Written Roar

Bob in Emergency Exit shows his Superpowered Evil Side

The characteristic bellow of a monster as it attacks, makes a warning display, or reacts to pain, rendered as onomatopoeia. Usually, but not always, because it is incapable of speech. Common in Comic Books, Webcomics and RPGs without voice acting; rare in Literature.

This can also come out of someone who isn't a monster. If, say, someone is screaming, their speech bubble may read "Scream!" "Shriek!" or "Screech!" rather than transcribing what their scream sounds like. Same goes for other emotions, such as "Fume!", "Roar!" or "Seethe!" when angry, "Sob!" when sad, etc.

The Written Roar has some fairly standard versions, though the exact number of letters involved vary widely. There are several usual forms of the classic throaty roar, from the literal "Roar!" to the more guttural "Graar!" to the very common "Argh!" The related horrible screech has mostly been standardized around variations of "Scree!"

A subtrope of Written Sound Effect. One of the many faithful servants of the Rule of Cool.

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• One of the most unusual examples comes from JoJo's Bizarre Adventure. There is a certain sound vampires make as a battle cry of sorts. In the early parts it was written as "Wreeeee" or "Wriiiiii". But its most famous incarnation, thanks to Memetic Mutation is WRRRYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!!!!!!!!!!!
• Rak from Tower of God.
• Mikuru-chan in Haruhi-chan is fond of saying "Honya~!" (written in Hiragana when she says it).

Comic Books

• Watchmen has a incredibly Narmful one when Rorschach jumps out of a window: "RRAAAARRL". No punctuation, and it must always be spelt like that, lest ye draw the ire of the fanboys. (Memetic Mutation frequently uses this for macros, photoshops, and .gifs.)
• Lampshaded in an issue of Excalibur, in a scene where Lockheed the dragon bites a burglar who yells "YEARGH!" His companion bemusedly notes that you never really hear people say that, although you see it written down a lot.
• Wolverine, like, all the time.
• Godzilla:
  • The old Dark Horse Godzilla comics would render his famous roar phonetically. AAIIEEEEEEE—UH—UNK!
  • The modern IDW comics go with a mighty "SKREEOOONGK!" for Godzilla, and a divergent "SKREEEENK" for Zilla.
• The Scarecrow's terror yell from Batman comics: HWOOOOAAAARRR!
• The Warrior Cats graphic novels do this, especially in regard to "monsters" (vehicles). A combine on a farm, for instance, spooks the cats when it bursts out of the corn with a "VRAAHR".

Comic Strips

• Peanuts: Charlie Brown's famous "AAUGH!".
• The Prehistoria comic strip B.C. puts "GRONK" into the mouth of its brontosaurian dino.
• FoxTrot is fond of "AAAA!".
• Garfield frequently uses "ARRRGH!"
• The short-lived comic strip Arnold (1982-88) often had the titular character yell "AIEEE!" for no reason whatsoever.
• Most characters in Cathy (but especially the eponymous character) frequently yell "AACK!!", a yell that's almost as well-known as Charlie Brown's aforementioned "AAUGH!"

Films — Live-Action

• Monty Python and the Holy Grail: The Castle Aaaaargh.
• Godzilla's distinctive roar is often rendered as "Screeeeeonk!" which, admittedly, does not do justice to the true trumpety majesty of which an enraged atomic god is capable.
  • As of Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019), the onomatopeia of "BIDIBIDIBIDIBIDI!" has been widely embraced by the fandom as King Ghidorah's signature cackling cry.

Literature

• The novelization of Return of the Jedi was one of the few Star Wars books to actually try to write out Chewbacca's speech (as well as that of R2-D2 and the Ewoks). "Rheeaaahhr!", "Groawwwwr!", and "Rowr ahragh awf ahraroww rowh rohngr grgrff rf rf." were typical lines. There's even a Wookieepedia section written entirely in Shyriiwook. Seriously.
  • The Glove of Darth Vader does similarly.
• In Life, the Universe and Everything, a creature named Agrajag lets forth an angry cry of "HhhhhhrrrrrraaaaaaHHHHHH!!!" by way of explanation.
• Most instances of characters screaming in Diary of a Wimpy Kid are rendered as "SCREAM!!!" in Greg's drawings.
• Animorphs: Tobias' Mode Lock left him in the form of a red-tailed hawk whose calls are written as "TSEEEEEEEER!". The choice of morph is probably not a coincidence, as the red-tailed hawk's screech is the bird-of-prey sound.
• The first Warrior Cats book writes out the cats' growls and yowls, such as "Grr-aaar!" and "Reow-ow-wow!" This is Early-Installment Weirdness and doesn't happen in any of the other books except the graphic novels.

Video Games

• Not uncommon in the Pokémon games, and more common among the Legendaries:
  • Generation I's Articuno, Zapdos, and Moltres all go "Gyaoo!" and Mewtwo goes "Mew!" Also, in Emerald version, Mew goes "Myuu…"
  • Generation II's Lugia goes "Gyaaas!" and Ho-Oh goes "Shaoooh!"
  • Generation III's Kyogre goes "Gyararoooah!" in Heart Gold and "Krrraaawwwrrr!!!" in Alpha Sapphire, and Groudon goes "Grrgggrrrrah!" in Soul Silver and "Gurrrooouuuhhh!!!" in Omega Ruby. Rayquaza has by far the most cries, going "Kiyuryursheeah!" in Heart Gold and Soul Silver and "Kiryararararahhh!!!", "Kiryarassshhhaaahhh!", "Kirrrurrrurrr…", "Kiryarararaaahhh!", "Kirrrihrrrihrrrihhhh!!!", "Kirrihrrrihrrriii!!!", and "Kiiiryarrrarrrarrraaaashiiiii!!!" in Alpha Sapphire and Omega Ruby.
  • Generation IV's Uxie goes "Kyouuuun!", Mesprit goes "Kyauun.", Azelf goes "Kyuuun…", Dialga goes "Gugyugubah!", Palkia goes "Gagyagyaah!", Heatran goes "Gwogobo gwobobobo!", Regigigas goes "…Zut zutt!", Giratina says "…Bishaan!" in Diamond and Pearl and "Giygogagohgwooh!" in Platinum, Shaymin goes "Kyuu uuhn.", and Arceus goes "Dodogyuuun!" Darkrai's cry, oddly, only consists of ellipses.
• Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Trials and Tribulations has Furio Tigre (named Zenitora in the original Japanese version) from the third case, who growls so loudly at times that his roar stretches through up to six (!) text boxes. And his final one shorts out the lights in the courtroom.
  • The first game did this as well in the fourth case, where it was revealed that Miles Edgeworth shot not his father as he thought, but his mentor, Manfred von Karma. The roar-scream Karma gave when shot gave Edgeworth nightmares for years, as he thought it was his father screaming in pain. When Karma was revealed as the true killer and mastermind of the DL-6 incident and the fourth case itself, he let out the scream again, causing Edgeworth to realize the truth.
• Star Ocean: Till the End of Time has a rather embarrassing example. What was supposed to be an anguished scream (after being defeated and humiliated) was subtitled as..."Raaaaaaaaaaaawr!"
• Chrono Trigger. "Droooo...", among others.
• Berserker's roars in Fate/stay night were rendered as something quite unreadable and with no actual letters. Like this: "▂▂▃▃▄▄▅▅!"
  • Which actually makes sense, since Berserker's roars are described as "a sound no human could ever produce".
• Recurring Boss Balrog in Cave Story yells "Doryaa!!" when breaking through a door or ceiling. (The English versions changed it to "Huzzah!" or "Oh yeah!")

Web Comics

• Emergency Exit uses this, as shown in the excerpted panel above.
• Parallel Dementia absolutely loves this, so it naturally showed up a lot in the extended Crossover between Emergency Exit and Parallel Dementia. Prime examples include this epic "Graaaaaarr!!" and this epic "Screeeaaaah!".
• Erfworld rendered this dwagon roar as a loop of text ("RRROOOOOOOAAAAAAA" with the final "A" leading back to the block of "R"s).
• In The Inexplicable Adventures of Bob!, this was the vocabulary of the annually appearing Halloween Monster for the first few years of his her existence. These days, she goes "BOO!" very loudly, instead. In a variation, Unigar the Vast Unicorn roars with a blood-curdling "PURR!" (because all normal-sized unicorns in the Bob-verse purr).
• El Goonish Shive uses this for Vlad's loud screech which is heard throughout the building and for a giant boar's mighty "squee" which is also loud enough to be heard from a distance.

Web Original

• The Aargh Page was created as an example of how search engines can be used explore how words are spelled. Words often have more than one acceptable spelling, and that's particularly true of onomatopoeia.

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