America is pretty cosmopolitan right? I even have relatives there and Canada and people emigrate don`t they?

So why would it be so hard for Bethesda to find Europeans in the US to do voice acting? heck, In England it`s easy to find an East European or American or Norwegian here like in Oxford. I bumped into an American in Starbucks In leicester!

Ever since the Berlin wall went down there`s been a pretty big influx of Europeans to America since i`ve really notice them appearing in movies and US shows a lot more.

I don't understand where this idea about nordic accent is coming from...

...none of them sounds like the chef from the muppets show!

I've been to Iceland, and it sounds very similar to the voices up there.

Sheogorath sounds like an American (or other non Scottish) attempting to sound Scottish ... but as a Brit, I can honestly say that he doesn't do a very good job of it. No offence intended to him though - I try to think of it as ES accents and not real world stuff, since few of them actually sound anything like Nordic accents to me.

On the other hand, I have seen a number of comments about how nice Mjoll's accent is - to me, this is sounds like an attempt at an Eastern European accent from someone who is not from Eastern Europe, and certainly, it is not not even close to a Nordic accent.

Agree that Farengar tends to sound Dutch or Belgian and that Michael Gough, irrelevant of his nationality, is an extraordinarily talented voice actor

As for the male guards, they do tend to sound like Arnie, but that's okay - in my opinion, they are one of the things that make the game a lot better, irrelevant of their accents.

Overall, as I said above, I try not to think of these people as real world Norse, since the pretty anomalous accents do tend to ruin the immersiveness.

Whatever accents are Nords in Skyrim using, they're annoying as hell. I know I'm probably the only person here who feels this way, but the first couple of days playing this game were really difficult. I hated the accents. Now I got used to them, even like them in certain circumstances, but if I was to choose, honestly, any other accent is better than this.

And Mjoll's voice is particularly irritating.

Just my two cents

Ah...Now that you mention it, it is a bit more "Goldmember" than Skwisgaar.

A lot of my family are 2nd and 3rd gen Scandis in America, but they come from the Midwest, where there are entire scandi communities.. and they have a sort of remnant of the old accent. If you go to some places in North Dakota, Nebraska, Minnesota, you'll hear it.

Not sure if my post is that related to yours, but.. my point is about the cosmopolitan nature of America. It's not totally wrong to hire Americans.. a lot of European ways of doing things, or even accents, linger around. Actors can tap into it.

IM ICELANDIC :/