Furiosa has hit theaters, and the latest installment in the Mad Max series finally answers a 9-year-old question: How does Imperator Furiosa lose her arm?
Warning: this article contains spoilers for Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga.
We first meet Furiosa, played by Charlize Theron, in Mad Max: Fury Road (2015). In Fury Road, Furiosa wears a mechanical arm in place of her left arm, which is gone at the elbow. Furiosa is pretty powerful with the prosthetic arm, but she’s still a badass without it. At one point, she takes a guy out by smacking him with her bare elbow.
In Furiosa, which is a direct prequel to Fury Road, we meet Furiosa when she’s just a child. Furiosa spends her early years in the Green Place of Many Mothers, a verdant oasis amidst the barren dunes of the Wasteland. However, Furiosa is kidnapped by bandits, and forced to grow up in the shadow of the war between the gang leader Dementus (Chris Hemsworth) and the warlord Immortan Joe (Lachy Hulme).
When we first meet Furiosa, she still has both of her arms. In fact, her left arm plays a major role in the story. After she’s kidnapped, she uses the History Man’s needle and ink to tattoo a map of the stars on her forearm, helping her remember the way home when she eventually escapes.
But we all know what’s going to happen to that arm, from both Fury Road and from the Furiosa trailers.
Eventually, Furiosa and her mentor-turned-romantic-interest Praetorian Jack (Tom Burke) find themselves on the run from Dementus’ thugs. Furiosa’s arm is injured during a car chase, when another car sideswipes her and her arm gets wedged between the two vehicles. Then, when Dementus catches her and Jack, he strings her up by her injured arm.
It’s hard to say how long Furiosa hangs there, forced to watch as Jack is dragged behind a motorcycle until he dies. But when Dementus finally comes to finish her off, he finds a startling sight. Furiosa’s arm is still hanging there, but she herself is gone.
Furiosa makes her way back to Immortan Joe’s citadel, where she escapes a maggot-infested cave and then crafts her new arm. After shaving her head, Furiosa is transformed into the warrior we first meet in Fury Road.
