The Love Triangle Debate: Another Turn in the Cycle

[Dashell]

Stop shitting yourself man in public man. That's just gross.

uh... what?

 

[Splintered]

Thinking their translations are better than official translations … shitting themselves are they?

it's me being sarcastic, leave me alone it's 4 AM.

EDIT: Can someone get the Japanese text to that line so it can be broken down

 

[Tetsujin]

Also how was the German translation of AC botched?
I never heard that one before

Whoever translated it seemed to take some liberties.

At the end when Aerith says "See? Everything's alright." she'd say "You're gonna make it. Just believe in yourselves."

Which also looks ridiculous because they put way too many words into her mouth compared to the very few lip movements.

Saying that the German translation of OTWTAS should be discounted because of AC is ridiculous of course, considering they likely weren't translated by the same people.

 

[Dashell]

At the end when Aerith says "See? Everything's alright." she'd say "You're gonna make it. Just believe in yourselves."

yourselves? So she was talking to everyone and not just Cloud?

 

[Tetsujin]

yourselves? So she was talking to everyone and not just Cloud?

To everyone, to Cloud and Tifa, I don't know; but she was talking in plural, yes.

 

[Strangelove]

You hear that King of CLoti? That's what you get for claiming you are a god, then trying to make claim by fusing with the lifestream. Or translating things. And now brainwashing.

Stop shitting yourself man in public man. That's just gross.

i have fucking had it up to here with tres

first he takes my place as king of clotis and biased twisted translation, now he tries to show me up by becoming a god

fucking stop this shit tres, it's not big and it's not clever

Therefore, it you want me to believe that what Cloud says is, “What I mean is kind of different” in CoT:Revised, then you’ll have to show it to me in an official English translation from SE.

So basically, it will never happen and she will never believe? Not even the official German translation is good enough.


Real talk: if you can show what the Japanese text is saying, it doesn't matter what translations would say. Japanese fans don't get such a second opinion, outside of supplementary material like Ultimanias (which also don't get translations). Translations have value in that they let people who don't know the language the original was in enjoy something, but translations aren't the definite version. Which is the point being made by that subtitle post. Don't base your entire view on just the translation (fan or official), but look at the original for confirmation.

And unless you're going to go find the 'official' translators and get them to explain things for you, that's probably going to involve fans. ('Fan' simply means just that; they are fans of something. It doesn't say anything about their ability.)

'It doesn't say exactly what is different' is not a translation issue. Each translation that has been given as fitted with the Japanese text. That's a question of how you read the line. Nothing to do with translation. (The context being Cloud replying to Tifa's 'you've always had me/we've always been together', her response to Cloud saying he will succeed because he has Tifa now. How 'the world is a mess now and that's what is different' makes sense with Cloud thinking things will go well this time is a bit of a mystery to me. But this is more a matter of literary criticism/analysis and not translation.)

Translations are a secondary source in the overall hierarchy of things, they are a derivative product based on the primary source (the original text).

If you can take the Japanese text (the one written by the actual writer), show what it says and back that up, what Square Enix US would translate it as (because no one takes more liberties than the publisher themselves) doesn't matter. But to explain that to a wider audience, you need to translate. And if you're just a fan, whelp, it's going to be a 'fan' translation.

Of course, having to write up grammar explanations and such every time you translate something is tedious. How about if you think something is wrong, you point out what is incorrect and why?



Real talk 2: one translation being bad doesn't mean that you discount every other translation (probably not even by the same people). How many terrible English translations of games were there in the past? Should we then dismiss all future English translation, because there were some botched ones previously? (off course not, because english is apparently the only language worth a damn)


But on the subject of people twisting translations to suit their bias, from one of Tres' links:

“Cloud was her [Aerith] friend, her *koibito* (lover in Japanese) - a symbol of what was important to her, and someone to be protected.”

I'm going to focus on the bold part (because I just can't, Japanese words randomly placed in English sentences). Here is the original text:

クラウドは女の友人であり、恋人であり――大切なものの象徴であり、守るべき存在だった。

There is nothing there specifying 'to her'. That is an example of something twisting a translation. Making up something so that the translation sounds a certain way.

 

[skyrise]

wait, to get this straight- a Clerith fan wants an official statement for a simple line that can be translated by whomever knows the art of the japanese language?

woah, i've never seen such a bad case of denial in my time; and let me tell you, i've seen some pretty stupid shiat. aka u jelly and mad? stay jelly and mad.

 

[Roger]

Most of Avalanche has broken up, Seventh Heaven is demolished, they’re no longer chasing Sephiroth, Midgar is demolished, they don’t know what they’re going to do for money, work, food, clothing, etc. There’s a LOT of differences for them to cope with - so you can’t say the ONLY possible difference that Cloud’s referring to is a difference in their relationship.

Midgar and Seventh Heaven weren't Cloud's home nor was he dependent on either for money. He was a mercenary at the beginning of the game. He was still introducing himself to Seventh Heaven's residents during the mission to bomb Mako Reactor 1. Clearly Cloud knew Barret barely longer then Red XIII.



The end of Shinra Corp. and the demolition of Midgar meant a loss of home and job for both Reeve and Barret. And Vincent didn't have anything else either. Cloud had absolutely no reason to stick with Barret anymore then anyone else and could probably go back to doing what he was doing at the start of the game more easily then any of them save Yuffie. If Cloud was talking about a change in their situation, then it would be because a change for Tifa meant an equal change for Cloud.

 

[Ryushikaze]

What's different is the way in which Cloud has Tifa by his side. That's the context of the line. It does not refer to anything else.

Now, we can natter on about HOW Cloud having Tifa by his side is different, but we can't pretend he's talking about the global upheaval of removing Shinra as the primary world player.

 

[Strangelove]

Cloud clearly thinks that now the world is in shambles and its citizens in confusion, they will be easy targets to manipulate and exploit.

This is still the Cloud who lives with Tifa (after he jilted her to be with Aerith in the original game's ending) out of convenience, giving away vouchers for a lifetime's free food so he can get a bike and go around spirit bonding in flower fields and dumping sick children on her doorstep, right? Rival-orphanage-runnin', not-even-Tifa's-friend-in', don't-care-about-nuthin'-but-Aerith-in' Cloud?



There's nothing wrong with the 'different world situation' reading... until you look at the scene as a whole. Then it starts making less sense. Like how focusing on 'I think I can meet her there' and downplaying Tifa's 'let's go meet her' or making it into 'go on alone, I will just sound like I'm going to come as well/I'm just going to invite myself along, while you don't give any imdication you want to go alone and I'm a daft bint who don't get it' makes for a crappy end of the original game.

The interpretation Tres presents of what is different now is just a reading of the line and not something outright stated, but there are some interpretations that are more valid or make more sense than other. Focusing on single lines without the context of the scene is a terrible way to analyse literature.

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

Cloud: "I know my life can succeed this time ... because I have you."
Tifa: "You've always had me."
Cloud: "No, I mean I have somebody to exploit for material goods and whose place I can stay at whenever I'm not looking for a ghost in the flower fields. Ignore that she's supposed to be inside my physical body now so I can see her whenever I want. I still have to go looking for her. And never mind that you don't currently have a place to stay and I'm going to have to help you build it -- when I could just as easily build my own instead if I didn't want to be around you."

What doesn't make sense in context about that?

 

[Kermitu Kleric Katie]

Hey Hey! I have a reply coming up...!!


and don't even deny it, Martha Jones...

I know you want to know what us Clerith's think about your latest analysis.

Good let's hear the reply. Maybe we can actually have some debate in this thread(not counting the inter-website debate Tres is having w/anastar).

 

[T@ctic]

Notice that Squall of SEEDSeeD says that “the context [is] clear that he means in a different way than before”. Once again, that is purely Squall of SEEDSeeD’s opinion, and it clearly shows him distorting facts. Squall of SEEDSeeD THINKS that the context makes it clear, but that’s only his opinion. It’s never stated as fact by SE that this is what Cloud means.

you know, i have always thought in the previous thread you guys were a little too hard on Anastar. dont get me all wrong, she was a terrible debater/arguer (if we can even call it that, i think a better lukewarm word would be "challenges", anyway-) but when you guys threw around the words "liar" "dishonest" i thought you were going a bit too far. but thanks to you, Hawkeye, i have now seen she really is those things.

Spoiler: with all honesty, i really do think this is what she sees when she looks at anything cloti wise, no joke.

i mean seriously. its a strictly personal reason why i dont like clerith, but the couple is ok from an outside view. i mean, its a ship, right? so i dont have a problem with it. but anastar is representing the cleriths, and she is giving it a terrible, horrible, atrocious rep to it and the supporters. its a shame, because her terrible lying challenge in tumblr to some "likes" on it, meaning they believe her falsehoods she KNOWS is wrong.

and you guys used to be friends? thats got to hurt that she has turned and lied on you like this, only spouting "its all opinion".

.....and what makes it opinion? you just cant say "its opinion" and have absolutely no claims to back it up. Hawkeye has no right or time to say "its not my opinion" if you keep streaming BS that it is. that burden if you YOU to provide.

really, she needs to have her neck yanked a hard 360 degree on this lying. its terrible for her and the ship she stands on.

can someone just send this to her? just a short message.

Why are you lying? What is the use from it? What do you gain from this foolishness that has been proven wrong for years? How long will you choose to act like a jerk to your (ex) friends? Don't respond with a huge pile of proof that is a load of BS, and you know it. I'm seriously asking you. Will you please explain this ridiculousness you so thoroughly cling to with your life?

thats pretty much it.

....*sigh* im so mad right now i forgot what else i was going to say oh welz. my nets was out for like 2-3 days which was why i wasnt on here anyway, and then i get greeted by this post that has blatant bias and she doesnt even care, obviously.

i feel like i will keep on saying this as long as im on here: extreme kudos to the LTDers. it a wonder why you guys still argue with people like this out here, and you all havent sephy snapped even in the tiniest.

that is all.

Spoiler

OR IS IT?!

p.s.

Well, this "triangle" always reminds me of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Sure, Li Mu Bai and Yu Shu Lien have a history but it's hard to progress from an awkward intimacy because of how fucked up their history is. Meanwhile Li Mu Bai is stirred by Jen after her mysterious appearance and her abilities, as well as her beauty I'm sure, but it's a dream.

dont forget the scene with Mei and Wind that myseriously took place in grass.

Spoiler

i wonder if they looked the HW scene and added some imagination to it

P.S GREAT BALLS OF FIRE i was talking about H.O.F.D my bad >.< i still saw that movie tho >.<

Spoiler: another spoiler

i thought i was the only one that saw that movie! i loved it! its a classic for sure!

 

[Dashell]

I'm going to focus on the bold part (because I just can't, Japanese words randomly placed in English sentences). Here is the original text:

&#12463;&#12521;&#12454;&#12489;&#12399;&#22899;&#12398;&#21451;&#20154;&#12391;&#12354;&#12426;&#12289;&#24651;&#20154;&#12391;&#12354;&#12426;&#8213;&#8213;&#22823;&#20999;&#12394;&#12418;&#12398;&#12398;&#35937;&#24500;&#12391;&#12354;&#12426;&#12289;&#23432;&#12427;&#12409;&#12365;&#23384;&#22312;&#12384;&#12387;&#12383;&#12290;

There is nothing there specifying 'to her'. That is an example of something twisting a translation. Making up something so that the translation sounds a certain way.

Sorry this was from like a week ago but I didn't really notice it until now but weren't you the one that translated it that way?

 

[Strangelove]

Sorry this was from like a week ago but I didn't really notice it until now but weren't you the one that translated it that way?

So I did, I guess I was the secret Clerith all along Seeing the 'koibito' version threw me off, I assumed this was a version someone had 'corrected' or something. I don't remember if that came up in editing or what now. I've done lots of stuff and this was years ago now. Unless it was something particularly memorable, I don't tend to recall the exact wording

My question then becomes why no one complained about that addition (seeing as that is a supposedly more accurate translation or whatever--what with the 'koibito' being in its rightful place in an English sentence with a handy translation note), but complained about a thousand other things that often didn't require complaint. Why was Tres, et al., accused of twisting thing by removing/adding things, but apparently no one thought to mention this?

but there was a 'koi [nra4ever] bito' right before it, i can see why people would be too distracted

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

Well, this is embarrassing. I just realized I left out a significant portion of the final section of my analysis when I first posted it.

I've now added it:

http://thelifestream.net/reviews-an...ally-an-ltd-analysis/a-stronger-loving-world/

 

[Shademp]

Dude. This bit.

Spoiler

Nomura has said that if people didn&#8217;t react strongly to Aerith&#8217;s death, then it would mean they weren&#8217;t successful with her as a character. Well, it may actually be that they were too successful with her.

Here we have a character whose father was murdered protecting her just twenty days after her birth. A character who spent the first seven years of her life imprisoned in a lab for experimentation. A character whose mother died helping her escape. A character who then grew up in a filthy, crime-ridden slum. Who spent the rest of her life avoiding being taken back by the people who had already taken so much from her. Who fell in love with a man who disappeared without a word while she clung to his memory for five years. Who then met another man very much like him, and fell for him faster and harder than she had the first.

Their friends notice their chemistry. One of them even predicts that they will be married.

And then this character who has gone through so much, who endured all of it with a smile and a willingness to help others &#8212; &#8220;She was smiling to the end&#8221; the man she loves will later note &#8212; she is callously murdered before she gets the opportunity to explore these new, wonderful possibilities. She finally got a shot at something special, only for it to be stolen from her before she could properly experience it.

It&#8217;s unfair. It&#8217;s simply too unfair.

Beatiful. Simply beautiful. *applauds*

 

[Lex]

It's so true too though. I mean in the shortest straw competition of all FF characters, Aerith takes it hands down. What a miserable miserable life she had.

 

[Farron]

> goes into thread

> realize debate is still going on


It's going to 2079, world war 4 the world is in chaos. Most homes and countries are destroyed by the newest dictator ruler, most people are looking for food and shelter to survive, there's a group of people looking for aid, however the driver stops his car and asks them a very important question needed for survival... who does Cloud love ? Tifa or Aerith ?

They answer the wrong question, no... Cloud doesn't love her... your grandchild drives away in tears..... the world has failed you grandfather......... he cries driving away in a reddish sunset....

 

[OneWingedDemon]

What a miserable miserable life she had.

They describe her childhood as poor, but happy. She herself would not call it a miserable, miserable life, nor the worst of all.

 

[Onion Knight]

Comes out from lurking.

Just now I was thinking something, about the question of whether or not Aerith would have ended up with Cloud if she was alive. I see a lot of people who say that it would have definitely happened as though it would have been easy and I admit that for a while I agreed with them. But then I came to a realization, that just maybe I was only thinking that out of a sense of loss, where you are more likely to simply forget or brush aside the things that aren't so pretty. I say this because really looking at the OG now, I'm not too sure Aerith would have ended up with Cloud.

Disk One is a very misleading disc, especially when you're dealing with Cloud, because simply put its not the real Cloud, but rather the person that Cloud wishes to be. Unfortunately Aerith was only present in disc one, meaning that she have never met the real Cloud. Meaning that right off the bat, we've got a problem with her claiming to love Cloud, because she is loving an illusion, and she can't certainly say for sure that she loves the real Cloud, because by her own admission she's never met him.

Okay you say, but if she survived she would have met the real Cloud and she would have fallen for him as well, but then we have to remember the game itself, Aerith would not have been able to meet Cloud until after the Lifestream incident. Which creates the problem, the person that was needed to help Cloud regain himself was Tifa, Aerith had no idea who Cloud really was and therefore she would not have been of any use.

But while watching the let's play videos I remembered something, when Cloud falls into his Vegetable state, the team is forced to leave him behind with Tifa to look after him, and thinking about it I realized that Aerith would most likely not be with him in that scene. Aerith is the last Cetra and by the time we near the end of disc one she takes her duties seriously, that same duty would most likely lead her away from Cloud during this time, the time when he needed someone the most, leaving Cloud with Tifa (who would be needed anyway) to help him regain himself, he would still gain that sense of closeness that he wouldn't have Aerith.

I wondered if things would play out differently if Aerith were with them and then I realized that it would probably be even worse for her. As I said Aerith has never met the real Cloud, so therefore she would not have been of any use in putting Cloud back together again. And considering what Cloud's memories consisted of, I think that it would make her feel really shitty, because finding out that the guy who you fancied yourself in love with, literally created another persona for another woman, who he stills loves, and who returns his feelings. That he has promised to protect this woman, and unlike with you, willingly volunteered to do so, is not going to fill any woman with confidence about her chances of being in a relationship with said dude.

There is also the fact that despite what Aerith claims, she is not over Zack. She still wears the bow he gave her, then you've also got the fact that she is a Cetra there is no way that Aerith doesn't in her heart know that Zack is dead, and yet she is in denial about it. It says a lot that she prefers to think of Zack as alive somewhere living out his life with some other women, that she would rather believe that she was never important to him than admit to herself about his fate. And through this I wonder what it would be like for her to find out without a doubt that Zack is dead, not only that but to also find out how he died.

That piece of knowledge would rip her denial to shreds, if she is even able to believe Cloud confirming to her that yes, Zack has been dead for many years, and before then he was used in inhumane experiments, that's why he couldn't contact you, so no he wasn't cheating on you. The fact that he was trying to get back to Midgard and that he was killed by Shinra before he could get there, that he was trying to return to her. The fact that he really did love her. It would be a another tough pill to swallow, as now she would have to come to terms with her feelings for Zack.

In Cloud's case I gotta wonder how awkward it would be fore him, to find out about Aerith and Zack's past. And the fact that she can't really be there for him, and again this would be the time when he would need the help and support the most.

And that's not even getting into the fact that Aerith would have to learn about the new Cloud, she would have to learn to love him, and in terms of relationship building it would be a major setback, especially since he's also in love with another person, who returns his affections.

We also have to think about it from Cloud's perspective, he would have a choice between a girl who was his best friends love, who isn't over said best friend, who he hasn't really known for very long, and isn't really able to be there for him, but he finds attractive, vs the girl who he's both known and loved for most of his life, who returns his affections, and is able to be there for him when he needs her, and he also finds her attractive. No bullshit if you were guy which girl would choose?

Though what I do know for sure is that the idea of a relationship between Cloud and Aerith would not be as attractive if she had been lived, actually its likely that Aerith's character itself would have not been as attractive if she had not died. The beauty of such and loss and what it represents really stops people from taking a real hard look at her character or her relationship with Cloud, the fact that she is apart of the illusion in disc one is what it makes it worse.

 

[T@ctic]

Spoiler

Well, this is embarrassing. I just realized I left out a significant portion of the final section of my analysis when I first posted it.

I've now added it:

http://thelifestream.net/reviews-an...ally-an-ltd-analysis/a-stronger-loving-world/

Spoiler: I knew ya had it in ya

this is more than funny really. because i was going to re-read the parts i skipped and now i have this brand new page to read. pure awesomeness of your timing, i must say.

soo ill just skip on over to this page and read it now

Spoiler

lol i love how everyone but rhianna is frozen never noticed that

 

[SirVival]

Wow, I have no idea what's going on in this thread. I've definitely stumbled on the darker side of thelifestream.net .

I need to get out of here before it's too late.

 

[T@ctic]

your presence was here.

it's already too late.

notice i didnt add the cookie monster because im super serious.

 

[Dashell]

your presence was here.

it's already too late.

notice i didnt add the cookie monster because im super serious.

...

what?