Lost in Translation: Boss Names in Dark Souls I
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- Опубликовано: 13 июл 2024
- Discussing original Japanese names of bosses from Dark Souls I and their English localizations.
I am a curious linguist, English and Japanese are my second and third languages respectively.
Orginal blogpost - bit.ly/blog-lit-ds-one-yt
Other Lost in Translation blogposts - bit.ly/blog-lit-yt
Twitter - / shetanislair
Sources:
Japanese wiki - seesaawiki.jp/project_dark
English wiki - darksouls.fandom.com/wiki/Cat...
This Reddit thread - / boss_names_in_japanese...
Soulslore wiki - soulslore.wikidot.com/dark-souls
Read more:
Haori - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haori
Nininbaori - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nininbaori
Interview that I reference in "Ceaseless Discharge" - soulslore.wikidot.com/das1-des...
Timestamps:
0:00 - Intro
0:56 - Disclaimers
1:28 - Tiny Transcription Legend
1:36 - Sources
2:02 - Asylum Demon
2:45 - Taurus Demon
3:16 - Bell Gargoyle
3:25 - Moon Butterfly
3:31 - Capra Demon
4:26 - Gaping Dragon
4:59 - Chaos Witch Quelaag
5:43 - Stray Demon
6:21 - Pinwheel
7:26 - Iron Golem
7:32 - Dragon Slayer Ornstein
7:46 - Executioner Smough
7:54 - Dark Sun Gwyndolin
8:38 - Crossbreed Priscilla
8:51 - Ceaseless Discharge
9:32 - Demon Firesage
10:10 - Centipede Demon
10:14 - Great Grey Wolf Sif
10:29 - Seath the Scaleless
11:15 - Bed of Chaos
11:40 - Four Kings
12:09 - Gravelord Nito
12:20 - Gwyn, Lord of Cinder
12:53 - Sanctuary Guardian
13:02 - Knight Artorias
13:29 - Black Dragon Kalameet
13:42 - Manus, Father of the Abyss
14:23 - Hellkite Dragon
14:59 - Titanite Demon
15:47 - Hydra
16:02 - Armored Tusk
16:06 - Undead Dragon
16:18 - Conclusion
16:28 - What was great
16:46 - What was mmeh
17:30 - Future plans 
Игры
Edit: I (again) misread 主 kanji in Manus' name. He is not King (王) of the Abyss but a Master (主) of the Abyss. Thanks for correcting me! I'll update the blogpost as soon as I can.
Is your real name shetani?
@@baidajel I was wondering the same thing as I know for a fact that shetani means satanic/demonic in Arabic, but I don't believe it's an actual name in any language.
@@ViperJoe I'm Arabic dude
@@baidajel Greetings, so am I.
@@ViperJoe سعيد بلقائك
you're telling me pinwheel, whose english name is already hilarious, was originally called "three guys in a trenchcoat"
Pinwheel is literally eric andre in the car buying skit
@@gn0my "I'd like a friendly bossfight. One that talks."
Pinwheel with the big brain little rascal plays.
@@gn0my I'm not gonna clone if you want me to get naked.
@@TheStorne "do you have any estus?"
I can’t believe Pinwheel’s real name is “Three Kids in a Trenchcoat”
That's why he's so easy to kill 🤧🤧🤧
Thats actually a terryfing name with his story in mind
tbh giving him the name Pinwheel is still pretty goofy, kind of feels a bit childish in a way? He is honestly the cutest
I disagree about Ceaseless Discharge. A shade of meaning that you may have missed is that discharge is used in medicine, specifically for pus emerging from an abscess. So it ends up as "Continuously draining fluid from a skin lesion."
He's permanently oozing viscous molten rock. I think Ceaseless Discharge is incredibly on point.
Eternall Jizzing
@@Mortablunt Perma-Nut
I agree. He is literally oozing lava from lesions, it seems to fit the translation perfectly well.
@@cyberdragonzekrom6790 I can imagine his sisters nickname him as such
Capra demon clicked for me instantly, no issues there as a native English speaker. Ceaseless Discharge is a pretty fitting translation in my opinion. in this context it comes off as "Unending Pus" at least to me. It might not directly mention sores, but it does make you think of infection.
However, it made many others think of something very innapropriate.
Discharge has a very clinical connotation, it immediately brings weeping sores to mind yeah
I'm surprised you didn't go into how the english localization for Gwyn's title is in someways the opposite of what the Japanese would imply. Cinder usually refers to the remnant embers of a fire after it has largely burnt out or has run out of combustible material.
I actually think this was an amazing choice by the localization team because while the Japanese term does emphasize that he used himself to kindle (don't know why this was localized as "link") the First Flame (King of Kindling is a translation I've often heard) calling him "cinder" emphasizes that this happened in the past, he is now "spent fuel" so to speak and it's reflected in the diminished state you fight him in.
This also explain some translation choices in DS3 like "Soul of Cinder" and being said that we are "unfit even to be cinder".
Dark Souls calls it 'linking the fire' because gwyn linked the dark soul and thus humanity to the first flame. It's also reminiscent of linking two ends into a circle, and the games are all about cycles. He linked the undead curse to the fading of the fire so the curse will arise when the fire fades
One amusing thing to note about Smough's name that I never realized until I saw the Japanese kana: スモウ can also be read as _Sumou_ or _Sumo_ , which is of course the Japanese form of wrestling often associated with large, fat men. Highly appropriate.
Huh. That's a pretty cool observation actually. It might even be meant to be "sumo" since his wide stance is definitely a Sumo stance. Combined with his large fat guy figure it seems really intended that Sumo might have been the intent, but the translators must have thought it sounded to silly or off maybe ("Sumo Executioner? Yeah no, he's supposed to be intimidating") so they translated it in a fairly literal way that kept the word's sound but means something completely different.
That was pretty cheeky and sneaky of the localization team to not make it obvious, I like it
On Seath: Dark Souls really wants to feel like a classic European fantasy story even though it's Japanese in origin. " ", like "White Dragon Seath" or "Black Dragon Kalameet", is a very "Japanese" construction that doesn't see a lot of use in natively-written English works. Because of this, Seath's localised name seems more appropriate for the style From were going for than many of the other localised titles. " the " or ", of " all see a lot of use in fantasy works. In fact, when one looks at the names of Magic: the Gathering cards that have been localised into Japanese (MtG I believe being an explicit source of inspiration for Dark Souls), most the names in English get turned into constructions in Japanese.
That's very interesting - thank you!
Couldn't agree more~ While some names are more straighforward and get the point across when transliterated, they don't have as much impact or flavor cuz they lack the lingo structure that's associated with medieval periods and settings, specially if said word is a meaningful motif within the lore itself (like "cinder" or "undead"), so some form of coherence is called for. I personally think the localization did have this idea in mind when they adapted some of these names and it was a good choice.
Logan, the Big Hat
They could still have called him Seath the White.
However, I don't think going for the familiar is necessarily the best choice to begin with. I think adopting an unusual naming convention would preserve more the mystery. It would make it feel more alien.
@@jjkthebest I prefer "Seath the Scaleless". I think it just works better than "White Dragon Seath". The fact he's pale is largely irrelevant to his character.
Yeah I just assumed Capra was derived from Capricorn, same with Taurus as they were both based off starsigns, a Goat and Bull respectively, still was an interesting video for other boss translations ^^.
It's interesting that they chose to refer to the Capra Demon as Aries Demon in the Spanish translation
I pretty much immediately made the connection between capra and the goat head, because goats are called caprines, scientifically.
@Cat Age Because most people are more likely to be familiar with astrological symbols and names than Latin roots.
Hell, I knew Taurus but I didn't know Capra was Latin, OR that Capricorn was related to goats.
I dunno astrology or Latin sadly. Oops.
@@MrFluffyWolf A basic understanding of Latin and Greek roots goes a long way in reading comprehension.
@@Alicorn_ It does.
But my point is that most people don't. So regardless, the person I responded to was wondering why OP would think of star signs before Latin roots.
The answer to that question is stupid obvious: clearly OP is more familiar with one the other, and it's safe to assume the English-speaking population aren't _suuuper_ familiar with Latin
I like the idea of the "wedge" kanji meaning "cuneiform". It ties nicely into the Jewish mythology of the golem - a humanoid figure sculpted from clay and then brought to life by inscribing a word on its forehead, just like the inscription on the titanite demon's neck, and cuneiform being an early writing system of pressing a stylus into clay.
Would be interesting to compare to the Iron Golem.
Taurus and Capra demons threw me off in a slightly different way, in that they gave me falls expectetions.
When I came upon Taurus demon it was pretty obvious. "Oh Taurus, it looks like a bull, got it".
But when I then also came across Capra demon my thought was "wait, another zodiac named demon? Are we doing the full zodiac? I can't wait to see the others" And then there were no others.
I mean ig if you also though that asylum demon was part of the zodiac
@@bigzigtv706 Nono, I wasn't clear. I didn't think that EVERY boss would be based off the zodiac. Just that there would be bosses based off the zodiac signs among them.
I wasn't expecting it to be "zodiac - the game" or anything. Just a recurring theme, that then didn't happen.
I guess you could interpret the Sanctuary Guardian as "Leo"? I mean, it's a Manticore, but the Lion body is probably the main feature you focus on when you first see it.
@@Quallenkrauler Sure, I guess. I've played D&D most of my life, so I just immediately processed it as a Manticore.
But yeah, to someone perhaps slightly less familiar with that concept, I could see that interpretation.
Love the breakdown of the boss names, fantastic work. I also love the art you added in the blog posts. I will say that Ceaseless discharge works a bit better in English since discharge (when related to anatomy or health) usually carries very negative connotations. Add in the context of how the boss looks and I think his misery is pretty well conveyed.
Thank you! The art belongs to Brent Skinner, he is amazing
I agree, they did a really good job with Ceaseless Discharge.
For the titatnite demon, it looks like both its weapon and the 2 things coming out of it's back are the tongs that a blacksmith would hold hot metal with. It turns out that there is a "wedge" -type of tongs used in blacksmithing
I heard the Japanese for "the Four Kings" in a Vaati video, and immediately thought "the Four Viceroys" would have conveyed the meaning better, since "ko'o" apparently means "appointed king" or "governor-duke." That also reflect their role as officials appointed by Gwyn.
On a related side-note: I've noticed how amusingly close the word "shogun" is to the original meaning of "duke." "Shogun" is apparently a short form of a longer title meaning something like "great general for the defense against northern barbarians," and a "doux" was a late-Roman military official tasked with defending the northern border against barbarian incursions. However the "doux" was often himself a Romanized German, so the analogy is not perfect.
I don't think Viceroy would have fitted in the atmosphere of Lordran: the title of viceroy originates in the Modern Age, while Dark Souls has this feeling of a mixture of Antiquity and the Middle Ages. Plus the "-roy" suffix comes from French, and Lordran as a whole has a feeling of having names inspired by Celtic and Germanic languages (Gwyn, Artorias, Lordran, Lloyd, Ciaran, etc), with some more "exotic" influences in the below-ground realm of Izalith, some casual Latin elements, the odd Norse mythology (Sif) and some more modern references (Ornstein) - basically, the above-ground parts of Lordran seem to evoke Britain before the Norman conquest.
"Duke" could have been another option, but that title is already given to Seath, so the localisation team may have worried it could have been too confusing for players, and a generic "Lords" was right out as there are already Four Lords in the game's lore, far more important than the Four Kings. "Kings" is certainly a confusing choice in retrospect - perhaps "Princes" could have been another option, or "Barons"?
@@davidepastore5600 Earls perhaps, for a more Germanic feel?
@@vde1846 Definitely an option!
@@davidepastore5600 i agree but none of those different options really have the same mouth feel as four kings. Just saying all the other ones outloud make them just sound silly imo
@@bigzigtv706 That's a very good point too - certainly, some localisation choices take in account sound and tone over being a more accurate translation. It's not something I would label a mistake or an error, but a choice, one that localisation teams face very often.
This is so nerdy and so awesome and I literally couldn’t love it anymore.
In English the word seedbed can largely be used in place of nursery when referring to growing plants, so I assume they just shortened Seedbed to Bed for... reasons.
Sneedbed of Chaos
I think another thing to consider is that "Bed" both suggests a place of rest, but also that a bed is where you give birth, whereas a nursery is where a child is raised but not born.
The Bed of Chaos is where demons are born, not raised, but "Birthing bed" would sound clunky, and "nursery" would give the wrong idea to the function of the Bed of Chaos, so I think it's a situation where they did the best they could and most other options would have sounded worse.
I‘m Italian so I didn’t think much about the capra demons name, it just fitted
You have a very nice voice to listen to :)
To me, the Capra-goat connection was pretty obvious from the get-go. Also, the Stray Demon, the moment I saw him, instantly clicked as "one that's away from his kind" rather than "one that's wandering around".
an interesting point about the titanite demons: from the comments section on another lore video, I saw someone mention that titanite (aka sphene, the real-world mineral) translates to Japanese as 楔石 (the 'wedge' part of the Japanese name).
this word also means keystone (the wedge-shaped stone at the top of an arch) or, as the video says, wedge.
the connection between the nameless blacksmith and the titanite demons is fairly well established (Hawkshaw's video titled "Ash Lake, Havel and the plot against the gods" and Eredin's "Titanite is the story of creation" explain it quite well).
now, another interesting point Hawkshaw makes is that the nameless blacksmith deity was not just a blacksmith, but also a builder or architect who built the Duke's Archives. the Japanese name of the titanite demons, then, could be another reference to this role, as a keystone is a very important stone when building an arch.
in fact, looking at the prongs on the back of the titanite demons, you can see that they are segmented, and that does make the top half look a bit like a stone arch. they also mirror the design of their weapon, although no segmentation is seen on the weapon itself. (there is some segmentation on the tail and spine too.)
one last thing I find interesting, and I admit it is a bit of a stretch (pure speculation honestly), is that the titanite demons are missing not only their heads, but also the keystone in this arch sprouting from their back. one might say the keystone is the 'head' of an arch, and the fact that it's missing is somehow another reference to the supposed decapitation of the nameless blacksmith deity.
or, if we go by the name of the titanite catch pole in Japanese (demon's wedge), perhaps the titanite demons fashioned their weapons with titanite taken from the keystone wedge of the arch on their back.
or it could be that fromsoft just wanted to mirror the design of the catch pole, which is likely modeled on tongs the nameless blacksmith deity uses. idk, I'm just some dude on the internet :)
King of fuel sounds like Gwyn owns multiple Gas stations. Also the boss named neverending gonorrhea. Amazing
13:35 this has nothing to do with anything but my sister ruined the name Kalameet for me by pointing out that it also sounds little like "go fish" in Finnish. thank you for the video!
Well since I'm brazilian and we speak Portuguese, the names Capra and Taurus were quite obvious to me. They translated it into Portuguese with the respective words 'Cabra' and "Touro" in Dark Souls remaster. BTW, Smough can be read as Sumo, the japanese martial art.
Additionaly, in portuguese "cabra" is the female goat, while the male is called "bode". "Touro" is the male, while "vaca" is the female. Also a castrated "touro" is called "boi".
@@missile-shapedbourbon4060 Acabei d descobrir a diferença entre touro e boi! XD Obrigada!
@@IMayOrMayHaveNot De nada!
I don’t know how I missed that Capra demon was a Goat demon. I always just assumed Capra had something to do with dogs given the dogs fighting alongside the Capra demon boss. Funnily enough this is also the first time I’ve looked at Capra demon’s head and not just his swords.
I'll be honest, now that I've gotten a look at it, it makes so much sense, it's more of a thing like "how did I not understand that" than it being confusing.
Great video, probably the most comprehensive analysis I've seen/read of the original Japanese names for Dark Souls' bosses; linguist cred always helps! I learned a few new Japanese terms I wasn't familiar with that I'm sure are going to come in handy in my studies - 処刑 because Japan still do those and 竜狩り just because its cool. A video exploring the area names would be equally fascinating too. Will be checking out your other breakdowns soon.
However, as a light discussion point, I have to disagree on your last point about the 'Hydra' name. I understand your reasoning, as Dark Souls is certainly all about making the player feel unsettled throughout, but that logic doesn't apply everywhere of course - dragons are still called dragons not 'giant flying worms' or something equivalent. I suppose we've got 'Wyrms' for that in English though! More to the point, as the saying goes: 'if it looks like a duck, swims like a duck and quacks like a duck, then it probably is a duck'!
The 'Lake Beast' looks like a Hydra, swims like a Hydra and roars like a Hydra, so it might as well be called one too! Honestly, this is a case where the original Japanese makes much less sense to me than the English localisation choice. Maybe Japanese players would be culturally less familiar with the Hydra from Ancient Greek myth than Westerners might tend to be? Makes sense from a cultural perspective I suppose, where much of Western-based mythologies didn't really arrive on Japan's shores in a major way until the mid-19th century. Besides, 'lake beast' is way more generic than Hydra in my view. Would be glad to hear your rebuttal!
竜狩り is such a cool word, I love it! Good point about Ancient Greek mythology not being as widespread in Japan, although I feel like I need to ask people who grew up in Japan what their mythological upbringing was like :D But I see what you mean. Lake Beast VS Hydra was more of a personal opinion, really, I just couldn't help but feel slightly disappointed by how devoid of mystery it ended up being when localized as "Hydra". For many other people though "Hydra" makes much more sense, and that's alright (￣ω￣) I honestly expected the original to be either ヒドラ or 海蛇, like a constellation, both would make "Hydra" localization accurate. But it is 湖獣 , which made me think that "Hydra" wasn't really a good choice because the beast is clearly something else. Trying to dig deeper than necessary, I guess.
Thank you for your comment (*￣▽￣)b
The connection with "Capra" to goat is easily made due to widespread knowledge of the zodiac.
I'm impressed. Watched both videos and I read the dark souls 3 one in your website. Really well done
If it's not asking much I'd really love you to analyse the Japanese name of each area in the game, it could be way more interesting!
Thank you! Names of areas are definitely on my list.
@@shetanislair still want that blog post/video about the area names 😅
Very underrated channel
thanks algorithm to bring me here, amazing job
It's wicked to see someone do something new with the soulsblorng series or whatever we call it now. Gonna stick this on the playlist and listen to it while playing Dark Souls right now.
Holy shit you already went up to bloodborne. This channel is a friggin landmine of content. Gonna be cool to see how far it goes when the algorithm picks it up.
Thanks! Initially I did this research for myself but then was convinced to share it in case other people find it interesting. Enjoy!
This is a really neat video, thank you for putting this together ^^
I think the "Bed" in "Bed of Chaos" might have been an attempt to connect the appearance of the boss (very tree-like) with the "nursery" in the name. I think they used "Bed", as in "seedbed", a place that farmers plant seeds and re-plant the seedlings somewhere else later, when the seeds sprouted. A seedbed is basically a nursery for plants. Heck, the word "nursery" itself can refer to "a place where plants are propagated and grown to a desired age" (Wikipedia), without any reference to plants.
They might have chosen a neutral word that doesn't say anything plant-related, because it could be weird, but the boss is visually tree-like and spouts flames... Anyway I couldn't have known their thought process.
My interpretation for Gwyn would be "Gwyn, the Cindered Lord", I put "cinder" as a verb to denote the fact that he sacrificed himself to fuel the First Flame. "Cinder" is an archaic verb meaning "to reduce to cinders", which is fitting because he is no longer the Lord of Sunlight when you actually fight him, he is just a shell of himself, a being that has been reduced to cinder.
Since Spanish is my first lenguaje I immediately made the connection between Capra and cabra.
I see how Germanic languages can get confused with that one, but never really thought about until now.
P.S. I love how almost every image you use is high quality, meanwhile pinwheel is 420p or less
one thing that i always found interesting is that in the spanish release of the game Capra Demon was changed for Demonio de Aries ,i assume they did this because the zodiac sign Aries is represented by a Ram i guess?the english version still makes more sense to me.
i really liked this lost in translation series congrats for knowing that much about other languages
Great video! Keep up the awesome work.
the 楔 in titanite demon's name is more likely derived from 楔石(kusabi ishi), which means titanite in Japanese (both in game & irl).
so no need to specify "wedge" imo,
I find myself coming back to these videos pretty often as sort of comfort videos. It's very chill and interesting，and fun to see where it all started (before the massive Sekiro series)!
Beautiful work ❤ thanks!
Amazing video honestly, hope this gets more attention and you make more videos!
Thank you!
With content like this I fully expect you will be the next great Souls content creator! Very good video.
I find it very odd that even in the Japanese, Hellkite is called a proper "Dragon" with the kanji. In English, the words "drake" or "wyvern" sometimes have connotations of non-dragon dragon-like beings, though "drake" is sometimes used to refer to a "young dragon" and "wyvern" to a fairly different winged lizard-like creature. Matthewmatosis calls it the "Hellkite Drake," and that's what I call it as well.
I actually prefer "Hydra" over "Lake Beast." For one, EVERYONE who sees it who is even slightly familiar with Western mythology will immediately think of it as a "hydra," so then seeing "Lake Beast" in a piece of flavor text (since minibosses don't show their names) would be confusing. Also, "Lake Beast" feels too generic and uninteresting for a very out-there fantasy setting.
"Crossbreed" is actually leagues better than "Half-Dragon." It has negative connotations, (like "mutt" or "bastard," but not nearly as extreme) without being something the player would necessarily immediately go to. It also implies some kind of genetic experimentation, or, at least, intentionality, like you might do with flowers or dogs. So, basically, everything about Priscilla's backstory.
Last, "Cinder" means pretty much the opposite of the Japanese name implies. Cinders are the hot, smoldering remains after a wood fire has mostly died out. A more accurate translation to the Japanese would be "tinder" or "kindling." But, I think I prefer "cinder," since it strongly implies that what Gwyn is/was trying to perpetuate (the First Flame and the Age of Fire) is mostly over and will inevitably die, like all fires must.
I agree, I think "cinder" works really well for Gwyn. The change did cause a small problem with Dark Souls 3 though, as they carried over Gwyn's title but it doesn't fit as well there.
Being a half race in most JP works comes with the idea of inferiority so regardless either name works.
@@CloneLoli whoa, based japan
@@cyberdragonzekrom6790 I mean I get your joke but normally the half-breeds are the protags and win against the "superior" ones.
@@CloneLoli whoa actually based japan
Very interesting that in the Spanish translation they chose "Demonio de Aries" for the Capra Demon, which means "Aries Demon", drawing an interesting parallel between Taurus Demon (Demonio de Tauro in spanish) and what you said of Capricorn, taking names from the zodiac signs.
"Ceaseless Discharge" does evoke disease imagery so I think it was actually a smart choice
Awsome vid, i love that there s still new cobtent about this game
"Capra" flew completely over my head
4:20 Capra Demon connection was fairly straight forward personally, it did take a little thinking but not too long
@Sami Gibbons Damn
@Sami Gibbons The skulls are incredibly similar. I think it's supposed be a goat skull mostly
Amazing video
Great video, keep it up! Surprised this has less than 100 views, that’s crazy.
Thank you for your kindness!
so you're telling me Bed of Chaos should have been called Cradle of Chaos?
Damn, that alliteration would have been so cool
Just living a comment to help with algorithms, don't mind me.
You could localize pinwheel as Three Stooges
This is such an incredibly interesting and well put together video. Linguistics is a field I have so much respect for despite knowing next to nothing about.
Capricorn was the first thing I though of, yeah. Wasn't expecting the comment section to be this sparse, though, I was hoping to see how common that is.
Thank you for this. I was looking for a video like it and came up empty.
What an awesome channel you have
Great video
Hey, I appreciate your efforts for Dark Soul I, III, and Bloodborne. I like those games so that kind of information is pretty fun.
The Capra didn't read as goat based on my knowledge, but I was able to infer what it meant based on the Taurus demon. Glad they didn't go with "goat demon", although I would've appreciated a "Billy Demon"
This is such a good video along with your other ones that I was so surprised to see you only have 100 subscribers! I definitely expected to see like 100k when I scrolled down. Please do more of these they are so good!
Thank you! (￣ω￣)
I agree I was super impressed once you said English wasn’t your first language you have a great understanding of it.
I am in love with this video
Excellent content! I also love hunting down the differences in names and places in the Japanese versions.
One question: Wouldn't 墓王ニト sounds something like Hakaonito instead of boonito?
Best regards!
Is it possible that “stray demon” implies the demon was cast aside from his peers, as in he “strayed” from their ways? He does appear to be imprisoned after all. Maybe I’ve forgotten some piece of lore that explains how it ended up there.
I've recently discovered your blog, read every article and now watching this video. You might call me a fan of your content. :)
Thank you for your support!
Subscribed!
Followed, nice video!
Hey, english and japanese are also my second and third language. (Even if my level is pretty low in japanese)
You know what ? You have won one sub. That's it. Hope to see the same kind of video for Elden Ring and Demon's Souls :)
14:51 As a Japanese person, the word "飛竜" feels (at least to me) that it’s dragon-like creature that is not a proper dragon.
For example, “Valley of Drakes” is originally “飛竜の谷” (谷 means valley) in Japanese and those blue drakes are “飛竜” so… like “白竜”(which is Seath) and “飛竜” look similar (adjective + 竜) but they have slightly different nuances and “飛竜” is rather one single word than “flying + dragon” if that makes any sense.
I have a feeling Bed of Chaos was meant to be Cradle of chaos
Loved the video, your voice is giving me AMSR.
11:50 A surprise reference to Russia, but a welcome one! Great video overall, I'm amazed by how many details are hidden in translation
Capra also finds its way into English (although a bit circuitously) in "caprice," or "capricious."
Fantastic video - I'm a history major with a soft spot for the Souls games, and linguistics is a fascinating field of study too!
Considering the Bed of Chaos, I've always felt that "Cradle" may have been a better way to convey the idea that that was the source of all demons, the origin point. I suppose that "Bed" technically does that too, but something about the sound of "Cradle of Chaos" just sounds better to me, and is far more immediate to comprehend.
Wonderful video! Never played Dark Souls before but now I kinda want to...
Thanks! Glad it inspired you :)
This is a very cool video
Wow. This video was fantastic. Criminally low views for a video of such high quality
I was a bit surprised you kinda skipped the most wonderful and most fitting origin of the name Smough!
locations, npc names, items/weapons etc lost in translation videos will follow I hope.
I really hope it & Im pretty sure im far away from the only one.
thanks!
Why can't all RUclipsrs be this good?
6:03 That is an image of the Asylum Demon, the Stray demon carries a staff.
I disagree about the Lake Monster being renamed a "Hydra" being especially ineffective, as the more vague Japanese name doesn't really ultimately make it sound more threatening or interesting. I also think that even if it was called "Lake Monster" in English, many people would call it a hydra anyway, because that's exactly what it looks like.
Fun video. Love your voice and accent.
Its cool to think of gywn as the Lord of white and his 'religion' was the way of the white while Manus as the Lord of dark. Clerics were white because they'd only get humanity from skeletons ( rea's quest) while dark wraiths would get from the living.
That leads me to think that the darkwraiths got banished because they would turn too many hollow by stealing their humanity before 'the right time'.
The game says there is a cycle of light and a cycle of dark, so, gywn and seath are from the cycle of light that banished the cycle of dark, Manus and kalameet, and got the world stuck between life and death.
Imagine Pinwheel's English name being "Three People in a Trenchcoat"
Capra - Capricorn wasn’t obvious but it makes sense now that it’s been pointed out
Subbed🎉
this makes me wanna study languages, it’s so fascinating
Bed of Chaos' japanese name made me realize something: while the thing you want to kill is the bug under all the foliage, the thing you are fighting is its environment: its nursery.
Also, one translation I found for 薪 in Gwynn's name is "kindling", which I think makes sense
i see some other people have already jokingly pointed out that "three things in a trenchcoat" is in fact a recognizable concept in english, but joking aside i feel that pinwheel could in fact have worked alright as something like "Trenchdwellers" with some of the double-meaning preserved, as they do in fact live in the catacombs, which are inside of a ravine trench. anyway, great video!
"薪" "Maki" "まき"
Specifically means (Pieces) of firewood/Kindling. So gwyn is the king of kindling for throwing himself into the fire.
Or Kindled King Gwyn to keep up the implied homophonic namesake.
@@kingdomcome3914 well, there is "の" there so i would just stick with "King Of Kindling"
as a native english speaker I didn't really make the "goat" association at all when I first saw capra demon's name, although tbf I know next to nothing about star signs so I wasn't able to make the association with capricorn. I came away from that fight with the impression that the word "capra" had something to do with goats, but I think that was definitely a case of the game teaching me.
I think capra and capricorn is close enough to the surface that a good deal of english speakers will be aware of it, or it's not too hard a stretch to figure out/look up, but yeah not definitely something everyone will know. Personally I do think it's a pretty good stylistic choice since it's a "medieval style" game and goes for a lot of those esoteric (old and largely unused in today's vocabulary) names and titles, and of course it fits the duality of Taurus Demon.
@@confushisushi yeah, I agree about it being a good stylistic choice. It definitely sounds like a more intimidating/ grandiose name for a boss than "goat demon" would haha. I think the localisation team do a really good job of using old-fashioned vocab in an evocative way
Damn great video insta sub
Crestfallen Blueman says "there's an awful Taurus demon above, and a terrible goat demon below!" So I knew what the Capra demon was.
I think i made the connection of capra capricorn meaning goat through the context of taurus demon coming before and also using a constellation based name scheme
Titanite Demon's name backwards being its drop is still somewhat carried over with Demon Titanite being dropped.
great video ^^
Other names seen by the west: "Sure sounds like japanese"
Nito: "boo, nito"
Idk I feel like Gaping Dragon captures the idea of a dragon infected with gluttony, he basically always has his mouth-torso thing gaping so he can always consume
Very neat! When it comes to stuff like Latin and romance language root word derivation in English, I think most native English speakers don't really know much about it apart from lawyers (since Latin is heavily still used in the law). However, native English speakers who are fans of fantasy tend to also be geeks generally and there's a lot of Latin root words in fantasy novels and films so stuff like Capra and Taurus showing up probably works for Dark Soul's main audience of English speakers.
Generally I think the English translators for DS1 did a great job. The big mistake they made as I understand it (since my Japanese is beyond rusty and was never that good to begin with) was Sen's Fortress. Since Sen in Japanese means a lot of things, from 100, to war and is seemingly kind of a bit of wordplay. Something like "The Fortress of 100 Battles" or something like that, which makes sense since it's both filled with deadly trials and was a proving ground to train Gwynn's knights and get access to Anor Londo in the lore. But for whatever reason the translation team just left the term basically in Japanese when they moved it to English and called it Sen's Fortress . . . which makes it sound like it belongs to some guy named Sen, but there is no guy named Sen in the game so it really doesn't make sense. I know I kept expecting to run into this infamous "Sen" guy and it never happened!
Anyway, very cool video. Good job! Also is that a German accent? I'm usually pretty good at identifying accents, but I often get German accents mixed up with Danish accents for whatever reason.
truly, the best par of english localization was making solaire even MORE flirty.
As an American, I didn't make the conection between the word "capra" and the goat head right away. I didn't relize until I took notice and fully thought it through.
I will say that the Romantic use of Capra and Taurus give the demons an air of antiquity and strength. The names seem to reference the Zodiac, so might give the impression of being from an "old order", like these are the beasts legends are built around, or like they stepped from the pages of mythology.
The names make them seem more like part of their "legendary" world, and not just monsters.
God DAMN I love your voice. All praise the RUclips algorithm!