He Who Must Not Be Heard

Here's a quick one, to update this blog.

He Who Must Not Be Heard (contrasting He Who Must Not Be Seen) is a character who never speaks. There are three main varieties of this trope, each with their own reasons for being applied: those who wish not to speak, those who cannot speak at all and those who can speak but are incomprehensible to the audience. The latter need not be unintelligible to his or her fellow characters (think of R2-D2 or Chewbacca) but he or she sometimes might.

There are numerous reasons one can utilize this trope if need be. Someone wise beyond their years may feel it only necessary to speak when it is important, although they may also be quite mad. Sometimes it is to give a world flavor, especially to counteract the suspicious tendency of aliens being capable of speaking the language of the audience, and rather fluently at that. Some who is particularly evil can be driven to this or can drive someone else into this situation as an adequate demonstration of nightmare fuel (which is very rarely accidental).

It may also be used for humor, such as when a foreign language depicted often uses long speeches that translate into short meanings (and occasionally the reverse). This does provide a good deal of Bilingual Bonus when the character Who Must Not Be Heard is actually saying something rather than the silent type (assuming the language is actually intelligible, particularly important when the language is fictional). It could also potentially fall into Amusing Alien and Funny Foreigner, however, which may be a sensitive topic.