https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/ac...antagonist-jon-irenicus-has-died-aged-80

Unfortunately, David Warner, an actor who voiced Jon Irenicus in BG2 and Dragospear has passed away at the age of 80.

While I personally grew up with Polish dubbing of BG2, I did an English playthrough of BG2 couple years ago, in part to experience Mr. Warner’s performance in full - he did not disappoint.

He made every game, movie or T.V. show he was in. Baldur's Gate II wouldn't have been the game it is without his voice, and it was great to hear him again in Dragonspear.

Just for today, there are three lights, because we lost one.

Paul Sorvino gone too today…

Well, at least we won’t be getting a modern Star Wars treatment of Baldur’s Gate, resurrecting far more charismatic villains of old to prop up the lacklustre writing of today: Larian’s writers can only dream of creating a character as cool as Jon Irenicus.

Both actors quite ‘young’, in a way. Only touching the early 80s…

RIP indeed.

RIP, legend...

Warner's performance as Jon Irenicus alone is better than the entirety of Larian's attempt.

The only other voice I can think of with a similar gravelly charm to David Warner's was that of Alan Rickman (Severus Snape), who sadly is also no longer with us. I think Frank Welker is still around ("Ho, there wanderer ...") but I don't know if he does voice acting anymore. Voice control is similar to singing; it takes practice and very few people are naturally good at it. I am thankful to have heard so many great ones!

One can point to theatre background as a link - it brings mastery of the voice and familiarity with classic epics that must have helped actors like that (and IanKellen among others) to bring pathos to their performances.

Polish dubbing did something similar - somehow hiring polish theatre A listers for a big chunk of BG2 roles. They even managed to fight through what was at times a rather dodgy translation.

I always played the German version back then. One day I saw the Redux cutscene version with the English original voices on youtube and I was stoked. The German version was just as good, but too much of it is due to Warner's pronunciation, pauses, intonation, etc. He made Jon Irenicus come alive and my favorite villain of all the games I've ever played. RIP David Warner.

Sad, for me the best performance in any game.

NO!!! Damn!!! Shit... this actually makes me tear up a bit..... Rest in peace, David Warner, and... thank you so much. Safe travels. <3