Game Skyrim Forum

I read some of the responses to this over lunch, but didnt get time to reply.

The reason American accents are seen as out of place for fantasy and that sort of genre is because 'fantasy' almost always has a core foundation in European or Asian mediaeval periods.
As America is in neither of those locations, and has no such history of the sort, I think that's why people probably have a psychological block on it seeming out of place.

I do also need to agree on the current Dark Elves being definitely NOT a real British accent. British accents put on by Americans usually sound very similar and have a few tells. The most significant or common of these I think is words like grass. It ALWAYS (from 'cockney' to 'posh') comes out as "gress", and no accent in the UK makes such a pronunciation.

Oim sittin on the gress oi wuz.

*shudder*

I also read the really interesting BBC article someone linked on British accents in fantasy, and found their comments on the Game of Thrones very interesting indeed. I very much like that such a mainstream programme/show has such diverse accents. For the US guys of you on this forum, if you want to here some true sampling of UK accents, then watch an episode or two.

I did have a good suspicion that Tyrion wasnt English. His accent sounds odd, but is a really good attempt, and way better than most. Although he's probably had some excellent practice with the cast he's surrounded by.

As for the Morrowind Dark Elves, I too loved that voice. But you really couldnt apply it to every male Dark Elf now like they did in Morrowind, or it would seem poor (not that Bethesda ever has a good number of actors anyway. You need to hire more Beth!!!).
And as awesome as the Morrowind Dark Elf was, can you imagine trying to find other people to do that voice, and do it well? You couldnt just have one Dark Elf like that, it'd sound really out of place. It's either a racial thing or it's not, and I can imagine that the decision to just retcon it a little with new actors doing regular voices was easier than getting all the actors to do their best impression of the Morrowind one

As for Brynjolf. Someone went crazy a few posts back saying it was the worst thing ever etc, worst Irish accent and all that.
I'd just like to point out that he is doing a Scottish accent,and it's one of the best I'v heard in a game. Either he is actually Scottish, or has some Scottish family, or it's just an excellent accent.

If you want a really terrible example of a Scottish accent, then look at Shrek or any of those male Disney fairies (yeah my daughter watches it, so I have to as well lol).

Yes, they are actuallly australian...

Am I the only one who does not even notice an accent from the Dunmer? Damn, I must be one big oddball

It might be a good idea to link the original thread in your first post.

I have too much love for the male Dunmer voice used in Morrowind. I would have liked to have seen multiple voice actors try and perform a gravelly voice, although this might have caused some issues with damage or fatigue to their voices.

I never thought that the Dunmer voices in Skyrim had British accents, cos they sound more made-up to me than anything else - ie the actors are putting on accents that they are not native in.

@ Bukee, they are not any Australian accents I've ever heard.

Maybe it was the weather in Morrowind. Skyrim's air is so clean and crisp they can speak clearly.

That is what I went by, they were raspy in Vvardenfell because of the ash.

If the gravelly aspect to their voices was because of the ash, then why didn't everybody in Vvardenfell speak like this?

Actually grass coming out as 'gress' would either be a west country accent, or old school posh London area. It's mostly 'grahss' round my way...

My problem is mostly with the way they'd portrayed it in the early gameplay vid. Why did they use the gravely dunmer voice for the thief in Bleakfalls Barrow if they didn't intend to use it for the dunmer voice? Hell, they didn't even use it for that single quest. They changed the voice even though they'd already recorded them. It just seems blatantly misleading.

I'm just surprised this has spawned an seven (or was it 8?) page thread and now a second one.

What accent do you guys who has issue with the dunmer accents to have?

Shall I post more links to the Ultimate Warrior?

There's no 'right' accent that Dunmer are supposed to have. The females from MW didn't have gravelly voices.

Dunmer are just supposed to sound like DUNMER. They either do or they don't, and if you don't see what's wrong with Skyrim's voices, you don't know what Dunmer are because you didn't play MW. I'm not saying that they should look and sound like they did in MW, just that they should sound right.

Ouch, no thanks.

What accent was the male Dunmer voice in Morrowind?

I agree, the Dunmer sound a bit silly.

Although, when you say:


I'd say a closer pronounciation in the UK is "grahs". Or "gras" with a tapped R. I don't think I've heard it said like "gress" at all. I live in the UK.

No, I did not play Morrowind. Well, actually I did for about an hour, but I got frustrated with it. I'm sure some people think its like "the best ever", but some people on here are actually nostalgic about oblivion, which I did play quite a bit, and I'd flush their leveling system straight down the toilet because of how poorly it was designed.

The only sample I could find online of a dunmer voice from morrowind was of some guy who sounded like he smoked 5 packs of cigarettes a day and had strep throat at the same time. If thats really how you want them to sound, good for you, because I I think it sounds pretty [censored] laughable.

Plus Americans have butchered the English language and have taken the beauty out of it. No matter how well spoken an American is, the accent is so base that it almost sounds robotic, it doesn't sing.

That said, I did prefer the gritty, damaged vocal chords of the Dunmer in Morrowind. It matched their hideous physical features... the wretch creatures.


It was British, after swallowing a few razor blades and coughing up a few hairballs.

Sir, I couldn't disagree with you more:

http://http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BqLvBUSJucg

If you don't see poetry in that, then you do not recognize true art.

This is from the original thread:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jG8OjKiGAvE

Jeff baker doesn't sound British to me as a Dunmer, and the way he says 'bastards' sounds American to me. But he has a flowery, English accent as Haskill in Oblivion.

Americans really cant do British accents, hell we can barely do each others accents. Even though not British I know, my Irish girlfriend cant do my Welsh accent at all, and when I try her accent, well I sound like something totally not Irish.

I will refer you to a live action short film made for Dragon age. The discussion came up on that youtube page about fantasy accents being British. My only complaint with that short film was that the British accents were very forced and actors were obviously American. I argued even that it would of been better with the casts normal accent, maybe even dumbed down a little. The only one that managed to sound legit was Felicia Day because she did a happy medium accent and it came across ok. Same as us brits find American accents hard, of course not including Hugh Laurie, Dominic West or Idris Elba.

'British accents' is a broad term though. Most fantasy revolves around English accents, mostly southern, but then there are many variations there, some northern. Then there are the Scots, Welsh and Northern Ireland, all of which have variations too.

Sometimes fantasy doesnt follow its own path, Dragon age 2 was I think the first game to have a Welsh accent on the Dalish Elves (Even Myles of Tourchwood) and the rest were Irish. By Tolkien influence Elves should speak in Welsh or Irish accents, especially as Evlish is heavily influenced by the Welsh and Gaelic language. But again Elves in most games and media have been portrayed as a sort of upper class English. No idea why Dwarves seem Scottish in a lot of games. You mentioned Game of thrones. "Harry Lloyd likens the Vale to Wales, so finds the fact that Ser Vardis Egen has a Welsh accent very appropriate". Yet the rest of the cast there didnt. Sometimes accents for me, as I really do enjoy accents can be a deal or no deal thing.

As for the Dunmer, I think they too are sort of a medium accent, kind of forced British, like an American trying a lock stock accent, kind of almost non descript on some. Which is fine, this is a fantasy world. What gets me more is the Bosmer not having a Celtic accent of some sort, although Bosmer we have seen since Morrowind maybe arent carrying the accent of Valenwood.

Anyway isnt this video true of how fantasy or British film accents are seen in America?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6HWNNZGuldI

Man, who asked you to bring all this crap up? You've got every other thread on the forums for it. Now I can't resist pointing out that Morrowind had the leveling system of an RPG, not a streetfighter.

The point was, Morrowind defined absolutely everything about Dunmeri culture and identity. If the Nords talk like Filipinos in the next game, people will point back to Skyrim.

I think he just meant that when we Amur'cans try to say grass with a British accent, it comes out as "gress." Though I've always said something along the lines of "grahs."

I like to look at is as it's not a bad British accent, it's a good Tamriel accent (though I don't much care for Skyrim's male Dunmer voices). Even though I'm sure the devs intentionally tried to get it British sounding, I like to think of it as that's just a 4th Era Dunmer's own, unique accent.
I'd actually think it would be cool to hear more non-earth accents in fantasy games. The only problems would be: How do you get it to sound like something that you've never heard, and even if it was intentionally unique, it would probably still sound close enough to real accents that people would immediately assume it was just a bad attempt at a real accent. Not that I'm saying they actually tried to get a unique accent for the "British Dunmer," but my little mind is more satisfied by telling itself that's what they did.

I really like the Morrowind Dunmer not just because I've always pictured them with more gruff voices, but because it had sort of a unique cadence. It's hard to explain and very subtle, but my ears hear it. Or I'm just losing my mind....

I thought the guys in spinal tap pulled off good English accents...

EDIT: on topic, the Morrowind dunmer sounded almost Arabic at times - the way they said 'sera' for example. But I guess with the khajiit taking that accent, they had to change that too.

The khajiit changed from the Russian sounding accent they shared with the argonians in oblivion to boot. Vocal continuity is out the window lol.

Continuity isn't really important. The sensory aspects of the gameworld are always open to change, the best to fit with new interpretations and settings. No need for lore purism here, and I say that as a lore purist.

What's important is that everything fit, and communicate the essence of each race, creature, whatever.

And the problem here is that the Dunmer in Skyrim don't have a voice. They choice from a parcel of voice actors for a variety of races, rather than getting a character of their own. I put it down to the Radiant Quest requirements, which also made our journal useless and the hated quest marker de rigour. It's like Bethesda acted on the letter of out complaints in a superficial way, without addressing the spirit.

More vocal variety and too many shared voices y'mean? If so then yeah that could be improved upon.

Tell you what, if you can lay hands on a good pair of studio monitors, you can really hear the drop in sound quality when you talk to people. Regular headphones/speakers won't show it really, but something that plays sound 'cold' will unflinchingly expose it. It's why i favour my turtle beaches to my AKGs. With the latter, whilst I could listen to the music all day, I periodically cringe when I come across the space saver sound files...

now here's a guy who knows about quality i too refuse to use my studio monitors instead i just use the tv speakers and i think you know why

but more on topic i agree with OP

Well majority on here assume it's badly done cockney.

But... they both come from screwy island nations were everything is different and there's massive wastelands and giant insects that try to kill you and slavery and political factions jockeying for power. Oh, and giant evil volcanoes. And living gods.

http://funny-pictures-blog.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/Meanwhile-in-Australia.jpg