History Main / DesecratingTheDead

* In ''Literature/ASongOfIceAndFire'', [[spoiler:the corpses of Robb Stark and Greywind are both beheaded, and Greywind's head is placed on Stark's body. Catelyn's body is also desecrated, being stripped naked and thrown in a moat in a cruel mockery of [[VikingFuneral House Tully's funeral customs]].]]

* ''Series/GameOfThrones'':
** After Robb Stark is assassinated, the Bolton soldiers sew his wolf's severed head onto his decapitated body and [[DeadGuyOnDisplay parade him around]] in triumph.
** Catelyn Stark barely fares any better, with her throat slit and thrown naked into a nearby river, making a mockery of the VikingFuneral her House usually prefers.

* ''VisualNovel/ChronoBox'': [[spoiler:After seeing Nayuta going berserk after Kabane awakened his evil personality and killing her, Urana, Fuuka, Tsutsujiko, Otogi and Makoro decided it's not enough and all made their part to make her corpse be barely recognizable without her limbs. To top it off, they also stole the head and eaten it.]]

* In ''VisualNovel/DanganronpaTriggerHappyHavoc'' Byakuya Togami comes across Chihiro Fujisaki's lifeless body. Rather than telling others what he saw he decides to crucify Chihiro's body to make it look like the SerialKiller Genocide Jack had murdered Chihiro. Why did he do this? Because one, he wanted to expose Genocide Jack as Toko Fukawa's SplitPersonality, and two, because, in his eyes, [[ForTheEvulz it made the]] DeadlyGame [[ForTheEvulz more interesting]].
* In ''VisualNovel/Danganronpa2GoodbyeDespair'' after Mikan Tsumiki kills Hiyoko Saionji, who had been [[TheBully bullying her]] ever since they met (although this is not the reason why she kills her), Mikan ties the knot of Hiyoko's obi to the front of her kimono, which was how prostitutes used to wear their kimono, as it makes it easier to take them on and off. Mikan is non-verbally calling Hiyoko a "trashy skank", which was one of Hiyoko's favourite insults for Mikan.

* ''VisualNovel/DanganronpaTriggerHappyHavoc'':
** Monokuma considers doing this to Sakura's body after he found out she broke down the door to an important room the students weren't supposed to see before she died.
** Junko does this with her sister's body, first impaling it with a knife to stage a fake murder, and later blowing it up with a bomb to prevent anyone from realizing the setup.

* In ''Anime/AkameGaKill'', this happens to Chelsea. First, she has her bloodied and decapitated head placed on a pole in a town for any friends, allies, and strangers to see. Afterward, her body is dissected and whatever remnants of her corpse that remained were fed Koro.

* In the ''Creator/RayBradbury Theater'' episode "The Handler", embittered small-town mortician Mr. Benedict secretly subjects the bodies of his deceased clients to ironic insults, like coating a fat woman's body in cake frosting or embalming a white racist with black ink.

* [[DiscussedTrope Discussed]] in ''VideoGame/StarWarsTheOldRepublic'': At one point the Imperial Agent has to track down and kill a former operative. Since he'd threatened to reveal a number of Kaliyo's secrets as well, after he's dead she says she'd like to kick his corpse around a few times, but she doesn't want the explosive implanted in him to go off. 3

* In ''Film/TheSearchers'', Ethan Edwards demonstrates how much of an anti-hero he is by shooting out the eyes of a dead Comanche warrior. He explains to his allies that, according to the Comanche religion, one can't enter the afterlife without eyes, so he's just doomed the dead man to wander the Earth forever.

* In the Spanish film ''Film/Torrente3'', after killing an EliteMook with their guns, Torrente and his sidekick not only [[TheresNoKillLikeOverkill empty the whole magazine]] into his body, but they also throw the guns on him, ''then'' they spit on him.
* In ''Film/{{Troy}}'', Achilles promises to disfigure Hector's corpse after he kills him. After he does the deed, he drags the body behind his chariot and later, we get a close-up of Hector's body to see that Achilles made good on his promise.

* A pragmatic variation occurs in ''Film/TheUntouchables1987'', when the eponymous squad has captured one of UsefulNotes/AlCapone's henchmen and is trying to get him to talk about Capone's finances. When the henchman refuses to talk, Malone wanders outside, grabs the corpse of a {{Mook}} killed in the preceding gunfight, and after pretending to threaten to kill him if he won't talk, shoots the corpse through the head, spattering the henchman with gore. The henchman, believing he'd witnessed an actual execution, is ''very'' cooperative afterward.

* In ''Literature/TheBelgariad'', Urgit (the king of Chtol Murgos) mentions having personally buried his father, Taur Urgas, face-down in a ditch. After first slitting his throat, just to be really, ''really'' sure he was dead. While Taur Urgas was an ordinary mortal man who'd been dead for quite a long time by that point, he was such an internationally infamous AxCrazy brute that everyone considered this to be reasonably fair.
* Pointedly averted in ''Literature/BigRed''. The narrator notes that after the dog Big Red had killed Old Majesty, the [[BearsAreBadNews terrifying bear that had been harassing the country]], he didn't tear at or worry the corpse. He simply lay down. The author sees this as nobility of spirit.
* In ''Literature/{{Doglands}}'', after killing four {{Angry Guard Dog}}s, Furgul and [[spoiler:Dervla]] use two of the dog's bodies as beds. They're bony but still more comfortable than sleeping on the cold, grimy floor. It's predominantly a cathartic moment as the dogs were attempting to kill Furgul.

* ''Literature/TheLordOfTheRings'': When the dwarf king Thrór was captured by orcs, the orc warlord Azog tortured him for days before beheading him, carving his name into his forehead, and then throwing his head down the steps of Moria before his corpse was subsequently cut up and fed to carrion birds. His successor declared the War of the Dwarves and Orcs to claim vengeance, winning a PyrrhicVictory.

* In the first book of the ''Literature/{{Worldwar}}'' series, Moishe Russie is praying for some sort of sign as to whether he should remain a passive observer as [[AlienInvasion the Lizards conquer Warsaw]] [[AlternateHistory while it is under German occupation]], or if he should rise up with other Jewish prisoners of the ghetto and assist the Lizards in striking the Nazis. He happens to catch sight of German troops manning an anti-aircraft gun set up in a cemetery, and one of the soldiers takes a brief break to go to the bathroom. He decides that seeing a German soldier [[ExcrementStatement pissing on Jewish graves]] and ''laughing about it'' is all the sign that he needs.

%%%

%% This list of examples has been alphabetized. Take care to put your example in its proper place in accordance with Administrivia/HowToAlphabetizeThings!

%%%

%% If you are adding examples please make sure they do not happen at a funeral (LastDisrespects),
%% are not justified to keep the victim dead (MakeSureHesDead),
%% or are not continuing to hit someone they already beat to death in a rage (PummelingTheCorpse).

* Sheila did this in the backstory of ''Manga/{{Superior}}'', taunting Exa with his mother's corpse after having just wiped out his entire village ([[ForgottenFirstMeeting neither of them saw each other's faces due to the smoke]]).

* Near the end of ''ComicBook/BatmanTheDarkKnightReturns'', the narration for one panel states Batman decided to quickly pay his last respects to the recently-deceased [[spoiler:Joker]] before fleeing the police. The panel the narration is in shows Batman spitting on said character's corpse.

* ''Fanfic/ADiplomaticVisit'': As explained in chapter 18, Balanced Meal is the founder of the PVE (Pony Vegan Environmentalists, a notorious hate group that targets all non-ponies). When Luna asks where his grave is (with this trope clearly in mind), Celestia (who is equally disgusted by his actions) says that he's buried in a cemetery with considerable magical protections to prevent this from happening, and remarks that had it not been, she would have seen to it that his grave spontaneously combusted right after the funeral; more recently, she's considered asking Discord to do something about said protections so that such desecrations can actually happen.

[[folder:Films -- Live-Action]]
* ''Film/GameraVsZigra''. After killing the spiky shark-monster Zigra, Gamera bangs a rock against Zigra's spines like a xylophone, playing the first few notes of his own theme music.

* In the Spanish film ''Torrente 3'', after killing an EliteMook with their guns, Torrente and his sidekick not only [[TheresNoKillLikeOverkill empty the whole magazine]] into his body, but they also throw the guns on him, ''then'' they spit on him.

* ''Film/BestSeller'': After one of Madlock's hitmen kills a witness that Cleve visited to corroborate his story for Meechum, Cleve is so pissed off that he shoots the hitman's already dead body a few more times before exiting the scene.
* In Assamese horror film ''Film/{{Kothanodi}}'' (''The River of Fables'') WickedStepmother Senehi drags her stepdaughter's corpse by the hair to be buried in the backyard.
* ''Film/ADogsPurpose'' has Bailey wondering what happened to the family cat, and he sees that the family is burying the now-dead cat in the front yard. Not knowing that the cat is dead, Bailey goes outside, digs up the cat's body, and brings it back inside to show them that he found the cat. Elizabeth screams at the sight of this, and Bailey replies "My bad" before heading back outside.
* ''Film/TheNorthman'': After defeating the undead mound-dweller by decapitation, Amleth shoves the warrior's head between the corpse's legs. And as part of his psychological campaign against Fjölnir, he mutilates the corpses of the men he kills.
* ''Film/BringMeTheHeadOfAlfredoGarcia'': After learning that Garcia is dead, the protagonist finds his tomb and decapitates the corpse so he can bring the head.
* ''Film/{{Unfriended}}'': It is implied that Jess desecrated Laura's grave. She poses her this question as Jess is left with one remaining finger up during the "never have I ever" game, and kills her afterward, suggesting that it is true.

* ''Film/AChristmasCarolGoesWrong'' has Marley falling out of his coffin during the funeral, leading to Scrooge and the undertaker kicking him into the grave.

* ''Series/{{Deadwood}}'': At one point, when frontier mob moss Al Swearengen needs to really put the screws to his minion, E.B. Farnum, he makes this threat.
-->'''Swearengen''': I will defile your remains, E.B.!
-->'''Farnum''': Not my remains, Al!
-->'''Swearengen''': Gabriel's trumpet will produce you from the ass of a pig!

* The physics engine in many games such as ''Franchise/TheElderScrolls'' series allows the player character to manhandle corpses, but this rarely gets you any repercussion other than a passing comment from the [=NPCs=]. It doesn't help that one of the most common ways to get new armor pieces is to peel them off a corpse, leaving said corpse in their skivvies (again, with nary a comment from [=NPCs=]).

* [[DiscussedTrope Discussed]] in ''VideoGame/StarWarsTheOldRepublic'': At one point the Imperial Agent has to track down and kill a former operative. Since he'd threatened to reveal a number of Kaliyo's secrets as well, after he's dead she says she'd like to kick his corpse around a few times, but she doesn't want the explosive implanted in him to go off.

* ''VideoGame/DukeNukem'' does this often, specially to the game's bosses. His most famous ones involve taking down an alien cyclops, pissing on its eye and then kicking it like a football, and, for another boss, ripping its head off and defecating down its neck.
* In ''VideoGame/VisceraCleanupDetail'' the player must incinerate all body parts in a level, which generally involves shoving them all into a bin and dumping them in a furnace with the rest of the trash. Alternatively the player can steal body parts, throw them around, feed them to native lifeforms, etc.
* ''VideoGame/Sly2BandOfThieves'': During a mission in the fifth episode, Bentley tells Sly to smash the coffin of the Evil Wolf Priestess to free the spirits trapped with her. Naturally, Sly [[DueToTheDead verbally expresses his hesitation in doing such a thing to someone's corpse]], but Bentley has to emphasize the "Evil" part to get him on board.
* ''VideoGame/GhostOfTsushima'': In the assault on the castle, Jin beheads a captain only to grab his head and shake it at the fleeing soldiers. His uncle is not pleased.

* ''VisualNovel/DanganronpaTriggerHappyHavoc'': After discovering Chihiro's body, Byakuya strings it up and leaves a message written in blood on the wall in an effort to draw out a serial killer with a similar MO that he believes is hiding among the students.

* Vaarsuvius in ''Webcomic/TheOrderOfTheStick''. After killing a black dragon [[spoiler:for threatening the elf's family]], Vaarsuvius animates its head as an undead, [[spoiler:targets it with an epic spell that kills its bloodline and all of its extended relatives, taunts it for its failure]], and then disintegrates it.

* In ''Manga/JoJosBizarreAdventure'', Dio desecrates Jonathan Joestar's body by severing Jonathan's head and attaching his own so he can claim it for himself. Supplementary materials reveal that Dio actually felt conflicted over doing this to [[WorthyOpponent one of the only people he ever respected]].
* Walter cements his FaceHeelTurn in ''Manga/{{Hellsing}}'' in [[KickTheDog truly despicable fashion]] by doing this to Anderson, who had just received a send-off worthy of a WorthyOpponent, by treading on his ashes and then calling him "garbage". This was enough to send Yumie, one of Anderson's most loyal subordinates, into an utter fury that got her sliced apart, as well as utterly eradicate any respect that Alucard may have had for him.
* Wyald's DeadGuyOnDisplay antics in the Black Dog Knights arc from ''Manga/{{Berserk}}'' mark him as probably the most despicable Apostle the Hawks have fought, even more so because the bodies he uses are innocent people that he and his men brutalized and dismembered for helping the Hawks.

[[folder:Films -- Live-Action]]
* In ''Film/LicenceToKill'', drug kingpin Franz Sanchez captures a Hong Kong agent who he believed tried to assassinate him (in fact, it was an unrelated plot by James Bond to avenge his friend Felix Leiter). The agent commits suicide by CyanidePill before he can be questioned, and Sanchez shoots his corpse several times to vent his anger.
* The French Foreign Legion film ''Film/MarchOrDie'' from 1977 has young Englishman Fred Hastings captured by the hostile Rif tribe and crucified on a Saint Andrew's cross. When the Legionnaires arrive in formation to retrieve the body, one of El Krim's men begins abusing the corpse to further humiliate the Legionnaires.
* ''Film/PanicRoom''. After getting his face burned in the home robbery, Junior tries to cut his losses and split. Upon learning that there's more money in the safe than Junior had told the other two robbers, Raoul shoots him in the head. He drags Junior's body indoors and shoots the corpse again out of spite.
* In ''Film/DemonKnight'', Brayker DiesWideOpen. Jeryline respectfully [[DueToTheDead closes his eyes]] [[spoiler:before refilling the Key with his blood and taking his place as the new Demon Knight.]] When the Collector finds Brayker's body, he mockingly opens the eyes.

* In the 1943 FilmSerial ''Secret Service in Darkest Africa'' a German warship is given permission to bury their dead on neutral soil. Instead they dump the bodies overboard and fill the coffins with explosives which their agent can pick up later. Sailors are [[BurialAtSea buried at sea]] of course, but it's clearly meant to show the [[PropagandaPiece callousness of the evil Nazis even to their own]].
* The Yautja from the ''Franchise/{{Predator}}'' films skin their prey and dangle the body upside down, or simply rip the head and spinal cord and keep it as a trophy. {{Subverted|Trope}} because among the Yautja (who have BlueAndOrangeMorality) this treatment is a sign of an honourable kill, especially if they take the skull (reserved only for the [[WorthyOpponent Worthiest Opponents]]). Played straight with Yautja Badbloods, individuals who have severely violated the species' honour code and brought disgrace to the species, usually by killing children, pregnant females or other dishonourable prey -- these outcasts are hunted across the galaxy and when caught, are tortured to death and the head is removed and thrown away as a final insult to the offender.

* {{Discussed|Trope}} in the fourth book of ''Literature/TalesOfTheMagicLand'': Urfin Jus incites his army by claiming their enemies wiped out a garrison left to control them, and fed their bodies to pigs. (Of course, the army turns on him as soon as they see the garrison members playing volleyball with the supposed murderers).

* ''Literature/TheLordOfTheRings'': When the dwarf king Thrór was captured by orcs, the orc warlord Azog tortured him for days before beheading him, carving his name into his forehead, and then throwing his head down the steps of Moria before his corpse was subsequently cut up and fed to carrion birds. His successor declared the War of the Dwarves and Orcs to claim vengeance, winning a PyrrhicVictory.

* ''Series/{{Attila}}''. Flavius Aetius presents the young Attila's chief with one of his men who has been tortured as a [[PretextForWar pretext for taking on a rival tribe]]. Attila accuses Flavius of having inflicted the torture marks himself as they've been done post-mortem.
* ''Series/{{Hannibal}}'': A tactic of several {{Serial Killer}}s.
** Hannibal Lecter himself likes to arrange his victims' corpses as macabre art pieces to flaunt his victory -- and if they're lucky, they're dead ''before'' he starts. Standouts include pincushioning people with dozens of implements as an homage to the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wound_Man Wound Man]], presenting [[spoiler:Beverly Katz]]'s corpse in thin vertical slices, and folding a man's inside-out body into a giant origami heart [[spoiler:as a [[FoeRomanceSubtext gesture to Will]]]].
** Lawrence Wells "retires" from killing by exhuming all his victims and assembling their bodies into a gruesome totem pole. It's both a bid to GetIntoJailFree and a way to flaunt that he'd gotten away with murdering people ForTheEvulz for thirty years.

* In ''TabletopGame/{{Pathfinder}}'', spells reanimating the dead are universally evil. The huecuva in particular is created from the corpse of an evil cleric, but appropriately skilled necromancers can turn even good clerics into the undead, which is considered blasphemy of the highest order.

** It's usually a ForTheEvulz or KickTheDog moment proving just how depraved they are.

%%
%% Examples are alphabetized.

As a DeathTrope, spoilers may be unmarked. You have been warned.

* ''Film/TheCorruptor'': After Uncle Benny commits suicide in front of Bobby Vu and his gang (who came to kill him), Bobby instead choose to continue shooting Benny's corpse.

* In ''Film/TheSearchers'', Ethan Edwards demonstrates how much of an anti-hero he is by shooting out eyes of a dead Comanche warrior. He explains to his allies that, according to the Comanche religion, one can't enter the afterlife without eyes, so he's just doomed the dead man to wander the Earth forever.
* One of the last scenes in ''Film/ASerbianFilm'' is Milos repeatedly bashing the face of his brother Marko's corpse with a statue, even after Marko's skull had cracked open and his brain matter is all over the place, after Milos [[spoiler: found out Marko had manipulated him into partaking in a snuff film involving paedophilia and necrophilia, and had raped Milos' wife for good measure]].

* In ''Film/{{Troy}}'', Achilles promises to disfigure Hector's corpse after he kills him. After he does the deed, he drags the body behind his chariot and later, we get a close up of Hector's body to see that Achilles made good on his promise.
* A pragmatic variation occurs in ''Film/TheUntouchables1987'', when the eponymous squad has captured one of UsefulNotes/AlCapone's henchmen and is trying to get him to talk about Capone's finances. When the henchman refuses to talk, Malone wanders outside, grabs the corpse of a {{Mook}} killed in the preceding gunfight, and after pretending to threaten to kill him if he won't talk, shoots the corpse through the head, spattering the henchman with gore. The henchman, believing he'd witnessed an actual execution, is ''very'' cooperative afterwards.

* ''Film/BringMeTheHeadOfAlfredoGarcia'': After learning that Garcia his dead, the protagonist finds his tomb and decapitates the corpse so he can bring the head.

* ''Franchise/AceAttorney'' has an example in "Trials and Tribulations" involving Dahlia Hawthorne's spirit, as Phoenix Wright and Mia Fey (who is using Pearl's body) taunt and mock her about her failed crimes in order for her [[VillainousBreakdown to get out of Maya Fey's body]]. Dahlia must then spend the rest of her time in the afterlife to forever think about these failures, especially since Mia took great glee in pouring salt on Dahlia's wounds. Since Dahlia was an unrepentant murderer who arranged her own stepsister's death, manipulated the man she'd convinced to perform the murder into committing suicide, and tried to frame Phoenix himself for a murder she committed, this is generally considered one of the highlights of the game.

* In ''Literature/ASongOfIceAndFire'', [[spoiler:the corpses of Robb Stark and Greywind are both beheaded, and Greywind's head is placed on Stark's body. Meanwhile, Catelyn's body is stripped naked and thrown in a moat.]]

* In Assamese horror film ''Kothanodi'' (''The River of Fables'') WickedStepmother Senehi drags her stepdaughter's corpse by the hair to be buried in the backyard.

* TV/AChristmasCarolGoesWrong has Marley falling out of his coffin during the funeral, leading to Scrooge and the undertaker kicking him into the grave.

* ''Series/{{Deadwood}}: At one point, when frontier mob moss Al Swearengen needs to really put the screws to his minion, E.B. Farnum, he makes this threat.

* ''VideoGame/{{Duke Nukem}}'' does this often, specially to the game's bosses. His most famous ones involve taking down an alien cyclops, pissing on its eye and then kicking it like a football, and, for another boss, ripping its head off and defecating down its neck.

** Then there's the assault on the castle, where Jin beheads a captain only to grab his head and shake it at the fleeing soldiers. His uncle is not pleased.

** [[spoiler:Incubus]] performed an interesting example of this trope: Their teacher was [[TheCynic a Cynic philosopher]] and wanted their body dealt with in the same way as Diogenes (to whit, letting wild dogs eat the corpse). So when said master died, [[spoiler:Incubus]] did exactly that; chopped the body in pieces and fed it to wild dogs. Whether they did it as an intentional desecration, being too LiteralMinded in their master's teachings[[note]]Diogenes' point was more that, being dead, he was probably not in a position to care what was done to his corpse rather than genuinely wanting it mutilated[[/note]] or as a genuine mark of respect is left up in the air, though their fellow student [[spoiler:Maya]] clearly views it as the first [[spoiler:especially since Incubus ''killed'' said master]].

** In PVP, some players like to teabag their fallen opponents as further humiliation.

* ''Literature/TheWayOfKings'' (first book of ''Literature/TheStormlightArchive''): Kaladin ends up mutilating Parshendi corpses and attaching bits of their natural armour to regular armour in order to anger them over disturbing their dead. Normally he wouldn't do something so grisly, but his commanders [[SuicideMission are actively trying to get him and his men killed]], so he goes to whatever lengths necessary to keep them alive. If that means drawing every arrow from the Parshendi archers toward him, so be it.

Usually when someone dies in fiction their body is ignored. If they're important (or just important to the plot), you may see them being buried or inspected at a local morgue, but due to the LawOfConservationOfDetail they are usually quickly forgotten. Sometimes, though, the deceased gets a lot more attention.

Sometimes a character has a [[MakeSureHesDead pragmatic reason]] to kill a dead person again, or is [[PummelingTheCorpse too emotional to stop themselves]] even though their victim is long past resistance. In this case, however, a character makes a deliberate decision to humiliate or punish the dead person even further. Sometimes they're so angry that death just isn't enough, sometimes they need a DeadGuyOnDisplay to show the public that an enemy is truly, thoroughly defeated, and sometimes they're so evil they want to play with them some more. Spite, revenge, intimidation, and depravity are common motivators for desecrating the dead - for both Heroes and Villains.

** Sometimes, you want to MakeSureHesDead for perfectly sensible, pragmatic reasons - if your foe has a HealingFactor, SuperToughness, or any other ability or talent that might assist with FakingTheDead, it's better to be safe than sorry.

May overlap with WhatTheHellHero (if the good guys do this and are called out on it), CreepySouvenir (when a part of the corpse is kept as a trophy), DeadGuyOnDisplay (when the corpse is displayed publicly, whether mistreated or not), or LastDisrespects (when the abuse happens at the funeral). [[ImAHumanitarian Eating bits of someone's corpse]] is a particularly nasty way to desecrate their body: in places which don't have laws specifically forbidding cannibalism, cannibals are tried under desecration of a body. An extremely mild version of corpse abuse might be the SpitefulSpit. HumanResources is when someone extracts something useful from a body - which can overlap with this trope.

* ''VideoGame/WarcraftIII'': In the expansion, the human leader Lord Garithos, an all-around asshole and racist (directly responsible for the Blood Elves fleeing Lordaeron and allying themselves with the Burning Legion) is finally betrayed by Sylvanas and killed at the end of the Undead campaign. As if this wasn't enough, a bunch of Sylvanas' ghouls immediately start feasting on his corpse. [[CutscenePowerToTheMax Note that this is completely impossible in regular gameplay]] (heroes don't leave corpses, and units that are even partially eaten can't be raised back) - he evidently just has that much bad karma stored up.

* The Yautja from the ''Franchise/{{Predator}}'' films skin their prey and dangle the body upside down, or simply rip the head and spinal cord and keep it as a trophy. {{Subverted|Trope}} because among the Yautja (who have BlueAndOrangeMorality) this treatment is a sign of an honourable kill, especially if they take the skull (reserved only for the [[WorthyOpponent Worthiest Opponents]]). Played straight with Yautja Badbloods, individuals who have severely violated the species' honour code and brought disgrace to the species, usually by killing children, pregnant females or other dishonourable prey - these outcasts are hunted across the galaxy and when caught, are tortured to death and the head is removed and thrown away as a final insult to the offender.

* In the ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer}}'' universe, the forces of Chaos are very fond of this trope - they generally make grotesque trophies of their fallen foes, often decorating their armor spikes with the heads.

* In ''Literature/ProtectorOfTheSmall'', Keladry normally buries enemy dead before they can be defiled by the Stormwings (see "When other people..." section below), but she allows them to have the BigBad and his dragon because they're so monstrous. She also finds a young woman named Peliwin who was taken captive by Scanran soldiers cutting apart the body of a soldier who "hurt" (read: likely raped) her, and gently tells her to stop.

* In ''Literature/ProtectorOfTheSmall'', Keladry normally buries enemy dead before they can be defiled by the Stormwings (see "When other people..." section below), but she allows them to have the BigBad and his {{Dragon}} because they're so monstrous. She also finds a young woman named Peliwin who was taken captive by Scanran soldiers cutting apart the body of a soldier who "hurt" (read: likely raped) her, and gently tells her to stop.

** In the second game, Mikan turns Hiyoko's obi knot around to the front after killing her. This is a StealthInsult since prostitutes used to wear their obis that way to make their kimonos easier to take off, so she is nonverbally calling Hiyoko a trashy skank which happened to be Hiyoko's favorite insult for Mikan.

** In the second game, Mikan turns Hiyoko's obi knot around to the front after killing her. This is a StealthInsult since prostitutes used to wear their obis that way to make them easier to take off, nonverbally calling Hiyoko a trashy skank, which happened to be Hiyoko's favorite insult for Mikan.

[[folder:Film]]

[[folder:Film]]

[[folder:Film]]

* On ''Series/BabylonFive'', Vir answers Morden's question [[CatchPhrase "What do you want?"]] with "I'd like to live just long enough to be there when they cut off your head and stick it on a pike as a warning to the next ten generations that some favors come with too high a price." [[spoiler:A couple years later, he gets his wish, as Londo has Morden executed and puts his head on a [[DeadGuyOnDisplay pike for display]] on the Palace grounds on Centauri Prime.]]

* ''WebVideo/NightmareTime'': In the episode "Abstinence Camp," after [[spoiler: Gabe]] is killed, his body is skinned and turned into [[GenuineHumanHide a pile of human-skin wallets]], left on a table for the camp counselors to find.