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"Don't you roll your eyes at me; it's a good plan!"
The Silent Snarker is just that. A combination of Deadpan Snarker and The Voiceless, The Speechless or The Unintelligible. A character who does not speak, usually a sidekick, who is a lot more competent than his superior, who does things most Deadpan Snarkers would have a field day with. But since they cannot or don't speak, they communicate their snark through eyerolls, facepalms, furrowed brows and aside glances. These characters normally have very expressive faces to properly convey their silent exasperation.
May overlap with The Silent Bob. If the character is The Unintelligible, this can sometimes overlap with Repeating so the Audience Can Hear. Contrast with Deadpan Snarker, the vocal version of this trope.
The Voiceless, The Speechless, and The Unintelligible characters only (Silent Bobs are exceptions). If they can talk, or at least talk frequently, they don't count for this trope.
Examples
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Anime & Manga
- Pikachu in the earlier seasons of Pokémon.
Comic Strips
- Odie from Garfield, every once in a while. Garfield himself is an odd case of us actually seeing what the Silent Snarker is thinking. If we couldn't read his thoughts, he would count for this. This is explored with the Silent Garfield
 experiment, which removes his dialogue but leaves him in the panel, still making his grins and aside glances.
Films — Animation
- Gromit from Wallace & Gromit is the long-suffering master of this trope and the Trope Codifier.
- Gromit's silent snarking so effective that back when A Grand Day Out was in production, he was originally supposed to talk, but a scene where he reacts silently to Wallace stood out so much to the creators that they made him permanently silent.
- In the "Cheese Lover's Yearbook" (their diary) Gromit leaves tiny, neatly typewritten notes for his snark.
- Also from Aardman is Bobo the Chimp from The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists, who speaks entirely with cue cards.
- Several of the animal sidekicks from Disney movies.
- WALL•E: Eve has enough "furrowed brows" and annoyed groans to count.
- How to Train Your Dragon: Toothless picks up some of Hiccup's snarkiness.
- Remy from Ratatouille, when he's around humans.
- Tinkerbell from Peter Pan, before she became Suddenly Voiced in the sequels.
- Pangur Ban in The Secret of Kells is a borderline example: as an ordinary cat, she doesn't understand the greater significance of most things that happen to her, and will therefore react with expressions of annoyance, indignation or plain puzzlement that are great for puncturing otherwise dramatic moments.
- Pascal the chameleon in Tangled. Maximus the horse as well.
- From Despicable Me, we have Kyle, Gru's dog-thing being The Speechless variation of this trope, while a few of The Minions fit The Unintelligible variation.
- Jojo from Horton Hears a Who!, up until he begins talking again.
- Melvin, The Once-ler's horse from The Lorax.
Films — Live-Action
- Star Wars
- Based on C-3PO's reactions to some of the things he says, if his speech were translated, R2-D2 would be a definite Deadpan Snarker who speaks in robot noises.
- Chewbacca as well, if you pay attention to how people react to what he says he's probably one of the most sarcastic characters in the franchise.
- In Return of the Jedi, when Lando Calrissian has ownership of the Millennium Falcon, Chewbacca's role is filled by the monkey-faced alien Nien Nunb, and Lando bilingually bickers with him in much the way Han Solo did with Chewie.
- Burt Lancaster had a childhood friend, Nick Cravat, who appeared in several of Lancaster's movies. Cravat was never able to get rid of his thick Brooklyn accent, so he communicated — and often snarked — by mime in any movie where the accent would be inappropriate. He gets the last "word" in The Crimson Pirate, for instance.
- Clint Eastwood is a master at getting across any emotion wordlessly.
- Cosmic Creepers the cat in Bedknobs and Broomsticks, notably in the scene where Ms. Price is trying to fly.
Literature
- Jane Austen's Mansfield Park includes a brief appearance by a Silent Servile Snarker:
Baddeley: (to Fanny, whose suitor has come to discuss things with her and her uncle) Sir Thomas wishes to speak with you, ma'am, in his own room.
Mrs. Norris: Stay, stay, Fanny! What are you about? Where are you going? Don't be in such a hurry. Depend upon it, it is not you who are wanted; depend upon it, it is me, but you are so very eager to put yourself forward. What should Sir Thomas want you for? It is me, Baddeley, you mean; I am coming this moment. You mean me, Baddeley, I am sure; Sir Thomas wants me, not Miss Price.
But Baddeley was stout. "No, ma'am, it is Miss Price; I am certain of it's being Miss Price." And there was a half-smile with the words, which meant, "I do not think you would answer the purpose at all."
- Mouse, from The Dresden Files. Crosses over with Even the Dog Is Ashamed frequently.
- Ilyn Payne of A Song of Ice and Fire, a mute headsman, is very mocking of the now crippled Jaime Lannister, "laughing" at his monologues openly. Theon's squire Wex also shows signs of this.
Live-Action TV
Video Games
- The Legend of Zelda: Link on occasion, suprisingly enough. Most notable in Majora's Mask. In Wind Waker as well. Link's dialogue options can also have a fair share of snark.
- Classic Sonic, who was retconned into being a Heroic Mime for Sonic Generations, would glare towards the camera and impatiently tap his foot as his Idle Animation in the classic trilogy. We can only wonder how snarky he'll be in Generations.
- Wonder of wonders, Freddy Krueger is turned into one in his cameo appearance in Mortal Kombat, aside from the occasional Evil Laugh.
- Sis from Alpha Protocol is mute (and cute), but makes it clear through some expressive body-language that 1) she is in command of her squad and 2) you are all imbeciles. She's armed with a glare that could strip paint along with her twin revolvers.
- Shizune Hakamichi is the Visual Novel Katawa Shoujo is deaf and mute and communicates primarily through Japanese Sign Language, she also has a very dry and cutting wit that becomes all the more obvious in her route when Hisao learns JSL himself and he (and the player) can understand her without relying on Misha.
Web Animation
Web Comics
Web Original
Western Animation
Real life
- Babies. Before they learn how to talk, they're capable of giving some very withering looks, particularly if you're trying to make them laugh.
- Deaf people can often communicate snark through sign language.
- And some elements of sign language seem to be born from snark. For example, the sign for "idiot" is mimmicking shooting yourself.
- Cats.
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