Speaks Fluent Animal: Difference between revisions

[[File:Hawkman birdtalk 250 5059.jpg|link=Hawkman|frame|Like all good crimefighters, Hawkman regularly talks with his network of informants.]]

 

 

A character is able to talk to animals.

 

Don't confuse this ability with [[Talking Animal]]. Also, note that if you [[Animorphism|shapeshift into an animal]] or a [[Beast Man]], you'll automatically learn how to speak [[Animal Talk]] too. See also [[Animal Eye Spy]], where the character can see through the eyes of an animal. Compare [[Suddenly Fluent in Gibberish]] which is an ability to speak gibberish or some other made up language.

{{examples}}

* In the badass commanding-animals-in-battle category, Shido Fuyuki of ''[[GetBackers]]''. The manga goes into a little more detail: apparently, any member of the Maryuudo (i.e., Amon Natsuki, who was asked to help rescue Madoka by monkeys) can talk to animals, but it is Shido's tribe, the Shiki, that has the ability to awaken the animals' ability to think and act on the level of humans. There's also the Maryuudo's mortal enemies, the Kiryuudo, who communicate with and command bugs.

* Belldandy in ''[[Ah! My Goddess]]'' even makes sure to use [[Japanese Honorifics|polite honorifics]] when talking to animals. Or to some [[Haunted Technology|inanimate objects]].

** [[Filler|Apis]] would also qualify.

** Mermaids can naturally talk to fish, and Jinbe also displays this ability (remarked to be unusual for a fishman).

* In one episode of the original ''[[Astro Boy]]'', a naturalist develops a machine that can control animals using ultrasonic waves to affect their brains. He uses it in an attempt to stop a land developer from destroying a forest, first by attempting to assassinate the construction company's executives & their families with things like attack dogs & raging bulls, & when that fails, using hordes of every animal imaginable to overrun the city, before he is killed by the title character ([[Jumping Off the Slippery Slope|don't feel too bad, he was about to throw a bomb into a room full of hostages]]). In later versions of the series, Astro's little sister, Uran has the ability to communicate with animals, presumably based on the same technology, which she uses at one point to convince fellow Tezuka manga star Leo/Kimba the White Lion not to eat a terrified schoolboy.

* Prince Cab in ''[[Transformers Super God Masterforce]]''.

* ''[[Pokémon Special]]''. Being blessed by the Viridian Forest, both [[Friend to All Living Things|Yellow]] and [[Well-Intentioned Extremist|Lance]] can read the minds and hearts of Pokémon through telepathy.

** Also, Dr. Footprint can accurately tell what a Pokémon is thinking by simply looking at its footprints alone, like when a Staravia was about to drop him and when a Drapion wanted to be free of its [[Jerkass]] trainer.

 

== [[Comic Books]] ==

* [[Ex Machina|Mitchell Hundred's]] "arch enemy" Jack Pherson had this power. It was not played for laughs at all.

* [[The Golden Age of Comic Books|Golden Age]] [[Black Canary]] could use her sonic powers to hypnotically control birds.

* [[Detective Animal|Detective Chimp]] actually gained the power to talk to all animals (along with significantly slowed aging) from the fountain of youth. He mostly communicates with Humans, though.

 

* Fauna in [[DC Nation]] has this as one of her powers, and was a bit surprised when she found out Beast Boy didn't. Unlike her [[Shapeshifting]] and [[The Beast Master|Beastmaster]] abilities, she is completely comfortable using it.

 

* In ''[[Gordy]]'', it is said that anyone can understand animals if they took the time to listen. Although only the two leading kids are able to understand him, only having five seconds of silence with the pig.

 

* The ''[[Doctor Dolittle]]'' series of children's books, whose Doctor Dolittle had these powers. They were published in the 1920s. It was made into a film twice; a fairly faithful musical adaptation in 1967, and an almost related [[In Name Only]] comedy starring Eddie Murphy in 1998.

** One of the major changes in the two is that in the original story Doctor Dolittle ''learned'' how to speak with the animals from his talking parrot. In the Eddie Murphy movie (and sequel), it's an almost magical ability that he (and later [[In the Blood|his daughter]]) possessed. It's an actual plot point in the original stories that animals have ''different'' languages, and just because you can speak to dogs doesn't mean you can speak to, say, crayfish. Doolittle puts lot of effort into learning more languages. It is also established that any human who makes the effort ''could'' learn animal tongues.

* ''[[The Chronicles of Ancient Darkness]]'': Torak. Only with wolves, ravens, and bears though.

* In the ''[[The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy|Hitchhiker's Guide]]'' books, after Arthur Dent learns how to fly, he also teaches himself the language of birds. This turns out to be a mistake, since all they talk about is nuts, bugs, sex and power-to-lift ratios. This means he's constantly surrounded by their inane chatter, but he ignores them as much as possible.

* In ''Charlotte's Web,'' Fern is able to understand what the animals are saying when they talk to each other, although she is not showing speaking to them herself.

* [[Tamora Pierce]]'s ''[[Tortall Universe|Immortals]]'' quartet is based around the principle of the heroine being able to speak to animals. Later she can even turn into them. At one point she even addresses the meat-eating dilemma, saying that after being hunted in both deer and goose form, she was down to only being able to eat chicken, mutton, and fish.

* In ''[[The Shadow Speaker]]'', Ejii discovers she can talk to animals and read their minds when she hears the thought of a cat eating a dead animal.

* In the ''Lionboy'' series Charlie can converse with cats after an accident when he was young, which involved getting scratched by a leopard cub.

 

* Heavily subverted in an episode of ''[[Eerie, Indiana]]'', in which a kid's braces give him the ability to talk to animals... {{spoiler|and he finds out [[Paranoia Fuel|they are planning a full-scale]] [[Gaia's Vengeance|takeover of the Earth]] and will probably kill him for knowing too much.}}

* The title character from ''[[The Adventures of Brisco County Jr]].'' regularly has conversations with his horse Comet, who doesn't know he's a horse.

* This is played for laughs in an episode of ''[[Seinfeld]]'', where Newman claims he has the same route as a mailman that [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Berkowitz| David Berkowitz]{{Dead link}} did. He claims there are a ''lot'' of dogs on the route, but all they ever told ''him'' was [[You Are Fat| to cut down on snacks.]] (Berkowitz had claimed a barking dog had ordered him to commit the murders he is notorious for.)

 

* In the Germanic myth of the Nibelungs (later adapted into a series of operas by [[Richard Wagner]]), the hero Sigurd gains the ability to talk to birds.

* Melampus, in a [[Greek Mythology|Greek myth]] [[Older Than Feudalism]], raised a pair of baby snakes in his youth after their mother was killed. The grateful serpents repaid him by giving him the power to understand animal speech. He eventually earned a kingdom and a wife with it.

* King Solomon allegedly had this ability, though some interpretations suggest that he just knew a lot about animal behavior and could figure out details about his environment not evident to humans by paying attention to them.

 

== [[Tabletop Games]] ==

* The superheroine Lynx in the ''[[GURPS Supers]]'' supplement ''Supertemps''. She's a [[Friend to All Living Things]] as well,

 

* The [[Mask of Power|Great Mask Of]] [[Translator Microbes|Translation]] in ''[[Bionicle]]'' allows the wearer this power, on top of its Noble Mask counterpart's writing-translation abilities. Several characters have also mastered [[Animal Talk|Bird Talk.]]

 

* ''[[Soul Blazer]]'': The hero can talk to animals and also plants; the rest of the humans can't.

* In ''[[Terranigma]]'', the hero can talk to animals as well as plants {{spoiler|at first, but loses this ability after humans are revived}}.

 

* Grace, and by extension the other chimeras, in ''[[El Goonish Shive]]'' can talk to animals (squirrels at least). At one point, Tedd used her as a negotiator with the squirrels on his lawn.

* Krosp of ''[[Girl Genius]]'' is a cat created with opposable thumbs, human intelligence, human speech, and the ability to command cats. Unfortunately, cats are idiots, and even if they can understand his commands, they tend to [[Attention Deficit Ooh Shiny|get distracted three seconds later]].

* Paz, the unlucky girl from ''[[Gunnerkrigg Court]]'', can talk to animals. Do '''not''' think [[Heart Is an Awesome Power|this makes her no threat if you have an evil scheme]].

* Gail [[Power Incontinence|temporarily]] has this power in ''[[When She Was Bad]]''.

{{quote|'''Nelson:''' A hundred squirrels acting in concert could bring down our nation's power grid.}}

 

== [[Web Original]] ==

* Several characters in the [[Whateley Universe]], including Avatars of some animal spirits, like Aquerna (who can talk to squirrels and order them around) or Arachne (who can talk to spiders but spiders don't make really good spies because they're not very smart).

** And we've now seen the [[Translation Convention]]: Aquerna talks to the squirrels and ''vice versa'' in what seems like English to her, but everyone else hears freaky squirrel noises.

 

== [[Western Animation]] ==

* Dexter of ''[[Dexter's Laboratory]]'' wanted to speak with a dog; constructed a translator device and learned that the dog was saying: 'Hey! Hey! I'm a dog! Look! Look, it's a thing! Over here! A dog!' -and so on.

* In the ''[[Jimmy Neutron]]'' episode "Raise the Oozy Scab" Jimmy has a device that allows him to speak to fish, which he hopes to use to ask for directions to a sunken treasure. It fails, as the fish just want to talk gossip. Later, when the sub is attacked by a giant squid, Jimmy modifies the device to be able to speak squid and convince it to let them go.

* In the ''[[Futurama]]'' episode "The Bird-bot of Alcatraz", Bender suffers an accident that causes him to reboot, and automatically goes into "Penguin mode" due to penguins being the first thing he sees upon reactivating. Interestingly enough, after he later returns to his default "human" mode, he appears to retain the ability to speak Penguin, encouraging them (in their own language) to attack the people trying to hunt them. Whether or not he can perform all this with other animals is unknown, but it seems entirely possible.

** In "The Sting" Bender is given a bee language cartridge to allow him to communicate with the space bees. So he's likely able to communicate with any animals with the right software.

*** Not really, since he doesn't "speak with Fish" at all. What he does do is telepathically communicate and command, NOT ASK, Marine life.

*** Wonder Woman, though infrequently.

* In the ''[[Jonny Quest]]'' TOS episode "Werewolf of the Timberland", the Indian named White Feather could speak to wolves and owls (and presumably other forest creatures).

* Possibly a [[Shout-Out]] to ''[[Mary Poppins]]'', in ''[[Arthur (animation)|Arthur]]'', baby Kate can talk to dogs and cats. To them, people speak pure gibberish.

** Indeed, a story in the program's thirteenth season confirms that, in fact, all babies can speak to animals. As they start to grow up, they gradually begin to lose this power.

* Apparently Beast Boy from [[Teen Titans (animation)|Teen Titans]] possesses this ability as he was able to communicate with a group of raptor-like dinosaurs while mimicking their form when they found themselves stuck in a [[Lost World]] stuck in time. Subverted as the translation revealed they still intended to eat team of heroes, culminating in a short skirmish.

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Characters As Device]]

[[Category:Older Than Dirt]]

[[Category:Stock Super Powers]]

[[Category:Animal Anthropomorphism Tropes]]