? and where does the timesuit go when it's unstuck? Philadelphia? 2012 to bring Robin to KM?

it seems to also have created the Outer Church through Freddie/Tom, in some sense, the Outer Church being all of spacetime collapsed down to a single point.

15:12 / 10.01.04

Just some quickie comments/answers:

It has often been conjectured that the hand is actually the dismembered hand of Beryl, cut off by Sire Miles. Grant Morrison has said that this is an incorrect assumption. I believe this was in his original interview for ANARCHY FOR THE MASSES. But he could be pulling one over on us....

What is the Hand's connection with the timesuit?

The Hand IS the timesuit. Yet, it is also irradiates the suit's fluid, thereby allowing Robin to travel outside time. Since the suit exits time, it can exist at all times and be used by multiple individuals - Robin, John A'Dreams, the original Invisibles, etc - and appear in multiple ways, much like the Harlequinade. They are everyone. It is everytime.

GM did take the idea of the Hand from Hoodoo and tweaked it for the series.

15:18 / 10.01.04

GM did take the idea of the Hand from Hoodoo and tweaked it for the series

[hoodoo pedant] Hand of Glory is actually culled from european folk magic not the new world trads, although hoodoo does tend to freely incorporate a lot of euro folk magic stuff so you may find the 'hand of glory' present there as well. But as far as I'm aware, it's origins are in European Sorcery rather than in the African or American trads. [/hoodoo pedant]

16:05 / 11.01.04

Thanks for the clarification, Gypsy. I assumed GM took it from Hoodoo because I know he did a lot of research on it, as seen in the series. Of course, GM is pretty aware of many mystica systems and I shouldn't have forgotten that. Mea culpa.

The Timaximus, The!

00:48 / 12.01.04

There's a more traditional Hand of Glory in Hellboy: Box Full of Evil, reprinted in The Right Hand of Doom TPB. That's where I first heard of it (but I'm a latecomer to GM and The Invisibles).

02:18 / 12.01.04

I have a set of Vertigo Tarot cards, and I've always loved the 5 of wands in it as its image is a hand with its fingers as the wands, which McKean paints in all the cards in that suit as sort of paintbrushes with their tips on fire. It looks like a hand of glory. Anyone know if there is legit tarot connection to the hand of glory and the 5 of wands other than Dave McKean's whimsy?

this is what the card represents:
Struggle for riches and success
Quarreling, a lawsuit to address
Major competition and strife
Renewal of the battle of life
Reversed:
New business ventures are open to do
Compromises are reached for you

not sure if this makes me think of spacetime...

17:55 / 20.01.04

the reply to the original question would appear to be "no" then. which is a shame as i was wondering about it myself.

18:17 / 20.01.04

Given that so much of The Invisibles is so well understood, it does seem odd that the best we can say is:
a) What a Hand of Glory is in mythology/magick
b) That it somehow "unsticks" the timesuit.

Could it possibly be a representation of the reader's hand (which is holding the book) reaching into the story and interacting with it?

18:25 / 20.01.04

and I don't entirely buy the Hand=Timesuit theory. If it is, then why is it? Oh, hang on. So the suit while passing through everything gets stuck in one physical manifestation of the hologram which has occcult powers (ie, the hand). Releasing it through occult means is what opens the tear into the Outer Church, as it continues its merry way around everything. Which is why it is regarded as being useless when we get to modern times.
Hmm. Still not that sold. I want someone to work that theory in with Dane's glove-boiling.

18:55 / 20.01.04

I thought the glove boiling was an archetypal/imaginary iconic thought that was being expressed as the Timewave stretched backward over time. Was it intended to be real?

Now, I have an timesuit/JohnADreams timeline done up that doens't include the idea that the timesuit was ALWAYS the Hand of Glory, but I can definitely see it working. Want me to pull it up, rehash it to include the Hand-is-suit idea, and then repost it?

Sometimes I think people get down on the high falutin' ideas and give up too easy. And I don't blame you... asking for help on Barbelith is like admitting weakness or something.

19:40 / 20.01.04

[sniff]
My name is Cube. and I am a Barbeholic...