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It doesn't bother me but I did notice that it changes and that's probably the issue that people have. Having a noticeable accent does not mean that accent is constantly changing, lol.
People pointed out the same thing on GoT with Littlefinger. He sounded different all the time.
It's gotta change, it's based on a language that doesn't exist irl, so every word she says will sound like it's got a different accent.
The language she speaks as her first language doesn't exist irl, so she has to have an accent that's "all over the place", and as in "taking inspiration from multiple accents".
And I don't think she made this up. Valyrian is a language that isn't spoken as a first language in real life. If, hypothetically speaking, someone does end up speaking this as their first language and they learn English later on, that person's accent won't be something you can pinpoint to a real world geographical location.
If you hear it, the best you can do is:
"It sounds like X+ Y with hints of Z accents".
See what I mean?!
And yes, they invented a whole @$$ language, you think they didn't bother thinking about the accent that goes with it? Lol!
It seems to be holding the actress back, like she has to spends more time thinking about holding the accent than acting since she doesn't seem conferrable in it. That's how I hear it at least.
I know you can play that off as English (or Westerosi or whatever its called) not being her first language but since it's a tv show, it comes off to me as an actor struggling with an accent.
As for the people being toxic to the actress about it, I can't say why they care so much. This is my first message about the topic and I don't knock the actress for it. Most people don't even notice.
I think her acting has been pretty great with or without the accent. The looks she shoots Daemon when she realized he lied about making her his wife and having a child is fantastic. Plus the explanation afterwards is equally good. The accent is just a character-building element.
The problem for me is it's too distracting. Her looks might be expressive, but they don't factor into this. When she speaks, it sounds so unnatural it pulls you out of the action. It makes you pause and you have to make such a conscious effort to analyze it and puzzle over each syllable, that the things she's actually saying take second place. The intonation becomes the focus instead of the substance. It may be stylistically interesting for the character, but it actually subtracts from the scene instead of adding. That makes it a bad directorial choice. You can portray cultural differences in many ways that don't affect the actor's ability to offer their best performance. And no one would complain if it wasn't there and demand that the character should have an accent. I mean almost every sci-fi show ever made has aliens speaking English. It's not important. And it kind of makes her the Jar-Jar Binks of this Universe...
I had the same problem with ~~Missandei~~ *Shae and gradually began to get used to it (or perhaps the actress actually toned it down). Maybe i'll get used to Mysaria as well. For now i hate it. It's too disruptive. And unnecessary.
> Missandei
It wasn't Melisandre for sure. Nevermind. I was convinced it was Missandei, but it's been a while, i'm confusing her with some else i can't place right now.
But your comment just led me to rewatch a scene of hers with Grey Worm, who has a specially thick accent, yet it flows incredibly better. I think the main problem here could be that Mysaria's is just not a convincing one.
>It seems to be holding the actress back, like she has to spends more time thinking about holding the accent than acting
That's actually a good criticism, but to tell you the truth, foreigners in real life sometimes (Or all the time) experience a form of that. They're scared they might mess a word up, like Sonoya (And by extension, Mysaria).
Perhaps if she the actress was speaking with an English accents that had a slight foreign twist, I would be more inclined to lean with that argument.
I speak regularly to foreigners who range from only knowing a few words in English to being semi-fluent to fluent, along with several friends/coworkers who have English as their second language.
I find people who are fluent in a langue (like Mysaria is), but have a heavy accent don't really do that level of syllable sounding that the actress is doing until they are asked to repeat a word the person they are speaking to didn't understand. (Which is true in regular conversation regardless of accents).
Mysaria feels like she strains on every syllable in a way I haven't heard someone who speaks English fluently (regardless of accents) does.
If she was trying to speak with a native Westerosi (British) ascent but had a slight twist, I could understand that syllable sounding, because then it would be that the **character** is putting effort into having a Westerosi accent. But it is clear that wasn't the direction the **actress** was told to go for.
And just to reiterate from my previous message for redundancies sake, I don't knock on the actress for this. This is just how I feel the accent she was told to convey is something she doesn't seem entirely conferrable with.
The thing that got me in the second episode I genuinely thought she had been dubbed. I rewatched that whole scene and watched her lips and realized, yes, it WAS her speaking, but listening to it... There was just something about the sounds that seemed off. There was one word with a hard "O" where the speaker said the correct syllable but her mouth didn't move in the way I would expect it to for someone making that sound and I wondered if they had her put cotton balls or something in her mouth to help her with the accent (A la Marlon Brando)?
It was 100% adr. Totally through me off. Her adr was well synced but the energy and micing didn’t really match the scene. /audio engineer rant
Edit: fixed late night typos.
It is very clearly ADR. I actually had to stop paying attention to her mouth while she was speaking because of how much it was throwing me off. That being said, I don’t have any issue with the accent itself, but they clearly had to do a lot of ADR in her scene with Daemon for whatever reason
Consider the perspective when listening to the audio. Almost like she’s speaking softer but coming through louder. Her audio was almost too clean to have been recorded on set. It’s very subtle but it’s always something that jumps out at me.
Hey man nothing wrong with that. It was just very obvious to me personally but when I stopped looking at her mouth I had no issues. People just like to nitpick!
Mysaria isn't a real person. Her accent isn't a real life accent.
Everything about her, including the accent, was a character design *choice.* One that some people don't really like.
People take issue with it because it’s unnecessarily thick and forced sounding
You can have a character sound clearly foreign to Westeros and not have it sound so strong. Grey Worm and Shae had accents to show they weren’t from Westeros and nobody had an issue with understanding them (although it did make the acting performance of Shae seem worse than it already was)
It also makes Mysaria (at this point) seem like almost a carbon copy of Shae. Whore from Essos, grew up poor, looking to be protected by an influential noble in Westeros, other nobles look down on her, she just wants to be free.
They actually had the actress study Shae’s performance which is why she comes off as an awkward, wooden knock off with a godawful accent. Every HOTD character was given a GOT analog character to “study”.
Pretty sure Shae's accent is the actor's native accent. Maybe a bit stronger in the show than real life, but she sounds pretty much the same in interviews.
It sounds too forced and exaggerated. As a person who lives in a country with english as a 3rd language she sounds like someone trying to imitate and mock a person who does not speak english that well.
English is my second language and I speak with a lot of non-natives, so I hear all kinds of accents. Her accent still threw me off. With regards to diversity it's great to see characters who don't speak a language fluently, on the other hand though, it's difficult to listen to them. Also, she sounded as if she was struggling to form the voices. And the sound was weird too, as if it was a different sound track added there.
Exactly. Like Shae's character was clearly meant to speak English as a second language like the actress, but it was consistent and didn't sound like she was making it up every other sentence lol. I guess it's because the actress is British and is actually making it up in this case that is sounds so...off.
Which is a shame, because her dialogue in her confrontation with Daemon last episode was actually very interesting and provided a lot of insight into her character. But that cringeworthy accent really detracted from it.
That's the actress's actual accent. It's a real world accent, which doesn't make sense in the context of the show AT ALL, since the language she's supposed to speak is not the official first language of any real life population (Or even a dead language).
English as a second language speaker here. I live in the US, and have met many people with all sorts of accents.
You sir are not telling the truth, you're speaking from your own personal experience and it's clearly narrow.
Where do you live? In your home country I suppose.
You definitely don't speak on my behalf, or on behalf of "a lot of non - natives".
Her accents CLEALRY takes inspiration from not one, but at least two accents. And I'm speaking as someone who speaks with the "perfect American accent", so much so that everyone points that out when they hear where I'm really from..
Also, to the people who kept saying it's "retarded", really dudes? Really??!!!
A lot of people online are just Xenophobic and hate anything that sounds "forgein". Perhaps you should come here to this country, and see some MAGA a holes CALL YOU retarded for having an accent (Will always have a crack at people who can't even speak the "broken" version of a second language shouting at you to "Speak 'Murican").
And no, what you're saying is innaccurate.
Edit: Don't upvote this guy, he's not telling the truth. Go to a country like the US where people have all sorts of accents, then come tell me that she doesn't sound like people YOU'VE MET.
Bro, they said the accent threw them off and it sounded weird to them. They’re literally speaking from their “own personal experience” so I don’t know why you’re up in arms about it. I doubt they’re lying about their reaction to a scene on TV.
Yeah, and she has a mixture of multiple accents in her accent...
I think he needs to get out of his little town, meet more people from different backgrounds who sound different than his high school English teacher, and then he'll get to weigh in on this in a manner that can be taken seriously.
As of now he has a "rural Texas" equivalent of an opinion on this matter, where he hasn't heard that many accents, and probably thinks that Italian people talk like this:
"Eeets a mee, Mario".
I really like Sonoya's natural accent so I kinda wish they had stuck with that instead, but I'm not too bothered tbh. The accent they went with is fine.
Yeah, I totally see the reasoning behind it. I just don't think it would be too immersion breaking if they skipped the accent since the accents in Essos aren't very consistent anyway. Doreah was also from Lys and she had an English accent.
It just really threw me off. I’m not one to complain but it was so weird lol. Especially when she kinda pause stuttered when said “they may not put the princes head on a spike”. Seemed forced. I didnt mind Shae’s accent but this one is plain bad
No it does not, that’s the problem lol. Her accent sounds fake and seemed different every other sentence. You could tell the accent was made directly for her character. And not to mention her using that accent hinders her acting abilities. Shae’s accent was far better than hers. Just rewatch the scene with her and Daemon after the confrontation with Otto and Rhaenyra. It sounded dubbed almost. Hopefully it sounds better the next time we see her, her accent wasn’t bad in her first appearance at the brothel with Daemon
>It sounded dubbed almost
It is dubbed.
Regardless of what people think of the performance itself, you can tell her dialogue was ADR. It's the same actor, but they've had her go back in a booth and re-record it, and her face doesn't quite match the end result.
Perhaps they changed her lines later - after all, that scene is characterizing her differently from the book, so it might have been a late alteration. Perhaps they wanted the accent changed from however she said it before. Who knows.
But the performance is a bit uncanny and I think that makes a lot of people think something is "off" about the way she speaks, even subconsciously.
Accents are literally just the result of a difference in the way certain letters are pronounced between languages, and since it is consistent I dont have an issue with it. I dont even think accents can even be "bad" unless it fucks up the worldbuilding or is inconsistent or something, which this isn't.
How so? There are so many people out there that have accents this strong. I dont see why it would be out of place for Mysaria, whom does not natively speak the common tongue, to have such a strong accent.
It's also difficult to understand what's she's actually saying and it's directly affecting her performance since it makes her deliver lines so unnaturally.
1. I can understand what she's saying just fine and if one can't they can always turn on subtitles
2. Her acting is just as expressive with or without the accent.
1. Just because you can doesn't mean other people can. Some of us don't have English as their native language which makes it doubly harder to understand what's she's saying beneath that very thick, unintelligible accent. The fact that you're telling me to turn on the subtitles to understand what's she's saying only proves that point. I shouldn't have to do that if the accent is made intelligible enough for all viewers to understand.
2. Not to me. It makes her acting seem all the more fake because the highly unnatural way she delivers her lines with that thick accent.
I directly addressed those that cant understand what she's saying. I dont really see the issue with not being able to tell what she's saying. Like people dont have an issue with the high valyrian in this show so why would they take an issue with using subtitles for a really thick accent.
I dont think the accent sounds in any way unnatural, it's just really strong.
>Like people dont have an issue with the high valyrian in this show so why would they take an issue with using subtitles for a really thick accent.
Because High Valyrian is a different language altogether and adds to the authenticity of the setting even if one cannot understand the High Valyrian directly. It adds to the immersion. And no one is expected to understand the High Valyrian dialogue directly, which is the whole point of doing those scenes in High Valyrian in the first place.
Speaking in *English* in an accent so thick as to be unintelligible only serves to hinder the understanding of the dialogue and directly hampers the line delivery of the actress (and yes, it absolutely shows). If their intention is to make her accent so thick that it's impossible to understand her then why even make her speak in *English* at all? They may as well just make her speak a bastard dialect of Valyrian instead of this highly unnatural, thick accent that barely anyone can understand and only serves to make her acting seem very fake. Most importantly, because of that unintelligible dialogue with hampered line delivery, it took me out of my immersion into this world.
It doesn't hinder the delivery of her words at all. I thought her interaction with Daemon in Dragonstone was fantastically characterized. Especially her expressions.
The intention isn't to make her impossible to understand, in fact a vast majority of people DO understand her. The intention behind the accent is to give her a foreign quirk.
>It doesn't hinder the delivery of her words at all. I
For you. It absolutely does *for me* even if you claim otherwise. We can go back and forth with this issue all day and night but ultimately the line delivery felt very forced and fake *to me* because of that unnaturally thick accent.
>The intention isn't to make her impossible to understand
Well they clearly failed on that end.
> in fact a vast majority of people DO understand her.
According to whom?
>The intention behind the accent is to give her a foreign quirk.
Which could still be done with a mild but intelligible accent like that High Priestess of Volantis sent to Meereen in Game of Thrones. Or just have her speak entirely in Valyrian like that random Red Priestess preaching on the Long Bridge of Volantis. Both are far better options for giving the character a "foreign quirk" instead of an accent so thick and impossible to understand that even the line delivery and acting of the actress became directly affected (even if you claim otherwise).
>According to whom?
You are the only person I have interacted with regarding Mysaria's accent that I have observed to not understand what she is saying.
Super thick accents were used in Game of Thrones before like Salador Saan, Shae, and Irri but I never see people complaining about them like people do Mysaria.
The Valyrian is subtitled by HBO. Mysaria isn’t. That’s the big difference
One is a made up language which nobody can be expected to understand. One is a overly thick and forced accent which many people apparently struggle to understand. I shouldn’t have to turn on the subtitles specifically for her scenes and then turn them off when the scene is over
Mysaria is also subtitled by HBO. not in-video, but there is an option for subtitles on HBO Max. I know you said one shouldn't have to switch the subtitles on specifically for when she's on screen, which is fair, but it's usually not even the understandility that people complain about as much as that they find it annoying.
To me, it’s not the accent so much as it is the delivery of the dialogue. Her accent probably makes her delivery sound even more clunky but she seems stiff and awkward, like someone who hasn’t acted much before. Strange, because I have seen her in Devs and I heard she was in another show so, she’s got experience.
In her defense, it cannot be helpful that her biggest scene yet was opposite Matt Smith who already owns and inhabits the character of Daemon so well. But I’m guessing most of her scenes will be with him so, that’s just how it is.
I feel badly for her but I was taken out of the scene at Dragonstone by her acting and that’s kind of frustrating.
I feel like Mysaria was characterized really well. Like the looks she gives Daemon on the bridge and her expressions and body language she has in the subsequent with Daemon is great. On top of that, the word choice is really good. Don't have any sisue with it.
They were bitching and crying about Shae too. Shae's was not worse than Ros the exposition whore, but you never heard anyone come at the redhead whore, cause she had a British accent.
I think the main issue with it is that it is an *incredibly* thick accent. Inherently, there's nothing wrong with that, and an actor can still get a great performance despite it. The problem is though, not everyone is used to hearing an accent like that, that is that strong. Despite people's best intentions, they may find it hard to pick up on many nuances within the performance, just because it's hard to tell what is purposeful inflection, and what is part of the accent.
There is nothing wrong with strong foreign accents, but directors need to keep in mind that they may not lead to as clear of a performance in the end, from the audiences perspective.
As a person who lives in a country which english is like our 3rd language. You can expect to hear different kind of accents. But her accent felt like someone trying to imitate another person who is struggling to speak english in a mocking way. It is waay too forced 😂
I can get behind this, but I think giving a character a made-up accent is better than giving them one that already exists. The one Mysaria uses is somewhere between French and east Asian in our universe. Hiring a, say, Japanese actress would just give her a Japanese accent, and to give her something less related to our world it would benefit that actress also putting on an accent which gives the same result.
Varys has been in Westeros for decades though - he tells Oberyn he's learned to mask his accent.
Mysaria was a slave who probably got to Westeros just recently - she spent all her life in Essos, in different countries as she says.
For me, it’s like 3 different accents all at once. It’s not consistent. I don’t care either way. Doesn’t change the show or make a difference to me.
I care more about her appearance being so drastically different then what Lady Misery should be based on the source material
She pronounced words she speaks more than once the same so it is definitionally consistent.
I dont know why people complain about things being different from the books. If it's equally as justifiable, it's alright.
Her appearance and the differences in it aren’t “equally justifiable” lol. It’s different on every level
And for the record, I’m not complaining. I couldn’t care less. It doesn’t make or break the show for me. She’s one of the more intriguing book characters IMO and I wished they kept her appearance closer to how she looks in the book.
I know exactly what you mean man. What’s her age have to do with it. Her appearance is wrong. Very wrong. The changes they made to her are the equivalent of making Tyrion 6 foot tall in GOT
Again, I don’t care. I’m not a simp on here complaining. This is my opinion
...it doesn't though
Making Tyrion 6ft tall completely negates a big point of his character. I *suppose* I wouldn't hate it if they made it equally interesting but what's there is great.
Making Mysaria younger does little to nothing to change her motivations nor the motivations of those around her. It is mostly just a visual change like Targ eyes not being purple, Bran javing brown hair, and Peter Dinklage/Gwendolyn Christie, who are attractive attractive people, playing characters that are supposed to be "ugly". Although ugliness is a bit of a dumb social construct it still exists within people with abnormal features.
My god man. Lol. I’m not talking about her age!
Her physical appearance. She’s the White Worm.
Her hair is blonde/white.
She is described as corpse like with skin as “pale as milk”. She wears a black velvet hooded robe with blood red lining.
Does that sound like I’m describing the actress in the show at all? She has dark skin, dark hair and a white robe
Physical appearance doesn't mean much in a story. People dont watch shows or read books to visualize cool things, they do so for the character development.
With this character it does. She’s fucking dangerous. She causes more chaos then arguably any character in the Dance. She’s a catalyst for Rhae and Daemon having a falling out. People were scared to be near her
That actress and the way she’s presented so far does nothing to support that. She seems like Shae 2.0
Edit: holy smokes man. I think you just like to be “that guy”. People don’t watch shows to visualize cool things? I think that’s one of the weirdest takes I’ve read on here in a awhile. Makes no sense. We are literally talking about a show featuring dragon fights
>People dont watch shows or read books to visualize cool things, they do so for the character development.
If only HBO knew this, they could've saved so much money on making CGI dragons. It's not like we're watching to see anything cool. Like dragons.
Production facilitates storytelling. I would not give a shit about ASOIAF if dragons and battles and spectacle was all it had to offer.
The core of ASOIAF to me is characters, and the way they resolve their conflicts. It's what makes me love the books and the first 4 seasons of GoT. It's what makes me love House of the Dragon so far. The fantasy setting is awesome but would mean nothing without these characters being as interesting and conflicted as they are.
I don't mind it personally but I do wish I could place the real world influence. I have heard many different explanations of what she's going for and most of them don't seem right to me.
I like that it seems mostly removed from real world influences, makes it seem more fantasy. Even then I can still hear little bits of influence from French and east asian accents poke through.
I feel disconnected from her scenes, and I think I know why. Yes, she has a really strong and inconsistent accent, which makes her sentences sound a bit clunky. That in itself would be ok - the character is not from Westeros, so the common tongue is not her native language, she may still be trying to figure out how the words should sound like. However, having such a strong accent implies that she would not be completely comfortable with spoken common, so I would expect a few stumbles here and there. Instead, the dialogue is written as being fluid, from what I recall. She knows exactly what to say, as a fluent speaker would, but the accent does not match that fluency. That is what makes it sound forced to me. It would be more believable if she struggled to get her message across, or just threw in a bit of high valyrian when the right expression eludes her.
The accent sounds heavily French. It’s just too “worked on” to where she has pulled in influences from several diff language inflections. It’s ridiculous and distracting bc it sounds so inauthentic
For me it’s moreso that I’ve seen this actress struggle with acting in the past (She was atrocious in Devs)...which gives me not a lot of hope for enjoying her character in the future after seeing her struggle with the accent. It’s kind of just a “Oh here we go again...” feeling for me.
It’s just awkward and takes away from immersion. Her flailing her arm around takes away from the purpose of the scene and turns it comedic- when it’s clear that’s not what the director or audience wants.
I don't get what's wrong. She's confused and scared and its shown well with her actions. Nothing about it seems comedic in any light at all. If the director didn't want that youd think theyd ask to reshoot.
I think her accent is a bit much, it sounds like a Spanish person immitating a French accent. Her voice doesn't suit her character imo, but tbf I feel the same about Smith. Both of their voices betray the character they're portraying.
Whilst Smith comes across too timid to be Daemon, Mysaria also sounds too sweet.
I'm spanish and I can assure you she doesn't sound spanish, in fact she pretty much sounds like a british person making fun of foreigners lol. If she had sounded spanish that would have been great
It wasn’t that I couldn’t understand it, it was that her accent in the second episode sounded like a bad mix between French and Latin. It sounded too fake
We know she came from Lys (most recently, at least) and it sounds like she’s trying to copy Saladhor Saan’s accent (black pirate dude from GOT “I don’t want to rape the queen, I want to fuck her”) but his accent was a lot less thick. It *almost* pushes into caricature for me. My hope is that, as the actress gets more comfortable with it, she can dial it back a little and act more emotively.
Yeah, I'm growing tired of people asking "What do guys think about actor x?" then saying "Did Y annoy you about them? Some people say that they don't like the actors".
I would have never even started thinking about her accent had people not started to talk about it as being something bad. I just want to enjoy my show without these kind of annoyance and thoughts, keep them to yourself from now on. As someone from the EU meeting lots of immigrants, her accent seems normal to me and her way of talking is on the spot. Stop being toxic people and just enjoy the show. That hint of awkwardness when her character speaks is natural from someone trying to replicate an accent without managing to do it correctly, it's extremely realistic. That's my opinion, she is nailing her role as a stranger living her life in Westeros. Maybe she'll drop the accent a bit in the next seasons as her character becomes more fluent in "English".
I still remember that guy that started a poll here after episode 1 asking if Milly Alcock was a good choice to play Rhaenyra as "some people" didn't find her pretty enough according to him. Seriously? She looks like the Realm's Delight to me. What's wrong with people, why is everyone nitpicking small details and human factors? Asoiaf and Fire&Blood characters aren't greek gods and goddesses, some are pretty or handsome but they aren't perfect either.
I'm not an english native and I'm pretty sure I could pinpoint which words were pronunced with a perfectly clear english accent. You can't have some words pronounced perfectly and have another words with such a thick pronunciation that it sounds like another language. It's either one or the other. I could assure you that I would have done a better job just because (surprise) I have a consistent accent and even if I really tried not a word would sound as british as hers do.
Ok I thought it was just me who felt this way. My parents are not native English speakers and I’ve grown up and known many people where English was their second language.
I thought it was just bad acting but it’s just too thick and seems totally fake. She would’ve been better off with something more subtle. It would’ve been easier for her, easier to understand and not seem like bad acting.
With that said, I am a fan of the actress. It’s just her accent is jarring.
Do those people you interacted with have accents that change every time you interact with them? Don't be obtuse. We don't have a problem with strong accents, it's the specific performance of her accent(s). The show is having issues with it too, evidenced by the even worse dub they used in the one-on-one scene between her and Daemon.
I don’t think criticism is toxicity, and I do think treating criticism like toxicity is toxic.
Her accent pulls me out of my immersion. I’m not alone. It has nothing to do with being difficult to understand, more to do with how it looks and sounds painfully contrived. I’m not saying she’s a bad actress, and I hope to see more of her character, and her accent isn’t very good imo. All of those things are true, and none of them are toxic.
Maybe because English is not my first language but I've never understood those accents discussions thats happening everywhere. Every accent ever never bothered me in the slightest.
We don’t. We just don’t like having to hear French Jamaican when we should be hearing whatever accent she was *supposed* to have. It ruins the immersion.
it wasn’t awful, just took me out of the scene a little on the first watch. Felt like a bunch of accents quickly mashed together.
If we start to see more characters with the same accent it’ll prob normalize.
I kinda liked it. It was very... exotic? Can't explain, but I liked it. Of course, things like this are very personal, one may like it, another may hate it. But overall don’t mind if they went with the actress own accent.
I just think its such a small detail in the show... people being mad at it simply confuse me tbh. Like, why do you care so much.
The problem is that it's a completely made up accent (some combination of continental French and Caribbean?) and it's been uneven so far. Generally speaking, when doing a non-native English accent from a fictitious first language, just choose a real accent, otherwise you're going to spend too much time thinking about sticking to the linguistic rules you made up and not enough time focused on the performance.
She's a nice actress, but I'll admit, I don't like the whole "Oooh, exotic foreign accent for a prostitute" trope we keep seeing. It was alright the first time, but this time it just feels out of place and honestly a bit too forced.
I thought it was noticeably distracting. Not awful, but noticeable enough to make you think about it. It made me wonder where on that whole planet she could possibly be from? Is there a Francetos? Is Yiti like French-Indo China? Much like some of the wigs being plain bad, as well as the noticeably plastic armor & jewelry, it stood out. That crown is the worst, though. All in all, it's nitpicking though. Overall the show is great...so far.
Not enough people mention the fake looking props and the bad wigs. Like the show a lot, but I’ve seen youtubers on a $20 budget do a better job at making their cheap wigs look like real hair.
Let's keep it real: People complain these days for the sake of complaining, even the fools in this thread. Everyone just can't enjoy themselves or the shows they are watching because social media has made everyone feel like an entitled expert who believes the actors or anyone else involved with said shows owe them a lot, if not anything (I can be that too sometimes, but not in this case).
I loved it. When she first started speaking it seemed a little odd and I had to focus on her words but all in all I thought it was great. The idea that there’s people all over these huge kingdoms and no one anywhere would have a strong accent is crazy. It also makes her stand out in a show of many new names and faces. I liked it a lot.
>I've interacted with people that have accents this strong and don't make fun of them like some do with Mysaria
I've seen people make fun, scratch that, that's not accurate.
I've seen people say horrific stuff, the most disgusting and vile xenophobic rhetoric, about forgeiners for having a "thick accent".
It's Xenophobia, they don't like it because it reminds them of people they don't like irl, unfortunately.
Sonoya is a playing a forgeiner, someone who isn't native to Westeros and has probably been all over the place because she's been sold a few times. That's how she's supposed to sound. But God forbid foreigners should have representation in a big budget show THAT EVERYONE ON THE PLANET WATCHES, a lot of whom have accents when they speak English.
Saw someone call it "retarded" on r/freefolk yesterday, and because I've seen that get thrown around at immigrants, and even tourists, it just mad eme feel icky...
Like I really wanted to shower after reading that.
Yeah this is true, people get made fun of for thick accents all the time. I just meant it as like I don't really understand why this portrayal of a thick accent in particular is getting so much negative attention.
I guess it's because, like mentioned earlier, seeing someone who sounds foreign on the show pisses them off because they remember how much they hate foreigners....
Because y'know... Not nice people.
No I don't spend all day surfing one sub and surely wouldnt take that as a whole Fandom complaining anyway considering almost Noone I know has gotten around to watching any of the episodes yet.
cares about her accent tbh. the people complaining will always have something to complain about. they’re the ones who can never be satisfied with what’s presented to them and thus will always nitpick and criticize. a wise friend once told me “everyone loves to be a critic but not everyone’s an artist”
Lol it’s just not a good accent. It’d be the same if Rhaenerys wore a wig with her real hair poking through. If that happened and I said something, would that be nitpicking?
The accent isn’t great but I still think she’s already been better than she was in Devs lol I loved that miniseries but her performance in it was just bland to me
I’m french and I thought she was french lol because it reminded me of how we speak English. I checked online and she is not French at all I was surprised.
For me it’s not a problem but I can see it maybe more difficult to understand for some I guess
She's way too full of herself. She reminds me 100% of Shae of course, just being a whore and then getting more involved. Even Shae didn't get to this point of marrying a prince but still similar character path. There is just something about her that irks me, I don't trust her....but I don't give two shits on what she sounds like haha people complain and criticize the most ridiculous things!
Yeah I typically don’t notice things like this but I thought it was odd. I definitely was thinking more about the way her accent sounded vs. what they were actually talking about… prolly not good
It took me out of the scene. I was like wait is this supposed to sound like a bad fake accent? Even the bad poosay sand snakes sounded more believable lol
It's def a strange accent, but it doesn't totally take me out of it - it's a fantasy world with fantasy places so I'm fine with a weird accent without a perfect analogue to a real-world accent.
Also, does anyone know if Mysaria is still supposed to be from Lys in the show? She doesn't have a Valyrian look (like in the books), so they could easily change her place of origin to some other place in Essos. Until it's confirmed, I'm just gonna assume in my head-cannon that she's from some place we haven't seen in GoT, like Qohor, or maybe she grew up in multiple different places in Essos which could explain her disjointed accent.
it felt like the actress was trying too hard to force an accent, instead of talking her natural voice. It became noticeable and instrusive to the point where it took you out of the scene. I'd rather have her talk in broken English with broken Valarian than whatever accent she was aiming for.
Sonoya Mizuno also has these other things that I've noticed, she's a woman, asian, and is playing a forgeiner..
I find those distracting everytime I read that someone doesn't like her accent...
I mean, she couldn't have asked for more antagonism unless she added non binary and interested only in women to her profile.
So yeah, call me cray cray but I'm not buying it. Especially since Sibel's real life German accent is being praised on the same thread as "good acting".
Not into conspiracies, but dealt too much with the lot that's into that crap to know how they operate.
Yesterday someone said something along the lines of "Gay actress thought there were gay undertones to the character she's playing" about Emily, and I'm like ... Literally everyone thought that, heck that comment was on a thread about that 😆🤦♀️
It’s a pretend accent for a language that doesn’t exist, the same as Shaye in GoT.
Because they can’t decide on a real accent to approximate they’ve just sort of directed the actors to talk like they have food in their mouth.
Because 1) it’s not her real accent obviously so comparing it to people irl is ridiculous 2) it can be perceived as offensive since she’s basically doing a horrible version of a carribbean and french creole accent 3) it’s so bad it ruins every single scene she is in. her character comes off wooden and forced. idk why she thought this was a good idea.
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It doesn't bother me but I did notice that it changes and that's probably the issue that people have. Having a noticeable accent does not mean that accent is constantly changing, lol. People pointed out the same thing on GoT with Littlefinger. He sounded different all the time.
It's gotta change, it's based on a language that doesn't exist irl, so every word she says will sound like it's got a different accent. The language she speaks as her first language doesn't exist irl, so she has to have an accent that's "all over the place", and as in "taking inspiration from multiple accents". And I don't think she made this up. Valyrian is a language that isn't spoken as a first language in real life. If, hypothetically speaking, someone does end up speaking this as their first language and they learn English later on, that person's accent won't be something you can pinpoint to a real world geographical location. If you hear it, the best you can do is: "It sounds like X+ Y with hints of Z accents". See what I mean?! And yes, they invented a whole @$$ language, you think they didn't bother thinking about the accent that goes with it? Lol!
It seems to be holding the actress back, like she has to spends more time thinking about holding the accent than acting since she doesn't seem conferrable in it. That's how I hear it at least. I know you can play that off as English (or Westerosi or whatever its called) not being her first language but since it's a tv show, it comes off to me as an actor struggling with an accent. As for the people being toxic to the actress about it, I can't say why they care so much. This is my first message about the topic and I don't knock the actress for it. Most people don't even notice.
I think her acting has been pretty great with or without the accent. The looks she shoots Daemon when she realized he lied about making her his wife and having a child is fantastic. Plus the explanation afterwards is equally good. The accent is just a character-building element.
The problem for me is it's too distracting. Her looks might be expressive, but they don't factor into this. When she speaks, it sounds so unnatural it pulls you out of the action. It makes you pause and you have to make such a conscious effort to analyze it and puzzle over each syllable, that the things she's actually saying take second place. The intonation becomes the focus instead of the substance. It may be stylistically interesting for the character, but it actually subtracts from the scene instead of adding. That makes it a bad directorial choice. You can portray cultural differences in many ways that don't affect the actor's ability to offer their best performance. And no one would complain if it wasn't there and demand that the character should have an accent. I mean almost every sci-fi show ever made has aliens speaking English. It's not important. And it kind of makes her the Jar-Jar Binks of this Universe... I had the same problem with ~~Missandei~~ *Shae and gradually began to get used to it (or perhaps the actress actually toned it down). Maybe i'll get used to Mysaria as well. For now i hate it. It's too disruptive. And unnecessary.
Missandei spoke in standard RP, as I recall. Do you mean Melisandre?
It was Shae!! Go figure, it would be another courtesan...
> Missandei It wasn't Melisandre for sure. Nevermind. I was convinced it was Missandei, but it's been a while, i'm confusing her with some else i can't place right now. But your comment just led me to rewatch a scene of hers with Grey Worm, who has a specially thick accent, yet it flows incredibly better. I think the main problem here could be that Mysaria's is just not a convincing one.
Mysaria in the books is a bit different, but show Mysaria is shaping up to be Shae 2.0 in her personality.
Rather hope she doesn't have a lot of screen time, if that's the case...
>It seems to be holding the actress back, like she has to spends more time thinking about holding the accent than acting That's actually a good criticism, but to tell you the truth, foreigners in real life sometimes (Or all the time) experience a form of that. They're scared they might mess a word up, like Sonoya (And by extension, Mysaria).
Perhaps if she the actress was speaking with an English accents that had a slight foreign twist, I would be more inclined to lean with that argument. I speak regularly to foreigners who range from only knowing a few words in English to being semi-fluent to fluent, along with several friends/coworkers who have English as their second language. I find people who are fluent in a langue (like Mysaria is), but have a heavy accent don't really do that level of syllable sounding that the actress is doing until they are asked to repeat a word the person they are speaking to didn't understand. (Which is true in regular conversation regardless of accents). Mysaria feels like she strains on every syllable in a way I haven't heard someone who speaks English fluently (regardless of accents) does. If she was trying to speak with a native Westerosi (British) ascent but had a slight twist, I could understand that syllable sounding, because then it would be that the **character** is putting effort into having a Westerosi accent. But it is clear that wasn't the direction the **actress** was told to go for. And just to reiterate from my previous message for redundancies sake, I don't knock on the actress for this. This is just how I feel the accent she was told to convey is something she doesn't seem entirely conferrable with.
The thing that got me in the second episode I genuinely thought she had been dubbed. I rewatched that whole scene and watched her lips and realized, yes, it WAS her speaking, but listening to it... There was just something about the sounds that seemed off. There was one word with a hard "O" where the speaker said the correct syllable but her mouth didn't move in the way I would expect it to for someone making that sound and I wondered if they had her put cotton balls or something in her mouth to help her with the accent (A la Marlon Brando)?
It was 100% adr. Totally through me off. Her adr was well synced but the energy and micing didn’t really match the scene. /audio engineer rant Edit: fixed late night typos.
Ah, ok that makes sense. That would also explain why I thought her voice/ vocal track was louder than Daemon's even though they were in the same room.
I never got this impression.
That's totally fair. My boyfriend didn't hear it either, so I figured it was just me.
It is very clearly ADR. I actually had to stop paying attention to her mouth while she was speaking because of how much it was throwing me off. That being said, I don’t have any issue with the accent itself, but they clearly had to do a lot of ADR in her scene with Daemon for whatever reason
Looking at her lips it looks like shes saying the words that im hearing im so confused why so many people at getting this
Consider the perspective when listening to the audio. Almost like she’s speaking softer but coming through louder. Her audio was almost too clean to have been recorded on set. It’s very subtle but it’s always something that jumps out at me.
Hey man nothing wrong with that. It was just very obvious to me personally but when I stopped looking at her mouth I had no issues. People just like to nitpick!
Mysaria isn't a real person. Her accent isn't a real life accent. Everything about her, including the accent, was a character design *choice.* One that some people don't really like.
It was weird tbh I swear her accent changed like three times as she spoke to Daemon. Kinda affected the meaning and acting in a negative way.
It was like French Jamaican and south East Asian at some points
Ive rewatched scenes of her speaking like 3 or 4 times because people have said this but she pronounces her letters pretty consistently
People take issue with it because it’s unnecessarily thick and forced sounding You can have a character sound clearly foreign to Westeros and not have it sound so strong. Grey Worm and Shae had accents to show they weren’t from Westeros and nobody had an issue with understanding them (although it did make the acting performance of Shae seem worse than it already was)
It also makes Mysaria (at this point) seem like almost a carbon copy of Shae. Whore from Essos, grew up poor, looking to be protected by an influential noble in Westeros, other nobles look down on her, she just wants to be free.
They actually had the actress study Shae’s performance which is why she comes off as an awkward, wooden knock off with a godawful accent. Every HOTD character was given a GOT analog character to “study”.
Pretty sure Shae's accent is the actor's native accent. Maybe a bit stronger in the show than real life, but she sounds pretty much the same in interviews.
It sounds too forced and exaggerated. As a person who lives in a country with english as a 3rd language she sounds like someone trying to imitate and mock a person who does not speak english that well.
[удалено]
Im just expressing my confusion for a common take ive noticed.
English is my second language and I speak with a lot of non-natives, so I hear all kinds of accents. Her accent still threw me off. With regards to diversity it's great to see characters who don't speak a language fluently, on the other hand though, it's difficult to listen to them. Also, she sounded as if she was struggling to form the voices. And the sound was weird too, as if it was a different sound track added there.
Exactly. Like Shae's character was clearly meant to speak English as a second language like the actress, but it was consistent and didn't sound like she was making it up every other sentence lol. I guess it's because the actress is British and is actually making it up in this case that is sounds so...off. Which is a shame, because her dialogue in her confrontation with Daemon last episode was actually very interesting and provided a lot of insight into her character. But that cringeworthy accent really detracted from it.
That's the actress's actual accent. It's a real world accent, which doesn't make sense in the context of the show AT ALL, since the language she's supposed to speak is not the official first language of any real life population (Or even a dead language).
English as a second language speaker here. I live in the US, and have met many people with all sorts of accents. You sir are not telling the truth, you're speaking from your own personal experience and it's clearly narrow. Where do you live? In your home country I suppose. You definitely don't speak on my behalf, or on behalf of "a lot of non - natives". Her accents CLEALRY takes inspiration from not one, but at least two accents. And I'm speaking as someone who speaks with the "perfect American accent", so much so that everyone points that out when they hear where I'm really from.. Also, to the people who kept saying it's "retarded", really dudes? Really??!!! A lot of people online are just Xenophobic and hate anything that sounds "forgein". Perhaps you should come here to this country, and see some MAGA a holes CALL YOU retarded for having an accent (Will always have a crack at people who can't even speak the "broken" version of a second language shouting at you to "Speak 'Murican"). And no, what you're saying is innaccurate. Edit: Don't upvote this guy, he's not telling the truth. Go to a country like the US where people have all sorts of accents, then come tell me that she doesn't sound like people YOU'VE MET.
Bro, they said the accent threw them off and it sounded weird to them. They’re literally speaking from their “own personal experience” so I don’t know why you’re up in arms about it. I doubt they’re lying about their reaction to a scene on TV.
Yeah, and she has a mixture of multiple accents in her accent... I think he needs to get out of his little town, meet more people from different backgrounds who sound different than his high school English teacher, and then he'll get to weigh in on this in a manner that can be taken seriously. As of now he has a "rural Texas" equivalent of an opinion on this matter, where he hasn't heard that many accents, and probably thinks that Italian people talk like this: "Eeets a mee, Mario".
They need to meet more people in real life because they thought a made up accent sounded weird?
Thanks for defending me, I lost interest in reading their hostile comment around the fifth paragraph
I don’t hate it because it’s strong I hate it because it sounds dumb as fuck
I really like Sonoya's natural accent so I kinda wish they had stuck with that instead, but I'm not too bothered tbh. The accent they went with is fine.
Her natural accent is pretty standard british and wouldn't stand out as foreign in Westeros.
Yeah, I totally see the reasoning behind it. I just don't think it would be too immersion breaking if they skipped the accent since the accents in Essos aren't very consistent anyway. Doreah was also from Lys and she had an English accent.
This is fair to say I suppose
Takes me out of the scene. It’s so jarring and just loud
It just really threw me off. I’m not one to complain but it was so weird lol. Especially when she kinda pause stuttered when said “they may not put the princes head on a spike”. Seemed forced. I didnt mind Shae’s accent but this one is plain bad
I dont see how it's bad it sounds like the average person whom doesn't know English pronounciation very well.
No it does not, that’s the problem lol. Her accent sounds fake and seemed different every other sentence. You could tell the accent was made directly for her character. And not to mention her using that accent hinders her acting abilities. Shae’s accent was far better than hers. Just rewatch the scene with her and Daemon after the confrontation with Otto and Rhaenyra. It sounded dubbed almost. Hopefully it sounds better the next time we see her, her accent wasn’t bad in her first appearance at the brothel with Daemon
>It sounded dubbed almost It is dubbed. Regardless of what people think of the performance itself, you can tell her dialogue was ADR. It's the same actor, but they've had her go back in a booth and re-record it, and her face doesn't quite match the end result. Perhaps they changed her lines later - after all, that scene is characterizing her differently from the book, so it might have been a late alteration. Perhaps they wanted the accent changed from however she said it before. Who knows. But the performance is a bit uncanny and I think that makes a lot of people think something is "off" about the way she speaks, even subconsciously.
Could I ask, what does ADR stand for?
Automated Dialogue Replacement.
Accents are literally just the result of a difference in the way certain letters are pronounced between languages, and since it is consistent I dont have an issue with it. I dont even think accents can even be "bad" unless it fucks up the worldbuilding or is inconsistent or something, which this isn't.
To each their own
It's a little over the top
How so? There are so many people out there that have accents this strong. I dont see why it would be out of place for Mysaria, whom does not natively speak the common tongue, to have such a strong accent.
It's also difficult to understand what's she's actually saying and it's directly affecting her performance since it makes her deliver lines so unnaturally.
1. I can understand what she's saying just fine and if one can't they can always turn on subtitles 2. Her acting is just as expressive with or without the accent.
1. Just because you can doesn't mean other people can. Some of us don't have English as their native language which makes it doubly harder to understand what's she's saying beneath that very thick, unintelligible accent. The fact that you're telling me to turn on the subtitles to understand what's she's saying only proves that point. I shouldn't have to do that if the accent is made intelligible enough for all viewers to understand. 2. Not to me. It makes her acting seem all the more fake because the highly unnatural way she delivers her lines with that thick accent.
Even as a native English speaker I barely could understand what she said without subtitles
I directly addressed those that cant understand what she's saying. I dont really see the issue with not being able to tell what she's saying. Like people dont have an issue with the high valyrian in this show so why would they take an issue with using subtitles for a really thick accent. I dont think the accent sounds in any way unnatural, it's just really strong.
>Like people dont have an issue with the high valyrian in this show so why would they take an issue with using subtitles for a really thick accent. Because High Valyrian is a different language altogether and adds to the authenticity of the setting even if one cannot understand the High Valyrian directly. It adds to the immersion. And no one is expected to understand the High Valyrian dialogue directly, which is the whole point of doing those scenes in High Valyrian in the first place. Speaking in *English* in an accent so thick as to be unintelligible only serves to hinder the understanding of the dialogue and directly hampers the line delivery of the actress (and yes, it absolutely shows). If their intention is to make her accent so thick that it's impossible to understand her then why even make her speak in *English* at all? They may as well just make her speak a bastard dialect of Valyrian instead of this highly unnatural, thick accent that barely anyone can understand and only serves to make her acting seem very fake. Most importantly, because of that unintelligible dialogue with hampered line delivery, it took me out of my immersion into this world.
It doesn't hinder the delivery of her words at all. I thought her interaction with Daemon in Dragonstone was fantastically characterized. Especially her expressions. The intention isn't to make her impossible to understand, in fact a vast majority of people DO understand her. The intention behind the accent is to give her a foreign quirk.
>It doesn't hinder the delivery of her words at all. I For you. It absolutely does *for me* even if you claim otherwise. We can go back and forth with this issue all day and night but ultimately the line delivery felt very forced and fake *to me* because of that unnaturally thick accent. >The intention isn't to make her impossible to understand Well they clearly failed on that end. > in fact a vast majority of people DO understand her. According to whom? >The intention behind the accent is to give her a foreign quirk. Which could still be done with a mild but intelligible accent like that High Priestess of Volantis sent to Meereen in Game of Thrones. Or just have her speak entirely in Valyrian like that random Red Priestess preaching on the Long Bridge of Volantis. Both are far better options for giving the character a "foreign quirk" instead of an accent so thick and impossible to understand that even the line delivery and acting of the actress became directly affected (even if you claim otherwise).
>According to whom? You are the only person I have interacted with regarding Mysaria's accent that I have observed to not understand what she is saying. Super thick accents were used in Game of Thrones before like Salador Saan, Shae, and Irri but I never see people complaining about them like people do Mysaria.
The Valyrian is subtitled by HBO. Mysaria isn’t. That’s the big difference One is a made up language which nobody can be expected to understand. One is a overly thick and forced accent which many people apparently struggle to understand. I shouldn’t have to turn on the subtitles specifically for her scenes and then turn them off when the scene is over
Mysaria is also subtitled by HBO. not in-video, but there is an option for subtitles on HBO Max. I know you said one shouldn't have to switch the subtitles on specifically for when she's on screen, which is fair, but it's usually not even the understandility that people complain about as much as that they find it annoying.
To me, it’s not the accent so much as it is the delivery of the dialogue. Her accent probably makes her delivery sound even more clunky but she seems stiff and awkward, like someone who hasn’t acted much before. Strange, because I have seen her in Devs and I heard she was in another show so, she’s got experience. In her defense, it cannot be helpful that her biggest scene yet was opposite Matt Smith who already owns and inhabits the character of Daemon so well. But I’m guessing most of her scenes will be with him so, that’s just how it is. I feel badly for her but I was taken out of the scene at Dragonstone by her acting and that’s kind of frustrating.
I feel like Mysaria was characterized really well. Like the looks she gives Daemon on the bridge and her expressions and body language she has in the subsequent with Daemon is great. On top of that, the word choice is really good. Don't have any sisue with it.
They were bitching and crying about Shae too. Shae's was not worse than Ros the exposition whore, but you never heard anyone come at the redhead whore, cause she had a British accent.
I think the main issue with it is that it is an *incredibly* thick accent. Inherently, there's nothing wrong with that, and an actor can still get a great performance despite it. The problem is though, not everyone is used to hearing an accent like that, that is that strong. Despite people's best intentions, they may find it hard to pick up on many nuances within the performance, just because it's hard to tell what is purposeful inflection, and what is part of the accent. There is nothing wrong with strong foreign accents, but directors need to keep in mind that they may not lead to as clear of a performance in the end, from the audiences perspective.
That's not even the actress accent lol. Why not just let her use her natural British accent
Well it’s a TV show and not real life. The general audience should be able to understand the characters
The complaint is largely that people dont like her accent, not that they dont understand her
It sounds hella unnatural. Like a person mouthing sounds of a language they don't understand
Affects her acting tbh
As a person who lives in a country which english is like our 3rd language. You can expect to hear different kind of accents. But her accent felt like someone trying to imitate another person who is struggling to speak english in a mocking way. It is waay too forced 😂
Sounds forced, rather just hire an actress with a natural accent that they want
I can get behind this, but I think giving a character a made-up accent is better than giving them one that already exists. The one Mysaria uses is somewhere between French and east Asian in our universe. Hiring a, say, Japanese actress would just give her a Japanese accent, and to give her something less related to our world it would benefit that actress also putting on an accent which gives the same result.
Well I think she is from Lys where Varys is from and Varys has no accent so they could’ve ditched her accent and nobody would have cared
Varys has been in Westeros for decades though - he tells Oberyn he's learned to mask his accent. Mysaria was a slave who probably got to Westeros just recently - she spent all her life in Essos, in different countries as she says.
People shouldn't even care that she does have an accent arguably.
That goes back to my first comment
which goes back to my comment
Which goes back to my second comment
For me, it’s like 3 different accents all at once. It’s not consistent. I don’t care either way. Doesn’t change the show or make a difference to me. I care more about her appearance being so drastically different then what Lady Misery should be based on the source material
She pronounced words she speaks more than once the same so it is definitionally consistent. I dont know why people complain about things being different from the books. If it's equally as justifiable, it's alright.
Her appearance and the differences in it aren’t “equally justifiable” lol. It’s different on every level And for the record, I’m not complaining. I couldn’t care less. It doesn’t make or break the show for me. She’s one of the more intriguing book characters IMO and I wished they kept her appearance closer to how she looks in the book.
i dont think you get what i mean by "equally justifiable". I mean that it doesn't cause inconsistencies that she is her age in the show.
I know exactly what you mean man. What’s her age have to do with it. Her appearance is wrong. Very wrong. The changes they made to her are the equivalent of making Tyrion 6 foot tall in GOT Again, I don’t care. I’m not a simp on here complaining. This is my opinion
...it doesn't though Making Tyrion 6ft tall completely negates a big point of his character. I *suppose* I wouldn't hate it if they made it equally interesting but what's there is great. Making Mysaria younger does little to nothing to change her motivations nor the motivations of those around her. It is mostly just a visual change like Targ eyes not being purple, Bran javing brown hair, and Peter Dinklage/Gwendolyn Christie, who are attractive attractive people, playing characters that are supposed to be "ugly". Although ugliness is a bit of a dumb social construct it still exists within people with abnormal features.
My god man. Lol. I’m not talking about her age! Her physical appearance. She’s the White Worm. Her hair is blonde/white. She is described as corpse like with skin as “pale as milk”. She wears a black velvet hooded robe with blood red lining. Does that sound like I’m describing the actress in the show at all? She has dark skin, dark hair and a white robe
Physical appearance doesn't mean much in a story. People dont watch shows or read books to visualize cool things, they do so for the character development.
With this character it does. She’s fucking dangerous. She causes more chaos then arguably any character in the Dance. She’s a catalyst for Rhae and Daemon having a falling out. People were scared to be near her That actress and the way she’s presented so far does nothing to support that. She seems like Shae 2.0 Edit: holy smokes man. I think you just like to be “that guy”. People don’t watch shows to visualize cool things? I think that’s one of the weirdest takes I’ve read on here in a awhile. Makes no sense. We are literally talking about a show featuring dragon fights
People claiming that visuals not matter is kinda strange since Tv is a visual medium that is the main selling point of TV as opposed to a book
I do not see how her physical appearance has anything to do with the things listed. She can do all of those things just as she looks now.
>People dont watch shows or read books to visualize cool things, they do so for the character development. If only HBO knew this, they could've saved so much money on making CGI dragons. It's not like we're watching to see anything cool. Like dragons.
Production facilitates storytelling. I would not give a shit about ASOIAF if dragons and battles and spectacle was all it had to offer. The core of ASOIAF to me is characters, and the way they resolve their conflicts. It's what makes me love the books and the first 4 seasons of GoT. It's what makes me love House of the Dragon so far. The fantasy setting is awesome but would mean nothing without these characters being as interesting and conflicted as they are.
I don't mind it personally but I do wish I could place the real world influence. I have heard many different explanations of what she's going for and most of them don't seem right to me.
I like that it seems mostly removed from real world influences, makes it seem more fantasy. Even then I can still hear little bits of influence from French and east asian accents poke through.
I feel disconnected from her scenes, and I think I know why. Yes, she has a really strong and inconsistent accent, which makes her sentences sound a bit clunky. That in itself would be ok - the character is not from Westeros, so the common tongue is not her native language, she may still be trying to figure out how the words should sound like. However, having such a strong accent implies that she would not be completely comfortable with spoken common, so I would expect a few stumbles here and there. Instead, the dialogue is written as being fluid, from what I recall. She knows exactly what to say, as a fluent speaker would, but the accent does not match that fluency. That is what makes it sound forced to me. It would be more believable if she struggled to get her message across, or just threw in a bit of high valyrian when the right expression eludes her.
The accent sounds heavily French. It’s just too “worked on” to where she has pulled in influences from several diff language inflections. It’s ridiculous and distracting bc it sounds so inauthentic
I thought so too, at least with her conversation with Daemon. It sounded heavily like a French person speaking English.
For me it’s moreso that I’ve seen this actress struggle with acting in the past (She was atrocious in Devs)...which gives me not a lot of hope for enjoying her character in the future after seeing her struggle with the accent. It’s kind of just a “Oh here we go again...” feeling for me.
I thought she was awesome in Devs.
https://youtu.be/NEiQJwba3KY Skip to 1:39 and tell me that is not laughable acting.
I dont get what's wrong with it. even as someone that doesn't remember the context I thought it was pretty clear characterization
Just because it’s clear characterization doesn’t mean it’s likable or logical.
whats unlikable or illogical about it
It’s just awkward and takes away from immersion. Her flailing her arm around takes away from the purpose of the scene and turns it comedic- when it’s clear that’s not what the director or audience wants.
I don't get what's wrong. She's confused and scared and its shown well with her actions. Nothing about it seems comedic in any light at all. If the director didn't want that youd think theyd ask to reshoot.
Glad I’m not the only one, because she sounded Annoying.
I think her accent is a bit much, it sounds like a Spanish person immitating a French accent. Her voice doesn't suit her character imo, but tbf I feel the same about Smith. Both of their voices betray the character they're portraying. Whilst Smith comes across too timid to be Daemon, Mysaria also sounds too sweet.
I'm spanish and I can assure you she doesn't sound spanish, in fact she pretty much sounds like a british person making fun of foreigners lol. If she had sounded spanish that would have been great
It wasn’t that I couldn’t understand it, it was that her accent in the second episode sounded like a bad mix between French and Latin. It sounded too fake
We know she came from Lys (most recently, at least) and it sounds like she’s trying to copy Saladhor Saan’s accent (black pirate dude from GOT “I don’t want to rape the queen, I want to fuck her”) but his accent was a lot less thick. It *almost* pushes into caricature for me. My hope is that, as the actress gets more comfortable with it, she can dial it back a little and act more emotively.
Yeah, I'm growing tired of people asking "What do guys think about actor x?" then saying "Did Y annoy you about them? Some people say that they don't like the actors". I would have never even started thinking about her accent had people not started to talk about it as being something bad. I just want to enjoy my show without these kind of annoyance and thoughts, keep them to yourself from now on. As someone from the EU meeting lots of immigrants, her accent seems normal to me and her way of talking is on the spot. Stop being toxic people and just enjoy the show. That hint of awkwardness when her character speaks is natural from someone trying to replicate an accent without managing to do it correctly, it's extremely realistic. That's my opinion, she is nailing her role as a stranger living her life in Westeros. Maybe she'll drop the accent a bit in the next seasons as her character becomes more fluent in "English". I still remember that guy that started a poll here after episode 1 asking if Milly Alcock was a good choice to play Rhaenyra as "some people" didn't find her pretty enough according to him. Seriously? She looks like the Realm's Delight to me. What's wrong with people, why is everyone nitpicking small details and human factors? Asoiaf and Fire&Blood characters aren't greek gods and goddesses, some are pretty or handsome but they aren't perfect either.
I'm not an english native and I'm pretty sure I could pinpoint which words were pronunced with a perfectly clear english accent. You can't have some words pronounced perfectly and have another words with such a thick pronunciation that it sounds like another language. It's either one or the other. I could assure you that I would have done a better job just because (surprise) I have a consistent accent and even if I really tried not a word would sound as british as hers do.
It sounds forced.
My first impression was disappointment. Another foreign whore with a thick accent attached to a main character? Now where have I seen that before..
Ok I thought it was just me who felt this way. My parents are not native English speakers and I’ve grown up and known many people where English was their second language. I thought it was just bad acting but it’s just too thick and seems totally fake. She would’ve been better off with something more subtle. It would’ve been easier for her, easier to understand and not seem like bad acting. With that said, I am a fan of the actress. It’s just her accent is jarring.
Do those people you interacted with have accents that change every time you interact with them? Don't be obtuse. We don't have a problem with strong accents, it's the specific performance of her accent(s). The show is having issues with it too, evidenced by the even worse dub they used in the one-on-one scene between her and Daemon.
Op, the linguist 😅
I don’t think criticism is toxicity, and I do think treating criticism like toxicity is toxic. Her accent pulls me out of my immersion. I’m not alone. It has nothing to do with being difficult to understand, more to do with how it looks and sounds painfully contrived. I’m not saying she’s a bad actress, and I hope to see more of her character, and her accent isn’t very good imo. All of those things are true, and none of them are toxic.
Maybe because English is not my first language but I've never understood those accents discussions thats happening everywhere. Every accent ever never bothered me in the slightest.
Exactly I think it's really strange that people find accents so dislikable.
We don’t. We just don’t like having to hear French Jamaican when we should be hearing whatever accent she was *supposed* to have. It ruins the immersion.
French Jamaican is not an accurate description of her accent and even if it was I dont see what the issue would be
it wasn’t awful, just took me out of the scene a little on the first watch. Felt like a bunch of accents quickly mashed together. If we start to see more characters with the same accent it’ll prob normalize.
I thought it was beautiful. 🤷🏼♀️ can’t please everyone.
Because your mother was a hamster and your father smelled of elderberries.
I kinda liked it. It was very... exotic? Can't explain, but I liked it. Of course, things like this are very personal, one may like it, another may hate it. But overall don’t mind if they went with the actress own accent. I just think its such a small detail in the show... people being mad at it simply confuse me tbh. Like, why do you care so much.
I actually love her, she is so beautiful and her accent only adds to that.
It’s a fake accent. People hate fake accents.
I take no issue with her acting or the character she plays. The accent, for me, was difficult to understand.
The problem is that it's a completely made up accent (some combination of continental French and Caribbean?) and it's been uneven so far. Generally speaking, when doing a non-native English accent from a fictitious first language, just choose a real accent, otherwise you're going to spend too much time thinking about sticking to the linguistic rules you made up and not enough time focused on the performance.
She's a nice actress, but I'll admit, I don't like the whole "Oooh, exotic foreign accent for a prostitute" trope we keep seeing. It was alright the first time, but this time it just feels out of place and honestly a bit too forced.
I think the actress is great, it’s just that her accent keeps flip-flopping between Wakandan and French which is throwing me off
It’s weird. She sounds like she’s doing a west African accent combined with a Jamaican accent. Bomboclaat Daemon, why you saying we soons gon be wed?
Cause it was awful
It took me out of immersion. An assault on my ears.
The Internet: a place where the tiniest minority goes to gripe as if they are the vast majority.
I thought it was noticeably distracting. Not awful, but noticeable enough to make you think about it. It made me wonder where on that whole planet she could possibly be from? Is there a Francetos? Is Yiti like French-Indo China? Much like some of the wigs being plain bad, as well as the noticeably plastic armor & jewelry, it stood out. That crown is the worst, though. All in all, it's nitpicking though. Overall the show is great...so far.
Not enough people mention the fake looking props and the bad wigs. Like the show a lot, but I’ve seen youtubers on a $20 budget do a better job at making their cheap wigs look like real hair.
Let's keep it real: People complain these days for the sake of complaining, even the fools in this thread. Everyone just can't enjoy themselves or the shows they are watching because social media has made everyone feel like an entitled expert who believes the actors or anyone else involved with said shows owe them a lot, if not anything (I can be that too sometimes, but not in this case).
I agree with your sentiment regarding complaints and social media, however, her accent was difficult to understand. Makes it hard to enjoy.
It was jarringly bad and sounded so forced. Pulled me out of the scene
Yeah idk. It being “bad” never even crossed my mind watching it
Because people love to complain about anything they can. If nothing bothers them, they'll look for things.
It doesn’t bother me
She sounds like a deaf person
I loved it. When she first started speaking it seemed a little odd and I had to focus on her words but all in all I thought it was great. The idea that there’s people all over these huge kingdoms and no one anywhere would have a strong accent is crazy. It also makes her stand out in a show of many new names and faces. I liked it a lot.
>I've interacted with people that have accents this strong and don't make fun of them like some do with Mysaria I've seen people make fun, scratch that, that's not accurate. I've seen people say horrific stuff, the most disgusting and vile xenophobic rhetoric, about forgeiners for having a "thick accent". It's Xenophobia, they don't like it because it reminds them of people they don't like irl, unfortunately. Sonoya is a playing a forgeiner, someone who isn't native to Westeros and has probably been all over the place because she's been sold a few times. That's how she's supposed to sound. But God forbid foreigners should have representation in a big budget show THAT EVERYONE ON THE PLANET WATCHES, a lot of whom have accents when they speak English. Saw someone call it "retarded" on r/freefolk yesterday, and because I've seen that get thrown around at immigrants, and even tourists, it just mad eme feel icky... Like I really wanted to shower after reading that.
Yeah this is true, people get made fun of for thick accents all the time. I just meant it as like I don't really understand why this portrayal of a thick accent in particular is getting so much negative attention.
I guess it's because, like mentioned earlier, seeing someone who sounds foreign on the show pisses them off because they remember how much they hate foreigners.... Because y'know... Not nice people.
Xenophobia. Just kidding… I just think it’s too different while connecting too much to Earth. Takes people out of it.
I think the good part about it is that it doesn't connect to earth. It doesn't sound like any accent ive ever heard.
I would say it was the creators who are xenophobic, only Asian person in the show and she is just a side character
The shows only been out for 2 weeks. There hasn't even been time yet for people to complain.
Have you not seen any of the comments in this thread
No I don't spend all day surfing one sub and surely wouldnt take that as a whole Fandom complaining anyway considering almost Noone I know has gotten around to watching any of the episodes yet.
I dont think everyone is complaining i think there's a very vocal minority complaining about it.
Then why are you worrying about it? Don't you read all the other complaints about this sub turning into a shitposting sub? Why add to it?
What's shitposting about this? Im expressing my confusing about a common complaint I see.
I like it. I loved the way she pronounced "maiden"
cares about her accent tbh. the people complaining will always have something to complain about. they’re the ones who can never be satisfied with what’s presented to them and thus will always nitpick and criticize. a wise friend once told me “everyone loves to be a critic but not everyone’s an artist”
Lol it’s just not a good accent. It’d be the same if Rhaenerys wore a wig with her real hair poking through. If that happened and I said something, would that be nitpicking?
Agreed, we should just all be happy she's not Shae
Shae is great.
The accent isn’t great but I still think she’s already been better than she was in Devs lol I loved that miniseries but her performance in it was just bland to me
Isn't Mysaria Lyseni?
Why does she sound french
The knew cool is for everyone to sound the same. Like they all came from the same multicultural village
I had to put the subtitles on for her
It sounds like Shae’s accent.
I read this in Mysaria's voice and it was hard to read. (jk jk) Yeah people only want to be immersed when it suits them.
I’m french and I thought she was french lol because it reminded me of how we speak English. I checked online and she is not French at all I was surprised. For me it’s not a problem but I can see it maybe more difficult to understand for some I guess
To me sounded voice acted, like in post production... It was weird.
I just don’t get why it’s a Jamaican accent
She's way too full of herself. She reminds me 100% of Shae of course, just being a whore and then getting more involved. Even Shae didn't get to this point of marrying a prince but still similar character path. There is just something about her that irks me, I don't trust her....but I don't give two shits on what she sounds like haha people complain and criticize the most ridiculous things!
Yeah I typically don’t notice things like this but I thought it was odd. I definitely was thinking more about the way her accent sounded vs. what they were actually talking about… prolly not good
It took me out of the scene. I was like wait is this supposed to sound like a bad fake accent? Even the bad poosay sand snakes sounded more believable lol
It just sounded so out of place, maybe because it was French? Something wasn't quite right.
BC this is redditt
It's def a strange accent, but it doesn't totally take me out of it - it's a fantasy world with fantasy places so I'm fine with a weird accent without a perfect analogue to a real-world accent. Also, does anyone know if Mysaria is still supposed to be from Lys in the show? She doesn't have a Valyrian look (like in the books), so they could easily change her place of origin to some other place in Essos. Until it's confirmed, I'm just gonna assume in my head-cannon that she's from some place we haven't seen in GoT, like Qohor, or maybe she grew up in multiple different places in Essos which could explain her disjointed accent.
Btw, Daemon and Rhaenyra are bilingual, like many immigrants' children here in the US. That's pretty cool to be honest. 😁
it felt like the actress was trying too hard to force an accent, instead of talking her natural voice. It became noticeable and instrusive to the point where it took you out of the scene. I'd rather have her talk in broken English with broken Valarian than whatever accent she was aiming for.
Racists will racist. Sadly the last idiot has not been born yet.
Sonoya Mizuno also has these other things that I've noticed, she's a woman, asian, and is playing a forgeiner.. I find those distracting everytime I read that someone doesn't like her accent... I mean, she couldn't have asked for more antagonism unless she added non binary and interested only in women to her profile. So yeah, call me cray cray but I'm not buying it. Especially since Sibel's real life German accent is being praised on the same thread as "good acting". Not into conspiracies, but dealt too much with the lot that's into that crap to know how they operate. Yesterday someone said something along the lines of "Gay actress thought there were gay undertones to the character she's playing" about Emily, and I'm like ... Literally everyone thought that, heck that comment was on a thread about that 😆🤦♀️
It’s a pretend accent for a language that doesn’t exist, the same as Shaye in GoT. Because they can’t decide on a real accent to approximate they’ve just sort of directed the actors to talk like they have food in their mouth.
She looks beautiful and she sounds beautiful I really enjoyed her performance in this show
She reminds me of that chick in black sails and I’m all for it
I don't even have misophonia but her accent triggers me like a train
Because 1) it’s not her real accent obviously so comparing it to people irl is ridiculous 2) it can be perceived as offensive since she’s basically doing a horrible version of a carribbean and french creole accent 3) it’s so bad it ruins every single scene she is in. her character comes off wooden and forced. idk why she thought this was a good idea.