The Stoic

Matt of 3 Panel Soul knows how to stay young.

"...How wasteful... Such emotions are but mere illusions. And, like all illusions, they fade over time until death banishes them forever. That is why I have abandoned all emotions as useless sentimentality."

—Cyrus, Pokémon Diamond and Pearl

He can be in the middle of a gunfight, his best friend's bachelor party, or a helpless witness to the death of everyone and everything he holds dear... and he'll show all the emotional reaction of a victim of a Botox overdose. Though the silent warrior has roots stretching back to The Drifter in Westerns and farther back, The Stoic differentiates himself in that he's not quiet out of contemplation or introversion, but because he's so tough that he doesn't need to emote (or so the writer would like you to think).

The Stoic is not necessarily The Quiet One. While The Stoic may be low key and quiet, more often than not he's just as talkative as anyone else. Another difference is that while The Quiet One does feel and display emotion (albeit less vocally and regularly, but makes up for it with deeper pathos), The Stoic is so utterly devoid of any semblance of human emotion that he borders on being a true Tin Man or The Spock. Whether he has emotion or not varies, but he will invariably refuse to ever show it.

They can be Heroes, antagonists or Anti-Heroes. In a Five-Man Band he might be The Lancer or The Big Guy. His quiet demeanor tends towards the brusque or outright rudeness, though there are a few polite Stoics. Mostly writers (ab)use it to give the impression of a lot going on inside and cultivate an air of mystery and to confuse other characters with cryptic one-liners.

Masculine pronouns are used throughout this trope because quiet women tend to be the creepy Emotionless Girl. Notice, however, that although Emotionless Girls can seem to be easily confused with Stoic Girls, it's actually very easy to tell the difference: an Emotionless Girl usually seems to give a creepy, otherworldly feel, while a Stoic Girl radiates a massive aura of badassness. In either case, female stoics often wind up being woobies.

The Stoic does sometimes display emotion when under extreme stress or in other highly emotional situations, but their usual repertoire consists of mild boredom, detached interest, Dull Surprise or dignified disdain. He may be a Deadpan Snarker, or simply have No Sense of Humor. If he ever shows true emotion, it's likely to be explosive in its intensity and reveal that he's Not So Stoic. The tougher sort of stoic may hide it so thoroughly that only his having Bad Dreams show any of it. As opposed to Frozen Face, where the emotions appear absent because they do not alter his expression, even in the highly emotional situations. A few stoics might calmly pipe up that they have feelings and opinions too when they're taken for granted, they just aren't effusive about it.

  • The Aloof Big Brother type, seen mostly in anime, chooses to act this way either as a personal philosophy or as an outgrowth of his base personality.
  • Some Old West, pulp, and action heroes who are Made of Iron complement physical toughness with stoicism to show mental invulnerability as well. It's part of the job description, really. It's cool to be blase while kicking around Faceless Goons, delivering one liners and taking names. Watch out for needles, though!
  • Shell-Shocked Veteran: Either before the series or during it, the character suffers a particularly nasty case of Heroic BSOD, after which the character enters a Heroic Safe Mode and never leaves. The lights are on, the computer's running, but all the games and fun stuff are offline. (Not to be confused with Heroic Safe Mode, which uses the same metaphor to describe something rather different.)

This last one has real world examples in Flat affect, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, and Shell Shock.

The Stoics in ancient Greece were philosophers who believed that self-control and detachment from emotion and passion would give them greater insight in their quest for truth. Stoics would later be criticized for denying themselves and others any kind of earthly pleasure or silliness in life.

Protagonists of this type include:

Minor characters and antagonists of this type include:

Other tropes associated with stoics include:

Contrast/Compare with Loveable Rogue, Become a Real Boy, The McCoy and Gentle Giant. Often on the winning end of Emotions vs. Stoicism.

Contrast Rage Breaking Point, Drama Queen.

Examples of The Stoic include:

Anime and Manga

  • Yuki Nagato from Suzumiya Haruhi incarnates this trope and cranks it Up to Eleven. NO facial expressions. Ever. This isn't even a question of why she doesn't do it, it's more like she simply does not have expressions. She gets slightly better in it, however. Besides barely ever talking, if she does, it's always monotone. She avoids being creepy though, by bringing loads and loads of badass-ness and invoking hug-urges. As we know from Character Development, she has emotions (Which is an important aspect of her characterization), but only Kyon can actually "read" her. Pondering what she is feeling and why questions both Kyon and the reader.
  • Silver Knight from .hack//SIGN fits this trope perfectly, breaking character only once during a funny conversation with Mimiru near the end of the series. And then there's .hack//Legend of the Twilight...
  • Killy from Blame takes this trope to new and completely emotionless heights. The fact that he has as many lines in 10 volumes (the entirety of the series) as most protagonists have in a single chapter is testament to this.
  • Gendo Ikari and his subordinate Fuyutsuki from Neon Genesis Evangelion. Rei initially seems like one, but is soon revealed to be more of a Kuudere.
  • Paptimus Scirocco, the Big Bad of Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam. In spite of his ability to manipulate emotions and his extreme sensitivity to them as a Newtype, he displays open contempt for the emotional and prides himself on his stoic nature.
  • Major Kusanagi from Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex rarely displays much emotion at all. If you do manage to make her angry, though, be very afraid.
    • Objection! This is definately the case for her movie incarnation, but in the series, as well as the original manga she's quite snarky and often amused by the antics of her squadmates. She becomes this trope only when things get really serious.
  • Kenshiro from Fist of the North Star may be the archetype from which many other stoic anime heroes came from, as he is first introduced as a man of few words and only mild kindness. As the series progresses, however, he is shown to be quite empathetic.
  • Keith Gandor of Baccano!! has a perpetual frowning expression throughout the entire series, as well as never even talking once in the entire anime. This is taken even farther in the light novels, where it's revealed that he's known for going years without speaking.
  • Much of Full Metal Panic! is spent having Sagara Sousuke slowly get over this trope. In canon, he's repeatedly shown to be one of, if not the most stoic characters in the series (shown to start breaking from it only closer to the end). Even the villains of the series are not as stoic as him (as they are either psychotically gleeful and have a lust for violence, or they're depressed individuals wangsting in their emotional turmoil).
  • Bleach:
    • Byakuya Kuchiki. He has smiled on-screen only once. If Byakuya shows any serious emotion at all, it is treated as something very surprising. Characters were amazed when he made a joke.
    • Ulquiorra from the same series also counts.
    • At times, Ichigo's father also appears to be one who uses Obfuscating Stupidity.
    • About the only time Ishida ever smiles is when he's trying to reassure someone (usually Orihime) or when he's about to reveal his status as Snark Knight extraordinaire.
  • Nico Robin of One Piece, Even when she is just as freaked out as the rest of her crew mates are, normal based expressions are on her face. Even Eichiro Oda states that she is the only one with normal expressions.
    • Zoro as well, though he tends to have more outbursts than Robin.
  • Rasen of Flame of Recca is an extreme case. Ridiculously pale complexion, an expression as vacant and empty as that of a corpse, and literally incapable of speech, so much that he requires telepathy to communicate with others when his deathly stare is insufficient.
  • Jo from Burst Angel. When she's fighting, she's the biggest badass in the world. When not, she's usually quiet and inexpressive.
  • Jin of Samurai Champloo seems to be the incarnate of The Stoic.
  • Kambei Shimada from Samurai 7, "He has the eyes of a dead man." according to a Nobuseri. Kyuzo even more so.
  • Golgo 13.
  • Byaku from Kekkaishi is barely ever shown exhibiting any emotion, even when fighting for his life against an enemy.
  • Inuyasha: Sesshoumaru is an Aloof Big Brother who faces the world with such detached equanimity that he doesn't even hate his brother for lopping off his left arm (he still hates Inuyasha for being a half human though). It's actually quite common for him to display negative emotions throughout the series such as anger. Toutousai once observes that Inuyasha and Sesshoumaru are Not So Different: their equally short tempers prove they're brothers. He's also more than willing to play the Snark Knight as well.
  • Aoshi Shinomori from Rurouni Kenshin. Even while he is winning in an intense battle, he shows no facial expressions or emotions.
  • Meia Gisborne from Vandread.
  • Naruto:
    • Sasuke and his brother Itachi (though Sasuke has a habit of losing his stoicism fairly often).
      • Although he does pull off stoic quite well among friends. It's made better by his teammates, who both overreact to everything. If something shocking or undesirable is mentioned, it's a sure bet that Naruto and Sakura will start yelling, objecting, and generally flipping out. Sasuke will just sit there impassively. Unfortunately, he loses it when confronted by someone who insulted or attacked the Uchiha clan.
    • Later on, Sai. Though he smiles, it's just a technique he learned to put people at their ease. He's more of a Spock than The Spock. The fact that he continually puts people down could be his ego fighting to get out.
    • Kakashi and Yamato are also fairly Stoic most of the time.
    • As are Shino and Neji. The former was demonstrated quite humorously when he tried to let Naruto know he was mad at him for not recognizing him after the Time Skip.
    • Nagato/Pein and Konan definitely fit since the death of Yahiko.
    • Gaara is a perfect example of this.
    • Surprisingly, Naruto tends to pull this off whenever he takes a level in badass.
  • Jotaro Kujo from JoJo's Bizarre Adventure Part 3. This is intentional on his part: he thinks people will know his mood no matter what he does, so he's very unemotional, except when he's pushed too far.
  • Lucy from the anime Elfen Lied, despite (or because of) her traumatic life.
  • Afro from Afro Samurai.
  • Legato Bluesummers from Trigun, over the course of the show, is completely cold and impassive, even during such exploits as brutally massacring an entire gang, annihilating an entire city, and forcing a man to shoot him in the head.
  • Rukawa Kaede from Slam Dunk.
  • Trowa Barton from Gundam Wing. After losing his family in the war, Trowa was on his own until about age four and didn't even know how to talk until other humans found him. Even a decade later, he seems surprised whem something affects him emotionally (as seen when he cries after being ordered to destroy his friend Duo's Gundam.
    • Protagonist Heero Yuy is stoic, but calling him The Stoic isn't quite right (Kuudere is more appropriate). While he thinks that emotions get you killed on the battlefield, he says they're needed the rest of the time. He exhibits a normal (if subdued) emotional range,[1] and his self-stated life philosophy is "Live by your emotions". Most of the confusion stems from English voice actor Mark Hildreth being told to play the character as stiff and robotic, combined with Flanderization; this is obviously less of a problem in the Japanese version, where Hikaru Midorikawa delivered a subdued but still emotional performance.
  • "The Captain" from Hellsing
  • Kunimitsu Tezuka from Prince of Tennis. Genichirou Sanada starts like this, but soon we see that he's Not So Stoic.
  • Rin Asougi from Mnemosyne, in addition to being a moderate Tsundere. Of course, being an regenerating immortal helps a lot, but it doesn't make her quipping stuff like "Count your tools!" to a surgeon who previously vivisected her without anaesthesia before killing him with his own scalpel (which he forgot inside her body, apparently) any less Badass. Let alone muttering "It may be too much even for me..." before being sucked into a running airplane jet engine...
  • Satoru Toono of Bukiyou Na Silent has passionate internal emotions, but is incapable of actually showing them on his perpetually indifferent face. His love interest can figure out what he's actually thinking to an extent, but Satoru's inability to express or say what he's feeling is the major cause of misunderstandings between them. It's so bad that when he's provoked into raising his voice at one point, he ends up fainting from oxygen deprivation.
  • Muta from The Daughter of Twenty Faces fits this to a T, whether teaching Chiko to not let her guard down, checking to make sure she's ready for her first cat burglar job, or taking a bullet for her.
  • D from Vampire Hunter D is a classic example.
  • Chrono of Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha has the same serious expression when he's giving orders, instructions, jokes, compliments, and criticisms, though he mellows out after the Time Skip. According to the Sound Stages, he was even more of a stoic before meeting Amy. He subsequently lightens up more after Fate is adopted into his family as his younger sister, and in Striker S, it's suggested that he's closer to being like a kid than he was in his actual childhood.
    • Signum is another example.
    • Nanoha's older brother Kyoya apparently used to be one, as Nanoha notes that before meeting his girlfriend Shinobu, he didn't smile nearly as much, and even afterward, he's considerably more serious than his younger sisters.
  • Hazuki Sakurazaka, the head Meido, from Nogizaka Haruka no Himitsu usually puts up a stoic appearance and monotone voice. Even when she's drunk, and accidentally bashing her head to the wall (or the electric post), she always had the same stoic feel around her.
  • Fate Averruncus from Mahou Sensei Negima. Even on the one occasion when he actually starts laughing he maintains his bored expression and arrogant disdain for the heroes.

Shirabe:F... Fate-sama actually attempting physical humor?
Homura:Is that supposed to be funny?

  • Inspector Lunge of Monster appears to have entirely shut off his emotions—Something that makes him an excellent detective, but a horrible husband and father.
  • Thorfinn of Vinland Saga likes to think he's the Stoic, being gruff and rude to nearly everyone, but in his heart he's as much of a Hot-Blooded Screaming Warrior as any of the other Vikings. His father on the other hand, now he was a true Stoic.
  • Tsukasa Takamine from Sasami Mahou Shojo Club is passive to the point of almost never blinking. One can't even tell if she's really in a relationship with pseudo-Clingy Jealous Girl An-An or if she's just too passive to even notice.
  • Lantis from Magic Knight Rayearth classifies as this big time!
    • Zagato and Lafarga are also this, though to lesser degrees...well, somewhat.
  • Riza Hawkeye from Fullmetal Alchemist.
  • Norway and Hong Kong from Axis Powers Hetalia.
    • Japan is this too to an extent, although he's proven himself on several occasions to be Not So Stoic.
  • Seto Kaiba from Yu-Gi-Oh (much more so in the anime than in the manga, in which he was prone to maniacal laughter in each duel he played.)
    • An Expy of Kaiba in Yu-Gi-Oh GX, Ryo Marufuji is certainly this. Protagonist Judai himself becomes this after his Despair Event Horizon in contrast to his earlier mannerisms.
      • Then Yusei Fudo from Yu-Gi-Oh 5 Ds is stoic from the start, but will occasionally let out a small smile. Ironically, his rival Jack, another Kaiba expy, is more emotional at times than the main protagonist. Yusei does show more emotion as time goes by, though.
  • Nabuca from Now and Then, Here and There constructs a stoic facade to help him cope with the fact that he's been a mass murderer since the age of five
  • Death the Kid from Soul Eater would count as a Stoic but he has no problem expressing himself so it might be hard to tell.
  • Goemon of Lupin III usually serves this role, as he tends to let his sword do the talking.
  • Mori from Ouran High School Host Club rarely speaks more than a few words, and is seemingly unfazed by anything.
    • This gets lampshaded as it is his main draw for being in the Host Club.
  • Reiko, the antisocial mangaka from Kannazuki no Miko, hardly ever displays emotion, even with fighting. However, she does not qualify as an Emotionless Girl, because despite her stoic nature it is revealed that the reason she became a member of the Orochi was that she was a failed mangaka and the pressure to succeed was too great, thus showing she did have strong emotions, just does not display them.
  • Most of the protagonists of Claymore, but especially Deneve.
  • The Prime Minister's personal assistant Nike in Appleseed does not just not show any emotions, but is actually an artificial being genetically engineered specifically to be unable to feel anger or hate. But she's not particulary cheerful, either.
  • Kenichi: The Mightiest Disciple has Akisame the Warrior Poet, who practically never loses his cool. There's also Shigure, who has smiled only twice so far. (And both times only to Kenichi!)
    • Freya's not on their level yet, but she's probably the member of their generation who comes closest. Natsu might make a good showing, as long as Kenichi stays the hell away from him.
  • Every single contractor in Darker than Black. It's one of their defining characteristics. Bonus points go to Hei in particular for being an Anti-Hero with a Badass Longcoat. However, most of them also seem to have one Berserk Button that blows the whole thing to hell. Kirihara is also a stoic and she isn't a contractor.
  • Tabitha in Zero no Tsukaima is robotically stoic.
    • Her tragic and somewhat sadistic back story might have something to do with it.
  • Ai Enma the Hell Girl. Only because her emotions were sealed so she could do her job. Flashbacks show she is just a normal girl.
  • Doumeki from Xxx HO Li C
  • Miharu from Nabari no Ou.
    • Yoite tries it, at times, too.
  • Shinji aka Paul from Pokémon fits this trope to a T.
    • And Bashou/Hun from the Legend of Thunder special...unless he's trying to kill something, in which case he just gets freakily happy.
      • That's more Atilla's thing. Ash's Treecko/Grovyle/Sceptile from the Hoenn region also counts, as it's always found relaxing somewhere. One of the movie shorts had it resisting the involuntary urge to break into a dance for most of the short, though in the end it starts dancing more energetically than any of the other Pokemon.
      • In every region, Ash will have at least one Pokemon who is always calm and seemingly oblivious to anything happening.
      • Nah, Atilla sort of wears his heart on his sleeve. When he's into something, you know it. Hun is icily severe until he gets violent.
  • Eyes Rutherford from Spiral. The anime version is this: angsts a lot but has absolutely no facial change. In the manga, his first appearances make him a snarky brat who takes glee in creeping out people, but later on he becomes more this. Although he does smile a few times, the one time he cries one tear is a big fucking deal. He in fact decided, as a child, that since crying didn't help at all from losing important things, he was better off a "bloodless, tearless demon". Thus, his much more emotional "best friend" Kanone agreed to cry in his place.
  • The Medicine Seller from Mononoke barely displays any emotion at all. The most you can expect is mild irritation or slight bemusement at whatever completely insane Mind Screw terrors the mononoke of the episode decides to conjure up.
  • Taka from Eyeshield 21. Even when leaping into the air with perfect grace, he just looks bored, and finds little interest in the game of football.
    • To a lesser extent, Kakei, Akaba, and Unsui, though they're more reasonably reserved.
    • And then on the other end of the spectrum are Tetsuma and Shin who can be downright robotic.
  • The bodyguard Masa from My Bride Is a Mermaid.
  • Shugo Chara: Hikaru "This is my normal face. :| This is my face when I am sullen. :| This is my face when I'm having fun. :|"
  • Toward the Terra pushes this trope to the extreme with Keith Anyan, who only ever seems to emote significantly when being mentally tortured while unconscious. Even when psychics note that his heart is "overflowing with tears," he maintains a cool facade. The most disturbing manifestation of this may be when his subordinate takes a killing blow for him. When Keith revives from his state of near death, his reaction to the dismembered corpse bleeding on the floor next to him is impassive and apparently insensitive, but we later see that the event has fundamentally affected his misanthropic worldview and eventually leads at least in part to his Heel Face Turn.
  • Area no Kishi: Aizawa Suguru is known for his generally stoic attitude and for, as his younger brother Kakeru put it, "never changing facial expressions."
  • Kannami Yûichi in The Sky Crawlers seems laid back more than anything, but never acts any differently, whether he's gulping beer with his buddies, in the middle of a dogfight or learning that he is an immortal clone-soldier, and has been killed countless of times, only to be resurrected with full set of skills but no personal memories.
  • Naru and his assistant Lin in Ghost Hunt.
  • Reiji from Kurogane no Linebarrel, compounded by the fact that he is immune to pain.
  • Homura of Madoka Magica.
  • Machi Kuragi from Fruits Basket is a version of this. Most of her stoicism stems from being groomed to be "perfect" since a young age, resulting in a seeming lack of any personality or individuality. She's eventually able to show more emotion, but stoic calmness remains as her default.
  • Kuroko of Kuroko no Basuke.
  • Paul von Oberstein of Legend of the Galactic Heroes is one of the best examples of this trope. He's not fazed by anything, be it a necessity to sacrifice 2 billions of people or even his own death.


Comics

Terry: What was Batman like when you knew him?
Virgil: Taller.

  • Judge Dredd is so stoic that he is immune to fear from both the Dark Judge of Fear and Alien Fear Guns.
  • Cyclops. To such an extent that he was able to beat Evil Psychic Superman in a mind fight through sheer self-control.

Professor X: Amazing. Scott, you've... you've completely contained the Void in some kind of psychic prison.
Cyclops: What can I say? I'm an expert at repression.

  • Laura "X-23" Kinney from X-Force tends to be this, no matter what the situation. Until someone she cares about is threatened, then not so much. She pretty much has four basic emotional states: stoic, sad, angry and confused.
    • Fans prefer to consider it: Happy, Sad, KILL and Confused.
  • Subverted in Quantum and Woody by Quantum. He wants to be The Stoic, but inevitably fails when his partner Woody goads him into overreacting.
  • Wallace from Sin City is probably the only protagonist in that series that doesn't lose his cool. Miho comes in at a close second but she is more like The Voiceless.


Fan Works


Films

  • Andy Dufresne in The Shawshank Redemption
  • Subverted by John Preston in the movie Equilibrium. He starts the movie literally feeling no emotion, but by the end, when he goes off the emotion-inhibiting drug, he feels the full spectrum of human emotion while having to hide it from his superiors.
  • Pick any movie starring Arnold Schwarzenegger shortly after he switched from body building to cinema. However, since Arnold is from Austria, this might be more because he still had to polish his English, so this is more like one of those times when Real Life Writes the Plot.
  • Any role Keanu Reeves has ever played (except Theodore "Ted" Logan). Come to think of it, all the {-main-} characters of The Matrix movies are The Stoic.
  • Kevin Costner in The Bodyguard.
  • Tommy Lee Jones in several of his movies.
  • Good luck getting Addison DeWitt from All About Eve to lose his cool.
  • Bruce Banner in the The Incredible Hulk film, for all emotion, not just anger. Because otherwise... y'know...
  • Silent Bob is played this way in Clerks. This changed when the character became more prominent in the other View Askewniverse films.
  • Hugo Stiglitz, at least until the scene where he dies, where he begins to show some visible anger.
  • The Man Who Fell to Earth has Alien Among Us Thomas Jerome Newton, who is much more stoic than in the book. Despite him slipping into alcoholism, failing his planet, letting his family die, and losing the only thing he has left to love he never sheds a tear; when emotions crack his facade they are most often borne of fear and/or physical pain.
  • In Edge of Darkness, the protagonist Craven is a former Vietnam vet who can't understand why others "make such a big deal" out of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and shows little outward signs of his emotions during his Roaring Rampage of Revenge aside from a brief breakdown after his daughter Elle's murder.
  • Buster Keaton. There's a reason why he was called The Great Stone Face.
  • Twilight has Bella. You can count her different facial expressions on one hand and she raises her voice a grand total of about two times during the entire first movie.
    • It's probably due to the fact that Bella, in the book, is a self insert character. As a result, in the film, she's left as blank as possible so the viewer can watch and project her own feelings into the character... at least, that's one possibility.
  • Cutler Beckett from Pirates of the Caribbean hardly ever shows any emotion other than cold-blooded condescension, even when he's got a loaded gun pointed at his face by someone who very clearly wants to have any excuse to pull the trigger. This stands out in particular compared to the rest of the cast.
  • Subject of an amusing bit in It's A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, where Sylvester's unnamed girlfriend maintains a perfect stone face while go-go dancing in a bikini.
  • An example of a female protagonist who is both stoic (badass) and emotionless (otherworldly) simultaneously: Matsu from the Joshuu Sasori series. In this case, she's the type whose stoicism complements her mental invulnerability.


Literature

  • Sherlock Holmes pretty much sums up this trope. He gets shaken up only twice in all of canon, once when he is exposed to a hallucinogenic drug and once when Watson gets shot.
    • There's also that moment at the end of "The Six Napoleons," when Lestrade tells him that Scotland Yard is proud of him. Watson's narration: "...it seemed to me that he was more nearly moved by the softer human emotions than I had ever seen him."
  • Raymond Chandler's Philip Marlowe character is an archetypal literary example of this trope. Though Marlowe does have his more human moments, these mainly occur when he's been truly pushed over the edge, as when, in one novel, he is kidnapped and shot full of narcotics by a quack doctor. The rest of the time, though, he manages to remain completely deadpan even as he's being beaten up by crooked cops or having guns waved in his face.
  • Rand Al'Thor from the Wheel of Time series is slowly transforming into this. His reaction to having his hand burnt off is "I'll have to learn the sword again". A old friend who had not been present to witness his transformation as it occurred over time assumed he was simply in shock, to be sadly told otherwise by someone who feels Rand's emotions. He just knew the hand was gone, he could do nothing about it and so felt nothing more about it.
    • Even from the beginning, there was Lan, who generally doesn't show any emotion; he once laughed, and Rand thought it was like a stone laughing. Then there's the Aiel, who are a race of stoics in the classic sense, having the attitude that the world is going to do terrible things to people and the only sensible thing to do is endure them without complaint; Perrin once cut the hand off a captive Aiel, who only grunted softly.
  • Shadow from American Gods is a stoic who sees the most remarkable things and doesn't even care enough to wonder about what they are or why they happen.
  • Roose Bolton from A Song of Ice and Fire is notable in a series full of stoic characters, speaking with a quiet monotone and having a face that looks like a pale timeless mask for which all emotions appear similar. Bolton uses leeches to suck away the "bad blood" of anger and other messy emotions, and calmly mentions the certainty of his future sons being killed by his bastard intent on succession. He's not concerned by this as he knows he will not live long enough to train his future sons to manhood, and "boy lords are the bane of any house."
  • Anasurimbor Kellhus is both a straight example and a subversion. He's a ruthless, completely rational human calculator who's so good at simulating social interaction he comes across as a passionate, friendly, inspiring leader.
  • Drizzt Do'Urden is often described in-text by his author as being stoic. While he does indeed power through setbacks and defeats, he feels quite deeply, and in battle will wear rage on his sleeve. Further, while he doesn't talk to many outside of his friends, he is very eloquent when speaking with them.
  • Victor in John C. Wright's Chronicles of Chaos. Even capable of announcing that, of course, how much pain an event would cause is not a factor in making decisions.
    • This is a type Wright is fond of: from his Golden Age series, we have Helion, who unflinchingly faces being repeatedly burned to death in pursuit of a memory and Atkins, who only loses his temper once.
  • In Dan Abnett's Gaunt's Ghosts novel Only In Death, we are explicitly told that Ezsrah's people show no emotion and particularly no sorrow. Then, this is borne out by his actions throughout, and in particular in that scene. Ludd, his eyes red and tearful, told him of Gaunt's death, and he just nodded and walked away.

Sleepwalkers showed no emotion. It was part of their way.

  • In James Swallow's Warhammer 40,000 Horus Heresy novel The Flight of the Eisenstein, Sendek prized his self-control, and had a friend who jested about how he took "stoic" to new levels. Making his Not So Stoic moment at The Reveal a deep underscore of how little they believed it.
  • Captain Ed Morris of the US Navy frigate USS.Reuben James (formerly of the USS.Pharris), as depicted in Red Storm Rising by Tom Clancy. After losing his ship to a Soviet submarine, he assumes command of a new ship. Though he plays his role as The Captain to a stoic extreme, he is plagued by Bad Dreams and his performance suffers. After a near experience with a Heroic BSOD, the helicopter pilot takes him to a waterfront bar to Drown His Sorrow, in true Sergeant Rock fashion. After reliving his experience and letting his sadness and anger out, Captain Morris gets his He's Back moment and sails again in fighting form to deliver death to Dirty Communists.
  • Meursault in The Stranger. What emotion he does have, he doesn't really display. It doesn't end well for him.
  • It may have something to do with the fact that many of them are centuries old, while others are thousands of years old, and some are even older than God, but probably the main reason that Merry Gentry's immortal guards seem so stoic is the fact that they've been at the mercy of a sadistic autocrat for several thousand years.
  • Lonesome Dove has Woodrow Call, who makes a good foil to Gus McCrae, the boisterous cowboy.
  • Major McNabbs from Jules Verne's "In Search of Castaways".
  • From Trickster's Choice and Trickster's Queen by Tamora Pierce, Junai makes a total of three facial expressions. Each time, everyone is shocked.
  • Mildmay from Sarah Monette's series Doctrine of Labyrinths. Even in an underground labyrinth made by ancient worshippers of an evil goddess, he stays completely calm.
  • Perhaps the greatest example of this trope is Hans from Journey to the Center of the Earth. He not only agrees on the spot to go with the main characters down a giant lava tube to hell, but isn't even fazed by it. He saves the two other explorers several times, and manages to remain deadly calm even when almost dying of thirst.
  • Cato from Colleen Mccullough's Masters of Rome wants to be this. The real Cato was a stoic philosopher who was/is famous for being incorruptible and an ardent defender of Republican ideals during Rome's transition into an Empire. In contrast Mccullough's portrayal of him is extremely negative. He is portrayed as a fanatical stoic who single handedly leads Italy into Civil War due to his irrational hatred of Caesar and rabid obsession with the mos maiorum. In his private life he is a deeply unhappy alcoholic who suppresses his emotions out of fear of being hurt.
  • Phileas Fogg in Around the World in Eighty Days.
  • Michael in Anne Tyler's The Amateur Marriage, so much so that it causes a lot of tension between him and his Genki Girl wife Pauline. He ends up divorcing her and marrying a female Stoic. Macon in The Accidental Tourist also qualifies (in fact, he comes from a family of Stoics), as does Sam in Ladder Of Years, although he's Not So Stoic after his wife walks out.
  • Jeeves from Jeeves and Wooster has complete and utter imperturbability as his chief character trait, probably because he's usually fully in control of whatever Zany Scheme is going on at the moment. His rather excitable master constantly wonders how he does it. Notably, he doesn't smile—he "muscle spasms".
  • Asher in Someone Elses War. Matteo himself initially seems like one; it turns out to be a facade hiding his reckless nature.


Live Action TV

  • Temperance Brennen in Bones. In fact her social awkwardness makes one suspect her of Aspergers. But aside from that she has an ethic of brutal honesty and self-control that would please any Roman. So she would be a Stoic in both senses of the word.
  • Jack Bristow of Alias. Though you should never confuse stoicism with a lack of emotion, especially if you go anywhere near his daughter.
  • Oz, from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Whether it's a nude Buffy who can read his thoughts or the idea of his girlfriend being turned into a vampire, he keeps his head. It takes Willow being held hostage by an Ax Crazy Faith and everyone arguing about it for him to smash something in frustration. Even then it was to force the Scoobies to trade the MacGuffin for Willow.
    • It's occasionally lampshaded:

Xander: For a minute there I thought you were gonna make an expression.
Oz: I felt one coming on, I won't lie.

    • From the same episode ("Earshot", in which Buffy can hear what everyone is thinking)

Oz: (thinking) I am my thoughts. If they exist in her, Buffy contains everything that is me. She becomes me. I cease to exist.
Oz: (speaking) Huh.

  • Upon being told to just sit and wait in Community episode "Social Psychology" , while everyone else around him ends up throwing childish tantrums and storming out, Abed just calmly, without expressing any apparent emotion, sits and waits. For twenty-six hours.

Professor Duncan: [Watching video footage of Abed sitting perfectly still, staring into space] ... Is it on pause?!
Annie: Nope. That's just who he is.

  • SSA Aaron Hotchner of Criminal Minds. Has been known to occasionally crack a wry smile or get sniffly with/about his young son, but when he's on the job? All business, to the point where he doesn't even blink when a serial killer fires a gun at him from point-blank range.
    • In an interview from the first season one of the writers said that if Hotch was ever to get emotional on the show, the audience would probably be sobbing by that point. Cue season five and the Reaper arc, and this was definitely the case.
  • Dollhouse's Laurence Dominic wears this badge for a while.

Topher Brink: [laughs nervously] There's no way Dom would consciously try and have fun!

  • Aeryn Sun from Farscape, especially at the start; though she gradually moves away from this, she periodically reverts to The Stoic as a defense mechanism. No matter how dangerous the situation is, she remains calm and in control. In a war zone, carrying her newborn baby, with a psycopathic scarran pointing a gun at her husband's head, she simply shoots the scarran and deadpans "It's a boy. In case you were wondering."
  • Zoe, from Firefly.

Wash: So, I'm Zoe. Now, what do I do?
Mal: Probably not talk quite so much.
Wash: Right. Less talking. She's terse - I can be terse. Once, in flight school, I was laconic.

  • House is borderline: he's stoic most of the time, but then every so often is given to some pretty extreme mugging. True stoics don't do things like holler with exaggerated passion "YOU CAN'T STOP OUR LOVE!!!" over a room full of hospital execs in order to embarrass their intended object.
  • Dr. Juliet Burke from Lost is of the Badass variety. Unless someone dies or she talks about her sister.
  • Agent Cho from The Mentalist. Even the funniest of lines are delivered in total deadpan.
  • MythBusters: Jamie Hyneman.

Adam Savage: [sarcastically] You know, it's when you get really excited that I get really nervous, so if you could calm down just a little bit...

  • Gibbs and Ziva from NCIS. For example, in the season six episode "Dead Reckoning," Ziva and Tony are protecting a witness, and hitmen are on their way to the safehouse. Ziva calls Gibbs to tell him about the situation, putting the phone on speaker and setting it down as she pulls out two handguns. Her voice never changes as she talks to Gibbs:

Ziva: We have a situation at the safehouse.
Gibbs: Well, yeah, Ziva. What is it?
Ziva: Just a second. (The hitmen break in through two different doors, and Ziva shoots them both dead before they can react.)
 Gibbs: Ziva? Ziva! Ziva, talk to me!
Ziva: Under control. (hangs up)

    • Gibbs' only reaction is to smile slightly before he hangs up as well.
  • Douglas Henshall's performance as Nick Cutter in Primeval is much more restrained in the second and third series than the first. The altercations to the timeline and revelation of Stephen and Helen's affair could make him qualify in the Shell-Shocked Veteran category.
  • Wyatt, the new executive agent of the company in Prison Break is this and a Scary Black Man because of it.
  • Octavian in Rome. He cannot remember the last time he made a joke.
    • Adult Octavian also likes to stare for long periods without blinking. Chilling.
    • And then there's Vorenus, Antony had a memorable remark about him: "You wont turn to drink will you? You stoic types often do when disappointed in life."
      • Strictly speaking, Antony was probably using the term in the political/philosophical sense and not the general modern term, as Vorenus, a largely-unreconstructed Catonian, does subscribe to a Stoic philosophy.
  • Cameron of The Sarah Connor Chronicles, being a machine, shows only a simulation of emotion at particularly calculated moments where she needs to manipulate the people around her.
  • One episode of Scrubs featured a memorable quick-flash montage depicting various types of patients. One of them is a stone-faced Japanese sushi chef, with an enormous bloody knife sticking out of his shoulder: "Does what hurt?"
  • Col. Jack O'Neill on Stargate SG-1 is very much a Stoic, having barely ever cracked even a smirk. He makes up for it by being one darn funny Deadpan Snarker though.
    • Teal'c, the Proud Warrior Race Guy from the same show, is also a Stoic on par with Spock. He is capable of deep and powerful emotion, but he lets it out only when a loved one is nearby or in danger.
    • Teal'c apparently also has a very strong sense of humor, it just doesn't translate well.

O'Neill: Jaffa...jokes?
Teal'c: I shall attempt to translate one for you. A Horus Guard, a Serpent Guard, and a Setesh Guard meet on a neutral planet. The Horus Guard's beak glistens. The Serpent Guard's eyes glow. The Setesh Guard's...nose drips.
(Teal'c bursts out laughing, but stops after a few seconds when no one else laughs)

  • Spock from Star Trek: The Original Series is one of the most famous examples of the Stoic (even has his own trope).
    • Worf glorifies Klingon culture but it comes out weird in him and slightly humanized. He is amusingly serious and definitely gives duty all it's due.
  • Supernatural: Hi there, Castiel. No, really, he has no clue how to show emotion, which isn't true for the other angels.
  • Stefan Salvatore, from The Vampire Diaries.
  • Captain Apollo, from the classic Battlestar Galactica, tends to be this in the majority of the episodes.
  • Frank Reagan in Blue Bloods is an NYPD chief with a sense of public service that would do any Roman proud.

Tabletop Games

  • The Dark Angels, a Chapter of Space Marines in Warhammer 40,000 pretty much exemplify this trope, along with The Atoner. They have a long-standing feud with the Space Wolves that stems from their differences in personality inherited from their Primarchs.
    • The two primarchs did, however, get over their differences and became really close friends. Of course, not many members of either chapter is aware of that fact, but they do put aside their differences when a larger threat is around.
    • Imperial Guard regiments from Valhalla are described to generally be like this, able to shrug off even the largest losses and focus on the objective at hand, not even surrendering until the very last moment, and sometimes not even then. For a good example of this, see Gunner Jurgen, aide to Ciaphas Cain (HERO OF THE IMPERIUM!), where the majority of the Valhallan 597th Ice Warriors have very differing personalities, Jurgen fits the standard describtion for Valhallans as described in the Imperial Guard Codex pretty well.
    • In general, stoicism is a very good idea if you're a human in the 40K-verse. Not only will it help you get through the horrors of day-to-day life in the Imperium, it is also the only way to not feed the Chaos Gods.


Toys


Video Games

  • Reaper and Shadow of Jagged Alliance, combined with the Quiet One. They do, however, break out of it occasionally (such as Shadow snarking at the Crepitus, giant bugs, or Reaper getting injured or spotting enemies).

Reaper: "I'm bleeding. That's cool."

  • Raiden, in Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots. Compared to his... emotionality in Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, he's quiet and deadly calm, the epitome of the perfect killing machine.
    • However, it turns out that Raiden is, in fact, Not So Stoic.
  • Golbez winds up as The Stoic in Final Fantasy IV: The After Years.
  • Shadow from Final Fantasy VI. When the heroine asks him for words of wisdom about her screwed-up life, he tells he can't help and boasts about having killed off his emotions. Later, when his daughter, Relm, becomes a part of the party, he never speaks to her beyond warning that his dog will bite.
  • Sephiroth from Final Fantasy VII. In the original games, everyone else is usually made to run in cutscenes just to save time, and presumably you're not supposed to think they're really running. Sephiroth walks. In the movie Advent Children, he never blinks and hardly ever grunts or breathes during the whole intensive battle scene he gets. Basically appearing preternaturally unaffected is the most distinctive behavioural trait he has.
    • He cracks a bit in Crisis Core.
    • Vincent Valentine
    • Cloud is also this despite that you can actually control some of his behaviour. it gets worse for him as the game continues, and he is evantually doomed as a stoic character in every other media he appears in despite that he naturally gets better after he has overcome his Angst Coma.
  • The main character of Final Fantasy VIII, Squall Leonhart. His Catch Phrase is "...whatever."
  • Auron from Final Fantasy X practically embodies this trope (as well as a score of others, but let's not go there...). He's mainly the 'Combat Vet' version, mixing in a handful or two of the action hero variant, and even a pinch of Aloof Big Brother, mostly near the beginning.
    • Actually, Shell-Shocked Veteran would be the best way to describe him and he has a pretty good reason for it: your two best friends die, but you try to keep it together when you learn that they died in vain and you get a Hannibal Lecture that all your life was based on a lie. If that doesn't mess you up in the emotions department, nothing does.
  • Llyud, and the Aegyl in Final Fantasy XII: Revenant Wings. Mostly due to their anima having been stripped

"I cannot even understand why you cry."

  • Vergil from Devil May Cry 3 in direct contrast to his cocky Jerkass brother.
  • JC Denton from Deus Ex, although talks frequently compared to others, shows VERY little emotion when speaking. He might as well be a robot, but then again...Cybernetics Eat Your Soul
    • The fact he talks so much emphasises his stoicism. He seems quite philosophical and clearly has a deep understanding of the issues he's involved in... this perhaps makes him more of a true stoic, rather than an emotionally stunted near-mute as so many other video game examples are.
    • His brother shows noticably less detachment, and the other nano-aug you meet (Walton Simons) gets quite irritated with the protagonist on a couple of occasions. Gunther Hermann, a mechanical augment, shows himself to be quite emotional but presumably hides it as best he can whilst working with his sociopathic partner Anna Navarre. So soul-eating probably hasn't happened here... these people are just damaged.
    • JC does briefly let his stoicism slip, ever so slightly, shortly before the denouement.

Bob Page: I will burn like the brightest star!
JC: Oh, you're gonna burn, alright.

  • Agent 47 from the Hitman series.
  • There's a whole race of stoics in Lusternia, the Lucidian. Their progenitor was The Spock of the Elder Gods. They're highly intelligent, made of crystal, and are coolly indifferent to most other mortals - except the Trill race.
  • Several characters act this way in The King of Fighters, but the most notable is likely K'. He never so much as smirks, his voice rarely moves past a monotone, and his introductory line is a muttered, "Heh. Now I'm mad."
    • The Alternate Universe Maximum Impact has several characters (Soiree and the Genki Girls Yuri and Kula) who try to cheer up the cast's stoics before their fights. The responses range from K' dismissing them to Iori making a death threat.
  • Undine and Salamander, Arioch's pact-partners in Drakengard, are of this sort. At one point they tell the protagonist about Arioch's disturbing past and try to explain why she's so Ax Crazy, and they do so with all the vivacity of a dead cockroach.
  • The Original Generation cast members of Super Robot Wars got plenty of the most stoic characters: Kyosuke Nanbu is a gambling mecha pilot with a mild monotone and Raidiese F. Branstein keeps a low profile amongst Ascended Fanboy teammate Ryusei Date. Of course, it wouldn't be Super Robot Wars if these two didn't break out of their stoicism: endanger Kyosuke's Ms. Fanservice girlfriend and he delves into a deep Tranquil Fury, while mentioning Raidiese's dead sister-in-law, when you're the one who orchestrated her death, you'll see him go batshit insane upon pressing that Berserk Button of his.
    • One more for Kyosuke. Try to kill his Nakama in front of him and make it look like it's his fault. The man will literally break down in tears and enter a Heroic BSOD right off bat.
  • If he's not REALLY pissed off, Roxas from Kingdom Hearts pretty much fits into this trope, but considering he's a Nobody and therefore has no true emotions, it's understandable. Not quite since Sora was seen with a couple of tears when he was leaving the world at the beginning of the game, tears that were most likely Roxas's. He's a bit better about it in his own midquel, but that's usually only when he's around Axel and Xion and just does his work without fuss for most of the game. Then comes the final missions...
  • Mass Effect's Urdnot Wrex is a centuries-old warrior whose iron-cold stoicism in combat comes from a combination of long experience and more jaded cynicism than you can shake a stick at. The most you can get out of him in the majority of circumstances is a calm remark on how satisfying that last round of gunplay was.
    • However in Mass Effect 2, the only non-stotic part was seeing Shepard is alive again, and said this: "Shepard, my friend."
      • In 3, if you kill Mordin during the sequence when the cure is deployed for the Genophage he will go into an unstoppable rage as you essentially doomed his entire species since said cure became ineffective because it denatured from the heat of the lab fire.
  • Advance Wars has Hawke (and Gage in the new setting). Both have the same range of reactions as the other CO's, but theirs are much more subtle.
  • Jade Curtiss from Tales of the Abyss is The Stoic and the Deadpan Snarker and the Stepford Smiler. He is both awesome and rather creepy.
    • Tear also when she trying to keep up her soldier mentality.
  • Veigue Lungberg from Tales of Rebirth is the epitome of this trope within the Tales (series). How bad is it? For one, he is the only character who doesn't have a smiling frame in the skits, and the only time he ever smiled was in one anime cutscene. And it was a tiny, very reserved smile. His gloominess is even constantly mocked by the other party members, especially Mao.

Tytree: If we hang around in a dark place like this, then we're gonna end up gloomy just like Veigue here!
Mao: No~, anything but that!
Veigue: ...We're leaving this instant.

  • Raidou Kuzunoha the Fourteenth of Raidou Kuzunoha vs. the Soulless Army experiences some rather disturbing events with a perfectly straight face, which make the few moments when he is visibly shocked/distressed more emotional for the player (this player, at least) than they normally would be. (And it makes the game over scene much more frightening when one takes into account how terrified he is.) Also, no matter how joyous the music or visuals, his oh-so-tiny smile at the end drove the feeling of victory home (as if visually whispering I won...). Not bad for a silent protagonist.
  • Gears of War's Marcus Fenix has pretty much only one emotion: varying degrees of annoyance at everything. The most emotion one can usually get out of a senior as shell-shocked as he is is a growl of rage.
    • That stoicism is played brilliantly in Gears 2, as the few rare instances where he shows an emotion other than anger are made all the more powerful. Particularly potent is the brief flicker of pain he shows when Dom finds and has to Mercy Kill Maria.
  • Team Fortress 2's Heavy is described as this, but he cheers up once he starts killing people. And of course, when we see him, he's always killing people.
    • The Spy is a better example, staying calm even when he's burning to death, though revealing he lets loose quite a bit in his domination lines--particularly, he finds the fact that the Sniper lives in a van hilarious.
    • The Sniper's domination lines reveal, aside from his normal, cheerful side, that he can be both incredibly stoic and incredibly insane.
    • Radigan Conagher, the Engineer's grandfather.
  • Presea Combatir progresses from Emotionless Girl in Tales of Symphonia to this trope in the sequel, where within a minute of making her first appearance, she bullshits a group of guards into believing they'd be victims of a horrible (and weird) curse if they opened the iron maiden that the heroine was hiding in prematurely...only for it to be revealed that there was a trick back in there anyway, and she pretty much just bluffed the baddies for the hell of it. And doesn't break a smile or drop the Creepy Monotone once.
  • Torgal from The Last Remnant is an excellent example, he has the least lines out of the main group and shows very little emotion.
    • In his Flashback Nightmares, it's revealed he has an excuse: Due to his emotions, he chickened out of mercy killing his bandit partner, leaving him to a painful, torturous death.
  • Cyrus from Pokémon Diamond, Pearl, and Platinum believes that emotions are "useless sentimentality". He uses this as his justification for destroying the universe and creating a new one with all humans stripped of emotions and spirit.
    • Regarding his "emotionlessness", it's pretty clear through his actions and words that he very obviously still has them. Consider that when he initially tells the player character this, he's nearly screaming at them. In Platinum, he is forced to confess, due to having a meltdown of rage, that he still has them.
  • In Silent Hill 4: The Room, this is one of the things Henry and Walter have in common. Except that Walter sometimes smiles and laughs.
  • Humphrey from Suikoden
  • The protagonist of Strange Journey, despite being a Heroic Mime, is noted by the rest of the cast to be very calm and controlled, which is why they rely on him so much. And they freak out at the start of the Chaos Path when he kills Gore: "Did you just laugh?"
  • The Master Chief himself! Starring as the main protagonist in the Halo series, he kicks alien butt, holds off an epidemic Flood virus, and stops Halo from detonating while keeping a cool head the whole freakin' time. And the guy never shows emotions to boot (probably because he's in a giant robot suit that masks every emotion his body tries to show). But still, if he's asked to jump out of a ship and hurl into outer space, he'll do it while saying in a calm voice, "Sir, finishing this fight". Definitely a Stoic.
  • Chuck Greene from Dead Rising 2. He never seems to drop the Clint Eastwood-like stare even if he faces against zombies or psychopaths.
  • Rachel Alucard of BlazBlue, as well as her companion Valkenhayn R. Hellsing, are generally aloof and reserved throughout the games. This stands out a lot since BlazBlue is a World of Ham filled to the brim with Hot-Blooded Large Hams who can't keep their voices down. Even then, they have their moments.


Visual Novels

  • M in Shikkoku no Sharnoth. The only times he displays strong emotions is when he is destroying his foes. He does not really appear to understand emotion in some way.
  • Rider in Fate/stay night. First she's an antagonist that smiles one time at the fact that Shirou isn't as big of a Jerkass as Shinji, then she dies without expressing anything but a mild disdain for Saber's much stronger distaste for her. No part in UBW. HF gives her the emotional range of emotionless (and unnerving to Shirou with it) to mild frown to very slight smile. The strongest reactions are when people are honestly appreciative/complimentary of her where she becomes almost flabbergasted. But then again, she has a backstory that turned Medusa into a Woobie, so yeah. Even then she masks it. She's more outgoing in the True End of HF though.


Web Original

  • Bobby Jacks of Survival of the Fittest very much embodied this trope, at least in pregrame. During version 3, he has, however, shown emotion a couple of times. On the other hand, most of these occurrences happened either when he was alone or internally - so other characters wouldn't be privy to the same knowledge as readers. The three occasions where Bobby shows real emotion are justified however. Once because he had just been shot, the other two times because his Berserk Button was pushed.
  • Greg from The Wolf's Will has his moments of stoicism, but he has absolutely nothing on Free Flower from the same book, or on Beatrice from Demonic Symphony.
    • Word of God has it that the last two are actually incapable of feeling emotion.
  • Wyn from the web fiction serial Dimension Heroes seems to slip in and out of this trope: sometimes he feels like talking, and other times he'll simply stand around and look cool.
  • Shrooms has Blue Shroom, who is consistently light on emotion, a great contrast to Red's histrionic personality and antics. Which of course makes sense, as Blue is the only character in the series without animated facial expressions.


Webcomics

  • Zz'dtri, Vaarsuvius's evil counterpart in Order of the Stick, barely talks and keeps a straight face almost at all times. He does however let out an evil grin every once in a while. It's meant to make him a foil to Vaarsuvius' Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness.
    • Half the Order are pretty stoic, although Roy does let his temper get the better of him sometimes. V and Durkon hardly ever smile either.
    • V hardly seems to qualify. Sure he/she rarely smiles, but V exhibits a range of emotions between mildly annoyed to explosively furious on a daily basis in most story arcs beyond the first few.
  • Sara in Errant Story, almost never talks. The characters occasionally make fun of her for it, as seen above. (What's amusing is that her brother Jon sees himself like this, although he fits more into the Tall, Dark and Snarky class.)
  • Antimony Carver and Miss Jones from Gunnerkrigg Court.

Just Jones will do.

  • In Cry Havoc Lieutenant Sarg and to a lesser degree Karcharoth.
  • (Tiffany) Susan Pompoms of El Goonish Shive is the rare female Shell-Shocked Veteran, although her Vulcan "shoulder angel" would have you think of another related trope.
  • Girl Genius: Airman Third Class Axel Higgs has faced everything from airship crashes to angry swans to rampaging warrior Clanks with a cool head and a talent for thinking on his feet. The only thing that appears to faze him is Zeetha (who, to be fair to Higgs, gleefully dove into a barfight composed entirely of Jagermonsters - Super Soldiers, most of whom have centuries of combat experience).
  • The nameless zombie Narrator of Hanna Is Not a Boy's Name does show emotion. Sometimes. He's a master of the Fascinating Eyebrow, has been known to look pretty alarmed when it's unavaidable, and gets visibly upset when Hanna has been harmed. However, Hanna keeps track of how many times he's seen him smile, and it doesn't come out to much. He also doesn't care much at all about the fact he's lost his memory.
    • Finas also seems to fit this category, though Word of God states that he does actually smile "when the situation warrants it".
  • Riff in Sluggy Freelance. Though he's developed a greater range of emotion, he's still deadpan more often than not, and prone to Tranquil Fury. Stoicism around women in particular is a front he's carefully cultivated to prevent himself from sticking his foot in his mouth.
  • Wooden Rose Lillian
  • Raizel from Noblesse, who spoke as much as (or even less than) random throwaway villains over the course of 185 chapters. His facial expression neverchanges, and the most emotional he ever got was during his Tranquil Fury moment.
  • In Homestuck, Dave Strider hides himself in cool irony and refuses to show emotion. His brother raised him to be independent and never show weakness (Emotion being one). As they progress in the game Dave becomes more worried and even asks Rose how John is doing when he can't contact him. He also casually asks her for psychoanalysis on his dreams. At one point when being pestered by Terezi a future Dave gives him the thumbs up after she asks if he can trust her.
    • A big part of Dave's Character Development lies in realizing he is different from his brother, and can be his own man; he reveals himself Not So Stoic as a consequence. The Alpha iteration of Bro, though, is this trope to a tee.
  • Liz in The Dreadful. When Kit shot an Ax Crazy bandit right between the eyebrows and began boasting...

Liz: Shut up.
Burke: (stands up) No one interfere. This is my soup...
Kit: (shuts up and stares at this madness with big round eyes)
Burke: (whips out a drum-fed grenade launcher) And fortune-- IS MY SPOON!!!
Liz: (still with half-closed eyes and speaking around a cigarette) Hey, Kit - remember when you asked me about "the catch"?..


Western Animation

  • Laemilton Taeshawn from The Boondocks.
  • Slade, Raven and Robin from Teen Titans.
  • Phineas and Ferb: Ferb and Perry the Platypus both qualify.
  • Brock Samson from The Venture Brothers, when he's not engulfed in a psychotic Unstoppable Rage.
  • Craig from South Park is like this, usually when he's flipping people off. Although he frowns and shouts at other people, sometimes. Or smiles malevolently when he wants to beat someone.
    • Mysterion tends to fit this trope since his demeanor is similar to Batman's. He only loses his stoicism when people don't take him seriously or when he is talking to the Coon. He only smiles and laughs once when he tries to piss off the Coon with the group name of his superhero friends.
  • Samurai Jack, similar to Jin, is a swordsman who will give little more than a brief glance for all of the weird crap he sees.
  • Prince Zuko of Avatar: The Last Airbender tries to be this way as much as he can, but the situations he's often placed in (being partnered with his jolly uncle Iroh among other things) often defuse this greatly.

Sokka: Are you happy now?
Zuko: [with a very deadpan face] I'm never happy.

  • Leon of Titan Maximum is stoic to the core. Even when freezing to death, he doesn't so much as shiver. He does reach out a hand to stoic monkey Jesus, though.
  • Six through and through. He smiles all of three or four times throughout the entire series, and even then it's only a tiny deviation from his normal expression.
  • In Men In Black: The Series K was made to this, while he is almost similar to movie counter part, his animated version take it Up to Eleven.


Real Life

  • In typology tests such as the Myers-Briggs, personalities with IxTx-dominant functions (that is, Introverted Thinkers) are often stereotyped under this trope.
  • In the typology test, Socionics, this is a defining trait of ILI and SLI types (also written as IN Tp and IS Tp) who go to great pains to restrain any emotions that might be expressed and can be easily told from their consistent, stoic lack of facial expression.
  • Schizoid personality disorder involves detachment from social relationships and a restricted range of emotional expression. Sound familiar? Yes, it does.
    • One of the signs of disorganized schizophrenia (not the fun kind) is "flat affect," which is the psych term for the lack of or an inability to express emotions.
    • Asperger's Syndrome can have a similar effect. Especially when misdiagnosed as Attention Deficit Ooh Shiny and treated with Ritalin.
  • Admiral Raymond Spruance, USN. He didn't really need bombs, shells, and torpedoes; he could probably look at Japanese ships on a map and a shower of ice pouring from his cold heart would fall on them and sink them.
  • Fedor Emelianenko, the top heavyweight MMA fighter in the world. He has stated that he deliberately clears his mind of emotion before and during a fight. The most expression seen on his face in a fight is quiet determination.
  • Tim Duncan.
  • Derrick Rose.
  • Steven Seagal. Here's a chart.
  • Amber Lamps.
  • Chilean President Manuel Montt was described by his own followers as "being all cool head, but no heart".
  • During the Yom Kippur War "Dado" Elazar specifically ordered that no casualties names be reported to headquarters unless it was of military importance that they be known. This was because several of the officers present had their own sons in the fighting. In this case it was almost literal Stoicism: it was the sort of order a Roman commander might have given.
  • New England Patriots coach Bill Bellicheck is this.
  • Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus
  • Speaking of Emperor Marcus, some say he was inspired by Epicetus, a slave and a cripple(some say his master beat him) who became a Stoic and taught disciples in the city square after he was freed. In other words of the two most famous Stoics one was an Emperor and one was a slave.
  • Ub Iwerks could be a cold, distant figure in real life—as mentioned in his biography, when he learned that his ner-do-well father (who abandoned him and his mother as a teenager) had died, he coldly replied "Throw him in a ditch."
  • George Washington. If he ever smiled in his entire life it has never been proven.
  • The Duke of Wellington. But then he was British.
  1. ↑ such as surprise, fear, and happiness
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