Speaks Fluent Animal: Difference between revisions

In the prototypical version, which usually ends up being the main character and the focus of the show, this means having full-on conversations with them, rendered in English via the [[Translation Convention]]. Most of the time we will, at some point, be shown the [[Translation Convention]] explicitly by showing the Doctor Dolittle making, say, squirrel sounds back and forth with a squirrel. Oddly, he or she can also converse verbally with animals that don't use vocal communication at all.

 

 

It seems as if the presence of someone who [[Speaks Fluent Animal]] heightens an animal's intelligence. They will verbally express an understanding of human actions that the animal's own actions up to then gave no indication.

 

== Anime and Manga ==

* Chopper from ''[[One Piece]]''. Not only is he able to talk to just reindeer, he can talk to other animals as well. Although he is a reindeer himself, he is qualified because he had eaten a devil's fruit which allows him to become semi human.

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

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

* ''[[Fresh Pretty Cure]]'' has Inori gaining the ability to talk to animals (and Chiffon, even thought she doesn't really qualifies as an animal) during her power-up episode.

** Though in some instances during Laura's diary entries, it seems almost as if Laura and Hamtaro can communicate telepathically, as sometimes Hamtaro mentally responds to what Laura is thinking as she writes her diary, and Hamtaro explicitly states that he can't read.

* In ''[[Full Metal Panic]]'', apparently Sousuke has a great affinity to animals. Putting together numerous different canons (the [[Light Novels]], manga, anime, etc.), it would appear that he can communicate and has some understanding when they speak. In the manga, there's the instance where he takes care of "Mousuke," a highly intelligent little mouse that [[Friend to All Living Things|is extremely attached to him]]. He's later shown having a conversation with Mousuke, which Kaname witnesses. She's very bewildered and unnerved that Sousuke is... talking to a mouse. In the novels, Sousuke is also shown to be able to communicate with Shiro ("Whitey"), a white tiger that he grew up with. He can understand Shiro's growls and even translate them to Kaname. And in the anime, while Sousuke is disguised as Bonta-kun, he's able to communicate with the disturbing Pony man (who only says "pony pony pony" while wearing his mask). No one else seems to be able to understand.

* ''[[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.

 

 

** [[The Falcon (Comic Book)|The Falcon]] can talk to birds telepathically.

* Ant-Man's cybernetic helmet lets him talk to ants.

* ''[[Freshmen]]'' had Charles Levy, or The Green Thumb, who can talk to plants. The whole "eating things that can talk" thing is brought up, and since he's a vegetarian ol'Charles is up shit creek. And his ficus thinks he's cheating on her..

* Norbert Sykes, hero of ''[[The Badger]]'' is explicitly described as talking to animals "like Dr. Dolittle, only with better results". Of course he was mad.

* It was revealed in her spin-off comic that Gran'ma Ben (AKA Rose) from the ''[[Bone]]'' comics could speak to dogs.

* In the "Mork Whisperer" [[Arc]] of ''[[Strontium Dog]]'', one of the [[Bounty Hunter|bounty hunters]]' targets turns out to be able to communicate flawlessly with any animal, particularly morks. He doesn't get along too well with humans.

* [[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.

** The 1967 musical version even brings up the meat problem. Dr. Dolittle explains that he is now a vegetarian because he doesn't like to make a habit of eating his friends, then launches into a song about how hard it is not to. If memory serves, he does cook some bacon for the carnivores to eat (which makes the pig quite upset).

* ''[[Harry Potter]]'' gained the power to talk to snakes the first time [[Big Bad]] Voldemort tried to kill him. Parselmouths are people who can talk to snakes by hissing at them. When a snake talks to a Parselmouth, they hear the hissing as if it were in their native language.

* In the ''[[Mary Poppins]]'' books, all babies can talk to animals. Ms. Poppins happens never to lose this ability (a dog informs her of her uncle's laughing fit). Just showed how she was Practically Perfect in Every Way.

* In the ''[[Young Wizards]]'' series, wizards can communicate with animals because the Speech, the [[Language of Magic]], is sort of the proto-language which all things and creatures can understand. Plus, depending on a wizard's specialty, this can be taken further: Nita, who specializes in living things, can converse with microbes, while Kit, who specializes in inanimate objects, can commune with rocks and TV remote controls.

* In [[Mercedes Lackey]]'s book ''The Fairy Godmother'', the main character Elena is given Dragon's Blood in order to understand the speech of animals. She later worries that she won't be able to eat meat again, until she listens to some chickens talking and realizes that, yes, they were just as stupid and greedy as she always thought they were. She then grants this ability to young princes on quests to save princesses when she grows into her role as a Fairy Godmother.

** Radagast, The Brown Wizard.

** [[The Silmarillion|Celegorm]], son of Fûanor.

** The counterpoint to Dor is Grundy the Golem who can speak to any living thing (including plants). Unlike Dor, his talent is not considered Magician caliber due to the fact that anyone who tried hard enough could theoretically learn the language of any living thing. The trope is somewhat justified here due to the magic of Xanth making every living thing at least somewhat intelligent.

*** In fact, at one point after the Sea Hag captures him, he even teaches a ''beetle'' a few sentences of dragon language so it can pass on a message for him.

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

* In the ''[[Hitch Hikers 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 ''[[Percy Jackson and The Olympians]]'' Grover, a Satyr, can speak to all animals and Percy can speak to horses, zebras and hippocampi, as horses (and their counterparts) were created by his father, Poseidon.

* In ''Spindle's End'', a [[Sleeping Beauty]] retelling by [[Robin McKinley]], this is the last of the 21 blessings bestowed by fairy godmothers on the princess on her christening day.

** Confirmed in ''The Time Paradox'', where Holly can not only talk to all of the animals in a zoo, she can talk to all of them at once.

* In ''[[Children of the Red King]],'' [[Heroic Albino|Billy]] has this power. It's harder than talking to humans, though, because animals tend to think in different ways and still seem to be generally less intelligent.

* In [[Moses Man of the Mountain]], after reading the book at Koptos Moses knows, among other things, "the language of the birds of the air, the creatures that people the deep and what the beasts of the wild all said". However, he's never seen using this power until the very end of his life.

* In ''The Girl with the Silver Eyes'' by Willo Davis Roberts, Katie Welker can speak to and understand (telepathically) cats and dogs, among other powers.

* Vince Noir from ''[[The Mighty Boosh]]'' has this ability in the first series. His companion Howard Moon feels that it's wasted on him because he only uses the gift to talk about how much he admires Gary Numan.

* The Doctor in ''[[Doctor Who]]'' speaks all languages, including those of animals. He talked to a cow in one comic, and convinced a cat to investigate a strange room for him in ''The Lodger'', as no one would notice it and he could understand its meows.

* Shiro Akebono (Battle Kenya) in the ''[[Super Sentai]]'' series, ''[[Battle Fever J]]'' is a wild child that can talk to animals.

** Later on, [[Name's the Same|another Shiro]] ([[Choudenshi Bioman|Red One]]) is also able to talk to animals as part of his power.

== [[Tabletop Games]] ==

* The [[Tabletop RPG]] ''[[Vampire: The Requiem]]'' allows vampires to learn how to speak with animals, summon them, control them and eventually take over their bodies. Many use the lower-level power to get food. "Here, kitty, kitty." <Chomp>

* In ''[[Seventh Sea|7th Sea]]'', those who possess a certain type of shape-shifting sorcery can talk to animals as well, with the catches being the farther away the sorcerer is from their home land or the more domesticated the animal is, the harder it is to communicate with it.

* Gnomes possess this as a racial ability in ''[[Dungeons and Dragons]]'', and both druids and rangers gain access to similar abilities through spells.

** Xvarts (aka svarts or xivorts), a race of blue-skinned little humanoids, can speak with bats and rats in some editions of the game. 4th Edition explicitly makes them [[Evil Counterpart|Evil Counterparts]] of gnomes.

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

 

* Luke from ''[[Professor Layton]]'' can talk to animals (though in the first game the translation merely makes him a [[Friend to All Living Things]]). In the second game, he gets the idea to talk with a group of cows (who moo while he makes rather polite conversation) to find out which two of them were swapped with one another. Layton, who has consistently been shown throughout the first game as the sensible one, wonders why he hadn't thought of that himself.

* Your character in ''[[My Sims]] Agents'' seems to be able to understand what dogs and wolves say, and they can understand your [[Speaking Simlish|simlish]].

* Ness from ''[[Earthbound]]'' can communicate (possibly telepathically) with pretty much any animal that's not in the middle of trying to kill him. In general, they're about as helpful as human NPCs.

* In ''[[King's Quest V]]'', the wizard Crispin gives Graham a piece of white snake to eat, which allows him to communicate with the animals he comes across.

** In the third game, a certain spell Alexander can cast allows him to understand animals, though not to actually speak back to them.

 

== Webcomics ==

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

* [[Rules Lawyer|Nelson]] from [[Full Frontal Nerdity]], as is his wont, figures out a way to [http://nodwick.humor.gamespy.com/ffn/index.php?date=2011-10-13 powergame this].

 

== [[Western Animation]] ==

** Partially [[Justified Trope|justified]] in that Bubbles' particular power is the ability to speak ''any'' language. At least, that's what this troper was led to believe.

** No. Just Spanish and animal.

** Japanese too.

* 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.

* Eliza Thornberry, in ''[[The Wild Thornberrys]]''. (Her first name may be a [[Shout-Out]]: Eliza ''Doolittle'' was the female lead in ''[[My Fair Lady]]''. In the film, the male lead was played by Rex Harrison, who also starred in the 1967 version of ''Dr Dolittle''.)

** 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.

*** Considering his penguining abilities, he probably comes pre-loaded with Earth animals. Space wasp language is both alien and ''non-verbal.''

* Anne-Marie from ''[[All Dogs Go to Heaven]]''.

* 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).

** 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.

** Melody, Ariel's daughter later inherits this trait. Deconstructed, her powers alienate her [[All of the Other Reindeer|peers,]] because they think she's a freak.

** Also doubles as an [[Actor Allusion]] in Hurricane Fluttershy, when When Twilight Sparkle, voiced by Tara Strong (the voice actor for Bubbles), is chattered at by a Squirrel, to which her response is "Do I LOOK like I speak squirrel?"

 

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