Why Are Fantasy World Accents British?

kodiaktau writes "An interesting article from the BBC News Magazine explores the reasons why most fantasy worlds use British as their primary accent. Citing specific examples from recent and upcoming shows and movies like Lord of The Rings, The Hobbit and Game of Thrones, the article concludes British accents are 'sufficiently exotic,' 'comprehensible' and have a 'splash of otherness.' It would be odd to think of a fantasy world having a New Jersey accent, or even a Mid-West accent, which tends to be the default for TV and movies in the U.S., but how do UK viewers feel about having British as a default? More specifically, what about the range of UK accents, like Scottish, Welsh, Cockney? The International Dialects of English Archive shows at least nine regional sounds, with dozens of sub-regional pronunciations in England alone. In the U.S., there have always been many regional accents that might be used in interesting ways. Filmmakers should consider looking at speech accents from other areas of the world to create more interesting dialects."

Comments

Simple, really

[Anonymous Coward]

Brits are a bunch of poofters who enjoy giving each others' anuses a good rodgering

I'm glad we kicked them out of our country 200+ years ago. They were really turning the place into a shithole.

Re:Now think in American.

[cpu6502]

How about just straight standard American? (Sometimes called TV english.)

I think it's silly to impose a British accent when the original characters were speaking Middle English (Shakespeare), Old English (King Arthur, Beowulf), Latin (Rome movies), or Celtic (anything pre-Roman). These old or ancient peoples were definitely NOT speaking modern british.