History Main / LosingYourHead

** After San was decapitated from [[MultipleHeadCase Ghidorah]] during the events of [[Film/GodzillaKingOfTheMonsters2019 the movie]], the severed head retains San's mind and some degree of consciousness, although the head is immobile on the outside, except for its eyes appearing to track and follow Alan Jonah's men when they approach it and except for episodes where thehead moves around a little to accommodate the birth of the [[TwoBeingsOneBody hybrid creature]] it's forming and gestating.

* ''Fanfic/AbraxasHrodvitnon'': After San was severed from Ghidorah by his original head's decapitation, the head retains his mind and some degree of consciousness -- {{downplayed}} in that while San's mind is aware inside the head, on the outside the head remains (''seemingly/mostly'') immobile. In Chapter 15, [[spoiler:the undead Manda]]'s head deliberately rips away in the style of ''Film/TheThing1982'' to escape a fight against Godzilla and Scylla.
* In the Literature/HarryPotter fic ''Can't Have It Both Ways'', Nearly-Headless Nick stretched his head up by the hair so that Harry could cut it off properly with the Sword of Gryffindor. This resulted in the head shooting across the room while his body stumbled about blindly.

** The Earthen Peak area is populated mostly by headless, magically animated mannequins. The boss of said area, Mytha the Baneful Queen, tore off their heads for 'daring to gaze upon her'. Mytha herself is a half-woman-half-snake, also beheaded, who carries her head in left hand and uses it as a sorcery catalyst, and occasionally as a magic grenade.

** Earthen Peak area is populated mostly by some sort of [[NinjaPirateZombieRobot headless undead ninjas]]. The boss of said area, Mytha, is a half-woman-half-snake, also beheaded, who carries her head in left hand and uses it as the sorcery catalyst and occasionally as a magic grenade.

** Being a human brain in a robot body, Cliff Steele has occasionally survived having his head removed from his body and recovering by simply having his head attached to a new body (if reattaching to his old body isn't possible).

** Mr. Freeze gains this gruesome ability in the ''WesternAnimation/BatmanTheAnimatedSeries'' episode "[[Recap/TheNewBatmanAdventuresE3ColdComfort Cold Comfort]]". In a ContinuityNod, when he shows up again in the ''WesternAnimation/BatmanBeyond'' episode "[[Recap/BatmanBeyondS1E7Meltdown Meltdown]]", all that's left is his head. He's understandably not too happy about it. [[WhatCouldHaveBeen Early drafts]] for ''Beyond'' played this for BlackComedy, with Old Man Wayne keeping the head in his refrigerator. It curses him impotently whenever he opens the door.

** Mr. Mxyzptlk his debut episode of ''WesternAnimation/SupermanTheAnimatedSeries'' at one point removes his own head, which then regrows his body. Of course, he ''is'' a RealityWarper.

** Mr. Mxyzptlk in ''WesternAnimation/SupermanTheAnimatedSeries''. Of course, he can do ''anything''.

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Robots}}'': Rodney Copperbottom's second meeting with CloudCuckooLander and [[TheLoad Load]], Fender, results in the latter temporarily losing his head. Much hilarity ensues:

* WesternAnimation/KevinSpencer fantazises about this in one episode: he imagines himself living in an old age home as a head, refusing to die. The staff decide to just run him over with a car. [[spoiler:This trope is played with in the final episode, with Percy.]]
* ''WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}}'' with The Heads in Jars.
** Bender also suffered this, at least once as a ShoutOut to ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration''. In another instance, he purposely sells his body for lots of money (it was worth more due to supply and demand). He drove around in a little car until getting it back from President Nixon. He also uses his ability to detach his head to (what else?) rob people.
** And in ''Bender's Game'' Zoidberg's head crawls on tentacles once it's been severed from his body. Since that instance took place in Bender's fantasy world it's not certain if the real Zoidberg can do it as well.
** As well as Hermes in the ''WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}}'' movie, ''Bender's Big Score''. Somehow, he managed to keep yelling at people for several minutes after being decapitated, before he was put in a jar.
** In a Valentine's Day episode, Fry had his head surgically removed and placed on Amy's shoulder after being severely injured in a car accident.
** Happens to the Professor in the [[VideoGame/{{Futurama}} video game]], where Mom decapitates his head to use his brain in her plot against his will.
* Grim from ''WesternAnimation/TheGrimAdventuresOfBillyAndMandy'' is frequently hit with this trope.
** There was an episode parodying "The Fly" in which Mandy unzips her head and accidentally zips onto a fly's body.
** Grim inflicts this on Jack O'Lantern, a one-episode villain from the Halloween special. Justified in that he had wished for [[WhoWantsToLiveForever immortality before he was decapitated.]]
* The Warners exhibit this ability in ''WesternAnimation/{{Animaniacs}}''.
** In one short, "Moon over Minerva," a smitten Minerva Mink's head turns into a balloon [[HeartBeatsOutOfChest because of her pounding heart]] and starts to float away before she catches it and hastily reattaches it.
* Happens in ''WesternAnimation/TinyToonAdventures'' in the short "Born to be Riled" when Babs does an impersonation of Shirley Loon.
* Mr. Freeze gains this gruesome ability in the final season of ''WesternAnimation/BatmanTheAnimatedSeries''.
** In a ContinuityNod, when he first shows up in ''WesternAnimation/BatmanBeyond'', all that's left is his head. He's understandably not too happy about it.
*** Early drafts for ''Beyond'' played this for black humor, with Old Man Wayne keeping the head in his refrigerator. It curses him impotently whenever he opens the door.
* ''WesternAnimation/AladdinTheSeries'' had a villain named Kapok where his evil head is separated from his kind body. [[EmotionsVsStoicism Interestingly, his head thought with his mind, but his body thought with his heart.]] Aladdin even gets inflicted with the same curse during the episode. Don't worry, he gets better.
** The Genie himself does this after explain how he can't kill anybody in the original movie.
* The outlaws in the ''WesternAnimation/TexAveryMGMCartoons'' short "Deputy Droopy".
** Happened to Spike/Butch in the short "Darevil Droopy" when he tried to sabotage the TestYourStrengthGame for Droopy.
* ''WesternAnimation/SupermanTheAnimatedSeries'': Mr. Mxyzptlk. Of course, he could do ''anything''.
* ''Franchise/{{Transformers}}'':
** Megatron, Bulkhead, Sentinel Prime, Starscream and [[spoiler:Waspinator]] have all suffered from this in ''WesternAnimation/TransformersAnimated''.
** As did Optimus Prime in ''Franchise/TransformersGeneration1''. Unicron gets reduced to a head after his body is blown up, and he's incredibly dangerous whenever he regains consciousness.
** All of the Headmasters have this as their backstory. (To summarize, the future Headmasters were a subgroup of Autobot pacifists called the Nebulans who were sickened by the conflict, and as a result had little trust for any other resident of Cybertron. to gain trust, five Autobots removed their heads and offered them to the Nebulans to earn trust. Later, the Nebulans could no longer avoid the war, but were still unwilling to trust the headless Autobots enough to reassemble them, so as compromise, they used special technology on five of their own, so they could become the heads, working with the five Autobots in a symbiotic bond. Each Nebulon controls the body, while its partner's true head -- which is hidden somewhere -- maintains telepathic communication while providing fighting skills and advice. Unfortunately, it isn't long before the Decepticons learn how to do this too.) Also, Arcee becomes a "new" Headmaster in the finale of the series, the same deal as the others.
** And Waspinator in ''WesternAnimation/BeastWars'', [[TheChewToy several times]]. In fact, numerous characters, primarily Predacons, end up in pieces, including an intact head. Silverbolt is the only Maximal who suffered this indignity while serving as a Maximal.
* In a particularly bizarre episode of ''WesternAnimation/LegionOfSuperHeroes'', on their way to FindTheCure, Brainiac 5's head is separated from his body by a PortalCut; the body then proceeds to run amok while the frustrated Legionnaires try to recapture it.
* XR in ''WesternAnimation/BuzzLightyearOfStarCommand'' was prone to this.
* Dr. Pretorius from the AnimatedAdaptation of ''WesternAnimation/TheMask''.
* Scared Stiff, the ghost robot in ''WesternAnimation/FilmationsGhostbusters'', suffered from this.
* Commander Bem from the ''WesternAnimation/StarTrekTheAnimatedSeries'' episode "Bem".
* Ard of ''WesternAnimation/HeavyMetal'' chops off his own head in order to show Den that he can't be killed (at least through normal means).
* In the 2003 ''[[WesternAnimation/TeenageMutantNinjaTurtles2003 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles]]'' cartoon, Leonardo cuts off the Shredder's head in a SingleStrokeBattle. This would have been more effective if the Shredder wasn't actually an alien inhabiting a much larger robot body.
* ''WesternAnimation/TheIncredibleCrashDummies'' seem to spend a lot of time without their heads (or arms or legs) attached.
* ''WesternAnimation/GadgetAndTheGadgetinis'': Fidget gets his head bitten off by a tiger at one point in the episode "Claw's Collection". The tiger spits it out, none the worse for wear, a moment later, leading Fidget to pop it back on.
* ''WesternAnimation/{{Arthur}}'' "Meek for A Week" Arthur and his friends imagine Francine, who has recently taken to bottling up her natural aggression, will build up enough pressure that her head will pop off. We then see an ImagineSpot of just such happening with Francine's disembodied head complimenting the beautiful lawn she just landed in.
** Similarly, a different episode had Buster's head fly away instead, only his head broke into pieces upon landing.
* ''WesternAnimation/SpongeBobSquarePants''
** Man Ray's head is removable, as shown in his first appearance in "Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy III" where he takes it off and gives it to [=SpongeBob=] when [[NotHyperbole he literally can't show his face in Bikini Bottom anymore]]. When he later appears in "Shuffleboarding", he weaponizes this by throwing his head at [=SpongeBob=] while fighting him and Patrick at the laundromat, only for it to fly into a washer and shrink because it's dry clean only.
** "Squid Noir" Patrick throws a rock at Squidward thinking that he's being attacked by a monster when he's actually playing his clarinet. The rock pins Squidward's head to a wood mount on his wall leaving him without a head.
** Patrick's head harmlessly popping off his body for whatever reason is something of a RunningGag in the show (especially in Post-Sequel era). For example, in "Escape from Beneath Glove World", when Patrick finds out that the [[MrAltDisney Hieronymus Glove]] robot [[OffWithHisHead literally wants Patrick's head]], Patrick nonchalantly removes his head from his shoulders and gives it to him.
* ''WesternAnimation/TheBatman'' "The Joining" Part 1, Batman and J'Onn J'Onzz are able to interrogate the severed head of Lucius Fox's robot duplicate. "In order to nod you need a neck"
* Homer's costume (which becomes real) in ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'' "Treehouse of Horror XVI."
** In "Treehouse of Horror IV", he was decapitated while spending a day in Hell.
** Scratchy from ''[[ShowWithinAShow The Itchy and Scratchy Show]]'' loses his head tons of times thanks to Itchy. Whether he lives or [[OffWithHisHead dies]] from it seems to vary.
** There was a [[CouchGag couch-gag]] in which the Simpsons switched heads. This was repeated on the Season 2 DVD artwork.
* In a time-travel episode, ''WesternAnimation/TheTick'' has his head momentarily teleported, minus his body, onto a golf tee in the 1950s. He loudly declares "Men in plaid!!!" at the sight of the golfers.
* Unsurprisingly happens a few times in ''WesternAnimation/NightmareNed'''s many {{Nightmare Sequence}}s:
** In "Headless Lester", Ned has a run-in with the eponymous campfire-story creep and afterwards walks back to his cabin, whereupon his constantly giggling head topples off his body after his worried cabin counselor grabs him by the shoulders. Notably, and a bit ironically, this was in the one episode of the series wherein [[spoiler:[[OncePerEpisode the obligatory nightmare]] wasn't actually being had by Ned]].
** In "A Doll's House", this happens to Ned when he drives a toy car down his house's stairs in an attempt to escape his ([[IncredibleShrinkingMan now giant to him]]) cousins. His cousins "fix" the broken "dolly" by sticking Ned's head on a cheerleader doll, [[CatapultNightmare much to Ned's chagrin]].
* ''WesternAnimation/OswaldTheLuckyRabbit'' demonstrated the ability to attach and detach his head at will, with no justification other than the RuleOfFunny. It is unclear how well he could function headless, as in two cases his head didn't get very far, and in the third he was reassembled by outside means. A post-Disney short indicated other characters in the setting could do this too.
* ''WesternAnimation/TheVentureBrothers'': Dean during "Escape to the House of Mummies".

* ''WesternAnimation/SwatKats'' had this in the episode "Metal Urgency": the Metallikats were reduced to heads scuttling around on spider legs after their bodies were crushed. This doesn't prevent them from driving the Metallikat Express ''or'' operating a pair of gigantic combat robots.
* ''WesternAnimation/JimmyTwoShoes'': Happens to Heloise in the episode "Heads Will Roll", thanks to [[MadScientist Dr. Scientist]] trying to obstruct her from entering Miseryville's Annual Mad Scientist Awards. Both her head and body were able to operate relatively well on their own, with the former managing to somehow build a vehicle out of sticks and stones to get to the awards and Dr. Scientist in time.
* The Canadian short "WesternAnimation/LaSalla". After a man's head is knocked off, it rolls around the floor singing, while the headless body lumbers around looking for it. Of course, the main character losing his head isn't the only thing that [[MindScrew makes this screwy]].
* Jenny on ''WesternAnimation/MyLifeAsATeenageRobot'' had this happen occasionally.

* Cindy Vortex, Carl Wheezer, Sheen Estevez and Betty Quinlan in ''WesternAnimation/TheAdventuresOfJimmyNeutronBoyGenius'''s magic themed episode "Vanishing Act" become floating heads when they enter a [[AcidTripDimension strange dimension]] and look for their headless bodies. [[PortalPicture Once they enter a picture of a desert]] they find their headless bodies are searching around the desert feeling the ground for them. They [[PullingThemselvesTogether reattach their heads to their bodies]] [[BigLippedAlligatorMoment and act like nothing happened]] ([[HeadTurnedBackwards except Sheen, whose head is on backwards]]).
* In the [[RealityWarper Larry]] episode of ''WesternAnimation/TeenTitans2003'' ("Fractured"), Starfire briefly gets little wings grown on her head causing it to fly off of her body and needing to hold onto it to avoid it flying away.
* ''WesternAnimation/MegaManRubySpears'': At the beginning of "The Incredible Shrinking Mega Man", Mega says "don't lose your head" to a disassembled Roll.
* ''WesternAnimation/CourageTheCowardlyDog'' had, among its multiple ghosts, ghouls and monsters, a group of ghostly skeleton vandals who would try to lay waste to the couple and their dog whenever their windmill stopped turning. HilarityEnsues when Courage, Eustace and Muriel have their heads chopped off by the Windmill Vandals' weapons (with their headless bodies frantically feeling around for their lost heads) and [[LegoBodyParts end up on each other's bodies.]] Courage's head (transplanted on Muriel's body) even uses Eustace's complaining head as a bowling ball to momentarily topple the marauders.
** Moreover, this isn't the first time Eustace has lost his head. In an earlier episode, a space chicken that Courage defeated and left featherless and headless in the pilot episode returned to replace its missing head by using Courage's head as a replacement. It only partially succeeds with its plan, taking Eustace's head instead. Although defeated, the head never returns to its original body (at least until the next episode), culminating with the appearance of a headless walking Eustace that scares Courage.
** Another time Eustace lost his head was in "Mega Muriel the Magnificent", where Courage's computer temporarily takes over his body and accidentally hits a wall while running, causing Eustace to collapse part-by-part. His disembodied head then spends the remainder of the episode watching the possessed Muriel's death-defying stunts on TV, oblivious to the fact that he no longer has a body.
* The Canadian short ''[[http://www.nfb.ca/film/land_of_the_heads Land of the Heads]]'' where a headless vampiress forces his husband to go out into the village and collect the heads of younger people to replace her old and wrinkled one.
* It happened to ''WesternAnimation/{{Beetlejuice}}'' several times in the animated series, perhaps most unfortunately when he fell in with a group of headhunters. (In one episode, this actually caused his head and body to argue with each other, his body doing so by forming a mouth with its hand.)
* An episode of the 1980s version of ''WesternAnimation/{{Flash Gordon|1979}}'' featured a race of aliens that could remove their heads.

** A CutawayGag in the episode "Forget-Me-Not" has Stewie meeting a woman's best friend whom she claims is hot. Said woman comes by holding her severed head.
** Another cutaway in the episode "Hefty Shades of Gray" shows what it was like for Chris to get off sugar; when Peter asked him for the syrup at breakfast, Chris violently ripped off his head in response. Meg laughs at Peter in this state, and in retaliation, he commands his body to throw mashed potatoes at her. At the end of the episode, Lois also rips Peter's head off when he tells her that the Griffins are joining the Trump administration.
* On ''WesternAnimation/TheClevelandShow'', this happened to Rallo after he ran with scissors.
-->'''Rallo's severed head''': Little help?
* ''WesternAnimation/{{Metalocalypse}}'' - Mashed Potato Johnson, the oldest living blues guitarist, educates Deathklok on the music - he relates several gruesome stories on the origins of songs, including one Shorty Johnnytop, who made a deal with the Devil and was hit by a train - "...as his head traveled in the air, he wrote 'Blue Train Blues'."
* Dr. Pretorious from ''WesternAnimation/TheMask'' animated series has heavily modified his body, including allowing his head to be detached from his body and move around on spider legs. Unfortunately, this tends to work against him as his opponents tend to take advantage of this and knock his head off to distract him during his plans. His body can move independently on its own.
* In the ''WesternAnimation/OggyAndTheCockroaches'' episode, "It's Been a Hard Day's Noise", Oggy gets this after repeatedly opening and shutting a door. [[https://youtu.be/EUqWrqb9Oug?t=135 Proof here]].
* The titular character in ''WesternAnimation/{{Bunnicula}}'' has had his head knocked off or intentionally removed it to mess with Chester the cat on a few occasions, he can just stick it back on like it's nothing due to his supernatural abilities.
* Sarah from ''WesternAnimation/TheAmazingWorldOfGumball'' removes her head every night before she goes to sleep and puts it in the freezer.
* In the ''WesternAnimation/StarVsTheForcesOfEvil'' episode "Game of Flags", Star's Uncle Lump was decapitated during the Game of Flags at last year's family reunion, but they managed to save his head and attach it to the body of a horse. Later in the episode Uncle Lump's head bounces in from off-screen, still alive but incredibly annoyed that he lost another body.
* [[MusicalAssassin Scaramouche]] the [[KillerRobot assassin android]] from Season 5 of ''WesternAnimation/SamuraiJack'' was seemingly killed in the first episode, his head being the only part of him that survived. Five episodes later it rebooted, and he hopped off to go tell [[BigBad Aku]] that [[TheHero Jack]] had lost his sword. As a head, though, he becomes prime ButtMonkey material, being kicked and tossed around by people and denied entrance to a ship due to his lack of a body.
* In the ''WesternAnimation/LiloAndStitchTheSeries'' HalloweenEpisode [[Recap/LiloAndStitchTheSeriesS1E5Spooky "Spooky"]], [[MonsterOfTheWeek the episode's titular experiment]] scares Mertle Edmonds and her posse by shapeshifting to appear as Lilo (in her dead hula girl costume from earlier in the episode) with her head detached from her body.

* In ''WesternAnimation/TheCrumpets'', Ditzy's head is detachable, and with its lightness and string, it floats and looks like a balloon. Both the head and body can function on their own. The string can secure her head to the body by a tied knot. Her head can come off by force or surprise. There is an episode where her head is unable to float.
* ''WesternAnimation/TheOwlHouse'': In the very first episode, Eda gets her head cut off by Warden Wrath. Luz is horrified, but thankfully Eda is still alive (though she does complain that losing her head is rather uncomfortable and inconvenient).
* Happens to Mrs. Tofu in an episode of ''WesternAnimation/TheTofus'' called "The Great Escape" when Mr. Tofu performs a magic trick that ends up resulting in her head being teleported to a nearby box via magic while her now headless body is clearly seen still standing in the larger box.
* In ''WesternAnimation/{{Dilbert}}'', the villainous Lena decapitates her business rivals and keeps their heads in jars, where they are somehow still alive and able to talk. Notably, when Dilbert discovers one of these heads, he speaks to it first, as if he expects it to be able to answer. [[spoiler:Lena [[HoistByTheirOwnPetard suffers this same fate herself]] by the end of the episode.]]
* ''WesternAnimation/CloneHigh'' has this happen, quite unsurprisingly, to the clone of UsefulNotes/MarieAntoinette. In the second-to-last episode she is decapitated by a [[HelicopterBlender helicopter]]. In the last episode, she appears alive and well, or at least as well as a girl whose head is no longer attached to her shoulders can be.

* Episode 5 of ''WesternAnimation/WhatIf2021'' has this happen to [[spoiler: Scott Lang. Since [[Film/AntManAndTheWasp Hank Pym's attempt to save Janet van Dyne from the Quantum Realm]] ended with Janet becoming PatientZero to a ZombieApocalypse in this universe, Hope assumed that Scott had died with the others. Until the group makes it to Vision's stronghold and discover he made a cure for the zombie plague; while reduced to a head in a jar, Scott is alive and well thanks to cure testing. He even takes the time to make a lot of head puns at his situation.]]

* In ''Film/Cyborg2'', Angelina Jolie's character has her head removed when being interrogated.

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Robots}}'': Rodney Copperbottom's second meeting with CloudCuckooLander and [[TheLoad load]], Fender, results in the latter temporarely losing his head. Much hilarity ensues:

''[his body comes bouncing off buildings]''\\

''[the body falls on the floor]''\\

** Being a human brain in a robot body, Cliff Steele has occasionally survived having his head removed from his body and recovering by simply having his head attached to a new body.

** Creator/GrantMorrison's run features a trio of bizarre government agents called the [=SeX=]=Men. One of them gets decapitated and is shown to still be able to survive without a body.

* ''ComicBook/DoomPatrol'': After being decapitated at the end of Creator/GrantMorrison's run, Niles Caulder spent Rachel Pollack's run as a disembodied head somehow managing to survive without a body. He has since appeared whole again.

* ''ComicBook/TheAmazingScrewOnHead'' is built on this trope.

* ''ComicBook/DoomPatrol'': Niles Caulder has spent time as a disembodied head in a jar. Hard to say if this is still true as of the latest retcon, though.
* [[http://littlestuffedbull.com/images/comics/ten/strangeadventures136.jpg Strange Adventures #136]]

* In a poem by Creator/ShelSilverstein, the protagonist complained about losing their head and about the fact that they couldn't look for it ("'cause my eyes are on it"), call to it ("'cause my ears are on it") or even think about it ("'cause my brain is in it") -- "so I guess I'll sit down on this rock/and rest for just a minute." (Three guesses what the "rock" was.)

* In ''Literature/TheBlackCompany''

* Creator/JohnCWright's ''Literature/ChroniclesOfChaos'': In ''The Orphans Of Chaos'', [[spoiler:Orpheus]] appears as a headless man who carries about his head separately. On the other hand, he is dead and just coming from Hades (and they are about to make him Psychopomp).
* In the ''Literature/ConanTheBarbarian'' story "Literature/TheScarletCitadel", Tsotha-lanti tells Conan that "[[PullingThemselvesTogether if you hack me in pieces, the bits of flesh and bone will reunite and haunt you to your doom!]]" The next moment, Conan cuts off his head. The head remained alive, and the body attempted to recover it. Fortunately, a friendly sorcerer took away the head, the body ran after him, and the king was rid of the need to find a solution.
* ''Literature/UseOfWeapons'': Special Circumstances operative Cheradenine Zakalwe crash-lands on a primitive planet and is sacrificed by the natives through decapitation. Fortunately his [[BigDamnHeroes colleagues zoom in just in time]] to snatch back his head, but not before he's had a horrified moment to realise exactly what just happened. Later Zakalwe is in hospital waiting for a new body to be grown (they gave him the choice of remaining unconscious but he'd rather watch television) when the artificially-intelligent drone Skaffen-Amtiskaw (who doesn't like Zakalwe much, and has a twisted sense of humor) sends him a present. A hat.

** Greg's bizarre dream in ''Double Down'' involves himself kicking his own head, which is shouting, "Mustards on my turnips, please!"

* In the ''Literature/{{Dragonlance}}'' novel ''Literature/TheLegendOfHuma'', Huma has to fight the immortal warlord Crynus. After running him through the neck and the stomach barely slows him down, Huma gets his hands on Crynus' battle axe and knocks off his head with one blow. Then Crynus's body stands up again and starts to stumble single-mindedly towards his severed head. [[spoiler:He almost reaches it before the silver dragon arrives and [[KillItWithFire disintegrates him with dragonfire]].]]
* Ant heads remain alive for some time in Bernard Werber's ''Literature/EmpireOfTheAnts'' novels (only the first was translated to English), and this is at times a crucial plot point.
* In ''Literature/FengshenYanyi'', [[TheRivalTurnedEvil Shen Gongbao]] tries to bully Jiang Ziya into not helping Xiqi and carry out the selection of the new gods and tries to prove his superiority in the arts of the Immortals by cutting off his own head and make it float above his body, impressing Jiang Ziya into almost surrendering. Unfortunately for Gongbao, the Elder Immortal of the South Pole was nearby and sends his disciple in the form of a crane to steal Shen Gongbao's head and drop it into the North Sea, an act which will result in him dying for real. Jiang Ziya is merciful enough to beg for his old friend, who gets his head back (with the text mentioning that he accidentally put it on backwards and had to twist it by the ears).

* ''Literature/GreyKnights'': In ''Dark Adeptus'' [[spoiler:Thalassa]] remains able to talk after decapitation due to Chaos sorcery.

* There's a medical horror novel, ''Heads'', in which the heads of people who'd agreed to donate their bodies for research are kept preserved and wired up as organic supercomputers. Nobody warned them that it'd be their ''heads'' that were made use of ... or that they'd [[AndIMustScream regain consciousness]] once integrated into the system.
* ''Literature/NjalsSaga'': Kari, intent on revenge for the death of his son in the Burning of Njal, pursues the Burners on their voyage to Rome and catches up with them in Wales. He spots Kol Thorsteinsson, one of the Burners, selling goods at a market; Kari strikes at him just as Kol is counting silver, and "Kol kept on counting the silver, and his head counted 'ten' as it flew from the trunk."
* The Denizens of the House in Garth Nix's ''Literature/KeysToTheKingdom'' series have the ability to survive being decapitated, so of course one bad guy announces himself by flinging talking severed heads at the main character's feet.
* In Creator/StephenKing's ''[[Literature/DifferentSeasons The Breathing Method]]'', a woman who's about to give birth [[spoiler:is decapitated in a car accident in front of the hospital. She remains alive and conscious for several minutes, from sheer willpower, until she gives birth to her son.]]
* Creator/LarryNiven's ''Literature/KnownSpace'':

* The baddies in Richard K. Morgan's ''[[Literature/ALandFitForHeroes The Steel Remains]]'' cut off their victims' heads and [[AndIMustScream do really terrible things]] to them, by way of an object lesson to anyone who tries to work against them.
* Princess Langwidere, a character in Creator/LFrankBaum's [[Literature/LandOfOz Oz novel]] ''Ozma of Oz''. She has 30 different heads that she can place on her neck. Her heads come in a variety of hair, eye, and skin colors.
** Princess Langwidere was the inspiration for Mombi in the adaptation (see Film/ReturnToOZ), and given a chilling treatment in the Music/ScissorSisters song "Return to Oz". Mombi and Langwidere were separate characters in Baum's books, and the latter was merely a spoiled and careless RoyalBrat instead of a villain.
** In ''The Tin Woodman of Oz'', the Tin Woodman returns to the (now empty) tinworker's house and finds his original, flesh-and-blood head. (For him, the trope was {{inverted}}: he lost the rest of his body.) They have a conversation and find they [[OtherMeAnnoysMe don't like each other]].
** In ''Literature/TheMarvelousLandOfOz'' (which features Mombi), when Jack Pumpkinhead is riding in the flying Gump, he refuses to look over the side, fearing that his head might fall off. Prof. Wogglebug {{lampshades}} this with one of his insensitive puns, declaring: "In that event your head would no longer be a pumpkin, for it would become a squash."
** Later on in Oz, Jack Pumpkinhead has his own pumpkin patch. Every time his head begins to spoil, he carves out a new head for himself.

* The fate of Edward Page Mitchell's AbsentMindedProfessor Prof. Dummkopf in the 1877 short story ''The Man Without a Body'', in the aftermath of what may be fiction's earliest TeleporterAccident. Unusually for this trope, Dummkopf is rendered mute by the loss of his vocal chords, and as a result it takes [[AndIMustScream several years]] before anyone notices that [[StayingAlive the loss of his lungs, heart, and other vital organs hasn't inconvenienced him in the slightest]].
* In ''[[Literature/{{Voidskipper}} In Pursuit of Bark's Finest]]'', at one point Madeline Zargosty gets her head blown off in a firefight. Courtesy of several backup brains and other redundancies this proves to be only a minor inconvenience, allowing her to keep fighting effectively for an extended period afterwards. Later on she gets her morph updated to have a detachable head as a normal feature instead of an emergency backup.

* In many of Creator/AlastairReynolds' ''Literature/RevelationSpaceSeries'' novels, space suits are designed to deliberately decapitate and then [[HumanPopsicle freeze]] the user's head in the event of an emergency (such as a suit breach). Once the head is recovered, they can be reattached to the body or even have their whole body regrown from the neck down, though in at least one novel a character opts to have his head installed on a prosthetic body and is pretty much none the worse for wear.

* Early in ''Literature/SandmanSlim'', Stark cuts off the head of Kasabian, the hardest-luck member of the circle that sent him to Hell. He did so with an enchanted knife that only kills when he orders it to, so Kasabian's head sits in his closet for most of the book, bitching about its state. Near the end, it dies outright, only to get sent back by Lucifer as part of a job deal. Between the first book and ''Kill The Dead'', Stark gets it an animated table with articulated legs so that it can move by itself.

* In a poem by Shel Silverstein, the protagonist complained about losing their head and about the fact that they couldn't look for it ("'cause my eyes are on it"), call to it ("'cause my ears are on it") or even think about it ("'cause my brain is in it") - "so I guess I'll sit down on this rock/and rest for just a minute." (Three guesses what the "rock" was.)

* In ''Literature/VenissUnderground'', the genetically engineered assassin-class meerkats produced by Quin are capable of surviving for several days as just a head. [[spoiler:Shadrach decapitates the meerkat Salvador in order to render him harmless and portable, and renames him "John the Baptist"]].

* ''Literature/HarryPotterAndTheChamberOfSecrets'' introduces the Headless Hunt, a [[TheWildHunt Wild Hunt-esque]] troupe of {{Headless Horsem|an}}en who partake in SeveredHeadSports like Horseback Head-Juggling, Head Polo, and Headless Bowling. A perennial source of frustration for [[FriendlyGhost Nearly Headless Nick]] is that [[DreamCrushingHandicap he can't join because his head is still attached to his neck by one little strip of flesh]].

->''"In [[VideoGame/TheEvilWithin Evil Within]], you can get beheaded, and continue to play the game. I mean it's pretty cool that you can get beheaded in the game, and that's usually a death, like it usually kills you. But there are times, when it will not, and you just continue playing the game. It's particulary funny because, if like it starts to happen where you get beheaded again, it doesn't like, kill you like you don't have a head it's like, no, no head, blade can't do that, no head, stay alive."''
-->-- gameranx

* Happens in ''Film/TheBoxersOmen'' during a black magic ritual gone wrong; a witch doctor's head, upon being possessed, ends up detaaching itself and floats around, with it's intestines a-dangling underneath lashing out like a series of whips. Yes, it's a weird movie.

** Near the end of the first movie, Chucky gets his head, arm and leg blown off by Karen. Santos, against Norris' caution, brings the head into the living room...[[spoiler:But then the rest of Chucky's body busts out of a duct to strangle Santos as the head commands it on.]]

* In ''Literature/{{Deathmoor}}'', one of the monsters you can come across in the titular moor is a [[MultipleHeadCase two-headed]] Cradoc, a reptilian beast with the head of a dragon and an ogre sharing the same body. After killing it, you'll need to sever one of it's heads to finish it off for good, but choosing the wrong head [[note]] the dragon's [[/note]] will have the severed stump coming to life on it's own and attacking you from behind, killing you instantly. For reasons unexplained however, the [[TakeAThirdOption third]] and most obvious option, severing ''both'' heads, isn't available.

** The short story "Procrustes" starts off with Beowulf Schaefer stepping out of an autodoc. It's later revealed that he was in it because he had been beheaded, and was regrown from the removed head.

** In ''{{VideoGame/The Legend of Zelda Oracle|Games}} of Seasons'', a skeletal Piratian had his entire body destroyed except for his skull. Link must carry his skull so the Piratian can help locate the bell his Captain was looking for.

** As well as Hermes in the ''WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}}'' movie, ''Bender's Big Score''. Somehow he managed to keep yelling at people for several minutes after being decapitated, before he was put in a jar.

* ''WesternAnimation/GadgetAndTheGadgetinis'': Fidget gets his head bitten off by a tiger at one point in the episode "Claw's Collection". The tiger spits it out, none the worst for wear, a moment later, leading Fidget to pop it back on.

* Pictured above is a scene from the ''VideoGame/TeamFortress2'' promotional video [[WebAnimation/TeamFortress2 Meet the Medic]]. The head of the BLU Spy, which the RED Medic keeps in his fridge, is being sustained by some eldritch and surely illegal medical technique involving dry-cell batteries.