I'm sorry but I need to chime in here. I understand people saying that Redguards are not African/Arab etc because it's a different world but they damn well ARE based on them. Nords have a general Scandinavian base, Bretons are most likely Celtic based judging by some in game lore and names, Imperials are Roman Empire, Orcs are Germanic/Mongols and Redguards are African/Arab.

Denying any of this is political correctness gone mad.

Hearing Dark Elves etc with VERY obvious English accents is the worst for me. At least TRY and make him sound like he's from the Ashlands. There are several characters I think the voices are terrible for. All of the characters Jim Cummings plays for starters (He's a great voice actor but his voice very obvious and doesn't fit). The occasional Irishman or Scot I think is fine, but that guy with the really camp voice in Ivarstead is terrible too.

I would much prefer it if all the Dark Elves sounded more like Jiub, no Nords were Americans and Redguards were voiced by Africans. Africans fit their appearance better even if their dress and culture is more Arabic. Imperials sound fine as Americans so they can stay that way. I was also kind of thinking about British voices for Bretons even if they are supposed to be more Celt (Not sure on this one but they shouldn't have a very strong regional accent from any specific British region IMO).

See, I was kinda thinking Italian voices would work for the Imperials. It is kinda odd how almost all voice work in games seems to be done by Americans and English. I really don't hear very many obviously Irish, Scots, Welsh, Australian or New Zealander accents in games.

Actually, for that matter, when it comes to American voice actors they all have the ol' Midwest flatness to their voice. No Southerners, no New Englanders, and nobody from Brooklyn outside of a GTA game.

To be perfectly honest, the voices of the Redguards did throw me somewhat at first. My suspension of disbelief WAS affected, to a degree.

Reason being, there is a very diverse racial makeup in Tamriel, and it's patently obvious that Bethesda did this in order to come as close to "reality" as possible. However, it DOES seem weird that they'd go to such great lengths to establish that the LOOK of a character is based on a specific race/region (facial features, skin color, hair texture, clothing, etc.), but then stop short of depicting the voice accurately. And that's what happened in the Redguards' case.

Look, there is nothing racist or even offensive in observing that people with varying ethnic backgrounds possess distinctively different physical characteristics. Asian people...TEND TO HAVE BLACK HAIR! Latino people...USUALLY HAVE CARAMEL-COLORED SKIN! Is that "racist?" Well, no. It's called "having functioning vision." Simply SEEING these things is not the same thing as pretending that they MEAN anything positive or negative. They just ARE.

And, I'm sorry...But different races of people DO have different sounds to their voices. Pretending otherwise is willful blindness at best, and intellectual dishonesty at worst. And yes, that includes Black people. I don't say "African-American" either, because that leaves out other cultures like Jamaicans, British-born Black folks, and others with shared genetic characteristics. Whether you're too cowed by political correctness to admit it or not, Black people do have a certain complexity to their vocal character. And I'm not even talking about accents, delivery or inflection (though, sometimes that is a part of it). Call it what you want, but there's a certain timbre, tone, depth, resonance, quality and/or richness to the texture of their voices, and it's character that white people simply don't have.

So, when the Redguards strolled up to me looking to all the world like historical Moors, I guess it just pulled me out a little bit that their voices sounded so...Vanilla.

I honestly think that Bethesda's heart was in the right place on this one. Obviously, it doesn't help ANYONE to be controversial or offensive toward large groups of people. But in this instance, they went so far the OTHER way that it's glaringly obvious that it was a conscious choice to do so. And that sends the message that they were pre-emptively running away from potentially-unfortunate implications, which is ALMOST a little bit offensive in and of itself. "Well, they can't sound TOO 'Black,' or we're going to get letters."

Think about it: The Redguards' voices DO sort of stick out like a sore thumb in light of some of the other characters having appropriate, but distinctive vocal characteristics. I mean, the Nords sound very Scandinavian/Germanic. Which is appropriate, and works. Nobody's upset about that. The Khajit have a distinctively western-Asian/Persian lilt, and that's cool. Hell, even Nazir - Who is also visibly Black, mind you - has a very deep, rich, resonant tone to his voice that is immediately recognizable as being distinctly 'Black' in tonal texture, and therefore completely appropriate for the character model. But, unfortunately, all that does is to further underscore how 'Black' the Redguards DON'T sound, when such great effort has been exerted to ensure that they LOOK like persons who we'd traditionally see as 'Black' in actual human meat-space.

I dunno. I'm rambling. I just think people are too sensitive sometimes.

As an American myself I do think that they should be limited in the elder scrolls. Maybe just share the imperials with the Italians like You said. The problem is alot of imperials will just sound like Mario.. lol.

You make a good point but I am not politically correct. I just put african americans because I don't want to get in an argument with another politically correct person. I personally think it's stupid.. Either way I did not wanted them to be voiced by the ones from The US. I want them to be voiced by both Arabs and people from Africa Since their culture is alot like both.

They totally would. The Imperials are modeled on Romans, so that would work really well.

Oh, and speaking of Italian accents...

I think something's kind of funny. This thread is up to five pages, so obviously, the subject of "Black" voices is something people have definite opinions on. However, I can honestly say that I don't recall ever, in several years, reading or even SEEING an article where persons of Italian descent were at all upset about how "Italian-sounding" Ezio Auditore is.

I mean, yes. I realize that Tamriel is fictional, and that the Assassin's Creed series is set in extremely specific times and places in actual history. But that's no reason to pooh-pooh the anology. Think about how much better the experience was playing Alta?r in "Revelations" vs. Alta?r in the FIRST game...Where everyone but HIM had a rich Middle-Eastern inflection to their voice acting. The fact that Ezio has an incredibly believable characterization to his voice really enhances the gameplay experience, and aids in story believability.

Accents are something Hollywood and other creative groups get stupidly wrong too often. It's like the only accent they ever bother getting somebody to do that actually has that accent is Brooklynese. I'm from the South and I figure about one in a hundred southerners on TV and in movies are actually played by southerners. Not a big deal, and I've seen some southern accents that I knew the actor wasn't southern - but the accents were good. Then there's that one percent of southern accents being delivered by actual southerners, like Matthew McConaughey. Most of the rest seem to think we all either talk like hillbillies or Foghorn Leghorn.

No way would Imperials sound good as Italians, have you HEARD an Italian accent? Jesus that would be bad. We've had enough "Roman" TV shows and films to accept Americans as sounding perfectly normal playing them.

Italians would not fit in Tamriel in any way, shape or form.

The way you put it I could see the different races as hybrids a mix of two races.

Why? The Imperials are clearly modeled after Romans. Not sure why Redguards and Nords need to have their accents from the culture they're based on but not Imperials.

The real question is: why are the orcs voiced by a black man but the redguards aren't? Which is more strange and possibly offensive?

I think it is pretty obvious that the Redguards are based off of African/Arab people. Anybody who says otherwise is mistaken.

Redguards are just a Darker skinned race. Nrin =/= Earth.

Some may sound like someone of say, African ancestry in real life, but that would purely be coincidence. They have no relation.

Not to be rude, but how far past the OP did you read, we've had this discussion every page or so. The first comment or so on this page responds to your comment already.

Edit: Read Uglyshirts comment toward the top of the page.

_{I don't know bout Redguards, but James Earl Jones should have voiced all the guards.}

The "Nirn isn't Earth" argument is really starting to irritate me. If you're pretending that the creators developed the various nationalities of Tamriel completely out of their heads and they have no relationship whatsoever to any real world nationalities, you're simply deluding yourself. If you think the Nords are not meant to be like Scandinavians, and that the Romans weren't the inspiration for the Imperials, and North Africans and Arabs didn't inspire the Redguards, you're simply being willfully blind.

Someone better call Samuel L.

lol

While Sam Jackson would be good in any role, I did earlier suggest that they could simply avoid American or English accents completely. Although I suppose there might not be much alternative for the Bretons, at least if the Bretons are based off the ancient pre-Anglo-Saxon-invasion Britons. If they're more based off ancient Gauls then perhaps some sort of French accent.

I live in NY, and just as i refer to blacks as 'african americans', they go to the same trouble of finding out my white ethnic background and referring to me in that way... Such as calling me italian/irish-american. No they dont... Lol. They just call me white. Its only racist when u refer to blacks as blacks

Well, I've never had anybody call me racist for using the term black. I never use the term "African-American". Although many people use the word, I suspect it's only a few diehard PC types in univesity-funded ivory towers that insist that people use the term in place of "black", really.

But to be more on-topic, while I there's nothing wrong with using black Americans to voice Redguards - and in fact there's nothing wrong with using anybody to voice any Tamrielic ethnic group - I think it helps maintain a certain air of actual verisimilitude and plausibility when they try and use foreign accents.

Here's an interesting question, though: do we have any actual Scandinavians posting here? I don't mean people with Scandinavian ancestry, I mean people born and living in Sweden, Norway or Denmark. Because, if you're Scandinavian, and if a modern Swedish, Norwegian or Danish actor is used to play a Nord, does that help or hinder the "Viking" and ancient Norse feel that the Nords are supposed to evoke? Or is there some specific accent that can be used to evoke an ancient or archaic sense to the lines? Americans often just have English people play a lot of ancient ethnicities, just because the accent can be just "foreign" enough to remind you that the character in question doesn't live a block down the street from you. How does this work for Scandinavians?