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2%%Image selected per Image Pickin' thread: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=16735525440.91591000
3%%Please don't change or remove without starting a new thread.
4%%
5[[quoteright:349:[[ComicBook/MightyMorphinPowerRangersBoomStudios https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/power_rangers_comic_zordon.png]]]]
6%%
7
8A preserved head or skull that can speak on its own, usually to answer questions of a divinatory nature.
9
10As a trope, it is at least OlderThanFeudalism -- it goes back to the Greek myth of Orpheus's singing head.
11
12A common variation in medieval lore was the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brazen_Head Brazen Head,]] which could answer any question and make oracular pronouncements. The Brazen Head crops up in the stories surrounding many medieval magicians, including Roger Bacon and Myth/{{Faust}}.
13
14See also LosingYourHead and BrainInAJar for other cases of living beheaded creatures. If it comes down to just being a skull, it starts to overlap with DemBones.
15----
16!!Examples:
17
18[[foldercontrol]]
19
20[[folder:Anime & Manga]]
21* ''Anime/TengenToppaGurrenLagann'': [[spoiler:Lordgenome]] gets his head resurrected and hooked to life support by post-TimeSkip [[spoiler:Rossiu]], who wants to regain full access to his knowledge this way.
22* ''Anime/{{Texhnolyze}}'': {{Subverted|Trope}} with [[spoiler:Ran]], who ends up in this state but refuses to divine anything to [[spoiler:Kano]].
23[[/folder]]
24
25[[folder:Comic Books]]
26* ''ComicBook/{{Azrael}}'': The Order of St Dumas had a brazen head that was supposedly St Dumas himself, preserved to share his wisdom. Which was mostly spewing misogyny at Sister Lilhy and telling Az how useless he was. A marginally more useful version appears in the ''ComicBook/LegendsOfTheDeadEarth'' annual, where it's just called the Oracle.
27* ''ComicBook/KingdomCome'': Deadman has a talking skull head.
28* ''ComicBook/Marvel1602'': Clea brings the heroes ComicBook/DoctorStrange's severed head in a brandy barrel. However, being dead means that Strange can now tell our heroes stuff that he couldn't while alive.
29* ''ComicBook/MarvelZombies'': ComicBook/{{Deadpool}} has been reduced to a [[{{Pun}} Headpool]], who is now the regular Deadpool's sidekick.
30* ''ComicBook/TheSandman1989'' has Orpheus (from the Greek myths), Morpheus' son, an oracle and disembodied head. In one arc his father comes to consult him as [[spoiler:Destruction's anti-tracking wards could only be penetrated by a member of the family. In exchange, he is finally allowed to die]].
31* ''ComicBook/{{Valhalla}}'': The decapitated but still-living head of Mimir is a recurring side character; he's a bit of a grouch and Odin's eternal [[SmartPeoplePlayChess chess partner]]. In most of the stories he tends to win the chess games (or is about to), although Odin frequently cheats.
32[[/folder]]
33
34[[folder:Comic Strips]]
35* ''ComicStrip/CalvinAndHobbes'': In one strip, Calvin pretends to have one of these in a paper bag for Show and Tell. He uses it as a vehicle for teasing Susie Derkins.
36-->''''Head':''' Soooosie is a Booooger Braaiin!\
37'''Calvin:''' It speaks the truth!
38[[/folder]]
39
40[[folder:Fan Works]]
41* ''Fanfic/TopOfTheLineEditorBug'':
42** At the end of the SIR Unit tournament, [[spoiler: [=MiMi=] is reduced to just a head after GIR destroys the rest of her with his [[SuperMode Ultimate Duty Mode]]]].
43** GIR is blown apart by [=MiMi's=] {{BFG}} in ''The Rematch'', leaving only his head remaining intact and functional afterwards. He stays like that for the rest of the story.
44[[/folder]]
45
46[[folder:Film -- Animated]]
47* ''WesternAnimation/QuestForAHeart'': The Sage of the Sauna appears as a disembodied head made of smoke.
48[[/folder]]
49
50[[folder:Film -- Live Action]]
51* ''Film/HarryPotterAndThePrisonerOfAzkaban'' features a ShrunkenHead who is apparently the navigator of the Knight Bus, giving directions to the driver and making smart remarks. He [[CanonForeigner isn't mentioned in the books]], but J.K. Rowling [[CreatorPreferredAdaptation has said she wished she'd thought of it]].
52* ''Film/HEDoubleHockeySticks'': Marie Antoinette is a disembodied head who acts as Mrs. Beelzebub's secretary. Despite the handicap of having no hands or arms.
53* ''Film/RolliAmazingTales'': The Great Trash, the deity worshipped by the evil Trashers, is a giant plumpish head that resides in the Trashers' underground lair. He doesn't speak much beyond his hammy VillainSong, but he converts people into Trashers by vomiting on them.
54* In ''Film/TheThirstyDead'', the immortality cult worships the preserved head of Raoul, the man who first granted them immortality, and the head occasionally speaks and provides them advice.
55* ''Film/TheWizardOfOz'': Oz the Great and Powerful first appeared as a great and looming head before turning out to be TheManBehindTheCurtain.
56[[/folder]]
57
58[[folder:Literature]]
59* ''Literature/ChooseYourOwnAdventure'': In ''Return to Brookmere'', the protagonist has a necklace with a talking amulet in the form of a dragon's head.
60* ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'':
61** ''Literature/SoulMusic'': A talking skull appears in a minor scene taking place in a wizard's workshop.
62** ''Literature/MakingMoney'' introduces Unseen University's Department of [[InsistentTerminology Post-Mortem Communications]], which includes a talking skull named Charlie (who brags that he's "[[{{Pun}} the backbone]] of the department").
63** ''Literature/TheScienceOfDiscworld'': In ''The Globe'', it's mentioned in passing that the Dean keeps a skull in his office that sings comical songs.
64* ''Literature/DonQuixote'': Subverted. Don Antonio Moreno tricks Quixote into thinking he has one of these, when really it's just his nephew speaking through a tube that leads into the head.
65* ''Literature/TheDresdenFiles'': Bob is a spirit of air and intellect bound into a skull. He is bound to serve the owner of his vessel, and currently serves Harry as a functionally limitless repository of historical and arcane knowledge.
66* ''Literature/{{Heads}}'': Disembodied heads are kept alive against their will for use as living computers.
67%%* ''Literature/TheIronDragonsDaughter'': The Brazen Head is mentioned.
68* ''Literature/JourneyToChaos'': Eric finds a talking skull while raiding the lair of an ancient mage. [[spoiler: It is the animated remains of his fellow Dengel Disciple, an otherworlder nicknamed "Asuna" who remembers all of Dengel's research.]]
69* ''Literature/TheLastUnicorn'': A skull tells the main characters how to find the Red Bull's lair. This was changed to an entire skeleton for the movie, probably to make for more interesting animation.
70* ''Literature/TheMagicGoesAway'': The necromancer Wavyhill has cast immortality spells on himself. However, [[BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor that backfires]] when [[BlessedWithSuck his body is hacked up and all that is left is his skull]], which, due to his magic, he is trapped in and can talk.
71* ''Literature/MagicInc'': An African sorcerer consults the ShrunkenHead of his grandfather.
72* ''Literature/TheMasterOfAllDesires'': The titular character is one of these -- it's a severed head in an ornate box that has the ability to see the future (making later historical references that mystify the other characters, it being set in the 16th century).
73%%* ''Literature/TheMidnightFolk'' and ''Literature/TheBoxOfDelights'': The villains make use of a Brazen Head.
74* ''Literature/MythAdventures'': In ''Myth Fortunes'', the living crystal ball of the Golden Hoard manifests as a female head of whatever species she's currently addressing, much like the Haunted Mansion example under 'Theme Parks'.
75* ''Literature/{{Neuromancer}}'': Inverted. An ornate head is found inside the Tessier-Ashpool complex, to which the password needs to be spoken to allow Neuromancer and Wintermute to merge into the first true AI.
76* ''Literature/{{Piranesi}}'': In the gradually revealed backstory, a wannabe-magician turns out to have consulted the head of [[spoiler:an ancient druid in a museum]] to acquire crucial knowledge.
77%%* ''Literature/ProfessorDowellsHead'' is entirely about this.
78%%* ''Literature/{{Ravirn}}'': Mimir dwells in the Well of Knowledge. Also, he's effectively the control for [=MimirSoft=], the local pantheon's version of the internet.%%And how is he an example of this trope?
79* ''Literature/TheShatteredWorld'': Pandrogas has a talking brazen head mounted over his laboratory's door as a security device.
80* ''[[Literature/MagicShop The Skull of Truth]]'': The protagonist finds an oracular skull named Yorick in TheLittleShopThatWasntThereYesterday.
81* ''Literature/ASongOfIceAndFire'': Ser Clarence Crabb, a folkloric hero of Cracklaw Point, is said to have been in the habit of decapitating dead foes and taking their heads with him, which his wife could then reanimate. He filled his castle, the Whispers, with the living heads of pirates, lords, wizards, knights and at least one king, which gave him counsel and constantly whispered to one another.
82* ''Literature/SoulsmithTrilogy'': Ronny Dillon creates a Brazen Head through a combination of mechanics and magic.
83* ''Literature/ThatHideousStrength'': The NICE have the severed head of an executed criminal attached to a machine that keeps it alive and lets it speak. But it turns out it's not the original owner who's using it...
84* ''Literature/{{Wyrms}}'': This can be the fate of anyone who dies while part of the royal court to preserve their ability to give advice. Their heads are removed upon death and placed in a preservative solution, along with small insectoids that latch on to the head's severed nerve endings, along with an air bladder to facilitate speech. The insectoids are able to stimulate the brain, inducing anything from pain to pleasure to an intense need to go to the bathroom, providing incentive to speak the truth to those who ask questions of the head. This happens to the protagonist's father and is how she forces him to finally disclose the secrets he's kept from her all his life. Tellingly, it's said that a former Emperor used to subject his ex-concubines to this and put them in his bedroom.
85[[/folder]]
86
87[[folder:Live-Action TV]]
88* ''Series/TheDresdenFiles'': Bob is a human ghost who "lives" in a skull and comes out when Harry needs his to plumb his considerable arcane knowledge... or whenever he feels like it.
89* ''Franchise/PowerRangers'':
90** Zordon, the franchise's original mentor figure. He's actually a humanoid being communicating from a pocket dimension Rita stuck him in, but we only ever see him outside his prison in the NonSerialMovie. When he's released from the prison at the beginning of ''Turbo'', he apparently ''becomes'' the floating head for real. Unfortunately, this makes it easier for the bad guys to imprison him during ''Space''.
91** Zordon's pupil from ''Megaforce'', Gosei, is this also but has taken the form of a Tiki head.
92*** Gosei's counterpart in ''Series/TensouSentaiGoseiger'', Master Head, also resembles a Tiki.
93* ''Series/DoctorWho'':
94** The Face of Boe, a billions-year old giant-head-in-a-jar. No one knows how he's lived so long - unless [[spoiler: he really is Captain Jack Harkness]] - but he's had a very long time to gather knowledge and wisdom.
95** Additionally, the head of Dorium technically fits this, although he doesn't exactly have much of the characterization (i.e., he has his head wired to surf the internet, and complains of boredom the instant you remove him from a wifi hot-spot).
96** In "The Time of the Doctor," the Doctor has obtained the head of a Cyberman which he uses as a databank.
97* The ''Series/NightGallery'' episode "Logoda's Heads" featured as its antagonist the witch doctor Logoda who had the power to make a bunch of {{Shrunken Head}}s tell him their secrets. British authorities accuse him of murdering an explorer but are unable to find enough evidence against him. A local young woman who knows that he is guilty takes matters into her own hands [[spoiler:by revealing that she is an even more powerful witch doctor who can make the shrunken heads ''kill'', after Logoda's body was torn apart off-screen. The episode ends with the camera zooming in on the heads and the traces of blood and flesh on their teeth...]]
98[[/folder]]
99
100[[folder:Myths & Religion]]
101* Myth/CelticMythology: The Celtic god-hero Bran the Blessed, whose severed head continued to speak after his death and, according to one legend, is still buried under the Tower of London.
102* Myth/GreekMythology: Orpheus lost his head to a ravening pack of Maenads, and continued to sing for a while afterwards.
103* Myth/NorseMythology: Mimir was originally the guardian of the Well of Knowledge, and supposedly all-knowing - after he got himself decapitated, Odin had his head preserved with special herbs and rune-magic, to serve as his adviser. Unfortunately, he's a bit of a prick and makes Odin pull one of his own eyes out.
104[[/folder]]
105
106[[folder:Pinball]]
107* ''Pinball/NoFearDangerousSports'': Skull the Bone Head, though he's strictly for the snark.
108[[/folder]]
109
110[[folder:Tabletop Games]]
111* ''TabletopGame/CallOfCthulhu'' supplement ''The Asylum and Other Tales'', adventure "The Auction". A magical Brass Head could animate and answer questions if it were covered with burning blood. It was a trap: it contained a Servitor of the Outer Gods which would try to trick the user into releasing it.
112* ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'':
113** The ''TabletopGame/{{Planescape}}'' campaign setting features Mimir: 'Living' encyclopaedias that take the form of floating, animate skulls and recite any knowledge they contain on demand. Mimirs are magical constructs and typically not sentient in and by themselves (this varies depending on the creator and the Mimir's intended use, however, and sentient Mimir do exist).
114** The bugbear deity Hruggek sends omens to his followers via this trope, and is known to keep a large collection of severed heads that plead endlessly for mercy. Rumor has it that each head can also mentally influence members of its original race via ''suggestion'', or utter ''power word'' spells, if Hruggek commands it.
115** A demilich is a lich that has grown so powerful and ancient, and spent so much time mentally exploring other worlds rather than within its body, that its remains have dwindled and decayed to nothing but a skull. Which ''eats souls''.
116** One type of druj, a powerful class of undead creatures from [=CD&D=], takes the form of a skull.
117* ''TabletopGame/{{GURPS}}: Fantasy'' features the mythological Orpheus, who still has access to powerful magic.
118* ''TabletopGame/HunterTheVigil'' gives us the Aegis Kai Doru and their most prized possession, the living head of John the Baptist. It's implied in some places that the Aegis Kai Doru went through a period of decapitating ''any'' prophet they heard of in hopes of adding more living heads to their collection; this actually ''worked'' a couple of times, but the failure rate was enough to make them stop.
119* ''TabletopGame/{{Ironclaw}}'':
120** The announcement for the Second Edition [[http://www.sanguinegames.com/2010/03/29/time-is-coming-ironclaw/ directly mentions "the brazen head" towards the end]], referring to the designer/publisher.
121** In-universe, Phelan legend has Finias (presumably a lupine fusion of Orpheus and Bran the Blessed), a bard who was decapitated by a gang of his paramours' jealous husbands and whose severed head continued to sing. The people took this as an omen and built a city on the location, burying his head under the royal hall. Sometime later a queen of the tribe they founded famously sought counsel from the head.
122%%* ''TabletopGame/{{Rifts}}'': An artifact of this type is called [[AlasPoorYorick Poor Yorick]].
123[[/folder]]
124
125[[folder:Theatre]]
126* The witches use an apparition of an armed head to tell the future to Theatre/{{Macbeth}}.
127* Robert Greene's play ''Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay'' dramatizes the legend of the Brazen Head.
128[[/folder]]
129
130[[folder:Theme Parks]]
131* Madame Leota, of ''Ride/TheHauntedMansion'' at [[Ride/DisneyThemeParks the Disney parks]], is a particularly ironic case, as she's a ghostly spirit medium who appears as a head inside her own crystal ball, rather than a human gazing into it to see.
132[[/folder]]
133
134[[folder:Video Games]]
135* ''VideoGame/{{Avernum}}'' had the Xian Skull, a skull that would randomly talk while carried around in the party's inventory.
136* Baphomet from ''[[VideoGame/DrownedGod Drowned God: Conspiracy of the Ages]]'' is a rare modern work that depicts him as the older idea of being a head rather than the more popular 19th-century hermaphrodite satyr created by Eliphas Levi. In this game's backstory, Baphomet was able to have the testimony of Osiris's murder that groups like The Knights Templar and The Priory of Sion passed down through the generations.
137* In ''VideoGame/TheElderScrollsIIIMorrowind'' expansion, Bloodmoon, [[spoiler:a guy sends you to find his friend, who's an oracle. The friend, it turns out, is a skull.]]
138* The Brazen Head of the Vault Dweller appears in a humorous EasterEgg in ''VideoGame/{{Fallout 2}}''. It's a huge stone head like the ones at the village. You have to "argue" with him (read say "are to" to his "are not") for twelve hours for him to concede that you are the ChosenOne. He gives you a [[http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Monument_chunk chunk of rock]] as a parting gift and tells you to get lost. If your Steal skill is less than 95% and you try to snag a few more he dishes out 14,000 hit points of damage and instantly vaporizes you.
139-->"Damn tourists..."
140* In ''VideoGame/GodOfWarPS4'' Mimir is decapitated by Kratos, at his own request, as he's [[AndIMustScream trapped in a tree]] when first encountered, and then revived and carried around to provide [[MrExposition advice and commentary]].
141* Gerry of ''Videogame/GraveyardKeeper'' is this as a talking skull, though he's a particularly ineffective one as he barely has any useful information due to having amnesia, sends you off on trips to get alcohol for him, and drives you to do terrible things like cutting off flesh from the corpses you autopsy and selling it for money.
142* ''VideoGame/KingdomOfLoathing'' has a number of examples:
143** The Detective Skull is an off-hand item that [[EnemyScan gives a vague estimate of the remaining HP of a monster]]. There's also a joke item called the Defective Skull, which gives useless "information" like "I deduce that this monster is one jive turkey" or "I deduce that this monster has approximately eleventy-seven hojillion hit points."
144** A side quest in Little Canadia has a ShrunkenHead that guides you through a maze in a direct ShoutOut to ''Secret of Monkey Island''.
145** A revamp of the Naughty Sorceress quest in January 2015 included a floating skull named Frank who gave adventurers advice on how to get through the many tricks and traps of the Sorceress's tower; the Tower had previously been a serious case of GuideDangIt for new players.
146* ''VideoGame/MonkeyIsland'':
147** ''VideoGame/TheSecretOfMonkeyIsland'' has a severed navigator's head that leads you through the BloodyBowelsOfHell.
148** The third and fourth instalments include Murray, a talking skull left behind after Guybrush destroys the rest of his skeletal body. He's necessary to the plot in the third game, but just a cameo in the fourth.
149* ''VideoGame/{{Myth}}: The Fallen Lords'' had a talking, severed head show up in the cutscenes, serving as an adviser to the sorcerer-generals in charge of the war against [[BigBad Balor]]. Turns out that [[spoiler:the head is more interested in sowing chaos and discord among the good guys then actually helping them win.]] Given the amount of stuff that was based on Celtic lore, he's probably based on the aforementioned Bran. The prequel established that [[spoiler: the head is actually from a previous incarnation of the BigBad]].
150* Subverted in ''VideoGame/{{Nox}}''. Talking to a recently-deceased mook's skull results in the skull responding, "I'm dead, I can't hear you."
151* Morte the sentient Mimir from ''VideoGame/PlanescapeTorment'' (see Tabletop Games), who looks even more skull-like than other Mimir. [[spoiler:Mainly, this is because Morte ultimately turns out ''not'' to be a Mimir, but a piece of the Pillar of Skulls from the first layer of Hell]]. Morte doesn't just talk, he snarks and jibes and is pretty much 'alive' in every sense of the world but the purely physical one.
152* Bonehead, one of the most memorable characters in the ''VideoGame/QuestForGlory'' series (and that's saying something), was - as his name suggests - a skull of this nature, one of many skulls surrounding the hut of Baba Yaga. One of the few things he ''doesn't'' complain about is not having EyeBeams like his boneheaded kinsmen, apparently considering sentience a valid trade-off.
153* Postie Pete in ''VideoGame/RuneScape'', a talking skull that delivers letters to [=NPCs=]. Also one of the Holiday items was a severed Zombie head that you could hold and talk to.
154* ''VideoGame/{{Stellaris}}'' has the mummified Head of Zarqlan, an alien prophet whose tomb you can excavate with the ''Ancient Relics'' expansion. The head never talks to ''you'', but any [[ScaryDogmaticAliens Holy]] [[VestigialEmpire Guardians]] in your galaxy will see your possession of it as proof that you are Zarqlan's chosen and grant you permission to settle their [[HolyGround Holy Worlds]], and will even periodically gift you fleets of their advanced warships.
155* Urien's ending in ''VideoGame/StreetFighterIII: 3rd Strike'' has this with Urien looking down at the head of Gill, the series' BigBad and his older brother.
156* ''VideoGame/TooHuman'', being a {{Cyberpunk}} adaptation of Norse Mythology has Mimir as the Aesir corporation's data decryption and information specialist, he's not much for field work though seeing how last time only his head came back.
157* ''VideoGame/WolfensteinIITheNewColossus'' contains one prime example where [[spoiler:William Blazkowicz's]] head is kept preserved in a jar developed by Set. It remains there a short time until it can [[spoiler: be reattached to the headless body of a captured Nazi]].
158[[/folder]]
159
160[[folder:Webcomics]]
161* In the "Rise of the Funsnake" story arc of ''Webcomic/{{Oglaf}}'' Morag The Immortal gets her head bitten off by the Funsnake. She can still talk, but only if somebody [[{{Squick}} blows air up her neck]].
162[[/folder]]
163
164[[folder:Western Animation]]
165* The Party God from ''WesternAnimation/AdventureTime''.
166* In ''WesternAnimation/{{Disenchantment}}'', there is a character in the freak show who appears to be one [[spoiler:except that she has a body, just hidden in the cabinet her "severed" head rests on]].
167* ''{{WesternAnimation/Futurama}}'' is known for having contemporary celebrities appear in the show as heads preserved in jars and fully animated.
168* Tarakudo, the BigBad of ''WesternAnimation/JackieChanAdventures'' season 4 [[spoiler: until he gets a body in the season finale.]]
169* ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'': in Bart Gets Famous, Kitty Carlisleā€˜s head appears in a floating ball
170* ''WesternAnimation/TransformersAnimated'': Megatron spends all of Season 1 as one due to damage sustained in the pilot movie. He gets his body back in the season finale.
171* This is how Moses is portrayed in ''WesternAnimation/SouthPark'', parodying the design of the MCP from ''Film/{{Tron}}''. A RunningGag is Moses stammering at a question he doesn't know the answer to.
172[[/folder]]
173

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