Baritone of Strength

This character is physically strong. Perhaps they're The Big Guy, a Girly Bruiser, or maybe they have Super-Strength. Even their appearance screams "strong and tough"; they have the right amount of muscles and the Bald Head of Toughness that back this up. But this may not be enough. Or the writers want to establish that a character is strong in other ways. Well, why not go the non-visual route and make their voice sound deep to match their toughness?

Regardless of gender, writers and/or producers choose to give their characters a deep voice when they want to portray them as strong and sturdy. This is extra helpful if they want to have a female character that's skinny and average-sized, while still giving her an aura of great physical strength.

If the strong character has a deep voice because they have superpowers, then it's Power Makes Your Voice Deep. If they happen to be a villain on top of being tough, then it'd be Evil Sounds Deep.

Contrast Effeminate Voice, which makes characters sound campy as opposed to powerful, and Child-Like Voice, which leans on the innocent end of the spectrum.

Note: Despite the name, this trope can apply to both male and female characters. See the alternative title "Contralto Of Strength" below as proof. In addition, just having a deep voice isn't enough to qualify for this trope. Explain if they are strong.

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Examples:

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• Frosted Flakes' muscular Tony the Tiger has always possessed a deep baritone, whether it be by Thurl Ravenscroft or Lee Marshall.

Anime & Manga

• Dragon Ball:
  • While Goku usually has a moderately high-pitched voice befitting his jovial demeanor, his voice can drop down a few octaves on occasion when the situation calls for it. This is especially true when he uses his Super Saiyan 3 form, both in English and Japanese with his respective VAs, Sean Schemmel and Masako Nozawa, lowering their pitches. It helps that he is regarded as one of the strongest fighters in the universe, if not the entire multiverse.
  • Vegeta is Goku's rival and is regarded by many as the next strongest fighter behind Goku. Unlike Goku, his normal speaking voice is always low.
  • Piccolo is one of the strongest fighters on Earth, a rival of Goku, and mentor to Goku's son Gohan, whose voice is among the deepest of the entire main cast in the English dub.
  • Similar to Goku, Gohan's voice as an adult is moderately high-pitched and youthful sounding. His voice, however, can drop down low when necessity dictates, particularly when he confronts Super Buu after the Elder Kai unlocks his full potential.
  • When he was first introduced in the English dub, Cell has a very high-pitched and raspy voice. After attaining his Semi-Perfect form, his voice drops down to a very deep and guttural tone. While his voice in his Perfect form isn't as deep, it is still a low baritone that fits the villain's dangerous nature. In the original Japanese version, conversely, his voice is low throughout all of his transformations, courtesy of Norio Wakamoto.
  • Majin Buu zigzags this trope throughout his various transformations. His Fat form has a very high-pitched voice, while Super Buu's voice drops down to a guttural baritone to match his greater strength. Then there's Kid Buu, whose voice shoots back up to a high pitch, but is the most dangerous of Buu's transformations.
• Fairy Tail: Erza Scarlet is among the strong of the titular guild’s wizards, and both Sayaka Ohara and Colleen Clinkenbeard lend her their contralto to match.
• JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Stardust Crusaders: Jotaro Kujo is a muscular and gruff teenager with a lot of strength packed into him. He has a deep, imposing voice to match his attitude.
• My Hero Academia:
  • Being one of the strongest heroes around, All Might sports a notably deep voice in both the Japanese and English dubs, especially when he bulks up. His frequent Large Ham tendencies however tend to downplay this in more humorous scenes, but when he steps up to the plate and fights seriously, especially against his archnemesis, All For One, it goes into the lower register.
  • Endeavor/Enji Todoroki is one of the top pro heroes of the series, who has a very muscular frame similar to All-Might's, with a hot-blooded attitude to match. He has an intimidating baritone voice by Tetsu Inada and Patrick Seitz.
• One Piece: Roronoa Zoro is the first mate of the Straw Hat Pirates and one of their most infamous and powerful combatants. His voice actors (notably Kazuya Nakai in the original Japanese and Christopher Sabat in English) give him a weighty and intimidating baritone to communicate that power.

Comic Books

• Bone: The Great Red Dragon is noted by Fone Bone as having a deep baritone voice. He's the most powerful force on the heroes' side over the course of the story, being a Mysterious Protector to Thorn and Fone Bone.

Films — Animated

• In Disney's Beauty and the Beast, the Beast has a deep, rumbling voice and physical strength to match. In the forest fight he kills a wolf by throwing it against a tree, then at the end he does a Neck Lift on the large and burly Gaston.
• At least two Big Bads in the Kung Fu Panda series:
  • Tai Lung from Kung Fu Panda is an Arrogant Kung-Fu Guy who speaks with the deep, smooth, English-accented voice of Ian Mcshane, and his introduction scene shows him effortlessly breaking out of a prison guarded by ten thousand rhinoceros guards on his own, along with having an impressively toned build.
  • Kai from Kung Fu Panda 3 is slightly fatter than Tai Lung, but he has prominent muscles as well, speaks with the deep voice of J. K. Simmons, and happens to be a nigh-unstoppable yak warlord who famously fought an entire army in his backstory alongside his brother-in-arms Oogway. And that's not even getting into the fact that he's a chi-manipulating sorcerer with an army of jade zombies at his beck and call, along with two jade swords on chains.
• The Lion King: Scar has an extremely deep voice, courtesy of Jeremy Irons. He can also fight off his nephew Simba on his own in order to save his skin.
• Mulan: Shan Yu, the leader of the Huns, is an imposing, Obviously Evil-looking man who speaks with the gruff, deep voice of Miguel Ferrer, and he's strong enough to Neck Lift a Chinese imperial scout with one hand, whilst drawing his BFS with the other, knock out Captain Shang himself with a headbutt, and cut through solid wooden columns in one stroke whilst hunting Mulan. To make him even scarier, he's intelligent as well as strong — he and his five elite warriors are able to identify the location of the imperial army just by inspecting a few clues left on a doll delivered by Shan Yu's Action Pet Hayabusa.
• The Super Mario Bros. Movie version of Donkey Kong has Seth Rogen's gruff voice to go with his power; he's easily able to beat up Mario during their match in the Jungle Kingdom.
• Tarzan: Kerchak, the leader of the gorillas, has a deep, guttural voice you'd expect coming from a large silverback. Throughout the movie he often engages in fights to protect his family, both with Sabor the leopard and with Clayton's goons.

Films — Live-Action

• Marvel Cinematic Universe: Thanos is one of the most powerful beings in the universe and speaks with a low, smooth voice.
• The War Lord: Bors, courtesy of being played by Richard Boone, has a deep and gravelly voice, and he's clearly the physically strongest character in the film.

Literature

• A Court of Thorns and Roses: Feyre notes that Rhysand's voice is very deep and smooth - and he's extremely capable and strong, both physically and magically.
• A Song of Ice and Fire: Robert Baratheon is a skilled warrior who is described by many as exceptionally strong. When reminiscing on a battle where the two fought side by side, Ned recalls that Robert had a booming voice.
• Isaac Asimov's Caliban: Caliban is a robot who, like many robots in the setting, is stronger and faster than humans. Unlike those other robots, he is not restrained from using those qualities to defend himself if attacked, as a gang of robot-bashers find to their cost. His voice is described as having a "deep and commanding" tone.

Live Action TV

• S.W.A.T. (2017): Hondo is a tall, muscular man who's a highly skilled police officer with a deep voice to match these attributes.

Music

• MILGRAM: Kazui Mukuhara has the lowest range of all the prisoners, rarely singing above a middle C and reaching nearly an octave lower than the other men. He is also the largest and physically strongest of the cast, easily beating the guys in an arm wrestling match. He is also just barely able to beat the resident vigilante woman and likewise able to stop her from beating up a fellow prisoner too badly.

Video Games

• Bayonetta: Though deep-voiced Rodin prefers to work as a bar owner and Bayonetta's armorer, he's a Fallen Angel and one of the most powerful characters in the entire series.
• Deltarune: Susie's Voice Grunting is the deepest for any female character in the game, even more than the previous record-holder Undyne, and she's also the physically strongest of the group.
• Fallout: New Vegas has Joshua Graham, who gets an extremely deep voice to go with his extremely justified reputation as a nigh unkillable Implacable Man. He starts with a Damage Threshold of 50 and his armor adds another 10 and 15 points, meaning he will automatically negate 75 damage from every attack that hits him, allowing him to No-Sell a lot of things. For contrast, the expected Final Boss Legate Lanius has a DR rating of 19, and even the most splendid Power Armor offers a reduction of 26. Graham is three times as tough as reinforced composite armor and has a voice deeper than almost anyone else in the setting.
• Fire Emblem:
  • Fire Emblem: Awakening:
    • Basilio has quite a deep basso voice, and he can axe enemies with ease.
    • Lon'qu's voice is very deep and he has pretty good battle stat growths. He can also weaponize his sword quite well in battle and slashes any enemy who crosses him.
  • Fire Emblem Fates: Ryoma's voice is distinctly deep, and he is the next in line to inherit the throne of Hoshido, with the battle prowess to match. In games where Ryoma appears alongside Chrom from Awakening, Matthew Mercer distinguishes the two's voices by making Ryoma's deeper than Chrom's.
  • In Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes, Holst is a huge, burly man recognized as the mightiest warrior in the Leicester Alliance and a match for Leopold von Bergliez, the strongest man in the Empire who has punched holes through mountains. His English voice actor, SungWon Cho, gives Holst a deep, baritone voice to match Holst's stature.
• God of War:
  • Kratos himself, whether voiced by T.C. Carson or Christopher Judge, is a One-Man Army who kills any monster or god that stands against him, and he speaks in a magnificent baritone (with traces of rasps once he grows older in the Norse Saga), and one of the first things we see him do in God of War (PS4) is pick up and carry an entire fallen tree over one shoulder.
  • Thor, once he finally shows up in God of War Ragnarök, solidly establishes that he's just as formidable as Mimir made him out to be by casually greeting the former Ghost of Sparta in a voice possibly even deeper than his (provided by Ryan Hurst), before walking up close to reveal that he's not only fatter and more muscular than Kratos, he's two solid feet taller than him. And that's before he engages in a drawn-out, spectacular battle with the God of War which ends with both parties battling to a stalemate, Kratos being temporarily killed and then revived, and the Spartan being put in a brutal Neck Lift with one hand by Thor.
    Thor: I see why my sons fell to you. Even to this... lesser version of you. But I am not my sons!
• Guilty Gear: After Joji Nakata took over voicing him from Daisuke Ishiwatari from Accent Core onward, Sol has a deep voice, to go along with him being one of the strongest members of the cast in terms of raw power.
• League of Legends: A lot of champions in the juggernaut class have deep voices; the class is designed around a mix of strength and durability, creating characters who are slow yet big and powerful. And so the deep voice adds an extra layer to representing that power. (Examples: Garen, Darius, Volibear, Urgot, Illaoi, Yorick, Udyr, Mordekaiser, etc.)
• Like a Dragon abounds with characters whose voices are as deep as their martial strength is great. Kazuma Kiryu is one of the best examples, and he is joined by Goro Majima (when his vocal pitch isn't shooting up with his maniacal laughter), Taiga Saejima, Futoshi Shimano, Daisaku Kuze, and many others.
• Mass Effect:
  • Urdnot Wrex is a 1000+-year-old badass who can headbutt his way through an army and has the deepest voice of any party member courtesy of Steven Barr.
  • Grunt is an adolescent genetically-engineered super soldier who, much like Wrex, has a voice that is VERY low, courtesy of Steve Blum, and is also not someone you want to try fighting with.
• Octopath Traveler:
  • Octopath Traveler:
    • Olberic has the deepest voice of the male protagonists, and he's also The Big Guy of the group; he has high physical stats and starts out in the Warrior class.
    • Among the female protagonists, H'aanit has the deepest voice, and she's an experienced hunter with high physical attacks and critical hits.
  • Octopath Traveler II:
    • Osvald has the deepest voice of the playable male characters, and multiple characters comment on how tall and muscular he is. While he's a Black Mage in terms of gameplay, Osvald is more than capable of reaching high damage numbers, and he also comes with the Mug path action.
    • Mugen is also given a deep voice, fitting for someone known as the strongest general in Ku.
    • For female characters, Veronica is Dolcinaea's bodyguard, loves working out, and fights with her fists during Agnea's third boss battle (or when using path actions such as Mug or Challenge). Fittingly, she has a deeper voice than Dolcinaea.
• Punch-Out!!: In the Wii game, Great Tiger speaks with the deepest voice of all the boxers next to Mr. Sandman. He's easily one of the tougher opponents in the game as well, if you haven't figured out how to deal with his attacks.
• Saints Row: Many characters, primarily antagonists, throughout the Saint's Row series have deep voices and are very strong muscular characters. To wit:
  • The Boss themselves, if you make their voice really deep and their muscles really big, who can fight entire armies on their own.
  • Saints Row has, among the three main villainous gangs, Big Tony Green and Benjamin King, both imposing black men who speak with the deep voices of TC Carson and Michael Clarke Duncan, respectively. Tony is The Dragon, and brave enough to beat up Johnny Gat himself and shoot him in the knee, whereas King is a Genius Bruiser who's just as good at beating insubordinate minions up as at manipulating events behind the scenes with his connections and guile. Another example is Victor Rodriguez of Los Carnales, a Macho Latino with tons of tattooes who can kill a lot of enemies and withstand a ton of punishment before you finally kill him. Victor speaks in a soft, deep voice (when he ever speaks at all).
  • Saints Row 2: Maero, leader of the Brotherhood. He speaks with the deep voice of Michael Dorn, and, like Victor, is a muscular tattooed man strong enough to carry a Gatling gun like a chainsaw and subject his own men to a Neck Lift when he's angry.
  • Saints Row: The Third: On the heroes' side (if you can call the Saints heroes) is Oleg Kirrlov, a massive Russian as strong as he is intelligent who speaks in a low, deep, gravelly voice, and Angel De La Muerte, a Masked Luchador voiced by Hulk Hogan himself, extremely strong (though perhaps not as much as he thinks he is), and prone to being extremely dramatic without once raising his voice. Finally, we have Eddie "Killbane" Pryor, a luchador like Angel himself, but even bigger and more over-the-top, who speaks in the deep, explosively guttural voice of Rick D. Wasserman, and never misses a chance to boast about his superiority.
  • Zinyak, the Big Bad of Saints Row IV is an imposing alien Galactic Conqueror who speaks in the deep, rich voice of JB Blanc, is surprisingly Wicked Cultured, and is strong enough to wipe the floor with the Boss on his own, even without relying on his Telekinesis.
• Skullgirls has Big Band, voiced by the appropriately named Rich Brown. He is one of the biggest, hardest hitting characters (with an absolutely devastating Satchmo Deathblow Blockbuster) and has the deepest voice of the cast accordingly. He is also a bastion of emotional strength, something the rest of the members of Lab 8 rely on in times of difficulty.
• Street Fighter:
  • Ryu is a wandering martial artist who is regarded by many to be among the strongest fighters in the world, and (particularly from Street Fighter IV onwards) has a distinctly deep voice, courtesy of Kyle Hebert.
  • Sagat is a seven-foot-tall wall of muscle and scars, and the original Final Boss of the series. Especially from IV onward, he has a deep and weighty voice courtesy of Isaac C. Singleton Jr..
  • M. Bison, the Final Boss of Street Fighter II and Breakout Villain of the series, is domineering and powerful in all of his appearances which is partly carried by the deep and gravelly voice he has.
  • Zangief is a boisterous and imposing Russian wrestler with a deep, gravelly voice, who wrestles full-grown bears in the snow wearing just his shorts and boots. You'd better believe his "iron body" is strong.
  • Marisa in the upcoming Street Fighter 6 is a female example, with a lower voice than most of her opponents, an eager attitude just like Zangief, and she's just as ripped and tall as he is, and she practices the art of Pankration, Ancient Greek wrestling learned from her gladiator ancestors. How strong is Marisa? She can literally lift adult lions from the ground like puppies!
• Super Mario Bros.: To contrast with Mario's falsetto, Wario has a deep voice to emphasize both his strength and his macho demeanor.
• Many characters in the Trails Series have low voices as to match their combat prowess.
  • The Legend of Heroes: Trails from Zero and Trails to Azure has Randy Orlando, the strongest of the male characters in the SSS, with a low voice to match. He can also make his voice even deeper during certain deadly attacks.
  • The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel:
    • Giliath Osborne has a low, booming voice and as Cold Steel IV shows, he's one of the strongest people in Erebonia.
    • Laura S. Arseid has an unusually deep voice for a 17-year old schoolgirl, and is one of the strongest fighters in the main party.
• General Avlora from Triangle Strategy is known for her combat prowess and is one of Aesfrost's strongest fighters. She's also one of the toughest bosses in the game any time she's fought. Fittingly, she has one of the lowest voices of the female characters.
• ULTRAKILL: The second Superboss, Sisyphus Prime has the deepest voice of the entire speaking cast thanks to Lenval Brown's voice. He can back up his register, being a Lightning Bruiser with enough strength to create a Shockwave Clap and by being by far the hardest fight in the game as of Act II release.
• Undertale: As the captain of the Royal Guard, Undyne is one of the strongest monsters in the Underground and so has the lowest Voice Grunting of all the female characters.

Web Animation

• RWBY:
  • As the largest Beacon students, Yatsuhashi has a deep, overbearing voice, and he displays some impressive feats of pure strength, chief amongst them being massive shockwave stomps.
  • Ironwood is a large, physically powerful man. When he fights an Alpha Beowolf in Volume 3, he takes it on physically, grabbing it by the arm and swinging it over his body to shoot its skull and kill it. Later fights show this is his normal fighting style. He combines his guns with physical power to fight with a mixture of strategy and brute strength. Watts lampshades his "brawn" when they fight as a "brains versus brawn" fight. In keeping with his physical power, his vocal gravitas matches his stature, being capable of making great speeches in reassuring, authoritative or intimidating tones as necessary.
• Epithet Erased: Howie Honeyglow, the resident Badass Normal, is strong enough to bend a metal wrench into a boomerang with his bare hands, and has an incredibly deep voice. According to Brendan Blaber, Justice Washington has such a deep voice that when he was in the studio for Howie's lines, he was vibrating things in another studio and staff had to come over and ask them to turn things down.

Web Videos

• Hellsing Ultimate Abridged: Dr. Abraham Hellsing has a deep, badass voice of courtesy of Christopher Sabat, who had the unimaginable strength to defeat the local Eldritch Abomination vampire king, Count Dracula/Alucard.
• Pop Cross Studios: Heath "Hurricane" Reynolds has the deepest voice of the entire Sharp Gang, and he's the physically strongest man among them, with a Heroic Build and a height of 7 feet. Heath is additionally able to manipulate the weather to augment his attacks (hence his nickname) and grew up strong from living in Australia, and he fights and kills Kaiju for a living.

Western Animation

• Final Space: All of the Titans who've spoken thus far have deep, powerful, booming voices, and they're planet-sized Physical Gods who constructed the multiverse and can shatter a world with a single punch. Since all but one of the Titans are corrupted by Invictus, most of them are specifically Evil Sounds Deep with the exception of Bolo.
• He-Man and the Masters of the Universe: Upon transformation into He-Man, Prince Adam's voice becomes noticeably deeper and gains an echoing effect. It was one of the methods the cartoon used to differentiate Adam from He-Man, as the toys famously reused parts to the point "wimpy" Prince Adam was just as muscle-bound as the mighty He-Man.
• My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic: Big Macintosh has a deep voice (he's even a bass singer for the Ponytones) and he has impressive strength. He can even pull a house and shake off a bunch of ponies dogpiling him hard enough to toss them into the horizon.
• The Octonauts: Barnacles has the deepest voice of the Octonauts, and being a polar bear, he has shown ursine strength on various occasions. An example of this is in "The Walrus Pups" when he pushes a giant wall of ice to protect three walruses.
• The Owl House: Papa Titan's voice is warm and gentle, matching their fatherly personality. It is also incredibly deep, befitting the being who is essentially the god of the Demon Realm and the Monster Progenitor of all the local demons.
• The Powerpuff Girls: Buttercup has the deepest voice of the girls (courtesy of Elizabeth Daily) and is the most gung-ho of the girls. While all three of them are skilled superheroines, Buttercup's focus on her strength is a staple of her character.
• The Transformers: In general, the stronger or larger the Transformer was, the deeper their voice tended to be. The most notable aversion to this was Generation 1 Megatron, who had a surprisingly scratchy voice, though most version following him play this completely straight.
  • Many of the Combiners and giant characters like Omega Supreme and Metroplex have deep, booming voices to reflect their size and power. While sometimes this varied according to the episode (e.g. Superion in his first appearance in "The Key To Vector Sigma" had a high and scratchy voice but a much deeper one in his next in "War Dawn"), Devastator in particular had a very consistent voice.
  • Dinobot leader Grimlock, being one of the most physically powerful Transformers, has a much deeper voice than his subordinates.
  • From Transformers: The Movie, Unicron has an impressively deep voice courtesy of Orson Welles. Fittingly, his alternate mode was an entire planet, and he was large enough to try to tear apart the Transformer homeworld of Cybertron with his bare hands.
  • Ultra Magnus has a commanding voice in his role as City Commander. In The Movie, he was voiced by Robert Stack, while in the series proper he was voiced by Jack Angel.
  • Most famous of all is Optimus Prime himself, voiced by Peter Cullen. Already known for his deep voice, Cullen injected both strength and warmth into his performance as Optimus in order to properly sell the Autobot leader's status as The Ace. Ever since his Role Reprise in 2007, Cullen has deepened Prime's voice with every production he partakes in, with almost every other actor voicing the character (except for Garry Chalk and David Kaye) emulating his performance in some way or another.
• We Bare Bears: Ice Bear has the deepest voice of the bear trio and he's shown to be the most physically adept at fighting and martial arts due to being taught survival skills at a young age.

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