This is discussion archived from a time before the current discussion method was installed.
From You Know That Thing Where:
YYZ: I already have a name and idea for this trope, I just need more examples. I'm thinking of adding Visible Silence - that moment in a video game (usually of Japanese origin) where a character's failure to speak is expressed as an ellipse or a series of periods within quotation marks: ". . ." Pretty sure they got this from the similar convention in manga.
About all the information I have: "Ninja Gaiden" made this famous; it was notably subverted on the Homestar Runner website when a character actually pronounced it as "Dot dot dot!"
Kendra Kirai: It's an Ellipsis, and it denotes a part of speech which is omitted. Linky!
I'm pretty sure, by the way, that it's usually in games of japanese origin because american games are more straightforward, and once technology allowed it, had vocals. The japanese kind of meander in conversations, while americans are generally rather..direct.
Harpie Siren: . . .
Couldn't resist, I like the name Visible Silence, but this is used a lot in The Legend Of Zelda for Link's dialouge (or atleast where his dialouge would be)
Scifantasy: I rewrote the Final Fantasy line. Primarily because there's no way Bartz did anything before Cecil (IV preceded V, after all), but mostly because really, there are too many examples.
Seth: I wrote it in the order i played the games i forgot Bartz was V *Hits head*
WVI: About the Zelda example: When? While Link is silent, I've never seen him use the dramatic ellipsis, I think.
eldonko: Not sure whether to add the real-world example of a telegraph conversation following the release of Les Misérables: Victor Hugo: ? Publisher: !
