Voices Are Mental: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

{{quote|'''Jade-in-Jackie's-body:''' Why are there two of me?

 

When characters [[Freaky Friday Flip|swap bodies]], [[Grand Theft Me|get possessed]], [[Cloning Blues|are cloned]], or otherwise change form, there has to be [[Rule of Perception|some way to remind the folks at home]] which character is doing what. The solution? Base the voice off of the "mind" (when bodies are swapped/stolen) or make it relevant to the personality (in instances of cloning).

Of course, in a body switch one wouldn't expect the subjects to sound the same as their current body usually does anyway (slight differences in mouth shape, lung capacity and the vocal cords themselves would make differences when somebody new tried to control them without practice), but nor should they sound like their real bodies as this completely ignores the physical aspect of speech. The way your voice sounds depends on the shape of your vocal chords and the shape of your mouth. No amount of brain swapping is going to change that.

 

 

* Variation in ''[[Fullmetal Alchemist (anime)|Fullmetal Alchemist]]''; Al sounds the same when his soul becomes affixed to a suit of armor, even though he doesn't even have a body anymore.

** Played somewhat straight in the movie, where {{spoiler|Al's voice has deepened, due to his growing up after regaining his body (at the same age he lost it), but when he transfers his soul through a suit of armor (that just ''happens'' to look almost exactly like the one he was in) to our world, his voice is back to being high-pitched}}.

* In Episode 148 of [[Inuyasha]], we briefly witness an interesting variation: When Naraku takes Kikyo's form to make the protagonist think she betrayed him, his voice sure sounds like Kikyo's, but his internal monologue still sounds like himself, which leaves one weirdly surreal impression considering that you hear a deep male voice comming from a frail-looking girl. Something similar can be seen in a flashback when he transforms into a pretty girl to fool one of the protagonist's grandfather but stops bothering to disguise his voice when he finally confronts him and curses his family. This is averted both in thought and speech when he takes the form of a young nobleman, but this can be traced to Naraku's decision to [[Shapeshifter Default Form|permanently keep]] that appearance, and by extension, the voice, presumably because he liked them.

* Originally averted in ''[[Cardcaptor Sakura]]'''s [[Freaky Friday Flip]], but then played straight in the dub. Kero and Shaoran Li's voices remain the same, but their speech patterns and mannerisms are noticeably swapped.

** The ''mental allergies'' were justified in that {{spoiler|they really were mental allergies: They turned out in a later episode to be psychosomatic}}.

* Happens in ''[[Pokémon Ranger and The Temple of The Sea]]'', when the three members of Team Rocket swap bodies thanks to Manaphy's Heart Swap attack.

* Happens in ''[[The Slayers|Slayers Evolution-R]]'': {{spoiler|When Rezo got resurrected into Pokota's human body, his voice stayed just the same as it used to be. It's kind of distracting hearing his deep voice coming out of a Shotaro boy's mouth.}}.

** The voice difference was only to distinguish him from Goku, as to the characters, the voice that came out of Goku's mouth was Goku's own. Maybe they thought we wouldn't be able to tell or something?

* In ''[[Darker than Black]]'', [[Intellectual Animal]] Mao is actually a Contractor with the ability to possess animals. He switches bodies a couple of times, so we get to see that he sounds exactly the same as a cat, a bird, or {{spoiler|a flying squirrel}} - all of which sound like his original voice, as seen in a flashback.

** One [[Omake]] in which Rukia and Renji swap [[Meat Puppet|gigai]] plays this completely straight.

* Used in the second bonus OVA of ''[[Daphne in the Brilliant Blue]]'' when Maia and Gloria are switched. The switch in voices is brought up, but treated in such a way as though the other characters fully expect it to come with the territory.

* Tony Tony Chopper from ''[[One Piece]]'' can take the form of a giant reindeer-man, but has the same little kid voice. The 4Kids! dub averted this, but it's generally agreed that the voice used for his large form sounded ''horrible''.

* Happens in ''[[RahXephon]]'': {{spoiler|Ernst von Bähbem takes over the body of his "niece" Helena in order to survive just long enough to see the end of the world that he orchestrated. While in body of a thirty-something woman, von Bähbem still talks with his raspy old man voice.}}

* The ghost Amanojaku manages to retain his original voice in ''[[Ghost Stories]]'' even after possessing Kaya, a cat, despite the fact that cats don't even have a vocal tract capable of producing language, and Kaya appeared to be nothing but an ordinary cat before the possession.

 

== Fan Works ==

* Impressively averted in ''[[Dragon Ball Abridged]]'' when Goku and Ginyu switch bodies but are stuck with each other's voices ''and'' talk like themselves.

 

== Films -- Live Action ==

* ''[[Night Watch|Day Watch]]'' has Anton and Olga switch bodies in order to avoid Anton being dragged in by the Day Watch for a suspected murder. The voices carry over with the personality, and they each have to perform a small glamour in order to sound like who they look like.

* The [[Ur Example]] may be Universal's ''[[The Ghost of Frankenstein]]'' (1942), in which the monster takes on the voice of Ygor ([[Bela Lugosi]]) after a brain transplant.

 

== Literature ==

* An inversion of this concept appears in ''[[Animorphs]]'', where characters communicating mentally will pause frequently if they are out of breath, as if panting between words. Presumably this is simply because we're used to pausing if attempting to speak when out of breath, and the characters never trained themselves out of the habit for thought-speak.

 

* The ''[[Farscape]]'' episode "Out of Their Minds" begins with this, just so the viewers get what's going on immediately, by blending the voices of the two people involved. Later in the episode, though, the characters have all reverted to the body's voice, with each actor just using the other's body language and vocal patterns (or trying to).

** And by the end, a cat and dog are speaking with the voices of the scientist and his mook.

* In the first episode of ''Now and Again'', John Goodman's character is heard "speaking" to Dennis Haysbert who informs him that he's just a brain hooked up to a computer now. Still sounds like Goodman. However, this may just be the character's mental reconstruction of his own voice; when he wakes up in his new body, we still see him as John Goodman until he takes a look in the mirror, at which point he becomes played and voiced by Eric Close for the remainder of the series.

* In the ''[[Star Trek: The Original Series]]'' episode "Return to Tomorrow", several ''Enterprise'' personnel were (voluntarily) possessed by alien mental entities. When speaking, their voices were very different (louder and a different pitch, like in an echo chamber).

** The trope is averted in the actual bodyswap episode "[[Star Trek/Recap/S3/E24 Turnabout Intruder|Turnabout Intruder]]".

* In the ''[[Super Mario Bros Super Show]]'', Mario gets his mind swapped with that of Frank N. Stein's monster. It's not exactly the best dub job out there, but they did follow the trope. A knock on the noggin with a hammer for each of them is enough to swap them back.

* In the ''[[Dollhouse]]'' episode "A Love Supreme", {{spoiler|Alpha downloads Ballard's personality into himself. When Ballard briefly manages to take control of Alpha, he speaks with his own voice}}.

* Subverted in the ''[[Mork and Mindy]]'' episode "Metamorphosis-The TV Show" where Mork and Mearth switch bodies. They talk in each other's voices but in this case there are no dubovers involved - instead [[Robin Williams]] and Jonathan Winters expertly imitate one another.

* In an episode of ''[[Warehouse 13]]'', Pete and Myka switched bodies (thanks to an [[Monster of the Week|artifact]]), but their voices [[Averted|remained the same]]. To emphasis the switch, the actors (rather impressively) mimicked the other character's mannerisms.

* In ''[[Stargate SG-1]]'', this trope was averted in the body-swapping episode. The various actors did a hilariously good job of adopting each others' mannerisms, so it was still obvious who was in whose body.

 

== Video Games ==

*** Players of the original might not even notice the symbolism because Ansem/{{spoiler|Xehanort}} suddenly changed voice actors between games, making an already confusing situation even stranger.

** Let's just say ''Kingdom Hearts'' loves this trope.

*** Another interesting version of this trope is used in ''[[Birth By Sleep]]'' {{spoiler|When Master Xehanort possesses Terra, becoming the Xehanort that is the main villain of the series. Now Master Xehanort and Xehanort have different voices, but in the Japanese version they are voiced by father and son Chikao and Akio Ohtsuka, with the implication that it's the same voice, only younger sounding. Alas, this little detail wasn't able to be replicated in the dub}}

*** Then, there's Vanitas, who's {{spoiler|the physical manifestation of all darkness within Ventus' heart.}} He shares {{spoiler|Sora's}} voice actor in both versions, although it isn't noticeable at first, because they just do a that ''darn'' good job at sounding evil. Once you figure it out, however, it leads to a lot of [[Fridge Brilliance]].

* In ''[[Disgaea 2: Cursed Memories]]'', any character that gets transformed into a monster by the Dark Sun retains their original voice.

* It's hard to tell whether this applies to ''[[Prototype (video game)|Prototype]]'', since we don't know exactly how the main character's shapeshifting works. He can mimic other people's voices in cutscenes, but in gameplay, he always makes the same grunts regardless of who he's impersonating. (From a [[Doylist]] perspective, the explanation is that they didn't bother to program alternate grunts for him; a [[Watsonian]] one could be that Alex himself doesn't bother messing around with his vocal cords for every single form he ever takes.)

 

== Web Comics ==

* In ''[[Gunnerkrigg Court]]'', [[Speech Bubbles]] are colored differently to distinguish the different characters' voices. And Reynardine's bubbles are the same color regardless of whose body he's possessing. [[Word of God]] clarifies that his voice is always recognizably his own, but he doesn't sound ''exactly'' the same in different bodies.

*** Might it perhaps involve [[A Wizard Did It|magic]]?

* Also suggested in ''[[Looking for Group]]'' when [http://lfgcomic.com/page/171 Richard is summoned back from the Plane Of Suck] and ends up in Pella's body. Richard's trademark speech bubble is there, clearly indicating who is supposed to be the one doing the speaking. This is also used when Richard [http://lfgcomic.com/page/206 takes over a stone golem].

** Of course, given that Richard is a lich of some sort, this might be justified in that he's using magic.

 

== Web Original ==

** Another curious example, Church's second robot body is seen only speaking French, yet Church speaks English in his normal voice when inhabiting it, inverting the Lopez example.

 

== Western Animation ==

* Played straight and averted in ''[[The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron]]''. When Jimmy and Cindy switches bodies, the "brains" retains their voices, but when Jimmy creates imperfect clones of himself, each has a different voice related to their personalities.

* ''[[Danny Phantom]]'' has this happen whenever someone is possessed, leading at least twice to one character arguing with themselves with two distinct voices.

** Like the temporary eye colour change of possessed people, it is somewhat confusing as to whether this is actually happening in the DP world or merely [[Rule of Perception|a cue to help the audience follow what's going on]]. The other characters never notice it, at any rate.

* Happens in ''[[Darkwing Duck]]''.

** A fun story from one of the writers: the voice actresses for Raven and Starfire were originally ''supposed'' to switch roles, with [[Emotionless Girl|"Starfire" speaking in monotone]] and [[Genki Girl|"Raven" speaking cheerfully]]. It then turned out that both actresses were so good at mimicking the other character's voice that they could barely tell a switch had been made, leading the writers to simply drop the idea.

** A brief aversion in the Larry episode "Fractured" - reality was broken, mouths were traded around, so characters talked with other voices. Particularly charming, Cyborg talking smack via Starfire's voice.

* The ''[[Jackie Chan Adventures]]'' episode "Sheep In, Sheep Out" provides the quote at the beginning of this page.

* At first averted, then played straight in the ''[[Ben 10]]'' episode "A Change of Face".

** Again played straight in "Ghostfreaked Out" whenever Ghostfreak possesses someone. (Also, [[Uh-Oh Eyes|their eyes]] [[Mind Control Eyes|change.]])

** The largest aversion is that Ben's alien forms are voiced by several different voice actors, all of them different from Ben's normal voice actor but Upgrade (who seems to be synthesizing his voice). In contrast, Ben's [[Evil Counterpart]] Kevin 11 retained the same voice in all his forms when he was shapeshifting into several of Ben's different alien forms.

** Played straight in an episode of ''Ultimate Alien'' where Kevin and Gwen are each turned into several of Ben's alien forms, all of which were their voice actors impersonating the voices those aliens normally had (including Gwen's VA impersonating [[John Dimaggio|Rath]]).

* Averted in the ''[[Justice League Unlimited]]'' episode "[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HINrM_Y8kEk&feature=channel_page The Great Brain Robbery]", when Lex Luthor and Flash exchange bodies. They use the voices belonging to the bodies. The writing staff wrote the ep solely as an [[Actor Allusion]] for ''[[Smallville]]'' fans, since live action Lex and animated Flash are both played by Michael Rosenbaum. A significant portion of the episode's comedy also comes from the usually sinister vocal stylings of Lex's voice actor, Clancy "[[Highlander|The Kurgan]]" Brown, playing the goofball Flash for an episode. Among the jokes that [[Rule of Funny|saved the episode]]:

** It gets better, as Lex's regular voice actor performs a hilarious Flash in Lex's body trying very hard to ''sound'' evil but coming off as [[Poke the Poodle]] instead.

{{quote|("Lex" tries to leave the men's room)

'''Lex:'''No, because ''I'm evil.'' }}

** Also averted in the episode "Dead Reckoning", where characters don't change voices when possessed by Deadman. They do, however, gain his accent and mannerisms.

** That last part is actually quite ironic since Ulrich and Kiwi have [[Cross-Dressing Voices|the same voice actress]].

* Notably averted in ''[[Gargoyles]]''; Coldstone has three different personalities, all of which use Coldstone's voice with minor inflections when they're in control of the body. The female personality, the [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3tHy08ZJ98&feature=related first time she controlled the body], even said "My voice. It's different!" In a later episode, Puck switches the minds of various members of the cast (including all three of Coldstone's alternate personalities) and everyone's voice matches the body, rather than the mind, of the speaker.

** This is worked into the plots of said episodes, as it allows them to conceal which personality is in control of a body until [[The Reveal]].

** Averted again, later in "Where Is Thy Sting?": {{spoiler|Wasp tries to switch places with Bumblebee and one of the things he does is switch their voice processors. So after the switch Wasp has speaks with Bumblebee's voice while still maintaining his weird speech patterns and Bumblebee has Wasp's buzzing voice by still talks normally}}.

** Speaking of ''Transformers'', played straight in the ''[[Beast Wars]]'' episode "Possession" where Waspinator is possessed by Starscream's spark; he consequently sounds like a ''G1'' Starscream soundalike.

* ''[[American Dragon: Jake Long]]'' had a [[Freaky Friday Flip]] with his little sister, with this trope hard at work.

* Averted in a [[Freaky Friday Flip]] episode of the 1980s version of ''[[Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 1987|Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles]]''. Splinter and Shredder were swapped, but the voices stayed with the bodies.

* In ''[[Batman Beyond]]'', this trope serves as the [[Reveal]] that {{spoiler|Ra's al Ghul pulled a [[Grand Theft Me]] on his daughter Talia.}}

** It's a bit odd given that the body's real voice is also accessible.

* Averted in a ''[[Lloyd in Space]]'' episode where Lloyd and Francine switched minds. The voices stayed with their respective bodies and only their personalities and mannerisms switched. Possibly done because Lloyd's genius friend Douglas would have noticed the obvious change in voice.

* Used in the ''[[Jimmy Two-Shoes]]'' episode "Monster Mutt". Especially weird since one of the subjects was an animal.

** An early episode where Timmy changed bodies with Vicky's dog averted this: when in Timmy's body Doydle sounded like Timmy and when in Doydle's body Timmy could only bark/"speak dog" and there's what's obviously a voiceover to let us know what he's really trying to say.

* Shown in the ''[[Futurama]]'' episode "The Prisoner Of Benda", where virtually the entire cast, plus a washbucket and an Emperor, switch bodies but retain their voices. It's necessary, though, since the sheer amount of body-swapping would confuse anyone if they didn't keep their original voices. Additionally, it may be for the audience's benefit, since the characters still need to tell each other who's who.

* Subverted in ''[[The Real Adventures of Jonny Quest]]'': Jeremiah Surd performs a "neural cyber-transfer" with Race Bannon. At first he talks in Surd's voice but then when he explains how he plans to sneak up on and kill Dr. Quest, he clears his throat, then finishes his sentence in the voice of Race Bannon, hammering home how perfect his possession of Race's body is. Race-in-Surd's body talks like Race but with a noticeable electronic echo, representing the breathing apparatus Surd's crippled body uses.

* ''[[Superman: The Animated Series]]'': When the [[Power Parasite|Parasite]] absorbs Earl Garver's personality, Garver takes control of the Parasite's body and talks in his own voice. Makes sense since the Parasite already demonstrated the ability to copy the voice of a person whose energy he drains.

 

== [[Real Life]] ==

** [[Damn You, Muscle Memory!|For the mind or the body?]]