WARNING: This article contains spoilers for Marvel's The Defenders, available now on Netflix.


It's been difficult to deduce a history, let alone a goal, for the Hand, the ninja death cult that's plagued both Daredevil and Iron Fist on Marvel's Netflix dramas. Seemingly inexplicably focused on New York City, the centuries-old organization is entangled in the heroin trade, human trafficking, shady real-estate deals and corporate takeovers, all against the backdrop of mystical resurrections, an ongoing war with the Chaste, and the quest for a human weapon known as the Black Sky.

The Hand's roots, or so we were told, lay somewhere in East Asia, where powerful warlords somehow unearthed the secret of immortality. Free of the restraints of death, they expanded their empire across the globe, kept in check only by the Chaste, an ancient order devoted solely to fighting the Hand, and the Iron Fist, the protector of the mystical city of K'un-Lun.

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That was essentially the Hand in a nutshell, as related through Daredevil and Iron Fist. However, with The Defenders, the history of the Hand -- to say nothing of the Chaste -- undergoes a not-insignificant rewrite, courtesy of Stick (played by Scott Glenn), a black belt in exposition and mentor to both Daredevil and Elektra.

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Tracking down Matt Murdock, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage and Danny Rand following their confrontation with the enigmatic Alexandra (Sigourney Weaver) and her minions at the offices of Midland Circle, Stick reveals the founders of the Hand weren't common warlords; they're former elders of K'un-Lun. "A long time ago the elders of K'un-Lun gathered to study how to harness their chi, the energy of life itself," he recounts. "They wanted to use it to heal. But there were five heretics among them, people with darker intentions. They didn't want to heal; they wanted immortality -- power, to never face death, to regenerate themselves again and again. The elders saw this as an aberration, and so, like Lucifer from heaven, the five were banished from K'un-Lun forever. They became the five fingers of the Hand."

Nobu and his ninja on Daredevil
Nobu and his ninja on Daredevil

Exiled from K'un-Lun, the five heretics, in Stick's words, "went back to their mother countries, each finger ruling over its own domain, growing in power and influence."

While it's arguable how successful Iron Fist was in casting K'un-Lun as a multicultural society (for instance, Sacha Dhawan, the actor who plays Davos, is of Indian descent), perhaps in an attempt to stave off those "white savior" criticisms, the composition of the Hand has been depicted as far more diverse. Sure, its key players on Daredevil are Chinese (Madame Gao) and Japanese (Nobu Yoshioka), and most of their warriors black-clad ninja, but Iron Fist introduced Bakuto (played by Ramon Rodriguez), the leader of a faction that recruited young soldiers of varying backgrounds, partly through Colleen Wing's dojo.

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But this latest revelation seeks to lift the founders of the Hand, and by extension the elders of K'un-Lun, beyond the "magical Asian" trope, to establish them as something more global.

The notion of the Hand having "five fingers," each of which can exist independently of one another, actually originates in the comics. So, too, does the idea that something terrible can happen when those fingers unite for a single purpose. That's echoed by Alexandra after she reminisces with Stick in the Chinese restaurant where the would-be Defenders had been lying low. "You remember the last time all the fingers of the Hand came together, don't you, Stick?" she coolly asks. "A goddamn culling," he responds, using a word often reserved for the selective slaughter of wild animals.

As The Defenders opens, the Hand has depleted its resources for resurrection on Elektra, the Black Sky, forcing the organization's leaders to confront their own mortality for the first time in centuries. So, who are these five fingers of the Hand? We already met two of them on Daredevil and Iron Fist, and now The Defenders introduces the other three.

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Madame Gao

Madame Gao on Iron Fist

Madame Gao (played by Wai Ching Ho) was introduced on Daredevil as a business partner of Wilson Fisk who controlled the heroin trade in Hell's Kitchen. However, viewers quickly suspected there was more to Gao than meets the eye, something seemingly confirmed in the penultimate episode of Season 1 when she clarified that her homeland isn't China, but rather somewhere "a considerable distance further" -- a veiled reference to K'un-Lun.

She played a more prominent role on the first season of Iron Fist, where she not only hinted at her longevity -- "I spent most of the 17th century being interrogated" -- but was revealed to have orchestrated the murder of Danny Rand's parents. A master manipulator and martial artist with demonstrated telekinetic abilities, as well as soldiers of her own, Gao seemingly permitted herself to be captured first by Danny and then by Bakuto, the leader of a rival Hand faction. Freed from Bakuto's prison by the end of Iron Fist, Gao serves as Alexandra's right hand on The Defenders.

Bakuto

Bakuto on Iron Fist

Colleen Wing's mentor, Bakuto was initially positioned on Iron Fist as a kindly benefactor of disadvantaged youth with knowledge of K'un-Lun. He captures Madame Gao and offers to help Danny Rand to recharge his chi, actions intended to help recruit the Iron Fist to his side. However, when it's revealed Bakuto is a leader of the Hand, he's pitted against Danny, Colleen and Davos, a member of the Order of the Crane Mother. It's the latter who ultimately kills Bakuto, whose body is whisked away by the Hand.

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Bakuto's story is difficult to reconcile with the revised history of the Hand, but perhaps we can chalk that up to his manipulations of Danny. Bakuto related on Iron Fist that he was raised by the Hand to lead its warriors, and grew up hearing, but not quite believing, the legend of K'un-Lun. Then he was shown an old film of an Iron Fist fighting Chinese soldiers, and became obsessed with learning all he could about the protector of the ancient city.

Sowande

Sowande on The Defenders

Known in Harlem as "the White Hat," Sowande (Babs Olusanmokun) has been recruiting young men of the neighborhood to perform mysterious late-night tasks, revealed to be the clean-up of executions of the Chaste. ("They're all dead now," Stick says, "every one, except me.") But when some of those Harlem residents outlive their usefulness, they turn up dead, setting Luke Cage on the trail of the Hand.

Described by Stick as an "African warlord, gun-runner, you name it," Sowande apparently is, like the other fingers of the Hand, a force to be reckoned with. "Don't follow too closely," Stick cautions Luke Cage. "He'll slow your pulse 'til your heart fails." He's also secure enough to taunt the Black Sky, aka Elektra, without fear for his own safety (his henchmen, however, are another matter).

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Murakami

Murakami on The Defenders

When we meet Murakami (Yutaka Takeuchi) in the fourth episode of The Defenders, he's butchering an Asian black bear, also known as a moon bear, that he tracked for 10 days in Japan. "He nearly killed me," he tells Alexandra, who replies, "They always nearly kill you."

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Interestingly, it isn't Nobu Yoshioka, positioned on Daredevil as the leader of a Hand faction, who's revealed as one of the five fingers, but rather Murakami. Nobu was directly involved in Wilson Fisk's cartel, and died while attempting to put an end of Daredevil's interference, only to be resurrected and then killed again. However, Stick notes, it was Murakami "who pulled the strings." Seemingly affable, Murakami is described by Stick as "maybe the most secretive" of the five fingers. "But when he comes out ... an evil piece of shit."

Alexandra

Alexandra on The Defenders

When we first meet Alexandra (Sigourney Weaver) on The Defenders, she's dangerously close to the end of a long life that, it's hinted, included an association with 19th-century German composer Johannes Brahms and time spent in Constantinople. The leader of the Hand since its founding, she's gone by different names over the centuries -- Jessica Jones uncovers several of them on Manhattan property deeds dating back to the early 1800s -- but now Alexandra has months, maybe weeks, to live.

Having utilized the last of the organization's precious "resources" to resurrect Elektra, the permanent death the five fingers have so long avoided suddenly looms for all of them, but none more so than Alexandra. That leads her to order the acceleration of the organization's mysterious plans for New York City, speeding her confrontation with the Iron Fist and his newfound allies. ("My organization has always had a great deal of respect for the protector of K'un-Lun," she assures Danny Rand.) Asked by Stick what she wants, Alexandra replies, "The same thing I've always wanted: To bring light into the dark, to bring life where there was death."


Available now on Netflix, the eight-episode Defenders stars Charlie Cox as Matt Murdock, Krysten Ritter as Jessica Jones, Mike Colter as Luke Cage, Finn Jones as Danny Rand, Elodie Yung as Elektra Natchios, Sigourney Weaver as Alexandra, Eka Darville as Malcolm Ducasse, Simone Missick as Misty Knight, Deborah Ann Woll as Karen Page, Elden Henson as Foggy Nelson, Carrie-Anne Moss as Jeri Hogarth, Scott Glenn as Stick, Rachael Taylor as Trish Walker, Rosario Dawson as Claire Temple and Jessica Henwick as Colleen Wing.