The Elder Scrolls

[Pale Empress]

I've been playing Reblivion in between other games for the past several weeks and having a good time (never played a mage before in TES4, this is my most fun playthrough ever), but the voice acting for the female redguards is aggressively bad. Whenever I have to interact with those NPCs, I mute the volume. It's laconic, no emoting, meandering, and pretentious in tone. In short, absolute dogshit.

I know they recast some roles in Reblivion and re-recorded dialogue and I haven't played TES4 since the early 10s, so I wasn't sure whether the female redguard lines were OG or not. On further investigation, yes, they are OG. The actress is Gayle Jessup White, one of the "legacy" voice actors for the series since before Wes Johnson, with credits dating back all the way to 1998 for Redguard. Unlike the other legacy actors though, she pretty much retired from the series after Oblivion. She obviously isn't a professional actress, so I was curious as to who she actually was, if not only to better be able to make fun of her.

Turns out she's a literal es-jay-double-yoo who is supposedly descended from Thomas Jefferson and has written a book about that and built a career entirely around how she's black and a descendent of Jefferson, also she's black and how that's fundamental to her identity because of how she's actually black.

Spoiler

in case you weren't aware, she's also black, it's imperative that you realise and recognise this

UESP and all of her "professional" profiles keep her "career" in VA and her "career" in social activism entirely separate. I don't give a shit what her politics are, in general, I just think she's a dogshit VA and endlessly obnoxious, which makes her segue into literal professional identitarian victimhood make even more sense.

Also, Skyblivion is my most hyped title for the year. Deeply interested in their interpretation, and they seem even more confident post Reblivion, which makes me even more interested. Latest dev diary dropped in the past couple days, I don't think they're gonna make the 2025 release date, but they reiterated their intent to release this year.

 

[Prophetic Spirit]

Redguard VA's in Oblivion is decent enough.
idk if the same actress got nuts with the Remaster. I don't touch shit.

Fun Fact: Near all the VA's in Oblivion gave idle voice comments in Morrowind, especially the Nord ones.

 

[Pale Empress]

Fun Fact: Near all the VA's in Oblivion gave idle voice comments in Morrowind, especially the Nord ones.

Yeah, I've had a crush on Linda Carter since 2003 specifically because of her voice acting in Morrowind. Very fundamental to my development.

 

[30+GameOvers]

Turns out she's a literal es-jay-double-yoo who is supposedly descended from Thomas Jefferson and has written a book about that and built a career entirely around how she's black and a descendent of Jefferson, also she's black and how that's fundamental to her identity because of how she's actually black.

She can run from her fate all she wants, but she will be mostly remembered for her voice acting as a generic Bethesda NPC voice actor no matter what.

 

[StacticShock]

Fun Fact: Near all the VA's in Oblivion gave idle voice comments in Morrowind, especially the Nord ones.

i only care about the ones that call me N'Wah.

 

[dustnight]

This talk about voice actors got me curious who voiced the game in other languages and I only just now realized the remaster doesn't even have the German and French voices from the original game Although someone has modded the German voices back in.

 

[Asian tech support]

Also, Skyblivion is my most hyped title for the year. Deeply interested in their interpretation, and they seem even more confident post Reblivion, which makes me even more interested. Latest dev diary dropped in the past couple days, I don't think they're gonna make the 2025 release date, but they reiterated their intent to release this year.

I hope they're emboldened. I get that these games are timeless though as with Reblivion, the point of "why not just play the original" remains evergreen. There's no doubt that if/when Skyblivion graces our computers there will be a redux of the 200 pages of bickering we all rode out a couple of months ago. There are hundreds of thousands if not millions of people who own Skyrim, mod Skyrim, but have never played Oblivion (or Morrowind for that matter) because they think the games are too archaic or dated. Maybe they played Reblivion, maybe they didn't but they certainly would have noticed the interest. Packaging up Oblivion into Skyrim is likely much more palatable than vanilla Oblivion or shelling out for Reblivion.

 

[Übertroon]

I'm just curious to see if Skyblivion is going to do away with gendered clothing and armor like that unreal engine monstrosity

 

[Mr. Racewar1488]

i only care about the ones that call me N'Wah.

 

[Jose Beaner Luna]

I gotta say, Skyrim in japanese VAs actually sounds good.

 

[Mr. Racewar1488]

I gotta say, Skyrim in japanese VAs actually sounds good.

I used a mod years ago that let you have the Japanese VAs with English subtitles so it felt like you were playing an anime. There was a mod I found on a Japanese modding site once that had a meek sounding Japanese woman doing an ASMR version of Paarthurnax's dialogue in Japanese. That was weird.

 

[Jose Beaner Luna]

I used a mod years ago that let you have the Japanese VAs with English subtitles so it felt like you were playing an anime.

Yeah thats the one i used, i was tired of skyrim deadpan delivery of lines and i heard the japanese version was better and for the first time ramdom comenter on the interwebz was indeed right and straight, i even used the blades armor and weapons to fit the mood, i tried other languages and the Russian and French ones arent bad either, i dont know how the fuck bethesda manages to fuck the voice acting in their games so bad every fucking time that the dubs are just superior (except the spanish dub that one is as bad as the english one)

There was a mod I found on a Japanese modding site once that had a meek sounding Japanese woman doing an ASMR version of Paarthurnax's dialogue in Japanese. That was weird.

Ah clasic japan and their bizarre gooning tendencies.

 

[LovisXVI]

i was tired of skyrim deadpan delivery of lines

Vladimir Kulich as Ulfric is pretty good, but as he is an actual actor, it is to be expected.

 

[Pierre D'Olnique]

Whenever I have to interact with those NPCs, I mute the volume. It's laconic, no emoting, meandering, and pretentious in tone. In short, absolute dogshit.

So, 100% true to how real life sheboons are. Doesn't help that every prominent female of that race is just a completely unlikeable cunt.

 

[Spooky Dogwood]

Female redguards have always had particularly bad line delivery. Why they kept her voice in and got rid of the OG male orcs and elves I have no idea.

 

[Spooky Dogwood]

I've spent a little time looking at the difference between VAs in Skyrim and Oblivion, only to realize that outside of Nords the races of Men have no unique voices. They've added significantly more VAs and voice types to the game probably due to criticism Oblivion got, but mixing so many voices between different races makes them less distinct. I started looking into it in the first place because I couldn't for the life of me remember what Redguards sounded like in Skyrim even though I played it recently. I've talked before about how they've toned down the racial dimorphism too much in Skyrim and how you can't really tell what race some characters are at a glance, especially if they have a midtone complexion, but I've never noticed how much the voices blurred together.

 

[Übertroon]

I've spent a little time looking at the difference between VAs in Skyrim and Oblivion, only to realize that outside of Nords the races of Men have no unique voices. They've added significantly more VAs and voice types to the game probably due to criticism Oblivion got, but mixing so many voices between different races makes them less distinct. I started looking into it in the first place because I couldn't for the life of me remember what Redguards sounded like in Skyrim even though I played it recently. I've talked before about how they've toned down the racial dimorphism too much in Skyrim and how you can't really tell what race some characters are at a glance, especially if they have a midtone complexion, but I've never noticed how much the voices blurred together.

I usually tell by their name.
Tertullius Brutus, Imperial.
Erik Volkmar, Nord.
Knobgobler Dumas, Breton.

 

[Spooky Dogwood]

I usually tell by their name.
Tertullius Brutus, Imperial.
Erik Volkmar, Nord.
Knobgobler Dumas, Breton.

That's something you intuitively pick up on if you've played the previous games, but I wonder how familiar people who only ever played Skyrim are with the naming conventions of races that have less representation in the game. And while I don't care to do the research to prove it at the moment, I feel like Skyrim has more characters that only have a nondescript first name and no last name. While I'm complaining about lack of distinct characterization, I also miss how in Oblivion you could ask practically every NPC about themselves and they would tell you about their background and what they do. I should make a sloptube channel with all these idle thoughts I've been having about TES lately.

 

[Problematic User Forever]

Why they kept her voice in and got rid of the OG male orcs and elves I have no idea.

They kept her voice because it was distinct to her race, while Orcs and Nords shared voice actors. Adding voices had nothing to do with performance.

Originally, Wes Johnson was going to voice male Imperials and Bretons in Oblivion. I believe that there's actually a shit ton of voice files left over in the original game of Wes Johnson doing a lot of Breton dialogue, including Jauffres and even Martin Septim.

 

[Sheep King]

I feel like Skyrim has more characters that only have a nondescript first name and no last names

Nords having a lack of surnames is consistent with Oblivion and Morrowind, Nords typically use acquired names rather than family names unless they're from a prominent family, so it makes sense Skyrim has less overall.
Bosmer and the beast races are alien enough cultures that them not having surnames fits, with both Bosmer and Argonians being jungle dwellers with jeet-like populaton growth who probably don't give a shit about ancestry within their own borders and I'd bet money the average Khajit doesn't even know their own father let alone a family tree.
Imperials and Bretons have surnames because of feudalism. Orcs use tribal surnames, and Dunmer also come from a tribal society with a strong focus on ancestor worship which explains them.

The odd ones out imo are Altmer and Redguards; maybe Redguards are few enough to not need them but Altmer seem like they should. Maybe both groups just avoid using their surnames outside of their own borders for convenience.