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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.
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