This is a carry-over from old western films where the Indian and the White Man become blood brothers.
Usually the Indian, (all right, Native American), would put a deep slice into his own palm and then hand the white guy the knife, to see if he was man enought to cut himself so deeply.
Then they look each other square in the eye and clasp both their bleeding palms together. Very dramatic. Then the white man gets to marry the chief’s sister, or something. Perhaps the Indian has to intervene to save the White Guy from being killed by the other natives later. It’s a plot device.
I am really surprised that TV Tropes doesn’t have this somewhere listed.
If trying to explain things, I might wonder if in some situations it has to do with ease of handling (heh) the resulting blood. If I cut my shin it is going to be a pain in the butt to get the blood to wherever I want it to drip. The palm of the hand is an easy place for then positioning the drip exactly where I need it.
It is also a place where you can by applying the pressure with the spot being cut (better controlling depth) than by applying pressure with the knife.
But in most cases that is just trying to explain something that doesn’t really have a good explanation. The ultimate explanation is probably “It looks better on TV” and “It puts the cut in a place where it is easier to hide the blood packet.”
I’m watching Lost (just started season 6) and this was done. But in that case the guy who did it expected to be able to dip his hand in water that would heal it.
This is what bugs me the most – in witchcraft where it is often said explicitly that only a drop is needed, the character still whips out a Bowie knife and lays into his hand like he’s trying to saw his fingers off.
The gratuitous amount of pressure on the knife is what distracts me and makes me wonder if there it is an artifact of the makeup technology. The blood packet is hard to rupture? Blood-filled prop knife has a very stiff spring?
I wonder if there were any tribes who only admitted the smart guys who said “Slash my palm? Are you nuts? Surviving out here is hard enough without crippling myself and risking infection.” Maybe not- tribes of nerds may have been less cohesive.
The Klingons do this at the drop of a hat…
I’ve always thought that there was something funky with the Klingon nervous system - like they have no never endings in their palms. I mean, they slice their palms with the same amount of concern that a human would give to shaking hands.
That’s my first guess. IIRC, most of the times I’ve seen the Palm Cut Maneuver the cut is shown close up for all of 2 seconds with a slight welling of blood. Then the scene cuts to the back of the hand, closed in a fist, while blood wells up and drips all over the place. Lovely. And also only possible if you really, really mangle your hand up to the point of needing stitches. Of course, no one ever does. They just wipe their hand off on their jeans and go on about beating up the bad guys/crafting the spell/marrying the other guy’s sister.
