Voice Of The Legion / Live-Action TV

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• Arrowverse:
  • When Arrow introduces Ragman in Season 5, he talks like this when using his powers. It's creepy, which even he admits.
    Ragman: Is it the whispers? They just do that, I don't know why.
  • The Flash (2014):
    • Barry learns to do this to disguise his voice by vibrating his vocal cords really fast. This is particularly necessary with Iris, with whom he grew up, and the cops he works with (those who aren't in the know). Usually, he also vibrates his face to obscure it, realizing that Clark Kenting is unlikely to protect him.
    • The first three Big Bads all use this trick, to the point that the second two are voiced by completely different actors when suited up, keeping both the characters and audiences guessing about their real identities:
      The Reverse Flash does this near-constantly, except he makes his voice sound downright demonic and gives himself glowing red eyes for good measure.
      Zoom can make his voice even deeper and more echo-y than Reverse Flash. Whenever he's in full costume, he sounds like Tony Todd with added distortion.
      Rounding out a trio of evil speedsters, Savitar's armor gives a metallic edge to the voice of whoever's wearing it.
    • When Caitlyn Snow taps into her metahuman powers, everything she says is underscored by a distorted, inhuman whisper, marking a transition into an evil "Killer Frost" persona. Interestingly for this trope, it seems both involuntary and exclusively tied to her powers; if she goes long enough without using them, her speech will revert to normal. It's notable that when Killer Frost makes a Heel–Face Turn in the season 3 finale without fully reverting to Caitlyn, the voice is one of the aspects that she loses.
  • Supergirl: Reign the Worldkiller speaks with a reverbing echo. Combined with her mask, this prevents the others from recognizing her as Samantha Arias.
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer
  • Invoked on more than one occasion, including Willow in the midst of her black magic rampage, Caleb after merging with the First, and The Anointed One, who being a child had a high regular voice.
  • A non-evil version happens when a ritual grants Buffy the combined power of the Scooby Gang, she speaks with all four of their voices simultaneously.
• Doctor Who:
  • "The Long Game": "I Am THE MIGHTY JAGRAFESS of the HOLY HADROJASSIC MAXARODENFOE!" (AKA Max)
  • "The Impossible Planet"/"The Satan Pit" plays it very effectively: WE ARE THE LEGION OF THE BEAST!
    • Quite literally, since an Expy for Satan is mind-controlling a legion of service industry workers who share a single consciousness that has to be orbiting over an Eldritch Location.
  • The Abzorbaloff has this too, which makes sense, since his entire schtick is that he absorbs other people into him.
  • The Doctor is particularly disturbed by a life form that simultaneously copies your words in "Midnight".
  • "In the Forest of the Night" subverts the trope, as little girl Maebh gains a deeper, multitracked voice when she's speaking for the ultimately benevolent trees.
• Evil (2019): Bridget, the seemingly possessed child killer who's not the latter and probably not the former talks like this in the episode "Vatican III".
• Arch-villain Sylar occasionally talks like this on Heroes, although there's no real plot-related reason why he does. The writers have admitted they put it in just because it sounds cool.
  • Eden McCain would also do this when influencing people with her ability. A clear Shout-Out to David Lynch's Dune (1984) and the Voice.
• Occurs in an early episode of Malcolm in the Middle when the boys steal back their TV from Lois, who's trying to interrogate them for allegedly ruining her dress.
  Lois: Go to your rooms...NOW.
• Many villains and monsters in Power Rangers have some kind of effects added to their voice. Your average Monster of the Week will simply add a bit of growliness In contrast, Super Sentai only rarely uses this trope, with most villains and monsters speaking in normal human voices. Desumozorlya from from Bakuryuu Sentai Abaranger is a rare counterexample.
• The 2014 Halloween episode of Saturday Night Live includes a sketch where Halloween store owner Geoff has been possessed by the demon Galadriel.
• In Smallville, Darkseid does this frequently, although Evil Sounds Deep is more prominent.
• Stargate:
  • The Goa'uld from Stargate SG-1 can do this at will, along with Glowing Eyes of Doom for the sole purpose of intimidation. The idea behind is that they're manipulating the vocal cords directly rather than talking indirectly through their host's brain. They can talk normally, and do so at length to infiltrate their enemies' strongholds. For fun too, I guess.
    • The Tok'ra also do this, but only so people can tell if it's the host or symbiote speaking.
    • The Goa'uld seem to see their unique vocal pattern as symbolic of their claims of being gods; hence Baal (who unlike most Goa'uld doesn't fall for his own propaganda, instead being rather flippant about his "godhood") being prone to speaking normally to people who know he's not a god, reserving the Voice of the Legion effect for intimidation and for maintaining the illusion among his true believers.
    • The effect changes over the years too. At first it was harsher than the movie's smoother version, perfect for Apophis but not so much Hathor. Later, the voice wasn't deepened as much by it.
  • Stargate Atlantis: The voice of the Wraith have a bit of reverb too. Wraith queen's mind control also echoes in the victim's head.
• Star Trek: "WE ARE THE BORG." This is because they actually are all talking at once. An individual drone speaks with a slight "electronic" tone.
  • Star Trek: The Next Generation: Becomes literal when the Borg abduct and assimilate Jean-Luc Picard; renaming him Locutus of Borg—roughly, The One Who Speaks for the Borg.
  • Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: When Gul Dukat becomes the Emissary of the Pah-Wraiths during the Grand Finale so that he can destroy the Alpha Quadrant and gains superpowers in the process, his voice becomes significantly deeper and echoes.
  • Star Trek: Picard: When Seven Of Nine temporarily assumes the Borg Queen mantle in "Broken Pieces", she gains the reverberating, layered voice of other Borg, just with her voice dominant among the many.
• In contrast to Super Sentai, Ultraman, when aliens speak, applies effects to their voices, especially the reverberating laughter of Baltan-seijin.
• In the Tales from the Darkside episode "I'll Give You a Million" the Devil speaks in a multitracked voice when he comes to collect the souls of both men who made a pseudo-Faustian bargain.
• In the "Small Worlds" episode of Torchwood, the fairy things sound like multiple voices as once whenever they talk.
• In True Blood, Sookie hears people's thoughts with this effect. This gets specially creepy when she tries to read Maryann's mind where Creepy Monotone and Gratuitous Greek are added to said effect.
• Used for the disembodied voice of Satan in one The Whitest Kids U' Know sketch. It rather helps the comedic effect of the Lord of All Evil reprimanding a demon that "You know our first priority is to entertain."

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