Silent Antagonist

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This is the villainous counterpart to Heroic Mime; while the hero's silence makes him open to interpretation, the Silent Antagonist's silence makes him a sort of Enigmatic Minion.

A Sub-Trope of The Voiceless. The Super-Trope of Enemy Mime. Sister Trope to Enigmatic Minion.

Examples of Silent Antagonist include:

Film

• The Mysterious Woman from Sky Captain and The World of Tomorrow.
• The Thin Man in the first Charlie's Angels movie. (If I remember correctly, he originally had lines in the script, but they decided he'd be more villainous if he was The Voiceless.)
• Jaws from the James Bond film The Spy Who Loved Me. He also counts for most of Moonraker but it's finally subverted when he gets one line near the end of the film.
• Karl Ruprect Kroenen from the film version of Hellboy. The comic version not only speaks but is quite Affably Evil.
• The Baseball Furies gang in The Warriors never utter a word, even as they fight the Warriors.
• Darth Maul only has a couple of lines, and none in the presence of the heroes.
  • Darth Nihilus speaks sometimes, but only in an unknown language (Ancient Sith?).
• Kevin from Sin City. Apparantly, he spoke only to Cardinal Roark and "had the voice of an angel" but the audience never hears him.
• Adolf Hilter in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. He meets Indy face to face, but doesn't say a word.
  • Well, he's not an antagonist in the context of the scene, because he doesn't know who Indy is. Indy is wearing a stolen Nazi uniform and is remaining silent himself, so Hitler assumes he is just another autograph-seeking soldier. He takes Dr. Henry Jones's book from Indy and signs it, then promptly gives it back without realizing that it was the diary he was trying to get his evil mitts on in the first place.
• Rinzler, The Dragon in Tron: Legacy, for 99% of the film. It's not just to make him creepier: it's because Rinzler is Tron, reprogrammed to serve the villains, and hearing his voice would spoil The Reveal. When he does speak, it indicates that he's himself again.
• Kiriyama from the film version of Battle Royale.

Video Games

• Mother 3: The Masked Man does not talk at all... until Claus unmasks himself.
• The Dark Knights in Record of Agarest War never speak.
• Caim in Drakengard becomes this in the sequel, where he becomes a Rogue Protagonist.
• Dark Link of The Legend of Zelda never speaks.
  • King Bulblin from The Legend of Zelda Twilight Princess doesn't talk and is assumed to be an unintelligent monster until he gets a few lines near the end.

Web Original

• Israphel, from the Yogscast series Shadow of Israphel, never says a word in any of his appearances. Even his Co-Dragons, who have spoken a combined total of two words, are chattier.
• The Slender Man is this, in addition to often being hidden in plain sight. It's part of his charm.

Western Animation

• Avatar: The Last Airbender has Sparky Sparky Boom Man Combustion Man, who would rather blow stuff up with his mind than talk.
• Apocalypse from X-Men: Evolution is like this during his first appearances, though he finally talks during the Grand Finale.
• Soundwave's Transformers Prime incarnation, who has stopped talking on his own since coming to Earth. He "speaks" by replaying clips of other people talking (with the standard Soundwave voice effect undearneath).
  • This actually led to some Viewer Gender Confusion, because the first voice he replayed was that of Action Girl Arcee.