History Main / WhoEvenNeedsABrain

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[[folder:Web Comics]]

In real life, having your brain physically removed from your body pretty much means you are dead. In comedy however the results can be a little different, leading to one of these outcomes (besides the realistic fatal one, obviously):

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Planet 51}}'': Once two alien soldiers have their brains removed, not only do they still function but actually seem to get ''smarter'', such as speaking in SesquipedalianLoquaciousness.
* In ''WesternAnimation/SuicideSquadHellToPay'', [[spoiler:Zoom]] spends most of the movie strolling around with a hole in his head. Justified, as it actually was just as lethal as you'd expect, he just [[spoiler:used the Speed Force to stretch out the fraction of a second before death]], giving the impression that it hasn't affected him other than him [[DramaPreservingHandicap getting nerfed pretty severely by it]]. He does mention he sometimes feels like he's walking through fog and makes bad decisions so there are 'Stupid But Aware' elements as well.

* A unique example comes about in the DC Animated film ''WesternAnimation/JusticeLeagueTheFlashpointParadox'' with the actual consequences shown in a later film ''WesternAnimation/SuicideSquadHellToPay''. Eobard Thawne, in the middle of a battlefield in the Flashpoint timeline, is shot through the head by Batman (Thomas Wayne in that timeline). While in the first film, he appears to fall over stone-dead, in the second film, Thawne reappears none the worse for wear. But then, when the Squad is captured in Killer Frost's ice, he reveals that he's only capable of limited usage of his super-speed now, due to the fact of a massive, gory hole going from back to front. Thawne then reveals that when Thomas!Batman shot him, in the split-second that the bullet was still tearing through his brain, he drew the Speed Force into his body to literally become a walking dead man. If Thawne continues to use his super speed past a few moments, the Speed Force keeping him alive will dissipate and he will become a true dead man as he was supposed to be.

** In another, his brain, stomach, and heart leave his body after getting sick of all the abuse they heap on him. He remains unchanged.
* A unique example comes about in the DC Animated film ''WesternAnimation/JusticeLeagueTheFlashpointParadox'' with the actual consequences shown in a later film ''WesternAnimation/SuicideSquadHellToPay''. Eobard Thawn, in the middle of a battlefield in the Flashpoint timeline, is shot through the head by Batman (Thomas Wayne in that timeline). While in the first film, he appears to fall over stone-dead, in the second film, Thawne reappears none the worse for wear. But then, when the Squad is captured in Killer Frost's ice, he reveals that he's only capable of limited usage of his super-speed now, due to the fact of a massive, gory hole going from back to front. Thawne then reveals that when Thomas!Batman shot him, in the split-second that the bullet was still tearing through his brain, he drew the Speed Force into his body to literally become a walking dead man. If Thawne continues to use his super speed past a few moments, the Speed Force keeping him alive will dissipate and he will become a true dead man as he was supposed to be.

** Supposedly the first lyric Eminem ever wrote for Slim Shady was "''Slim Shady -- brain dead, like Jim Brady''"[[note]]the Regan staffer who got shot in the head during the failed assassination attempt[[/note]]. He eventually used this lyric in "Just Don't Give A Fuck", along with the line "''clinically brain dead -- I don't need a second opinion''".

* The trope image is ''ComicBook/{{Batman}}'' villain the Absence. Once a billionaire Gotham socialite named Una Nemo, she got her brains blown out while trying to stop thieves trying to rob her aboard her yacht. But the pollution in the Gotham River miraculously saved her despite having her fatal injuries. But after attending her own funeral in disguise, Una was horrified to learn that the man she loved, Bruce Wayne, didn't even bother to attend nor did he have Batman Incorporated look into her apparent murder. This drove her over the edge and convinces her to recruit other forgotten, unwanted people to participate in her scheme to remind Bruce of her and take revenge on the people who shot her in the first place. Meanwhile, her wound dramatically increases oxygen flow to her brain, increasing her already great intelligence to the point of running circles around Batman and Robin, who never catch onto the true nature of her plans until her would-be murderers are already dead.

* The TropeImage is ''ComicBook/{{Batman}}'' villain the Absence. Once a billionaire Gotham socialite named Una Nemo, she got her brains blown out while trying to stop thieves trying to rob her aboard her yacht. But the pollution in the Gotham River miraculously saved her despite having her fatal injuries. But after attending her own funeral in disguise, Una was horrified to learn that the man she loved, Bruce Wayne, didn't even bother to attend nor did he have Batman Incorporated look into her apparent murder. This drove her over the edge and convinces her to recruit other forgotten, unwanted people to participate in her scheme to remind Bruce of her and take revenge on the people who shot her in the first place. Meanwhile, her wound dramatically increases oxygen flow to her brain, increasing her already great intelligence to the point of running circles around Batman and Robin, who never catch onto the true nature of her plans until her would-be murderers are already dead.

->'''Dr. Cockroach Ph.D:''' ''(about B.O.B.)'' Forgive him, but as you can see, he has no brain.\\

''Walking Vegetable:'' In this case the body is in a drooling zombie like state, able to walk after a fashion but otherwise almost totally unaware of anything going on around them. Any speech will be monosyllabic. Can be done realistically, if some important parts of the brain remain but all the higher regions are gone.

''Stupid but Aware:'' In this case the character has simply turned into TheDitz -- they are much stupider than usual but able to talk properly, walk around without bumping into things and so on. Probably the least common category.

''No Change:'' This is most likely to happen to a character who is already TheDitz. Brain falls out, is stolen or whatever and the de-brained character acts exactly the same (and may not even notice their brain is gone.) Sometimes the brain will be [[ShrunkenOrgan far smaller than normal]] to begin with.

* Rare "serious" example: the infamous ''Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries'' episode [[Recap/StarTrekS3E1SpocksBrain "Spock's Brain"]]. [[TitleDrop Spock's brain]] is stolen by aliens who use it as a computer to run their planet's infrastructure. For some reason, his autonomic functions still work, but he is completely unconscious. Kirk has to get the brain back quickly, because Spock's Vulcan physiology is especially dependent on that tremendous brain. (Whereas a brain-dead human could be kept "alive" easily for quite some time.) So that they can restore the brain quickly when they find it, [=McCoy=] rigs up a device that fits on Spock's head and allows his lifeless body to walk around, manipulated by a remote control. [[PlotSensitiveButton With three buttons.]] Music/{{SPOCK}} has made a song called "Mr. Spock's Brain", based on the above episode.

* Oblina of ''WesternAnimation/AaahhRealMonsters'' once sneezed her own brains out, leaving her body a drooling and mindless but mobile vegetable.

** At the end of "Bad Bad Rubber Piggy", Zim sends a warning to himself back in time, but it has to replace something and that something turned out to be his brain. Rather than keeling over, he just kind of sat there, drooled, and moaned a bit. This is somewhat justified, as one (unaired) episode established that the Irken's (Zim's race) PAK (backpack-looking thing) is the actual "brain" of the organism, the body serving as something to carry the PAK around (though this does bring up the question of why there even ''is'' a brain).

* In the ''WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}}'' episode: "How Hermes Requisitioned His Groove Back", when [[RobotBuddy Bender]] loses his brain (in disc form), he loses his personality and resets to his factory default, which leaves him unable to say anything but [[MachineMonotone "I AM BENDER. PLEASE INSERT GIRDER."]] He still walks around, but doesn't pay attention to where he's going in the slightest.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheGrimAdventuresOfBillyAndMandy'': In contrast to Billy, who doesn't have a brain at all to begin with, the victims of the evil, brain-sucking meteor in "Little Rock of Horrors" turn into zombie-like creatures who can nevertheless dance to the song the meteor sings.

* Anais from ''WesternAnimation/TheAmazingWorldOfGumball'' suffers brain damage on account for too much facepalming due to her family's stupidity, leaving her in a vegetable state but she can still walk around.

* Another rare dramatic example is [[Anime/PokemonTheSeries Ash Ketchum]] in ''Fanfic/AtTheFoodCourt''. Team Rocket eventually decides [[NotSoHarmlessVillain they'd had enough of him foiling their plans]], and [[NoHoldsBarredBeatdown beat him up so bad]] that an MRI scan reveals that much of his brain ''is dead''. The doctors point out that the injuries he suffers are so bad that it should have killed him and are baffled by his continued survival. That said, Ash didn't suffer such severe brain damage and wind up unscathed -- ''because'' large parts of his brain are dead, his personality was altered for the worse, having violent, psychotic episodes and coming to believe that he is a Pokemon. He only regains his humanity after heavy-duty psychic therapy from Sabrina, and even then, he is reduced to the maturity and mental age of a five-year-old, never to become a functional adult even decades later, and no longer legally competent to be a Pokemon Trainer. Oddly enough, this crosses over a little with "No Change", since it takes months for Ash to deteriorate to that point, and at first the only consequence of his injuries is becoming a little more violent (like Phineas Gage). The psychotic break happens only after suffering repeated injuries for months, and being told he was a Pikachu while in a very precarious state.

* In 1848, Phineas Gage had a pole jammed through his head that removed part of his brain. It didn't kill him, but he is said to have become much more cranky and dishonest after the pole went through his head. Though just how much impact the injury had in his personality is now questioned by psychologists, due to there being no actual records of what he was like before the accident aside from anecdotes that were recorded after, and even then many of these records were either vague or contradictory -- for example, one doctor claimed that he had become sexually insatiable and would readily assault any woman he saw, while another claimed that he'd completely lost all interest in sex.

* In ''WesternAnimation/SuicideSquadHellToPay'', [[spoiler:Zoom]] spends most of the movie strolling around with a hole in his head. Justified, as it actually was just as lethal as you'd expect, he just [[spoiler:used the Speed Force to stretch out the fraction of a second before death]], giving the impression that it hasn't effected him other than him [[DramaPreservingHandicap getting nerfed pretty severely by it]]. He does mention he sometimes feels like he's walking through fog and makes bad decisions so there are 'Stupid But Aware' elements as well.

* In ''[[Film/TheAddamsFamily Addams Family Values]]'' Gomez and Fester are cheerfully reminiscing about all the (violent) pranks they pulled on each other as kids. Fester casually mentions that one time he waited til Gomez was asleep, then opened his his head and removed his brains. Gomez is surprised and sort of impressed by this revelation.

** In the Bad Meets Evil song "Scary Movies", Slim Shady has his brain swapped over with that of a chimp. Neither he nor the chimp notice a difference.

* ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'': "Voidmind" creatures are humanoids who have been captured by the [[{{Cthulhumanoid}} illithids]] and had most of their brains [[BrainFood eaten out of their skulls]], which are then filled with a psionically-charged goo. Not only does this process leave the creature fully-functional, they actually get a ''boost'' to their Intelligence score. The downside of course is that the voidmind creature is now a slave and psychic conduit for the mind flayers who created them, and they have to wear hats or helmets to conceal the little telltale plugged holes in their skulls, which occasionally leak thin green slime.

* In ''VideoGame/MontyPythonsFlyingCircus'', Mr DP Gumby has lost four pieces of his brain, and is working to recover them. It's difficult to tell from the game how much brain loss reduced Mr Gumby's intelligence, but on the show he doesn't show much intelligence to speak of.

** An unusually violent (by the standards of the trope) No Change example: in "Die Hippie, Die", Mayor [=McDaniels=] attempts suicide by shooting herself in the head. Just before she pulls the trigger the "camera" pans to the side, we hear the gunshot and see blood and bits of brain matter hit the wall. Later in the episode she turns up alive and completely unfazed by blowing her brains out, with only a bandage wrapped around her head (with bloodstains on ''both'' sides of her head) indicating she'd shot herself.

** In another episode Selma insults Homer by saying he has a brain "[[ShrunkenOrgan the size of superball]]". Cue a cutaway to Homer's tiny brain bouncing around inside his head till it gets stuck in one of his ears, pops out his head and bounces away down the street. Homer is not only unaffected but actually seems ''pleased'' to see it go.

* In the beginning of the episode "Dollar Day" of ''WesternAnimation/FanboyAndChumChum'', Fanboy's brain falls out when he trips, as a part of a BrickJoke. Later in the episode, when he and Chum Chum are trying to figure out how to get a dollar, he exclaims "We've got to THINK!", after which Chum Chum leaves the screen for a second to return with Fanboy's brain and places it back in his head. Throughout the episode, there's no difference in the brainless Fanboy's behaviour from his brain-equipped self (but he does make up a plan once he has his brain).

** In one episode Timmy drinks a smoothie too fast and get a BrainFreeze, which Cosmo replies to with "Brain? What is this "brain" you speak of?" and then proceeds to drink the whole smoothie in one slurp. "Nope.. nothing." [[ChekhovsGag Later]], Cosmo and Wanda disguise as smoothies. Cosmo drinks himself in one slurp and still feels nothing.

** In another, his brain, stomach and heart leave his body after getting sick of all the abuse they heap on him. He remains unchanged.

* During the battle between [[BigGood All Might]] and [[BigBad All For One]] in ''Manga/MyHeroAcademia'', the former finally gets the upper hand against the latter when he [[spoiler:manages to land a point-blank punch against his head, which under most circumstances should have been [[WorldsStrongestMan lethal a million times over]]... only for it to cave with no apparent affect. Turns out he's been storing his BrainInAJar, and the battle continues.]] [[OhCrap Definitely not a funny example.]]

* In ''Film/WhatWomenWant'' the protagonist Nick gain the power to read women's minds due to a freak accident. Trying to get away from the cacophony of thoughts being broadcast at him he seeks refuge in his office and encounters his dimbulb assistants Margo and Eve, who after greeting him simply stare at him vacantly. To his surprise he gets absolutely no thoughts from them at all and since he at one point heard the thoughts of a female ''dog'' the duo must ''really'' be brainless.

* The short lived sitcom ''Series/ThePitts'' about a BornUnlucky family had a BrattyTeenageDaughter named Faith (played by Lizzy Caplan). In one episode an accident with a drain pipe left Faith with a tennis ball sized hole all the way through her head, just above her ears, without any effect to her personality or intelligence (in fact she doesn't even realise anything has happened until she notices the others staring at her.) Given the fact that a mystified doctor notes there is 'no damage' and there is no visible brain matter even after the pipe is removed the (unstated) joke is that Faith [[InOneEarOutTheOther didn't have anything between her ears]] ''[[BrainlessBeauty to]]'' [[BrainlessBeauty damage]].

* In ''WesternAnimation/TheGrimAdventuresOfBillyAndMandy'' episode "Brown Evil", Mandy reveals the reason why she sent Billy outside to deal with the zombies is that he has no brain. She then shows Hoss Delgado an X-ray of Billy's skull and a screw is shown where his brain should be. [[NegativeContinuity However, in later episodes, him having a brain is alluded to and he's shown to have one in "The Nerve"]].

* A lot of stranger animals in the wild don't have brains and instead have nervous systems that do the thinking instead, like jellyfish. The xenophyophore is an eight-inch long underwater amoeba that has a collection of thousands of nuclei instead of any kind of brain.

* In ''VideoGame/{{Psychonauts}}'' when the villain makes the campers sneeze their brains out, they end up as mindless zombies only able to moan "Teeeee-Veeeeee...." and stumble to the nearest set to start watching. If Raz can find the jars holding the brains, he can return the campers to normal with no ill effects. In ''VideoGame/Psychonauts2'' it's a bit closer to a mix of Type 1 and Type 2, as the victim of the de-braining will mumble random phrases related to their job. The Psychonauts see no problem with having the de-brained Nick Johnsmith return to working in the mailroom while they search for his brain, although he doesn't do it very well.

* A unique example comes about in the DC Animated film ''WesternAnimation/FlashpointParadox'' with the actual consequences shown in a later film ''WesternAnimation/SuicideSquadHellToPay''. Eobard Thawn, in the middle of a battlefield in the Flashpoint timeline, is shot through the head by Batman (Thomas Wayne in that timeline). While in the first film, he appears to fall over stone-dead, in the second film, Thawne reappears none the worse for wear. But then, when the Squad is captured in Killer Frost's ice, he reveals that he's only capable of limited usage of his super-speed now, due to the fact of a massive, gory hole going from back to front. Thawne then reveals that when Thomas!Batman shot him, in the split-second that the bullet was still tearing through his brain, he drew the Speed Force into his body to literally become a walking dead man. If Thawne continues to use his super speed past a few moments, the Speed Force keeping him alive will dissipate and he will become a true dead man as he was supposed to be.

* Another rare dramatic example is [[Anime/PokemonTheSeries Ash Ketchum]] in ''Fanfic/AtTheFoodCourt''. Team Rocket eventually decides [[NotSoHarmlessVillain they'd had enough of him foiling their plans]], and [[NoHoldsBarredBeatdown beat him up so bad]] that an MRI scan reveals that much of his brain ''is dead''. The doctors point out that the injuries he suffers are so bad that it should have killed him and are baffled by his continued survival. That said, Ash didn't suffer such severe brain damage and wind up unscathed -- ''because'' large parts of his brain are dead, his personality was altered for the worse, having violent, psychotic episodes and coming to believe that he is a Pokemon. He only regains his humanity after heavy-duty psychic therapy from Sabrina, and even then, he is reduced to the maturity and mental age of a five-year-old, never to become a functional adult even decades later, and no longer legally competent to be a Pokemon Trainer.
** Oddly enough, this crosses over a little with "No Change", since it takes months for Ash to deteriorate to that point, and at first the only consequence of his injuries is becoming a little more violent (like Phineas Gage). The psychotic break happens only after suffering repeated injuries for months, and being told he was a Pikachu while in a very precarious state.

* In 1848, Phineas Gage had a pole jammed through his head that removed part of his brain. It didn't kill him, but he is said to have become much more cranky and dishonest after the pole went through his head. Though just how much impact the injury had in his personality is now questioned by psychologists, due to there being no actual records of what he was like before the accident aside from anecdotes that were recorded after. And due to many of the records being either vague or contradictory (for example, one doctor claimed that he had become sexually insatiable and would readily assault any woman he saw while another claimed that he'd completely lost all interest in sex).
* A rare inverted example was [[NoNameGiven The Major]] from an old ''Time'' article. The man shot himself in the head with a .38 revolver.... [[MajorInjuryUnderreaction He then went downstairs and cooked himself breakfast.]] He was later taken to the hospital where all the doctors could do was clean and dress the wound. Later he was interviewed and his long-lasting depression had vanished. [[ViolationOfCommonSense The man shot himself in the head and got better.]]

* ''VideoGame/{{Starbound}}'': The Novakids are a race of aliens whose bodies are composed of homogenous, super-heated plasma shaped into a humanoid form, and as such nobody knows exactly how they think, breathe, eat, or do any other normal functions. They are also extremely absentminded, as they can't remember things for long, never bother to write down things they've discovered, and keeps reinventing all their technology, which many fans attribute to their lack of an actual brain. (Despite this, they are actually incredibly intelligent, as they can reverse-engineer spaceship tech just from having ''seen'' it before.)

''Stupid but Aware:'' In this case the character has simply turned into TheDitz - they are much stupider than usual but able to talk properly, walk around without bumping into things and so on. Probably the least common category.

* Another rare dramatic example is [[Anime/PokemonTheSeries Ash Ketchum]] in ''Fanfic/AtTheFoodCourt''. Team Rocket eventually decides [[NotSoHarmlessVillain they'd had enough of him foiling their plans]], and [[NoHoldsBarredBeatdown beat him up so bad]] that an MRI scan reveals that much of his brain ''is dead''. The doctors point out that the injuries he suffers are so bad that it should have killed him and are baffled by his continued survival. That said, Ash didn't suffer such severe brain damage and wind up unscathed--''because'' large parts of his brain are dead, his personality was altered for the worse, having violent, psychotic episodes and coming to believe that he is a Pokemon. He only regains his humanity after heavy-duty psychic therapy from Sabrina, and even then, he is reduced to the maturity and mental age of a five-year-old, never to become a functional adult even decades later, and no longer legally competent to be a Pokemon Trainer.

* In ''WesternAnimation/SuicideSquadHellToPay'', [[spoiler:Zoom]] spends most of the movie strolling around with a hole in his head. Justified, as it actually was just as lethal as you'd expect, he just [[spoiler: used the Speed Force to stretch out the fraction of a second before death]], giving the impression that it hasn't effected him other than him [[DramaPreservingHandicap getting nerfed pretty severely by it]]. He does mention he sometimes feels like he's walking through fog and makes bad decisions so there are 'Stupid But Aware' elements as well.

* A more serious example than most in Series/ChoujuuSentaiLiveman. [[TheDragon Dr. Kemp]] removes his brain to [[spoiler: enable the BigBad to carry out his plan]]. This merely turns him into a OneWingedAngel, who serves as the MonsterOfTheWeek.

[[folder:Anime and Manga]]

[[folder: Music]]
* A frequent trope for Music/{{Eminem}}'s Slim Shady persona is his vestigial or absent brain. Slim is StupidEvil, AxCrazy, and doing dumb things [[UndiscriminatingAddict while high on every available drug]], but he's [[LaughablyEvil witty with language]] and capable of being cunning on occasion. He does possess a brain in some other songs, though - see the "No Change" section above.
** Supposedly the first lyric Eminem ever wrote for Slim Shady was "''Slim Shady - brain dead, like Jim Brady''"[[note]]the Regan staffer who got shot in the head during the failed assassination attempt[[/note]]. He eventually used this lyric in "Just Don't Give A Fuck", along with the line "''clinically brain dead - I don't need a second opinion''".
** In "Low Down, Dirty", Slim has a "brain the size of a bread crumb - which drug will I end up dead from?"
** In "Rain Man", an absurdist song about Eminem's [[IdiotSavant uselessness at anything other than rapping]], he claims, "I ain't got no legs... or no brain. Nice to meet you, [[ContinuityNod hi! My name is...]] - [[SelfBotchedCatchphrase I forgot my name!]]"

* In ''WesternAnimation/SuicideSquadHellToPay'', [[spoiler:Zoom]] spends most of the movie strolling around with a hole in his head. Justified, as it actually was just as lethal as you'd expect, he just [[spoiler: used the Speed Force to stretch out the fraction of a second before death]], giving the impression that it hasn't effected him other than him [[DramaPreservingHandicap getting nerfed pretty severely by it]].

->'''Dr. Cockroach Ph.D.:''' ''(about B.O.B.)'' Forgive him, but as you can see, he has no brain.\\

->'''Dr. Cockroach Ph.D.:''' ''[about B.O.B.]'' Forgive him, but as you can see, he has no brain.\\
'''B.O.B.:''' Turns out, you don't need one.\\
''[B.O.B. then forgets how to breathe]''

* Anencephaly, when a child is born with no brain, only a brain stem. A disturbingly common birth disorder. About half are stillbirths. Most of the rest survive a few hours or days. However, Wiki/TheOtherWiki mentions a few cases of kids who survived a couple of years as a partial RealityIsUnrealistic case of this trope.

* Meatwad of the ''WesternAnimation/AquaTeenHungerForce'', a literal [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin living wad of meat]], does have a brain, but it's just a rubber toy with a jingle bell inside. He was given it apparently because he felt deprived with no brain. When it's removed, he still becomes less intelligent, but this seems to be a psychosomatic effect.

* In one of the Old Spice ads starring Creator/TerryCrews, he claims that their products will "blow your mind right in front of your face". [[NotHyperbole His brain flies out of his head, says goodbye, and explodes]], leaving him speaking in gibberish that's subtitled as "What a powerful mistake I've made."

* In the original comic-book version of ''[[Magazine/{{Mad}} MAD]]'', Radio/TheShadow uses his ability to turn invisible, by "clouding men's minds," on a group of baddies. Nonetheless, a dopey-looking [[{{Mooks}} mook]] manages to find him and klonk him on the head. Recovering quickly, the Shadow realizes, "Good heavens! This man doesn't have a mind to cloud!"

* The ''WesternAnimation/TeenTitansGo'' episode "Head Fruit" involves the Titans concerned about Beast Boy neglecting his brain. Unfortunately, their efforts to help him exercise it only [[OrganAutonomy empower his brain to leave him]], rendering Beastie catatonic. Fortunately, Cyborg replaces it with a pair of maracas which work fine at bringing Beast Boy to his usual level of intelligence.