Guybrush's Poxed hand
From Monkey Island wiki
Guybrush's Poxed hand (a.k.a. Lefty, a somewhat affectionate nickname from Guybrush himself) plays an important role in the plot of Tales of Monkey Island. When Guybrush Threepwood stabs LeChuck with the Cursed Cutlass of Kaflu, all of LeChuck's voodoo mojo escapes and begins infecting other pirates, a condition called the Pox of LeChuck. Guybrush and Elaine, present at the time of LeChuck's tranformation, are the first people infected, although their symptoms developed less severely than some other pirates'. Guybrush's left hand is uniquely affected, turning a sickly green and developing a life of its own.
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"Launch of the Screaming Narwhal"
After attacking LeChuck and releasing the Pox, Guybrush washes up on Flotsam Island, where his left hand punches the first pirate he meets without Guybrush's intention. Realising that LeChuck's transformation has something to do with it, Guybrush visits the Voodoo Lady, who explains to Guybrush the nature of the Pox and the only cure: La Esponja Grande, a legendary sea sponge. Guybrush seeks a second opinion in the form of the Marquis De Singe, a mad scientist who straps Guybrush down, calms his hand with an injection of grog anesthetic, and plans to cut the hand off for his experiments. Guybrush teams up with the electromagnetic monkey Jacques, another of De Singe's prisoners, and the two escape. (Later on, when Guybrush asks the Voodoo Lady why she didn't tell him that grog can be used to stave off the Pox, she becomes surprised and warns him in prediction that his hand "may seem fine now, but when it wakes up, it'll be even nastier than ever.")
While infected, Guybrush's hand is violent and unruly. It starts a fight when Guybrush enters Club 41 blindfolded and punches Guybrush when he tries to call Joaquin D'Oro "D'Oro the Explorer". When Guybrush finally manages to sail his new ship off the island, his hand stops him from telling the mate Mr. Winslow where to sail in pursuit of LeChuck (as foretold by the Voodoo Lady) until Guybrush can trap it in a thick pool of tar.
"The Siege of Spinner Cay"
At the beginning of the second episode, Guybrush is attacked by Morgan LeFlay, a pirate hunter hired by the Marquis De Singe to bring back the mysterious hand. She removes it with a single flick of her sword and makes off with it when Guybrush wins their duel. Guybrush replaces his hand with a hook, giving him a more piratey appearance but upsetting Elaine, particularly over the loss of his wedding ring.
Morgan is seen delivering the hand to the Marquis, but he insists that it is not enough and demands that Morgan bring back the pirate alive at a quadrupled rate. She tracks him down again but shortly after boarding his ship they are swallowed by a giant manatee.
"Lair of the Leviathan"
Guybrush's hand has kept the worst of the Pox to itself, but his LeChuckian rage is shown to be progressing, as is Elaine's. Guybrush finally succeeds in finding La Esponja Grande, curing him of the Pox, but shortly thereafter Morgan betrays him and takes him back to Flotsam.
"The Trial and Execution of Guybrush Threepwood"
The Marquis explains how he is drawing the essence of life (he calls it his 'Jus de Vie') from Guybrush's hand, but he needs more. Since Guybrush's cure he believes that there are no more specimens of the "Threepwood strain" of the Pox, but when he learns that Elaine was infected at the same time he tries to track her down, although Morgan refuses to work for him any longer. Toward the end of the episode he is seen wearing a turban with the hand attached to it, sucking the Jus de Vie directly out and into him, making him impervious to physical attack. Guybrush manages to destroy the turban, freeing his old hand, which then helps him lead the Marquis into the giant Vaycaylian Wind Control Device where he is pulverised. (His plan had been to kill Elaine in this way and spread her infection throughout the Caribbean, giving the Marquis an unlimited supply of Threepwood-strain Poxed pirates to draw his Jus de Vie from.) Satisfied with a job well done, the still-animate hand wanders off into the jungle. It is uncertain whether the hand was cleansed and made inanimate by the incredible voodoo-sucking power of La Esponja Grande when it was embiggened only moments later.
"Rise of the Pirate God"
When Guybrush uses Elaine's wedding ring to complete the spell to escape the Crossroads of the afterlife, he is resurrected with a new, fully healed body, with his hand back on. However, his severed hand is shown to be in the possession of the Voodoo Lady.
Trivia
- Near the end of Chapter 4, when Guybrush says to his Poxed hand, "Nice one, hand! Care to help me with these locks?", the hand snaps its fingers as a response to the "Nice one, hand!" and just jumps off the Harpsichronitron and walks away at his question. This is a spoof on The Addams Family TV and film series, when the walking hand called Thing snaps his fingers to attract attention and in communication with the family members, as well as write and signal in Morse code.
