Most gruesome form of execution, hanging or beheading

[IluvBarnabas]

I don't know about you all but I for one would not want to be hanged.....I used to think beheading was the worse way to die, but then I stopped to think about it....one quick chop (assuming nothing goes wrong with the blade) and it's all over....however I have watched documentaries about hangings where the victim is strangling on the rope for as long as 20 minutes! That has got to be the worst, to have a long, prolonged death, suffering to the end.

[spoiler]Fortunately for Vicki, she got wisked back to the 20th-century before she could find out for herself![/spoiler]

[Lydia]

In the good old days, hanging was just the prelude to drawing and quartering, and I believe the intention was that the hanging not be fatal, so that the victim would be alive to enjoy the rest of the show.  This being the case, I'd definitely opt to be beheaded, if I had to make the choice.

[Darren Gross]

In Iraq, lately, you get both for no extra charge.

[Nancy]

In Iraq, lately, you get both for no extra charge.

Well, I won't be heading over there to hang around!

Nancy

[Gothick]

The DS producers seem to have decided decapitation was upping the ante, since Vicki's punishment in 1796 was the threat of being hung as a witch, while Quentin in 1840 faced public decapitation, something I'm quite sure has NEVER been practiced in US law enforcement but, what the hey.

I have read some descriptions of Tudor era public decapitations and it could be a grisly, prolonged death just as much as hanging was.  There was a reason why Anne Boleyn requested a swordsman from France to be her executioner--a request that Henry honored.

G.

[adamsgirl]

Actually, when aristocrats were beheaded in Tudor times, many of them paid their executioners to be sure the blade was sharp enough to do the deed with one clean cut. Prior to that, beheaders would just hack away at the person, which makes me quite ill.

I guess this is why the guillotine was considered so innovative. WHAP -- and there went the head!

As for the question about beheading Quentin publicly, I believe the rationale for that was that they were reverting to laws upheld in the 1600s. It's kind of flimsy, yes, but it kind or explains how they would even have a witchcraft trial in the first place, let alone a judgment of public beheading!

[Darren Gross]

I have read some descriptions of Tudor era public decapitations and it could be a grisly, prolonged death just as much as hanging was.  There was a reason why Anne Boleyn requested a swordsman from France to be her executioner--a request that Henry honored.

During the tour of the Tower of London, the yeoman told several gruesome historical stories, and in one of them a prisoner, whose name I forget, was beheaded, and it took at least 5 good whacks to divest the executee's head from his body...Hopefully the executioner didn't take a tea break half-way through. Union rules, you know.

[Mysterious Benefactor]

As for the question about beheading Quentin publicly, I believe the rationale for that was that they were reverting to laws upheld in the 1600s. It's kind of flimsy, yes, but it kind or explains how they would even have a witchcraft trial in the first place, let alone a judgment of public beheading!

And at least in Ep #1131 Barnabas does remark with reference to Judah Zachery that "decapitation is an unusual form of execution." 

[Darren Gross]

Well, I won't be heading over there to hang around!

Won't "be heading" over there?

Bwa-haa-haaa!

[Nancy]

I know - my sense of humor leaves a lot to be desired.

Nancy

Won't "be heading" over there?

Bwa-haa-haaa!

[TNickey2003]

One question is: How many fleeting moments of physical consciousness a decapitated person experiences before slipping away into eternity?  A friend seemed to think that decapitated people actually do have a quick moment of consciousness after being beheaded -- NO, MY FRIEND HAS NOT BEEN THERE AND DONE THAT, LOL.

A recent news article said that judicial hangings are actually intended to snap the neck and cause immediate paralysis and unconsciousness, and that some hangings do literally decapitate the victims.

Another grisly though unintentional means of execution:  an elevator door. Someone in NYC actually got decapitated in 1993 in an elevator accident.

I don't know about you all but I for one would not want to be hanged.....I used to think beheading was the worse way to die, but then I stopped to think about it....one quick chop (assuming nothing goes wrong with the blade) and it's all over....however I have watched documentaries about hangings where the victim is strangling on the rope for as long as 20 minutes! That has got to be the worst, to have a long, prolonged death, suffering to the end.

[spoiler]Fortunately for Vicki, she got wisked back to the 20th-century before she could find out for herself![/spoiler]

[BuzzH]

In Iraq, lately, you get both for no extra charge.

I'm glad someone said it, I was considering it.  I watched both the full execution of Saddam and his autopsy footage and it was beyond disgusting.  He basically got both!  

[Mysterious Benefactor]

I watched both the full execution of Saddam and his autopsy footage and it was beyond disgusting.

Um, then why did you watch it? Or at least continue to watch it after it became disgusting?  :-

[Mark Rainey]

Al Qaeda's executioners do not quickly and mercifully chop off the victim's head. It's a long, sawing process with a knife that may last more than a minute. It's beyond inhuman.

Before the guillotine -- in the old days of "civilized" beheading -- the person with the soon-to-be-empty shoulders would often pay the axeman to sharpen his blade and keep a steady hand. An executioner who had a lot on his mind or might have sank a couple of pints prior to doing the deed might occasionally need two or three strokes to complete the anatomical separation.

[Alondra]

  When they were first talking about Vicki being a witch reference was made to being burned at the stake, which is what they did in the 1690's when they had the witch trials in Salem. I'm glad they changed it to hanging. Though any of these forms of death are grisley, being burned at the stake would be the worst, seems it would take the longest and be the most agonizing way to die.

Alondra