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Decapitation Required

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Victor: Tell me something, Jimmy. Do you even know how to kill me?
Logan: I'm gonna cut your goddamn head off. See if that works.

The intersection of Achilles' Heel with Off with His Head!

When a character or group is lauded to be immortal, indestructible, or otherwise unkillable, oftentimes one of the few if not the only things they are not immune to is decapitation. This could be a reveal, it could be known from the getgo as "the only way to kill them"; or, as in the quote above, it could be in-universe speculation which may or may not get put to the test.

The reason for the prevalence of this trope, particularly of the latter form, probably has its roots in the Rule of Perception. An audience can swallow a character being shot full of bullets or losing a gallon of blood and shrugging it off, even when there isn't a good reason for it. And the removal of vital organs, up to and including the heart, is still conceivably survivable because hey, they can just grow a new one! After all, one can survive a few seconds with no heart even in real life, so as long as you can regenerate within that time span you're good, right? But decapitation crosses the line from "should be dying" to "already dead by definition," and you have zero time to heal.note  In the minds of viewers and characters alike, you just can't be alive if your head is not attached to your neck, and it takes more than a Healing Factor to explain how you can be.

Removing the Head or Destroying the Brain is a specific subtrope for the undead. That said, in general beings who are "already dead" have a higher chance of averting this trope than those who aren't. Don't even bother trying this on Dem Bones, unless your aim is comedy. Vampires are an exception, however, as decapitation has long been a stock method of killing them. When this trope doesn't apply to a robot, it's likely because of a Cranial Processing Unit.

When cutting something's head off doesn't kill it, it's Losing Your Head. See also Chunky Salsa Rule and Boom, Headshot!. Contrast Hydra Problem, where removing the head is (without other aid) a bad idea.


Examples:

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    Anime and Manga 
  • Attack on Titan: Zizagged with the titular titans, who can survive decapitation and even regenerate their heads, as their only weak spot is below the back of their necks. Played straight with the titan shifters in human form, who can be killed this way, and indeed, it's how Mikasa and Armin defeat Eren at the end of the story.
  • Berserk has Guts fighting a monster that can regenerate as long as its head is intact...which it brags about to Guts.
  • The Immortals in Blade of the Immortal.
  • Most awakened beings in Claymore will die easier if connection between brain and body is removed, generally by decapitation. Semi-averted by one, "Bloody" Agatha, whose connection ran through her hair and neck was used only as a distraction. Fully averted by Europa the Lazy and Priscilla, the first is able to survive being decapitated in her human form and she uses this ability to play dead, it apparently fits her personality, her head can then transform in her true awakened form, Priscilla goes even further as she survives having her head cut in three pieces, her insane Healing Factor just reconnected the pieces of her head together.
    • Abyssal Feeders can regenerate indefinitely, making destruction or removal of the head the only means of stopping them.
  • Wen from Cowboy Bebop could only be killed by being shot through the head with a gem that was part of the accident that gave him Complete Immortality in the first place.
  • Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba: Demons in the series have the ability to regenerate from any injury, frequently within seconds, which make them extremely difficult to fight, much less kill. There are only two known ways to truly kill them: either exposure to the sun, or being decapitated with a Nichirin Sword. Nichirin Swords, the default weapon for the members of the Demon Slayer Corp, are Katana Blades made from a special ore imbedded with sunlight. Once a demon has their neck severed with one of these swords, their head & body would disintegrate into ash.note 
  • Cell from Dragon Ball Z was the Trope Namer for regenerating From a Single Cell. As long as a group of core cells in his brain are intact, he can regenerate the rest of his body. He was also shown regrowing his head at one point, so the English dub said he can regrow his body from any cell.
  • In Kill la Kill, one of the few ways of killing a human being whose cells have been fused with Life Fibers is to decapitate the head from both ends. This is integral due to the Fibers on one end of the neck regenerating before the blade can fully slice through the other end. Cutting from both sides simultaneously allows severing of the head before one side can begin to reattach.
  • In Magical Record Lyrical Nanoha Force, this is one of the only ways you could kill an Infected. Anything else will just be healed off with ridiculous ease.
  • Mermaid Saga. Not the only way to kill an immortal, but the most effective and most attempted.
  • Mobile Fighter G Gundam states that the Gundam Fight Internal Regulation, "A gundam whose head section has been destroyed is disqualified". In other words, the loss of their gundam's head is the only damage that their pilot is not allowed to repair or replace.
  • Subverted with Hidan from Naruto. Asuma thinks it'll work and cuts it off, but all it does is keep Hidan from controlling his body and Kakuzu can re-attach it. Shikamaru later blows him up to the point where the only part left is his head. Hidan cusses him out. Shikamaru buries the still-living and near-immortal head in a hidden grave where no one can ever retrieve it. Rather weirdly, the Konoha ninja never try decapitation on his equally immortal partner Kakuzu — they just destroy each of his five hearts, one by one and with a great deal of effort.
  • Averted in Ninja Scroll: Jubei thought Gemma was dead from this, but he reappears with a faint scar around his neck.
  • The Ctarl Ctarl from Outlaw Star are Nigh-Invulnerable and one of the few ways to kill them is to crush their skulls.
  • The only way to kill a Euphoric in Speed Grapher is to either remove his or her head or severely damage it.
  • L-elf from Valvrave the Liberator theorized that this is one of the few ways to kill a Magius.

    Comic Books 
  • In IDW's run of The Transformers comics, destruction of the head or Spark Chamber are generally necessary to permanently kill a Transformer. And sometimes, even that's not enough.
  • Ultimate X-Men: Cornelius had Wolverine's healing factor after being mutated. The only way Wolverine found to put him down was to cut his head.
  • The best way to put down chupacabra (a race of cannibal demons) in Wynonna Earp is to shoot them in the head.
  • In X-Men, a 90s plotline involved the "Xavier Files", which were basically Professor Xavier's Batman-esque contingency plans for the best way to kill any of the X-Men (including himself) if they turned evil. For Wolverine, the only sure way to overcome his Healing Factor was said to be decapitating him and quickly removing the head from the vicinity of the body (and even this would only really apply when the adamantium had been removed from his skeleton, as with it there's no known substance strong enough to cut through Wolverine's spine).
    • The same rule applies to anyone with a healing factor from Logan's and Sabretooth's families. While Deadpool's healing factor is derived from Wolverine, it's been established that it doesn't work on him.
  • In the French series Zorn And Dirna, Death is trapped in a magical mirror, and now every single living creature is fated to age forever, unless the spinal column is severed, in which case the dead one's soul goes into the killer's. It is specifically mentioned that butchers have adapted by developing the skill of removing meat from an animal without cutting the spine.

    Fan Fic 
  • In A Man Like No Other, the only way to kill President Snow/the Maestro was for Thor to knock his jaw off with Mjolnir followed by Katniss shooting an explosive arrow into his mouth to blow up his head.
    • In the sequel, Falling Hope, Rising Threat, this also applies to how Anya (the new She-Hulk) and Johanna Mason (AKA Bloodaxe) kill the Abomination.
  • In the Naruto fanfic Time and Again Naruto fights a rogue ninja with incredible regenerative powers. He's able to take him out of action by cutting off his head but is savvy enough to watch it for a few minutes afterwards and sees the flesh of the neck wriggling as it begins to try and grow a new body, so he pulverizes the brain, which finally kills his opponent once and for all.
  • In Son of the Sannin, Madara Uchiha undergoes a rejuvenation process by entering a cocoon made of Hashirama's cells, that not only restores him back to his prime, but also gives him Hashirama's Wood Release powers and a Healing Factor capable of even regenerating lost limbs. At one point he survives being struck so hard that his left arm, legs and lower torso are blown off, requiring that Naruto beheads him in the final battle to finally kill him (and Sasuke even incinerates his remains using Amaterasu just to make sure he stays dead).

    Film — Live Action 
  • In Avengers: Infinity War, Thanos’s only true weak point is apparently his head/brain. The Avengers/Guardians came closest to defeating him when Mantis essentially hypnotizes him. Once Star Lord breaks Mantis’s control of his mind, Thanos is able to defeat the entire team all by himself. And later, Thanos directly tells Thor that he should have gone for the head.
  • In the Highlander series, beheading is the only thing that will kill an Immortal. The best way to behead an Immortal is with some variety of blade, hence all the Sword Fights that Immortals get into in the series. The question of whether this is the only limit to their immortality is usually glossed over.
  • Shooting It through the head seems to be the only way to stop the monster from It Follows. Though Word of God says it survived.
  • The Mummy Returns: The only way to kill an Anubis Warrior is by cutting off its head.
  • Parodied in Scary Movie 3: Mahalik decapitates an alien with a shovel and acts as if them dying from it was some kind of stunning revelation.
    Mahalik: I found it! Without their heads, they're powerless!
  • In Starship Troopers, the Arachnids can be riddled with automatic fire and have limbs blown off but still be able to fight effectively, but a single shot to the "primary nerve cluster" will put them down for good. This cluster is actually at the base of their "heads". They're Starfish Aliens, what can you do.
  • Horribly subverted in The Thing (1982). Decapitation does absolutely nothing to the Thing. When its head is removed it acts as an independent organism and tries to escape.
  • From all of the Transformers Film Series, you could count every Cybertronian who DOESN'T die by suffering a cranial injury on one hand. It's gotten to the point where it signifies "dead for real", as Optimus Prime and Megatron both came back from other grievous injuries.
  • In addition to the page quote, X-Men Origins: Wolverine uses this on Weapon XI. This is shown in the movie as being the only way to kill anyone with a Healing Factor. It doesn't work, in this case; The Stinger shows Weapon XI's body crawling over to reattach his head.

    Literature 
  • Played for Laughs in Terry Pratchett's Carpe Jugulum, in which vampires from different areas of uberwald have to be dispatched in varying ways (lemon in the mouth, nail through the knee, hide his sock) but all involve cutting off the head (which, conveniently, also works on people).
  • The short story Dragon Reserve, Home Eight by Diana Wynne Jones features "hegs," people with superhuman abilities including being able to "mind read, kindle fire or more objects at a distance, heal or kill by use of mind alone, survive shooting, drowning, or suffocation..." By law, once discovered they are executed by beheading, which is the only thing they cannot survive.
  • In Brandon Sanderson's earlier work, Elantris, Elantrians are most reliably killed by beheading. Anything less will simply leave an unhealing, eternally-hurting wound. Burning also works.
  • In the Keys to the Kingdom series, beheading can kill a Denizen, but their heads have to be separated from their bodies for some time, or throwing dirt in the neck stump apparently usually works.
  • The only way to successfully kill a vampire in the Mercy Thompson series is to stake them, decapitate them, and then burn both the head and body to ashes.
  • Mistborn: The Original Trilogy:
  • The Brollachian from Shadow Keep is a part ogre part octopus brute that feels no pain and can regenerate missing limbs and chunks of flesh. However, Maryld stated that he can be slain if beheaded, but the heroes never get the chance of trying this on it.
  • In Shadow of the Conqueror, this is one of the only sure ways to kill a Lifebinder, as their Healing Factor will heal nearly any injury (including lost limbs) as long as they have access to enough Light.
  • Austra Family: Charles, the vampire villain of Elaine Bergstrom's Shattered Glass. Since her vampires, who belong to a naturally evolved nonhuman species, have such a strong self-preservation drive that they literally cannot commit suicide, Charles commits an escalating series of gory murders to induce his brother, Stephen, the "good" vampire of the novel, to kill him in a vampire version of Suicide by Cop.
  • Skulduggery Pleasant:
    • Skulduggery and Kenspeckle reference this when talking about vampires in book 2. "Decapitation is effective against most things." Sometimes brought up as a running joke when vampires are mentioned.
  • In The Twelve Kingdoms beheading is one of the certain ways to kill an immortal (the others being cutting the body in two and use of special enchanted weapons), and is shown to be the preferred method in executions. In example, this is how King Chuutatsu, Queen Kekai and the kirin Hourin are killed, with the "bonus" of having the leader of the rebels doing this "deed" show up in front of Kekai and Kourin (and Sole Survivor Shoukei) carrying Chuutatsu's head in his hand.
  • In Vampire Academy, there are three ways to kill the Strigoi: staking, beheading, and burning. Due to this, guardians usually carry stakes only, and no guns.

    Live-Action TV 
  • Decapitation is one of the few ways to kill a vampire in Buffy. They instantly turn to dust once their head isn't attached to their body. Angel brings up another caveat; vampires have a Healing Factor but their brain won't heal from some injuries, meaning they could be left brain-damaged for all eternity if something happened to it. This is mentioned, but it never comes up in the actual story.
    • Subverted with Lorne (and presumably other Pyleans); in order to kill one of their kind, you must decapitate them and dismember the body. Lorne's family saved him (grudgingly) by switching his clothes with that of another decapitated body awaiting dismemberment.
  • In Doctor Who this is implied to be one of the few things that will immediately kill a Time Lord (although some Expanded Universe media suggests that the Time Lord would just begin regrowing a new head during regeneration unless both hearts are destroyed). Aspirin may or may not be another.
  • Heroes: It's stated that characters with a Healing Factor can't survive decapitation, although it's never actually shown. The more commonly referenced means of taking one down is by shooting or stabbing a very specific point in their brain, but that only works temporarily; if the object is removed, they will still heal. Not so, allegedly, for full decapitation.
    • When Sylar gains the ability to shapeshift towards the end of the series, he makes use of it to move this weakpoint to another point of his body, thus making it impossible to hit: chances are that with this new power, it's not a stretch to assume that he could move the rest of his brain somewhere else in his body, allowing him to survive decapitation as well.
  • Interview with the Vampire (2022): In "The Thing Lay Still", Louis de Pointe du Lac discloses to Daniel Molloy that Lestat de Lioncourt had once confided to him on a blood-drunken night in Baton Rouge that decapitation is a surefire method to kill vampires.
  • In Moonlight vampires follow White Wolf rules. Eventually it turns out that the guillotine was invented because many French aristocrats were vampires.
  • "Braining" always worked on Star Trek: The Original Series.
  • On Supernatural:
    • This is how the "unkillable" Leviathans are finally defeated. It still doesn't actually kill them but it incapacitates them until their heads crawl back over to their bodies, a problem solved by simply putting the head in a box. It seems that in this case, removing the head doesn't work, but destroying the brain does.
    • This is sometimes the case with run-of-the-mill monsters, depending on species. In season six, Sam runs into an aranea, a monster nobody has seen for centuries and therefore they have no idea how to kill. On a hunch, he cuts the creature's head off, which kills it.
  • Subverted in Torchwood: Miracle Day. Jack Harkness suggested cutting off the head of an assassin who is being kept alive by the Miracle (despite being burned to a crisp). The authorities try it, and he's still alive. Jack himself also subverts this in all post 9th Doctor appearances except the aforementioned Miracle Day.

    Mythology and Religion 
  • Greek Mythology:
    • Averted with the Hydra from Greek Mythology. It started off with nine heads, and every time one was cut off it would grow two in its place. Hercules finally defeated it by cutting off its heads and having a friend cauterize the stumps with fire to prevent them from regrowing. However, it had one immortal head; and presumably that was undecapitable. Once the others were destroyed, Hercules just buried that one.
    • The weakness of Medusa, the gorgon. While her two sisters were immortal, Medusa had a mortal neck covered in metallic scales which could be severed by means of an adamant blade, which the hero Perseus used to kill her.

    Podcasts 
  • One guest on Plumbing the Death Star suggests Superman could be killed by decapitation, which confuses Jackson since, as he puts it, he didn't know Superman was a vampire. Zammit and Jackson then list off other vampiric qualities Superman has, like only being able to come in if you invite him to sucking the blood of the innocent to having to... count any panties dropped on the floor? They go farther and farther on the tangent until they read from Dracula, realize decapitation wouldn't kill Superman, and decide to move move on from Vlad Kent.
    "'Oh, creatures of the night, what beautiful music they make, I have to save Metropolis!' Superman!"

    Tabletop Games 
  • Decapitating a Harrowed from Deadlands doesn't kill them. It reduces them to fully conscious but helpless heads.
  • Subverted in Dungeons & Dragons; Vorpal weapons instantly decapitate enemies on a critical hit, but some enemies either don't have heads to remove, or aren't inconvenienced by it. Specifically, the latter includes monsters with regeneration (though Ogre Mages need to reattach their heads within ten minutes), most Constructs, and Undead (save for vampires).
    • Incidentally, killing a vampire (in 3rd edition) requires staking them in the heart and then cutting off the head.
  • Pathfinder has Vorpal weapons that are much likes the ones in Dungeons & Dragons. In addition, Pathfinder also introduces the Jabberwock creature, which has a particular fear of vorpal weapons; striking one cause it to become temporarily shaken.
  • In the French RPG Trinités it is usually the surest ways to kill the eponymous beings for good.
  • In Vampire: The Masquerade and its successor Vampire: The Requiem slaying a vampire requires either extreme mutilation or fire. A stake through the heart merely puts them in a torpor until it is removed.
  • Decapitating an ork in Warhammer 40,000 won't actually kill it (at least for a little while — some "doks" have been known to transplant heads from body to body!), but it is a handy way to keep the Made of Iron creatures from ignoring what ought to be fatal injuries. It's also quite effective against most demons, servitors, mecha (logically or otherwise)...

    Video Games 
  • In Battleborn, the vampire-like Sustained don't get sick nor age and they heal rapidly from most wounds. They however can be killed through decapitation as revealed in some lore from a visit by Randy Varnell at the Battleborn Discord Server.
  • The Dead Space series averts this big time, providing a very effective spin to the horror genre. While the Necromorphs can lose their heads, they can adapt around this, requiring the player to dismember them instead by any means necessary. It's even clearly hinted from a message in the start of the first game.
  • The kaiju-sized Ravenii from Extinction can be taken down by severing their limbs and legs, but they'll regenerate a new appendage thanks to their Healing Factor. The only way to kill them for good is by decapitation, with the weakest spot being their napes.
  • In Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor, unless a named enemy of yours is beheaded when you finish him off (and there's no way for you to do it deliberately), you can bet that he'll eventually be back.
    • Averted in the sequel: there's a small chance that even decapitation won't work. Likely the work of Talion and Zog's constant fingers to death having an effect on Mordor itself.
  • In Resident Evil (Remake), one of the two ways to prevent a zombie from resurrecting as a Crimson Head is to blow its head off. The second is incineration.
  • In Saints Row 2, the Boss empties their magazine thrice into Mr. Sunshine, but he just refuses to die. So they chop his head off with his machete and toss it into a meat processor, which seems to work.


Alternative Title(s): Vorpal Weakness

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