If you cut off a vampires brain...

[Slayer489]

would they dust and die?

[TC]

I'm thinking so. Plus, it'd be a little disgusting to watch a half headed vampire walk around...so, I'm hoping it would dust! Lol!

[Slayer489]

Silly question I know lol.

[commandercool]

I know in Dungeons and Dragons they don't. Hell, in D and D decapitating them doesn't even kill them. They just pick their heads up and put them back on. And if you stake one in the heart, it turns to fog goes back to it's coffin where you have to stake it again in the next 24 hours to kill it. And even after all that, removing the stake from the surface you planted it in (usually the back of the coffin) allows the vampire to return yet again.

Actually, D and D might not be a great indication. Vampires in that game are a lot nastier than Bufyverse vamps. They shapeshift, control people's minds by looking at them, can only be hurt by silver, etc, etc.

[spikeluv13]

well, in buffy, if you decapitate they die. Buffy cuts off many heads and they poof, so I would imagine that cutting the brain off would dust em.

[harsh]

That is a good question. I guess it depends on the significance of the beheading. Is it the act of beheading that does it, or is it the removal of certain parts (like the brain) that makes dust. There was an episode in which Spike tried to get a doctor to remove his chip, and the doctor warned that he could turn Spike into a veggie. If that were the case, then you could disable a vampire by shooting them in the head, and I didn't get that impression. Come to think of it, would the Initiative have been performing experiments to answer such questions? Would the Watchers Council have known?

I've always wondered what would happen if you puncture a vampire's heart with a metal pipe and then drop a toothpick or even sawdust through the pipe.

I need a hobby.

[CowboyGuy]

Hmm interesting ideas.

I do think the decapitation relates to the brain.

I have no clue why it needs to be wood piecing the heart though. Other than it is a natural occurrence in nature, and maybe that's why it can kill a vamp.

[commandercool]

I think the significance of the decapitation is that is severs the vamp's neck. Other than that, I assume they just go braindead and eventually regenerate.

There's a line in Fray when the vampire Icarus gets crushed by a car, she asks if squishing a vampire will kill it, and Ukronn tells her "It does tend to sever the head." What this means, I guess, is that squishing a vampire won't actually kill it, but it usually gets decapitated in the process, which does kill it.

So no, I think even doing really lethal stuff to a vamp won't kill it unless it gets decapitated, staked, or fried. It just really f#$%s them up.

[Slayer489]

I think that they would just be brain dead. They would be undead, but wouldn't be able to do anything, like move. Maybe. Or maybe they would just die.