Not So Stoic / Literature

• 1Q84: Ushikawa prides himself on being detached from connections with others and emotions, but the narrative makes it clear that he deeply misses his ex-wife and two daughters. His last thoughts are of when the four of them lived in Chuorinken.
• Berg Katse from Ai no Kusabi was The Stoic, until Riki and Isaon are Together in Death. Then, he broke down crying for them.
• In the second book of the Artemis Fowl series, the usually stoic protagonist has a small emotional breakdown after hearing that his father is still alive. In the third book, after Butler is (temporarily) killed, Artemis openly weeps in front of him.
• China Miéville's Bas-Lag Cycle: In The Scar, sequel to Perdido Street Station, the main character Bellis hardly ever shows any outward emotion, except for the scene where she suddenly breaks down and starts crying upon the realization that she won't be able to get a message to her home warning them of an invasion, much less be able to return there. The character who discovers her breakdown is completely stunned.
• The inquisitor Amberly Vail of the Ciaphas Cain series has an easygoing, lighthearted, confident attitude, spending a lot of her appearances shooting conspiratorial winks, quips, and occasionally lots of bullets. There are several, several moments throughout the series, however, when her reactions reveal that she's far more stressed than she cares to let on. She is particularly prone to angrily snapping at her companions when something goes particularly badly, and once completely lost her composure and wound up in a shouting match with Cain after a tunnel collapse nearly killed them both.
  • Played for Laughs in The Traitor's Hand. Cain is being talked through a Wire Dilemma by a Techpriest, who, like most Techpriests, plays up the "unemotional machine" angle as much as he can. When the Techpriest tells Cain to cut the red wire, Cain reports that all the wires are purple. The Techpriest immediately begins swearing.
• In Robert E. Howard's Conan the Barbarian story "The Phoenix on the Sword", Thoth-amon has one, bursting out with the truth to Dion — who isn't listening.
  For all his iron self-control, he was near bursting with long pent-up shame, hate, and rage, ready to take any sort of a desperate chance.
• A Court of Thorns and Roses: Anger Azriel enough and he'll snap.
• "Curious George Goes to the Hospital": A sad little girl, hospitalized for the first time with an undisclosed illness, is very stoic ... until George snaps her out of her depression with his antics. At first, it is gradual ... but the real breakthrough comes near the end of the story when George takes another young boy's wheelchair for a wild ride. (The boy, whose leg had been broken in a car accident, was undergoing physical therapy when George decides to take the wheelchair for a ride.)
• Happens to Griboyedov in The Death of the Vazir Mukhtar, as he does sometimes confide some of his many worries and anxieties to particularly close friends.
• Discworld:
  • Lord Vetinari is one of the most emotionless people in fiction, to the extent that he actually has to tell people when he's furious. The one thing that really seems to break his facade, though, is questioning his devotion to Ankh-Morpork and her people, as Vimes does in Jingo. Upon being accused of buying and selling the lives of his citizens in order to play politics, Vetinari kicks over his chair before angrily pointing out that his actions stopped a war and saved potentially thousands of lives.
    Vetinari: And you say bought and sold? All right. But not, I think, needlessly spent.
  • The Shepherd's Crown has another; the Elf King, who normally speaks in a voice ‘like chocolate’ and is effectively smarminess personified, becomes spine-chillingly furious with the elf that murdered his Queen. He then breaks every bone in the elf’s body with a single backhand.
  • Throughout the "Lancre Witches" subseries, Granny Weatherwax has been a coldly invincible bastion of pride and self-confidence, who actively revels in being The Dreaded. Then comes Carpe Jugulum, where she becomes convinced that she has been snubbed from being invited to the christening of former coven-mate Magrat's daughter, which causes her to basically take off to a cave in the high mountains to sulk. Even when coaxed back to civilization to deal with the threat of the invading vampires, she is uncharacteristically vulnerable and unsure of herself for much of the book. It culminates in her being quite obviously embarrassed when she learns that she was invited to the christening, but a magpie stole the invitation, even though she tries to cover it up with her usual bluster.
• Dracula: Seward tries to appear stoic, channeling his pain and loneliness into workaholism and self-medication. A major part of his character development involves him learning that it's all right to have feelings, and his character arc culminates in him finally breaking down and sobbing so hard he can't talk.
• The Dresden Files:
  • An uncommon take in that we get to see everything from his point of view, so we know what decisions he makes to make him appear as The Stoic. As we find out, however, he is absolutely lethal when he loses it.
  • On the other hand, Michael Carpenter, Knight of the Cross, holy warrior, and devout believer in God, has a moment when he finds out a severely misguided priest has taken one of his children hostage.
    Michael: The son of a bitch hurt my little girl.
  • Another instance at the end of Battle Ground (2020), where after learning that Harry has been kicked out of the White Council, Michael drops a Precision F-Strike, shocking Harry so much he loses his balance. Michael then proceeds into a several minute-long tirade of angry swears in over a dozen different languages.
    Michael: I'll be happy to do penance, Lord. But some things need to be said.
• In Fate/Zero, Kiritsugu displays two personalities: loving father and husband, and remorseless Combat Pragmatist. As he had sunk into the latter, much to his wife Irisviel's dismay, she can't help but wonder about him. While she ponders, Kiritsugu breaks down and offers to give up his dream and run away, world be damned. He thought that if they participated in the Grail War any longer, they would quickly reach the point of no return. Of course, since Fate/Zero is a prequel to the original series, the point of no return is long past.
• Aaron in The Fire's Stone by Tanya Huff. He's so scarred by his lover's death that he forces himself to feel nothing. It's not until the last third of the novel that he finally breaks down and cries.
• Harry Potter: Severus Snape has four during the series: When Sirius whom Snape believes betrayed Lily to Voldemort escapes, when Harry accidentally dives into his memories, "DON'T CALL ME COWARD!", and his reaction to the news of Lily's death. Other than that, he's just another teacher with a sadistic slant.
  "Give me a reason to do it, Black. Give me a reason and I swear I will."
  • Oh, and one other occasion.
    Dumbledore: "After all this time?"
    Snape: "Always."
  • The main shtick of Professor McGonagall, who spends most of her time being a stoic Stern Teacher and the rest weeping unashamedly.
    • Or gleefully egging on Peeves, the poltergeist, in his quest to make Umbridge's life hell (though she does try to hide it from the students). Or yelling apoplectically at the students who tried to sabotage her house's Quidditch team players (which she doesn't try to hide at all).
• The only time in Haruhi Suzumiya when Yuki Nagato showed a significant emotion was in the Alternate Universe she created, where she was a normal girl. She gave a definite smile to Kyon, which dazzled him quite a bit.
  • She also averts having a Non-Singing Voice like you wouldn't believe.
• The talking sword Need in Heralds of Valdemar is, when her personality is "awake", sardonic and reserved with Nerves of Steel. She's both more irritable and openly kinder than a classic stoic character but remains very steady and careful. When other characters panic, Need stops and thinks things through and does not commit resources without care. She takes Nyara, an abused girl mutilated by an evil father, under her wing and teaches her independence while trying to undo the damage. Offscreen, Need discovered that one of the changes wrought on Nyara was to go into a state of near-animalistic lust when hurt and became furious, too incoherent to speak for days as she recklessly spent all her available power on neutralizing that "feature".
  • This actually helps link Need's waking personality to how she acts when asleep - when she's dormant she's often enforcing Chronic Hero Syndrome by driving her bearers to save or avenge women in peril, stirring in a rage at injustices visited on them. Clearly awake or asleep she's outraged by that kind of abuse.
• In The Hunger Games, the bloody Games are presided over by the booming, impassive voice of announcer Claudius Templesmith, who kicks them off and makes announcements as appropriate to make sure everything goes smoothly... until the climax of the first book, when, as the last two Tributes both prepare to commit suicide at the same time, he screams, "Stop! Stop!"
• Jane Eyre wasn't stoic as a child, but by the time she gets to Thornfield she is pretty emotionally reserved until Rochester threatens to send her away to Ireland once he has married Blanche Ingram. In fact, Rochester is trying to elicit this trope from Jane.
• Journey to Chaos: Siron Esrah's first scene is when he's clad in armor, complete with helmet, and acting out courtly rules. When the Joust turns into a monstrous blood bath, he quickly turns into a teenager worried about his dad.
• Legacy of the Dragokin: Lydia normally acts like she's the same age as her grandfather but has an emotional outburst when Benji awakens his dragokin powers. She cheers him on in a manner normal for a fifteen-year-old and everyone looks at her in shock. She blushes and then she repeats herself in a more subdued and grown-up manner.
• Dally from The Outsiders hardly cares about anyone or anything. But when Johnny dies, he visibly loses it.
• Williams in Portrait in Sepia never loses his British Stuffiness in San Francisco as Paulina Del Valle's perfect butler or in Chile as her consort in a Marriage of Convenience. The only moment Williams ever loses his composure is when he is driven to tears at the sight of Paulina looking helpless and vulnerable after her surgery.
• Zal of Quantum Gravity. He is completely cool in battle situations, and can keep that together for as long as he needs to...usually. Then he hears that/how Dar died and can't keep it together.
• In Redeeming Love, the heroine is a cynical Broken Bird who regularly tends to shrug off (or laugh off) both physical and emotional trauma (and romantic overtures from her Love Martyr husband that would have many other women melting into goo at his feet). Before it wears off entirely, her façade splinters twice: once, when she simultaneously realizes that she does care about Michael and yet thinks she isn’t worthy of his love, and again when she experiences real lovemaking for the first time (in contrast to thirteen unhappy years as a prostitute) and finds herself weeping as she’s coming down from her climax.
• Sense and Sensibility: Elinor Dashwood spends much of the novel putting tremendous effort into maintaining a calm, sensible, and levelheaded exterior no matter what turmoil is going on in her personal life — until the end, when Edward informs her that no, he did not marry Lucy Steele, and would really quite like to marry her, thank you very much. At which point she loses it. Spectacularly. See Hattie Morahan in the 2008 version or Emma Thompson in the 1995 version to see how it's done.
  • Elinor also provides another example, when her calm demeanor finally breaks after Marianne observes that she (Elinor) "must not feel much" for not showing her emotional devastation from learning months earlier of Lucy Steele's secret engagement to Edward. Elinor's emotional outpouring immediately afterward makes the above events all the more sweet in comparison.
• Sherlock Holmes very occasionally has moments of losing his cool. The most dramatic one is in "The Three Garridebs" (quoted above) when Watson gets shot by the villain of the week, and Holmes practically has a panic attack over it before declaring he would have murdered the shooter himself if Watson had died. Watson even comments that it was worth getting shot just to see Holmes acting so uncharacteristically emotional.
  • A more comedic example occurs in "The Man With The Twisted Lip": Holmes has been hired to find a woman's missing husband and all the evidence points to the man having been murdered. He breaks the news to his employer in the most sympathetic yet professional manner... and the woman replies that her husband can't be dead because she's just received a letter from him. Holmes springs out of his chair and shouts "WHAT?"
  • In "The Devil's Foot," Holmes makes the rather unwise decision to find out whether an unknown substance is poisonous by testing it on himself and Watson. They both nearly die, only escaping thanks to some quick action on Watson's part. Afterward Holmes rather emotionally thanks Watson for saving his life and apologizes for subjecting him to such a stupid experiment. Once again, Watson seems to feel the whole thing was worth it just to see Holmes acting human for once.
  • At the heartwarming end of "The Yellow Face" Holmes (after one of the rare cases where he got the solution wrong) is notably touched and humbled by the unexpectedly wholesome conclusion to the situation that he had almost made much worse with his mistake. As they leave he notes to Watson that any time he gets too arrogant Watson is to remind him of this failure.
  • Played for Drama in The Hound of the Baskervilles. Holmes spends the book insisting that the Hound is not a supernatural creature. And at the end of the novel, he goes prepared, armed and accompanied by Watson and Lestrade to physically protect Sir Henry. And in spite of all this, when the Hounds finally appears, in the middle of the night in the middle of the desert moor, its infernal appearance is enough to paralyze Holmes with terror, even if it is only for a few seconds. Watson and Lestrade felt the same effect, and even for a little longer than Holmes, not as stoic as he was.
• Although Holo from Spice and Wolf may not seem stoic at first glance, her trickster and teasing antics cover serious issues. It's almost impossible to tell what she's really thinking... unless she's shocked into dropping her act, and as Lawrence quickly learns, what she's usually thinking is something along the lines of "Please, Don't Leave Me."
• Star Wars Legends:
  • Hoole, in Galaxy of Fear, is profoundly affected seeing the wraiths on Kiva - he, who would always shapeshift to vigorously defend himself and protect his charges, went to his own form, fell to his knees, and covered his face. He held himself responsible for what killed them.
• Roofshadow from Tailchaser's Song is normally a somewhat aloof and quiet cat but there are scenes where she isn't so stoic. Tagalong Kid Pouncequick tends to bring out the playful side in her. She's also understandably afraid of Hearteater and his minions.
• In James Swallow's Warhammer 40,000 Horus Heresy novel The Flight of the Eisenstein, Sendek has a not-so-stoic moment of sheer surprise at The Reveal.
  • One of Dan Abnett's contributions, Know No Fear, had the otherwise controlled Roboute Guilliman react to Lorgar's betrayal with fury, vowing to rip the Word Bearers primarch apart and throw the pieces into hell.
  • In James Swallow's novel Deus Encarmine, Arkio accuses his dispirited companions of being afraid. Producing a moment where they confess, passionately, to their fear: they had seen most of their comrades attacked by witchery and turned into berserkers who had fallen on each other and perished miserably. Sachiel tries to rebuke them — it had been an honor to die for the Emperor — but Arkio agrees — what would they be, to see that and feel nothing?
• In The Westing Game, Judge J.J. Ford consciously decided to stop smiling when she began her law career, the better to maintain a serious, dignified demeanor, conserving her upbeat facial expressions for when they were really needed. It worked, too: she's so good at appearing as The Stoic that when she realizes a mistake she's made and starts chiding herself aloud, everyone present is shocked at this out-of-character display of emotion.
• Demandred of The Wheel of Time is a villain so consumed with hate for the Dragon (Lews Therin Telamon or his reincarnation Rand al'Thor, he doesn't care) that most people who know him have only seen him show one emotion- cold-blooded determination to see the Dragon dead, no matter the cost. It's explicitly noted that he never laughs or so much as smiles. Then, during the final battle in the last book, Demandred finally thinks victory is in his grasp, and he basically rampages around the battlefield wielding a massively powerful sa'angreal, effortlessly destroying almost everyone in his way, bellowing at the top of his lungs for Rand to come and face him while describing all the horrible things he'll do if Rand fails to show, and generally being the Large Ham Hero Killer he was born to be. Not unexpected when you keep hate locked up inside you for centuries and finally have the chance to let it out.
• World War Z: Todd Wainios tells a story about one of the biggest badasses on his team (an enormous ex-pro-wrestler who once used a zombie to beat other zombies into non-existence) be reduced to an inconsolable sobbing heap by the scent of cheap perfume on the wind. Todd's best guess was that it reminded him of a woman he knew before the war.

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