‘The Haunting of Bly Manor’: Where Did Flora Wingrave’s Accent Go?
Flora Wingrave (Amelie Bea Smith) has a very distinct accent in the Netflix series The Haunting of Bly Manor. Flora’s voice caught many Bly Manor viewers’ attention, leaving some wondering where they had heard Smith before. But by the end of the nine-episode season, Flora’s accent seemed to have disappeared. Fans want to know — what happened to Flora’s accent in The Haunting of Bly Manor?
[SPOILER ALERT: Major spoilers ahead for The Haunting of Bly Manor.]
Amelie Bea Smith is the new voice of Peppa Pig
If you’re a Bly Manor fan who thought Smith sounded familiar, that’s because she’s the latest voice of the beloved children’s cartoon Peppa Pig. Before Smith, the character was voiced by Harley Bird, who took over the role in 2007.
Smith became the voice of Peppa Pig in February 2020. But if you’re not a fan of the series, you may have seen Smith in her other work. She appeared in the British soap opera EastEnders as Daisy.
The woman getting married in ‘The Haunting of Bly Manor’ is a grown Flora Wingrave
The Haunting of Bly Manor opens with a rehearsal dinner. At first, it’s unclear who is getting married, as well as who Carla Gugino is when she sits down to tell a ghost story. By the end of the season, we learn that Gugino is an older version of Bly Manor’s groundskeeper, Jamie, and she is attending an older Flora’s (Christie Burke) wedding.
“You know, it’s funny — I thought you might be making it up just off of that name,” Flora says to Jamie when the story ends. “But then I figured how could you know that? My middle name is Flora.” She cotinues: “I liked your story, but I think you set up on wrong just in the beginning. You said it was a ghost story. It isn’t. It’s a love story.”
“Same thing, I think,” Jamie replied.
Flora goes on to express her worry that her husband will die before she does. “I start getting really, really terrified that he’s going to die before I do — then what am I supposed to do?” she cried. Jamie goes on to give her the sagest advice on the planet, but many fans were hung up on one thing — where was Flora’s unmistakeable accent?
Fans were bothered by Flora losing her accent
Surely the woman getting married had to be a grown Flora. Her identity was unclear at first, but when her wedding guests were revealed to be older versions of others from Bly, including Uncle Henry and Flora’s brother, Miles, it was clear who she was.
“Why did Flora lose her accent as an adult?” one fan asked on Reddit. “That kind of irked me. The actress had like 10 lines, she could’ve faked it. Also, when was it established that Flora was her middle name? That kind of came out of left field.”
Another fan replied with a valid explanation for why Flora might have lost her accent as an adult.
“Most child immigrants adopt an American accent by the time they reach adulthood (I’m one of them),” they wrote. “I know people that came to America at the age of 12/13 and spoke with American accents by college age.”
The most likely explanation for why Burke didn’t use an accent is so she didn’t completely spoil the surprise reveal at the end of The Haunting of Bly Manor.
