Emotionless Girl

An enigmatic emotionless female character.

In most media, women are shown to be hysterical and panicky, or at least relying on their emotions to perceive the world around them, especially teenage girls. That is in sharp contrast to men who are supposed to function solely on logic and reason. Consequently, most shows focus on women's reactions to events to set an atmosphere.

Thus, it just comes with the territory that any woman who isn't an emotional wreck draws attention to herself simply by being dispassionate and collected.

She can be purposely cool in a crisis, i.e., "she's all business." Or she may also have some sort of secret special power. Sometimes the anchor in the midst of chaos; other times just quietly mysterious, but always important since she's the exception to the "woman = overemotional" rule.

Sometimes used by animators as the comic foil, especially in noisy, chaotic situations.

Not necessarily a fan of pure logic and reason like The Spock, as compassionate under the skin as the Tin Man, as wise and profound as Silent Bob, or as strong and Badass as The Stoic. She just stands out for keeping cool in stressful situations or when taking decisions.

In certain instances, she may be an actual Robot Girl. See also The Quiet One, Strange Girl, and The Snark Knight. Often contrasted with a more Hot-Blooded partner to form a Red Oni, Blue Oni pair. Despite the name, the trope isn't Always Female and male characters also apply but, due to men being expected to have no emotions other than anger, they're less noticed.

An interesting twist on the Emotionless Girl is the Emotionally Repressed Girl. This girl feels the emotions but doesn't express them openly or vividly. These girls can draw the viewers into the scene by forcing one to pick up on her subtle cues - so that when the seemingly Emotionless Girl finally does smile, there's a tremendous amount of satisfaction.

They may suffer from Bad Dreams and/or find it difficult to express gratitude. Contrast Sugar and Ice Personality, who may initially appear emotionless but in fact has a cute inner side. Will often be the subject of Must Make Her Laugh and/or When She Smiles.

Polar opposite of the Hysterical Woman.

Examples of Emotionless Girl include:

Anime and Manga

  • Yuki Nagato, from Suzumiya Haruhi, is also the The Spock, The Stoic and the Badass Bookworm. The tenth novel reveals that she's surprisingly bitter about being designed to be so unemotive and that the IDTE could have made her more expressive like they did Asakura, but didn't. This largely confirms the point below, which prior to this were based mostly on Kyon's interpretations.
    • Though as the series progresses, it is clear that (due to Character Development) in spite of her lack of apparent feeling, Yuki is a warm, caring and kind-hearted girl. It could be said that Yuki and Asakura are subversions of this trope (and by extension, Red Oni, Blue Oni). Yuki appears emotionless and coldly logical, while her inner workings are clearly fighting in the other direction. Asakura is what could best be described as a Purity Sue on the outside, while she is the creepy, emotionless Knife Nut whose attempted murder of Kyon was actually a calculated act designed to reach a specific goal.
    • Somewhat subverted by the "official-but-not-exactly-canon" Haruhi-Chan, which shows Yuki staring into space after completely finishing a anime/game series, and telling Kyon "It was an emotional game." Aside from this, she actually laughs at one point, but it is hidden by her arm.
    • Yuki smiled at one point in the movie, and it was completely visible. It was a major event, as it was what made Kyon consider staying in the Alternate Universe.
  • Eureka from Eureka Seven. The girl is literally close to emotionless since her birth until she met her destined partner Renton and gradually fell deeply in love with him. Although 3 years ago she did experience her first emotion which is "surprise" when she realized she orphaned the three children she would later adopt.
  • Senri from +Anima fits this perfectly, even though he's a boy.
  • Axis Powers Hetalia: Emotionless Boy Hong Kong. Belarus is a female version, who mixes it with Yandere as well.
    • There's also Egypt, who could have doubled for a Cute Mute (though he does speak one sentence).
    • Norway keeps the same stoic expression when he is eating cake, when his friend was defeated in battle, when he is captured, and when he is strangling someone.
  • Chane Laforet from Baccano!, who actually is mute. Series main Ax Crazy Awesome instantly falls for her because of that.
  • Kazuo Kiriyama from the Battle Royale manga is an Emotionless Boy. He was rendered incapable of emotion when he was brain-damaged at the age of six (since birth in the original novel), and is described in-story as a sociopath. Add to this his phenomenal analytical ability and intelligence and you've got a very tough match-up.
  • Ai Enma from Hell Girl. Subverted in that she does have emotions, but she must repress them to carry out her atonement for the revenge she carried out on the villagers who buried her alive.. Or else, she'll wind up in Hell. We first see it when she snaps before Hajime towards the end of the first season, and it's not a nice sight to behold.
  • R. Dorothy Waynewright from The Big O. She's an actual Robot Girl. On at least one occasion, she expresses relief on never being programmed with emotions, although arguably she didn't need to be—she demonstrates disgust, loyalty, nostalgia, and numerous other emotions, just not at what a human would call full intensity.
  • Nemu, Mayuri Kurotsuchi's Lieutenant in Bleach, is not just emotionless but seems to have no free will of her own. She exists almost as an extension of Kurotsuchi's will; no matter how horribly he treats her, she never reacts. Mad Scientist Kurotsuchi CREATED Nemu. His "daughter" is really just an Opposite Gender Clone.
    • Nemu may not be able to disobey direct commands but she does have free will as shown when she cures Uryruu after he was poisoned during his fight with Mayuri.
  • Six year-old Rin Kaga of Bunny Drop appears as such at first, but she's actually a Deconstruction. She is only like this because of shyness and anxiety around people she does not know. Around other children and Daikichi, Rin is anything but emotionless.
    • Not to mention, her emotionless facade is even used by members of her father's family as an excuse not to take her in, saying that they believe her to be a borderline Creepy Child.
  • Captain Tsubasa has two male versions: Carlos Santana and Stefan Levin. The first one becomes emotionless after a tragic childhood where he lost everything (from his adoptive parents to his friends), the second lost his emotions after his fiancée Karen tragically dies in his arms. Both start to gradually heal through the series, and Santana even gets to find his Missing Mom.
  • Fiore from Chrono Crusade, although it's hinted throughout the series that she may not be as emotionless as she claims—and her relationship with Joshua is a partial reason.
  • Anya from Code Geass. Maybe she was just traumatized from seeing Marianne killed in gory fashion and then getting Marianne's consciousness put into her head against her will..
    • C.C. has the same blank look in her eyes. Living for too long is simply exhausting.
    • Though unlike Anya, C.C. actually still has emotions. She smiles more than a few times during the series.
  • Yin, and others, from Darker than Black - one plot point of the show is the existence of Dolls, humans Brainwashed into (nearly) emotionless mediums that can be used as undetectable spies.
  • Saki Hanajima from Fruits Basket, and surprise! She does have special powers. Her little brother, Megumi, is also emotionless and can curse people.
    • Ironically, both of them are actually familiar and regularly express the one emotion that causes most of these examples to come out of their shell: Love. Saki is extremely protective and (sometimes overly) friendly towards her best friend Tohru, and Megumi behaves similarly towards his sister. Saki's treatment, thus, ends up flip-flopped between Emotionless Girl and Yamato Nadeshiko depending entirely on who she's associating with at that particular moment. Just don't mess with Tohru. Ever.
  • Vanilla from Galaxy Angel. Used in the anime to comic effect. In the games, her story arcs deal with her coming to terms with expressing emotion.
  • Feldt Grace from Mobile Suit Gundam 00, though she later starts to become more emotional.
  • Kanna from Inuyasha most certainly fits this trope, as she was created to be emotionless so that she would be undetectable by any trace of Demonic Energy or Scent. In fact, the translation of her name quite literally means 'void'.
    • By the end, it is subverted as she actually has emotion as her heart can feel.
  • Toyama Sachi from Jubei-chan. In the dub, she is referred to as "the strange, emotionless girl" once.
  • Eucliwood Hellscythe from Kore wa Zombie Desu ka?. On top of showing little emotion, her main means of communication is writing in a notebook as opposed to talking. The reason for this being that her magic is so powerful that any of her words can trigger devastating magic. Subverted and justified in that she's not really emotionless, but her magic requires her to be in control of her emotions.
  • Rei Ayanami from Neon Genesis Evangelion is frequently mistaken for being emotionless, but viewers who pay any actual attention to the show know that she's just repressed. As many Emotionless Girls are based off Rei, this makes this a bit of an Unbuilt Trope (although it did exist before Evangelion).
    • As Rei's Expy in Dual!, D fits this until the final battle. She's actually frightened about showing emotion.
    • Much like the "Spock eyebrow", the subtle hint that Rei is actually having an emotional reaction is if she bothers to make eye contact with something, which she normally doesn't do.
    • Also much like Spock, there are hints that the reason she appears to be emotionless is because otherwise, she'll be OVERLY Emotional, similar to how Vulcans suppress their emotions in fear of being consumed by them instead.
  • Ruri from Martian Successor Nadesico is one, arguably. Though she's far cry from being actually emotionless - just emotionally repressed, and sometimes not even that - her voice never seems to reflect her emotions, making her always sound like she just doesn't care. This is a big part of why she used to be the Trope Namer for the Little Miss Snarker.
  • Karin's little sister, Anju, in Karin.
    • Although Anju is more the 'doesn't emote but is certainly feeling a lot' type, rather than truly unemotional:

Anju: "I'm not crying."
Bge: "Yes, you are. Your voice doesn't crack. Tears don't fall. But all the same, you're crying."

  • Another Anju—the maid Anju Rika, in Magikano.
  • Sai Jounouchi from Angelic Layer. The anime made her emotionally repressed and gave her a Dead Little Sister, the manga doesn't explore her character enough.
  • Kirika from Noir acts emotionless, but hides deep concern about her apparent amnesia. She becomes truly emotionless when her memory is restored.
  • Most of the eponymous warriors in Claymore, though that makes them more like The Stoic.
  • Angel Densetsu's expy to Claymore (Ikuno/Claire) is a Deadpan Snarker too.
  • Ritsuko from Kujibiki Unbalance hides secret feelings for Chihiro behind an emotionless exterior.
  • In Please Teacher and its sequel Onegai Twins, (aka Please Teacher! and Please Twins!) extreme emotion can induce the coma-like "standstill" state. Ichigo Morino, who has experienced this, forces herself to be calm, but the writers sorta didn't get it right: she gives the same lines anyone else might give, but with a HAL-like delivery. She sports Mind Control Eyes but makes otherwise normal facial expressions. In other words, no more the Emotionless Girl than anyone else, but acting like one.
  • Lumiere from Kiddy Grade is both this and The Spock.
  • A very, very rare male version of this trope: Mytho from Princess Tutu, who is literally emotionless, thanks to a spell that shattered his heart.
  • Nozomu from Kanokon. Her gluttony notwithstanding, she is a subversion. While she acts emotionless, with a consistent monotone voice and blank expression, she displays an unexplained attraction to the hero. And she is able to easily keep up with Chizuru—who is just shy of being an outright anthropomorphic personification of lust—in flirting and "dirty" tricks. In some of the DVD-only, nudity filled filler episodes she openly talks about lusting after the main character and being in love with him. Due to the length of the anime, and it skipping a book or three of the original series, her character development is more or less completely nil, as well.
    • She even has no qualms essentially pimping the main male lead out to Chizuru in order to try and "fix" her stolen magic / breasts, and in the Gecko Ending of the anime it's Nozomu who suggests the Tenchi Solution.
  • Akira Takano from School Rumble.
    • Male example: Oddball Karasuma. Yeah. He had been repressing his feelings from the very beginning in an attempt to distance himself from everyone. When he finally snaps very late in the manga, his bouts of emotion are so expressive, he becomes almost unrecognizable.
  • Now and Then, Here and There has Lala-ru, although she does start to emote more as the story progresses.
  • Fate in Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha. Fate actually does have emotions, but keeps them suppressed as a defense mechanism against her mothers insane demands and even more insane punishment for failure. Although she recovers later, Fate remains quieter and more reserved than the rest of the Fundamentally Female Cast, albeit also considerably more sensitive.
    • Lutecia in StrikerS. Likely a result of Jail's experiments and/or of growing up without her mother. She becomes more emotional by ViVid.
    • The youngest Combat Cyborgs- Otto, Deed and Sette- also count. Deed doesn't even change expressions while asking Wendi to get her hands off her breasts, and when she and Otto don't react as Wendi celebrates her victory over one of the Einherjar installations, Wendi gets annoyed and complains about having to be in the same group as them. The youngest, Sette, is almost completely devoid of emotions to the point of seeming robotic, and Tre tells her to put some life into her daily routines.
  • Lila from Najica Blitz Tactics showcases many characteristics of this trope, being an Artificial Human, although she can fake emotions to some degree if needed to achieve a certain goal (like seducing men). Later in the series she starts to genuinely warm up toward the protagonist though.
  • Alissa Southerncross from Keroro Gunsou.
  • Koihime Musou has Ryoufu, a Gender Flipped version of Lu Bu (yes, that Lu Bu) who—while being Made of Iron and flinging other "badass generals turned Moe girls" around without breaking a sweat—is also so unexpressive that she maintains a total deadpan while Glomping a minister who took in her and her canine companions.
  • Akira Okochi in Mahou Sensei Negima has her emotions, but is usually so quiet, her Day in The Limelight chapter was told entirely without dialogue.
    • Asuna was also emotionless in the backstory. She was still emotionless upon arrival, but ten years of being bugged by Ayaka taught her emotions, albeit mostly emotions regarding irritation.
    • Zazie Rainyday is emotionless to the point of Cute Mute. Although she speaks up in the endgame of both the first anime and the manga, she still shows very, very little emotion. The manga makes you think she's showing a playfully humorous side- but no, she isn't. That's her twin sister. She herself is still mildly altruistic, infuriatingly mysterious, and as emotional as a dead yak.
    • Chachamaru is a justified Emotionless Girl, being a robot. Even so, she's a very caring person whose main fault is My Master, Right or Wrong. Notably, while she is emotionless, she emotes a lot more than any of the above, mostly due to her ongoing Pinocchio syndrome. She is less 'emotionless' and more 'expressionless'. She has emotions, but her face don't display it very well.
  • Shizuku, the Token Mini-Moe Cute Monster Girl from Omamori Himari.
  • Otome from Koi Koi 7. It probably comes from being the oldest of the group, but stuck at a young age, since she was the first to become a cyborg.
  • Ayuki of Kashimashi: Girl Meets Girl seems to be one of these in the anime. However, in the manga, she just seems quiet and calm. However, even then she never shows much emotion other then some casual comedy moments. Except in a later chapter, where she cries and screams at Hitoshi when she learns that Hazumu will die in 29 days. This only fuels the theory that she is in love with Hazumu, which was never really hinted at in the anime (instead, it was hinted she likes Tomari)
  • Anthy Himemiya from Revolutionary Girl Utena is a variant on the Emotionally Repressed Girl, in that she is effectively anaesthetized by the circumstances of her... very complicated connection to her brother.
  • Tomoe Yukishiro from Rurouni Kenshin plays this for tragedy, since she couldn't show her fiancé Akira how happy she was when they got engaged, so he thought he wasn't good enough for her and went to search for his fortune to Kyoto... where he got killed.
  • Zefiris from Scrapped Princess. Also a Robot Girl - kind of.
  • Momo from Shinigami no Ballad is a subversion. She appears emotionless, but allegedly feels more strongly than normal humans do. The other shinigami plays this straight though.
  • Primula in SHUFFLE! is an excellent example of the repressed type.
  • Sara Werec of Soukou no Strain is an example of an Emotionless Girl main character.
  • Latune Subbota from Super Robot Wars: Original Generation. Then she gets a crush on the Hot-Blooded Ascended Super Robot Fanboy, and clears all that right up.
  • Yami from To LOVE-Ru, although she has shown the barest hint of emotions other than "I hate ecchi people" on occasion.
  • Michiru from Uta Kata.
  • Echo from Pandora Hearts although later on in the manga she changes to more of a Sugar and Ice Personality
  • Laila from Venus Versus Virus, in contrast with her somewhat livelier twin sister, Lola.
  • Tabitha of Zero no Tsukaima, of the repressed variety.
  • Miyabi "Professor" Oomichi of GA Geijutsuka Art Design Class is extremely subtle in her expression of emotion, but her friends seem able to pick up on her emotions sometimes: during the yaminabe arc, there's a panel with a closeup of Miyabi's face looking stoic as ever, yet Tomokane can tell she looks happy. Also, the reader can see an expression of sadness—mostly in the eyes—when she realizes that the chick she had been caring for had fallen silent.
  • Marie Kagura of Tona Gura. Subverted somewhat in that this state hides a desire that her older brother Yuuji revert to his pre-puberty self and pay attention only to her.
  • Aki Izayoi from Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's.
  • Shinigami Trilogy: Himeka, a Devil in Plain Sight, basically Mandy (specifically Bleedman's teen version). She may have been a terminally Ill Girl but thanks to a love-struck Grim Reaper she will rule the world with an iron fist.
  • Dou Haguro from Wolf Guy Wolfen is an amoral emotionless guy who occasionally wonders "how his face looks" and casually leaves the keys to his sizable arsenal in front of a vengeance-crazed lackey who he provoked by secretly unplugging the lackey's brother's life support. Not even being ambushed and shot several times while in the fifth grade can break him, until he encounters the Anti-Hero-Protagonist Akira Inugami during that time of the month and Smugwolf makes it very clear that, despite being a Complete Monster, Dou is still just a human and that surviving the ambush was pure dumb luck. Dou is so overwhelmed after feeling fear for the first time that after Smugwolf leaves he laughs and cries uncontrollably at the same time. And then It Gets Worse.
  • Lucy from Elfen Lied before the children at her orphanage kill her puppy right in front of her.
    • She also verges on emotionless whenever she takes over from Nyu in the anime.
  • Eve from Black Cat and pretty much any character dubbed by Brina Palencia. She appears to be a specialist at playing monotonous and emotionless girl characters and gets typecast as such.
  • Sabrina (or Natsume in Japanese), the Psychic Gym Leader from Pokémon Red and Blue, appears as an Emotionless Girl in the Pokémon anime. In the first episode in which she appears, she has that trademark creepy blank stare and a doll who sits on her lap and does all the talking for her. She beats Ash easily, then lets her doll "play" with him and his friends in her dollhouse. Later, the viewers find out she had a rough childhood and reacted by stuffing all her emotions into her doll (who represents her childhood self) and having no mercy on the trainers who come to visit her. Ash teaches her to laugh again and by the end of the second episode she's a normal girl (well, with psychic powers). In the Pokémon Special manga she almost qualifies as one, but still cracks a smile or a glare every once in a while.
  • Child Soldier Jonah from Jormungand displays these tendencies, likely due both to the trauma of seeing his parents killed in a bombing when he was a small child, and all the violence and strife he has witnessed since.
  • Vampire Knight gives us two: Seiren and Rima.
  • Tenshi ni Narumon. In the first season, Silky is an emotionless puppet under Dispell's control, merely repeating whatever he says. In the second season it gets subverted, as it turns out that it was Dispell who was really a puppet and Silky's real personality emerges which is an exact opposite of the term 'emotionless'.
  • Temporary Sky Girls Aisha. Somewhat justified in that she's actually fused with nanotech which may or may not influence her brain functions.
  • In Wild Rose, because Mikhail's full-body markings manifest whenever he feels emotion, his mother raised him to feel nothing so he could pass for normal. As a result, he doesn't even understand what separates "loved ones" and strangers from each other. Bernt is a less severe example, simply being the utterly unflappable butler.
  • Reki from Hidan no Aria.
  • Protagonist of Potemayo is a male version of this. No amount of moeblobs can affect Sunao's calm character.
  • Outside the eponymous cafe of Eve no Jikan, Sammy and Akiko behave this way. They transform into a Shrinking Violet and a Genki Girl, respectively, when given the opportunity to express their emotions. However, behaving like humans in public would draw unwanted attention, and they are very good at suppressing their feelings.
    • Actually, half of the robots in-series (the female half) qualify. Sammy and Akiko just happen to have been given the most character development.
  • Maria, manager of the Hakushuu Dinosaurs in Eyeshield 21 was originally a Sugar and Ice Personality. Sadly, her relationship with team captain Marco has left her in this state, and she only begins to recover after his defeat.
  • Machi Kuragi from Fruits Basket.
  • Hanaukyo Maid Tai. To varying degrees, the maids Grace, Konoe, and Mariel all fit this trope.
  • Homura Akemi from Puella Magi Madoka Magica starts out as this. She never smiles, has a completely toneless voice, and acts like she's made of stone when Mami dies and Sayaka turns into a witch. It is subverted as we find out that she invoked this trope on purpose after watching her friends die again and again while stuck in her Groundhog Day Loop. She went from being a Shrinking Violet with glasses and a heart condition to a coolheaded stoic in a desperate attempt to finally save Madoka from her terrible fate.
  • Key from Key the Metal Idol seems to be emotionless initially, claiming to be a robot, but is eventually revealed to be a severe case of emotional repression prompted by merely being convinced and, as a result, convincing others that she is a robot when she is, in fact, a human to prevent her potent extra-physical abilities from awakening.
  • Kanade Tachibana, the titular Angel of Angel Beats! is, at least on the surface, an example of this. She's quiet, and impassive seeming even when dishing out violence or receiving grievous injury. She has emotions, but she rarely shows them.
  • In the first Cardcaptor Sakura movie, Syaoran's mom is usually this, though she does become a Defrosting Ice Queen around Sakura.

Comic Books

  • X-Men has Sage, a mutant whose brain works much like a computer, and as such, approaches Rei Ayanami level emotionlessness at times, though occasionally shifting to The Stoic level when really, really worked up. (Naturally, she's such an expert at Perp Sweating that her gaze alone accomplishes what Wolverine's famed "claw on either side of neck; dare me to pop the middle?" approach cannot.) Surprisingly, "computer brain" simply describes her brain works. Despite the functions of her mind often being described in computer terms, it, and the rest of her, are a hundred percent organic.
  • Raven from Teen Titans. This based out of necessity because if she ever let her emotions go, her demonic father, Trigon would seize control of her and take over Earth's dimension. Her learning to accept and express emotions after the defeat of her father is a major piece of Character Development.
  • The Passionchild in Shade the Changing Man, an androgynous pretty boy who incited emotion to the psychotic degree in everyone around him, but never expressed anything. He didn't even speak until Shade cracked into his inner world, and found nothing.

Passionchild: I find nothing out there. I find nothing in here too, but it's my nothing.

Fan Works

  • Pretty much any Jack Rudd-written Neighbours fanfic starring Lisa Jeffries.
  • The eponymous heroine of legolas by laura seems remarkably unconcerned about being tortured and raped by orcs, even though she's only ten.
  • In X-Men fanfic Guilt Trips, Northstar (Jean-Paul) is an Emotionless Boy, having asked his empathic friend Manuel da la Rocha to prevent him from feeling strong emotion. His reasoning for this is because here Manuel is an Emotion Eater and needs to fed off something, and he himself doesn't have the energy to deal with emotions.

Film

Literature

  • Estella from Great Expectations.
  • Susan Calvin from Isaac Asimov's many robot short stories.
  • Susan Sto Helit of Soul Music, Hogfather and Thief of Time shows no outward emotion on hearing of the deaths of her parents, and otherwise fits the "cool in a crisis" model. She does occasionally get angry. Don't get in her way at this point.
    • Adora Belle Dearheart in the "Moist Von Lipwig" novels also comes across as emotionless, when she's actually repressing a mountain of rage. Alternatively, she comes across as a woman burying her issues under a mountain of bitter sarcasm.
  • In the Star Wars Expanded Universe Expanded Universe novels, Winter Celchu (an aide and childhood friend of Leia's), an Intelligence agent with a holographic memory, has lost her composure perhaps once in the entirety of her appearances—when she thought her boyfriend had been killed and his fellow pilots didn't seem to care (because, of course, he was still alive).
  • Kahlan of The Sword of Truth has this as a public persona: A voice to freeze water. Another example is Nicci, who is more in the idea of an impassive Dark Magical Girl hardened by an unpleasant life until she no longer cares about life anymore. Richard does manage to get through to her in the sixth book, though, shortly before she does a High Heel Face Turn.
  • Actually subverted in The Dresden Files. Ivy appears to be totally emotionless for quite a while after we meet her, but it turns out that this is actually one of the Archive's defense mechanisms. Ivy herself is lonely and has to cope with the fact that she has almost no personal identity; even her name is just a nickname Harry gave her. She's also cursed with the Archive's perfect recall, so she knows exactly how her mother felt about her. (Hint: It wasn't real positive)
  • In the Wicked Lovely series, Leslie becomes a literal emotionless girl when she is acting as the dark court's shadow girl (her emotions are channeled into Irial) and this is part of Sorcha's mask.
  • In the Lowell Bair translation of The Phantom of the Opera novel, Raoul describes Christine as "indifference personified." (He wouldn't be surprised if he knew what the poor girl was going through at that point, of course...)
  • Miranda in L. Jagi Lamplighter's Prospero's Daughter. There's a reason for it, it turns out.
  • Charlotte Crescent/C2 from Charlotte Powers, at least on appearance. She cannot intuitively 'read' the emotions of others, and has difficulty understanding and expressing her own emotional state.
  • Kambili from Purple Hibiscus seems like a snobby version of this to her peers, but in reality she's being terrorized by her father. It's thanks to her Aunt and Cousins that she's finally able to reach out to others.
  • In The Last Unicorn, the titular character can be seen as such. In fact, she's rather stoic when she's in her normal form. Even if she can feels sorrow, joy and fear, she's unable to feel some human feelings, such as regret and love. As an immortal being, she does not fear mortality. When she's turned into a human by Schmendrick, she's horrified. Following this traumatic event, she becomes completly emotionless, and slowly forget who she was. It's not until later in the story that she's able to feel emotions again.
  • Coira, the protagonist of White as Snow never shows emotions as they were, symbolically, bled out of her after a childhood illness caused by her mother rejecting her love. She is sometimes stated to feel things, such as disgust when her drunken brother asks to dance with her, but the emotion is so distant and she accepts the offer so coolly that nobody can tell. In a twist on the usual When She Smiles, the big sign of Coira opening her heart to someone is crying.
  • Thérèse herself of Therese Raquin becomes emotionless over the course of her childhood due to living with her overbearing aunt and her sickly, petulant cousin Camille. Then she and Camille get married and it gets worse.
  • Katniss Everdeen, probably as a direct result of being a Shell-Shocked Veteran (and that's before she enters the arena).

Live Action TV

  • Star Trek sports a couple examples, such as:
    • Seven of Nine from Voyager is a former Borg drone, so underplays emotions while focusing on efficiently completing tasks. However, she does annoyance really well.
    • T'Pol from Enterprise is a Vulcan whose frustration with humans isn't veiled as well as it could be, but otherwise fits this trope. (Jolene Blalock has claimed this is intentional, but (YMMV) it does tend to come off as a half-baked Seven Of Nine impression.)
    • T'Pring and T'Pau from the Star Trek: The Original Series episode "Amok Time".
    • The first officer of Captain Pike, known only as Number One, was one of these.
  • Cameron, the female Terminator of The Sarah Connor Chronicles fits this quite accurately, though she is quite capable of simulating human emotions when she needs to. The rather sudden shift from emotionless blankness to a laughing, smiling teenage girl is....creepy.
    • Of course, some of us have a reaction other than fear.
    • Cameron's creepy stoicism gets played brilliantly in the premiere for the second season, when John is trying to remove her processor chip after it gets damaged and she goes berserk. She slowly switches from an emotionless, Implacable Man killer to begging and pleading with John to not remove the chip, even going as far as to cry out that she loves him. The simulated emotion is disturbingly real, and even more so because the audience and John know it's simulated yet real. And according to Summer Glau, who plays Cameron, that might not have been simulated...
    • This is further pronounced in the same season's eighth episode. Before Cameron enters John's room to discourage him from seeing Riley, she removes her jacket, leaving her in shorts and a tight white shirt with a visible red bra underneath. She then lies on his bed next to him. The audience and John know that neither of these actions is casual, but a calculated decision by Cameron's internal logic. It is this knowledge that creates the tension in the ensuing exchange.
    • Prior to this, there are a very few but very deliberate moments where Cameron shows inexplicable emotion - for example, when she hits Charley with a Death Glare for calling her a "very scary robot" in "Dungeons & Dragons", and a momentary tightening of her lips and nervous flicker of her eyes in "Vick's Chip" when John is removing her processor.
    • Then it gets completely inverted in "Allison from Palmdale," where Cameron adopts the personality and memories of Allison, a girl her personality was based around. Seeing Cameron suddenly acting like a normal person, showing honest emotions, just amplifies the creepy factor.
  • The Actives in Dollhouse, when in their wiped state. Although they seem happy in a non-thinking way most of the time.
    • Although this is deliberately encouraged by keeping them in a calm and peaceful place. If exposed to more dramatic stimulus they gain emotions quite quickly - terrified and freaked out.
  • Irina from Vintergatan 5B, a Swedish children's sci-fi comedy show. Lampshaded in this dialogue:

Henrik: But--how can you be so cold?! Don't you have any feelings?
Irina: Cosmonauts don't have any feelings, Henrik!

  • Effy from Skins.
  • Aeryn Sun in Farscape has shades of this character early on due to her military training that advocated against feeling pain or showing emotion. It is commented on in "Twice Shy" when each character's strongest trait was amplified: Scorpius says Aeryn is colder than usual.
  • Fringe's Agent Olivia Dunham became this when being experimented on as a child caused her to suppress her emotions in preparation of becoming a cross-universal supersoldier.
  • Averted in Boston Legal. In the episode "Smile", lawyer Alan Shore tries to get a prestigious school to accept a little girl (actually a child prodigy) lacking the facial muscles to smile. The child has strong positive emotions, she's just completely unable to express them facially.
  • Parker on Leverage is a bizarre example in that while she does show emotions, they are typically wrong for that situation. Played with in "The Twelve Step Job" when she goes on anti-depressants as part of her cover and suddenly becomes a more or less normal, well-adjusted human being.
    • In "The Snow Job", Parker has to pretend to be a patient dying of a brain tumor and Sophie is trying to help her prepare for the role.

Sophie: Think about something sad. Like, think about when your father died.
Parker: (laughs hysterically)

Manhwa

  • Vera Linus, in the Manhwa Veritas, generally shows no emotion except when dealing with something that has to do with Lightning Tiger, the guy who taught her the meaning of "fear".

Video Games

  • A plot point in the Darkstalkers series of fighting games. Donovan, a half-vampire monk meets Anita, a young girl who is also a half-vampire, who has lost the ability to feel emotions. He decides to try to slay the world's supply of monsters to cure her. He succeeds in restoring her emotions and humanity, but becomes a full vampire himself. This leads to a climactic flash forward cliffhanger showdown between her as the messiah of the human race and him as her main opposition. Especially notable because the creators of the series were sometimes criticized in interviews for using this trope, which was in its peak at the time.
  • Gamall in Thief 2 is an example of this trope played to perfection.
  • Amy from Soul Calibur can come off as one of these, although it was stated that she locks her emotions away, so it's possible that it's all a facade.
  • Presea Combatir of Tales of Symphonia was, among other side-effects, robbed of her emotions when implanted with an Exsphere without a Key Crest. She became so robotically narrow-minded that she didn't even notice her father had died in his bed years ago, though his body lay there decaying the whole time. She gets better when she joins the heroes, who give her a Key Crest, but then she has to deal with the pain of everything that's happened while she was like that.
  • In Suikoden V, which has Loads and Loads of Characters (108, to be precise), Sagiri nonetheless manages to stand out due to this trope. Rather than having a perfectly straight face, her expression is frozen in a permanent creepy smile, no matter how she feels. Combined with the way she speaks, she comes across as rather spooky, even BEFORE you learn her backstory: She's a former member of the Nether Gate, a clan of fanatical assassins who don't recruit new members - they raise them. Trained from infancy to be an assassin, she was taught to put on a childish, innocent smile to help her approach her unwitting targets... even though she's a grown woman now, and even though she escaped from the cult more than 8 years ago, her face remains set in that same smile.
  • Bastila of Knights of the Old Republic tries. She tries very hard. Perhaps too hard. And utterly fails. Though not in a good way. Probably.
    • The Handmaiden in the sequel does a better job of it. Most of the time.
  • Ashley from the Wario Ware series. The most emotion she shows outside of her theme tune is a tiny smile at successfully turning a plant into a giant monster.
  • Amoretta from Grim Grimoire, a recently made homunculus with an angel for a soul. She has emotions, but she's quiet, composed, and probably very depressed by the emptiness of her existence up to that point, so it's understandable that she's less lively than the ghosts who show up.
  • Latooni Subota from Super Robot Wars: Original Generation starts out like this due to her Break the Cutie past.
    • Alpha 3 features a male variant in Ace Gozzo, who considers himself a machine. When he's dying and asked if he finally feels anything, Ace asks why he has to feel anything. He failed in his purpose and his life will end soon, and there's nothing wrong with that.
  • Pandora from Mega Man ZX: She's in every way opposite to her berserker comrade, Prometheus.
  • Marisa from Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones is an emotionally repressed version. She at first seems to be a stoic, emotionless Blood Knight. Turns out she just doesn't know how to act around people. She opens up to whoever you pair her off with in support conversations.
    • Sue of Fire Emblem: The Binding Blade also fits the trope perfectly. Seeing as she's the daughter of The Stoic nomad Rath from Fire Emblem, this should come as no surprise.
    • And it's not only Sue there. Idoun the Dark Dragon and Thite the Pegasus Knight also count. The first simply doesn't know what emotions are like, the second is the emotionally repressed type with some dashes of Defrosting Ice Queen.
    • Don't forget Limstella, the Dark Action Girl from Fire Emblem. Though to be fair, she can also be seen as a sort-of Robot Girl, since she's one of the morphs created by Nergal.
    • Sonia of the same series could be seen as a subversion, instead being an "emotionless" doll who believes herself to be a perfect human. Limstella puts and end to such illusions, however.
  • In Grandia II, Tio is an Automata, a humanoid robot built to fight in ancient wars. After the group defeats her and removes the claws of Valmar (read: Devil), Mareg takes the emotionless machine under his wing, believing that she does in fact have emotions. In the end it turns out he was right, but she only really starts to display these after Mareg dies saving the group .
  • Shanoa in Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia. Justified in that her emotions (and memories) were blown away at the beginning of the game. In fact, when told by a villager that she should smile more often...

Shanoa: "I do not smile."

    • This may be reversed to some degree in the ending, as she sheds tears over Albus finally passing away.
  • Somewhere in between this and a fully fledged Robot Girl is Aki Zeta-Five, leader of the Cybernetic Consciousness in the expansion pack to Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri. She would pretty much count as a Nagato Expy if the game wasn't 8 years older. She's fully human (born Aki Luttinen in Norway—don't ask why she has a Finnish name) who was merged with/possessed by an artificial intelligence like the rest of her faction.
  • Princess Katrina of Wild ARMs XF. Although she's said to only not understand the concept of fear, she doesn't seem to feel much in the way of anything else, either.
  • Vasilios Cosmos (a guy) of Space Colony, withdrawn and doesn't consider himself human.
  • Jacqli of Ar tonelico II: Melody of Metafalica semi-subvert this. Main plot wise, she looks and acts like one, but when you're getting to know her in Cosmosphere or in synthesis scenes, she's become a sarcastic Tsundere.
  • Misaki in Canvas 2 initially speaks in a very deadpan manner, but warms up over time.
  • Eleanor, the "Cold Princess" in Rule of Rose - the least developed of the Aristocrats, almost nothing is known about her except that she loves birds and fantasizes about flying away from everything. When her beloved pet bird dies in Bird of Happiness-chapter, she just throws its corpse back in the cage without tiniest spec of visible emotion, and walks off.
  • Valentine of Guilty Gear 2 Overture counts as one, and regularly speaks in a calm, monotone voice without changing it. However, when she gets her Villainous Breakdown once Sol stops the process of the Key by destroying it, that's where she gets her first emotion ever.
  • Nu, Lambda, and Mu of BlazBlue also count as some, to be exact. To be fair, they're android clones of Saya, after all. Nu and Lambda only get emotions when they're around Ragna (Lambda usually doesn't do so except on special occasions), and Mu gets emotions when suffering a Villainous Breakdown before being turned back into her old self (Noel) by Ragna.
  • Eifer Skute of Rosenkreuzstilette could also count as an Emotionless Girl, since she often appears to be cool-headed and mature and rarely smiles. However, she can sometimes get violently-fluctuating emotions and therefore sometimes act out of character. Plus, she for reasons unknown seems to carry strong emotions towards Freudia.

Visual Novels

  • Aselia and the minor spirit Nanaru in Eien no Aselia are both rather emotionless. The latter isn't even an exaggeration or merely based on her behavior, since her profile indicates that her sword has eaten away most of her personality. She genuinely feels very little until she gets to know Yuuto.
  • Mai from Kanon.
  • Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney had Lana Skye, who had shut herself off to the outside world. Her control cracks when it appears her sister Ema is being accused of murder; she throws herself on the witness stand in a desperate panic. At the very end, when everything is settled and she finally smiles, several of this wiki's editors teared up.
    • Vera Misham in Apollo Justice is of the repressed type. She never changes her facial expression, instead drawing smilies on a notebook she always has. In the good ending, she gives a proper smile at last.
  • Hisui from Tsukihime seems to follow this trope at first, though it becomes apparent fairly quickly that she just suppresses her emotions very well. The real emotionless girl is actually the ever-smiling Kohaku.
    • You also learn in the first route that Arcueid Brunestud started out as one, until Shiki killed her and, by her own admission, broke 'something' inside her, resulting in the energetic, friendly version we're familiar with.
  • Unan of Under the Moon is a Spear Counterpart, although his looks, and often his mannerisms, are very feminine.

Webcomics

  • Antimony from Gunnerkrigg Court is both stoic due to a recent tragedy and unflappable in the face of weirdness due to a very unusual childhood. She soon begins opening up to her best friend, but her unnervingly emotionless demeanor shows no sign of abating.
    • Recent events suggest that the appearance of emotions on Antimony's face is directly related to her friendship with Kat. Because she gets really creepy when Kat is in trouble.
    • Then there's Jones, who is even more of a blank slate. Whether she's expositing, flirting, intentionally ticking her student off, or even affirming that something was "hilarious", her expression does not change. Antimony herself has speculated that Jones might be a robot masquerading as a human, but Jones denies this.
  • For an example of an Emotionless Girl who doesn't overlap with the Shrinking Violet in romantic situations, see the 'Su Cool' LovSit story from the Tsunami Channel. Saki dearly loves the protagonist, but doesn't see why being embarrassed about it - or indeed, why calmly confessing in the middle of the classroom when everyone is having lunch - is likely to give Kei a heart attack.
  • Sara Amraphel from Errant Story, often lampshaded.
    • And made disturbing in a recent sequence where for the purposes of subterfuge, she assumes an appearance and attitude that are very OOC.
  • Ditto for Wanda Firebaugh from Erfworld, who also lampshades her status.

Wanda: "I don't laugh."

Web Original

  • Alysia Morales from Arcana Magi must remain emotionless or she will suffer physically.
  • Pathologist Madeline Frost in Shadow Unit is the adult version of this trope; no one knows if she's autistic, sociopathic, deeply PTSD, or what, but the hospital where she works has a standing rule about letting her talk to actual living people. (Another character calls her "Cthulhu's Dream Date.")
  • Since The Erotic Mind Control Story Archive features, well, mind control, this trope appears a lot. (See also "Real Life" below.)
  • Agent Xericka [dead link] of the PPC's Bad Slash unit, who was a Nobody in Kingdom Hearts before her recruitment.
  • Electra in Greek Ninja. She shows little emotion even when she's informed of the death of her sensei. During stressful situations, such as battles, she remains cool and stoic.
  • The Nostalgia Chick blames her tiny husk of a heart on years of repression. In her review of Daria, as a Shout-Out to the main character, she dials her psychopathy down and discusses how good the show was in a Creepy Monotone.

Western Animation

  • Raven from Teen Titans (emotionally repressed out of necessity more than choice). She becomes more and more open as the series progresses.
    • Though Raven can actually be intensely emotional- you do not want to see her angry. She needs to stay repressed in order to avoid losing control of her powers and/or unleashing her Super-Powered Evil Side.
  • Mai from Avatar: The Last Airbender, who finds everything in life boring and "unbearably bleak"... everything except Prince Zuko.
  • Mandy in The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy seems to have only three major emotions: indifference, disgust, and anger. The rarity of her smiles, especially in the later seasons was lampshaded in "My Fair Mandy", where her attempt at a cheerful smile ended up destroying the universe.
    • Giving a look of genuine sadness is even rarer; she's only done it once.
    • She's also shown shock and confusion, but that's understandable given the kind of people/things she hangs out with.
  • A minor Freakazoid! villain, aptly named Deadpan.

Real Life

  • The Brainwashed trope, and several Mind Control tropes related to it, is an example of this trope. When you hypnotize someone, this is almost always what you eventually achieve. The subject is just too deeply relaxed and her mind is too focused on the hypnotist to emote, hence the stereotypical blank stare and mouth hanging open.
  • Alice Glass of the band Crystal Castles acts like this quite a bit. See their music video for the song "Crimewave"
  • Those who suffer from Möbius Syndrome may seem like this, as they are not able to create facial expressions.
    • People with Schizoid personality disorder. While able to create expressions, they have a "blunted effect" when it comes to their emotions. (More information)
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