History Main / SurrogateSoliloquy

'''Aang:''' I know you can't really talk. Pretending you can just helps me think.

Compare ThinkingOutLoud, where a character ''is'' in fact voicing their thoughts to the open air, or CompanionCube, where the object is treated as an actual character, sometimes for a good chunk of the story (think Wilson in ''Film/{{Castaway}}''); also CaptainsLog, where the object is a recording device of some sort (electronic or journal), and they're expected to relate to it. Compare also ConsultingMisterPuppet, for when you're acting as if the object talks back to you. SuperTrope of TalkingToTheDead and ConverseWithTheUnconscious.

They talk to ''something'', making it TheConfidant. An EmpathyPet. A CompanionCube. The mirror (but that's [[MirrorMonologue a special case]]). They ask rhetorical questions of things that are conveniently incapable of answering. They do dialog-based exposition that no one capable of repeating it can hear... but you, the reader/viewer, DO. Unlike TrickDialogue, it's generally played straight up, but the two can shade into each other. Note that if you are in fact the aforementioned Creator/WilliamShakespeare, you can pull this off with others on stage, if you just ignore them and concentrate on the object at hand (see picture adjacent).

* The first half of [[ComicBook/CivilWar The Confession]] is done this way, but an affecting variation: the reader doesn't immediately know who or what [[ComicBook/IronMan Tony Stark]] is talking to; the realisation dawns as the monologue progresses and Tony breaks down, ending with a splash page revealing that he has, indeed, been addressing [[spoiler:[[TearJerker the bullet-ridden corpse]] of [[ComicBook/CaptainAmerica Steve Rogers]]]].
* Similarly, in ''Marvel: The End'', ComicBook/{{Thanos}} has destroyed the whole universe, killed everyone else, and, alone in the emptiness, recites how it happened for the benefit of the reader. [[spoiler: In the last issue, we discover he was talking with the other survivor, his nemesis [[ComicBook/Warlock1967 Adam Warlock]]]].

* Parodied in the movie ''Film/TheBigBus'' where the hero's graveside monologue keeps getting drowned out by all of the ''other'' people in the cemetery delivering graveside monologues. Eventually he has to shout.

* Speaking of stuffed animals, Bubbles in ''WesternAnimation/ThePowerpuffGirls'' would frequently converse with her stuffed octopus, Octi.

* Captain Archer of ''Series/StarTrekEnterprise'' does this with his dog, Porthos.

Your character is alone, but (if literature) you're not using a first-person POV. If a dramatic medium, no one else is in view. On stage, you can get away with a soliloquy (if you're Creator/WilliamShakespeare) because the audience is, you know, right there. If you don't mind BreakingTheFourthWall you can even do it on screen. You could use InnerMonologue...but for whatever reason, you don't want to go there. So how does one get a lone character to talk without making it look as if they are TalkingToThemself?

They talk to ''something'', making it TheConfidant. An EmpathyPet. A CompanionCube. The mirror (but that's [[MirrorMonologue a special case]]). They ask rhetorical questions of things that are conveniently incapable of answering. They do dialog-based exposition that no one capable of repeating it can hear...but you, the reader/viewer, DO. Unlike TrickDialogue, it's generally played straight up, but the two can shade into each other. Note that if you are in fact the aforementioned Creator/WilliamShakespeare, you can pull this off with others on stage, if you just ignore them and concentrate on the object at hand (see picture adjacent).

[[folder:Live Action TV]]

* Neil Diamond's "I Am...I Said":

-->'''Jade:''' Poor Woof... I know how you are: you tried to help them. You told yourself that you wouldn't let them come to any harm. That you'd be there to protect them. I know, boy... But that isn't what actually happened. The kids are gone...and you? You couldn't do anything! Yet -- you're here, alive and well! Who do you think you are? Did you think that you'd actually be able to make a difference? Well, Woof, you were wrong, boy. Completely and utterly wrong. There's nothing anyone can do. There's nothing anyone can do...

** That one kinda sidles towards CompanionCube land...or TalkingToThemself...or...or...''something'' similarly [[{{squick}} squickerific]]. I like it!

* “Rubber ducking” is a debugging method whereby a programmer explains to an inanimate object, such as the eponymous rubber duck, what each line of code does, allowing him to spot errors that might otherwise be overlooked.

* In ''Radio/TheHitchhikersGuideToTheGalaxy'' - The Tertiary Phase (based on the book ''Life, the Universe and Everything''), the story opens with Arthur living alone on a prehistoric Earth. Most of the story for this section is expressed through him talking about what's happening in a one-sided conversation with some trees, which he talks to in a desperate attempt to prevent himself from going mad. Ironically, his attempt to explain to Ford who he's been talking to all this time ends up with him forgetting the word 'trees' and explaining it as "those things people think you're mad if you talk to, like George III". Also, from the one-sided conversation, [[FantasticRacism it's implied that he's rather racist towards elms]].