Main Tropes Index

Troperville

Editing

Tools

Toys

Narrative

Genre

Media

Topical Tropes

Other Categories

Custom Search

Heroic Mime
alt title(s): Silent Protagonist
One possible explanation.
"Mario, what's with the silent treatment?! You're not telling me something."
— Toad, Super Mario RPG

A video-game-specific variant of The Voiceless or The Speechless. In many RPGs, the main hero doesn't seem to talk (Visible Silence might be used). The official explanation for this is that the main character is the player, and dialogue would either interfere with the player's train of thought or knock them out of the viewpoint of that character (compare AFGNCAAP). An Aversion of this would be to allow the player to actually talk to the characters through a microphone or the AI be able to comprehend any text entered, but this is beyond current technology.

Some characters might be like this when under the players control, but perfectly normal and talking characters as NPCs, or even just when they aren't the leader of the group.

Nevertheless, this often results in the fandom discussing whether or not a character is mute.

This trope can get very frustrating when the character has, for example, undergone an Involuntary or Emergency Transformation, and has allies who weren't there to see it. It's also hard to grow too fond of a Heroic Mime, since they don't show thoughts or feelings that can't be expressed with grunts, sighs, and body language. This is one thing when they're fighting all alone, without so much as a Ninja Butterfly or a Voice With An Internet Connection to listen to, but when there are other characters around it's a different story. Even The Stoic says something.

One fairly common variation of this is to suggest that the main character actually does speak, we just can't hear them or see their text boxes. However, the other characters in the game can, and we can sometimes infer what was said from their reactions.

Will often be paired with an Exposition Fairy who talks far, far too much.

Examples:

  • Isaac Clarke in Dead Space , speaking little except in anguished screams of pain or grunts/yells of exertion while using melee attacks. He does, however, take notes on his mission objectives in the main menu.
    • According to the dev team, the debate between this approach and having Isaac speak continued right up to the game's launch.
  • Call Of Duty 4: Modern Warfare has two player-controlled characters, USMC Staff Sergeant Jackson and SAS Private "Soap" MacTavish. Both are unable to respond verbally, although when you get a choice you can respond physically. ("Want to run through the training-house again? Just rearm yourself and slide down the rope.") You also play as Captain Lieutenant Price for two missions, and he doesn't speak while you have control of him.
    • This gets even weirder in the online mode, where OTHER (human-controlled) players on your team will shout out useful information such as "grenade", "changing mag", or "planting claymore" when they're performing these acts - but when YOU do them, you don't hear yourself say it, even though by definition other players nearby would be able to hear you saying it.
      • Lampshade hanging in Call Of Duty: World at War- While crawling through a burnt-out building in Berlin, a bunch of soldiers start complaining about the smoke, at which point Sgt. Reznov tells them to shut up, mentions how he and Dmitri (your character) "crawled through smoke and rubble in Stalingrad", then says "do you hear him complaining?"
  • Speaking of WWII FPSes, this also applies to the Medal Of Honor games. In fact, the series' first PS 2/Xbox/GC installment, Frontline, sort of pokes fun at this: During the mission Nijmegen Bridge, a fellow soldier asks you to disarm some charges placed along the bridge, and quips "Good. I take your silence as a "yes"."
  • Crono from Chrono Trigger is the big one — so big, in fact, that this is lampshaded in one of the endings (his first and only line of dialogue is met with a surprised "Crono talked!"), though a ghostly version of him in Chrono Cross did speak.
    • The main character in Chrono Cross actually has the title "Silent Protagonist" in his status window. When the he switches bodies with the false antagonist Lynx, Lynx begins talking through Serge, with Serge's mugshot accompanying. A few party members will point out that Serge had, up to that point, never said a word, but still remain entirely fooled. Of course, Serge never says a word as Lynx.
  • Nick Mason from Urban Chaos: Riot Response is not only mute, but aside from a few photographs that may or may not be him, you don't even get to see his face in game. Sorta makes you wonder why they bothered giving him a name instead of just making him a straight player avatar.
  • In the GBA Golden Sun games, Issac and Felix are Heroic Mimes when you play as them, but have a number of speaking roles when you're playing the other. Both have speaking roles in the ending, where you're not playing as either, Felix also says "why" once when you are in control of him.
  • Rudy Roughknight, from Wild ARMs for the Playstation. This becomes even more apparent in the remake Wild Arms: Alter Code F for PS2, where Rudy never speaks, but his two companions never shut up, even when they're all by themselves and are the sole party member controlled by the player. He has one whole line in the original if you skip Cecilia's intro and keep playing as Jack, allowing you to talk to him.
  • Various Nintendo characters, but especially Mario and company usually function as heroic mimes during play. The humorous extremes occurs in Super Mario RPG for the SNES and Mario And Luigi Superstar Saga for the GBA. They pantomime everything.
    • Super Mario RPG actually took it one step further, as (when he was pantomiming something) Mario would depict the other characters by literally turning into them. One example is when Mario's describing the actions of Bowser, and suddenly Bowser's standing there, pantomiming everything. The catch is that everybody else can see Bowser as well, causing everyone to jump back and hide behind something.
      • Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door parodies the trope in chapter 4 where Mario and the fake Mario, aka Doopliss, swap bodies and Mario has to find a way to get his name and body back. When you find the fake Mario and the real Mario's allies, one of the allies mention how weird it is for Mario (the fake) to be suddenly chatty when he's been quiet all this time.
  • Metroid, being a game where the hero *ahem* spends the vast majority of the time alone, Samus doesn't speak during the game, but gives a lot of personal narration in Super Metroid, Fusion, and Zero Mission. It seems that for the most part, Samus is silent because she literally has no one to talk to - Fusion gave her a computer named Adam that she did have actual conversations with, though only towards the end of the game (to the consternation of many purists). Aside from some vocal grunts/screams in the Prime series, her only spoken lines are her Zero Suit taunts in Super Smash Bros Brawl. Her few lines are entirely in normal English. Along with her blonde hair and Metroid's higher popularity overseas, this lead to a meme that she was an 'American' character.
    • A similar meme occurs for westerners in Super Smash Bros Brawl, where it's joked Marth speaks Japanese (unlike Ike) because his Fire Emblem game hadn't come out here at the time Brawl was released and thus he hasn't 'learned' English.
    • Based on the trailer for Metroid Other M it appears that Samus will finaly talk.
  • The main charater in Legend of Mana, who is given a yes or no option (although some of the variations have quite the attitude in them). It is even parodied in the quest Gilbert: School Amour, where the hero/heroine tries to convince the kids to return to school. One states that "Adults are boring and they only answer questions with a yes or no. I bet you're no different, aren't you?" Your only responses are "Yes" and "No".
  • Although not a 'hero', the Pyro in Team Fortress 2 is essentially silent as all the Pyro's dialog is muffled by the gas mask.
  • The heroes of every Dragon Quest game are heroic mimes, wich is quite ironic since they often get to become kings and rule fairly large countries in DQ 1, 3, 5, and 6 (The "State of the Kingdom" speechs must be quite short) and also often become role models for characters who happen to speak A LOT. The main character of Dragon Quest VIII is not only a mute, he falls in love with a princess who spends most of the game mute herself, due being turned into a horse.
    • In Dragon Quest IV, each chapter has a different main character - the main character for that chapter doesn't speak, but if you meet main characters from other chapters (e.g. Torneko can meet Ragnar in the Endor casino) then they talk like normal. The only exception is Chapter 4, where Maya and Meena, the two main characters for the chapter, speak freely between themselves. The DS port also had the "party talk" option that greatly expanded the main cast, but this was inexplicably missing in the English release.
    • Played with somewhat in the ending of Dragon Quest Swords. After the heroic mime defeats the villain the City of Avalonia is in celebration. Anlace and Fleurette encourage the hero to say something inspirational to the assembled masses. The hero's father Claymore then puts in his own opinion, "Take no notice of them, lad. Now's not the time for words."
  • Gordon Freeman (from the Half-Life series, and pictured up the top) is one of the most famous. Being a Valve game, there is heavy Lampshade Hanging, with characters remarking that Gordon is a man of few words or offering to do the talking for him. He apparently also makes off-camera expressions that the NPCs will react to.
  • Chell from Portal, another Valve game. Mind you, she doesn't have anyone to talk to but a mad AI trying to kill her and a cube that cannot speak. Although in the event that the Weighted Companion Cube does speak, the Enrichment Center urges you to disregard its advice.
  • Claude from the Grand Theft Auto universe is also known for never saying anything, ever. GTA: San Andreas reveals that Claude actually is a mute.
    • Claude isn't specifically said to be mute in San Andreas, Carl just insults him by calling him mute, which was probably just a mocking reference to him not saying much.
  • Link from the Legend Of Zelda series never says anything, though other characters sometimes react as if had, meaning that his dialogue is possibly meant to be imagined by the player. In Twilight Princess, there are a few cutscenes that show Link and another character chatting, but none of the words are texted or vocalized. In The Wind Waker he would say "Come on!" to a companion NPC in some dungeons as a command to make them return to him, but that was it. Lampshaded in Twilight Princess, when Midna, when her true form is revealed, notes his silence by saying "Am I so beautiful you've no words left?"
    • Twilight Princess also may or may not involve a Link speaking where the player can read it, just not the one they're playing as. It all depends on if you buy the "Ocarina of Time's Link is the Hero's Shade" theory or not.
    • He does, however, make various yelling noises whenever the player does pretty much anything. In one Super Smash Bros parody video, one character explains to another that the reason that Link sounds like "a twelve year old kid on Newgrounds" is because he was kicked really hard in the ballz.
    • This became amusing when Link appeared in Soul Calibur II. Ivy can taunt him with “You're all talk!” … when he hasn't even said a word.
  • Ryu, from the many Breath Of Fire RPGs. In Dragon Quarter Ryu talks, and this time, Nina is silent for plot-related reasons.
    • In Breath of Fire 1, Ryu has two lines. When you briefly gain control of Nina, you can talk to the sleeping Ryu who will mumble a few words about his sister. He also says, "Well, there is one thing..." when asked by the King of Winlan what he wants as a reward for saving the King and Nina.
    • Ryu actually does talk in IV's ending, when he reunites with Fou-Lu and becomes a full dragon.
  • Adol from the Ys RPG series always has his dialogue summed up in the third person; for example, "Adol explains what he saw at the shrine".
    • Ys III: Wanderers From Ys gives Adol many lines of his own in the original version. The new age remake Oath in Felghana changed that to bring it more in line with the rest of the series.
  • In the Raidou Kuzunoha games, Raidou only grunts when in battle. During conversations, his dialog is like the Adol example above.
    "Raidou explained the circumstances of the investigation to *insert name here*"
  • The protagonist in Okage: Shadow King is perfectly capable of speaking, but is so unimpressive that no one pays any attention to what he says anyway, literally overshadowed by his own shadow.
  • The Webcomic Captain SNES parodies and hangs a lampshade on this trope, dubbing it "Silent Protagonist Syndrome", and treating it as a tragic medical condition.
  • John Blade in SiN Episodes is a semi-silent protagonist (apart from a few voice clips and one-liners that don't always make sense in context), and disconcertingly because it's a sequel to SiN and the Expansion Pack SiN: Wages of Sin, in which the same main character never shuts up. (This has lended some weight to accusations of SiN Episodes being a Half Life 2 ripoff.)
  • Subverted in the later games in the Jak And Daxter series. Jak doesn't speak at all during the first game, but becomes a lot more talkative starting from the second (after a long and traumatic stint as a live experiment). Just before he speaks his first line, however, Daxter begs him: "Say something, just this once!" Daxter makes occasional references to Jak's previous silence throughout the games ("Maybe he's mute, like you use to be").
    • In fact, the playable characters in nearly all of Naughty Dog's games up until Jak II were heroic mimes almost by obligation. For example, the formerly quite chatty Coco Bandicoot suddenly turned mute after being upgraded to a playable character in Crash Bandicoot 3: Warped!
  • Crash Bandicoot never spoke a single word (not counting his "Uh-oh!" in the first game), communicating only by his actions and, in the later games, nonsensical babbling... however, in the ending of Crash of the Titans, he does actually manage to speak one word. Based on the reactions of the other characters and even his own reaction, it seems very likely that this is the first time he's ever spoken a single word.
  • Non-videogame examples are Pucca and Garu of Pucca.
    • The animated TV series likes to hang lampshades on this fact - Garu is mentioned to have a vow of silence for his ninja training after a Suddenly Voiced clone of his starts talking to people, and Pucca is mentioned on one occasion to have a "beautiful singing voice" that the audience is never allowed to hear.
  • The Avatar in the Ultima series, the series Lampshades this at one point, in the form of a stage play making fun of the Avatar's propensity for silence.
    • The play actually makes fun of "hi", "name" and "job" being the only three lines that the Avatar speaks, or at least that he uses over and over.
  • The Trainers in the Pokemon series don't talk a lot, although there's a short and very confusing conversation with a mimic in Red and Blue in which the Trainer does say a couple of lines (god knows which ones they were, though...) It's also lampshaded in Gold and Silver, which ends with fighting Red, the protagonist of the last game, who only speaks in ellipses.
    • Was lampshaded in Ruby and Sapphire when an NPC asks where the Trainer came from, but the only options are "Yes" or "No", leading to some awkward responses.
  • Even the iconic, richly-characterised Solid Snake used to be one of these, back in the original Metal Gear. While not entirely mute, he spoke a single line, which served more as proof the computer was responding, whenever he attempted to contact Mission Control - "This is Solid Snake. Your reply, please...". Oddly, even this little line is so at odds with his later characterisation (he was retooled from a refined, cynical Bond-type into a bitter, highly-intelligent Warrior Poet, although easily for the better) it's difficult to imagine him saying it, even knowing what his voice sounds like...
  • Blaze in Ace Combat 5 is apparently only capable of saying yes, no, and basic orders to his wingmen. This becomes especially noticeable in missions where the flight leader must speak; in those cases, another character takes over as lead.
    • Ace Combat in general is populated by a parade of extremely heroic and extremely silent Ace Pilots as in the last five games in the universe the leads have yet to utter so much as a grunt...
  • In Earthbound, whoever is the current party leader (which varies between chapters) won't utter a peep, but will promptly start speaking once the leader role changes. Ness is only heard once, through a magical mind-reading screen.
    • Also done in Mother 3 where the character the player controls never talks, but will once the player is controlling someone else.
    • The same thing happens in Legend Of Legaia. Noa, the second of three main characters, is a Heroic Mime when you play her alone, but when she joins full-time mime Vahn, she immediately becomes a Raised By Wolves Genki Girl.
  • In the single-player component of World in Conflict, the player takes on the role of Lieutenant Parker, who never speaks and in cutscenes is seen mostly from behind, hiding his face. Or something else prevents a clear view of his face.
    • It's actually strongly implied that it is Parker who provides the Narration between missions, but as far as gameplay itself is concerned, he's a Mime through and through.
    • Taken slightly further with the Soviet Assault counterpart Lieutenant Romanov, who never even is present for the cutscenes.
  • Caim from Drakengard becomes the Heroic Mime when Functional Magic dissociates him from his voice in return for the allegiance of a powerful red dragon. A fair trade-off, some would say. This carries over to the second game, where Caim is STILL mute - but the new protagonist, having made no such deal, talks quite frequently.
  • All the Shin Megami Tensei series, and its subseries (Digital Devil Saga, Persona), use this.
    • The protagonist of Persona 3 is a borderline example who is more of a heroic The Quiet One than a Heroic Mime. He makes sounds in combat, including persona invocations, and the player must make him respond to other people's dialogue, but he never speaks more than one sentence at a time. Around SEES, he's generally rather quiet, sticking to one-on-one conversations with the rest of the cast, causing Shinji to lampshade his general quiet; he does talk outside the player character giving him lines (small talk and discussions with Social Links/other SEES members), but the player never sees these lines.
      • Ditto with the protagonist of Persona 4. Some personality can also be gleaned from the dialogue options. In P4, for example, the option of telling people to 'calm down' comes up repeatedly - almost to the point of it being a bit of a running joke.
      • Actually, Souji does seem to speak considerably more than Minato in addition to having a sociable personality. Just putting it out there.
    • Serph, the main character of Digital Devil Saga, does not make so much as a noise in the first game. He gets a sort of confused grunt near the beginning of the second, which may not be enough to prepare the player for the flashback sequence in which he is downright chatty.
  • The protagonist of Saints Row does not speak for the majority of the game; various friends and the occasional enemy lampshade it repeatedly during the storylines. You get one (generally completely awesome) sentence in the cutscenes at the end of each gang storyline, and it's startlingly satisfying whenever he opens his mouth. Turns out he was just being a good henchman, and got very tired of being walked all over because of his good henchmanness - in the second one, he's much more vocal.
  • Averted in Fable: the hero has no dialogue, but he says single words (such as "Follow" or "S—-") when you use certain commands, and mouths "Mum!" when his mother is killed right in front of him.
  • Taken to a ridiculous extreme in Super Smash Bros Brawl's Adventure Mode, where nearly everyone is a Heroic Mime plotwise. Even the villains. Even the characters who do speak in their own games. At times it seems like the characters are communicating telepathically. You had to read the official website just to find out what was going on. The only exceptions are Snake (who gets one line) and a few instances of Calling Your Attacks.
    • This Troper sadly admits that she laughed for a good 10 minutes about Snake's "Kept you waiting, huh?"
  • Cave Story and it's silent robot protagonist, Quote.
    • It looks to me like anything that isn't a dialogue choice or... That one bit of dialogue from the Plantation... Is something that the player knows would be relevant to the other people. One aspect of amnesia is that everybody else has far more to say, anyway. How on earth would somebody communicate "I can have some explosives made to knock down the door, but one of the ingredients I need is called 'Gum Base'. Do you know anything about that?" through interpretive dance. (To be fair, it took me ridiculously many playthroughs to twig to this.) So the point is, the Heroic Mime stuff is actually just a convention. Quote isn't mute, or anything: he just doesn't have any explicit dialogue.
  • Doom 3 and its sequels. This is sometimes akward when the NP Cs are talking to the marine in ways that invite response. It's especially noticeable in the final cutscene, where a group of marines ask the protagonist if he's okay, and he just stares at them, looking dazed. On top of that, in neither Doom 3 nor its Expansion Pack Doom 3: Resurrection of Evil was the character given a name, and they're both referred to as "Marine", and it gets used practically as their names.
  • In Quake 4, the protagonist, Matthew Kane, never speaks, not even when reacting to other characters.
    • Its possible that he may not even be able to talk normally after what happens to him after being captured. This doesn't explain why he's silent before that, of course, and why when he's rescued he doesn't even nod or shake his head. People talked about him basically every time they saw him before or after, and sometimes asked him questions.
    • Probably the only sign of any personality, at all, in the game happened in the cutscene where he saw a new kind of enemy, the female cyborg zombie and the first on-screen female in the game - she didn't do anything at first, so he got closer, then lowered his weapon and reached for her face with his free hand. That's it. That's all. Generic Space Marine Stoicism all the way.
  • In FEAR, the main character is both unnamed and never speaks, despite having a radio. The other FEAR operatives respond to this by talking about you in the 3rd person while you are listening in and in the loading screens.
  • In Aliens vs. Predator 2, the main character never talks during the gameplay, but does talk during cutscene. Somewhat lampshaded by saying your ability to transmit via radio was knocked out early in the game(but you can still receive).
  • Solar Boy Django is almost silent in the first Boktai game. (This gets a bit strained in the longer cutscenes — Otenko or Sabata has to do all the talking for him.) He has a few lines in the sequel, and in Lunar Knights, where he and Sabata are on a more even keel as protagonists, he has plenty to say.
  • Both of the Gungrave games give protagonist Beyond the Grave no lines whatsoever - he doesn't even let out so much as a grunt when taking damage. Most of the time the only sounds you ever hear from him are either gunfire from his twin pistols or the strange squeaky noise of his coffin weapon when he moves. While he doesn't speak, he will often make gestures, such as pushing up his glasses, giving a thumbs-up, nodding his head, or arching his back. Mika Asagi, the girl whom Grave serves as her guardian, seems to be the only one who understands him and what he's thinking. There's two possible reasons for his silence; when he was human he was already a very passive, quiet person, and necrolization took away almost all his ability to feel and express emotion: Grave gained incredible power and a near-indestructible body—in exchange for his "heart".
    • Not quite: Grave does speak in Overdose. (Though it's only one line). Somewhat ironically, the line is to Mika—the only character who doesn't actually NEED him to talk.
    • Interestingly, this trait was (mostly) carried over in the anime series - Grave and by association, Brandon Heat rarely speaks, but he does get at least a little use out of his vocal chords, in the very few lines he gets.
    • This was also carried over into his appearance in the Massive Multiplayer Crossover strategy-RPG Chaos Wars; he has no lines of dialog beyond "......", and is the only character with no vocals when acting in combat. It is specifically commented on and lampshaded by other characters at several points.
      • Much Hilarity Ensues when the protagonist Hyouma tries to get a meaningful response (whether it be asking Grave why he doesn't eat to flat out asking him if he's mute or not) out of Grave, only to be shot down by Grave giving Hyouma his "negative" expression and an ellipsis. It's not that Grave is ignoring Hyouma, Grave is just being himself, and Mika usually has to explain to Hyouma why Grave acts the way he does.
  • The main characters of the Shining Force games are Heroic Mimes. It's taken to the point of absurdity in the third game, which rotates the viewpoint through three main characters. Each one has scenes where he's implied to be saying something, but all that displays is "...", and the other characters get So What You Are Saying lines to show the player what the main just said. And then there are the scenes where two main characters talk to each other - despite the fact that there's a script for both characters, and everyone in the scene reacts as if both of them are talking, the main character's dialogue just displays ellipses, meaning you have to play through the same scene twice just to hear what everyone in the game can understand fine both times.
    • Excuse me? Maybe I should remind you that Max actually speaks in the first game (At least, in the GBA Remake)? He only becomes mute because of plot circumstances.
    • I think Deanna from Sword of Hajya does too. I've only played the first battle, so I don't know if he says anything after that, but as I recall Deanna does answer when Eric tells him to come with him.
  • Kevin in Kakurenbo Battle Monster Tactics; Toppy is his Ninja Butterfly.
  • Gogo in Final Fantasy VI is a literal heroic mime, who talks to you a couple times. He (or she) can imitate anything the other characters can do right after it is done. If you go to the status screen you can give him three other skills of your choice making him probably the most powerful character in the game. So yeah.
  • In a rare cinematic example, the titular protagonist of Brother from Another Planet is totally mute. His quiet acceptance of everything, though striking those he meets as strange, also leads to many people opening up to him, and sharing their innermost thoughts and feelings. Very few of those who confide in him seem to care that he never answers back.
  • The nameless protagonist of Sierra's Quest For Glory speaks only twice in the span of five games: telling the potion maker about the dryad in the third game, and saying "Right" in the second game. Otherwise, he's your standard Heroic Mime.
    • Not really a typical example of Heroic Mime as the narrator explain what you are saying, the player just never gets to hear the character first hand, instead getting messages like "You tell suchandsuch about your adventures in Mordavia". You character is fully capable of having long conversation (and he's in fact prone to bragging about his past exploits.)
    • This Troper supports this notion. A large part of the game is getting information about what the hark is going on, the Ask about and Tell about commands from the first two games imply that there is quite obviously a conversation... Just that you already know what you're saying so you don't have to read trough that.
  • Revya, the main character from Soul Nomad And The World Eaters. Heroic Sociopath Gig usually speaks for the both of them, often to the great disadvantage of the player and usually followed by some rather sharp, pointed and violent disadvantages to any offended parties resulting from Gig's verbal lambastings.
    • The protagonist does, however, have a fairly clearly defined personality; it's just that his/her lines have no voiceovers, probably due to the fact that he/she can be either male or female, which would effectively double the amount of dialogue to be voiced.
      • Revya makes a cameo in Disgaea 3, however, in which her lines are nothing but Visible Silence. This drives Mao utterly nuts.
  • Commander Agress from Vandal Hearts 2. Playing with the trope, she is not the main protagonist. In fact, you get her rather late. It seems she's just very softspoken; one party member actually gets angry when another tells her to speak louder.
  • The Silencer of Crusader doesn't even shout a warning to his fellow Silencers before they're gunned down, he's such a Heroic Mime. He does grunt when he gets hurt.
  • Averted in Lufia, except the GBA installment Ruins of Lore. Eldin reacts a lot, and vocalizes a lot of "..." and "?" and the like, but only gets one speaking line: "I'm Eldin."
  • The main heroes in the Suikoden series tend to be mute. Kinda weird given they command large armies in their games.
    • To be fair, the Tenkai Stars (which is to say, the main protagonists) of all five Suikoden games tend to be mostly political figureheads that happen to be really, really good at armed combat - sort of like a "president-meets-elite-soldier" deal. Most of the commanding comes from the much chattier army strategists.
      • Not really. The hero is in total command; The Strategist is basically a very high-level advisor, and your character is supposed to be smart enough to take their advice. Some games give you the option to ignore their plans, and they will go along with you if you choose to do so.
    • The Prince in the fifth game has a lot of personality for a Heroic Mime, though. Like the other characters, he has a very detailed character model, so while he never says a word, his body language and facial expressions speak volumes.
    • The player character in SuikodenTierkreis talks A LOT, and has a very hyper, gung-ho, Hot Blooded and almost-keetish personality. "We won't know until we try!!"
    • Kyril also talks. In Kyril's game, if certain conditions are fulfilled, Suikoden IV's protagonist Lazlo appears, and suddenly talks.
  • Not really a hero, (unless you go for the not-so-evil ending,) but the new overlord in Overlord never says anything either.
  • Jack from BioShock has one line of dialogue during the intro movie and then never speaks again, unless you count the audio recording of the time he, as a child, was forced to kill a puppy.
  • Played with (and possibly deconstructed) in the Japan-only Digimon video games for the Wonderswan. Ryo Akiyama starts off talking normally, but Taichi notices that he stopped responding to people once he reveals that the D-1 Tournament was actually just elaborate Training From Hell so that Ryo could go defeat Milleniummon for the umpteenth time. In Brave Tamer, he says his name and “card slash,” but that's about it. It's implied to be voluntary, as he's been pretty traumatized in these games.
  • In the case of Angel Devoid, your PC literally CAN'T talk, since you've been given surgery to make you mute and look like the Big Bad before being dumped into the mean streets. Your “dialog” choices consist entirely of two buttons that allow you to act either intimidating or receptive in response to conversation.
  • Time Crisis 4 introduces dialogue to gameplay segments, yet during those segments only NPCs will speak; the main characters will only do so during cutscenes, like the protagonists of 2, 3, and Crisis Zone. Richard Miller from the first game and
  • Project Titan plays this trope completely straight, never speaking a single word, cutscene or not.
  • The main character in Baroque is a Heroic Mime. Unlike most examples, he genuinely is mute. The first two times you encounter him before entering the Neuro Tower, the Archangel mentions that your character has trouble speaking... and one of Longneck's dialogues involves him freaking out because your character never says anything, then realizing that maybe he can't.
  • Amaterasu in Okami never says anything, being a wolf. Instead the sidekick, Issun, acts as her mouthpiece... at length. Ammy's own emotions generally get expressed in appropriately canine ways, including gnawing on Issun when he gets too rude.
  • The seminal non-video game example: in both the GI Joe comic and cartoon, ninja-trained commando Snake-Eyes never spoke (beyond the occasional "...") since a helicopter explosion left him badly burned and mute.
  • In a strange semi-subversion of this trope, Time Splitters: Future Perfect has wormholes that you can walk through that allow Cortez to interact with his past or future self. While future-Cortez throws out a multitude of one-liners during these segments, when you play as the future-Cortez, he never talks, but the past-Cortez does instead. It gets especially confusing when Cortez gets backup while hacking a terminal from two future Cortezes, requires you to play all three, one after the other, muting the Cortez each time.
  • In Geist, player character Raimi, who was separated from his body and ended up on a game-long Body Surf, doesn't speak even when he's trying to convince a friend that he's Raimi. Instead he gives the friend a secret handshake, and somehow all relevant information is transferred; Bryson knows that the nurse is Raimi, who is a ghost, who is going to get him out of there. Raimi's not actually mute, though - late in the game he makes a parrot say "Die!" and a dog trainer say "It's okay boy!"
  • Ecco The Dolphin uses his voice for just about everything: echolocation, defense, activating ancient technology, and initiating conversations. Of course, the player never hears his half of them beyond the original generic sonar cry.
  • Twelve Thirteen never says anything, but his thoughts are often conveyed to the player in text boxes anyway. Westbury hangs a lampshade on it by yelling at 1213, "WHY DON'T YOU EVER SAY ANYTHING?! I know you can! We taught you! Just a 'yes'! A nod of your head! A grunt! Just tell me you UNDERSTAND!"
  • The Blood Ravens Force Commander in Warhammer 40000: Dawn Of War II is both voiceless and nameless in-game, referred to only as "Commander" by the other Space Marines. He does get a bit of dialogue in the original trailer, though.
    Commander: This planet is ours, witch.
  • The cyborg in Marathon does not talk. He yells when he dies though.
  • Rookie One in the first Star Wars: Rebel Assault game says little apart from "yes sir", etc. Averted in the sequel, though.
  • Final Fantasy XI has a really strange version: Communication is vital for players, so everyone is able to chat. Story-wise, however, you're essentially a Heroic Mime, only given dialog choices that are never actually spoken in the story, anyways. While different NP Cs will infer that you have said something, you never see your character say it in the storylines. You normally have no choice in HOW to respond, either.
  • The Rookie in Ghostbusters: The Videogame never talks. He is only given facial expressions and occasion scream or grunt.
    • We don't even get his name. As Venkman explained, he doesn't want to get attached in case something happened, referring to the "last new guy" as if something bad or fatal happened.
Hero Unit
« Video Game Characters »
Item Caddy
new edits
forum
page history
edit page
view source
discuss
Creative Commons License
This wiki is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.