| “ | Hello. I like rusty spoons, a-a-an-and I like to touch them.
―Salad Fingers in Spoons
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” |
Salad Fingers is the titular protagonist of the Salad Fingers series. He is a mentally disturbed individual who often hallucinates and indulges in self-harm. Despite this, he means well and is friendly to everyone he encounters, though at times he absent-mindedly causes unintentional harm to them. It is shown that he enjoys the sensation of rubbing his fingers on rusty objects, such as spoons and taps.
Appearance
Salad Fingers is a bald, hunchbacked, green-skinned humanoid with dark red eyes and three prong-like fingers on each hand. His teeth are yellow and rotted. He usually wears a teal, long-sleeved shirt and brown shoes. Starting from episode 6, his pants switch from pale blue to black. His shoes also receive quite an upgrade.
When ill, Salad Fingers' eyes shift into a bright yellow color and his skin grows much paler.
In "Nettles", he appears shirtless for most of the episode. In "Cage", Salad Fingers wears a beret in the beginning and at the end. In "Picnic", he wears a makeshift dress and veil for a scene as he pretends to be getting married. In a hallucination from "Shore Leave", he is seen wearing a long white dress. In "Birthday", towards the end of the episode, Salad Fingers is gifted a top hat made of flesh, which he puts on. As of "Present", he is seen wearing black pants.
In "Post Man", he is seen wearing a blue and yellow postman's cap. Later in the episode, he dons a teal suit, gray pants, and uses a dead rat as a toupee. His shoes appear to have been upgraded once more, now looking like dress shoes.
It's theorized that he might be above 6 feet (roughly 183 cm) tall, although this has not been confirmed.
Background
Salad Fingers lives in a desolate, unnamed land somewhere in the United Kingdom (most likely Buckinghamshire), which is inhabited by mutant creatures. His home is a small shack located in the middle of nowhere. He frequently references "The Great War", which has presumably ended by the time the series takes place. Apart from that, all that is known about his past can be interpreted from things he has said while hallucinating.
Personality
Salad Fingers' personality is shown as rather polite and, at times, immature. Despite his unruly appearance, he speaks in a highly intelligent manner, frequently using old-fashioned phrases. He doesn't mean any harm to anyone and seems a lot friendlier than most of the peculiar creatures shown in the series. He has very little comprehension of reality to the point where he regularly converses with inanimate objects. In "Glass Brother", it's shown that Salad Fingers may have suffered from domestic abuse, but whether his glass family are fragments of his memories or simply hallucinations is unknown. He speaks with a very gentle voice and almost never raises it.
It is heavily implied that Salad Fingers suffers from a variety of mental disorders, including schizophrenia, depression, and dissociative identity disorder, frequently acting out different personalities, some of which may have been that of people he once knew. Specifically, he may have had a troubled relationship with members of his family, as evidenced by the authoritative, abusive personalities he takes on in episodes such as "Present" and "Cupboard".
All together, Salad Fingers is a kind but lost being and, to his audience, is seen as creepy to some while interesting to others.
Trivia
- Salad Fingers is voiced by David Firth, the creator of the series.
- He can speak French and communicate in morse code.
- Salad Fingers' true identity has been found, but his age, and species are still unknown. His gender is also debated by fans, though it could be explained as him being a male who acts out female personalities.
- Salad Fingers appears to be talented at sewing, as evidenced by the fact that his shoes are stitched together, the finger puppets he owns are high quality, and he was able to create a suit out of flesh for Hubert Cumberdale.
- Salad Fingers can also play the flute, as seen in the episode "Nettles".
- It's hard to determine whether the reality Salad Fingers lives in is real or in fact a product of madness. He may have retreated into his mind to cope with hardships.
- He seems to be rather fond of children. This is evident when he offers to feed little Mable and how he cares deeply for Yvonne.
- However, he also inadvertently cooks a child alive in "Friends", when he asks a little boy to walk into the oven to get a fish out, before mindlessly letting go of the door to touch a hook, before passing out, waking up sometime later to a burning smell.
- Salad Fingers may have some sort of masochism, or pleasure derived from being in pain.
- Salad Fingers is most likely illiterate, as seen in episode nine, when he scribbles all over a piece of toilet paper.
Theories
- A very popular fan theory is that his finger puppets were once people from his past, though their roles are debated.
- One theory is that Hubert is Salad Fingers himself, with Marjory as his mother, and Jeremy his father. His abuse towards Hubert could be him parroting the abuse he heard growing up (most likely his grandfather), such as being referred to as a 'dirty immigrant' at one point (as Marjorie is presumed white, and Jeremy presumed black), and with Salad Fingers seeming to prefer him over the others.
- One theory is his interactions with the puppets reflect how his grandfather treated them respectively. However, Salad would not have been present for some of the situations, such as him confronting Jeremy Fisher about sleeping with his daughter (presumed to be Marjory) followed by his murder.
- Another theory is Marjory was his wife prior to the supposed apocalypse, as he is very fond of her and a relationship is implied, such as telling her they were given a 'duff one' in reference to their 'child', and how Marjory pops up, almost in jealousy, when Fingers refers to Mabel as his 'new playmate'.
- Jeremy's role is not often discussed, as he is rarely seen. One could imply they were pals, until Jeremy slept with Salad's 'daughter', to which is implied Jeremy was killed after the confrontation.
- David Firth has mixed reactions to the more popular theory videos; mainly the Film Theorists interpretations of the work, saying he was not aiming for the theories made in the three-part analysis, but overall did enjoy the analyzing of his work, regardless of conclusion.
- Glass Mother has physical similarities to her son such as having long fingers and green skin, indicating that his "mutant" appearance could be due to genetics and not some radiation accident. This could also mean that he's not actually human but instead a totally different species.
- One theory is that Hubert is Salad Fingers himself, with Marjory as his mother, and Jeremy his father. His abuse towards Hubert could be him parroting the abuse he heard growing up (most likely his grandfather), such as being referred to as a 'dirty immigrant' at one point (as Marjorie is presumed white, and Jeremy presumed black), and with Salad Fingers seeming to prefer him over the others.
- He was theorized to be a zombie, but this was debunked by Firth.
- He may be allergic to speckled huckleberry leaf, as shown in "Glass Brother", where he mentions that it makes him sick, and that he "doesn't want another fever".
- Later in the episode, he is seen vomiting after being forced to eat a soup containing speckled huckleberry leaf among other ingredients by Glass Mother.
- In the episode "Birthday", he is shown to have four fingers on his hand instead of his usual three.
Gallery
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