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noWizardme
Half-elven
Nov 19 2017, 5:06pm
Post #1 of 17
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How do you hear Tolkien characters speak when you read?
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Do you imagine certain specific accents (e.g. those used by Peter Jackson movie actor for the character, or the actor from another dramatisation)?
Or, do you not imagine anything all that specific?
For myself, I realise that, unless I'm given strong clues (the customers at the Ivy Bush and their Mummerset, for example) I imagine something you might call Nebulously Generalised Standard English - probably rather parochially expecting that characters spoke like an amalgam of people I know in real life. So (to give one example) Billy Boyd's Scottish Pippin was not what I was expecting the first time I saw the movie.
~~~~~~
Where's that old read-through discussion?
A wonderful list of links to previous chapters in the 2014-2016 LOTR read-through (and to previous read-throughs) is curated by our very own 'squire' here http://users.bestweb.net/...-SixthDiscussion.htm
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squire
Half-elven
Nov 19 2017, 7:27pm
Post #2 of 17
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Like you, I hear a generalized standard English - but to me it sounds specifically British
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Tolkien's diction, for all the range he gives his fantasy characters, fits a characteristic "British" style that I associate with a lot of other mid-century fiction I've read, anything from Evelyn Waugh to Ian Fleming, including my favorite Nevil Shute. Even in books from the same period, American authors read somewhat differently, with anything from vocabulary to phrasing and slang being just different enough to be distinguishable over the length of a book.
So I always read Tolkien hearing that cultivated-sounding, slightly posh and slightly reassuring, "British" accent.
I don't hear the Jackson characters, very likely because so little of the book's dialogue was actually used in the films. If I were an audio book fan, I suspect I would starting hearing the reader's voice renditions in later re-readings on my own.
squire online:
RR Discussions: The Valaquenta, A Shortcut to Mushrooms, and Of Herbs and Stewed Rabbit
Lights! Action! Discuss on the Movie board!: 'A Journey in the Dark'. and 'Designing The Two Towers'.
Archive: All the TORn Reading Room Book Discussions (including the 1st BotR Discussion!) and Footerama: "Tolkien would have LOVED it!"
Dr. Squire introduces the J.R.R. Tolkien Encyclopedia: A Reader's Diary
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Otaku-sempai
Immortal
Nov 19 2017, 7:56pm
Post #3 of 17
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I do 'hear' the Trolls speaking Cockney (or some variation thereof).
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Otherwise, just in some nebulous English accents.
"I may be on the side of the angels, but do not think for one second that I am one of them." - Sherlock
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Bracegirdle
Valinor
Nov 19 2017, 9:23pm
Post #4 of 17
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I ‘hear’ the Elves as softly yet foreignly clear, commanding, attention grabbing, somewhat like:
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After tripping and falling down a Britisher might say “Excuse me.”, apologetically embarrassed just in case he’s inconvenienced anyone. An American just hollers @#$%$# %$# you son of a #$@%...
‘. . . the rule of no realm is mine . . .
But all worthy things that are in peril . . . those are my care.
For I also am a steward. Did you not know?'
Gandalf to Denethor
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noWizardme
Half-elven
Nov 19 2017, 10:21pm
Post #5 of 17
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When I’m reading dialogue I know to be American, say...
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...an odd thing happens. Raymond Chandler’s Philip Marlowe sounds roughly Humphrey Bogart to me (because of films). But reading To Kill A Mockingbird, I know intellectually that Scout will have the tones of the Southern US, but I rarely ‘hear’ those- it’s not an accent I know well enough to imagine.
I suppose that one of the author’s jobs is to prevent this mattering: it’s distracting if a character talks oddly and I can’t work out why. Also distracting for a different reason if, I can’t work out whether it’s (say) the Boston and West Point Lieutenant speaking or his Texas sergeant.
~~~~~~
Where's that old read-through discussion?
A wonderful list of links to previous chapters in the 2014-2016 LOTR read-through (and to previous read-throughs) is curated by our very own 'squire' here http://users.bestweb.net/...-SixthDiscussion.htm
(This post was edited by noWizardme on Nov 19 2017, 10:27pm)
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Hamfast Gamgee
Tol Eressea
Nov 19 2017, 11:52pm
Post #6 of 17
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I do think that the movies where reasonably accurate in speech matters. I do wonder about the characters that where not in the movies or only in briefly. What would Tom Bombadil be like? A bit of an eccentric, I suppose. Maybe Glorfindel had a nice Irish accent. Maybe some of the Elves did have a bit of an Irish twinge about them. I do sometimes read them in that manner.
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noWizardme
Half-elven
Nov 20 2017, 1:51pm
Post #7 of 17
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Yes, that does make me wince slightly
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I suspect that the trolls speak in a sort of received version of how cockney people would speak, rather than something authentic - if they were supposed to be talking in American accents they would be going 'Howdy pardner' and 'Yehaar!' a lot
I think that Tolkien did it that way not to suggest that there is some Middle-earth equivalent to the East End, from which these trolls happen to come. I think that the accent is a shortcut to establishing the trolls as likely to be criminal but a bit stupid. Which is really a prejudice about people who speak that way in real life and makes me feel a little ...embarrassed.
~~~~~~
Where's that old read-through discussion?
A wonderful list of links to previous chapters in the 2014-2016 LOTR read-through (and to previous read-throughs) is curated by our very own 'squire' here http://users.bestweb.net/...-SixthDiscussion.htm
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noWizardme
Half-elven
Nov 20 2017, 2:18pm
Post #8 of 17
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Do elves by other authors speak as sweet (or as RP British, anyway)?
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If you are reading a fantasy story by another author - what then: do the elves still sound the same?
(Assuming, in the above, the absence of an obvious steer from the author of course, such as having an elf-detective who clearly talks like Philip Marlowe.*)
Something that happened recently to make me think about this - I was critiquing someone's story in a writers' workshop recently, and I commented that one of the lines of his elf princess character didn't work for me, because she suddenly sounded like 'an all-American Mom'.
The problem, for me, was that I'd been reading this elf-lady in my accustomed neutral vaguely Received Pronunciation (RP) British elf-character voice and then suddenly... I said it caused me to be pushed out of the story slightly. I was wondering whether this happened because RP is an accent I hear around me a lot and so is my personal internal default; or whether elves have become 'likely to be RP' as a staple of the fantasy genre (perhaps because of Tolkien's influences).
--
* an elf-detective who talks like Philip Marlowe? - I almost want to do that now :)
~~~~~~
Where's that old read-through discussion?
A wonderful list of links to previous chapters in the 2014-2016 LOTR read-through (and to previous read-throughs) is curated by our very own 'squire' here http://users.bestweb.net/...-SixthDiscussion.htm
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Otaku-sempai
Immortal
Nov 20 2017, 4:36pm
Post #9 of 17
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The Troll's accents read as Cockney to me as an American, but I'm not sure that was the intention. I don't know how true this is, but I've read that Tolkien was giving them, not Cockney dialect, but a country-cousin to it.
Generally, when I read Tolkien I give his characters British Received accents. I am a little more likely to 'hear' Aragorn as American, but that might because of his 'action-hero' status (and partly because of the NPR radio drama of LotR).
"I may be on the side of the angels, but do not think for one second that I am one of them." - Sherlock
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Bracegirdle
Valinor
Nov 20 2017, 5:31pm
Post #10 of 17
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There are Trolls and there are Trolls...
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The Troll's accents read as Cockney to me as an American, but I'm not sure that was the intention. As an American I’ve always read the Trolls (the Stone-trolls anyway) with a bastardized British accent. I think it’s the VERY rarely used words (over here across the water anyway) such as “blimey”, “lout”, and “poor little blighter” that hint at that Cockney accent as you say.
Now the Olog-hai were a different matter. I believe, if they did speak at all it was the Black Speech….
‘. . . the rule of no realm is mine . . .
But all worthy things that are in peril . . . those are my care.
For I also am a steward. Did you not know?'
Gandalf to Denethor
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Otaku-sempai
Immortal
Nov 20 2017, 6:03pm
Post #11 of 17
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Now the Olog-hai were a different matter. I believe, if they did speak at all it was the Black Speech….
Tolkien does write that the Olog-hai (Black Trolls?) were capable of the Black Speech. Presumably, that made them capable of learning Westron as well, though whether they were taught it is unrevealed. I would imagine that they did know the Common Tongue if only so that they could understand, relay and issue orders in that language (as well as understand and interrogate prisoners).
"I may be on the side of the angels, but do not think for one second that I am one of them." - Sherlock
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CuriousG
Half-elven
Nov 20 2017, 7:46pm
Post #12 of 17
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And what race are they? (seriously)
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I hear them speak "American Midwest accent," which is pretty standard on TV and movies, and conveniently enough the accent I grew up with. Like you, I was surprised by the accents in the movies. Not upset or turned off, just surprised.
Related question: for people who are of Asian/African/Latin American/Other descent, do you picture a bunch of white people throughout LOTR, or think of the characters as people with your own skin tone?
I have to admit that when reading any book, unless I'm hammered over the head with something very obvious like "And then John, who was Chinese,...", my default is to picture everyone as Caucasian, including any space saga or fantasy saga. (If a novel is set in Africa, sure, I picture Africans.)
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noWizardme
Half-elven
Nov 20 2017, 10:19pm
Post #13 of 17
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Now I’m imagining John Wayne as Boromir ...
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He’s doing a pretty fine job...
~~~~~~
Where's that old read-through discussion?
A wonderful list of links to previous chapters in the 2014-2016 LOTR read-through (and to previous read-throughs) is curated by our very own 'squire' here http://users.bestweb.net/...-SixthDiscussion.htm
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Bracegirdle
Valinor
Nov 21 2017, 12:18am
Post #14 of 17
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I confess to a similar ‘default’
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I have to admit that when reading any book, unless I'm hammered over the head with something very obvious like "And then John, who was Chinese,...", my default is to picture everyone as Caucasian, including any space saga or fantasy saga. (If a novel is set in Africa, sure, I picture Africans.)
But a bit of an OT twist, this is what endeared me to the original ‘Star Trek’. We had 2 whites, an African American, an Asian, a Scot, a Russian, and of course 1 Vulcan as the leads.
And the very first African American/Caucasian kiss ever on television (Kirk and Uhura).
Oh, could it ever be so????
Or in the immortal words of Rodney King:
"c c Can’t we all just get along?"
‘. . . the rule of no realm is mine . . .
But all worthy things that are in peril . . . those are my care.
For I also am a steward. Did you not know?'
Gandalf to Denethor
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CuriousG
Half-elven
Nov 22 2017, 8:55am
Post #15 of 17
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Well, if you're going to hear Americans, better John Wayne as Boromir than Mickey Mouse. //
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CuriousG
Half-elven
Nov 22 2017, 9:01am
Post #16 of 17
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Star Trek was multicultural and politically correct before those terms existed.
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But Roddenberry was being Vulcan-logical in reasoning that not everyone in the future would be from Iowa, like Kirk.
I heard criticisms of Star Wars: Rogue One being "too diverse," which I thought absurd. It's an empire spanning a galaxy with hundreds of inhabited worlds. That means diversity. Look backwards at how diverse the Roman Empire was if anyone needs proof; there was even an emperor named Philip the Arabian.
What was more absurd was the original Star Wars, where everyone was white, including the Stormtroopers. (C3PO was golden, so I guess he was the token non-white.)
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Petty Dwarf
Bree
Nov 29 2017, 2:20am
Post #17 of 17
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Actually, we never saw the stormtroopers with their helmets off,
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and Lando Calrissian was black. I think that was a lot more about what actors were available.
Anyway, I hear mostly the Peter Jackson characters, with cockney accents for Orcs and Trolls, but with Irish accents for the Elves.
Gandalf and Bilbo retain their VAs from Rankin/Bass' "The Hobbit", though. As amazing a Gandalf as Sir Ian is, he just isn't THE Gandalf to me.
"No words were laid on stream or stone
When Durin woke and walked alone."
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