Gen's accents
May. 6th, 2008 05:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
filkferengi posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
queensthiefRemember in the first book, when Gen tells the Magus how to pronounce the country of Eddis? The Magus is all smug and condescending.
I was just remembering the 3rd book, when Kostis [upon whom be lots of happy emeralds ;)] noticed with shock that he had never noticed the king's accent sounding non-Attolian. Someone like Hugh Laurie can take on another accent and do it wonderfully well [the Gen-House connection is left as an exercise for the students], but even he gets a break now and then. I like being convivial and entertaining friends, but imagine having to be on-stage *all the time*, with a hostile audience, never being able to let down your guard, without anyone to ever relax completely with [he's still afraid of Irene] or even simply "talk right" with. Similar as the cultures are, still, the clothes, foods, smells, accents, are all bound to be different. In fact, judging by homesick friends I've heard living overseas, the more similar the culture, the more jarring the culture shock when they're *not like you*.
All this from the slender thread of one guard's belated realization. The more you pull on it, the more it unravels whole layers of feeling: loneliness, loss, betrayal, hope, etc. But then, good writers are like that. And mwt is undoubtedly a very good writer.
I was just remembering the 3rd book, when Kostis [upon whom be lots of happy emeralds ;)] noticed with shock that he had never noticed the king's accent sounding non-Attolian. Someone like Hugh Laurie can take on another accent and do it wonderfully well [the Gen-House connection is left as an exercise for the students], but even he gets a break now and then. I like being convivial and entertaining friends, but imagine having to be on-stage *all the time*, with a hostile audience, never being able to let down your guard, without anyone to ever relax completely with [he's still afraid of Irene] or even simply "talk right" with. Similar as the cultures are, still, the clothes, foods, smells, accents, are all bound to be different. In fact, judging by homesick friends I've heard living overseas, the more similar the culture, the more jarring the culture shock when they're *not like you*.
All this from the slender thread of one guard's belated realization. The more you pull on it, the more it unravels whole layers of feeling: loneliness, loss, betrayal, hope, etc. But then, good writers are like that. And mwt is undoubtedly a very good writer.
