Patch 6.55 - Growing Light Part II - Story Discussion

[Turnintino]

Whilst we're on the subject of Erenville...

The reveal that Erenville is a Turali native genuinely took me by surprise, especially considering he has the standard Viera accent.

I mean, remember that Lyna was in the same boat, despite being raised by G'raha. Or Runar's accent despite his (presumed) upbringing among the Night's Blessed. Accents are apparently genetic lol. The English dub just doesn't seem to give these things deeper consideration -- or at least not since Stormblood.

[Cleretic]

I think that someone hiding where he's coming from, and evidently doing so very well, probably has trained away from his native accent.

EDIT: I should clarify, I don't have an explanation for any of the others (although I could probably devise one), but for Erenville specifically? Yeah, him not having a Turalian accent makes sense.

[Iscah]

The English dub just doesn't seem to give these things deeper consideration -- or at least not since Stormblood.

I would say since before then – I'm not sure about accents (I still to this day have not played much of ARR/HW with voices turned on) but the persistence of naming conventions being entirely race-based and not cultural always seemed odd. Some races might be a bit more insular and sticking to particular traditions, but it didn't seem right to have things like Midlanders all having the same types of names from Ul'dah to Ishgard and yet Mid- and Highlander names stay distinct from each other.

Later expansions have been better about this and having culture-based rather than strictly racial names.

[Cilia]

I would say since before then – I'm not sure about accents (I still to this day have not played much of ARR/HW with voices turned on) but the persistence of naming conventions being entirely race-based and not cultural always seemed odd. Some races might be a bit more insular and sticking to particular traditions, but it didn't seem right to have things like Midlanders all having the same types of names from Ul'dah to Ishgard and yet Mid- and Highlander names stay distinct from each other.

Later expansions have been better about this and having culture-based rather than strictly racial names.

It makes enough sense if you consider that in places not governed by one of the three Eorzean Alliance city-states people tend to stick to insular communities of their race; the U miqo'te tribe in Southern Thanalan, f'ex. We just don't see most of them in-game on account of the limited world; Duskwight Elezen, Plainsfolk Lalafell, Roegadyn of both tribes, and Keepers of the Moon Miqo'te have their ancestral homes so far removed from the game world we just don't get to interact with their settlements.

As far as voices go, with only a few notable exceptions everyone speaks with a British accent of some sort from 2.0 onwards. 2.0-2.X had an NA cast, but after 2.X wrapped they shifted the voice studio to London... to be fair it's very good in general (especially compared to the piss poor quality of 2.0; 2.X is much better), but hearing everyone from every corner of the globe and beyond speak with a British accent is just a tiny bit strange. (They do pronounce foreign words correctly, so that's nice.) I chalk it up to Ascian influence from a Watsonian perspective.

The only exceptions are Viera characters (who speak with an Icelandic accent in homage to Fran) and Wuk Lamat. I'm assuming other Turali characters will also not speak with a British accent once we get there; s'ppose they finally listened to my criticism on this point? (Who am I kidding, of course they didn't.)