Out of Place Vernacular

[radraccoon]

I've seen multiple people criticize the The Rings of Power series for having characters say "okay." They argue that it's a very modern vernacular (it dates back to the Victorian Era) that destroys any audience immersion. (I suppose they'd feel it more authentic if there were lots of "thees" and "thous" spread about.) Mind you, I've seen these kind of arguments before, usually as a means of sniffing out amateur writers. However this argument always struck me as rather specious. Why should "okay" be so offensive when everything else the characters say is in otherwise modern English (which only dates back about 600 years)? If we're talking fantasy, they're likely not even speaking English, so it's already being translated by the author for the reader's convenience. Why translate to a form of a language that's only existed for 600 years but heaven forbid specific slang words from the last 200 years of it be included (but if everything about characters' sentence structures is distinctly 21st century, that's okay.)
So what do you think? Does "okay" take you out of the story? What other words or phrases cripple your immersion? If, in 20 years, you read a fantasy novel where the harflings (is that legally distinct enough?) say they need to "yeet the Bling of Powah," will you decry it as worthless drivel or accept it as speaking to its time?

 

[SailusGebel]

Okay doesn't take me out of the story while thees and thous do.

 

[Domoviye]

Keep slang out. It dates the story and will throw out the immersion.

OK, is borderline. It sounds too relaxed and easy going in many situations. If the character is formal, or the situation is formal, throwing OK in there sounds off.
In a more relaxed situation or character, it's OK.

 

[georgelee5786]

Well, in the LOTR books and movies, they never used "ok" iirc. Kinda breaks the canon, which is annoying but not what makes RoP bad.

 

[Paul_Tromba]

Well, in the LOTR books and movies, they never used "ok" iirc. Kinda breaks the canon, which is annoying but not what makes RoP bad.

Golf is still canon though. I also enjoy RoP. I am annoyed that they not only stole the Drawvish women's beards but also Elrond's forehead. However, that's my only complaints so far.

 

[Prince_Azmiran_Myrian]

If the show was good, people wouldn't be incensed to nitpick small things. But when something is bad, you just want to pick it apart even more.

 

[georgelee5786]

Golf is still canon though. I also enjoy RoP. I am annoyed that they not only stole the Drawvish women's beards but also Elrond's forehead. However, that's my only complaints so far.

THEY TOOK HIS FOREHEAD? Heresy.

 

[Ilikewaterkusa]

I've seen multiple people criticize the The Rings of Power series for having characters say "okay." They argue that it's a very modern vernacular (it dates back to the Victorian Era) that destroys any audience immersion. (I suppose they'd feel it more authentic if there were lots of "thees" and "thous" spread about.) Mind you, I've seen these kind of arguments before, usually as a means of sniffing out amateur writers. However this argument always struck me as rather specious. Why should "okay" be so offensive when everything else the characters say is in otherwise modern English (which only dates back about 600 years)? If we're talking fantasy, they're likely not even speaking English, so it's already being translated by the author for the reader's convenience. Why translate to a form of a language that's only existed for 600 years but heaven forbid specific slang words from the last 200 years of it be included (but if everything about characters' sentence structures is distinctly 21st century, that's okay.)
So what do you think? Does "okay" take you out of the story? What other words or phrases cripple your immersion? If, in 20 years, you read a fantasy novel where the harflings (is that legally distinct enough?) say they need to "yeet the Bling of Powah," will you decry it as worthless drivel or accept it as speaking to its time?

Rings of the power sucks and is a gross corruption of the original lord of the rings, so it's going to be sussy and suck

 

[MajorKerina]

It bewilders me that they spent $1 billion on the production but only what feels like five bucks of time for the scripts. Music is great visuals are great solid directing but it feels like your early first draft fanfic. It’s pretty much literally Jeff Bezos funding his own fanfic. Although I don’t know if fanfic fits because fanfics tend to be much more respectful and knowledgeable about the source material. The language throughout feels like an CW level fantasy generic show. Even Hercules and Xena felt like they did better on meaningful dialogue. It’s trying to create a spooky involved mystery show about stuff that isn’t really mystery. The funny thing I learned today is it’s gonna take them several years maybe two or three for the second season to be ready. Honestly they should change the show runners between seasons. Kind of blows my mind that the Game of Thrones prequel turned out to be the best conceived out of everything premiering in the last few months.

 

[K5Rakitan]

I can take it or leave it.

 

[TheEldritchGod]

Does "okay" take you out of the story?

Galadriel tanks a POMPEY-LEVEL PYROCLASTIC FLOW to the FACE and the worst that happens is she gets covered in Cheetos Brand Cheese-like Flavor Dust, but you are concerned about the incorrect usage of the modern vernacular in a European Ambient Fantasy Setting?

You got some strange priorities, my friend.

FOR THE RECORD:
When I saw a burning extra crawl across the screen, WHILE WEARING SNEAKERS, that was what RUINED MY EMERSION.

 

[Gryphon]

It's called what happens when people want to act all superior to something they don't like. If someone doesn't like something, then they're more inclined to go out of their way to make overall worthless nitpicks that mean nothing except the fact they can complain some more about something they dislike.

Granted, I've never seen RoP, but saying Okay in a fantasy setting shouldn't really be criticized or praised. It's just a word of confirmation. From what I'm reading from the other replies, it seems that the usage of Okay isn't what's frustrating, more of its just another tacked on piece of criticism towards larger issues within the story. Do I think it's a nitpick? Yes. Should people focus on the overall piece of critique instead of one minor annoyance? Definitely

 

[Southdog]

It's a microcosm of bigger issues the show has. It shows the writers don't care to make the characters sound like they belong in Middle-Earth. If they can't do that, why would you expect them to make a believable Middle-Earth? They can't communicate to the audience that they care about how their characters sound in their own work.

 

[TreeDeMoil]

If the show was good, people wouldn't be incensed to nitpick small things. But when something is bad, you just want to pick it apart even more.

That doesn’t really make sense. If it was as bad as people said there’d be more criticism that wasn’t nitpicky, no? And I’m being generous with the word criticism since most people who seem genuinely to hate ROP just bark about black elves, Galadriel living up to her name Man-Maiden and so forth.
There has been actual criticism but it’s not stuff like: they said okay, or the dwarf woman doesn’t have a beard (they 100% changed that because people would have used it to be transphobic, like they’re using the fact the dwarf is black to be racist.) it’s about pacing, structure, and the story in general. All nitpicking does is make it harder to get any productive criticism done on a work, OKAY?

 

[Prince_Azmiran_Myrian]

That doesn’t really make sense. If it was as bad as people said there’d be more criticism that wasn’t nitpicky, no? And I’m being generous with the word criticism since most people who seem genuinely to hate ROP just bark about black elves, Galadriel living up to her name Man-Maiden and so forth.
There has been actual criticism but it’s not stuff like: they said okay, or the dwarf woman doesn’t have a beard (they 100% changed that because people would have used it to be transphobic, like they’re using the fact the dwarf is black to be racist.) it’s about pacing, structure, and the story in general. All nitpicking does is make it harder to get any productive criticism done on a work, OKAY?

Oh there plenty of real criticisms. Most of the problems come from the intentions of the creators, who don't honor the lore or spirit of LOTR. Fan disservice is a strategy they were using.

Nitpicking is just the icing on the hate cake.

 

[ChrisLensman]

"Okay" dates back to World War II. "OK" is short for "Oberkommandant", the title of a high-ranking German officer, which was why those two letters were found at the end of basically every military document, right before the officer's signature. They were "giving their OK to the orders".
Allied soldiers saw this and eventually adopted it as slang that is still around today.

Putting this into any medieval fantasy setting is only slightly less aggravating than having characters swear on Jesus' name in a world where Jesus never existed.
Putting it into the quintessential fantasy setting is a good argument for why book burning might be justified sometimes.

 

[BenJepheneT]

Galadriel tanks a POMPEY-LEVEL PYROCLASTIC FLOW to the FACE and the worst that happens is she gets covered in Cheetos Brand Cheese-like Flavor Dust, but you are concerned about the incorrect usage of the modern vernacular in a European Ambient Fantasy Setting?

You got some strange priorities, my friend.

FOR THE RECORD:
When I saw a burning extra crawl across the screen, WHILE WEARING SNEAKERS, that was what RUINED MY EMERSION.

gonna come off as a here but I'm willing to volunteer as tribute if someone learns something from this

When establishing a setting/magic system, it's imperative that the readers get comfortable with it as the new norm. This is why writers aim to set up their story's unique traits and quirks as early into the plot as possible so that they can avoid breaking the reader's suspension of disbelief with Deus Ex Machinas or out-of-leftfield introductions of any new elements. This is why when Fullbring was introduced in Bleach, everyone got confused because they essentially just introduced a new system after two major arcs with no prior foreshadowing of its presence.

What ROP did well was establish its magic system right from the get-go. When Galadriel takes a sparkly voodoo cumshot to the face, the viewers don't get taken out because they already know that it's the norm, or at least well within the confines of the series' set magic system/rules.

This is also why whenever you see statements that sound like "you're watching a series with [fantasical/outlandish shounen elements] and you're complaining about [subject matter]???", it's always surely written as a counter-argument or as a response to a piece of criticism, regardless of the original criticism's merits, because though it ignores the fundamental aspect of fiction, it also makes for a funny haha gotcha moment that diminishes OP's points without actually engaging with it.

For the record, yes, you can totally call out ill-fitting modern vernacular in fantasy settings.

Imagine watching a dramatic execution scene and the King just out of nowhere declares "chop that cringe ass prisoner's head, he's jizzing on my vibes ong frfr".

Actually, scratch that. I'd totally pay to watch that.

 

[ThanksALot]

It has cringe metaphors and then you hear okay all of a sudden.
Even if it wasn't Lord of the rings, the way they speak makes it feel out of place.

P.S.
Man, where did the 1 billion go?
The armors are so trash. I guess it looks pretty in some shots, but the concept arts were so much better.
I'm betting the production team pocketed some of it.

 

[AliceShiki]

"Okay" is not a word that makes me think of modern vernacular... Like, yeah, sure, I heard now that it's a modern word, but I certainly didn't know about it until I read this thread. This is not a problem.

What would be a problem, would be if someone said something that actively referenced modern constructs. Something you'd easily identify as being a modern reference in a setting where it doesn't make sense.

Like, if someone said, "Come on, this is not rocket science", then we'd have a problem.
Or if someone said, "Jesus Christ!" as an exclamation. Definitely a problem too.
Or if someone suddenly took out an iphone in the middle of the medi-fantasy setting, like... Yeah, that's totally immersion breaking.

Basically, for as long as something isn't an obvious modern reference, you should be fine. You don't need to worry about something like "okay" being said by people in medi-fantasy settings, because by this point it's just part of our vocabulary and its historical origins have all been forgotten.

It's similar to why nobody minds that they aren't using "thee" and "thou" and are instead using modern language, because... Well, it's a modern show, even if set on a medi-fantasy setting.

 

[Ellen_Dunkel]

I've seen multiple people criticize the The Rings of Power series for having characters say "okay." They argue that it's a very modern vernacular (it dates back to the Victorian Era) that destroys any audience immersion. (I suppose they'd feel it more authentic if there were lots of "thees" and "thous" spread about.) Mind you, I've seen these kind of arguments before, usually as a means of sniffing out amateur writers. However this argument always struck me as rather specious. Why should "okay" be so offensive when everything else the characters say is in otherwise modern English (which only dates back about 600 years)? If we're talking fantasy, they're likely not even speaking English, so it's already being translated by the author for the reader's convenience. Why translate to a form of a language that's only existed for 600 years but heaven forbid specific slang words from the last 200 years of it be included (but if everything about characters' sentence structures is distinctly 21st century, that's okay.)
So what do you think? Does "okay" take you out of the story? What other words or phrases cripple your immersion? If, in 20 years, you read a fantasy novel where the harflings (is that legally distinct enough?) say they need to "yeet the Bling of Powah," will you decry it as worthless drivel or accept it as speaking to its time?

A fantasy story that refuses to use modern words because they don't sound history-ish enough is doing itself a disservice imo. Sometimes you want old and archaic language ofc but you shouldn't keep that up the entire series unless you're going for a very specific style, because it really limits the ways your characters can express things