Bunny STARTED OUT WITH THE ACCENT! Lupe DOESN'T HAVE A SPANISH ACCENT! Your line of thinking in this matter is screwed-up. By your reasoning, we should also be giving Robotnik a Russian accent, because his name sure as hell sounds Russian to me... Tell me that wouldn't screw up Robotnik...
Yeah, but Antoine started out with a French accent, and most viewers found it annoying. I understand that it's not something you're used to, but characters do change as time continues to pass by.
For me, I think a Spanish accent can easily work for Lupe. It not only fits her cultural motif, but gives her an exotic presence (which fits her shamanistic role) and adds some originality as well. Not everyone has to sound like a generic American (no offense). I mean, if characters with Southern, British, and French accents can exist on Mobius, why not Spanish?
As for Russian accents, I actually picture Bark the Polar Bear having one (whenever he decides to speak, that is). Robotnik is a hard one to pick, mostly because we have no clue where he came from, so I'll give him a pass.
Don't forget that Spanish is not a native languege to the Americas. The prevelence of English and Spanish is this reagon is a reult of widespread "culture rape", or "forced assimiliation" as the more PC people like to call it. If you want a character with a Spanish accent, go give it to somone who didn't have a speaking roll, or make up a new character for it. People tend not to like it when someone wants to "fix" something that's not broken. Especially so, when they view the "fixed" version as more fo a basterdization of what was not broken. When the Spanish came to Centeral and South America, they didn't find people speaking Spanish back at them. They found people who had their own languages and who also spoke some tribal languages from the North American tribes that they traded regularly with. Similarly, the Italians found some Muskogee who spoke Mayan, because our tribe and theirs traded rather frequently.
Also, there are a hell of a lot of people named Jesus who are out there speaking with Spanish accents, instead of Middle-Eastern accents. The point there is that it's possible that Lupe has NO sort of Spanish heratage at all, and instead could have simply been named for a friend of the family or something...
There are certain things you can and can't get way with when dealing with characters that people know. Take, for example, the A-Team and Dukes of Hazzard movies. The A-Team movie does slighly alter the cast, but does so in a manner that they're still consistant enough with the incarnations of the TV Show as to not anger the fans. Most of the people of my genration in this area grew up watching the A-Team, and very much enjoy the movie. On the other end of the spectrum, we have the Dukes of Hazzard movie, where they basically just threw out all but the most basic of the characters' natures and re-worked them into what they thought would be a "better" cast of characters. Most Dukes fans boycotted the movie, and for good reason. It became an insult to the fans, the show, and everyone associeted with the show.
The point of that analogy: Just because you -can- alter the true nature of a character, that doesn't mean that you -should-. The "Lupe" that you wish to make is too different from the true Lupe to work. It would be like building a replica General Lee and giving it a Mexican flag and a horn that plays "La Cucaracha"... It can be done, and some Latinos may like it, but I certainly wouldn't stop someone from smashing a 2x4 over your head for having built such an abombination...
Ant is annoying precicely because he's a sniveling steriotypical French cowarard. Still, it would be just as wrong to rob Ant of being a Frenchie, or suddenly make him a French Chuck Norris or something... I think that a few minor tweaks, rather than a complete overhaul would work... Just not lay his accent on quite as thick, and work in some character development to give him enough confidence to be more than just an annoyance. This is similart to my statement of how Lupe could work rather well as a shaman, so long as it's not something you just spring on everyone all of a sudden.
Dulcy is annoying because she seems to be suffering from repeated brain trauma, caused by an inability to land peroperly. Teach her to land properly, or give her a helment and that sould sort itself out...
