History Main / WhoNeedsTheirWholeBody

* In ''Manga/BattleAngelAlita'', Alita is rather notorious for this, once ''letting'' a foe slice her arm off at the shoulder so she could overcome a reach disadvantage with [[GrievousHarmWithABody the resulting impromptu club]].
* ''{{Manga/Bleach}}'':

* In ''Manga/DragonBall'' and its successor series:

* In ''Manga/FrankenFran'', people upgraded with regeneration tend to do this when bisected. In one case Fran herself cut her bottom half off when her hips didn't fit in the ventilation duct she needed to escape through. She survived through, being ambiguously undead.
* Hisoka from ''Manga/HunterXHunter'' lets an arm get cut off for fun one time, too. He then swings it around on invisible sticky energy string for a while, and then patches it on with camouflage energy sheets and pretends it's reattached before playing with the guy a little more and then losing interest. Then he goes away, calls a specialist to sew his arm back on with energy microfilament, and has a shower.
* Having powerful regenerative powers due to being a vampire, Dio Brando of ''Manga/JojosBizarreAdventurePhantomBlood'' can withstand serious injuries such as losing limbs and being bisected vertically. It all comes to a point where Dio's body is struck by Hamon (sunlight-based energy fatal to vampires), forcing him to sever his own head to survive the attack. However, being reduced to a disembodied head scarcely slows him down, still managing to gatecrash Jonathan's honeymoon [[spoiler:and kills him, taking Jonathan's headless corpse as a replacement body which grants him his new form when he re-emerges in ''Manga/JojosBizarreAdventureStardustCrusaders'' 100 years later.]]
* In the anime adaptation of ''VideoGame/MagiaRecordPuellaMagiMadokaMagicaSideStory'', [[HealingFactor Sayaka Miki]] loses an arm in her duel with [[spoiler:[[BrainwashedAndCrazy Holy Mami]]]]. She's less concerned with the missing arm than with retrieving the sword in it.
* In ''Anime/PrincessMononoke'', Moro's severed head manages to jump up and bite Lady Eboshi's arm clean off.
* Black Claw in ''Anime/ReCutieHoney'' is all over the place with this one. First she's decapitated, and her body gets up and keeps fighting while her head continues taunting the protagonist. When she feels her body needs the power boost form her head again, she reattaches it, only to be bisected vertically. Her two halves have a brief conversation afterward.
* In ''Anime/MyHeroAcademia'', [[spoiler: Mirko]] loses a limb but continues to fight, completely unperturbed. In a later battle, she loses apparently two more limbs and still fights with gusto, using her mouth as her weapon.

* When Xelloss of ''Literature/{{Slayers}}'' loses an arm and more than half his torso, he is still able to talk, move, and use his powers to teleport and heal himself.
* Present in ''Manga/UshioAndTora'': Tora states that {{youkai}} cannot die unless they suffer an excessive amount of vital wounds. Seen when Tora's former pal, Hitotsuki, is reduced from his usual, massive body-made-of-snakes to a single snake. Tora himself survives being bisected and having his limbs torn off. Simultaneously.

* The elder Toguro brother in ''Manga/YuYuHakusho'' gets blasted down to about half of his head, first by Kuwabara owning him and then by his little brother exploding. He's weakened, but still perfectly lucid.

* In the ''ComicBook/{{Batman}}'' comics, cyborg foe Gearhead has been shown crawling after Batman (or away from him) with most of his robot body destroyed.

* In ''ComicBook/{{Stormwatch}}: Team Achilles'', a gynoid taunted her attacker who had shot her in the head: "I don't keep my brain there, you idiot! It's in my chest surrounded by inches of diamondsteel!"

* Bishop in ''Film/{{Aliens}}'' is able to operate after he is cut in half. Even in [[Film/{{Alien 3}} the next movie]]. The alien Queen loses ''most'' of her body by weight when her egg-generating abdomen is blown apart by Ripley's grenade rounds but leaves it behind to chase her enemy.

* Happens in ''Film/BeyondReAnimator'' to an unfortunate {{Jerkass}} zombie-turned prison inmate, who continues his un-life as a bloodied torso.

* Used as a JumpScare in ''Film/DawnOfTheDead2004'', while the mall security guards are checking around the mall's garage, a legless zombie clinging to the rafters brings down one of the men.
* Subverted in ''Film/EndOfDays''. Satan's [[DemonicPossession human host]] is eventually reduced to a damaged torso only kept alive by Satan's influence and yells at the hero that trying to stop him is pointless since he's immortal. He needs a functioning host to sire the Antichrist, however, so he evacuates it for a better one.
* ''Film/{{Knights|1993}}'' by Creator/AlbertPyun has Gabriel getting blown in two. Played with in that he just crawls over to another cyborg's corpse and chops its legs off for spare parts.
* The Bug in ''Film/MenInBlack''. Justified because it's apparently some interstellar relative of a cockroach, which [[TruthInTelevision can live without parts of their bodies]].
* In ''Film/{{Mimic}} 2'', the resident jock brandishes a blade torn from a paper cutter and a leg severed from a bug, suggesting they should attempt to fight their way to safety with improvised weapons, only to embarrassingly upstaged by the resident geek pointing out that, yeah, he's strong enough to chop off a bug's head -- that just means it will die of thirst in about a week. Humans like themselves will be long dead as the reflex action of the bug's body will have shredded them. In the first movie, a bug takes [[MoreDakka a full clip from a semiauto pistol]] ''after'' being sliced in half by a sliding door and '''''still''''' manages to scurry out of sight after maiming the shooter. In short, the bugs can only be killed by the equivalent of being [[NoKillLikeOverkill crushed to paste]] -- like being hit by speeding subway trains or incinerated with high explosives.
* The Black Knight from ''Film/MontyPythonAndTheHolyGrail'' simultaneously plays this straight (he's still alive and up for a fight with injuries that would normally be fatal almost immediately) and subverts it (not very threatening anymore, what?).
* In ''Film/TheMummyReturns'', Imhotep's minions go after the O'Connells through London, one not stopping just because Rick blew off his legs with a shotgun.

%%* Gmork the werewolf does this in ''Film/TheNeverendingStory''.

* Used a number of times in the ''Film/ReturnOfTheLivingDead'' series, sometimes as NauseaFuel (like the rotted-to-nearly-skeleton upper torso and arms that they nailed to a table and interrogated in [[Film/TheReturnOfTheLivingDead the first film]]), sometimes PlayedForLaughs (like in [[Film/ReturnOfTheLivingDeadPartII the first sequel]] with the severed hand that [[FlippingTheBird gave the finger]] to the humans that were [[KillItWithFire using flamethrowers]] on the equally severed head).
* At the end of ''Film/{{Savaged}}'', Zoe is still functioning despite [[HalfTheManHeUsedTobe having been cut in half]] with a [[ChainsawGood chainsaw]]. She drags herself into an open grave and starts trying to pull the soil down on top of herself. Her fiancé Dane finally performs a MercyKill by [[KillItWithFire setting fire to her]].

* Kind of a running theme for the ''Franchise/{{Terminator}}'' franchise. The eponymous killer robots absolutely '''will not stop''' until they've killed their target; even if their legs are blown off, they'll drag what's left of their damaged torso across the floor and try to finish the job with their bare hands. Justified because they're robots.

** In ''Film/Terminator3RiseOfTheMachines'', the T-X detaches her (presumably crushed) legs after Arnold finds that the perfect parking space for his stolen helicopter is right on top of her.
** In ''Film/TerminatorSalvation'', a T-600's upper half attacks John Connor and doesn't stop attacking him until he completely redecorates its face using a machine gun.
* ''Film/AlitaBattleAngel'': In her second fight with Grewishka, Alita's first body literally falls apart on her because it was never designed to be a combat unit, reducing her to just a torso and one arm. Grewishka proceeds to taunt her, but she still manages to continue fighting by balancing herself on one hand to catapult herself up and [[EyeScream jab him through the eye]].

* The Limper becomes this over the course of ''Literature/TheBlackCompany'' novels. Having always had his namesake disability, the Company manages to remove one of his arms and eventually decapitate him before moving south. But that severed head is still an incredibly powerful wizard. He uses his magic to craft a "toy body" of wicker and later, a much finer one of enchanted clay. That said, his time with the wicker body still sees him conquer a huge section of the north, and he's ultimately only defeated when the Empire and the rebels [[EnemyMine team up against him]] and are able to boil him down into a soup.
* Italo Calvino's novel, the ''Cloven Viscount'': the titular character survives against all odds to a cannonball in the chest when fighting in the Turkish wars of the seventeenth century. He apparently comes back to his lands as HalfTheManHeUsedToBe. Things get complicated when the villagefolk realise that it's the Viscount's Evil half that came back, and even weirder when the [[HelplessGoodSide Good half]] arrives later.

* Harry Keogh, Brian Lumley's titular ''Literature/{{Necroscope}}'', can call the dead out of the ground to fight for him, and does so on several occasions. When the dead are destroyed, even the blown-off ''arms'' try to crawl into the enemy positions and strangle the gunners.
* The Ghost Brigades of ''Literature/OldMansWar'' are [[spoiler:comprised of clones of the deceased, and thus don't have the ingrained self-preservation instinct that the rest of the soldiers do. Thus, they frequently intentionally sacrifice body parts in combat, since they can get repaired when they get back to their ship.]]
* In ''Literature/SirGawainAndTheGreenKnight'', the Green Knight comes to Camelot, taunts the knights, and issues a challenge: he will allow any knight to deal him one blow and then he will return the following year to inflict the same. Gawain accepts the challenge and decapitates him. The Green Knight picks up his severed head and tells him to meet him at the Green Chapel at the appointed time. Gawain, who does not have this power, spends the rest of the adventure on the verge of browning his pants (but manfully turns up anyway). [[spoiler:It turns out to have been a SecretTestOfCharacter.]]

* In ''Literature/WorldWarZ'', a soldier explains that losing their legs can actually make zombies ''more'' dangerous, since it often makes them harder to spot in tall grass or shallow water. He also explains that this is why land mines are ineffective against zombies; traps designed to take out an enemy's foot or leg don't help much against an enemy where you have to [[RemovingTheHeadOrDestroyingTheBrain destroy the brain]].

* ''[[WesternAnimation/MenInBlack Men In Black: The Series]]'': the clone of a [[PlayingWithSyringes Mad Doctor]].

* ''Film/BrainDead'' / ''Dead Alive'' has several instances; the disembodied organs of a biker punk crawl around for half the movie menacing people, and the top half of a zombie's head manages to threateningly roll his eyes until someone sticks him in a blender...
* Used as a JumpScare in the 2004 remake of ''Film/DawnOfTheDead2004'', while the mall security guards are checking around the mall's garage, a legless zombie clinging to the rafters brings down one of the men.

* The Bug in ''Film/MenInBlack''. Justified because it's apparently some interstellar relative of a cockroach, which [[TruthInTelevision can live without parts of their bodies.]]
* In ''Film/{{Mimic 2}}'', the resident jock brandishes a blade torn from a paper cutter and a leg severed from a bug, suggesting they should attempt to fight their way to safety with improvised weapons, only to embarrassingly upstaged by the resident geek pointing out that, yeah, he's strong enough to chop off a bug's head -- that just means it will die of thirst in about a week. Humans like themselves will be long dead as the reflex action of the bug's body will have shredded them. In the first movie, a bug takes [[MoreDakka a full clip from a semiauto pistol]] ''after'' being sliced in half by a sliding door and '''''still''''' manages to scurry out of sight after maiming the shooter. In short, the bugs can only be killed by the equivalent of being [[NoKillLikeOverkill crushed to paste]] -- like being hit by speeding subway trains or incinerated with high explosives.

->'''[=SpongeBob=]''': Wow, how did you get [your millionth dollar] back?\\
'''Mr. Krabs''': It wasn't easy. Old Blue Lips is quite the fighter. So, eventually, we settled on a trade.\\
'''[=SpongeBob=]''': What did you give him? \\

'''Mr. Krabs''': Nothing important.

* In the ''Franchise/{{Batman}}'' comics, cyborg foe Gearhead has been shown crawling after Batman (or away from him) with most of his robot body destroyed.

* ''ComicBook/{{Robin|1993}}'': Tapeworm can leave behind the long segmented flat worm-like section of his body he has in place of legs and crawl away, and can detach it at any section allowing him to retain part of his "tail" if he wants/

* ''Franchise/TheTransformers'': Shows up frequently in IDW's run, which establishes that the only things a Transformer needs to survive are their brain module and their [[OurSoulsAreDifferent spark core]]. Megatron spends about half of ''ComicBook/TransformersDarkCybertron'' without legs. All it really does is require him to have Bumblebee carry him around.

%% Administrivia/ZeroContextExample * [[LetsPlay/JackSepticEye "YOU DON'T NEED LEGS!!!]]

* ''ComicBook/RobinSeries'': Tapeworm can leave behind the long segmented flat worm-like section of his body he has in place of legs and crawl away, and can detach it at any section allowing him to retain part of his "tail" if he wants/

See also PullingThemselvesTogether, for when they ''do'' want that part back.

** In the original ''Film/TheTerminator'', the T-800 continues to pursue Sarah Connor after Kyle Reese blows its lower half off with a pipe bomb.

* Montgomery Gator in ''VideoGame/FiveNightsAtFreddysSecurityBreach'' is subjected to this when player character Gregory forces him into a fall where a steel beam breaks him in half. Despite this, he is still able to crawl around on his hands just as dangerous as before (if slightly easier to deal with since the sunglasses protecting his eyes have fallen off), and even manages to remain a threat in this form in the ''Ruin'' DLC.

* Montgomery Gator in ''VideoGame/FiveNightsAtFreddySecurityBreach'' is subjected to this when player character Gregory forces him into a fall where a steel beam breaks him in half. Despite this, he is still able to crawl around on his hands just as dangerous as before (if slightly easier to deal with since the sunglasses protecting his eyes have fallen off), and even manages to remain a threat in this form in the ''Ruin'' DLC.

* When Xelloss of ''LightNovel/{{Slayers}}'' loses an arm and more than half his torso, he is still able to talk, move, and use his powers to teleport and heal himself.

* ''Franchise/StarWars'': In ''Film/RevengeOfTheSith'', Obi-Wan [[OffWithHisHead chops off the head]] of one of General Grievous' droid bodyguards, only to discover it can still fight without it.

** In the original ''Film/TheTerminator'', the T-800 continues to pursue Sarah Connor after Kyle Reese blows its legs off with a pipe bomb.

* Before this happened to Darth Maul in ''Film/StarWarsThePhantomMenace'', it happened to the Dark Jedi called Maw in ''VideoGame/JediKnightDarkForcesII''. In the backstory, Maw was cut in two just below the waist by the Jedi Master Rahn but lived long enough to get emergency medical treatment. When Kyle Katarn meets him, Maw's remaining body is attached to a repulsorlift platform that provides life support and incidentally allows him to fly.

* In ''Theatre/JasperInDeadland'', Gretchen is able to pull out her own heart, stick it into Jasper's chest to perform PsychicSurgery, and then just ''leave it there'', due to the fact that she [[YouCantKillWhatsAlreadyDead can't die a second time]].

This trope is basically when a sentient being is able to function without their entire body in one piece. The portion of the being that's still functioning is often quite frightening to look at. In most cases it takes a [[RemovingTheHeadOrDestroyingTheBrain hit to the brain]] (or the CranialProcessingUnit) to actually stop it, but there have been cases where even ''that'' doesn't work. Taken to extremes, this character can live on as TheDisembodied.

* Bishop in ''Film/{{Aliens}}'' is able to operate after he is cut in half. Even in [[Film/{{Alien 3}} the next movie]]. The alien Queen loses ''most'' of her body by weight when her egg-generating abdomen is blown apart by Ripley's grenade rounds, but leaves it behind to chase her enemy.

* Subverted in ''Film/EndOfDays''. Satan's [[DemonicPossession human host]] is eventually reduced to a damaged torso only kept alive by Satan's influence and yells at the hero that trying to stop him is pointless since he's immortal. He needs a functioning host to sire the Antichrist however, so he evacuates it for a better one.

* At the end of ''Film/{{Savaged}}'', Zoe is still functioning despite [[HalfTheManHeUsedTobe having been cut in half]] with a [[ChainsawGood chainsaw]]. She drags herself into an open grave and starts trying to pull the soil down on top of herself. Her fiancé Dane finally preforms a MercyKill by [[KillItWithFire setting fire to her]].

* Italo Calvino's novel, the ''Cloven Viscount'': the titular character survives against all odds to a canonball in the chest when fighting in the Turkish wars of the seventeenth century. He apparently comes back to his lands as HalfTheManHeUsedToBe. Things get complicated when the villagefolk realise that it's the Viscount's Evil half that came back; and even weirder when the [[HelplessGoodSide Good half]] arrives later.

* ''Literature/WhiteNight'': The ghouls in New Mexico remain conscious and somewhat mobile even after one loses two limbs and another, its lower body. The super-ghouls that invade the Deeps later on keep right on fighting, even when they've lost arms, legs, chunks of torso or even ''heads''.

* In the opening cinematic for ''VideoGame/DawnOfWar'': Dark Crusade, a Necron Warrior is shown doing this before it takes a bolt round to the face. In-game however, they're examples of PullingThemselvesTogether.

* ''VideoGame/{{Fallout 2}}'''s final boss, after finally being defeated, spontaneously bursts in half. Despite this, his upper body has enough strength to walk a few steps on his arms alone, and to leave his FinalSpeech for the player.

* Before this happened to Darth Maul in ''Film/StarWarsThePhantomMenace'', it happened to the Dark Jedi called Maw in ''VideoGame/JediKnightDarkForcesII''. In the backstory, Maw was cut in two just below the waist by the Jedi Master Rahn, but lived long enough to get emergency medical treatment. When Kyle Katarn meets him, Maw's remaining body is attached to a repulsorlift platform that provides life support and incidentally allows him to fly.
* In ''VideoGame/KingdomOfLoathing'', level 11 quest boss Ed the Undying (a mummy) is... [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin well, he's undying]]. (Or [[NoIndoorVoice UNDYING!]], as he puts it.) The player has to fight [[SequentialBoss seven of his forms in a row]], although thankfully each one is weaker than the last, since the "lethal" blows he receives break his major limbs and then torso into little bits and pieces. After seven combats, he's still not dead, [[WeaksauceWeakness but his body has degraded to the point]] that the adventurer [[CherryTapping sweeps him up in a dustpan]].

* [[RidiculouslyHumanRobots CASTs]] in ''VideoGame/PhantasyStarZero'' store most of their memories and personalities [[NeuroVault in their heads]], so losing their entire body is simply an inconvenience (as demonstrated when you first meet Ogi). However, some memories and personality traits can be stored in the body as well, and will be automatically uploaded when a new head is attached. When Ogi gets a new body in Paru, he occasionally slips into speaking with a stereotypical Texan accent (much to Kai's annoyance). When Ogi finds an even better body in Arca, he finds that this [=CAST=] had [[MemoryGambit backed up some of its memories in its body]] before its head was destroyed [[spoiler:during the war against Mother Trinity, hoping to [[FlingALightIntoTheFuture preserve the records it had kept]] of the atrocities she had committed.]]
* Crops up occasionally in ''VideoGame/RatchetAndClank''. Throughout the games, there are a number of robotic enemies who continue operating even once their legs, upper body or even head have been blasted to smithereens.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheSpectacularSpiderMan'': Exaggerated in the episode "Blueprints", which sees Spider-Man fighting Mysterio, who uses robots to keep him on edge; one particularly persistent robot keeps attacking Spidey while repeatedly losing limbs, until it's down to it's head, leaving the webhead to quip about how little damage it can do to him now.
* ''WesternAnimation/StarVsTheForcesOfEvil'' has Toffee. Having [[spoiler:rendered all magic useless, disposed of Star, regained his lost finger and destroyed Butterfly Castle]] he walks away listlessly. He doesn't notice Star's attack. At the end of it he is literally reduced to a pile of bones and goo that we can only assume was his flesh once. [[EyeScream One of his eyes is even falling out of his head.]] In response, he laughs and crawls towards the group of heroes, assuring them that they haven't won and that only he knows how everything turns out. It is only after [[spoiler:Ludo pushes a column onto him]] that he appears dead. Even then, they aren't entirely sure.

** The Soul King is initially introduced as a fully intact human encased in a CrystalPrison. However, by the time Yhwach stabs the Soul King, the entity is mysteriously limbless. Adding to the mystery is the legend of Mimihagi-sama, a pagan deity that has wandered the Rukongai for aeons. Mimihagi-sama is actually the Soul King's missing right arm, fully mobile, and possessing its own identity and powers. The Soul King's left arm is also mobile and possessed of its own identity and powers. It has been serving Yhwach, in opposition to the Soul King, and refuses to acknowledge its former connection. [[spoiler:It prefers being called Pernida, a member of the quincy PraetorianGuard, the Schutzstaffel.]]

* ''WesternAnimation/TheSpectacularSpiderMan'' Exaggerated in the episode 'Blueprints' sees him fighting Mysterio who uses robots to keep him on edge, one particularly persistent robot keeps attacking Spidey while repeatedly losing limbs, until it's down to it's head, leaving the webhead to quip about how little damage it can do to him now.

* Having powerful regenerative powers due to being a vampire, Dio Brando of ''Manga/JojosBizarreAdventurePhantomBlood'' can withstand serious injuries such as losing limbs and being bisected vertcally. It all comes to a point where Dio's body is struck by Hamon (sunlight-based energy fatal to vampires), forcing him to sever his own head to survive the attack. However, being reduced to a disembodied head scarcely slows him down, still managing to gatecrash Jonathan's honeymoon [[spoiler:and kills him, taking Jonathan's headless corpse as a replacement body which grants him his new form when he re-emerges in ''Manga/JojosBizarreAdventureStardustCrusaders'' 100 years later.]]

* ''WesternAnimation/TheSpectacularSpider-Man'' Exaggerated in the episode 'Blueprints' sees him fighting Mysterio who uses robots to keep him on edge, one particularly persistent robot keeps attacking Spidey while repeatedly losing limbs, until it's down to it's head, leaving the webhead to quip about how little damage it can do to him now.

[[folder:Film]]