My Problem with Britannia

[torque2100.livejournal.com]

I have been a fan of this show since it first started airing.  However, something always bothered me about the Britannians.  They never felt sufficiently British to me.  I mean, no pubs, no pints, no bangers and mash or shepherd's  pie. Not once do you hear the characters say "bloody," "bugger," "Blighty," or "zed." I am an American but I do enjoy BBC comedies and Doctor Who.  I don't claim to be an expert on British culture but a lot of things in Code Geass just felt a bit off.   For starters, why were the stalls at the Ashford festival selling hamburgers and soda pop and not hot cider and scotch eggs or lamb kebabs?  I know the target audience probably has no idea what those things are, but would it hurt the writers or art directors to do a little research?  While we're on the subject of Ashford academy, the teachers were WAYYY too nice.  Teachers at British boarding schools are notorious for being snarky, jaded and cruel.

Furthermore, the Britannian empire is all wrong.  I can accept that they fought off the Romans and have an Emperor instead of a King, but why isn't India part of the Britannian empire?  India was always the Jewel in the British empire's crown.  India was the one conquest that Great Britain was most proud of and seeing a parallel universe British empire without India is kind of jarring.  Furthermore, some humorous references to ridiculously inefficient bureaucracy would have upped the Britishness factor a lot.

Adding to my distress is the english dub.  Not only is it  one the most atrocious pieces of voice work I have ever heard, there is not a single accent to be heard. It even makes sense for the western release.  To American ears, anything said with a British accent automatically sounds intelligent and sophisticated.  I mean, imagine how much cooler the line "destroy shujinko ghetto, leave no one alive." would have sounded said in a classy uppercrust accent.

I suppose you can argue that the target audience for this show wouldn't know any of this, but that's no reason not to include it.  It would have helped to give Britannia a unique feel.   As it  is they seem too much like a generic Zeon clone.

Rant over.

Comments

[michanu.livejournal.com]

Your lj-cut's not working ;_;

[torque2100.livejournal.com]

Fixed. That's the last time I try to use the html code in the rich text editor. :p

[tatooine.livejournal.com]

Britannia is America.

And your LJ cut is broken.

[torque2100.livejournal.com]

Yeah, except that they are BRITannia not AMERICANnnia. They obviously wanted to maintain the old traditions from the motherland or they wouldn't have kept the union jack on their flag.

[tatooine.livejournal.com]

It was called Britannia before the queen came over, ie Dutchy of Britannia. Not a culture-retaining choice.

Go read Frederick Marks's Independence on Trial. Focus on the part that describes a divergence in culture on either side of the Atlantic circa 1787. Then find a good history of impressment. By the early 1800's, American linguistics had diverged sufficiently from British accents that the royal navy picked out naval deserters (or new British immigrants to America) by the way they spoke.

[zerorevenge.livejournal.com]

http://zerorevenge.livejournal.com/664888.html

The entire History of Brtiannia is there on my LJ. I'm not going to C&P it since it'd be like 3 or 4 LJ replies.

Crazythorn is right though, it's pretty much America. If you read the post, you'll see why the British fled their Isle and moved into America (which was still a British Colony)

[stigmatize.livejournal.com]

maintaining old traditions=! everyone speaking with an upper crust British accent, throwing around words like 'bloody' and 'snogging', or eating fish and chips all the time.

[icki-akki.livejournal.com]

Uh, someone else noted that it actually started in America as opposed tp Europe. I'm going to say that this means that Britannia is actually America.

[icki-akki.livejournal.com]

Wah, typo! Ew. >.> Sorry about that.

[fox-holland.livejournal.com]

No, it started in Britain.

[icki-akki.livejournal.com]

?

Well, I guess I jumped to conclusions, maybe? Is the empire British or American, then? Because I heard from various places that it actually is rooted in America.

[fox-holland.livejournal.com]

It started in Britain when they fought of the Roman incursions, however the British Isles were lost after the Napoleonic Wars. Thus, Britannia moved over to America where it is currently ruled from.

[icki-akki.livejournal.com]

Oh, okay! Thanks for clearing that up.

[victoripenguin.livejournal.com]

It started in a world where America is still a British colony. 'The United States of Japan' basically Zero is George Washington and the Founding Fathers.

[x-reggg.livejournal.com]

zero = george washington is DISTURBING.

[heartlaced.livejournal.com]

Actually, I'm pretty sure Britannia isn't England at all; it's America. I think it was explained in an extra that came with one of the DVDs or something? I'll have to check.

[taurusbombshell.livejournal.com]

Using all those British slang words wouldn't make sense in Japanese. The dub however, would have been much better if they had used an accent.

Is it possible that something happened to India? After all, we know that the empire isn't in England right now either.

[moebot.livejournal.com]

You might want to check your facts on... well, a lot of things.

[fox-holland.livejournal.com]

I think Britannia lost much of it's territories(Africa, India, and Australia) after it's defeat in the Napoleonic Wars.

[torque2100.livejournal.com]

Quite possible. Explains where Lakshata and Viletta came from.

[fox-holland.livejournal.com]

Oh, I thought Villeta looked Hispanic.
Maybe it's just me.

[lisa-patrikevna.livejournal.com]

Viletta is Britannian. She was a part of Purity Faction.

[meomnimi.livejournal.com]

I don't think Australia was lost after its defeat in the Napoleonic wars though...

[paralinguistic.livejournal.com]

OKAY OKAY. Let me, as a British person, point out some of the generalisations you make about us while questioning the authenticity of something else.

1. "Bugger", "bloody", maybe. But "Blighty" is a place. There's no reason for it to be dropped into conversation. At all.

2. Hot cider, scotch eggs and lamb kebabs are all examples of things that are definitely NOT sold on stalls in Britain. We like our hamburgers and fizzy pop as much as the next country. We might call them different things, but they're the same - as an addition, if you're talking about the lamb "doner" kebab, it was an import from the east anyway. Hardly authentically british. If you'd said fish and chips, you might've gotten away with it, we're fond of those.

3. School teachers in boarding schools in Britain? Not so bad. I know a few. They aren't any more or less jaded and cruel than any other teachers I know. I live in a town that situates a rather prestigious boarding school, and I can tell you that much easily.

4. Ridiculously inefficient beaurocracy? ... well, I suppose you have a point for now, but Britain was rather efficient back when it had an Empire. Otherwise, it wouldn't have HAD an empire. Kindly exercise common sense.

5. Not everyone in Britain speaks with an uppercrust accent. Not even all the nobility do.

IN SHORT: it might not be best to generalise a country while complaining it isn't being well represented.

[victoripenguin.livejournal.com]

As a British person if you aren't offended by the representation of Brittan in Code Geass I think this topic is settled.

[hatsumomo.livejournal.com]

THIS COMMENT FTW

[hikaru-han.livejournal.com]

thank you, this is what I was waiting to hear.

[x-reggg.livejournal.com]

*hands you the internet*

fish and chips are love♥

[rainbow-cnxn.livejournal.com]

This exact some topic is, like, 2 posts down in this comm. -_-

[x-reggg.livejournal.com]

seriously? omg -_____-

wait. the whole britannia = america thing?

[epistretes.livejournal.com]

I can't even begin to start telling you how much you're wrong in this post and as an Englishwoman myself, I find it fairly insulting.

[xgraphy.livejournal.com]

This pisses me off.
I'm one for keeping fiction AS FICTION.

Not to mention I've never heard "Blighty" or "zed" used before in my life as a british person.

[tsuyogaru.livejournal.com]

I'm not British but I've known a few British people and the only time I've heard 'zed' was from a South African xD

[victoripenguin.livejournal.com]

Britannia is the Latin word for Brittan (such as Gallia is for Gaul) I take the 'Code Geass' universe to be what the might have been like if the U.S. hadn't beaten England in the American Revolution.

Now even though America speaks English, because of the distance we speak it differently, colonies have their own dialect and accents divergent from the homeland. I think the same principle applies with Area 11, they speak differently because time has passed and they are far, far away from the heart of England.

[snozzlenut.livejournal.com]

I've never been certain either way if Britannia is supposed to be Britain or not, seeing as its fiction i've not cared a great deal, although having the Britannian Knightmares called Glasgow, Gloucester and Sutherland did make me wonder. Any ideas why they are named after places in the UK?
Also, what on earth does zed mean? I don't think I have ever heard anyone say that before :/
As for the stalls, never in my life have I come across a stall sell any of what you have described. We get fast food stalls..crepes..watermelons.. in fact all of our stalls sell foreign food unless its local veg or meat.
I never went to boarding school so I can't comment on that but I really doubt that they're all snarky, jaded and cruel. Kids wouldn't go to private school if that were thi case.

As for the British accent....intelligent and sophisticated? Yeah depends what area you're looking in. My local accent is inbred farmer's We don't be tawking lyk we be pro'er 'telligarnt oooohhh aarrrr. We really don't have the classy accents other's seem to think we have..

[vspirit.livejournal.com]

As for the British accent....intelligent and sophisticated? Yeah depends what area you're looking in. My local accent is inbred farmer's We don't be tawking lyk we be pro'er 'telligarnt oooohhh aarrrr.

*Laughs out loud* That was a delightful read.

[wing-goddessxxx.livejournal.com]

Since this is fiction i didn't think too hard on it... nor cared since it's not real :P

But it is kinda annoying how some people automatically assume and think it's Britain. Over at animenewsnetwork.com a staff reviewer took points off of Code Geass because he kept on comparing it to real life just because of the names such as 'Britannia '.

[hatsumomo.livejournal.com]

To be fair, the name BRITANNIA and the fact that the flag looks similar to the Union Jack and the Knightmares have British place names (Glasgow, Gloucester, Sutherland) plus loooooads of other things make it seem like it is supposed to be based of the British Empire.

[soba-noodlez.livejournal.com]

How about we all get off the topic of Britannia being England or whatever. And think of it as a fictional empire (which it is) and wonder about its fictional origins.

[fox-holland.livejournal.com]

The problem is that it's origins aren't mere fiction.

[x-reggg.livejournal.com]

as much as i would love to agree with this rant in some way or another, i can't.

it's quite hard to compare the current culture of britain with that in the code geass. the world of code geass is much more like a parallel world, not the exact same world. the chance of getting the exact same culture in two completely different/isolated world is negligible. and the status of brittania is very different to that in current britain. for one, an emperor still reigns. and it's pretty much based on warfare.

personally, i think there's a bit of stereotyping :x not all people who are british have to say 'bloody', and not all people who say 'bloody' are british. there's also enough globalization in this world to safely say hamburgers and soft drinks/soda pop are commonplace. and putting pubs/hot cider would be SLIGHTLY inappropriate, since some of the target audience are kids...

the britannian empire is another issue. if they did fight off the romans, would they have went to conquer india? it's not something we would know.

final conclusion: looking into britannia history too deeply will cause confusion. confusion no good to brain :3

[fox-holland.livejournal.com]

It's hard to see the correlation between those two events since the Roman incursion occured about two decades after A.D. started, and India was British territory by the late 18th century.

Not really, history is always a fascinating and interesting subject with few controversies. "Pseudohistory" is all the more the same.

[x-reggg.livejournal.com]

it's confusing for me because i'm not a history student XDD

interesting to read on, hard to argue with :p

[nitaspitas.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure how you can say that history has few controversies, as almost everything recorded in history is from a biased perspective, so it's hard (if not impossible) to determine what is truly "correct" without any controversy.

Unless you're saying that the fact that history is always fascinating and interesting is incontrovertible. In which case, I'd still have to say it depends on the medium in which it is presented. Dry history book = not so interesting. Code Geass pseudohistory = insane, but fun, whether or not it makes sense :D

[fox-holland.livejournal.com]

I agree, bad generalization on my part.

I was just thinking about that in same examples it's rather simple, such as in prospects of war, rebellion, conquest. Side A is planning to invade Side B for these reasons, however Side B is dealing with an invasion from Side C etc cetera. The details of the overview, general information, and required details.

However, when getting down to the personal individualistic level, sources are said exaggerated, bloated, and biased.

[almaviva90.livejournal.com]

Sufficiently British? Britain is a multicultural society - each person with their own distinctive backgrounds and heritage, with the population ranging from English, Irish, Scottish, Indian, Chinese, etc, and I bet that most of them who *do* deem themselves as British will take offence at the crude generalisation of the population.

I'm sure the majority of Britons nowadays don't say "bloody", "blighty", "tally-ho", "pip-pip", etc. in each and every sentence they care to utter (they would probably be deemed as other-worldly creatures if they did actually do so), nor do they resolutely stick to stereotypical British fare of bangers and mash, scones, ale, fish and chips, tea, etc. as if it was the only source of cuisine they have. I'm sure that the effects of globalisation would have certainly been well-advanced by now.

British boarding schools do strike a visual image of harsh school masters with military-like moustaches, long, austere black robes and a cane to boot but such days are seriously long gone...if you want to go on the subject of Oxbridge professors (I've actually had an interview with one for my university application) and then assume that they're of the same sort, think again. They're immensely friendly and of the genuinely helpful, sincere sort...and I've yet to meet a British teacher which conjures up images of harsh Victorian discipline.

Ah, the subject of accents...Britain has been made up of counties and regions for the longest of times, for centuries, even millennia. If you go up into the north, you might hear a great Yorkshire or Northeastern brogue , go to the south, you'll hear softer, gentler accents - while in London, Cockney accents are still around (remember My Fair Lady and the great Michael Caine?). Not everyone has an uppercrust, sophisticated British accent that simply drips with poshness although perhaps some people might wish it were so, but that's just not the case as with every other country in the world.