Skip to content
Currently On Hiatus: Please Enjoy A New Reader Question Every Weekday!

2020 Reader Question 14

2020 Reader Question 14 published on 15 Comments on 2020 Reader Question 14

I’ve never come up with a decision on if multi-headed creatures count as one being or are more like conjoined twins, so I’ve never made a sapient multi-headed character. But Byzantine Eagles exist in Skin Deep! They’re not sapient, and they’re rowdy little silver eagles.

15 Comments

Given conjoined twins have the issue of one head controlling one side of the body, and the other head, the other side… well, I encountered the story of a two-headed girl, and to get things done. they had to cooperate with each other. Because they each controlled an arm and a leg. For a two-headed eagle, this could complicate the issue of flying… unless one of the two heads is just there for the ride.

Using my advanced knowledge of multi-headed creatures from cartoons and movies, usually such things work together quite well, unless one of the heads gets distracted or just isn’t paying attention. See “Kevin”, the left-most head of King Ghidorah, or the Hydra from MLP:FiM.

Being a natural unnatural creature probably means the control is like large airplane with a pilot and copilot. Either can fly but they can also fly together, or well fight against each other. Depending on the narrative needs and what not that is. But that’s just my random thoughts.

I’d imagine they’d be like a semi- hive-mind. Their subconscious would be the hive-mind so they’d instinctively be able to move about as “one” being while the conscious side would be where the individual personalities show up. I mean think about how often you have an internal conflict over a decision or concern and, unless it’s real bad, you can still continue to go about normal day-to-day activities unimpeded. These guys would probably just show a more external version of such dichotomies, especially if they don’t “share” a mind and would actually have to physically communicate with each other.
tldr; I like to ramble about hypothetical world-building but picture an ant colony or something similar.

If you go by real polycephaly then they are two individuals because they have two brains. If you had a sapient one the heads would act like two individuals sharing one body.

On the other side of this, of course, is the possibility that the brain is actually located somewhere other than inside the heads in which case the heads would act as sensory organs for a single individual.

My fursona is actually multiheaded, so I’ve had to consider this issue myself. In my case, my brains are linked together in a single neural network. Sort of like a multi-processor computer. I have one consciousness and personality, with three separate sets of sensory inputs. All three of my heads are capable of speech, so I *do* talk and argue with myself. But it’s more to mess with other people than it is anything else.

Leave a Reply to vonBoomslangCancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Primary Sidebar