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Unexplained Accent: Difference between revisions
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* In the English dubs of the [[Dragon Ball]] series some characters have accents like Zarbon has a British accent, Jeice has an Australian accent in the Funimation dub and a Liverpudlian accent in the Ocean dub, and Pan has a Southern accent.
** Parodied in [[Dragon Ball Abridged|the Abridged Series]] where this is explained by Jeice being from ''[[Space X|Space]]'' [[Space X|Australia]].
* In the English dub of ''[[Yu Yu Hakusho]]'' Jin the wind demon has a Scottish accent and Chuu has an Australian accent.
** Jin was given an Irish accent in the English dub in an attempt to mirror his hard to understand dialect in the Japanese version.
** Chuu, on the other hand, was probably a reference to ''[[Mad Max]]'' - he looks like he wandered in from either there or ''[[Fist of the North Star]]'', after all.
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* Almost every single character in ''[[Nemesis (film)|Nemesis]]'', where even the American actors playing Americans put on inexplicable foreign accents.
* Bronson Pinchot's art gallery salesman character in ''[[Beverly Hills Cop]]''. He recycled the accent for ''[[Perfect Strangers]]''.
* ''[[The Room]]''. Johnny mentions arriving in America, but we never find out what accent he has. This is apparently Tommy Wiseau's actual accent. He claims to be Cajun, but most people don't believe him and no one is able to place the accent.
* ''[[Werewolf (film)|Werewolf]]''. Speaking of unidentifiable European accents. Although Yuri (who is implicitly roughly Slavic in national origin) has an accent that causes comparisons to the Frito Bandito, Natalie's is... less easy to pin down. "It was a wurrwilf!"
* Jack Ryan's wife in the film version of ''[[The Hunt for Red October]]'' speaks her few lines with an English accent. Both the character and the actor are American.
* Adrian Veidt in the film version of ''[[Watchmen]]'' slides between an American accent (in public) and a German one (in private). His backstory has him as a German-American and he hides his accent when speaking publicly.
* Most of [[Arnold Schwarzenegger]]'s roles. He retains his natural Austrian accent no matter what role he's playing, from futuristic cyborgs to all-American soldiers.
** Averted in ''[[Kindergarten Cop]]'' (his character is Austrian) and arguably the Terminator films (if you're making robot after robot and they have to pass for human, giving some of them foreign accents will add verisimilitude).
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** This is more a case of the other Betazoids ''lacking'' an accent, though. Since the accent is one that Marina Sirtis invented on her own for the role.
*** In one episode, it's stated that she picked it up from her human father, so we can't even blame the Betazoids. That doesn't explain why it changes from British to Mid-Atlantic to some weird pan-Slavic thing from episode to episode, though.
** Also, Captain Picard. He's supposed to be from France, but Patrick Stewart played him with his British accent.
*** Not only that, but when he visits his home village in France his entire family affects a British accent. This would indicate that the family and perhaps the entire village or region are British transplants, perhaps refugees from some conflict before the 24th century.
**** Several possible explanations: French people choose to teach British English in the 24th century rather than American English; Picard chose that accent for himself in the universal translator; or (as I think makes most sense) the universal translator by convention translates all French accents, or perhaps the accent from Picard's region of France, as a Yorkshire accent.
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** The logic behind the Cat race having American accents is that they learned English by watching the film & TV programs stored on the ship—presumably, the majority of the media is American.
** Chris Barrie uses a fairly ambiguous accent to play Ace Rimmer as opposed to the (more similar to Barrie's real accent) normal Rimmer accent.
*** He speaks with a blend of English RP (which suits his status as stiff upper lip officer) and Trans-Atlantic, which is generally used to sound "cool", but has the side-effect of sounding slightly bogus, cheesy and affected. It's essentially perfect for the character of Ace.
* Both Delenn and Londo of [[Babylon 5]] have vaguely central/eastern European accents, which stand out all the more because their respective underlings ''don't'', and it's a crapshoot as to whether any other individuals of their races will display an accent either.
** Which isn't really any different to them being from Liverpool and all their underlings from New York, or Sydney; why would all members of a given race have the same accent?
** Delenn's accent is forgivable: Mira Furlan is Croatian. Londo (Peter Jurasik) did so on purpose and several other actors portraying members of Centauri high-society emulated the accent, like Carmen Argenziano (Urza Jaddo) and William Forward (Lord Refa).
* Barry Kripke on [[The Big Bang Theory]] has a completely inexplicable accent best described as sounding like Elmer Fudd's speech impediment. Raj at one point comments on Kripke's accent, asking, "What part of America ''that'' accent from?"
* In an episode of [[How I Met Your Mother]], [[Alyson Hannigan|Lily]] is the subject of an "intervention" by her friends (who are pretty much addicted to doing interventions) for constantly affecting a Cockney accent over the course of several weeks.
* On [[Coupling]], Londoner Jeff has a Welsh accent. Notable for not being scripted that way, the actor just felt like doing one. Many in the cast didn't even know he wasn't Welsh until a few episodes in.
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** Originally, the Mario Bros. were both going to speak with gruff Brooklyn accents, but they were immediately changed into Italian accents after [[Shigeru Miyamoto]] found them too terrifying to children.
* Cait Sith in ''[[Final Fantasy VII]]: Advent Children'' has a Scottish accent. None of the characters from the same area has an accent like that, either.
** The Compilation seems to be good about those. In ''Dirge of Cerberus'', Rosso the Crimson has a random Russian accent (despite the fact she was born and raised underground). Nero the Sable has a British accent, despite being born with the same circumstances as Rosso.
** Cait Sith speaks in a Scottish accent because he is a representation of a Scottish fairy. In other words, a literal [[Mythology Gag]]. They also attempted to give him an accent in the original game, but he sounded more like a southerner than a Scot... when they remembered to give him an accent at all.
** Subverted in ''[[Final Fantasy XIII]]''. Vanille and Fang's Australian accent may seem out of place {{spoiler|until it's revealed they come from Pulse, which is "down under" Cocoon"}}
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* ''[[Fallout: New Vegas]]'': Melissa Lewis is a Hispanic (by the game code) with a New Zealand accent (by her voice actor Zoë Bell) in post-apocalyptic Nevada. She's not doing it to fit in with the Great Khans, since she doesn't sound like any of them, and Zoë Bell voices several other characters, such as Alice Hostetler and Diane, with little trace of her native accent. It's definitely not intentional as [[Word of God|J.E. Sawyer]] states that he was just as confused by the accent as anyone else.
* In ''[[The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim]]'', Brynjolf and Delvin of the [[Thieves' Guild]] speak with a Scottish and a Cockney accent respectively and are the only ones to do so. Brynjolf is particularly unusual since other Nords speak with a Germanic accent or none at all.
** Delvin can be at least somewhat justified by the fact that he's a Breton, and their home province of High Rock is the most straightforward example of a Britain expy the setting has (with a little French thrown in for good measure). What makes him stand out is that he is literally the only npc in the game with that accent, making it seem very unusual.
* Bodhan and Sandal, recurring characters of the ''[[Dragon Age]]'' series, speak with heavy Cockney accents rather than the American accents that Dwarves generally speak with.
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** Oddly, in an episode of ''[[Family Guy]]'', Brian's Asian acupuncturist has an Irish accent.
* Dexter of ''[[Dexter's Laboratory]]'' has a <s>German or Russian sounding</s> thick stereotypically Eastern European accent.
** This could be due to the connotations of Russians and Germans. A lot of well-known scientists came from either Germany or the Soviet Union.
* In pretty much every incarnation of ''[[Transformers]]'', many Cybertronians have Earth accents. This is literally never explained. So, Outback must come from the Australian part of Cybertron.
** Not canon but perhaps [[Fridge Brilliance]] in that, if they picked up the language from radio transmissions and the like, it's likely that they'd hear a broad range of accents and they adopted the ones that they liked the best.
* Butters in ''[[South Park]]'' has a Southern accent ([[Token Wholesome|to make him seem more "wholesome"]]), though neither of his parents share it. During his cross-dressing escapade, he's introduced as a girl from Texas. Mr. Mackey has a southern accent too. Kyle's mom has an extremely strong Noo Yawk accent to make her sound more Jewish and no other indication she's from there. In [[The Movie]], Kyle's mom says she moved to South Park to get away from the city—and she also has family in that area (e.g., Kyle's cousin "Kyle Schwartz from Connecticut"). Cartman was always supposed to have a heavy breathing fat person accent, but since he cosplayed Robert E. Lee he's had Southern touches that play up when he cosplays a [[Corrupt Hick]]: "Respect my Authori-TAH!"
** Kyle's mom has been revealed to from New Jersey, which is close enough to New York City to let it slide.
* Amy on ''[[Futurama]]'' has a [[Valley Girl]] accent, despite being from Mars and living in New New York. Her parents have heavy Chinese accents, which is theoretically [[Justified Trope|justified]] since they're at least ethnically Chinese.
* Gordon on ''[[Catscratch]]'' has a Scottish accent, despite both of his brothers having "ordinary" American accents.
* [[Shrek]] the Scottish Ogre.
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** Zazu gets a British accent as well, but he's the only one of his kind in the movie.
* In the ''[[Sonic Sat AM|Sonic the Hedgehog]]'' cartoon, Antoine Depardieu ("D'Coolette" in the [[Sonic the Hedgehog (comics)|comics]]) has a French name and accent despite everyone else around him having some sort of American accent. This is unexplained, except for a throw-away line that he had training in the "Delmont Province". The accent seems to be mostly there to have him fit the stereotype of a [[Cheese Eating Surrender Monkey]] (er...coyote).
** Those accents shouldn't even exist, even in the Archie comics.
* Snap from ''[[
** Presumably, that's just how Rudy heard his voice in his head when he drew the character.
* In ''[[The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy]]'' [[The Grim Reaper]] has a Jamaican accent of all things.
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* In ''[[The Beatles (animation)|The Beatles]]'' cartoon, [[George Harrison]] has an accent that [[Not Even Bothering with the Accent|definitely isn't Liverpudlian]] and is [[What the Hell Is That Accent?|otherwise indescribable.]]
* On ''[[Invader Zim]],'' [[Ensemble Darkhorse|Tak]] has a British accent while none of the other Irkens do. [[La Résistance|Lard Nar]] has one as well, though we only have one other Vort to compare him with.
* [[Butt Monkey|Ezekiel]] on ''[[Total Drama]]'' has a typical [[Canada, Eh?]] accent, even though the whole cast is Canadian and no one else has it. Other than making him sound more like a country bumpkin, is there some sort of logic to this that this American Troper just isn't getting?
** Canada is a very large country, and most regional accents, other than Newfoundland's, are fairly subtle. His accent is one of the exceptions.
* Several characters on ''[[Hey Arnold!]]'' have New York and Eastern U.S. accents, despite [[Word of God]] stating the show takes place in Washington.
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{{reflist}}
[[Category:Accent Tropes]]
[[Category:
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