Badass Baritone

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

He is a manly man, and he has a manly voice to prove it.

A character of this sort must fulfill two criteria:

  1. The character must be a badass.
  2. The character must have a deep voice of baritone register. Bass register is also possible but is rarer and almost always overlaps with being evil.

Such a character may range from Cool Old Guy to Testosterone Poisoning. Such characters are frequently supporting roles, such as The Lancer.

A necessary part of Soprano and Gravel.

See also Evil Sounds Deep, Guttural Growler, Power Makes Your Voice Deep. Contrast Tenor Boy.

Examples of Badass Baritone include:

Anime and Manga


Film

  • Miles Gloriosus from A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, especially in the movie.
  • Many incarnations of Batman have him lowering his voice while in costume to sound more menacing.
  • Christopher Lee sometimes plays this when he isn't playing villains.
    • His voice is perfect when he plays the Discworld role of Death, since Terry Pratchett has always described Death's voice being deep and foreboding like the slamming of a coffin lid.
  • Mace Windu in the Star Wars prequel trilogy. Darth Vader is the more villainous example, but he's still one of the most badass villains on the screen.
    • As a rule, though, anytime Samuel L. Jackson is in the film's cast, expect his character to be one of these.
  • Optimus Prime.
  • Riddick from the The Chronicles of Riddick series.
  • Any character played by Ron Perlman.
  • Kevin Grevioux has an unnaturally deep voice, which led many people watching his character Raze in Underworld to assume it has been altered in some way. He's also a Genius Bruiser, having degrees in microbiology and genetic engineering and having come up with the idea for the movie in the first place.
  • Mufasa.
  • Severus Snape.


Literature

  • Aral Vorkosigan of the Vorkosigan Saga has a "scratchy" baritone, as does his Retired Badass father.
  • Earl Thorfinn, aka Macbeth from Dorothy Dunett's King Hereafter has a voice constantly described as "subterranean."
  • Harry Dresden of The Dresden Files.
    • Also, Sanya. Knight of the Cross, and the only person manly enough to make Dresden feel inadequate, being roughly of a height with Dresden and muscle-bound enough to make Michael, who is notably strong, look puny, whereas Harry is all wiry muscle.
  • Bahzell Bahnakson in David Weber's War God series.
  • Every Chaos Marine in Throne of Lies speaks in an unusually low voice, but Xarl, The Squad's resident Blood Knight, is noticeably deeper.
  • Derek Sagan of the Star of the Guardians by Margaret Weis has a deep baritone.
  • DEATH from the Discworld is described as having a voice like a lead coffin lid slamming,even if his voice is more felt than heard.


Live Action TV

  • Castiel. Also, Jensen Ackles noticeably starts using a deeper voice in any extended conversation with him. It's like they're trying to out-badass each other. Misha Collins has said that he regrets it- he thought he would only be a guest star and was just trying to sound Badass, but when he was brought back to be a major supporting character he was forced to keep it, and finds using the voice so much to be annoying, difficult and mildly painful.

Misha Collins: So in the first episode that Castiel shows up in, um — he's trying to communicate with Dean, and in so doing, his voice, his angelic voice, is exploding television sets and breaking windows — and so I, consummate guest star that I am, thought - oh, you know, I'm gonna do this [deepens voice], really deep, gravelly, commanding, kickass, kind of window-breaking voice... And I may be running into medical problems now.


Theatre

  • Charlie Anderson from The Musical adaptation of Shenandoah.
  • Count Carl-Magus in A Little Night Music is certainly a manly man, if conceited and stupid, with a distinct baritone voice.
  • Wotan in Richard Wagner's Der Ring Des Nibelungen. He's a bass-baritone, the ruler of the Gods, and he even has an eyepatch.
  • Pick a Verdi baritone role. Any of them. Good guy or villain, all badass.
    • Meta-example: any baritone who can sing Verdi automatically qualifies. Rare though they may be, "Verdi Baritones" make ordinary baritones cower in fear.
    • If basses count, Sparafucile from Rigoletto. Assassin AND a man of honour. He never double-crosses anyone.
  • Don Giovanni. He's THE MAN.
  • Vanderdecken in Der fliegende Holländer—manly, dark, mysterious, bass-baritone.
  • Escamillo from Carmen. You know, the guy who sings that impossibly hammy song about how cool toreros are.
  • Les Misérables: Inspector Javert. Baritone or bass-baritone required, and he's badass enough to have his own trope. (Ask Patron-Minette how he arrested seven armed bandits plus a Mama Bear (who counts herself as two) alone.)
    • Enjolras is also played by a baritone and, as charismatic leader of the Friends of the ABC, qualifies.
  • Sweeney Todd. Also The Judge.
  • Macheath in The Threepenny Opera
  • Depending on the actor, The Phantom of the Opera (the role has been played by both tenors and baritones).
  • The indisputably badass Beast from Beauty and the Beast is a solid baritone role, as is the equally badass (though much more arrogant about it) villain Gaston.


Video Games

Western Animation

Real Life