History Main / CharacterFilibuster

->''"For twelve years, you have been asking: Who is John Galt? This is John Galt speaking. I am the man who loves his life. I am the man who -- ''['''[[http://www.galtse.cx 32,000 words]]''' of pure speech later]'' -- will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine."''

* "Creator/Drop-out"'s Brennan Lee Mulligan is a master of this, both utilising it to great effect as both a tabletop GM and a player on Dimension 20 to allow off-the-cuff characters to give impassioned speeches about almost any topic, and also invoked frequently by both Game Changer and Make Some Noise by their host Sam Reich, where prompts he gives for Brennan are often just an excuse to get him to immediately pull out one of the extended rants.

* Dropout.tv's Brennan Lee Mulligan is a master of this, both utilising it to great effect as both a tabletop GM and a player on [[Dimension 20]] to allow off-the-cuff characters to give impassioned speeches about almost any topic, and also invoked frequently by both [[Game Changer]] and [[Make Some Noise]] by their host Sam Reich, where prompts he gives for Brennan are often just an excuse to get him to immediately pull out one of the extended rants.

* Perhaps the ultimate example of this comes from ''Literature/AtlasShrugged'', as the page quote indicates. Though including a full quote would be impossible, because Galt's speech goes on for sixty-three pages. In-universe he talks for three hours straight; most Youtube renditions of the speech are closer to three-and-a-half.

->''"For twelve years, you have been asking: Who is John Galt? This is John Galt speaking. I am the man who loves his life. I am the man who -- ''['''[[http://www.galtse.cx 32000 words]]''' of pure speech later]'' -- will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine."''

* In ''VideoGame/TheElderScrollsVSkyrim'', a ''fervent'' priest of Talos will stand before the statue of his god outside Dragonsreach and Jorvaskrr and shout a constant, unending sermon extolling the virtues of Talos and maligning the [[ScrewYouElves Thalmor]] who tried to ban his worship. Since you're likely going to be constantly running back and forth between Dragonsreach, Jorvaskrr, and your house in the city, you'll be hearing him a ''lot''. He's also not particularly important, so a lot of players just kill him.

* ''Anime/ExcelSaga'':
** {{Averted|Trope}} in episode 12; Il Palazzo is about to rant about Christmas (and, by extension, Christianity), but Excel suggests he spare the audience his views and just move on. Il Palazzo agrees.
** Itsuki's long speeches usually add some context to a particular arc or story subplot. However: if you get a badly translated copy (Japan to english) of the light novels, you are, to put it delicately, completely screwed. Lampshaded when Kyon slips into the theater to watch Itsuki's performance during the culture fair. Itsuki's droning monologue, punctuated with the [[CharacterTic usual hand gestures]], keeps Kyon's puzzled attention for a few minutes before he nods off.

* Arguably, Vegeta from ''Anime/DragonBallZ''. While he isn't the voice box of Akira's personal beliefs, he is known to wax on and on about his Saiyan heritage and his grudge against Goku. The obvious example would be during his second fight with Goku as Majin Vegeta. ''Twice'' in that same fight he goes on a long-winded speech about why Goku has humiliated him, shamed him, etc. He even gets one more speech in during the final battle with Kid Buu as he explains to himself (and the audience) why he now can finally admit that Goku is better than he.

** William de Worde goes on one or two of these in ''Literature/TheTruth'', usually about how important serious 'news' (as opposed to 'olds', stuff that people expect and know) actually is. At one point, Sacharissa [[WhatTheHellHero calls him out]] for sneering at 'olds', and people caring about little things (such as proper classification of budgies vs parrots) rather than big things, like politics, in part because while he's self-consciously estranged from his BlueBlood family, his relative poverty etc is by choice and he's from a family that's used to running things. His retort is that ''someone'' has to care, because while most people don't care about Vetinari/don't think he does much, the important thing is that what he does is "not a lot of harm", and the city has had ''far'' worse rulers than him in living memory (later shown in ''Literature/NightWatch'' with Lords Winder and Snapcase). If no one cares and no one does anything, then they'll get another just like that. Interestingly, both are shown to have a point - William is right that the truth is important (because there is a conspiracy by some unpleasant figures to replace Vetinari with someone pliable), but as he eventually concedes, Sacharissa's right in that he's an arrogant aristocrat at heart (at the end of the book, he learns how to use it for good).

* Ishmael's [[ScienceMarchesOn pseudo-]][[ArtisticLicenseBiology encyclopedic]] knowledge of whales and philosophical rants make up half of ''Literature/MobyDick.''

* In ''Webcomic/TheInexplicableAdventuresOfBob,'' Zippobic the [[OurDragonsAreDifferent Dragon]] finally [[LampshadeHanging calls]] Voluptua out for her tendency to do this [[https://bobadventures.thecomicseries.com/comics/455 here.]] He's a BeleagueredBureaucrat who works for her, as well as a giant fire-breathing dragon, and he is [[YouWouldntLikeMeWhenImAngry ''dangerously'']] sick of listening to her pontificate.

->''"For twelve years, you have been asking: Who is John Galt? This is John Galt speaking. I am the man who loves his life. I am the man who — ''['''[[http://www.galtse.cx 32000 words]]''' of pure speech later]'' — will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine."''

* In ''Literature/HarryPotter'', Voldemort at his return in ''[[Literature/HarryPotterAndTheGobletOfFire Goblet of Fire]]'' and Dumbledore on several occasions. Umbridge uses this whenever she can get away with it in ''Literature/OrderOfThePhoenix'' as a sign of her power over the school.

* [[http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0282.html This]] ''[[Webcomic/TheOrderOfTheStick Order of the Stick]]'' strip features a pair of these going head to head. [[JustifiedTrope Justified]] in that both speakers are trained lawyers, and [[LampshadeHanging lampshaded]] [[BetterThanABareBulb in standard OOTS fashion]].

* Happens at least OnceAnEpisode in ''Manga/SayonaraZetsubouSensei'', with Itoshiki's ramblings about the episode's theme. Usually punctuated at some point with his CatchPhrase about how whatever he was rambling about "has left [him] in despair".

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* There's a reason that the episodes of ''LightNovel/{{Katanagatari}}'' are twice as long as usual -- it's so they have time to cram in all the lengthy speeches basically every single character makes, either about how they feel, what they're going to do next, or even just exposition.

This trope is often considered to be a [[WritingPitfallIndex writing pitfall]], but [[Administrivia/TropesAreTools not always]]. After all, the opinion any specific reader has of any Character Filibuster is usually ([[DontShootTheMessage "usually" being the key word here]]) a product of [[ConfirmationBias whether or not the reader agrees with the point being made]], or if the point being made is petty enough to be funny.

* Kevin Costner gives a rather epic off-the-cuff [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sBfdl6hNZ9k speech]] in ''Film/BullDurham'' when asked, "well, what do you believe then?", though unlike most such examples it's very ribald. It's also HilariousInHindsight, because one of the things he says in the speech is "I believe Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone."