Jacob & Nemesis: Speech
Let me just start off by apologizing because I know everyone has asked this question before, but I felt the need to bring it up again for some reason…
Why do Jacob/MIB have modern American accents? They are plainly speaking English to each other in what almost seems like southern California accents! I can’t accept that the writers just got lazy or thought we would be too stupid to understand or that it would be too revealing if they spoke in (maybe Egyptian?) or with a British or Australian accent…The writers obviously have no problem with foreign languages (i.e. Dogen, Jin/Sun, Ilana/Richard…).
Am I correct in assuming that the ship they saw was the Black Rock? That was somewhere in the 1800’s, right? Those accents didn’t exist back then, and neither did their lingo. I’d like to hear everyone’s opinion on why they speak this way.
I believe it was the Black Rock that we saw in that episode. What isn’t always clear to me is what period of time the show is taking place. Maybe they had traveled back in time to “PLAY” with the sailors on the black rock. Maybe that would explain their accents or lack of accents. The one thing I do know is that the writers are only going to give us enough to mis-direct us to keep us guessing.Sometimes I think that they start down a path and decide not to go any further down it and I spend my time trying to figure out something that they would rather I forget and just move on to the current episode.There are so many questions created that I don’t think they have enough time to give all the answers to. Maybe someone with some inside info will write a book and use some of these web sights as a reference to write it and answer all these questions we all have. I sometimes think it’s more interesting reading the fans theories then watching the show. I think that would make a great book.They could call it “Lost and Found”
Thia is an excellent point.
It has always bothered me that the ageless Richard has a neutral American accent instead of something more exotic. For that matter, most of the Hostiles have North American accents, whereas the 815 survivors have had a plethora of different international accents.
Dharma, originating as it does from an American University (Michigan), makes sense. Their recruitment practices might have an American bias.
This was a big question for me too back in June of 1983. I’m joking, but I actually believed (and still believe) that those two speaking English was a hint to us that they are from the future. I’m thinking maybe 30 years into the future. As you mentioned, the dialect is spot on with what we have in today’s society.
However, it WOULD have given a lot away if they were speaking Hebrew or something…..
I agree with Chief that the two are from the future… maybe they got to where they are through some Dharma experiment but originally they’re just a couple guys from Detroit (Jacob is probably from the suburbs).