sean-colin - Tumblr blog

sean-colin · 8 years ago

Note

gonna need to hear Accent Rant Part II: Featuring** Draco Malfoy (**STARRING)

ACCENT RANT PART II: DRACO MALFOY AND OTHER ASSORTED UPPER CLASS TWITS OF THE YEAR

so you know whenever you watch a film set in England any time between the 1880s and the 1930s there’s always that one posh cock who says something rude and classist and demoralising to The Hero™ while wearing a dinner jacket and everyone TITTERS into their champagne flutes and you know, as you stare murderously at his perfectly parted hair, that he’s going to get his Comeuppance SOMEHOW, even if you have to drag YOURSELF through the celluloid to PUNCH HIM ON HIS ARISTOCRATIC NOSE?

Draco Malfoy sounds like that guy.

just for example: Benedict ‘bite it… you have to bite it’ Cumberbatch in Atonement, Rupert Everett in pretty much anything, Jude Law as Bosie in Wilde, Achievable Goals Please Jeff in Pride, the classically handsome but predictably shitty one in Kingsman: The Secret Service, Colin Firth in the 1995 Pride and Prejudice (some of these examples don’t fit the bill re: horrid rich dude in a movie, but all of them fit the bill re: horrid rich accent in a movie, so whatever, sorry about it, Colin), every single person in The Riot Club, Jason Isaacs in Peter Pan, JASON ISAACS IN HARRY POTTER, which I will bring up again IN A JIFFY, any Conservative politician in any film – not to mention a great swathe of Tory politicians in real life, but ESPECIALLY Boris Johnson.

actually, Boris Johnson is probably the best example, mainly for entertaining Parallel Life reasons (PLUS someone actually wrote him as Draco’s uncle/Minister for Magic in a fic once, which I would have found absolutely hilarious if I hadn’t read it the week after Brexit) – him or David Cameron, though I do like to think that Draco Malfoy is more of an Alarmingly Blond, Deceptively Intelligent Career Politician Cultivates Reputation As Eccentric sort of person than a Fucks Dead Pig Mouths sort of person, but then Boris Johnson is at least partly responsible for Brexit, so which is worse, really?

A N Y W A Y, if Draco Malfoy wasn’t a wizard, he’d have gone to Eton, gone to Oxbridge, and then taken up his father’s seat in the House of Lords because you can fucking bet the Muggle Malfoys would be hereditary peers or whatever. he would have only shown up for the votes on, like, rich people taxes, and spent the rest of his time as a member of the Right Honourable the Lords Spiritual and Temporal of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland fucking about and driving all the Lib Dems absolutely crackers.*

*can I just say right now that my political knowledge is extremely lacking, so if this paragraph reads like gobbledegook that’s because it probs is.

in fact, all the shit I said about Justin Finch-Fletchley’s non-magic AU life? that would be Draco Malfoy’s non-magic AU life, except, unlike Justin, the magical version of Draco Malfoy’s life doesn’t have him ironically located at the bottom of the wizarding and wizard high school hierarchy. Draco Malfoy is the direct wizarding equivalent of Justin Finch-Fletchley’s non-magic AU life. like, canonically. the Malfoys are so rich they don’t work, they have a big, old mansion in Wiltshire, they’re OBSESSED with their own ancestry, and Lucius Malfoy throws money at the government and subsequently has the Minister’s ear despite a) not working at the Ministry, b) having little-to-no background in politics at all, and c) being a pretty much proven baddy.

and, I mean, if Draco Malfoy isn’t the sort of person who would join a prestigious university drinking club whose Join Our Prestigious University Drinking Club hazing involves burning a £50 note in front of a homeless person, then who would? The Bullingdon Club is basically Young Death Eaters Assoc. (for the record, Draco is the one who’d write the tell-all memoir years later when all his old club chums are in positions of power in the government, Theodore Nott would be the one who rattled a dead pig and then became Prime Minister. I would also like to issue an apology for ever implying that Justin Finch-Fletchley would stoop so low as to shag deceased livestock. he seems like a nice enough chap.)

anyway. Draco Malfoy is these levels of posh, is what I’m saying. Eton-Oxbridge-Westminster posh. Monty Python’s Upper Class Twit of the Year posh. ALSO, all of this + unnaturally blond hair = Draco Malfoy is Magic Boris Johnson. (or maybe Lucius Malfoy is Magic Boris Johnson, in which case Voldemort is Nigel Farage and the war is Brexit. I’m living an AU where Harry decided to stay dead and Voldemort won. ha ha.)

so yes, posh voice like Boris Johnson.

which begs the question: in a film series in which a good 90% of the characters speak Received Pronunciation English with a Definitive Upper Class Lilt regardless of how they should sound according to the book or, like, the laws of school catchment areas, WHY does DRACO MALFOY not sound POSH ENOUGH? HOW DID THEY MANAGE TO DROP THE BALL ON THIS??? why does Hermione Granger, muggleborn daughter of – I assume – middle class dentists, sound like the fourth Crawley sister, while Draco ‘my father bought seven state-of-the-art, outrageously expensive broomsticks just so I, a 12-year-old, would be accepted onto my school house team’ Malfoy sounds like he’s hanging out in the food court of the Croydon Ikea?

don’t get me wrong, I love Tom Felton. Young Me was utterly enamoured by the slicked back hair and the smirking, and he will always have a place in my heart for being so delighted by Drarry and taking the Lauren Lopez thing so fantastically and for reblogging that gay wizard app tweet. BUT DRACO MALFOY ISN’T POSH ENOUGH. NONE OF THE YOUNG SLYTHERIN DEATH EATER SPAWN, I.E. FUTURE BULLINGDON CLUB WANKERS, ARE POSH ENOUGH. IT IS INCENSING. (I have theories about why, and by ‘theories’ I mean one single theory which is absolutely correct, to do with accent and class and stereotyping and blah blah not Harry Potter-related things blah.)

at least they managed it for Lucius. Jason Isaac’s intense, hissy poshness gives me LIFE. every time he says anything CUTTING (or what is considered cutting by these PG films) I’m low key like ‘…yesss.’ there’s no way that a snakes-head-cane-concealing-weapon-wielding, ponytailed, hanging-out-at-Downing-Street-whispering-things-to-the-PM-even-though-I’m-independently-wealthy-and-have-no-business-here MOTHERFUCKER would let his ONLY SON AND HEIR sound like anything less than someone who’d been frogmarched to young adulthood by twelve governesses with a silver spoon lodged firmly in every orifice and given elocution lessons from BIRTH. I mean.

the only person – THE ONLY PERSON – in the Slytherin Squad who doesn’t let me down is THE OG PANSY PARKO in Prisoner of Azkaban. she has one line and she absolutely nails it. the upper-class drawl. the tone of utter boredom. the way she makes ‘Draco’ seem like a perfectly natural name the way few of the other characters manage. I can hear it, in my head, clear as a bell, like she’s right here in my room with me. “Does it hurt terribly, Draco?” incredible. living art. give Genevieve Gaunt and her strangely on-point name a fucking Oscar. she is the posh we need to see in Slytherin house! the posh to which all others should aspire!! why wasn’t Genevieve Gaunt and her all-girls-independent-boarding-school-sexy-ambiguously-gay-bully drawl cast as Draco Malfoy?!?!?!

it’s only now that I’ve gotten to the end of this long, Boris Johnson-centric tirade on Draco Malfoy’s poshness that I’ve realised his TRUE Muggle equivalent is Prince Phillip, Duke of Edinburgh: incredibly posh, tactful as a brick, quite racist, which you can blame on upbringing, and someone somewhere will eventually start a religious sect believing he’s a divine being. I mean… it’s obvious. Prince Draco. Draco Malfoybatten. it’s all making SENSE!

for the record: Sirius Black also has this accent. carry on.

#harry potter

2K notes · View notes

sean-colin · 8 years ago

Note

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!!!!!!!!!!

and by ‘the accents of various Harry Potter characters’ I mean the LACK THEREOF and the Overwhelming amount of Posh Wankers in this series. I MEAN. 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 I’m concerned the Midlands are in the South, but I’m going to try to be geographical instead of Northern about this.

SO, for those who can’t tell the difference between various UK accents/didn’t realise there were accents in England other than The Benedict Cumberbatch (which, if you’re 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 I’ve 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).

(I mean, in fairness, this wasn’t 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 Hermione’s from but judging by how her dialogue reads I’m guessing it’s The South, Sirius grew up walking distance from King’s Cross, Godric’s Hollow is in the West Country somewhere, Malfoy Manor is in Wiltshire, and even though the footy team you support doesn’t always indicate where you’re from we’ll 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. that’s 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 they’re 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 Godric’s Hollow) but a) that is a stupid, reaching theory and I seriously doubt it, and b) even if it WAS true, MUGGLEBORNS EXIST! why aren’t 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, Hagrid’s accent reads as Yorkshire. he says ‘summat’! he’s 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 Godric’s Hollow is in the West Country, DUMBLEDORE SHOULD HAVE HAGRID’S ACCENT!!!!! I JUST DIE OVER THE TERRIBLE ACCENT CHOICES FOR THESE FILMS!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WHY WOULD YOU LET MICHAEL ‘I DON’T NEED TO READ THE BOOKS’ GAMBON DO A WEIRD DRUNKEN IRISH LILT WHEN HE COULD HAVE BEEN HAGRIDDING EVERYWHERE!!!!!! (also if Voldemort hadn’t ruined everything and Harry had been raised in Godric’s 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 fookin’ future, innit.

BUT YEAH. ANYWAY.

so if we’re going by the books there’s literally one Scottish person and one Irish person that we know of at Hogwarts (AND one of them is a teacher, AND I don’t think either of them were ever SPECIFICALLY said to have a Scottish/Irish accent). which begs the question: where the fuck is everyone who isn’t 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 THERE’S NO WELSH STUDENTS! WHERE ARE THE WELSH? 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 Mungo’s named after him sounds Welsh, and I’m pretty sure Helga Hufflepuff was from Wales*, SO WHERE ARE THEIR SPROGS AT?

*IIRC aren’t the four founders all from different countries? I’m sure it’s at least implied by the Sorting Hat at one point. like ‘Gryffindor from wild moor’** = Dartmoor, I assume, as Godric’s Hollow is in the West Country = England, Ravenclaw’s from ‘glen’ = Scotland, I’m sure there are glens in other places but SCOTLAND, Hufflepuff is something something valley? again, valleys are everywhere, but whenever someone says ‘valley’ my brain immediately puts on a Daffyd Thomas voice and goes ‘IN THE VALLEEEEYYYSS’ which it certainly doesn’t 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, I’m just REALLY GLAD SLYTHERIN’S IRISH HAHA ÉIRE GO BRÁCH LOSERS

**FOR THE RECORD the HP wiki told me Godric’s Hollow is in the West Country, and that seems very likely as the North of England doesn’t seem to exist in the HP canon, HOWEVER I PERSONALLY choose to believe that the ‘wild moor’ is in fact THE YORKSHIRE MOORS and that Godric Gryffindor, like Tom Marvolo Riddle, is a top lad innit mate.

but back to The Absent Welsh: I like to think that maybe they’ve set up their own school. it’s a weekly boarding. everyone speaks 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. they’re 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 it’s 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 ‘oh darling, you simply must go to the Eton College of magic!!’ meanwhile muggleborn Gary ‘Gazza’ Bloggs from the Wirral is like ‘nah mate I’ll just go t’ t’ local like.’

(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 £37,000 ($48,000) per academic year. if Justin hadn’t 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 can’t even tell any of his posh little mates about it when he goes home to MUMMY for the VAC. to top it all off he’s 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 Ireland’s relationship with The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is so long and arduous that even I, who has an Irish mother, can’t 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 I’m 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 don’t know! why didn’t Harry make better friends with Seamus!!! UNLESS, of course, wizards don’t trifle themselves with Muggle Affairs and didn’t 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 that’s the case, WHY ARE NONE OF ‘EM GOIN’ HOGWARTS??????? WHY IS SEAMUS FINNEGAN THE LONE IRISH DIASPORA AT WIZARD SCHOOL????

I… literally cannot believe how Away from me this has Gotten.

accents. okay.

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 he’ll say ‘one’, and when he’s tired or excited he’s 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 he’s like ‘YESSSS TOP SHELF, BOYS! ABSOLUTELY BANG ON!’ 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 he’s never been to a cotillion and doesn’t sometimes slip and say ‘spiffing’. 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 (it’s 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.

***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.

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!! he’s 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 he’s saying whereas everyone else can just manage to catch ‘Slytherin’ and ‘cheating’ and ‘10 points’ so they’re just like ‘???!!!!! ! !! ? !!’ also I’m 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.

in conclusion, you could say that I do indeed have feelings about the accents of various Harry Potter characters and I hope you weren’t lying when you said you’d love to hear about it.

#harry potter

11K notes · View notes