History Main / ThirdPersonPerson

It should be noted that third-person speak is about [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illeism illeism]] (literally "that-ism" or "he-ism"; the Latin pronoun ''ille'' largely evolved into words for "the", "he", or the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dummy_pronoun dummy]] "it" in Romance languages such as French or Spanish). In other words, you would refer to yourself not only by name, but also by a third-person pronoun (he, she, or [[GenderNeutralWriting they]]) as if you were talking about someone else. If the speaker does this only for a story in which they are revealed as the central character, it's AndThatLittleGirlWasMe or NarratorAllAlong.

The so-called "third person" in a Japanese (or East Asian for that matter) sense isn't the same as using "he" or "she" to talk about oneself, however. In fact, the "third person" for Japanese people stops at only using one's own name to substitute [[UsefulNotes/JapanesePronouns first-person pronouns]] (''watashi'', ''ore'', ''boku'', etc.). This may sound strange to Western ears, but anyone who does this still very much speaks in some sort of playful, childlike ''first person'', '''not''' the actual third person that Westerners would think of. Nobody actually refers to themself as ''kare'' ("he"), ''kanojo'' ("she"), ''koitsu''/''soitsu''/''aitsu'' / ''kono''/''sono''/''ano hito'' ("[[GenderNeutralWriting they]]") (in fact, the so-called third-person pronouns in general aren't even commonly used to begin with, given Japanese people's value on people's names which makes it rude and crass to overuse these words). A misunderstanding of this phenomenon may cause some amateur [[FanTranslation fan translators]] to jump all over the place, using Western-style third-person speak in some places, while going back to first-person speak in others. The only feasible solutions to this [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Untranslatability translation predicament]] is to simply substitute every instance of "I" and "me" with the character's name and try to conform to European grammars with "is", "was", "has" and whatnot (which is of course actually infeasible because it will make the translation awkward to read and give the reader a false impression of a culture they're ignorant about), or just stick with "I" and "me", because at the end of the day, some things just gotta be LostInTranslation.

A Third-Person Person is a character who always refers to themself in the third person. Folks from different cultures actually do this for wildly different reasons.

* In the fan comic ''Webcomic/FriendshipIsTragic''' (not to be confused with [[Fanfic/FriendshipIsTragic the fanfic of the same name]]), the background unicorn usually known as Twinkleshine ''is'' actually Moondancer and refers to herself in third person. The result of this is that, except for her so-called friends, nopony knows that she is Moondancer, Equestria's most famous blogger, because everypony thinks that she just talks about Moondancer all the time and that her actual name is Twinkle. Once she actually ''tried'' to say "me" but found that she literally couldn't. HilarityEnsues in the one-part comic in which Moondancer and The Great and Powerful Trixie meet -- without really knowing.

* In the fan comic ''Friendship is Tragic'' (not to be confused with [[Fanfic/FriendshipIsTragic the fanfic of the same name]]), the background unicorn usually known as Twinkleshine ''is'' actually Moondancer and refers to herself in third person. The result of this is that, except for her so-called friends, nopony knows that she is Moondancer, Equestria's most famous blogger, because everypony thinks that she just talks about Moondancer all the time and that her actual name is Twinkle. HilarityEnsues in the one-part comic in which Moondancer and The Great and Powerful Trixie meet — without really knowing.

For more examples of this trope, both real and fictional, check out [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Illeists a thematic category]] on Wiki/TheOtherWiki.

* ''Wiki/SCPFoundation'':

* Wiki/TVTropes:

In Japanese media, this is a standard tic of very young children. As a result, girls who are childish or [[TheCutie cutesy]] may be seen referring to themselves in this manner by their own name and their loved ones' names rather than using pronouns like ''(w)atashi''. Due to the proliferation of UsefulNotes/{{Kawaisa}}, which conflates childishness and youth with femininity, it's roughly as feminine as referring to oneself with ''atashi'', and males who refer to themselves in third-person are almost certainly implicated to be InTouchWithHisFeminineSide, if not outright CampGay. In older characters, however, it may be a sign of [[HollywoodPsych psychological issues]], such as a very traumatic event in their past. It also may be a sign of humility, so {{samurai}} and noblewomen usually refer to themselves in the third person when talking to their lords, or just that the adult is a ManChild. If a character ''transitions'' into a Third-Person Person over the course of the series, watch out for signs of {{Yandere}} and/or TheMentallyDisturbed, and keep tabs on all [[KnifeNut pointy]] [[AxCrazy objects]].

The so-called "third person" in a Japanese (or East Asian for that matter) sense isn't the same as using "he" or "she" to talk about oneself, however. In fact, the "third person" for Japanese people stops at only using one's own name to substitute [[UsefulNotes/JapanesePronouns first-person pronouns]] (''watashi'', ''ore'', ''boku'', etc.). This may sound strange to Western ears, but anyone who does this still very much speaks in some sort of playful, childlike ''first person'', '''not''' the actual third person that Westerners would think of. Nobody actually refers to themself as ''kare'' ("he"), ''kanojo'' ("she"), ''koitsu''/''soitsu''/''aitsu'' / ''kono''/''sono''/''ano hito'' ("[[GenderNeutralWriting they]]") (in fact, the so-called third-person pronouns in general aren't even commonly used to begin with, given Japanese people's value on people's names which makes it rude and crass to overuse these words). A misunderstanding of this phenomenon may cause some amateur [[FanTranslation fan translators]] to jump all over the place, using Western-style third-person speak in some places, while going back to first-person speak in others. The only feasible solutions to this [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Untranslatability translation predicament]] is to simply substitute every instant of "I" and "me" with the character's name and try to conform to European grammars with "is", "was", "has" and whatnot (which is of course actually infeasible because it will make the translation awkward to read and give the reader a false impression of a culture they're ignorant about), or just stick with "I" and "me", because at the end of the day, some things just gotta be LostInTranslation.

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[[quoteright:350:[[ComicBook/{{Asterix}} https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/asterix_third_person.jpg]]]]

The so-called "third person" in a Japanese (or East Asian for that matter) sense isn't the same as using "he" or "she" to talk about oneself, however. In fact, the "third person" for Japanese people only stops at using one's own name to substitute [[UsefulNotes/JapanesePronouns first-person pronouns]] (''watashi'', ''ore'', ''boku'', etc.). This may sound strange to Western ears, but anyone who does this still very much speaks in some sort of playful, childlike ''first person'', '''not''' the actual third person that Westerners would think of. Nobody actually refers to themself as ''kare'' ("he"), ''kanojo'' ("she"), ''koitsu''/''soitsu''/''aitsu'' / ''kono''/''sono''/''ano hito'' ("[[GenderNeutralWriting they]]") (in fact, the so-called third-person pronouns in general aren't even commonly used to begin with, given Japanese people's value on people's names which makes it rude and crass to overuse these words). A misunderstanding of this phenomenon may cause some amateur [[FanTranslation fan translators]] to jump all over the place, using Western-style third-person speak in some places, while going back to first-person speak in others. The only feasible solutions to this [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Untranslatability translation predicament]] is to simply substitute every instant of "I" and "me" with the character's name and try to conform to European grammars with "is", "was", "has" and whatnot (which is of course actually infeasible because it will make the translation awkward to read and give the reader a false impression of a culture they're ignorant about), or just stick with "I" and "me", because at the end of the day, some things just gotta be LostInTranslation.

** Inverted by me, an ordinary toaster named SCP-426, who makes everyone around me refer to me in the first person. And that's only the ''least'' of my effects.
** Played straight with SCP-811, a swamp woman who combines this with HulkSpeak due to her poor vocabulary.

!!Example subpages:

* [[ThirdPersonPerson/AnimatedFilms Film — Animated]]
* [[ThirdPersonPerson/LiveActionFilms Film — Live-Action]]

!!Other examples:

[[folder:Asian Animation]]

* "[[WebVideo/AtopTheFourthWall SNOWFLAME]] HAS NO CONCEPT OF TIME!"
* ''WebVideo/{{Dad}}'': Dad always refers to himself in his own narrative as "Dad", such as:
--> "Hmm...Someday, Dad will have the greatest shed in the neighborhood and the universe."
* The BadFuture version of Gohan does it once for a gag in ''WebVideo/DragonBallZAbridged'' when Bulma asks if Mr. Gohan would like to stay for dinner.
--> '''Gohan:''' Mr. Gohan would.
** In the commentary for that episode, they mention that they considered having him accept Bulma's later offer of staying the night, what with her being single and thus very interested in his, ah...
--> '''Gohan, same delivery:''' Mr. Gohan [[FunWithHomophones wood.]]
* {{WebOriginal/Fandomstuck}} has CuteMonsterGirl Tsukeysprite and Calamity Kid, the AnthropomorphicPersonification of {{VideoGame/Bastion}}. In the latter's case, he technically refers to himself by a ''title'' rather than his name, unless, of course, [[HisNameReallyIsBarkeep his name really is Kid]].
* ''WebVideo/FinalFantasyVIIAbridged:'' Tseng speaks as if he's narrating a movie trailer, and while he refers to himself in third-person, it's never by his actual name, but usually various overwrought qualifiers to make himself sound cooler.
* Bowl from ''WebVideo/FrenchBaguetteIntelligence'' refers to himself in third person.

* ''WebAnimation/IfTheEmperorHadATextToSpeechDevice'' has Skarbrand, a greater daemon of Khorne with NoIndoorVoice who HatesEveryoneEqually. He mostly talks in the third person - as for how this typically manifests in-series, well, '''''[[SelfDemonstratingArticle SKARBRAND HATES GIVING EXAMPLES]]!!!!'''''
* Inverted by me, an ordinary toaster named [[Wiki/SCPFoundation SCP-426]], who makes everyone around me refer to me in the first person. And that's only the ''least'' of my effects.

* Waluigi within the LetsPlay/MarioPartyTV series, [[AlternateCharacterInterpretation as voiced]] by The Reverend Inferno.
* Rafale from ''Film/NoobLaQueteLegendaire'' doesn't do it all the time, but still regularly enough for another character to notice and make clear she considers it a little annoying.
* Caveman of ''WebVideo/TheTimeGuys'' fame talk like this, but Caveman's prodigious cave-telligence imply this done more for style.
* Episode 25 of ''WebVideo/YuGiOhTheAbridgedSeries'' has Johnny Steps refers to himself in the third person because "it makes him a bad guy"

[[folder:Tropes]]
* PokemonSpeak takes this to its logical extreme.
* KneelBeforeZod is often a line spoken by Zod himself (or his equivalent in non-''Superman'' works)

It should be noted that third-person speak is about [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illeism illeism]] (literally "that-ism" or "he-ism"; the Latin pronoun ''ille'' largely evolved into words for "the", "he", or the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dummy_pronoun dummy]] "it" in Romance languages such as French or Spanish). In other words, you would refer to yourself not only by name, but also by a third-person pronoun (he, she or [[GenderNeutralWriting they]]) as if you were talking about someone else. If the speaker does this only for a story in which they are revealed as the central character, it's AndThatLittleGirlWasMe or NarratorAllAlong.

On the other side of the globe, Western characters who referred to themselves in the third person were traditionally seen as vain, unintelligent, egotistical or self-absorbed -- the implication being that he is so in awe of himself that even ''he'' views himself objectively. Or the character is a {{Hulk Speak}}ing primitive. Or the character could be just a {{Cloudcuckoolander}} with a [[VerbalTic weird speech mannerism]]. An [[ItsAllAboutMe egotistical villain]] will especially refer to himself in this fashion if he has a [[TheMagnificent cool or impressive-sounding name or title]]. Sometimes a character with AcquiredSituationalNarcissism will temporarily become a Third-Person Person as a sign of his suddenly expanded ego. There are examples of this trope used in the Japanese way, though, such as Elmo from ''Series/SesameStreet'', just as there are pompous egomaniacs who use the third person out of pure self-importance in Japanese works (a particularly famous example is Dio Brando from ''Manga/JoJosBizarreAdventure'').

* Bucky Katt from ''ComicStrip/GetFuzzy'' would occasionally refer to himself in the third person. For one thing it was because of his ego, but he also did it to tick off Rob.

** The idea that Trixie falls back on first-person speech when she loses her cool is common in fanfiction, because it happened in canon first.

* In the fan comic ''Friendship is Tragic'' (not to be confused with [[Fanfic/FriendshipIsTragic the fanfic of the same name]]), the background unicorn usually known as Twinkleshine ''is'' actually Moondancer and refers to herself in third person. The result of this is that, except for her so-called friends, nopony knows that she is Moondancer, Equestria's most famous blogger, because everypony thinks that she just talks about Moondancer all the time, and that her actual name is Twinkle. HilarityEnsues in the one-part comic in which Moondancer and The Great and Powerful Trixie meet — without really knowing.

* Music/MitchBenn spends part of one episode of ''Mitch Benn's Crimes Against Music'' in the third-person for tax purposes.

* The BadFuture version of Gohan does it once for a gag in ''WebVideo/DragonBallZAbridged'' when Bulma asks if Mr. Gohan wouldd like to stay for dinner.

* ''Fanfic/AbraxasHrodvitnon'': In this ''Film/GodzillaKingOfTheMonsters2019'', San (the former left head of Ghidorah) when referring to himself doesn't use first-person pronouns, substituting them with "this one" or not using them altogether, due to the abuse he suffered from Ghidorah's other two heads over a TimeAbyss long life convincing him that he's slow and worthless. This disappears as San's CharacterDevelopment progresses, whilst his clone [[AlternateSelf San-Who-Could-Have-Been/Youngest Brother]] (who lacks all of San's Character Development) continues being a Third-Person Person.

[[folder:Fanfiction]]

* ''WebAnimation/IfTheEmperorHadATextToSpeechDevice'' has Skarbrand, a greater daemon of Khorne with NoIndoorVoice who HatesEveryoneEqually. As for how this typically manifests in-series, well, '''''[[SelfDemonstratingArticle SKARBRAND HATES GIVING EXAMPLES]]!'''''

It should be noted that third-person speak is about [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illeism illeism]] (literally "that-ism" or "he-ism"; the Latin pronoun ''ille'' largely evolved into words for "the", "he", or the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dummy_pronoun dummy]] "it" in Romance languages such as French or Spanish). In other words, you would refer to yourself not only by name, but also by a third-person pronoun (he, she or [[GenderNeutralWriting they]]) as if you were talking about someone else. If the speaker does this for only for a story in which they are revealed as the central character, it's AndThatLittleGirlWasMe or NarratorAllAlong.

* In the novelization of ''VideoGame/{{Arknights}}'' event story 'Mansfield Break', Jayston falls into this time to time. In this version, it is how Robin picks out that [[https://archiveofourown.org/works/32174944/chapters/79951219 he is her employer]]. It seems that it is mostly used to add creepiness, as it makes the line where [[spoiler: he goes OneWingedAngel]] ''very'' creepy [[note]] Furthermore, from this point on, he drops the 'from time to time' thing, making it so that he does this consistently [[BigDamnHeroes until Saria shows up]] - this is noted on the story itself as well [[/note]]:

* ''ComicStrip/BloomCounty'' has a confusingly ungrammatical early strip where Cutter John soliloquizes as both "I, Cutter John" and "himself" in the same sentence.
* ''ComicStrip/{{Garfield}}'': Garfield does this whenever he becomes The Caped Avenger.

* Caveman of ''WebVideo/TheTimeGuys'' fame talk like this, but Caveman's prodigious cave-telligence imply this done more for style.
* ''VideoGame/Halo2'' ARG ''ARG/ILoveBees'' has Monster Ann, a minor antagonist who speaks this way.
* Inverted by me, an ordinary toaster named [[Wiki/SCPFoundation SCP-426]], who makes everyone around me refer to me in the first person. And that's only the ''least'' of my effects.
** Played straight with SCP-811, a swamp woman who combines this with HulkSpeak due to her poor vocabulary.

* Waluigi within the LetsPlay/MarioPartyTV series, [[AlternateCharacterInterpretation as voiced]] by The Reverend Inferno.
* {{WebOriginal/Fandomstuck}} has CuteMonsterGirl Tsukeysprite and Calamity Kid, the AnthropomorphicPersonification of {{VideoGame/Bastion}}. In the latter's case, he technically refers to himself by a ''title'' rather than his name, unless, of course, [[HisNameReallyIsBarkeep his name really is Kid]].
* Rafale from ''Film/NoobLaQueteLegendaire'' doesn't do it all the time, but still regularly enough for another character to notice and make clear she considers it a little annoying.

* Episode 25 of ''WebVideo/YuGiOhTheAbridgedSeries'' has Johnny Steps refers to himself in the third person because "it makes him a bad guy"
* ''WebVideo/{{Dad}}'': Dad always refers to himself in his own narrative as "Dad", such as:
--> "Hmm...Someday, Dad will have the greatest shed in the neighborhood and the universe."

A Third-Person Person is a character who always refers to themself in the third person. [[CultureClash Folks from different cultures actually do this for wildly different reasons.]]

A Third-Person Person is a character who always refers to themselves in the third person. [[CultureClash Folks from different cultures actually do this for wildly different reasons.]]