"I will make hat from you, little bunny."
— The Heavy to Max, alluding to the TF2 cosmetic item Max's Severed Head
, Poker Night at the Inventory
, Poker Night at the Inventory
The act of wearing your freshly killed opponent's head on your own. Obviously reserved for the Ax-Crazy types, but a few Sociopathic Hero Villain Protagonists pull it off via Success Through Insanity. Two variants: Wearing the skull as a helmet, or just the skin, as a cowl/mask.
Of course, the more acceptable version uses an animal's head as a hat. Very popular among shamans. Compare Nemean Skinning, where the slain animal's whole pelt is used as a cape or cowl. See also Skeletons in the Coat Closet.
Examples
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Anime & Manga
- In Battle Angel Alita, the motorball player "Caligula" Armburst has a habit of cutting off the hands of someone from the audience and wearing them on the horns of his helmet as a good luck charm for the game.
Comic Books
- Batman (Grant Morrison): In The Black Glove, the villain communicates with the Club of Heroes, who are stranded on the island to which millionaire John Mayhew invited them, while wearing their host's face. The villain is actually Mayhew himself, wearing the face of a man who resembled him.
- Cerebus the Aardvark: The Latter Days arc contains a themed variant. Cerebus spends several issues' worth of time in the disguise of "Spore" (a parody of Spawn), and wears the skulls of two dead Cirinists on his shoulders (a take on the skull-shaped clasps of Spawn's cape).
- In the Judge Dredd stories featuring the Dark Judges in space, the Action Survivor Roscoe starts to wear the skull of a stink bug, a large mutant cave-dwelling predator on the moon Dominion. She keeps wearing it long after escaping the planet as a keepsake.
Films — Animation
- In Mulan (1998), Mushu accidentally destroys the Great Stone Dragon which was supposed to be Mulan's guardian. He then puts on the Dragon's head and pretends to be it. If the Dragon really was a supernatural creature, then this is the sickest scene in the movie.
- Rejected features a scene where one guy rips another guy's belly out, then wears it on his head while shouting "I am the Queen of France!"
Films — Live-Action
- Garland Greene from Con Air: "One girl, I drove through three states wearing her head as a hat."
- In the film adaptation of The Lord of the Rings, a subordinate Orc commander seen alongside General Gothmog at the Battle of the Pellenor wears a decaying human head atop his own, secured on a spike. (While not named in the movie, supporting information gives his name as Guritz).
Literature
- One short story by Alan Dean Foster about his Weird West Mountain Man "Mad" Amos features the character wearing a wolf head as a hat. When another character asks him about it, he says that he's only borrowing it while the wolf is hibernating. It's never made clear whether Amos is serious or having a laugh at the man's expense, but it's the sort of series where either possibility is equally likely.
Mythology
- The Ur-Example would have to be Herakles from Classical Mythology, who is often portrayed as wearing the Nemean Lion's fur with the heads matched up. Following this, most works featuring the Roman Army have standard-bearers with lion or bear skins wrapped around their heads (Asterix, for example).
Tabletop Games
- Warhammer 40,000: One Ork Nob miniature from the Assault on Black Reach starter set is wearing a pickelhaube with a skull impaled on it.
- Warhammer: Age of Sigmar:
- The ghouls of the Flesh-eater courts frequently wear the heads of their enemies as hats, though given their insanity it's possible they think that the craniums are plumage or something similar.
- Kruleboyz have been noted to wear the freshly-skun faces of their victims in order torment their enemies, even stopping mid-battle to do it.
Video Games
- Age of Mythology: Both Heracles and Ajax (The Greater, famed for dueling Hector to a draw when Achilles failed to fight) are depicted with a lion skin draped over their heads.
- Several hats in Dofus are just a monster's head worn over your own, most notably the Gobball Headgear and its Royal counterpart, which even have the monster's tongue still attached.
- Dungeons & Dragons: Shadow Over Mystara: One of the alternate costumes for the Dwarf has him wearing what appears to be the skull of a bear or large wolf instead of his usual horned helmet.
- The Elder Scrolls:
- One of the series' recurring artifacts is the Helm of Oreyn Bearclaw, a skull taken from a "witch-serpent" named Glenhwyfaunva. In Morrowind and Oblivion, it boosts agility and endurance, while in Skyrim, it buffs stamina regeneration and raises maximum stamina.
- Morrowind also features Nordic trollbone armor, a set of heavy armor made from the bones of trolls. The "helmet" piece consists of the top half of the creature's skull, worn almost like a hat, and it has a surprisingly high armor rating, beating out some metal helmets.
- In Fallout: New Vegas, the uniform for Legion Vexillariuses includes a coyote head worn in this way. A sufficiently intimidating Courier can even tell Vulpes Inculta that "I'm going to wear your head like you wear that dog's", which causes him to immediately become hostile but also genuinely rattles him.
- One of the boss enemies in Fight the Horror wears a skull on its head.
- The minions in Overlord do this sometimes.
- Sydney Hunter and the Curse of the Mayan: Some of the Mayans wear animal skulls on their heads.
Webcomics
- In 8-Bit Theater, Black Mage wore Red Mage's burning corpse as a hat. (Red Mage eventually got better.)
- If we allow Richard's kidney hat, we allow this Chopping Block comic.
- Used as a punchline at least once in Ctrl+Alt+Del.
- Girl Genius has an ambiguous example. After they battle off-screen, Franz the dragon is shown wearing the helmet of his opponent "Pretty Boy" as a hat; it sports a pair of horns which may or may not have originally been attached to PB's head.
- Richard of Looking for Group. He also sports a dashing kidney hat. "Made with real kidney."
- Belkar of The Order of the Stick, with YokYok.
YikYik: He was a good father.
Belkar: But he made a better fashion accessory!
YikYik: I'LL KILL YOU! - Scott demonstrates his fondness for horror in these two VG Cats strips.
Web Animation
- Bulbasaur from Starter Squad is prone to wearing the body parts of previously killed Pokemon. Later, the Caterpie Leader ends up wearing Charmander's head after killing him during his war against birds.
Web Videos
- In episode 7 of There Will Be Brawl, we learn that Kirby killed Daisy and wore her head.