Translational Liberties: Zihark and his girlfriend

[amielleon]

Not usually my domain, but I was looking through the artbook and the kanji for death caught my eye, so what the hell.

From Zihark/Muarim A:

English	Japanese	My Rough Translation
It...was too much for her. We couldn't be married, and the pressure was too much for her to stay with me. But I've never loved another woman. To this day, I think that I never shall.	そうだな… 結局、添い遂げることは できなかったが……▼ 俺は今でも… 彼女以外の女性を愛したことはない。▼	That's right... In the end, to be married for life was impossible, but... Even now, I... I shall never love another woman.

(Note: The way the conversation is set up is a tiny bit different, which is why the lead-in looks different.)

Originally, I thought the English was a bit odd. Zihark's girlfriend left him based on the pressure? His trauma seemed a little... deeper than that. The Japanese supports are open-ended on the matter, although the tone is quite... fatalistic. Being from Daein, I'd figured she was lynched or something.

Well, thanks to the artbook, I've found out that is pretty much the case.

Picture from the artbook.

シイハーク
義に厚き剣士

デイン生まれの剣士。　ラグズを守るためにラグズ狩
りを行う自警団に潜入した際に、アイクたちと知り合
う。獣牙族の恋人と死に別れており、ラグズに味方す
るのはそのため。デイン＝クリミア戦争終結後は、デ
イン解放軍の一員として戦った。

Normally I'd do it line by line so you can tell where things are roughly, but some of these clauses are kind of ridiculous so I didn't bother. Here, have a paragraph.

Zihark
The Swordsman Burning with Righteousness

A swordsman born in Daein. At the time he infiltrated the laguz-hunting vigilantes to protect the laguz, he became acquainted with Ike's group. Separated from his beast tribe lover by death, for this reason he supports the laguz. After the end of the Daein-Crimea War, he fought as one of the Daein Liberation Army.

So yeah. Zihark's girlfriend? She died.

Given the nature of his angst... probably on a laguz hunt, too.

Comments

[lyndis]

Oh God. Somehow I like him more now.

[raphiael]

Seconded.

. . . I'm a terrible person, yeah.

[(Anonymous)]

To be fair, I think it makes him a more interesting character. The whole, "Oh she couldn't take the pressure!" just made the entire relationship seem false somehow-- like, if she REALLY LOVED YOU THAT MUCH, how could she have left? Therefore her love couldn't have been that big of a deal, because she put it 2nd to the pressure of a general mankind.

(Etc etc. I know love doesn't always conquer all, but in this case, it just felt like she didn't love him enough to put up with the shit thrown their way, like, "I care about you, even love you, but not enough to be shunned by both your people and mine.")

Whereas with her death, it makes not only Zihark's side of things understandable ("it was true love but she died" versus the ol' "woe is me, it was tru wuv but she left me!") but it also makes both him (as a person) more likable, and his motivations more realistic and powerful.

My two cents of course. :B

[lyndis]

...sorry that was me.

[amielleon]

I figured so. It tasted like Manna.

I basically feel the same way, although I always figured this was the case since I'd seen the Japanese version of that support so this wasn't revolutionary for me. :B

[searains.livejournal.com]

That's pretty interesting. And here I was thinking that Zihark was being a whiny little bitch :V jk. But yeah, that definitely puts things into perspective and gives his character a bit more depth.

[sagesoren]

The line should have been about how in the end, they couldn't be together. That way there would have been nothing saying for sure *why*. I never did all the supports between these two and so maybe the whole conversation got changed, but it seems funny that they couldn't have just left it kind of vague if they didn't want to make it really obvious about what happened.

[amielleon]

From Tellius onward, NoA has enjoyed making up little details where the original was vague. (For example, Ike feeding little Soren a sandwich.) Don't ask me why, I just know they do it all over the place.

[sagesoren]

I dunno, I think stuff like that can be cute and appropriate as long as it doesn't actually warp the original writing. In the case of Zihark's girlfriend, though, it definitely changed the original direction and intent of his story and made it seem more shallow, which sucks.

I mean, I know sometimes large portions of the writing have to be changed in localizations in order to make sense to a new audience, but it's not really like this was a culture-barrier problem or a serious play on words.

[amielleon]

Yeah, that's the downside -- most of the time it didn't really matter and it just added a little flavor, but sometimes they misinterpret the original intent and things go wrong.