Where did Troi get her accent?

[t_smitts]

Clearly, not from her mother, and "Dark Page" seems to indicate not from her father either. So where then?

[Timelord_Victorious]

The same place where they hand out British accents for French captains.

[Takeru]

Deanna spend a lot of time with relatives from the more rural parts of Betazed and picked up their accent, Lwaxana was not amused and ordered Mr.Homn to teach Deanna to speak properly, it didn't work.
Then one day a young and attractive Starfleet officer showed up and thought Deanna's accent was really cute, Lwaxana was relieved because she realized Deanna's speech problem would not hinder her in her man hunting future. It was her who told Deanna to join starfleet to get her off Betazed and into the arms of more men who seemed to think talking like a betazoid hick is cute.

[Dream]

It was the producers ideas to make Troi have that stupid accent since Picard already had his awesome English accent. Obviously the two of them couldn't have the same accent!

Thankfully, Marina Sirtis pretty much stopped doing it later on.

[Deckerd]

She came up with it herself since she wasn't supposed to sound too English. She may have been directed to do it but it was her own invention.

[Lance]

I like to think of it as being an affection she adopted during her studies in counselling, as she might have found that patients reacted better to it. A bit like her non-standard uniforms, really.

Quite why Lwaxana would claim in "Haven" that the accent reminds her of Troi's father, when Ian Andrew clearly doesn't have it when we see him later in "Dark Page", is a more pressing question.

[Holdfast]

She was bullied at her exclusive Betazoid finishing school, so learnt to put on an accent so as to gain an air of untouchable mystique about her.

[Guy Gardener]

Telepaths don't use their ears. They listen with their minds. In all likelihood she should be so lazy about using her ears that she should have an accent similar to a deaf person.

[sonak]

Dream wrote:

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It was the producers ideas to make Troi have that stupid accent since Picard already had his awesome English accent. Obviously the two of them couldn't have the same accent!

Thankfully, Marina Sirtis pretty much stopped doing it later on.

yeah isn't it weird how differently Troi sounds at different points of the show? It's like she's experimenting with how she sounds or something.

[SchwEnt]

It bothers me that in all the latter appearances, Sirtis stopped playing Deanna Troi and just played Marina Sirtis.

Does it bother anyone else?
Or (since Troi was seemingly never too popular) was it an improvement?

[jimbotron]

SchwEnt wrote:

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It bothers me that in all the latter appearances, Sirtis stopped playing Deanna Troi and just played Marina Sirtis.

That's a good way to put it. Did it start in Insurrection? I think she kept the Troi accent in Generations and First Contact.

Can you blame her? Not much effort went into those last two movies across the board.

[Worf'sParmach]

Guy Gardener wrote:

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Telepaths don't use their ears. They listen with their minds. In all likelihood she should be so lazy about using her ears that she should have an accent similar to a deaf person.

That's a good point. One could argue that it wouldn't apply to Troi not being a full telepath, but I could see it with other Betezoids. Wasn't there an episode with some non-verbal telepaths that sounded like that?

[T'Girl]

Lance wrote:

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Quite why Lwaxana would claim in "Haven" that the accent reminds her of Troi's father, when Ian Andrew clearly doesn't have it when we see him later in "Dark Page", is a more pressing question.

Perhaps Lwaxana was trying to tell us all something.

[Nerys Myk]

From her nanny. Lwaxana didn't have the time for hands on parenting.

[mos6507]

SchwEnt wrote:

---

It bothers me that in all the latter appearances, Sirtis stopped playing Deanna Troi and just played Marina Sirtis.

Does it bother anyone else?
Or (since Troi was seemingly never too popular) was it an improvement?

I think this was an improvement. Her original greek-inspired accent sounded like a speech-impediment. It was the biggest problem I had with the character. She's much more charming with her regular UK accent.