Pretty good read. I had kinda wandered down that same vein in my head, a little, about Harami. Maybe they just didn't want to have a guy running around with a severed right hand in the game (or just didn't feel like rerendering the sprite). That "magic and visible to residents only mark of the beast" theory really holds the most water, without the Coles George Lucas retro-canoning that one detail, anyway.