Graha Voice Actor Change?

[paradisea]

You can edit a post to fit it all in one go rather than needing to indicate you want to keep going to a second post.

Edit: Well, that's good to learn, and rather silly that you can bypass character limit by doing this. Went ahead and condensed my post. Thank for the info, lol.

[Lara_Kotzji]

Sorry but I'd like to correct 2 points of misinformation here. The BAFTA interview where he speaks about his dedication to the role of G'raha was in March 2024, well after he was cast as Fiyero in 2022, and filming had already wrapped by then. Also, him taking a break from acting was a misquote about him stepping away from 2 potential film roles he could've taken on to focus on his charity instead; he clarified this in an Esquire interview in November. He wasn't talking about breaking current commitments.

thanks for saying it. im so done with the ppl repeating the same argument over and over again.

[ZephyrMenodora]

As others have stated though Square Enix's lack of transparency might be because of non-disclosure agreements or other legal reasons. In a way it might be a good sign since they could still be negotiating with Jonathan Bailey's team. If they both were ready to part ways they likely would announce it.



Sorry for irritating you. The reason I keep coming back to this is because I don't agree that it's as simple as the big mean Square Enix wants to fire Jonathan Bailey and pull a fast one on all of us by saying nothing and hoping we don't notice the voice actor has changed. Just like you don't need to be reminded of the realities of capitalism, I doubt Square Enix needs to be reminded that fans would be upset if a voice actor is changed. Given the targeted harassment that other voice actors have faced, they might also feel saying nothing is best.

I’m not trying to say Bailey is being dishonest. It’s possible for him to be 100% sincere about the role and still have business or scheduling walls come up that he can’t climb. I'm just acknowledging that sometimes people get stuck in contracts or schedules they can’t control.

My point isn't that SE is right to stay silent either. It’s just that their silence might be a legal cage rather than a choice.

People keep bringing up NDAs or possible ongoing negotiations, but 7.4 is already publicly released. There is no possible way the acting would be released in a commercial product as large as XIV for a main cast member without any agreement.

So again, if it was still Bailey, regardless of ongoing negotiations for future work, they could say so. If it's someone else, they can also say that even if they won't disclose who until they release the credits in 7.5.

There is no NDA in existence that would prevent them from confirming this basic information. Why would Bailey refuse to allow confirmation via an NDA that it's still him for this specific patch after 7 years of credits?

[shoebilldreams]

I've seen other actors add themselves to the IMDB page or confirm on social media pretty early, so the NDAs aren't normally restrictive once patches are released. Golbez's actor added himself on IMDB around 6.4, I think it was? Long before the 6.55 credits. And others confirmed they were raid bosses in Endwalker and Dawntrail within a few days of patch day. Heck, Ciaran Owens was listed in the group without character names (that are clearly the first-tier raid voices) in the 7.0 credits and within a couple of weeks he'd added himself to the IMDB page specifically naming Metem.

I'm no expert on NDAs but the pattern has generally been "they're allowed to tell us they're in/not in a patch or expansion almost immediately" if that helps at all.

[mildlymoonstruck]

Even if ongoing negotiations/NDAs preclude them from making any statement about G'raha's ENG voice going forward, my other bone to pick with Square about their lack of transparency is why - going off the belief that it wasn't Bailey who voiced him in 7.4 - did they hide G'raha's line from the ENG trailer alone when it was present in all other languages? I've said it before, but whether temporary or permanent, this is someone's debut performance stepping into the role of one of the most beloved characters in the game, and they chose to hide it until patch dropped? If their hands are legally tied from commenting on whether Bailey has permanently left the role or not, then at the very least, I expect them to take some accountability on why they made that particular poor decision. You'd think they'd have learned something about supporting the talent literally giving voice to their work after the flood of sheer hatred that Sena Bryer had to deal with during Dawntrail. I, at the very least, expect better from them.

[KthAura]

Even if ongoing negotiations/NDAs preclude them from making any statement about G'raha's ENG voice going forward, my other bone to pick with Square about their lack of transparency is why - going off the belief that it wasn't Bailey who voiced him in 7.4 - did they hide G'raha's line from the ENG trailer alone when it was present in all other languages? I've said it before, but whether temporary or permanent, this is someone's debut performance stepping into the role of one of the most beloved characters in the game, and they chose to hide it until patch dropped? If their hands are legally tied from commenting on whether Bailey has permanently left the role or not, then at the very least, I expect them to take some accountability on why they made that particular poor decision. You'd think they'd have learned something about supporting the talent literally giving voice to their work after the flood of sheer hatred that Sena Bryer had to deal with during Dawntrail. I, at the very least, expect better from them.

Agreed! It's so weird they're being like this on the English side of things. Really makes it seem that they KNOW something's going on and they didn't want people finding out until patch day.

One statement. That's literally all we want! We just want clarity.

[paradisea]

I've seen other actors add themselves to the IMDB page or confirm on social media pretty early, so the NDAs aren't normally restrictive once patches are released. Golbez's actor added himself on IMDB around 6.4, I think it was? Long before the 6.55 credits. And others confirmed they were raid bosses in Endwalker and Dawntrail within a few days of patch day. Heck, Ciaran Owens was listed in the group without character names (that are clearly the first-tier raid voices) in the 7.0 credits and within a couple of weeks he'd added himself to the IMDB page specifically naming Metem.

I'm no expert on NDAs but the pattern has generally been "they're allowed to tell us they're in/not in a patch or expansion almost immediately" if that helps at all.

Frankly, this just makes me feel like there's a new G'raha guy out there who's not announcing himself.

Whether that's because he's currently in a pretty damn difficult position after being omitted from the trailer, having zero backing from Square Enix in this announcement and seeing fans either coping in denial that any change at all has happened or devastated after losing a beloved voice actor after seven years; or that he simply is a temporary fill in for Bailey (or doesn't know himself, at this point, if he's temporary or permanent) and doesn't want to make a big announcement out of it before he's sure; we can only speculate.

I have nothing against this new voice actor, and I think his performance was fine in isolation. However, in terms of a G'raha replacement, I find the voice to be... lacking. So I don't really know what to feel or say, other than I'm still holding hope that Bailey will come back, because I hate to think of the alternative. Not out of hate for the actor, just sadness at losing something so good we've had for seven years.

I don't think Bailey's shoes are possible to fill—anyone who has to step permanently into the role of G'raha is going to be burdened with a legacy that's just impossible to live up to. Bailey is an extraordinary actor and an outstanding fit for G'raha, and his performance lifted the character to even greater heights. At this point it's just unfair to whoever may or may not be burdened with replacing him.

My last bit of hope, I think, is that I feel like Bailey's representatives (if Kotaku truly reached to them) might have just said he's not longer part of the project when questioned if they had parted ways. But again, they might not, because it's not Bailey's responsibility to announce his departure, it's Square Enix's. And despite what I expect many will say in their defense, I do believe they owe fans to explain the reason for his departure, especially as an explanation would surely had been given were we facing the departure of a Japanese voice actor.

Or maybe we'll hear nothing from Square Enix until 7.5 drops and suddenly we clearly hear Bailey as G'raha again. Then 7.55/7.58 comes around and there are two names under G'raha's English credits, and it turns out it was a temporary fill in for this patch only that they just didn't say anything about. Until then we just suffer, I guess. But at least it'd be a happy ending to this dreadful saga.

[shoebilldreams]

I don't think Bailey's shoes are possible to fill—anyone who has to step permanently into the role of G'raha is going to be burdened with a legacy that's just impossible to live up to. Bailey is an extraordinary actor and an outstanding fit for G'raha, and his performance lifted the character to even greater heights. At this point it's just unfair to whoever may or may not be burdened with replacing him.

I can think of a couple of actors that have already been mistaken for JB, who've already done a FFXIV expansion and did so wonderfully, but aren't currently playing a main character. I think either of them could smash it, albeit they wouldn't be JB and that would still be a dealbreaker for some people.

But whatever's going on, it is a little bit unusual that it's clearly somebody new and nothing's been said - I have to imagine SE would know people would have a lot of feelings about it.

[peachsyder]

I'm just saying some people shouldn't be so quick to absolve Bailey of all fault because they're such huge fans of him they automatically assume G'raha's EN VA would NEVER EVER LEAVE THEM and it must be evil old Yoshi-P barring him from the recording booth and hiring a new VA just to hurt them.

At this point you're just bad faith ignoring the multiple posts that addressed exactly this point, including my own post that you're replying to but only partially quoted. No one is denying the possibility that Bailey may have chosen to leave, and no one is doing it because they believe he's just their best friend and he'd never do something so meeeean to them. You can make anything sound ridiculous if you phrase it so degradingly. It's barely worth addressing at that point.

I mean, some of these people are threatening to quit if they replaced his voice. Not that they wrote off the character, not because they did something terrible to him in the story, not even because of the myriad of other foul-ups Square-Enix has committed over the last year... their sole reason for staying is JUST because of Bailey it seems, and they won't ever accept anyone else in the role no matter what the circumstances might be.

And that's their right? A change in voice acting of a major character has always been a big deal in any gaming fandom. It's been said here before, but to a lot of people, seeing their favorite character being changed into someone that feels completely different is not much better than seeing the character retired for good or killed off. In a lot of ways it's even worse. Again, it's been seven whole years of Bailey as G'raha. It's extremely jarring to hear a different voice come from him. Something not being a big deal to you personally doesn't make it an absurd thing for others to care strongly about.

And such extreme reactions would have been strongly mitigated by simply having a preemptive announcement so that people could be aware change was coming. I'm sure to a lot of people to whom this is a quitting worthy issue it's not just Bailey leaving but the way it's been handled so far.

[peachsyder]

Hence why I said SOME fans because not everyone is acting like a fanboy/girl with parasocial issues, other ones are having reasonable takes about the situation in wanting to know what happened due to the suddenness of it all.

Some of you guys keep using the word parasocial to refer people being attached to someone's performance. I'm not sure you understand what the word parasocial means.

Can't say I've ever been that attached to a celebrity to where it impacted my liking of a character they played if a change in actor became unavoidable, doubly so when it comes to voice acting where it can be in multiple languages so different VAs are a given. I'm pretty sure they're still going to be G'raha Tia though (as in the character that people know) regardless if the voice changes, unless the JP one is a completely different G'raha from what I know? I'm aware that Haurchefant is different in the JP version, but that's because of the change in writing supposedly rather than the JP VA specifically.

Another bad faith distortion. You're twisting people being attached to Bailey's voice and performance on G'raha as people being attached to Bailey as a person. That's literally just not the same thing.

If they had somehow cast a guy who sounded exactly like Bailey (or, frankly, even just a more plausible imitation than what we got) and we only found it wasn't Bailey in the credits there'd be zero drama happening because this isn't about Jonathan Bailey, British actor, it's about what G'raha Tia, character in FF14, sounds like.

Voice performances are a huge part of a character. G'raha's writing is the same no matter who's voicing him, but the acting of the person behind the character will make a major difference in how that writing lands and how it affects. G'raha would simply not have had the same impact on the fans who played in English if it hadn't been for Bailey's performance, even with the writing being the exact same.

Uchida Yuuma is a nice G'raha, though he delivers a notoriously more boyish performance which some will like and some won't. Also, if you understand enough Japanese you know that the English text does not match the Japanese voice over. There's a flavor to the English writing that isn't present in Japanese—the floweriness of the prose and the vocabulary most notably. Many find that difference jarring, myself included. That disparity makes playing with Japanese voiceover very unappealing to me.

A preemptive announcement would not have stopped some people from complaining though, if anything it would have just sped-up their departure (because it doesn't seem like much was keeping them here anyway). Both the company and celebrity have every reason to spin PR talk in their favor to avoid backlash, so they probably have to prepare as neutral and "no harm no foul" statment as possible to avoid burning bridges and/or making people immediately jump to the "blame game". (Well, too late for that I guess...)

It wouldn't because no one is going to be happy about Bailey leaving after seven years. But it would have been better than just booting the game on patch day and being hit with an absolutely-not-Bailey voice the first time G'raha opens his mouth. Sorry a voice performance is not "much" to you—a lot of us appreciate the art that goes into the game though, and Bailey's acting happens to be a huge gem among that. Can't blame people for feeling devastated enough at seeing their favorite performance no longer be present in the game that whatever else keeps them here might not be enough to not have them quit.