The Quiet One/Playing With

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Basic Trope: A character, who speaks very little, if at all.

  • Straight: Gregor only rarely speaks, his words carrying a lot more weight.
  • Exaggerated: Gregor can effortlessly go on months/years/centuries without speaking a word.
  • Downplayed: Gregor addresses what necessary, although like Hemingway.
  • Justified: Gregor dislikes pointless small talk.
    • Gregor has low self-esteem and feels he hasn't anything important to say.
    • Gregor is a foreigner and hasn't learned much of another language.
    • Gregor acknowledges all too clearly how many people can talk their heads off and never say anything with substance. He prefers to say a lot with very little, because it has plenty more weight.
    • Gregor has grown up in a family, community or culture where silence and brevity are revered.
      • Alternately, Gregor grew up in a whole family of Motor Mouths, so he couldn't get very many words into family discussions without being interrupted.
    • Gregor is a Humanoid Abomination which still doesn't grasp human language.
    • Gregor's speech borders on The Unintelligible, so he feels there's not much point to him talking a lot.
  • Inverted: Motor Mouth
  • Subverted: Gregor starts out quiet, but when he finds a good friend in Johnathon, he starts talking a lot more.
  • Double Subverted: That is, until Johnathon quietly tells him that it's really not like him to talk so much. Gregor then goes back to being quiet.
  • Parodied: Gregor says absolutely nothing, communicating only with speech bubbles that other characters can apparently see, and find completely normal.
  • Deconstructed: Gregor does have many important things to say, but is never given the opportunity to say them. This creates frustration in Gregor, and Poor Communication Kills in everyone else.
  • Reconstructed: Gregor learns how to keep his sentences short and sweet, while at the same time delivering them with maximum impact. So now when he tries to tell the others something, everybody listens.
  • Zig Zagged: Depending on his mood, Gregor either barely speaks at all, or talks almost constantly.
  • Averted: Gregor likes to speak just for the joy of it.
  • Played for Laughs: Gregor's inner thoughts are very intricate, poetic, and philosophical, but when he actually speaks, it's about something ridiculously mundane.
  • Enforced: Gregor's actor doesn't speak English, or knows very little of it.
  • Lampshaded: "What do you know, Gregor finally said something for the first time in four episodes."
  • Invoked: Gregor, normally a chatterbox, decides to speak only when absolutely necessary, as he wants to be taken seriously whenever he says something to avoid Poor Communication Kills.
  • Exploited: The big bad Tim knows that Gregor doesn't talk much. He incorporates this into part of his Hannibal Lecture to Gregor, claiming that Gregor doesn't talk much because he feels his opinions don't matter to his True Companions. This provokes Gregor into being both noisy and evil.
  • Defied: Gregor realises he is quiet and decides to start talking more, to see if he likes it.
  • Discussed: ???
  • Conversed: ???
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