Sorry, I wasn't able to reply to Michael Jay's post about stage illusions, so I thought I would post a new topic instead...
Think of it like this:
The magician pushes swords through a head but behind the cover of the sides of the box. (Sinple, ok, it's impossible that's magic, but he can't now open the box and show that there are swords in the guys head as that is, a. gruesome and b. it suggests that the swords are fake, you know, the type you get in joke shops that you put on your head like a hairband. If he pulls out the swords without showing them and the head together then people will assume that something dodgy has happened. So instead, he opens the box, people fully expecting at this moment to see an impaled head, but just like any kicker ending, the head has disappeared, that is why there was no blood etc...this leaves them with a sense of wonder as they saw the head in the box, there was no way it could've vanished excpet by magic, but it did, and how the hell did he put the swords through??)
I do understand your point Michael, yet at the same time...well, there's two sides to every coin...(one of them being a head) [Sorry, couldn't resist]
