Victory Is Boring: During the final ending, he's gotten everything he wanted.

Tron Lines: Some of the skins give him glowing lights, who change colours depending on if the player is using a weapon and which one.

Suddenly Voiced: When he gets his real body back, he's also able to speak.

The Reveal: The Beheaded is actually the King's mind.

One-Man Army: The Beheaded can cut down scores of monsters by himself.

No Name Given: The Beheaded isn't referred to by his real name not even after being revealed to be the King.

Notably, he doesn't even care that he's doomed the island by killing the only person that could create the cure to the Malaise.

Lack of Empathy: Lampshaded by the Collector prior to his boss fight.

Despite this, he doesn't approve of the King's actions (executing his own soldiers and imprisoning innocents under the suspicion that they were infected) and does want to end the Malaise for good.

He's absurdly violent and seems indifferent to the suffering of others, only acting according to his own desires. Jerk with a Heart of Gold: The Beheaded isn't really a nice person.I Hate Past Me: Though he doesn't realize he's the same person at first, he detests what the King has done.It's averted when the Beheaded reclaims his body, as there's not only dialogue, but a sound effect implying that he's talking. This implies and is eventually confirmed by the Collector that he can't actually speak. When examining objects and background elements, however, his thoughts are visible to the player. He never speaks when interacting with others, emoting through gestures. 'Groundhog Day' Loop: He's being forced to live through one again and again.Wearing one of the Time Keeper's, Mama Tick's, Servants' and Queen's outfits results in a noticeably more feminine looking body for the Beheaded to possess. Gender Bender: Physically in any case.Flaming Hair / Flaming Skulls: When the clump of cells fully takes over a body, they disappear and the Beheaded has a the body's head ought to be.It's more ambiguous in-game and in more somber artwork in which he instead has more of an odd glowing yellow core that possibly functions as an eyeball. Faceless Eye: Frequently depicted as this in animated trailers and certain more light-hearted post-launch artwork with a cartoonishly expressionate eyeball at the center of the flame-like mass where his head should be.Everything's Better with Samurai: Wearing one of Mama Tick's outfits turns the Beheaded into a female samurai, complete with a huge katana.Dem Bones: Wearing one of the Giant's outfits makes him a skeleton.Unfortunately for him, not even the panacea can kill him, though at that point, he doesn't seem to mind. He wants off the island and out of the 'Groundhog Day' Loop, and if that means dying permanently, then so be it. Deadpan Snarker: A lot of his commentary is him making snide remarks about the lore, especially where the populace dying is concerned.His core is immune to damage from spikes and traps and if it falls in lava, it simply teleports back to his body with no damage. Complete Immortality: While his bodies can (and will) die, the mass of cells that make up his consciousness can't.While he is shown to get to get progressively more badass with each trailer, he inevitably dies at the end in an pathetic way, culminating in him accidentally impaling himself on a rock while attempting to kill a mushroom child. Butt-Monkey: The trailers treat him as kind of a chump.

He is capable of possessing the body of the King, who is alive albeit in a vegetative state, but that might be a special case since that's his original body. It's uncertain whether the bodies have to be dead or not, as he can't possess any of the living (or undead) enemies. This is key to unlocking the Unholy Shores, as well as the true ending. Body Surf: His core can possess other bodies besides the prisoner at the start of the game.Blob Monster: Basically, a sapient, parasitic slime mold puppeteering a dead body.He's the King, the very person he'd been trying to kill from the start. And Then John Was a Zombie: One of the most unusual examples.His species is never specified in game, but The Heart of Dead Cells book refers to him as a homunculus. All There in the Manual: A minor example.His main goal is to discover the secrets of the island and kill the King in hopes to end the continuous cycle. The Beheaded is a clump of sentient cells capable of possessing bodies.

The protagonist and playable character of the game.

Dead cells platforms