Third Person Person / Literature

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• Doll in ½ Prince does this, along with her Magical Girl In the Name of the Moon using her name
• Adrian Mole: In Cappuccino Years, Glenn asks Adrian who he thinks Glen will field. Adrian wonders if Glenn is referring to himself in the third person, as Margaret Thatcher used to do; then he learns that Glenn is referring to Glen Hoddle, the England Football manager.
• The real-life teacher Christine Zajac, described in Tracy Kidder's novel Among Schoolchildren, always refers to herself in the third person when addressing her class.
• Bazil Broketail: Dragons frequently switch between this and grammatically correct speech for no particular reason.
• Beast Tamer: Sora refers to herself in the third person, occasionally introducing herself by saying "Sora's name is Sora." Her twin sister Luna does not share this trait, instead having a Verbal Tic of adding "nanoda", or "noda" for short, to the ends of her sentences.
• All wolves in The Belgariad speak using "one" instead of "I", or "me", or "you", or... you get the idea. This is supposed to be because wolves have a Hive Mind, but this doesn't bear out in their actual behaviour.
• Beware of Chicken: In Xianada, formal speech is expressed by referring to yourself in the third person, as in "This Rou Jin pays his respects to the Lord Magistrate''. Ri Zu is notable for speaking like this almost all the time, possibly due to her status as a Rogue Drone from Chow Ji's rat swarm.
• Mariana from Blooms Of Darkness by Aharon Appelfeld.
• "John Double-u of the Double-us" from The Book of the Dun Cow.
• Apachito in A Coffin Full of Dollars talks this way frequently.
• In Council Wars, Bast the Wood Elf seasons this with bits of You No Take Candle and Yoda-like syntax. Given the fact that she can, and does, speak normally at other times (as well as her mischievous personality), this is obviously an affectation.
• Cradle Series: In Sacred Valley, it is considered respectful to speak in third-person to your betters, as in "this one humbly begs your forgiveness." Lindon, being an Un-Sorcerer in a world of Might Makes Right, has to do this a lot. Once he leaves the Valley, most people find this to be very strange, so he doesn't do it as much, but he does still slip into it when dealing with angry authority figures. When he finally returns to Sacred Valley, he finds all his old bullies and tormentors doing this to him, and admits he can understand why all his friends thought it was embarrassing.
• Proprietor Tom from Deltora Quest.
• Dire, in The Dire Saga, has found herself completely unable to refer to herself in first-person. This occasionally confuses people around her.
• The title character of Doctor Faustus.
• In Dora Wilk Series, insane witch Viola starts to talk about herself in third person when high on her powers. Witkacy notes that it's rather cliche for an insane person.
• Fax from Anne McCaffery's Dragonflight does this occasionally as a veiled insult when speaking to F'lar.
• In the young adult science fiction novel EVERLASTING by Holly-Jane Rahlens, a post-disaster future world government suppresses the inconvenience of individualism by abolishing all forms of the first person singular pronoun, replacing them with third-person phrases involving "this _______." For example, a scientist will refer to him/herself as "this scientist." Illeism is actually referenced by name within the plot — we learn that, earlier in the future society's history, a book written by an unnamed government agency to to teach children this new requirement (and an associated self-repressing philosophy) had been titled "THE ILLEIST'S CODE."
• Goblins in the Castle: Both Igor and Herky do this; neither ever refers to themself as "I", just using their own names.
• In The Godling Chronicles by Brian D. Anderson, the old hermit magician Felsafell has very peculiar speech patterns, often reversing words in sentences in Yoda fashion, speaking cryptically, and frequently referring to himself in the third person.
• The Han Solo Trilogy: Muuurgh refers to himself this way at first, before Han corrects him on the use of the personal pronoun. Mrrov though doesn't do this. It seems to be from his just being rusty with Basic. Jalus Nebl also does this however, in his own language.
• Harry Potter
  • "Dobby is a free elf!" All house-elves, actually. This likely stems from the fact that they live to serve others and therefore have no real sense of self. Dobby often refers to Harry in this manner, even when talking to him. "Harry Potter should not go back to school."
  • Lord Voldemort occasionally does the egotistical version. ("Worthless and traitorous as you are, you helped me... and Lord Voldemort rewards his helpers...")
• He Is Your Brother: One of the autistic boy Orry's speech difficulties is trouble with pronouns. He refers to himself by name most of the time.
• "This Trope thought it could get away with not noticing him, but it failed to account for Hercule Poirot." In an Insufferable Genius way, usually after The Reveal.
• Hollow Kingdom (2019): A couple of chapters are told from the perspective of a poodle named Winnie, who only refers to herself "in the third poodle".
• Delfina from I Lived On Butterfly Hill by Marjorie Agosin.
• All the black people in In Desert And Wilderness. Probably because the conversations are going on in Swahili, which doesn't seem to be well known around the Dark Lake.
• Falfa and Shalsha in I've Been Killing Slimes for 300 Years and Maxed Out My Level refer to themselves in the third person, i.e. as "Falfa" and "Shalsha". This is one of their childish traits.
• Formal Chinese etiquette requires those who appear before Judge Dee's bench to use the third person; such as, "This person would like to report a crime." It is generally proper to use the third person when formally addressing a superior.
• The title character of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar does this frequently, as in: 'Shall Caesar send a lie?' This is an indication of his arrogance, which ultimately led to his downfall.
• Livvie from Livvie Owen Lived Here would prefer to call everyone by their name and dispense with pronouns. She can remember to use pronouns most of the time, but slips into the third person when she's stresesd.
• Gollum/Sméagol in The Lord of the Rings. Tom Bombadil as well.
• Malazan Book of the Fallen: Kruppe, a person of Obfuscating Stupidity and an unending girth, is deeply hurt by the fact that his humble self was not mentioned earlier. It reminds him of what happened few years ago. It begins with Kruppe...
• Marcelo from Marcelo in the Real World often refers to both himself and the person he's talking to in the third person. It's an effort for him to remember to use pronouns.
• Moby-Dick:
  • Captain Ahab constantly refers to himself in third person, seemingly for dramatic effect. He's not right in the head.
  • Pip, after being temporarily abandoned floating in the ocean and going mad, talks about "Pip" as though he were someone else, whom he believes is still lost.
• Tula Rae from Not Your Everyday Housewife, as a sign of eccentricity.
• Ursula from Olivia Lawson Techno Shaman series by M. Terry Green.
• The fortune teller Madame Esme from Order Of The Bell series by Jacob Devlin.
• Magda Digby from the Owen Archer series.
• The receptionist Adele Girard from Lori Avocato's Pauline Sokol Mysteries series.
• The Perfect Run: The Panda and Mr. Wave both mostly speak in third person. Mr. Wave only briefly breaks character to apologize to Ryan for failing to prevent Ryan from being caught in an explosion. Ryan, who has already had hundreds of loops to be absolutely certain that it's all his fault, does not blame him.
• Erik in Gaston Leroux's The Phantom of the Opera. And how.
• In Poor Little Bitch Girl and Goddess of Vengeance by Jackie Collins, the beautiful singer Zeena speaks like that.
• Taklit the Blessed from Paula Brackston's novel The Return Of The Witch.
• The Reynard Cycle: Glim, the Glyconese ambassador, speaks this way in Defender of the Crown. He refers to himself as "This One."
• The Eccentric Artist Boday, from Jack Chalker's series Riders Of The Wind. In her case it's due to quirkiness bordering on insanity.
• In The Secret Of Lost Things by Sheridan Hay, the bookstore owner George Pike often speaks in the third person.
• The titular protagonist of Shane does this towards the end of the book. It is in fact a form of Badass Boast; 'No man should be ashamed of being beat by Shane.'
• She Who Became The Sun: As Buddhist monks, Zhu and Xu Da both speak of themselves with some variant of the humble "this monk" in the presence of laymen. When Zhu opens up to Ma enough to switch to the first person, Ma finds it shockingly intimate in contrast.
• The Unsullied in A Song of Ice and Fire are an extreme example. They are slaves who have had their real identities literally beaten out of them since childhood. The Good Masters make them pick their names at random each day from a bag, each a combination between a color and a type of vermin. They are forced to refer to themselves as "this one" instead of "I", and given different names each day in order to ensure they will not have any sense of individuality. Like the house-elves mentioned above, the Unsullied live only for their duty.
  • Shagga, son of Dolf, Strong Belwas and Jaqen H'Ghar are also examples, with H'Ghar being a really interesting case. Not only does he forgo using first person pronouns, but also second person ones, and names in general, choosing to refer to everyone by generic nouns complete with indefinite articles. Instead of saying, "I don't like you," he would say, "A man does not like a girl."
  • Janos Slynt often does this as well.
    Janos Slynt: I will not have it said that Janos Slynt hanged a man unjustly. I will not.
• Star Wars Legends:
  • Nearly all members of the Gand species refer to themselves in the third person, due to their belief that referring to yourself as "I" assumes everyone knows who you are and is the height of arrogance — unless a Gand has been officially declared notable enough to warrant it. Young Gand have no names; only after they've done something (say, learning to pilot a ship) do they even get a basic name. Doing something more noteworthy (say, mastering advanced pilot techniques and astronavigation) nets them a personal name, and they have to be truly special to be put through the ceremony that lets them go by "I". Embarrassed Gand use the less specialized names — to make it clearer, Ooryl Qrygg goes by Ooryl normally, Qrygg if he's uncertain or embarrassed, and Gand if he's being really humble or has screwed up massively. Being deemed noteworthy enough for "I" just adds another layer; he slips back into third person from time to time.
  • The author of the part of the X-Wing Series that involves Ooryl, Michael Stackpole, wrote this in the "About the Author" blurb at the end of The Bacta War.
    [...] and hates writing these "About the Author" pieces because they force him to refer to himself in the third person. Being neither a Gand nor a presidential candidate, he finds this awkward.
  • The Gand bounty hunter Zuckuss (who appeared for a single scene in The Empire Strikes Back and later became an important supporting character in Tales of the Bounty Hunters and The Bounty Hunter Wars) is portrayed as an outcast from Gand culture because he quite freely uses personal pronouns.
  • Barabels are hinted to use third person speaking too, not only when referring to themselves but to others as well. Which leads to confusion when "this one" is used to replace both I and you.
  • Star Wars: Honor Among Thieves: Human thief and gunrunner Hunter Maas, unlike the Gand, uses third-person out of arrogance. He has such a serious case of Small Name, Big Ego that he never refers to himself except by his full name.
• In The Tales Of Coyote by David L. Foster, the eponymous heroine always refers to herself as "she".
• Recruits in Theirs Not to Reason Why are required to speak this way (e.g. this recruit is...), as a means of breaking down their sense of self (as do the U.S. Marines; see the Real Life section.)
• Time to Orbit: Unknown: Public Universal Friends have given up their individuality, and so never refer to themselves in first-person, instead using phrases such as "this Friend".
• In Veniss Underground, the Gollux usually refers to itself as "the Gollux" in its speech.
• Noëlla, from Fred Vargas' novel Wash This Blood Clean From My Hand, inexplicably switches between first and third person when referring to herself.
  Noëlla : I met a nice chum in Paris, a Canadian. I followed him there. And you know what he did ? He left Noëlla. So now, she waits. She listens to the wind.
• The damane in the The Wheel of Time series are required to say their names instead of the pronoun "I", as a means of humiliating/dehumanizing them.
• The White Bone:
  • She-Soothes likes her name so much that she refers to herself in the third person.
  • Mongooses rarely use personal pronouns. Their name for their species is "flawless," and they refer to themselves and others as "this flawless" and "that flawless," respectively.
• Ramona, from Witches Chillers series by Silver Ravenwolf.
• Mother Jilo from Witching Savannah; it is actually part of her "voodoo doctor" persona.
• Zhenya Leukonovich from A Woods Cop Mystery series by Joseph Heywood has very quirky speech patterns, and almost always refers to herself in the third person.
• Quid from the Xeelee Sequence novel Raft.
• In his non-fiction book Strict Rules, about Midnight Oil's 1985-86 tour with Warumpi Band, Andrew McMillan refers to himself as The Hitchhiker until he "kills" this character about a third of the way through, although he only occasionally directly refers to himself either way.

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