Nefarious, anti-Zelink localization choices in TotK
I would argue that they are not a thing.
So what I’ve been seeing, is mostly discourse around The House.
Mainly, that one line in Zelda’s diary, where Zelda refers to the house as “my house” in the English text as seen below:
The argument seems to be that she does not say “my house” in the original Japanese. I’ve even seen people go as far as to claim she wrote “our house”. Aight, let’s take a peek then:
So indeed, there is no trace of 私の家 (my house), but neither is there 私たちの家 (our house). It’s just 家 (”house” / “the house”).
As you know. Pronouns aren’t nearly as pervasive in japanese as they are in English. I do think it’d be strange for her to use a possessive here, like, you know. Given that we know that it’s this here house she’s referring to, y’know. And she’s writing in her own diary, there’s no need to specify. Like, It’s the house. This house. What other house is there that she had an extra room built at? None, of course, right. Right.
So anyway, what’s the correct translation then? ~I don’t know.~ If you wanna stick close to the original jp’s lack of possessive here, you’d say “the house”, i guess, but listen: “my house” is a perfectly reasonable option, as well. I know some of y’all hate that it makes it sound like she’s excluding Link here, and sure you’re allowed to feel that way but. I. don’t think it’s wrong tbh honest???
And “our house” would have worked, too, probably, but then it would have leaned a littttttle too heavily on the Zelink and I can sort of understand that they want to keep it at least a little nebulous. (because 1. that is what they do and 2. it’s more fun that way)
And unfortunately “our house” would have also contradicted another little piece of info found in the Japanese version regarding... the well, again. more specifically what the game calls the well.
In English it is referred to as Zelda’s Secret Well. And that is what it is. It is very much the well that was built for her own purposes, and it is a secret chamber. No complaints here.
The well is labeled a little differently in Japanese, tho. The game calls it ゼルダの家の井戸, which could translate to "Zelda's house's water well" or "the water well by Zelda's house" (or whatever else you can think of that has “Zelda’s house” and “well” in it, probably, im just giving examples so u get the idea).
(click here if you’re on desktop and can’t zoom in but want to)
So, in fact, you could say that in Japanese, the house is clearly stated to be Zelda’s house. Woops, back to square one it is, then.
But do you see? Are you seeing? While Zelda does call it “my house” in the English text seemingly leaving no room for Link, you could also argue that the localization team went out of their way to not call it “Zelda’s house” when they absolutely could have. By calling the well “Zelda’s secret well” instead of going for a closer-to-the-original “well outside Zelda’s house”, they recreated a little bit of room for speculation. Wow!!!! Cool!!
And this is just like. One little tidbit I decided to focus on, but my point is:
There is no secret anti-Zelink agenda in the localization team. Translating means making choices, you might disagree with some of them, but that does not make them wrong or vile, I don’t think.
And the siege mentality I’ve seen some people adopt regarding Zelink strikes me as very misplaced. We are eating good. There is food aplenty. Why are you digging for extra scraps that may not even exist?
Granted, comparing the original text with its translations can be super fun (heck I enjoy it, to an extent!), but try to think about your own attitude as you do so. Try to go into with curiosity and humility in your heart instead of righteous vindicativeness. You might find that more satisfying.
Now of course, sometimes translation errors do occur, and criticism is warranted, but try to take a step back and ask yourself if this really means the localization team are a bunch of buffoons who either have no idea what they’re doing or are actively trying to ruin your Zelda experice, or if, perhaps, instead, sometimes people fuck up. For various reasons that you may not be aware of.
(Rereading this i now realize that i am tone-policing and. Yeah. I am. deal with it)
One more thing, you don’t have to believe randos who claim “X is canon in Japanese and they censored it in English”, especially if they’re not elaborating or providing evidence. (You can choose to believe them if you want to, at the end of the day, but just be aware that you believed without seeing. So think before you spread the word around, right?)
One final, final thing, you can always set your nintendo switch to Japanese and experience the game in its original language, for yourself. Isn’t that the coolest? I wish this was possible for all games. Thanks, Nintendo!
54 notes
·
View notes
I'm still seeing a lot of angry takes in the tags about how excessive Watcher's current costs are and how all fans really want, apparently, is "just shane and ryan sitting in a basement" back again. While I do think Watcher is probably spending over budget and that's a real issue, a lot of the takes I'm seeing show a fundamental misunderstanding of how video production works and where costs actually lie. So a few quick things that I just keep seeing that are bothering me:
It was never just Shane and Ryan in a basement. BFU did a great job selling that conceit and making sure you never saw anyone beyond them and maybe TJ, but they absolutely had other crew members with them on ghost hunts and they didn't do all the work on BFU themselves. This Q&A from Season 2 lists 36 people on staff for Buzzfeed Unsolved. It's fair to make arguments that Watcher may or may not need 25 people, but those arguments should not be coming from a place of "before it was just Shane and Ryan and nobody else."
If you don't know how many people are needed to make a professional video from a TV/film standpoint, you will not have a reasonable grasp of why Watcher wants to keep 25 people on staff. Sure, some YouTubers get by with a ring light and a contracted editor. The Watcher team have stated repeatedly that they do not want to work as just YouTubers and see themselves more as a production studio—so why do people keep referencing the YouTube model to understand their business? This is like asking the local shake shop why it doesn't function like the kids' lemonade stand down the block. The item category is similar but they're not trying for the same products or process.
The "gold dusted food" is not the big budget sink you think it is. On most TV shows I've worked on it's normal to partner with businesses that are shown onscreen and work out a deal where the price of the product (in this case the gold food) is reduced or eliminated in exchange for the free publicity. Watcher very likely made a deal with every restaurant it worked with to make the Korea trip affordable for the company. The real budget spends are on things you're probably not seeing but that still matter: camera and lighting equipment is expensive, insurance for that equipment is expensive, business overhead and paying your staff are expensive. So again—it's fine to critique Watcher for the streaming plan and the perceived budgetary issues, but go into this knowing the costs might not be coming from the things you see onscreen.
My source is that I work in TV and film and actually have a clue on how the industry functions. Again, 36 people worked on Unsolved (and those were the people mention in Season 2—who knows how big the team blew up past that in later seasons). Entertainment work is real work, and demands decent equipment, competent staff, and the same types of business and budget problems you'd find in any other business (overhead, staffing, etc.). Feel free to critique Watcher's business model, but first try to understand where that model is coming from and what goals it's attempting to serve.
57 notes
·
View notes