Lottie!!! Do you have any feelings about the accents of various Harry Potter characters?? I would love to hear about it bc I for one am very passionate about Sirius Black occasionally sounding EXTREMELY posh and feeling a bit embarrassed about it
I⦠have⦠SO MANY FEELINGS ABOUT THE ACCENTS OF VARIOUS HARRY POTTER CHARACTERS!!!!!!!!!!Ā
and byĀ āthe accents of various Harry Potter charactersā I mean the LACK THEREOF and the Overwhelming amount of Posh Wankers in this series. I MEAN.Ā it winds me up MASSIVELY, and it also opens a can of wooorrrmmmss re: the wizarding population around the British Isles. like⦠We Need To Talk About Wales. caveat: this is all coming from a Northerner, so as far as Iām concerned the Midlands are in the South, but Iām going to try to be geographical instead of Northern about this.
SO, for those who canāt tell the difference between various UK accents/didnāt realise there were accents in England other than The Benedict Cumberbatch (which, if youāre going from these movies, is understandable), let me break down the film accents for you: McGonagall, Cho Chang and Oliver Wood are Scottish, Seamus Finnegan, Mad-Eye Moody and Luna Lovegood are Irish (Evanna Lynch is from the border region so her accent sounds slightly Northern Irish), Neville Longbottom has a Yorkshire accent (Yorkshire is a county in the North of England), Hagrid is from the West Country (which, despite how it sounds, is The South), and literally every other character sounds like they grew up below the Watford Gap. discounting the ones Iāve just mentioned, everyone else is Generic Southern or straight up Good Old Boy RP (Received Pronunciation, which is like standard BBC English that you hear on the telly/out of the gob of pretty much every HP character).Ā
(I mean, in fairness, this wasnāt really a Movie decision. in the books the Midlands and the North are just places the Hogwarts Express has to pass through to get to Scotland. Harry is from Surrey, the Weasleys are from Devon, it never really says where Hermioneās from but judging by how her dialogue reads Iām guessing itās The South, Sirius grew up walking distance from Kingās Cross, Godricās Hollow is in the West Country somewhere, Malfoy Manor is in Wiltshire, and even though the footy team you support doesnāt always indicate where youāre from weāll ignore that in this case and say that Dean Thomas is from Stratford, East London. and those are just the characters I can remember off the top of my head. thatās a lot of southerners. like, Pureblood wizards seem to be mostly very old aristocracy (I remember reading that the Malfoys came over from France with William the Conquerer in 1066), so you could argue that, like, they all had wizard babies in/around the capital and theyāre slowly but surely spreading outwards hence the CLUMP of southern wizards (not to mention they tend to stick together in communities like Ottery St Catchpole and Godricās Hollow) but a) that is a stupid, reaching theory and I seriously doubt it, and b) even if it WAS true, MUGGLEBORNS EXIST! why arenāt there wizards popping up in, like, Liverpool or Salford or Birmingham? why is EVERYONE so goddamn WELL-SPOKEN???)
I do think about the accents thing a lot. and I get mad about the movies a lot. I mean, Hagridās accent reads as Yorkshire. he saysĀ āsummatā! heās the most Yorkshire thing ever!! and Dean has a Generic Nice Southern accent, not an East London accent! he should sound like Alfie bloody Moon!!! also, considering Godricās Hollow is in the West Country, DUMBLEDORE SHOULD HAVE HAGRIDāS ACCENT!!!!! I JUST DIE OVER THE TERRIBLE ACCENT CHOICES FOR THESE FILMS!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WHY WOULD YOU LET MICHAELĀ āI DONāT NEED TO READ THE BOOKSā GAMBON DO A WEIRD DRUNKEN IRISH LILT WHEN HE COULD HAVE BEEN HAGRIDDING EVERYWHERE!!!!!! (also if Voldemort hadnāt ruined everything and Harry had been raised in Godricās Hollow he would also have a Hagrid-ish accent. amazing.) AND, according to the HP wiki, Little Hangleton is in the North somewhere, which means Gaunt cottage is in the North somewhere, which means VOLDEMORT IS NORTHERN. LOL. take a moment for that one. let it sink in. Voldemort is my past, present and fookinā future, innit.Ā
so if weāre going by the books thereās literally one Scottish person and one Irish person that we know of at Hogwarts (AND one of them is a teacher, AND I donāt think either of them were ever SPECIFICALLY said to have a Scottish/Irish accent). which begs the question: where the fuck is everyone who isnāt middle class English going to school??? what the hell is going on here???? as far as we know there is one (1) Irish student and this school and no (0) Scottish students. which⦠is wild. especially because the entire Irish quidditch team must have passed through the hallowed halls of Hogwarts in the preceding 10 years, but suddenly: a dearth. AND THEREāS NO WELSH STUDENTS! WHERE ARE THE WELSH?Ā obviously the Holyhead Harpies are a Welsh team, and the common Welsh Green is a Welsh dragon, and Dai Llewellyn who had a ward in St Mungoās named after him sounds Welsh, and Iām pretty sure Helga Hufflepuff was from Wales*, SO WHERE ARE THEIR SPROGS AT?Ā
*IIRC arenāt the four founders all from different countries? Iām sure itās at least implied by the Sorting Hat at one point. likeĀ āGryffindor from wild moorā** = Dartmoor, I assume, as Godricās Hollow is in the West Country = England, Ravenclawās fromĀ āglenā = Scotland, Iām sure there are glens in other places but SCOTLAND, Hufflepuff is something something valley? again, valleys are everywhere, but whenever someone saysĀ āvalleyā my brain immediately puts on a Daffyd Thomas voice and goesĀ āIN THE VALLEEEEYYYSSā which it certainly doesnāt do for any other country, so = Wales, and SLYTHERIN = FEN = Ireland has a shitload of bogs and fens and stuff. plus Slytherin is green, Ireland is the Emerald Isle, Iām just REALLY GLAD SLYTHERINāS IRISH HAHA ĆIRE GO BRĆCH LOSERSĀ
**FOR THE RECORD the HP wiki told me Godricās Hollow is in the West Country, and that seems very likely as the North of England doesnāt seem to exist in the HP canon, HOWEVER I PERSONALLY choose to believe that theĀ āwild moorā is in fact THE YORKSHIRE MOORS and that Godric Gryffindor, like Tom Marvolo Riddle, is a top lad innit mate.Ā
but back to The Absent Welsh: I like to think that maybe theyāve set up their own school. itās a weekly boarding. everyone speaksĀ Cymraeg. all the Irish and Scottish students go there too because they fucking hate the English. it would certainly explain the lack of Scottish, Irish and Welsh students at Hogwarts. theyāre all just getting on with it in Wales somewhere. probably Anglesey. or maybe there are actually wizarding schools that are just normal day schools and Hogwarts is just the famous one because itās a big, old, prestigious boarding school. considering Harry apparently had his name down since birth⦠MAYBE HOGWARTS IS THE ETON COLLEGE OF MAGIC! THIS IS MAKING SO MUCH SENSE!!! all the middle class English lot are like āoh darling, you simply must go to the Eton College of magic!!ā meanwhile muggleborn Gary āGazzaā Bloggs from the Wirral is like ānah mate Iāll just go tā tā local like.ā
(SPEAKING OF ETON COLLEGE, Justin Finch-Fletchley had his name down for it, which is aaaaabsolutely hilarious. Eton is an independent all-boys boarding school which costs roughly Ā£37,000 ($48,000) per academic year. if Justin hadnāt been a surprise wizard he probably would have gone to Eton, gone to Oxford, joined an elite drinking club, burned money in front of homeless people, rattled a dead pig and then become Prime Minister. but instead of doing all of that he has to go to a PUBLIC SCHOOL with negligible rules, very little uniform, girls, AND he canāt even tell any of his posh little mates about it when he goes home to MUMMY for the VAC. to top it all off heās gone from being a Good Old Boy Top Shelf Jolly Hockey Sticks Young Chap on the path to upper class glory and the Houses of Parliament to being a MUGGLEBORN HUFFLEPUFF i.e. the bottom of the Wizarding world/Hogwarts food chain. but never mind, eh, he seems pleased enough. bet he has a CORKING accent, what!)
even though my Average Joe Wizard High School idea is definitely not true, I definitely 100% feel like Ireland should have its own wizarding school. the Republic of Irelandās relationship with The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is so long and arduous that even I, who has an Irish mother, canāt keep it all straight in my head, but basically Ireland is not part of ~the UK~ or ~Great Britain~ even though it is part of the British Isles, so they really need their own school. (tbh Iām low key offending myself by talking about this like they Should have their own school rather than They Have Their Own School, Obviously, but⦠whatever.) THEY ALSO SHOULD HAVE THEIR OWN MINISTRY OF MAGIC! they might have! we just donāt know! why didnāt Harry make better friends with Seamus!!! UNLESS, of course, wizards donāt trifle themselves with Muggle Affairs and didnāt get involved with the Irish revolution and the Troubles etc. (although considering how the Order of the Phoenix being founded/the war really kicking into high gear coincided with the Winter of Discontent/widespread right wing sympathy across the UK⦠I doubt it), and so Irish wizards are still being governed from ~Westminster. but again, if thatās the case, WHY ARE NONE OFĀ āEM GOINā HOGWARTS??????? WHY IS SEAMUS FINNEGAN THE LONE IRISH DIASPORA AT WIZARD SCHOOL????Ā
I⦠literally cannot believe how Away from me this has Gotten.Ā
yes, Sirius Black accidentally being EXTREMELY POSH is something I am very passionate about also. he tries to mask it by being all rebellious and Landaaaannn about everything but fails miserably because every so often heāll sayĀ āoneā, and when heās tired or excited heās just like⦠the Queen on steds. arrived at Hogwarts fluent in French and passable in Latin. knows how to use so many forks. a prank goes right and heās like āYESSSS TOP SHELF, BOYS! ABSOLUTELY BANG ON!ā James is also posh but posh in the rich, big old farmhouse, Barbour jackets and Hunter wellies way, so he gets away with it because heās never been to a cotillion and doesnāt sometimes slip and sayĀ āspiffingā. meanwhile Remus is from the Midlands in my heart (maybe Shropshire)*** and is just very normal and not at all impressed by these posh knobs he has to share a bedroom with. Peter is probably from somewhere with an accent that grates on you after a while, like Birmingham. (no offence @Brummies.) according to the HP wiki (itās teaching me SO MUCH but literally where tf are they getting this info) Snape is from the Midlands, which means that surely Lily is from the Midlands, because they met when they were playing out as kids!!! this Excites Me! also imagining Snape with a Wolverhampton accent is just⦠exquisite.Ā
***I know a lot of people are All About Scottish Remus and while that is second in my heart to Midlands Remus it is certainly In My Heart.Ā
I love and support Neville Longbottom having a Yorkshire accent because I, too, have a Yorkshire accent, and his in the films means SO MUCH TO ME!! heās OUR BOY!!! GO ON, LADDDD!!!!!! etc. I really want Lee Jordan to have a Limmy-esque Glaswegian accent, because IMAGINE him doing the quidditch commentary and just getting more and more incomprehensibly Scottish, and McGonagall keeps yelling at him because she can actually understand what heās saying whereas everyone else can just manage to catch āSlytherinā and ācheatingā and ā10 pointsā so theyāre just like ā???!!!!! ! !! ? !!ā also Iām a big fan of Bristolian Lavender Brown, for no other reason than I just thought of her greeting Ron by saying ALRIGHT MY LUVVER and nearly died.Ā
in conclusion, you could say that I do indeed haveĀ feelings about the accents of various Harry Potter characters and I hope you werenāt lying when you said youād love to hear about it.Ā