[Feedback] Wuk Lamat's English Voice

[Esmoire]

I love her voicework.

[Moomba33]

I thought Wuk sounded fine personally. Then again, it's pretty rare for voice acting to bother me.

In this game I only really remember being bothered by Nanamo's ARR voice, and even she improved by the patch quests.

[Hurlstone]

To be honest the whole Apu situation is complete BS anyway. Its reverse racism where people care more about the color of the skin behind a VOICE actor than the performance. That being said, while I dont mind Wuk Lamat's ENG VA, even more so because I never play this game with the ENG dub anyway; I play with the superior French VA, I do believe its a missed opportunity for the NA side to not cast a South American VA for Wuk Lamat.

I admit that the one thing that has got me a little concerned with DT from even before its announcement was how the ‘New World’ is gonna be treated. There is a big risk of them falling to stereotyping and white washing, and the very fact the story will seemingly involve cities of gold raises some flags. The idea this could be seen as a missed opportunity for representation is the more important issue mentioned at large, I would say.

I do think however its a bit early to totally discredit the actress and her nationality in this though. We do not know just how much Tural is based on South America alone. It seemed clear thanks to the zones we saw that other aspects of America and perhaps beyond are also being used. What we know of it in the lore seems to hint that the nation at large is more then just one culture, with multiple peoples and aspects united under the banner of Tuliyollal. Not to mention the fact that

Wuk Lamat is adopted, under circumstances we do not know

[Boblawblah]

superior French VA

[Vyrerus]

The performance was really bad. It didn't help that none of the VAs seemed to have been recording in studio or next to each other / listening to each others performances. Wookie Lamar says the name of Tural's capital, and then Krile says it in the very next line, and it was super jarring as they sounded like they said completely different words. And that's even accounting for accent and such. It was as if the VAs were told to do a couple of reads, and then the production team rolled with whatever came out, and then didn't cross reference the performances, just lumping them into the scenes together.

Also I know it's bordering that line that makes people uncomfortable, but I hate that German, French, and Japanese all gave Wuk Lamat very convincingly feminine voices, whereas our VA for EN didn't pull that off. I don't care if they're trans, NB, man, or whatever. But if the character is intended to sound feminine, then the VA has to bring that to the table.

Look at shows like Bob's Burgers, The Simpsons, or The Incredibles.

Tina Belcher is voiced by a guy.

Bart Simpson is voiced by a woman.

Edna Mode is voiced by a man.

But these performances all give the viewer the impression that these voices match the character on screen. We need a better VA for this role, or the VA for Wuk needs to get a lot of coaching/new techniques right quick and in a hurry.

I hate this extra hard because it feels like this was a corporate maneuver where they could hire a cheaper VA, and then shield themselves from legitimate criticism using her identity. :/ Incredibly divisive move, as if this community needed anymore fractures when its narrative was doing that just fine...

[GTK0HLK]

There is lore reasons.
People gotta stop trying to get VAs be forced to be of said location, or close enough to it. (that's forcing discrimination, in order to have a VA be of a specific origin. Which doesn't affect or improve Quality)

__________________________________________

One of the lore reasons is that their generations grew with the language based on those of the three great continents.

Yall literally just heard that recently in MSQ.

Also, what will matter in the end, is what image SE and the Voice Actor will interpret.

If they are happy, that's all that matters.

[You also got to keep in mind, many of the new NPCs will not be "Perfect" at the start. Just like Wuk Lamat's clear personality and struggles. (Which are kinda endearing) while we won't truly know which is which. be it the needs of the character, or her needing to adjust. "VOICE ACTORS ADJUST. LOL"]

In the end, we won't get a full image til we see all the ranges and evolutions of the character.
Which is why in hindsight it is easy to use the twins as examples.

[Fourbestintoner]

This is what happen when you hire based on race instead of culture or/and ethnicity, you get american born and raised latinos who have to make an accent.

[Folsom]

I feel like the people saying "her voice acting sounded fine" just don't know what any South American accent is supposed to sound like. Wuk Lamat legitimately sounds like they hired an American to try to sound Spanish or Portuguese, and she ended up sounding like some weird, mixed, broken, offensive caricature the same way Americans sound when they try to speak with a Japanese, Chinese, or Indian accent.

They would have been better off just having her use her natural accent, whatever it is.

That said, I have noticed in the past that people are much less likely to think a voice actor is not doing well if that voice actor is speaking with an accent they don't speak or hear very often. Americans, in particular, almost always think British voice actors, regardless of dialect, are "doing a good job" even if they... aren't. I'm sure the same happens in reverse, but there it is.

[MikkoAkure]

I thought it was a little rough but mostly fine.

This game doesn't exactly have the best VAs in the business so I don't really mind much. But I am reminded of when people in this forum got upset with how "fake" a Scottish accent sounded from a VA from Scotland. Or when people thought Vanille's Aussie VA was putting on a fake Australian accent.

At least this isn't GW2, who hires a bunch of known VAs who can't pronounce the word "quay" right.

[ClayyLmao]

People gotta stop trying to get VAs be forced to be of said location, or close enough to it. (that's forcing discrimination, in order to have a VA be of a specific origin. Which doesn't affect or improve Quality)

Ironically Sena has made tweets in the past supporting people do exactly what you're saying not to do.