A lying tongue is best kept hidden.
"I've waited my whole life to do this... the finger pyramid of evil contemplation. [clasps fingers] Feels good."
— Roger Smith, American Dad!
Particularly devious and magnificent villains, especially Diabolical Masterminds, have a habit of putting their hands together at around chest or mouth level, with fingers either interlocked or tip-to-tip.
One possible reason behind this gesture is that when a person lies, they often unconsciously cover their mouth with their hand (as if to prevent the lie from escaping their lips). Thus, putting both hands in front of your mouth means that you're lying big time. Another reason is that in Real Life body language, people tend to automatically steeple the hands when feeling overly confident, or superior to whoever they happen to be speaking to. Someone who does this too often will quickly come across as arrogant. But this pose has the advantage of completely blocking arms and chest, making their body language impossible to read anymore.
It is noted that this pose also conveniently covers the mouth while keeping the body still, making it a very well-known shorthand for animators.
Bonus points if combined with ominous lighting, Scary Shiny Glasses, a slight Slouch of Villainy, a Beard of Evil or a Kubrick Stare. Double bonus for a Psychotic Smirk. Any combination of these can be used for a Traitor Shot.
Subtrope of Handy Emotional Cues.
The word usually used for this action in novels is "steepling."
Not related to Intertwined Fingers. Usually. See Hand Rubbing for the poor man's version of this trope.
Examples:
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Anime & Manga
- Beautiful Bones: Sakurako's Investigation: Sakurako does this with a Glove Snap whenever she encounters a mystery.
- Beelzebub:
- The minor character Kido, who's in charge of student life and punishes the characters when they get into trouble, does this often.
- Kanzaki also does this when he tells his niece that Santa is dead so he won't have to buy her a Christmas present.
- Code Geass:
- Lelouch commonly does this while his plans go as expected. When they fail... he does all sorts of different gestures.
- Schneizel does this while he's telling the "truth" about Lelouch to the Black Knights.
- Lelouch also does this when he's giving a "Reason You Suck" Speech to Nunnally - though there's a shot of his hands trembling a little, showing just how hard it was for him. The series does this a lot, showing a lot of his emotion through the tension in his hands.
- Shirley, of all people, does this in the penultimate episode of R1, though it isn't because of any scheming on her part. It's because things have gotten very very serious at Ashford Academy.
- Food Wars!: In Episode 22, judge and food critic Shingo Andou does this, complete with Scary Shiny Glasses.
- Gintama: Hasegawa does that a lot, specifically as a reference to Gendo since they are both voiced by Fumihiko Tachiki and wear sunglasses.
- Himouto! Umaru-chan: Played for Laughs when Umaru does this when thinking about how to deal with Hikari; however, since she's in her "Indoor" appearance, she pulls it off using fake hands on sticks. For bonus points, they're wearing Gendo Ikari's gloves.
- Holyland: In chapter 131, the principal does this while announcing Masaki's expulsion from the boxing club.
- K: Return of Kings: Munakata does this during his argument with Fushimi, before Fushimi fake-defects to Jungle. You don't see much of his face for most of the time that he's shown — just his hands, tensing in this position, tip-to-tip (not by his face). The tension in his hands shows that he's feeling something more than he's letting on - before the plan is revealed, it could be that he's angrier at Fushimi than he seems. After the truth is revealed, and particularly after what he tells Yata outside of the bar, if you go back and watch it, you can see that he's actually worried about Fushimi.
- Kämpfer: Shizuku does this to help show the audience that she's a particularly cunning and devious Student Council President.
- The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess (2016): Ganondorf assumes this pose when he reveals to Zelda that he was the one who empowered Zant and allowed him to conquer the Twilight Realm and Hyrule.
- Lychee Light Club: Zera, the Emperor of Ruins, is often shown in this pose when plotting the future of his club.
- Magical Record Lyrical Nanoha Force: Seemingly subverted. Hayate does this in chapter eight but nothing has come of it yet.
- Monthly Girls' Nozaki-kun: Sakura of all people does this in chapter 75.◊
- Moriarty the Patriot: Sherlock's default thinking posture is to sit with his feet up in the chair and his hands together fingertip-to-fingertip. The artist, Hikaru Miyoshi, has also drawn William doing this for Bonus Material, although he tends to crook a finger at his chin instead.
- Naruto:
- Sasuke Uchiha is seen doing this at the beginning, just to show how much of a Disney Anti Hero he was. Oddly, after his genuine Face–Heel Turn he doesn't do it again until some time after joining Akatsuki.
- This is Lampshaded in an early episode of the abridged series:
Sasuke: "I'm sorry, I was practicing my Gendo Ikari impression."
- Shikamaru also does the tip-to-tip style while he's planning. He does it so often it gets mistaken for a hand sign.
- Gaara seems to have picked up this habit when he's sitting down lately too. It seems to be a replacement for his usual standing-up habit of crossing his arms.
- Monster (1994): Johan does it while talking to a small orphaned boy (who, as a result, attempts to commit suicide later in the day). In the anime, the screen focuses on his hands for a long time before panning out to show his face.
- Neon Genesis Evangelion:
- Gendo Ikari combines this with all the bonus points listed in the page description; the Psychotic Smirk is rare, but it always means good news for him and extremely bad news for everyone else. His trademark covering-the-mouth variant is often called "the Gendo pose." For a while adding the "Gendo Hands" to existing works were a meme. (As a bonus, using the pose repeatedly helped cut down on animation costs and nobody had to worry about matching lip flaps when dubbing into another language.) He's one of the reasons why this is now THE signature pose for the Diabolical Mastermind.
- Scans from the original designs for Shinji show him doing a happy version of the pose. It must be a tradition in the Ikari family.
- Rei also does this several times. She must unconsciously have copied it from Gendo.
- Misato can be seen doing it too, perhaps in an attempt to copy Gendo's cool command poise.
- Gendo Ikari combines this with all the bonus points listed in the page description; the Psychotic Smirk is rare, but it always means good news for him and extremely bad news for everyone else. His trademark covering-the-mouth variant is often called "the Gendo pose."
- Pokémon the Series: Used humorously when James, of all people, does this while guiding Jessie, Meowth, and the twerps in landing an out-of-control rocket.
- Robotics;Notes: In the anime it's referred to as the Gendo Pose, followed by an explanation of how it's a very common occurrence in Humongous Mecha anime. This is only one of many mecha anime Shout Outs spouted in the show.
Comic Books
- Incandescence: The Leech steeples his fingers in no.1 while plotting against Audrey and her mom.
- Krypton No More: Radion steeples his fingers while listening to his partner-in-crime Protector describing his clash with Superman.
- Robin: Although he's a hero, Tim Drake will occasionally steeple his fingers while he's plotting. First seen in the first Robin mini-series when he's half explaining things to Clyde Rawlins after getting the injured rogue DEA agent out of Paris.
- The Thrawn Trilogy:
- The comic book adaptation has Grand Admiral Thrawn doing this often. That, or cradling and stroking a creature that is probably intended to be a ysalamiri. Notably he doesn't do much of either in the novels, but Magnificent Bastards steeple, and Thrawn is a Magnificent Bastard, so "steepled" is the second-most common way his hands are drawn in the comic, in other official art, and in fanart. The most common way his hands are positioned is undeniably clasped behind his back, a gesture of restraint. Notably you can't clasp your hands behind your back while sitting, and steepling just looks stupid when you're standing up.
- The ysalamir stroking, at least, does occasionally happen in the books, whenever Thrawn wishes to emphasize their (Force-nullifying) presence when speaking with Force users.
- The cover of issue 67 of The Walking Dead features Eugene Porter in this pose.
Fan Works
- Advice and Trust: Gendo uses this pose in chapter 8 as he is pondering over the last developments (Shinji accidentally extracting someone had been absorbed into an Evangelion) and their implications.
Gendo just tightened his lips and jerked a sharp nod. He returned to his desk and pulled up a report on the repair estimates for Unit-01, his hands assuming their standard position folded under his nose as he stared at the screen, but Fuyutsuki could tell he was not seeing the words at all.
- Calvin & Hobbes: The Series: Socrates' scheming side does this after misleading the group, coupling it with an Evil Laugh.
- Children of an Elder God: Gendo does this so often than even in Shinji's dreams in chapter 5 the latter imagines Gendo tenting his fingers:
Prince Shinji kneeled before the throne of his father, King Gendo of Tokyo-3, who sat on his great basalt and onyx throne, his gloved fingers pursed to form a triangle.
- Dance with the Demons: In the Batman story, Ra's Al Ghul clasps his fingers as he ponders the unlikelihood that one of his men went renegade and attempted against Catwoman's life.
"Could it be one of your men, gone renegade? A loose cannon?"
Ra's tented his hands. "I would think not. My ranks are more disciplined than that. However, I will give you this, Detective. If one of my men is involved in this matter, I will send you his head in a box, and a note of apology. This, I promise." - Evangelion 303: Gendo does it in some scenes, such as this or this. The different camera angle and more casual clothes of the former give him a focused air rather a creepy one, though.
- HERZ: Misato sometimes has her hands folded in this position when she is plotting or negotiating. It is meant to show she has become more similar to Gendo.
- Kyon: Big Damn Hero: Subverted by a yakuza boss, who does this when asking a subordinate to apologize for a rogue yakuza shooting Kyon. He doesn't intend to deceive them and honestly wants to apologize.
- Last Child of Krypton: In chapter 4 Ritsuko walked in Commander Ikari's office and he immediately tented his fingers and assumed his pose. She found it annoying.
- Plan 7 of 9 from Outer Space has the requisite Gendo Pose during the Evangelion spoof in Chapter XI.
"Why are you sending me out to die, Father? WHY?"
"You know why." The Commander's white-gloved hands concealed his mouth, but the words were as cold as ever. Whatever parental affection existed in his eyes was hidden by the sallow tint of his glasses. "Because I'm an utter bastard!" - Thinking in Little Green Boxes: While plotting and planning and considering that Dumbledore must have been replaced by a Skrull Harry does the Gendo pose.
Films — Animated
- Hera in Hercules (Pure Magic) does this as she realized Hades' nectar could be used as poison against Hercules and Zeus.
- The Hunchback of Notre Dame (Disney): Judge Claude Frollo is often depicted as doing this in promotional material. See?◊
- Megamind does this as part of his over-the-top supervillain persona.
- Puella Magi Madoka Magica The Movie: Rebellion: Once Homura goes completely off the deep end, rewrites the universe, and does a Face–Heel Turn, she's in this pose when Madoka arrives to class freshly mindwiped and to her knowledge safe.
- Ratatouille: Acidic food critic Anton Ego steeples his fingers while relishing the fact that his bad review cost Chef Gusteau's restaurant one of it's stars.
Films — Live-Action
- Bram Stoker's Dracula: Old Dracula does this when he's laughing at Johnathon Harker.
- Equilibrium: Vice-Counsel Dupont does this at the climax, only to drop the pose in an Oh, Crap! moment when Preston kills Brandt in a Single-Stroke Battle.
- The Man with Two Brains: A Visual Gag, in which a character is finger tenting because they're stuck together by Krazy Glue.
- Zero Dark Thirty: National security adviser John Brennan (Stephen Dillane) tents his index fingers◊.
Literature
- The Acts of Caine: Subverted in Heroes Die, where Kollberg laces his fingers together not as a sign of deception, but to try and keep calm while talking to the Board of Governors.
- Artemis Fowl: Artemis often strikes the fingers-crossed variant of the pose when he's revealing something particularly devious or unexpected
- The Dresden Files: Marcone the scheming mob boss often steeples his hands. In the illustrated RPG book, nearly every time you see Marcone he's doing this.
- Harry Potter: Albus Dumbledore in cordial confrontation mode, especially in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix when Harry is trying to explain about seeing Mr Weasley being attacked, and Dumbledore is looking at his own interlocked fingers, instead of at Harry.
- Mostly Harmless (1992): The cynical executive put in charge after the buyout of the Hitchhiker's Guide offices, Vann Harl, does the finger-steepling thing while talking to Ford Prefect. The narration marvels that this gesture has not yet been made a capital offense.
- A Song of Ice and Fire: One of the trademark gestures of Tywin Lannister, although other characters are known to do it too. One of the priests of the Many-Faced God, when teaching Arya how to lie, mentions that some people will instinctively cover their mouth when lying, which is the Truth in Television part of this trope.
- Xanth: The Magician Trent does this — while he's not precisely a Chessmaster, he's definitely a pretty smart cookie.
- Worm: Coil steeples his fingers in front of his mouth, even though he's wearing a mask.
Live-Action TV
- Corner Gas: In one episode, Wanda teaches Lacey on when to use "schemey fingers".
- Doctor Who: The Master does this while smugly waiting to spring his trap on the boorish Florida Man in "The Sound of Drums".
- The Flash (2014): Dr Wells does this when threatening General Eiling, and on a few other occasions when demonstrating his Magnificent Bastard tendencies.
- Horrible Histories: Cesare Borgia and his "I am the mostest powerfulest evilest of all!" in the Borgia Family song.
- The Ministry of Time: Salvador's usual pose when sitting behind his desk is the finger-tips pressed variant.
- Sherlock: The fingertips pressed variant is one of the title character's more iconic habits. Given who the title character is the gesture tends to signify contemplation rather than malice, although its Machiavellian connotations may still apply.
Tabletop Games
- Warhammer 40,000: The model for the Memnyr Strategists, Ironkin who serve as battlefield analysts, advisers, and directors of other robotic forces, shows the Strategist in a contemplative pose with its fingers steepled in front of its eyeless face.
Video Games
- ANNO: Mutationem: While heading towards the Walter Raleigh, Ann encounters K, who tells her a story while he has his fingers tenting alongside Scary Shiny Glasses as he talks about a child who made a decision that led to the death of her friends.
- Baldur's Gate: The evil-aligned mage Edwin is shown clasping his hands in this fashion in his character◊ portraits.◊
- Black Closet: The protagonist does this in the beginning, complete with ominous lighting and Scary Shiny Glasses, to get the player in the mood of being a morally-gray mastermind. Elsa's not actually that good at directly lying, though. She has people for that.
- Civilization V: Pedro II of Brazil tends to do this, especially when initiating wars. Combined with his appearance, his dialogue ("You Fool! You have made a terrible mistake."), and the ominous theme music that starts, he resembles a James Bond villain.
- Final Fantasy Tactics: Gerrith Barrington uses this pose to _gloat_ when confronting the Templars that he's got one over on them by capturing Islude and a Zodiac Stone, as well as armed with the knowledge that Ramza is coming to Riovanes castle in hopes of rescuing his kidnapped sister. Too bad Templars don't negotiate with terrorists.
- I Was a Teenage Exocolonist: Marz, an ambitious, aspiring politician, deviously puts her fingers together like this in the card "When a Plan Comes Together".
- Overwatch has Moira, who does this in one of her victory poses and one of her sprays. Hilariously, her spray depicting this is a direct Shout-Out to Gendo Ikari, right down to the shadows.
- Igor is often seen doing this in the Persona games. However, while he seems to enjoy looking rather sinister doing so (it doesn't help that he already looks creepy enough without the finger tenting), he's very much on humanity's side, and never actively deceives the protagonist. In fact, he's one of THE nicest (and most helpful) supernatural entities you will find in any Shin Megami Tensei game. And in an amusing but Foreshadowing note, in the one game he isn't seen doing this, it's an impostor using his form.
Visual Novels
- Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney: Alita Tiala has two fairly◊ subtle◊ versions of this as standard poses. It's the first sign that her "loving fiancée" act is fake.
- Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc: Celestia Ludenberg occasionally slips into this. However, she never bothered to cover her mouth... although she instead uses a cute smile accompanied with closed eyes of innocence. Coupled with how she's called 'Queen of Liars', that still doesn't deduce the points about how much she's deceiving. The final Closing Argument also shows the mastermind doing this in their control room.
- Double Homework: Dennis does this after the protagonist humiliates him in front of the class, but he vows to continue on with his "plan" to seduce all the girls in his summer school class.
- Famicom Detective Club: When doing an overview of the investigation at the end of a chapter, the protagonist has his hands tented together as he talks about what he's discovered about the case so far.
- Katawa Shoujo: Shizune seems to like "tenting" her hands and otherwise follows the personality tropes associated with this to the letter, though as far as chessmastery is concerned, all she's got to show for herself is a mean game of RISK.
- Tsukihime: Kohaku clasps her hands while talking with Shiki after having sex in her own route. Since she'd been trying to manipulate him to kill Akiha, this might make sense, but it's actually a subversion. She wasn't lying to him, and she later tried to stop Shiki and the then-insane Akiha from killing each other. She does drug him so he can't come after her immediately after that though.
Webcomics
- Aki-chan's Life:
- Done by Aki on the cover to Chapter 2, dressed up as Grandpa Gendo. Is of a much more humorous variety then most other examples as the person in question is 4 years old and barefoot, with her feet not even remotely close to the floor.
- Shinji does this in Chapter 5 when dressing down Asuka's father about his parenting skills (or lack thereof).
- Done by Aki on the cover to Chapter 2
- In DevilBear the Parody character of Rainbow Brite is striking a Gendo Pose while plotting at her desk when the Daivas show up.
- Girl Genius:
- Klaus Wulfenbach pulls this off with a Humongous Mecha. Check it out.
- Tarvek also gets one to compliment his epic Magnificent Bastard face.
- The castle does this while talking through Carson.
- Klaus Wulfenbach pulls this off with a Humongous Mecha. Check it out.
- Godslave has Turner's boss (likely Heru) do this when pondering the implications of Anpu escaping and Edith's appearance on the scene.
- In El Goonish Shive, Mr. Tensaided does this while narrating in the style of a gamemaster.
- Dale in Questionable Content homages the pose while plotting.
- Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal: In #1838, at the end, the janitor stands with tented fingers and his back to the explosion caused by the physicists implementing the equation that he had "solved" for them.
Western Animation
- Æon Flux: "Thanatophobia": One character tells off Goodchild for being too soft on Breen citizens trying to escape the city while making this pose. It's even more disturbing when you notice that this man is missing every other finger.
- American Dad!: After coming up with a plan to get back at someone he felt had wronged him, Roger expressed delight that he would get to do this, calling it 'the finger pyramid of evil contemplation'.
- Arcane: It's a sign of how far Caitlyn is descending into dictatorship to hunt down Jinx that she makes this pose.
- Beast Wars: Megatron likes to do this in Tyrannosaurus rex mode. Probably not possible for a T. rex, but it's funny, so who cares.
- "Big Mouth": When Nick hatches a plan to pretend to be Danni's friend until her boyfriend Travis breaks up with her, he begins to tap the tips of his fingers together maliciously.
Leah: Do not do any slithering. Just be a good guy.
Nick: Yes...yes...a good guy...
Rick: Yes...yes...with fingers that do this... - Kaeloo:
- Mr. Cat does this often, usually after coming up with some kind of scheme to trick the other characters into giving him what he wants.
- Kaeloo does this in one episode when she comes up with a strategy to convince Mr. Cat to play with her.
- KPop Demon Hunters: Rumi tents her fingertips together as she says, "Yes...vacation," showing that anything she told her bandmates about being able to rest after their world tour was a grotesque lie.
- My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic:
- Discord often taps the fingers of his forepaws together whenever he's sneaky or cunning.
- "The Mean 6": Twilight Sparkle's Evil Doppelgänger does a variation of this gesture with the tips of her wings after the real Pinkie Pie reveals the location of the Tree of Harmony.
- Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated: George Avocados crosses the far end of a room, turns and pulls this pose from the top of the stairs, then resumes a more normal posture.
- The Simpsons: Mr. Burns's signature line "Excellent", delivered when something devious has gone his way, is usually delivered while tapping his fingertips in a tented position.