Sunday, April 13, 2008

この ガーランド

"No one touches my Princess!! LIGHT WARRIORS?? You impertinent fools. I, Garland, will knock you all down!!"

You can tell he means it, because he doubles all punctuation! This is an interesting speech, particularly considering the original dialog:

「おうじょは おれのものだ! だれにも わたさん! ひかりのせんしだと。 こさかしいやつらよ! この ガランドが けちらしてくれよう!」

This statement is designed to be hard for gaijin to read. It also tells you a bit about Garland's character that is lost in the translation. He's extremely casual, which is marked by his use of "おれ" as a first person pronoun, and shortening of "わたさない" to "わたさん". Using this style of conversation upon his first encounter conveys a strong contempt for the player that's hard to convey in English without voice acting and facial expressions.

The change in emphasis is also a bit interesting. "ひかりのせんし” (Light Warriors) is the only statement in the original that didn't end in a "!", yet it's the one that gets the emphasis in the English! I would guess that this is an attempt to imply the contempt lost with the aforementioned style of speech.

Of course, the bit that makes everyone love this speech: "I, Garland, will knock you all down!" They tried to correct this in the Playstation version to: "Blasted pawns of the King! No one can stop me now. Very well, I shall take on all of you!" Proving unpopular, they reverted this in the GBA and PSP versions. But, "what would provoke the original text?" you may ask... Fortunately, that's just the question I'm here to answer! "この ガランドが けちらしてくれよう!" The verb here is "けちらす", which means "to scatter" or "to knock away." Thus, the whole phrase means, "This Garland will knock (you) away!" There is also a verb, "倒す" which means either "to defeat" or "to knock over." Combine these two facts, and you can make a reasonable guess why they translated it as they did.

3 comments:

The Sandwich Chronicler said...

I've also always liked the fact that he says, "I" and then has to clarify who he means, "I, Garland." Y'know, just in case there was some confusion.

Odysseus said...

It's to make sure you know it's him knocking you down. Otherwise, you might start worrying about his flower arrangements.

The Sandwich Chronicler said...

Hey, there are some extremely dangerous and violent flower arrangements in Final Fantasy! It's a legitimate concern!