Headhunter

Headhunter is a boss monster from the game Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow, residing in the Inner Quarters area.

Overview
One of the most bizarre bosses that Soma encounters in Aria of Sorrow is the Headhunter. This monstrosity first appears as an elegant and noble woman who wants nothing more than to welcome Soma into her parlor so she can chop off his head.

However, after her first head is lopped off, it is replaced by the head of an old magician with a white beard, allowing the Headhunter to fly about the room and cast fire and lightning spells. Once Soma lops that head off, the Headhunter comes back with one more surprise in the form of a lizard head.

With the lizard head on, the rest of the Headhunter's body changes to match. Now, Headhunter scutters about the parlor walls and ceiling, lashing out a lethal tongue towards Soma, and sometimes spraying poison breath out of her mouth. Once this third, and final, head has been chopped off, the Headhunter dies in a burst of flame as the entire head collection in the background spontaneously combusts.

Origins
Headhunter is based off of Princess Langwidere from L. Frank Baum's book , the third book in the Oz series. She is the Princess of Ev, a kingdom near the Kingdom of Oz, and is extremely vain. Instead of changing clothes, she prefers to change her head with one of the 30 heads that she keeps in her large boudoir. When Dorothy and friends arrive, Princess Langwidere decides that she wants Dorothy's head for her personal collection, and imprisons her and her friends until she agrees to her demands. Later, when it is explained that Dorothy is trying to save the Kingdom of Oz, Princess Langwidere agrees to set her and her friends free (for succeeding in reinstating the ruling establishment of Oz will give her more time to admire herself and her heads in her mirrored hall).

However, it is more likely that the people who made Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow based the Headhunter off of Princess Mombi from the 1985 Disney movie where Princess Langwidere's character is combined with another Oz character, Mombi, to create "Princess Mombi" for the film. This wicked witch has the magical powers of Mombi and the changing heads of Princess Langwidere. Return to Oz was not a hit in the USA, but was a big success in Japan. This is most likely why the Headhunter is in the Castlevania games at all.

The Princess' (whether Langwidere or Mombi) lavish lifestyle and head collection are clearly visible when Soma Cruz enters the boss room with the Headhunter in it. With his default female head, the Headhunter will march towards Soma with a dagger (most likely to take his head for herself). The old man's head and the lizard head are not befitting of the original Princess from the Oz novels, or from the film, as she only collected "beautiful" heads, and wouldn't be caught dead with the head of an old man (let alone a lizard). However, this is most likely because the Headhunter doesn't collect heads for beauty, but rather for power.

Soul Data
With the Headhunter soul in his possession, Soma can use it to increase his stats based on how many souls he has collected so far. It gives him +1 STR, +1 CON, and +1 INT for every 16 souls he acquired. Since the number of soul in his inventory does not affect this soul, collecting a lot of one type souls will still strengthen the soul, even though the bonus will be capped at 32+ per stat.

Trivia

 * It's possible to skip the Headhunter without using any glitches, since the other entrance of Inner Quarters can be reached using double jump and Flying Armor's soul.