Basic Trope: A villain has a gentle voice/mannerism.
- Straight: Emperor Evulz regularly speaks in a gentle, soothing voice.
- Exaggerated: Evulz's voice can barely be heard, and it has a tendency to lull the listener to sleep.
- Downplayed:
- Evulz often speaks in a calm and level tone of voice, but does raise his voice occasionally.
- Bob isn't necessarily a villain by any means, but does have questionable motives and a rather friendly and calm tone of voice despite this.
- Justified:
- Evulz has a damaged larynx and cannot strain his voice.
- Evulz is desensitized to cruelty, as is shown when he calmly explains his intention to have Hiro's village torched as if he were Bob Ross teaching viewers how to paint.
- Evulz is Faux Affably Evil, or even Affably Evil.
- Due to his Blue-and-Orange Morality, Evulz is Oblivious to how others perceive his actions.
- Evulz is genuinely emotionless and never gets angry or has another reason to raise his voice.
- 'Inverted:
- Evil Is Hammy
- Alice is a soft-spoken Nice Girl.
- Bob is a Nice Guy with No Indoor Voice.
- Subverted: Evulz only speaks gently for a short period of time, then starts screaming in the faces of his minions...
- Double Subverted: ... However, he reverts to his calm demeanor in short order.
- Zig Zagged: Evulz constantly switches between this and a more raised voice.
- Averted: Evulz' tone of voice is not particularly gentle or bombastic.
- Parodied:
- Evulz is so soft-spoken that the rest of the cast can barely hear him.
- Evulz runs an ASMR podcast to fund his evil schemes.
- Enforced:
- "We want this guy to come off as trustworthy at first; lets have him talk in a gentle voice so that he seems trustworthy."
- "We want this guy to come off as a psycho without being too over the top. We can convey his lack of empathy by giving him a gentle voice."
- "Villains who are always calm can come off as so much more unnerving than a villain who's always speaking loudly. Let's have our villain speak calmly."
- Evulz was originally written as an Evil Is Hammy type, but the actor they cast for the part couldn't pull it off, leading them to use this trope instead.
- Implied: One of Evulz lackeys tells him to speak louder on the phone.
- Exploited:
- Evulz uses a gentle voice to gain the trust of the people.
- Sophia shouts and interrupts Evulz so that Evulz cannot get a word in edgewise.
- Lampshaded: "How can such a vicious tyrant have such a gentle voice?''
- Defied: Evulz decides to use whatever tone of voice is most appropriate for the situation, rather than just calmly explaining everything.
- Discussed: "Being threatened with death is so much scarier when it's said in such a friendly tone."
- Conversed: "How come the villains in this show always speak so calmly?"
Back to Soft-Spoken Sadist.
