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Cute Mute: Difference between revisions
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[[File:harpo_7019.jpg|link=The Marx Brothers|right]]
The Cute Mute has an appearance that's innocent to a fault. Whatever situation that causes their inability to speak probably also gives them that clueless, childlike demeanor. Unlikely to know or grasp social conventions, they will often be found innocently doing incredibly awkward things that will wind up spelling trouble for the other characters.
Lack of speaking alone does not qualify a character for this trope. Someone who can't speak but otherwise doesn't fit the trope is [[The Speechless]]. Someone who can speak but is never shown to do so onscreen is [[The Voiceless]].
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* Mizuna Kuraki from ''[[Moonlight Lady]]'' apparently cannot speak, although she tries mouthing her name.
* Kisa Sohma from ''[[Fruits Basket]]'' is mute for a bit when she first appears in the story, as a side effect of school bullying. Soon, she recovers from this with the help of Tohru and Yuki.
* [[Moe Moe|Moeka]] from ''[[Steins;Gate]]''. She is very uncomfortable speaking to people directly, and prefers to use her cell phone to communicate. {{spoiler|Turns out she's [[The Mole]], and is later killed for it.}}
* Len from ''[[Tsukihime]]'' speaks a grand total of twice (one of those a single ''word'') in the 2 games she's been in.
* ''[[Pokémon Heroes]]'': Latias in human form fits this trope much better than any other Pokemon. She's very pretty, acts strange and childlike, and doesn't speak at all (not even Pokemon Speech), Though she does make crooning and trilling noises and occasionally says "la" in Pokemon form.
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* The title character of ''[[The Little Mermaid]]'' is one of these (magically-induced) for much of the story and film. In Andersen's original story, the loss of her voice is permanent.
* [[Tastes Like Diabetes|Boo]] in Disney and Pixar's [[Monsters, Inc.]] Through the movie, she learns Mike Wazowski's name.
* ''[[Dumbo]]'', the eponymous character from the Disney movie, is a mute ''protagonist''. It works surprisingly well, since he's particularly expressive and he has talkative friends. It also helps that the little guy is essentially an infant/toddler for the whole movie so it makes a bit more sense for him to be [[The Voiceless]].
* Dopey, the cutest of the (Disney) [[Snow White (Disney film)|Seven Dwarfs]]. It's noted that they aren't sure whether he's actually mute.
{{quote|'''Snow White:''' You mean he can't talk?
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* Tack and the Thief from [[The Thief and the Cobbler]] was this, at least in the original story. When the film was purchased by another company before the original creator could finish it, it was turned into a musical and Tack along with the Thief were given voices. Most fans of the original tend to think that's one of the worst edits the new company made.
* In Disney's ''[[Peter Pan]],'' Tinkerbell doesn't speak, but only jingles like, well, bells.
** It is later revealed in her own movies, Tinkerbell does speak, but to humans it sounds like the jingling of bells It's actually quite clever if you think about it - we actually don't know her language, that and there are is a lot of comedic potential for her miming as well. It's a [[Running Gag]] in Dave Barry & Ridley Pearson's adaptations.
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* Adorable little Max from ''[[Orphan]]'', [[Justified Trope|justified by the fact that she is born stone deaf.]]
* Calvin from the movie ''[[Scrooged]]'' fits. He hasn't spoken since he saw his father killed. But at the end of the movie he reminds the [[Heel Face Turn|reformed Frank Cross]] to say "God bless us, every one."
* Bumblebee from the ''[[Transformers Film Series]]''. Also, the hilarious(-ly nasty) Frenzy, though he did get subtitles when speaking Cybertronian.
* Zetha from ''[[Mystery Science Theater 3000]]'' fodder movie ''[[The Phantom Planet]]'' fits this one to a "T." At a young age, Zetha's family was murdered in front of her eyes by an evil alien. Rather than become [[Batman]], though, Zetha simply became mute for at least a decade until the main character of the movie bumbled into her life... oh, and that same alien tried to kill her again. Because that helps, apparently.
* Madeline/Frigga of ''[[Thriller - A Cruel Picture]]'', AKA "They Call Her One-Eye".
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* Rocky from [[The Rocky Horror Picture Show]] has no spoken dialogue, though he can sing. The stage version sometimes has him speak, at one point telling Frank to "Piss off".
* ''[[A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum]]'' has Gymnasia, a beautiful and quick-witted slave from the Island of Silent Women. (She's pretty handy with weapons, too.) Pseudolus knows her sign language because his childhood nanny was a Silent Woman.
* Used in ''Love Potion no. 9''. When the female lead, Diane, gets a sample of the Love Potion no. 8, she receives the power of a [[Compelling Voice]], of a sexual nature and working only with the opposite sex. Upon entrancing a rich mook, to avoid [[Blessed with Suck|the potential hassles of being chased, harassed or desired by every single man at her speaking distance]], she cleverly puts the mook under the assumption she just enjoys "play the mute game", that is using a simplified form of [[Hand Signals|sign language while in public]], and [[Translator Buddy|letting him graciously act as her mouthpiece]]
* In the little-known [[Jackie Gleason]] film ''Gigot,'' the title character is a fine example.
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== Video Games ==
* 'Lady' from ''[[Shadow Hearts]]: From The New World'' is about as direct a subversion as you're gonna get. She never speaks, is an [[Emotionless Girl]], can inspire love in the heart of a sociopathic psycho named 'Killer', and was not so much [[Raised by Wolves]], as [[Wild Child|not raised at all]]. She can also kill you with a flick of her wrist, and probably will, just because you happen to be there. {{spoiler|She's like this because she was originally the sister of the protagonist and during a ritual to bring them back from the dead, she gave up her "will" (life force) to save her brother, which turned her into a "pure mass of malice" -- a being with no memories or humanity.}}
* Yone from ''[[Suikoden Tactics]]'' plays it fairly straight, being both cute and otherworldly.
** In ''[[Suikoden II]]'', Pilika is rendered mute when Luca Blight slaughters her entire town.
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== Visual Novels ==
* Shizune from [[Katawa Shoujo]] is an aversion, while she is cute and mute. She has a ''very'' forceful personality and is even the [[Ms. Fanservice]] of her game.
** Evidence seems contradictory on whether or not Shizune is actually, physically mute (as the developers claim) or merely would rather avoid speaking since it'd probably make her sound bad (being deaf), as some scenes seem to hint at her being able to vocalize after all.
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* [[Gadgeteer Genius]] (and [[Genius Cripple]], actually) Bernardo from ''[[Zorro: Generation Z]]'', named for a character by the same name in old-school [[Zorro]], like [[Generation Xerox|many characters]]. He communicates via ''actual'' sign language, though he rarely uses it with Diego - they know each other so well it's not needed, and it actually takes a couple of episodes to realize that Bernardo ''can't'' talk, as opposed to there simply being a [[Running Gag]] of Diego answering his own questions and not letting Bernardo get a word in.
* ''[[Phineas and Ferb]]'' had Meap who was the cutest thing ever, was an alien, and could only say Meap. But at the end of the episode, he gains a mustache that allows him to speak English or any other language in the universe. Somehow, saying Meap over and over is an actual language somewhere in space.
** Clearly you've never seen [[The Tick (animation)]], or else you'd know that the Heys and the Whats have equally efficient languages.
* In ''[[Transformers Prime]],'' Bumblebee takes after his movieverse counterpart. However, while movie Bumblebee speaks in canned sound clips from TV, radio, etc., Prime Bumblebee speaks in electronic sounds in a manner similar to [[Star Wars|R2-D2]] (or perhaps [[Transformers Armada|a Mini-con]].) The [[The Smart Guy|genius 12-year-old]] can understand him.
* Game-changing character Bit in [[We Are Our Avatars (Roleplay)|We Are Our Avatars]] started out as one of these, then {{spoiler|minus made her able to speak, and freed all of her kind}}. Tails Doll is only able to be understand by a small list of people, considering he speaks in Mmphs.
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