The eighth season of the iconic series 'Game of Thrones' has already begun, and it will soon be revealed who will sit on the Iron Throne and who will fall in the struggle for it.
In high-budget series and films, special attention is paid to the details. Observant viewers who watch the series in the original have noticed that the characters speak with different English accents.
Let's explore what accents the characters of 'Game of Thrones' use and what significance these accents have for the storytelling.
Why do fantasy films feature British English?
Indeed, in almost all fantasy films, characters speak in British English.
For example, in the 'Lord of the Rings' film trilogy, some of the main actors were not British (Elijah Wood is American, Viggo Mortensen is Danish, Liv Tyler is American, and director Peter Jackson is actually a New Zealander). Yet, despite this, the characters speak with British accents.
'Game of Thrones' is even more interesting. It was directed by an American for an American audience, yet all key characters still speak in British English.
Directors use this trick to create the impression of a completely different world for the viewers. After all, if audiences from New York are watching a fantasy film where characters speak with a New York accent, the feeling of magic will be lost.
But let's not delay further; let's delve directly into the accents of the characters in 'Game of Thrones.'
In the series, the inhabitants of Westeros speak in British English. The accents are typical of real existing English accents. For instance, the North of Westeros speaks with Northern English accents, while the South has Southern English accents.
Characters from other continents speak with foreign accents. This approach has been heavily criticized by linguists, as, despite the important role of accents, even members of the same family could speak with different accents. For example, the Starks.
The Starks and Jon Snow
The House of Stark rules the north of Westeros. The Starks speak with a Northern English accent, predominantly Yorkshire.
This accent is most prominently noticeable in Eddard Stark, known as Ned. The character is portrayed by actor Sean Bean, who speaks with a Yorkshire dialect as he was born and raised in Sheffield.
Therefore, he didn't need to make any special efforts to depict the accent; he simply spoke in his usual way.
The characteristics of the Yorkshire accent are mostly evident in the pronunciation of vowels.
- Words like blood, cut, strut are pronounced with [ʊ], rather than [ə], just like in the words hood, look.
- The rounding of the sound [a] makes it more similar to [ɑː]. In Ned's phrase "What do you want," the sounds in "want" and "what" are closer to [o] than in standard English.
- The endings of words like city, key are elongated and transform into [eɪ].
The accent is quite melodic and is pleasant to the ear. This is one reason why it was used for the Starks instead of, for example, a Scottish accent.
The differences in vowel pronunciation between the Yorkshire dialect and RP are noticeable:
Other members of House Stark also speak with a Yorkshire accent. However, for the actors who portrayed Jon Snow and Robb Stark, this is not their native accent. Richard Madden (Robb) is Scottish, while Kit Harington (Jon) is from London. In their conversations, they imitated Sean Bean's accent, which is why some critics point out the incorrect pronunciation of certain sounds.
However, the average viewer hardly notices this. You can check it yourself.
Interestingly, Arya and Sansa Stark, Ned Stark's daughters, do not speak with a Yorkshire accent but with what is called a 'posh accent' or an aristocratic accent.
This accent is quite close to Received Pronunciation, which is why it is often confused with RP. However, in 'posh accent', words are pronounced more smoothly, and diphthongs and triphthongs are often flattened into one prolonged sound.
For example, the word 'quiet' will sound like 'qu-ah-t'. The triphthong [aɪə] is flattened to one long [ɑː]. The same goes for the word 'powerful'. Instead of [ˈpaʊəfʊl] with the triphthong [aʊə], it will sound like [ˈpɑːfʊl].
Native English speakers often say that 'posh' sounds like you're speaking RP with a plum in your mouth.
You can trace the speech characteristics in the dialogue between Arya and Sansa. The accent is only different from classic RP by elongated vowels and more flattened diphthongs and triphthongs.
Lannisters
The House Lannister speaks in pure RP English. This is intended to reflect the wealth and high status of the house in Westeros.
RP is exactly the standard accent that is taught in English language schools. Essentially, it is the accent of the south of England, which, over time, lost its distinctive features and was accepted as standardized.
Tywin and Cersei Lannister speak in pure RP, without any signs of any other accent, as befits a ruling family.
However, some Lannisters with an accent faced challenges. For example, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, who played Jaime Lannister, was born in Denmark and speaks English with a noticeable Danish accent. This is almost undetectable in the series, but some sounds characteristic of RP occasionally slip through.
Tyrion Lannister's accent cannot be called RP, although it theoretically should be. The thing is, Peter Dinklage was born and raised in New Jersey, so he speaks with a rather specific American English.
He found it difficult to switch to British English, so in his lines he consciously controls his accent, making wide pauses between phrases. Nevertheless, he was unable to fully convey RP. However, this does not diminish his excellent acting performance.
You can assess how Peter Dinklage speaks in real life. There's a significant difference from his character in the series, isn't there?
Notable accents of other characters
The world of 'Game of Thrones' is a bit broader than just Westeros. Characters from the free cities and other locations across the Narrow Sea also have interesting accents. As we mentioned earlier, the show's director decided to give the inhabitants of the continent of Essos foreign accents that differ quite a bit from classical English.
The character Syrio Forel, the sword master from Braavos, was played by Londoner Miltos Yerolemou, who in real life speaks with received pronunciation. However, in the series, his character speaks with a Mediterranean accent. It is particularly noticeable how Syrio pronounces the sound [r]. Not the soft English [r], where the tongue does not touch the roof of the mouth, but the hard Spanish one, where the tongue must vibrate.
Yaken Hgar, a criminal from Lorath, also known as the Faceless Man from Braavos. He has a noticeable German accent. Softer consonants, as if with a soft sign where it shouldn't be, with long vowels [a:] and [i:] turning into short [ʌ] and [i].
In some phrases, there is even an influence of German grammar in the sentence structure.
The thing is that Tom Wlaschiha, who played the role of Hgar, is originally from Germany. He actually speaks English with that accent in real life, so he didn't have to fake it.
Melisandre, played by Carice van Houten, spoke with a Dutch accent. The actress is from the Netherlands, so there were no issues with the accent. She often pronounces the sound [o] as [ø] (it sounds like [ё] in the word 'мёд'). However, this is one of the few features of the Dutch accent that can be noticed in the actress's speech.
Overall, the accents in the English language add richness to the series. It's a really good decision to showcase the vastness of the 'Game of Thrones' world and the differences among the people who live in various regions and continents.
Even though some linguists are unhappy, we will express our opinion. 'Game of Thrones' is a huge budget project that requires attention to tens of thousands of details.
Accent is a trivial matter, but it plays an important role in the atmosphere of the film. And even if there are flaws, the final result turned out great.
And the actions of the actors once again confirm that if desired, one can speak with absolutely any accent of a language — it's just a matter of giving due attention to preparation. The experience of EnglishDom teachers confirms this.
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