Voices Are Mental: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

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

 

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).

 

== Anime & Manga ==

** 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}}.

** Late in the second anime, {{spoiler|Father}} takes a much younger form, but his voice remains the same.

** Alphonse's voice in the second anime is actually playing this much straighter when you take into account the [[The Reveal|revelation]] that {{spoiler|Al's real body is intact, connected to his armor-bound soul, and continuing to grow}} yet his voice remained the same.

* 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.

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

* This was averted by, of all things, ''a [[Hentai]] OVA'', fittingly called ''Body Transfer''. Plausibly enough the voices of [[Internal Monologue|Internal Monologues]] remain the same from one body to another.

* 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 Japanese version of ''[[Digimon Tamers]]'' gave the Biomerged Digimon unique voices, However, the American dub blended the voices of the two partners. Because the identities of those involved are well established, this doubles as [[Viewers Are Goldfish]].

* Subverted in ''[[Bleach]]'', where unlike the example with Mao above, Yoruichi's voice in human form and animal form differs {{spoiler|even sounding like they have completely different genders.}} [[Hilarity Ensues]] once other characters (and the audience) figure this out.

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

* In ''[[Naruto]]'' {{spoiler|all of the different bodies used by Pain}} except the female one have the voice of the first one we saw, even though that's not the same voice as the one controlling them.

** Averted with Ino; when she uses her Mind-Body Transfer jutsu, she always speaks with her host's voice.

* Inverted in the Japanese and Latin American versions of ''[[Detective Conan]]''. [[Fountain of Youth|"Conan's"]] young voice isn't just used when he's talking but also most of the time when he is ''thinking.'' In the dub he thought in the older voice.

* 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''.

* In the first OVA for the ''[[To Love Ru]]'' first anime, Rito is [[Gender Bender|turned into a girl]], but has the same voice. Averted in the second anime, as "Riko" instead has a female voice ([[Cross-Dressing Voices|but the same voice actor]]) for speaking while his [[Inner Monologue]] remain in his male 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 ==

* Inverted in ''Face/Off''. The swapped guys have the voices of the actors who play them- but not before and after...

* Happens in [[The Movie]] of ''[[Scooby Doo]]'' when the cast's souls were trying to find their original bodies.

* In the 2006 movie ''[[Its a Boy Girl Thing]]'', voices stay with the bodies, but the thoughts of the characters are given as voiceovers in the possessors' voice.

* ''[[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.

 

 

== Literature ==

 

 

== Live Action TV ==

** 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.

** If memory serves, there's a special feature on the DVD to watch it without the dubbed voices. They actually did a pretty good job of capturing each other's speech patterns. A missed opportunity to avert this trope, really.

** Especially given that Chris Barrie (Rimmer) did voices for ''[[Spitting Image]]''.

** And earlier, when Lister has the mind of Executive Officer Carol Brown put into him so he can stop an auto-destruct sequence, he speaks with her voice. {{spoiler|It doesn't work, but that's okay; Holly got rid of the bomb long ago. He might've mentioned it, but [[You Didn't Ask|they didn't ask]].}}

* 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}}.

* 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.

* [[El Chapulin Colorado]] redubbed [[For the Lulz]] when swapping the High-Toned [[Damsel in Distress]] and the baritone [[Big Guy]]. And when everyone got better they did it again with one scientific and the [[Right-Hand-Cat|Right Hand Dog.]]

 

 

* Played with to a certain extent in the ''[[Metal Gear Solid]]'' series. In ''[[Metal Gear Solid]] 2'', when Liquid possessed Ocelot, he'd speak with Liquid's voice. In the fourth game "Liquid Ocelot" always speaks with Ocelot's voice in the English version, and Liquid's voice in the Japanese version due to the unfortunate death of Kôji Totani.

** {{spoiler|It's revealed that in 2, Ocelot was legitimately possessed by Liquid, hence adopting Cam Clarke's voice. However, in 4, Ocelot was under self-hypnosis to believe he was Liquid (he replaced Liquid's arm with a prosthetic one so Liquid couldn't possess him). Hence he used Patrick Zimmerman's voice, as he was Ocelot pretending to be Liquid.}}

* In response to the ninth ''Pokémon'' movie example above, strangely averted in ''[[Super Smash Bros|Super Smash Bros. Brawl]]'' with Manaphy's Heart Swap attack when it comes out of a Poke Ball. Of course, making Zelda sound like Donkey Kong and vice versa would be a little weird, in retrospect.

* ''[[Remember 11]]'' goes back and forth on this. When Kokoro and Satoru switch bodies, they retain the same voice actors (ie. Kokoro in Satoru's body still has Kokoro's voice), but the fact that people have trouble telling them apart, as well as things such as recordings made by Satoru-in-Kokoro's-body having Kokoro's voice, imply that their voices ''do'' stay with the bodies in-universe, but the player hears [[Translation Convention|them with the associated mind for convenience]].

* Both applied and averted in season 3 of Telltale's [[Sam and Max]] series, ''The Devil's Playhouse''. In episode 3, ''They Stole Max's Brain!'', {{spoiler|Sammun-Mak keeps his own voice when Sam places his brain in Max's body, while Max retains his own voice as a brain in a jar.}} However, in episode 5, ''The City That Dares Not Sleep'', {{spoiler|When Grandpa Stinky and one of General Skun-ka'pe's minions swap brains toward the end of the episode, their voices (as well as Grandpa Stinky's Scottish accent) remain with their original bodies.}}

** Also in Season 2, when Sam and Max swap bodies. Then there is the Monster, which can hold 2 souls simultaneously, switching between voices as (t)he(y) talk(s). And let's not forget about the demons, who emulate the possessed's voice - but sometimes fail.

 

 

== Web Comics ==

** Which is reasonable. Different people have different ways of speaking with their [[Verbal Tic|Verbal Tics]] and accents. Plus, vocal chords are different for every person and species of animal. It still doesn't explain how he can make a stuffed wolf toy talk, though.

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

* ''[[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 ''Lilo and Stitch: The Series'', where the title characters swaps bodies in one episode.

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

* ''[[The Tick]] vs. Science'' had a lot of fun with this, with human characters suddenly saddled with the vocalizations of a giant sentient tongue and so forth.

** 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.

** An aversion (in a sense) from the same show comes in the form of [[Body Surf|Jericho]], a [[Heroic Mime]] who only seems to be able to speak when he's possessing someone who can speak. As he has no voice of his own, it can be assumed that he uses their voice to speak (though this would be a more definite assertion if the only time the viewer was shown this wasn't when he was possessing [[The Brute|Cinderblock]]...)

** 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.

** Although they [[Averted Trope|averted this trope]] in the episode with the [[Our Vampires Are Different|Chinese Vampire]]. Through a series of "Chi transfusions" Tohru acquires Jade's mannerisms and Jade acquires Uncle's, while everyone's voice actors stay the same.

** 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]]).

{{quote| '''Luthor (In Flash's Body):''' If nothing else, I can at least learn the Flash's secret identity. (''removes mask, [[Beat]]'') I have no idea who this is.}}

** 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.

'''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.

* ''[[Code Lyoko]]'' plays this straight. In "A Fine Mess", when a computer glitch in Lyoko [[Freaky Friday Flip|switches Odd's and Yumi's bodies]], they also switch voices. The same in episode "Nobody in Particular", where a disincarnated Ulrich still retain his own voice while possessing Jim -- or ''Kiwi'', actually talking through the dog.

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

** 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]].

** Between those two it was sort of used, sort of averted when Wolf was possessed by the Viking Hakon, his ancestor. Both characters are voiced by [[Clancy Brown]], and the ep was written to highlight his ability to [[Talking to Himself|talk to himself]] in the voice of either character, making possessed Wolf sound subtlely different from Wolf.

* Averted similarly in ''[[Transformers Animated]]'' with Blitzwing, who also has three personalities and, bizarrely, associated faces; they use the same voice and accent (mostly, since Hothead actually has an [[The Ahnold|Austrian]] rather than German accent), but have remarkably different inflection.

** 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}}.

** Both averted and subverted in the original ''G1'' series. Starscream's ghost possessed Cyclonus, and could do both his voice and Cyclonus' voice. When he cried out in surprise, however, his troops noticed that he sounded like Starscream.

* Also averted in the [[Freaky Friday Flip]] episode of ''[[Pirates of Dark Water]]''. Probably for the sake of hearing the [[Mix-and-Match Critters|monkey-bird's]] voice do [[Hulk Speak]].

** Notably, it's shown that it's not just a case of [[Rule of Perception]] but something ''other characters can notice'', as they had to trick Rebecca into thinking there was something wrong with her hearing.

* Subverted in an ''[[I Am Weasel]]'' short. Owing to a surgical mishap, Weasel and Baboon's brains are switched. Michael Dorn (Weasel-in-Baboon) imitates Charlie Adler's goofy way of speaking, while Adler (Weasel-in-Baboon) speaks with Dorn's dry precision. The effect is pretty hilarious.

** Lampshaded but handwaved by Kim, who explains away her regular voice as "puberty".

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

* 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.

*** Perhaps he practiced so as not to creep himself too much.

* ''[[The Real Ghostbusters]]'' had Egon and Slimer switch minds and voices. On top of that, Egon's ''vision problems'' apparently transferred over with his mind, because Egon (in Slimer's body) insists on wearing his glasses.

* Happens in a ''[[Family Guy]]'' episode, where Peter and Lois accidentally switch bodies, when they try one of Stewie's inventions.

* 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.

* 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.

** Considering at least 3 of the chars switching are played by Billy West...

** Another episode takes this trope to its logical conclusion when Zed's brain is removed, and the disembodied brain talks with Zed's voice.

* "Does This Duckbill Make Me Look Fat?" was a switch-a-roo episode on ''[[Phineas and Ferb]]'' where Candace and Perry switch body, cue Candace being able to talk and sound like herself in Perry's body and Perry chattering while in Candace's.

* Averted in the sound recording of the Invader Zim episode Ten Minutes to Doom. Which is to say, when Dib gets "possessed" by Zim he still sounds like Dib. Just... more evil.

* 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.