Stories where the multi-headed creature defeats itself

August 14, 2019 3:36 PM

I am looking for examples of stories in which a multi-headed creature's very multi-headedness is its downfall. The hero tricks the heads into bickering, or ties their necks in knots, or dodges when they attack so that they instead injure each other. Just generally turning this supposed strength into the means of defeat. I am more interested in situations where this is part of a fight or conflict, but examples where the creature essentially bumbles itself to death—the heads can't agree on what to eat, etc.—are also okay.

I feel strongly that this is a trope that occurs at least once in myth, folklore, or literature, but right now all I can think of is the three-headed knight in Monty Python and the Holy Grail arguing about whether to have tea and biscuits. Not quite the vibe I'm going for.

posted by babelfish to Media & Arts (9 answers total)

(Spoiler for Constantine comics)

In Constantine issue #6, the demon Nergal melds a neo-nazi gang into a four-headed eight-armed monster named Ironfist The Avenger, who Constantine defeats by noticing their football club tattoos from rival clubs and pointing it out, upon which the monster beats itself to death.
posted by j.edwards at 3:43 PM on August 14, 2019 [3 favorites]

There's a fair number of examples in TV Tropes: Multiple Head Case.
posted by zamboni at 3:46 PM on August 14, 2019

There's the order of the stick where the hydra spawns so many heads it passes out. Not sure if that's defeating itself enough for you?
posted by Carillon at 4:07 PM on August 14, 2019

The Three-Headed Knight from Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

They bumble themselves to disappointment, not death though.
posted by under_petticoat_rule at 6:47 PM on August 14, 2019

It’s not myth, folklore, or literature, but the Stuart Gordon movie From Beyond (based on an HP Lovecraft story) features a creature that eats a mad scientist’s brain. The mad scientist’s consciousness takes over the creature and seeks other brains to devour. It devours his assistant’s brain, but before it has the chance to eat the brain of a doctor the assistant has taken a fancy to, the assistant’s consciousness manifests as a new head sprouting from the creature’s body. The two heads fight and tear the flesh from each other’s skulls, giving the doctor time to blow them both up with a bomb. Man, I miss the Eighties.
posted by ejs at 8:29 PM on August 14, 2019

Not sure if it quite fits, but in Gene Wolfe's Book of the New Sun, Severian meets a two-headed man where one head (Typhon) has been grafted on and controls the voice and body of the original "host" (Piaton). Piaton silently mouths the words "kill me" to Severian and by doing so Severian defeats Typhon.
posted by crocomancer at 3:48 AM on August 15, 2019

In The Thing with Two Heads, the head of a racist mad scientist (Ray Milland) is grafted onto the body of a black Death Row guy (Roosevelt Grier). Bad special effects, bad movie overall. So don't watch it.

Trialer!
posted by JimN2TAW at 9:03 AM on August 15, 2019 [1 favorite]

Isn't there a two-headed encounter in Heinlein's Glory Road?
posted by Billiken at 10:12 AM on August 15, 2019

Welcome to Night Vale has a storyline in which a five-headed dragon with independent personalities for each head plots to overthrow the Mayor. One head defects from the other four and at one point turns witness for the prosecution.
posted by fifthpocket at 11:33 AM on August 15, 2019 [2 favorites]