Injury Transference

Injury Transference
Queenie transferring a fork wound to Madison Montgomery's hand
Description	"Human voodoo doll"; the ability to transfer one's pain and injury unto a targeted victim
Known users	Voodooists

“	I don't feel nothing. I'm a human voodoo doll.	”
	— Queenie[src]

Injury Transference is the power to transfer physical injuries and pain inflicted on oneself to another person. It is one of the magical abilities showcased in Coven, Hotel and Apocalypse.

Use

Injury Transference is the ability to direct pain and the physical damage associated with it to another individual when the injury is inflicted upon oneself. A witch with this power is sometimes known as a "human voodoo doll". When the injury occurs to the witch possessing this power, it instantly heals and the damage of the injury is transferred to the body of someone else, always an individual deliberately selected by the witch. The pain of the injury is also transferred, allowing the witch with this power to inflict grievous injury upon themselves and experience nothing from it, while meanwhile their victim simultaneously experiences excruciating pain, as displayed when Queenie held a heated metal spatula to her face and burnt the face of Spalding, inflicting enough pain to cause him to pass out while she simply laughed. She was born with this ability, and first displayed it when she stabbed herself in the hand with a fork and directed the wound onto Madison Montgomery after a heated argument, laughing at Madison's screams and the blood leaking from her hand. It was later revealed that Queenie used this power when she worked at a fast food restaurant, when an irate customer demanded more food after not being given the correct amount. Queenie told him he was lying and had simply eaten the food in order to get more. When the customer insulted her weight, she dipped her right arm in the boiling oil of the deep fryer and directed the damage to his right arm.

This power is also a very useful defense mechanism, as seen when Queenie was attacked by Ramona Royale at the Hotel Cortez; as Ramona attempted to cut or stab Queenie, she painfully harmed herself instead. At its height, this power also uniquely afforded Queenie immunity to blessed silver, a material otherwise detrimental to witches and their magic. This was exemplified when Hank Foxx massacred Marie Laveau's tribe of Voodoo practitioners; before he could kill the Voodoo Queen, Queenie shot herself in the mouth, allowing her to transfer the injury to Hank. She passed out from the effort but survived without a scratch, spitting out the bullet and making a full recovery.

Beings such as ghosts, zombies and androids are immune to or unaffected by injury transference. James March was able to critically wound Queenie by stabbing her in the chest without any harm befalling him due to his lack of a physical body, stating that as he was a ghost, Queenie's magic had "nowhere to go". Similarly, injury transference had no significant effect on the undead Borquita Lopez, as she was a corpse reanimated by necromancy, and while the wounds Queenie transferred did appear on her body, as a zombie she was unaffected by the pain or death that would normally result from them. After Miriam Mead shot Zoe Benson and other witches, Queenie tried to slit her own throat with a shard of glass to transfer damage to Miriam, but the damage she transferred did not affect Miriam due to her being an android, and thus biologically not dependent on her bodily fluids the way humans are dependent on blood, allowing her to retaliate by killing Queenie.

Known Users

• Voodooists
  • Tituba (presumably)
  • Queenie

Notes

• Injury Transference is featured in three seasons of American Horror Story: Coven, Hotel and Apocalypse.
• It is likely that Tituba, Queenie's ancestor and first accused during the Salem witch trials, also possessed this power.
• It is showed that this power can be successfully used even in hellmouths.
• This power is somehow an advanced inherent or reflexive form of one of the most infamous Voodoo rituals: pinning a doll to cause harm in a chosen target from afar.
  • Voodoo Queens Marie Laveau and Dinah Stevens both resorted to an Injury Ritual to either inflict pain to an un collaborative associate or a client's rival in love.

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