34 réponses à ce sujet

[Wulfram]

The accents are getting silly and messed up enough that I kind of wish they'd just forget about them.

[AlleluiaElizabeth]

I don't think many of them have or need to have real world parallels. For instance there isn't an accent IRL which I can think of which seems similar to the Qunari's  

 

Sten and the Arishock both speak in formal american english. 

 

And dwarves have american accents, too. Some more proper (Aeducan family) and some less so.

[MetalGear312]

Orlais: French (definitely French)
Antiva: Spanish (some could argue Italian, but I only see their culture as being similar in that respect)
Nevarra: Italian (once again debatable)
Free Marches: big old mixing pot
Tevinter: Greek or ancient Roman (lots of influence in this respect, especially in their naming)
Fereldan: English (especially apparent in DAII)
Anderfels: German (all in their city and provincial naming, Hossberg, Weishaupt, and the Orthlands come to mind)
Rivain: Arabic and other middle eastern dialects (very apparent if you look at Isabela's birth name Naishe)
Qunari culture: Arabic (with a touch of Haudenosaunee influence)
Dwarven culture: American
Elvhen culture: depends on where they hail from, Dalish seem Welsh and city Elves take on the cultural heritage of where ever they are born.

[AlleluiaElizabeth]

But they were asking about accents, not cultural influences.

[MKDAWUSS]

And apparently, the only language spoken is English...

[Augustei]

I have no idea what accent Tevinter is going for but I know a lot of Thedas sounds British(general accent, I'm not from there) and I place Antiva as more Italian because Ignacio and the guys from DA2 had Italian accents. And the Anderfells people were supposed to have German accents according to the wiki but I don't know where they got that from and Cassandra's va made up the Nevarran accent which is cool but how can the other voice actors match that?

No, they were Italian.

Antiva as a nation seems to be a cross between Spain and Italy. But Antivans themselves are definitely more Spanish. Most of the voice actors for Antivans are actually just english guys putting on a fake accent, but the accent they are going for is clearly Spanish considering it sounds much closer to Spanish than Italian (you have a terrible ear for accents btw =P, no offence). But also because they actually use actual Spanish words at times in their dialogue (See Zevran), and those Antivans that aren't voiced by british guys are actually voiced by Spaniards like Óscar Castellanos who voiced Castillon.

[Augustei]

Orlais: French (definitely French)
Antiva: Spanish (some could argue Italian, but I only see their culture as being similar in that respect)
Nevarra: Italian (once again debatable)
Free Marches: big old mixing pot
Tevinter: Greek or ancient Roman (lots of influence in this respect, especially in their naming)
Fereldan: English (especially apparent in DAII)
Anderfels: German (all in their city and provincial naming, Hossberg, Weishaupt, and the Orthlands come to mind)
Rivain: Arabic and other middle eastern dialects (very apparent if you look at Isabela's birth name Naishe)
Qunari culture: Arabic (with a touch of Haudenosaunee influence)
Dwarven culture: American
Elvhen culture: depends on where they hail from, Dalish seem Welsh and city Elves take on the cultural heritage of where ever they are born.

I can't work out what Nevarran accents are meant to be, I got some sort of weird mix of Franco-German but now that you've said Italian I sort of get that vibe as well. Culturally the Nevarrans are a mix between Ancient Egypt and Prussia.
Tevinter culturally speaking is easily Byzantine
Rivain reminds me of a mix of Spain and Morocco
Qunari culture doesn't really resemble anything in our world, its has hints of Japanese, Spartan and definitely Turkish culture.
Dwarven Culture: American? Yeah I have absolutely no idea how you came to that conclusion, the accents yeah but beyond that they don't resemble America at all.
 

[Das Tentakel]

But they were asking about accents, not cultural influences.

Accents is also a safer bet. The ‘national inspirations’ of the Thedosian countries are more like empty containers with, say, ‘vaguely French but not really’ or ‘vaguely Spanish and Italian but not really’ stamped on it, after which they are filled with a mix of elements taken from the ‘generic mainstream fantasy big box o’goodies’ (plus some stuff from films, comics and other videogames), rather than from the culture and history of the actual ‘inspirational’ nations.
When Gaider says nation X was inspired by Y, he seems to mean it in a very, very, very general and superficial sense; the actual nation in question can best be regarded as a ‘work in progress’ (dependent on the continued survival of the franchise and the resources devoted to it). By the time Bio has done some work on it, the end result is totally unrecognisable except perhaps for the presence of, say, a borrowed Italian or faux-French name.

As for Nevarra being Prussian: I thought it was something Gaider once said about Nevarra’s rise being somewhat analogous to that of Prussia, but I checked on the Dragon Age wiki. It appears to have been an interpretation by some fan in the Nevarra wiki entry’s discussion. I couldn’t see in the ‘history’ log of that entry whether there was a Prussian reference that was removed later on. Regardless of the origin of Nevarra’s ‘Prussian’ connection, it has no relevance whatsoever to its history, culture and society (or near absence of it).
 

[Augustei]

As for Nevarra being Prussian: I thought it was something Gaider once said about Nevarra’s rise being somewhat analogous to that of Prussia, but I checked on the Dragon Age wiki. It appears to have been an interpretation by some fan in the Nevarra wiki entry’s discussion. I couldn’t see in the ‘history’ log of that entry whether there was a Prussian reference that was removed later on. Regardless of the origin of Nevarra’s ‘Prussian’ connection, it has no relevance whatsoever to its history, culture and society (or near absence of it).
 

Well The Free Marches are very often compared to the HRE and considering Nevarra was once part of the free marches I generally draw the similarities from there, plus the whole Millitaristic society lead by a millitaristic upper class family The Hohenzollerns and the Pentaghasts, Nevarra being a minor city state like the rest rising over its peers, And the Frence/Orlesian wars over territory similar to Alsace-Lorraine and Perendale and the Nevarran/Orlesian relationship and rivalry being remeniscant of the rivalry of Prussia and France. The mention of a coalition of Nevarra and the various Free Marches city-states under the Pentaghasts does seem to parallel Prussia forming & dominating the North German Confederation following the Austro-Prussian War.

Just found the article you were talking about, though its not the first time the comparison has been made on this forum. Nevarra is compared to Prussia more then you'd think on these forums if you browse some of its history.
 

Modifié par Augustei, 22 juillet 2014 - 11:15 .

[Das Tentakel]

Well The Free Marches are very often compared to the HRE and considering Nevarra was once part of the free marches I generally draw the similarities from there, plus the whole Millitaristic society lead by a millitaristic upper class family The Hohenzollerns and the Pentaghasts, Nevarra being a minor city state like the rest rising over its peers, And the Frence/Orlesian wars over territory similar to Alsace-Lorraine and Perendale and the Nevarran/Orlesian relationship and rivalry being remeniscant of the rivalry of Prussia and France. The mention of a coalition of Nevarra and the various Free Marches city-states under the Pentaghasts does seem to parallel Prussia forming & dominating the North German Confederation following the Austro-Prussian War.

Just found the article you were talking about, though its not the first time the comparison has been made on this forum. Nevarra is compared to Prussia more then you'd think on these forums if you browse some of its history.

I am very well aware of those comparisons, but the point is that the ‘Prussian’ (Nevarra) as well as the ‘HRE’ (Free Marches) links that have been made do not appear to be based on some remark by Gaider & Co as them being the actual ‘inspirations’, but seem to be wholly made up by fans.
Also: Even if Prussia and HRE were ‘the inspiration’ of Nevarra and the Free Marches, in practice that would mean that they have been stripped of almost everything that made Prussia Prussia and the HRE the HRE. What effectively happened is that the name, Nevarra, was picked up from a quick look at some map of Europe or Spain, followed by the application of the ‘change one letter of a regular name and presto, fantasy name’ rule. Then this ‘tabula rasa’ was filled with stuff from the generic mainstream fantasy toolbox and possibly other sources like popular movies, other videogames etc.

Kingdoms fighting over land, or dynastic rulers being aggressive and militaristic are waaaaaaaaay too common to be specifically Prussian, for that matter. Same with the formation of alliances. Wherever you have a bunch of competing states, it’s always the same story.

What’s more, when it comes to society, history or culture there’s almost nothing to build on when it comes to Nevarra. They have a powerful group of necromancers, they have Undead, a weak king and a NPC in DA2, voice-acted by an Englishwoman, who has a funny accent that people find difficult to place. It’s barely even a sketch of a country.

As somebody who was born and raised in one of the HRE’s former free Imperial cities, and lives in one of its old ‘free lordships’, as well as being a trained historian and all-round history geek I can guarantee you that there is no real structural resemblance between the HRE and the Free Marches.
In fact, Ferelden is the only country on Thedas that might conceivably be compared to the HRE, being a vaguely pseudo-Germanic quasi-elective monarchy encompassing numerous quarrelsome petty lordlings and all that.

I think there was something about accents in this thread?