British accents

[Where Boars Glow]

Hi, I am a BBC journalist.

I'm writing a piece for the website on why all of the characters in Game of Thrones, and many other TV and film adaptations of fantasy literature, speak with modern-day British accents - even if, as in the case of GoT, some of the actors playing them are American.

Is the British accent now the default-setting for this kind of material? And, if so, why?

Are there any examples of "fantasy" on film and television where American or other accents have been used? Does it work?

I'd welcome any thoughts you have on this subject - I may use your quotes in my piece, so let me know if you have a problem with that.

Thanks!

Brian Wheeler

BBB News

I would think in this particular show at least that since the majority of the cast is British and all of the characters baring the ones who have accents are suppose to have basically the same language and dialect...it makes sense for continuity to all have British accents. Easier to have 5 people fake a British accent then 60 people fake an American one.

[glabrain]

Because. There were no knights in the United States or any form of sword combat that coincides with Martin's books.

[HedgeKnight Watson]

I disagree. There was no real correlation between regions of Westeros and accents in the TV series imo. Robb Stark's accent is clearly Scottish as is that of several other characters from the North such as Jorah Mormont, but Ned, Jon, Sansa, Arya and Bran are all clearly English accents. Syrio from Braavos has a Spanish/Italian accent, but Illyrio from Pentos has a clearly English accent.

I believe there is some effort to correlate the different peoples of Westeros with different accents - both the Mormonts (James Cosmo and Iain Glen) are from Bear Island, and both have the same accent (Cosmo's is a little gruffer, but I guess that comes with age). A lot of the Northerners have Northern English accents, like Sean Bean. Michelle Fairley is Irish, but she affects a generic middle-English (forgive me for not giving a more specific name) accent - she is a Tully, and not originally from the North. Richard Madden, playing Robb Stark, affects an accent to match his father, but most of the children take after their mother in terms of accent.

Further South is more Received Pronunciation, with the Lannisters - especially Tywin and Cersei, Loras and Margaery Tyrell. Littlefinger is interesting, as Aidan Gillen is Irish and the accent he uses in the show is variable and harder to place.

Interesting as well is that the Baratheons are in the Stormlands, roughly in the South, and yet Robert and Stannis are more Northern in their accents, and Renly is more like the people of King's Landing.

[SelaBela]

Apart from sounding pleasing and classy like others have said, the British accent(s) evoke magic. There is nothing magical about American accents (I am an American).

Actually I would like to know that too: what kind of accent does Peter Dinklage have here?

I am not a native speaker, my English teacher at school was Saxonian (addenjon bleeze, boyz and gurrlz!) and I only learned English from reading Tolkien and John Irving, sorry.

Dinklage has said before that he's from Jersey, so I guess thats where his accent would be from.

ETA: Speaking for myself only, I *know* that there are different regional accents across the UK but I would never be able to tell the difference. To my uneducated ears it all sounds "British". Of course, I can tell the difference in an Irish accent and Scottish accent...

A case where an American accent utterly failed in a "fantasy" or British-expected-accent drama is KEVIN COSTNER in ROBINHOOD: PRINCE OF THIEVES. UGH! I hated that movie so much because of Kevin Costner, and his complete LACK of ATTEMPT at a British accent. I still dislike Kevin Costner to this day. Lazy.

[Lothar Imbel]

I wanted Alan Rickman and Morgan Freeman to team up and stop Kevin Costner's bullshit.

[Neds Head]

It's also interesting which types of British accent ISN'T used in fantasy. Almost all fantasy accents are either a metropolitan Southern accent (based on received pronunciation) or rural Northern accent (mix of Yorkshire/Lancashire). Occasionally you hear a gruff Scottish accent (think dwarves in the LotR films) or a West Country farming accent. But you absolutely never hear accents like Brummie, Glaswegian, Geordie or Scouse in fantasy. I would find a scouse accent just as jarring in fantasy as any American accent but I wonder why that is?

Well if you think about it, Davos has a slight Geordie accent in the show!

[MaidenScotland]

Well if you think about it, Davos has a slight Geordie accent in the show!

Really? I thought Liam Cunningham was using his own Irish accent. Never was any good at spotting accents though.

Is it just me or did Littlefinger sound a bit Welsh this season? I didn't notice it in season 1.

[Neds Head]

Really? I thought Liam Cunningham was using his own Irish accent. Never was any good at spotting accents though.

Is it just me or did Littlefinger sound a bit Welsh this season? I didn't notice it in season 1.

Nah he's definitely a Geordie onion knight! Haha

Yeah his accent varied a lot. I thought his own Irish accent was prominent quite frequently in the second season compared to last, where he maintained the standard English one throughout.

[Winds of Winter blow cold]

Actually I would like to know that too: what kind of accent does Peter Dinklage have here?

I am not a native speaker, my English teacher at school was Saxonian (addenjon bleeze, boyz and gurrlz!) and I only learned English from reading Tolkien and John Irving, sorry.

Peter is an American, I think for the show he is really using "theater standard" rather than a true British accent.

[Woman of War]

Peter is an American, I think for the show he is really using "theater standard" rather than a true British accent.

Thank you

[The Dragon has three heads]

The fact Costner thought it was ok to play Robin Hood with an American accent AND for Christian slater playing Will should have rung alarm bells for the producers and directors.

Anyway, Hollywood American is default for far, far too many shows, and would ruin the experience in a show like GOT.

It's good they also use some Scott's, Irish etc in the rest if the cast as it adds flavour and differentiates dialects, northerners, westermen etc

[TheButcherCrow]

Dinklage has said before that he's from Jersey, so I guess thats where his accent would be from.

You did mean NEW Jersey right? His accent in the show is, as another poster said, a nondescript theatrical English accent, fooled me for a bit & I'm pretty good with accents. Liam Cunnigham is doing a Geordie accent (maybe a little closer to Middlesborough, let's just say, generic north-east) for sure. Aidan Gillan has clearly been asked to do an English accent but it is a bit of struggle & you can hear the Irish in some of his vowel sounds. Brummie is an accent that tends to only be used in shows like this for comedic characters (sorry any folks from the midlands) and thick Scouse is freaking impenetrable if your not used to it (any non-uk readers, just go & youtube any Jamie Carragher post match interview & you'll know what I mean).

[bluemoon]

Are we talking about the sand dunes of Kent or the arctic tundra of Scotland?

Well we all know the others are based on scots :P . Im from Manchester so am i a Frey?

[EnergeticCrab]

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheQueensLatin

This trope is used in film and television fiction set in the past where characters speak with British accents, even though the film is not set in Britain and the characters are not British. Sometimes the actors are Fake Brits, and sometimes the cast all have British accents except for the sole American star.

Giving the characters non-British accents (American, Australian, Canadian, etc.) ought to be just as acceptable as giving them British ones, but this is usually avoided, because it makes the characters sound "inauthentic". Britain's long history causes British accents to seem somehow "older" — they are used to suggest a sense of age and grandeur. Ironically, the most recognizable aspects of the modern British accent are fairly recent linguistic innovations.

In any case, using The Queen's Latin makes a series or film commercially viable in the US. It alleviates the need for subtitles, while maintaining the appearance of historical authenticity. It's ''just'' foreign and exotic enough. (Many British actors already Play Great Ethnics.) It's also no doubt inspired by productions of Shakespeare's plays set in Ancient Rome. Remember: Romeo might have been Italian, but he's not realistic unless he talks like a proper British toff.

This trope also allows for some subtle characterisation for UK audiences: sometimes regional British accents are used to reflect a character's class or social status by playing up to stereotypes in the collective British psyche. The most common convention, however, is to employ formal English parlance. Depending on the antiquity of the era portrayed, the characters may lapse into a form of Early Modern English, or its contrived cousin, Ye Olde Butcherede Englishe.

Historical linguists have attempted to reconstruct the original Latin pronunciation of the Romans, but no one knows for sure how they really sounded. Some might say that the actors are Not Even Bothering with the Accent, or trying to avoid using Just a Stupid Accent, and in many cases this is true. The rule of thumb is that if non-British actors are affecting Brit accents, or if the British accents are being used to add layers to the characterisation, they are speakingThe Queen's Latin.

This trope leads many Ancient Roman characters to not only sound but also physically look like Anglo-Saxons rather than Romans. Historians have speculated that the average Roman man had tan or olive skin, usually dark hair, and stood about 5-foot-6, much like a modern Italian. The Roman Empire reached northern Europe, but Romans weren't all northern Europeans.

A type of Translation Convention and Coconut Effect. Compare with Accent Adaptation.^note

and

Game of Thrones, despite being an American HBO adaptation of novels by an American author, stars mainly British and Irish actors speaking with English accents. The relatively few non-Brits required to speak English (rather than Dothraki) do pretty good English accents. The types of accent tend to vary quite widely even among families, but the Starks and other northern families do generally have variations on various northern english accents and fit the 'blunt, tough, uncomplicated' stereotypes (they also tend to be physically buffer than their southern counterparts), while the richest, most powerful southern families like the Lannisters have much posher, highly affected accents more associated with villainy.

• This is due to the fact that the series' characters represent a Fantasy Counterpart Culture to the British Isles, with accents (and locations — King's Landing = London etc) that approximate the geography of the country. The whole tale is a thinly veiled reference to the histtoric War of the Roses, a power-struggle fought in England between the houses of York and Lancaster (AKA Stark and Lannister).
  
• In Season Two, the show has started to assign specific non-English accents to people from outside Westeros. Shae and Jaqen H'gar, both from Lorath, are played by German actors, who speak in their native accents.
  

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[polarbear]

Apart from sounding pleasing and classy like others have said, the British accent(s) evoke magic. There is nothing magical about American accents (I am an American).

Dinklage has said before that he's from Jersey, so I guess thats where his accent would be from.

ETA: Speaking for myself only, I *know* that there are different regional accents across the UK but I would never be able to tell the difference. To my uneducated ears it all sounds "British". Of course, I can tell the difference in an Irish accent and Scottish accent...

A case where an American accent utterly failed in a "fantasy" or British-expected-accent drama is KEVIN COSTNER in ROBINHOOD: PRINCE OF THIEVES. UGH! I hated that movie so much because of Kevin Costner, and his complete LACK of ATTEMPT at a British accent. I still dislike Kevin Costner to this day. Lazy.

Kevin Costner DID attempt an english accent. But apparently the director and everybody else on set begged him to stop and just play the role in his normal speaking voice.

You raise an interesting point. Do Americans prefer English accents in fantasy films because it sounds more exotic? Even if they are clearly modern dialects?

And isn't the reverse true for british GOT fans. What is exotic to us Yanks must seem over-familiar to them. Westeros loses all sense of magic when King Robert sounds like the local pub owner and Theon & his men like a band of soccer hooligans.

[Neds Head]

Kevin Costner DID attempt an english accent. But apparently the director and everybody else on set begged him to stop and just play the role in his normal speaking voice.

You raise an interesting point. Do Americans prefer English accents in fantasy films because it sounds more exotic? Even if they are clearly modern dialects?

And isn't the reverse true for british GOT fans. What is exotic to us Yanks must seem over-familiar to them. Westeros loses all sense of magic when King Robert sounds like the local pub owner and Theon & his men like a band of soccer hooligans.

I think it makes them sound more real. One thing that annoys me about films or shows set in medieval or fantasy environments is that everyone speaks the Queen's English despite being spread out over large areas. For characters on a continent the size of Westeros, and especially characters of low birth, it makes total sense for them to have a wide variety of accents.

[thegreatwhitebear]

Funny enough, I'm American. I don't mind it so much in got, but I HATE the fact that ANY premodern series and movies have British accents.

Example Rome, Alexander, troy et al. I mean it's extremely glaring to have someone from the Mediterranean areas sound like they're from England. No offense to anyone.

But got works bc to me it's loosely based on the war of the roses and westeros looks what the British isles look like though I know they're not shot there.

[Cravensbayne]

A good, educated British accent just sounds pleasing and classy to anybody ... :dunno:

I second this. You Brits sound smarter and antiquated at the same time.

[SeanSnow]

I second this. You Brits sound smarter and antiquated at the same time.

Rose Leslie has a lovely accent!

[smithy]

Robb Stark's accent is clearly Scottish as is that of several other characters from the North such as Jorah Mormont,

If you mean in the show itself then no they don't , neither of them have Scottish accents , Robb's sounds more like a neutral Yorkshire accent and Jorah sounds like he's from further South , certainly not Scottish.