The sarcasm made a slight whistling noise as it flew over Loafers' head.
Sarcasm-Blind characters in Literature.— Artemis Fowl: The Eternity Code
- Marcus in About A Boy, who can also be a little Literal-Minded. For instance, in one scene Will suggests Marcus try to fit in with the others in his class by wearing a "disguise", meaning he should dress more like they do; Marcus asks if he means wearing a mustache, and when Will tells him that a 12 year old with a mustache wouldn't stand out at all, he takes the comment seriously. Later on, Marcus at least figures out how to fake the proper response to such remarks even if he doesn't actually understand them - replying with an equally sarcastic "ha, ha".
- In the Animorphs books, Ax the Andalite at first didn't understand sarcasm, though he was a quick learner. He occasionally played dumb, though.
- Artemis Fowl: The Eternity Code has Loafers Macguire, a mafia hitman. The narration describes sarcasm making a slight whistling noise as it sails clean over his head.
- In Rob Grant's Backwards, Ace takes as genuine that Rimmer has telepathic powers, before admonishing him when Rimmer reveals the sarcasm.
- Discworld:
- Carrot Ironfoundersson, due to his upbringing by the Literal-Minded dwarves. He gets better at recognizing it, even if he still doesn't really understand it. Though some wonder, in-story, if Carrot isn't as oblivious as he seems.
- Interestingly, though Carrot has No Social Skills because he grew up at the bottom of a dwarven mine, most of the dwarfs seen in the books are a lot more savvy than himself. This is mainly because most of them are from Ankh-Morpork. Mountain dwarfs fall more definitely into this trope, which is justified by the fact that sarcasm (along with metaphor, and other forms of non-literal communication) are useless and potentially unsafe in a mine.
- Sergeant Colon as well, who thinks "irony" means "sort of like iron." When he's made Captain in The Fifth Elephant, Vetinari's barbed comments just bounce straight off, no matter how blatant he tries to make them. Even better, he explicitly fears irony and sarcasm being used on him in several books, he just has no idea what they are.
- Cohen the Barbarian does understand sarcasm, in a vague sense, but he has a little more trouble with metaphor and hyperbole. Several Agatean nobles commit suicide in Interesting Times by telling him they'd rather die than see him on the throne.
- The Eighth Doctor, in the Doctor Who Eighth Doctor Adventures books. He's more of a genuine Cloudcuckoolander than the Doctor usually is. Why he has one or two Deadpan Snarkers traveling with him basically at all times is something of a mystery."Well. They could've been muggers, I suppose."
"I'm so, so sorry."
"Why, did you put them up to it?"
The Doctor looked at her strangely. "Of course not!" - The Dresden Files: Faeries often have this due to their physical inability to lie, particularly those with little experience with humans, such as Toot-toot.
- Harry invokes this when he accidentally stumbles into the realm of the Erlking. The Erlking, who is noted for not taking trespassing lightly, sarcastically refers to Harry as a guest. Harry pounces on it with both hands, and states that since the Erlking has called him a guest, he must be protected by the law of Sacred Hospitality, right? The Erlking is impressed, both by Harry's quick wit and sheer unbridled chutzpah.
- At Bill and Fleur’s wedding in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Dumbledore’s old friend Elphias and Ron’s Auntie Muriel get into an argument about Dumbledore’s sister Ariana’s mysterious death. Muriel suggests that Ariana was a Squib and that Mrs. Dumbledore imprisoned her and wanted to kill her because she was too proud to admit that one of her kids wasn’t a wizard. Elphias sarcastically says that since Muriel thinks a mother would do that to her own child, maybe Ariana killed her in an escape attempt. Muriel takes it at face value.
- Hephaestus in The Heroes of Olympus. As the god of the forge, he's not too smart dealing with organic life forms.Hephaestus: That was sarcasm, wasn't it? Machines don't have sarcasm, usually.
- The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Ford Prefect doesn't usually understand sarcasm because he's an alien and they don't have it on his planet. It's stated that he can recognize it, but only if he's really paying attention. This leads to a moment in Mostly Harmless, when he responds to a huge rant about the Guide from Arthur ("I can hardly wait to find out which are the most interesting spaceports to get bored hanging around in!") with a genuinely perplexed "This is that thing you call sarcasm, isn't it?" Character Development in And Another Thing...:Arthur: I don't suppose you have a bomb-proof towel.
Ford: Sure, I have a bomb-proof towel and an antimatter pillowcase.
Arthur: Hey, sarcasm. Well done, mate, you're learning.
- Bill Bryson notes this is a problem when conversing with some of his friends and neighbors, in an article in Notes From a Big Country:Bill: (sees his neighbor's car covered in tree branches the morning after a storm) Morning George! Camouflaging your car, I see!
George: ... No, the storm blew these branches onto my car last night and I need to clear them away. - In Psy Changeling, as a result of the Silence Protocol, most Psys tend to be this.
- From A Song of Ice and Fire:
- We get an interesting subversion of this with Sansa Stark. She isn't blind to the vast majority of the snark aimed at her, but is painfully aware that neither her relative position nor available skill-set allow her to openly snap back in kind without risk of physical and social backdraft. So, she actively uses Politeness Judo to try to turn the sarcasm around, while usually outwardly appearing as if it sailed right over her pretty little head.
- Podrick Payne, however, does play it rather straighter, since he usually focuses on trying to be factually exact, so misses many contextual cues. Given he squires for Tyrion, this is rather amusing.
- In The Sun Sword, Kiriel has been raised in a demonic court where sarcasm just isn't a thing anyone wants to try. And then she goes among sarcastic humans.
- Bitch of Worm can't properly interpret human social cues as a consequence of her power, which includes sarcasm. Since she can't tell when people are mocking her, she tends to respond to everything with aggression.
- In the X-Wing Series, Runt is like this at first, being a non-human new to serving in the New Republic. He learns.
