Voice for The Voiceless
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Exactly What It Says on the Tin. When a speaking character speaks for a character or object who can't speak for itself. Can be Played for Laughs or played straight. The person/thing that cannot speak may be The Voiceless, The Speechless, a Companion Cube, a Shrinking Violet, a Cute Mute, a Heroic Mime, etc. This method of translating can be temporary or just a part of the characters' quirks. Compare Mouth of Sauron.
Examples of Voice for The Voiceless include:
Film
- There's an interesting take in Pirates of the Caribbean. The pirate Cotton had his tongue cut out, and has his parrot talk for him. The other pirates then interpret what the parrot says.
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Mr. Gibbs:...so he trained the parrot to talk for him. No-one's yet figured how... |
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- The Star Wars Expanded Universe establishes that Chewbacca considers this to be one of Han's roles for him. Wookiee vocal chords are physically incapable of making the sounds necessary to speak Basic barring a rare birth defect that also prevents them from speaking Shyriwook.
- Dogma: The Metatron speaks on behalf of God, since His voice is so powerful that human beings cannot hear it without their mind caving in and their heart exploding ("We went through five Adams before we figured that one out").
Literature
- Ender Wiggin in Orson Scott Card's Enderverse novels Ender's Game and Speaker for the Dead. He speaks for the dead Buggers and several dead humans.
- George R.R. Martin's Haviland Tuf in "Guardians". He speaks for the mudpots of the planet Namor, who are secretly behind the planetary ecosystem's war against the human colonists (the colonists were eating the mudpots without realizing they were sapient).
- Alternately parodied and played straight several times in various Discworld novels, especially those with Vimes. In Night Watch, Reg Shoe thinks he's speaking for the People, but Vimes reflects that the People would "clip [him] round the ear if they found [him] doing it". However, Vimes is quoted as using this line straight himself in the earlier book Feet of Clay ("Commander Vimes says someone has to speak for those who have no voices!"), and in The Wee Free Men, Tiffany Aching recalls her grandmother expressing a similar sentiment.
- Dr. Seuss' character, The Lorax, who provides the page quote.
- In Haroun and the Sea of Stories, Rashid Kahlifa can understand Abhinaya, the Gesture Language, and thus interprets for Mudra the Shadow Warrior.
Live-Action TV
- In Lizzie McGuire, Matt is the only one who can understand his silent friend Lanny.
- Although all but Matt consider Lanny to be The Voiceless, Matt repeatedly tells others that he finds it hard to get a word in edgewise when conversing with his friend.
- Riva, a deaf mediator who appeared in the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "Loud as a Whisper," traveled with a telepathic "chorus" that spoke for him. When they are killed in an assassination attempt, he has no way of communicating until Data builds a library to interpret his sign language, and the episode ends with Riva intending to teach his sign language to the warring parties. Why Riva did not simply write what he wanted to say was never addressed (the script implies that he and his family are illiterate).
Music
- Rage Against The Machine have a song called "Voice of the Voiceless," which is about Mumia Abu-Jamal.
Tabletop Games
- In Shadowrun, dragons can use a form of telepathy but can't speak the way humans can, so they will often choose a human to translate their thoughts into speech.
- In warhammer fantasy battles the council of thirteen of the Skaven has the Grey Seers seated member intercept their gods will, this really gives the Grey Seers a second vote in all matters.
Video Games
- Near the end of Mother 3, the recurring villain Fassad receives an interpreter robot after he's upgraded to some sort of half-mechanical nightmare out of the Book of Revelations. He can only communicate through horns.
- There's a funny little side-story in Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Time/Darkness that culminates in someone speaking for an inanimate object. Dugtrio is obsessed with the VAAAAST SEA, often shirking work to go talk at it. One day, it answers back, telling Dugtrio that it really wishes they would get back to work... which, of course, turns out to be Loudred throwing his voice at the request of Dugtrio's son.
- In Okami, Amaterasu cannot speak to mortals, so her sidekick Issun speaks for her.
- Caim from Drakengard forged a spiritual bond with a dragon and lost his voice as the price. Fortunately, his dragon can communicate telepathically with him and is sometimes willing to voice his thoughts to others.
- In Zelda games, Link's Exposition Fairies tend to do most of the dialog for him (except for some question-answering). In The Legend of Zelda the Wind Waker, where an Exposition Fairy is notably absent, there will always be at least two other people in the cutscenes, so the one closer to him can take over the talking.
- Chibi-Robo! can only communicate with simple Yes or No responses so his 'manager' Telly does the talking when necessary.
- Classic Tails speaks on Classic Sonic's behalf in Sonic Generations.
- This is what Mario's partners are for him in the Paper Mario games especially in Thousand Year Door where there's tons of dialog between characters in the story, it's different depending on which partner you have out as it always reflects their personality but the basic story and their and Mario's current goal stay same.
- Jonner is this for Mr. Blix in Freelancer while Trent is searching for von Klausen on New Berlin.
- Arngeir in The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim speaks for the other three Greybeards as their voice is powerful enough that if they try to speak to a normal person, they might kill them.
- In Katawa Shoujo, Misha serves as an interpreter for the deaf-mute Shizune, who uses sign language. Some of Misha's own personality quirks occasionally get in the way, though.
- In Baccano!, Claire Stanfield develops a knack for interpreting what Chane is "saying" by facial expression alone. He has been known to carry out complete conversations with her in this manner, much to the confusion of onlookers.
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Chane: ... |
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Web Comics
- In Captain SNES, there are supposedly specially trained telepaths meant to give people suffering from Silent Protagonist Syndrome the ability to answer questions for game shows. Supposedly because the only one we see is the "Dodongo Dislike Smoke" old man, who speaks exclusively in his indecipherable lines from the game.
Web Original
- In A Miracle of Science, since the inhabitants of Mars are part of a collective consciousness, it is considered to be a Genius Loci, and thus every citizen speaks for the planet as a whole. This gets interesting once one of the Martians takes an interest in the main character.
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Caprice: Mars likes you. |
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- Mako Tsunami from Yu-Gi-Oh!: The Abridged Series. Mako talks for (and eventually marries, separates from and gets back together with) the ocean.
Western Animation
- Friend Bear speaks for Secret Bear in all appearances in the Care Bears. The only episode that Friend Bear doesn't appear alongside Secret Bear, Secret finds it most difficult to get the other bears to understand what he's saying.
- Soundwave uses something of a variant. When he has to say something, he plays back a recording of something another character said earlier.
Real Life
- Guards at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, though mostly silent, can occasionally become this.
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- It goes without saying that for those who are mute or are incapable of communicating in a way other than sign language, they'll most likely have someone who can translate sign language.