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 Words Of Truth And Wisdom: The Spoilery OneWritten by Alethea and Athena Nibley NOTE: This column contains a spoiler concerning TOKYOPOP's volume 17 of the manga Fruits Basket (currently up to volume 20), so if one has already read that far, the contents herein should not contain plot-spoiling information. As usual, the column also contains words of truth and wisdom, and was processed in an environment that also processes peanuts. Any readers allergic to truth and/or wisdom and/or peanuts may wish to continue with caution. I'm going to start this column off with an apology, because the main focus of it is a big fat giant spoiler for Fruits Basket volume 17. So to anyone who doesn't like being spoiled and hasn't read that far (and hasn't been spoiled for it yet) who may have been looking forward to this column, we're really sorry! And we recommend you read that far as soon as you find time! It's really good! I'm not sure how much of the first part of the article shows up on the main Manga Life page, so I'm going to ramble on a little bit before I go into the main subject, just to be sure the spoilers are out of sight. I didn't realize at the time what a good topic this was for today. See, Fruits Basket 17 was the one hundredth translation we turned in for TokyoPop!! Tadah! Why is that significant, you ask? Because today we turned in (if we did the math right) our 200th professional translation!! Yay!!! (Kamichama Karin chu vol.5, for the curious.) Anyway, I think it's safe now, so let's get to the heart of the matter. I'll start by telling how we first encountered The Spoiler. There we were, minding our business, translating Fruits Basket. And then Tohru's looking at the cute little birdies, and who should appear but Kureno! Yay! (We heart Kureno.) And they're talking and he's like, “Yeah, I'm like practically this slave to Akito. I just feel so sorry for the girl.” And we're like, “What!?” And then we took a break from translating because the CD we were listening to ended, which means it's breaktime, because we've discovered if we work much longer after a CD ends (unless it was a mini album), our brains tend to melt, and melty brains don't make for good translations. They don't make for good anything, really, Athena points out (although some zombies might beg to differ). And during the break, we went on a rampage. We were throwing stuff and hitting stuff and generally just wreaking havoc. Only we weren't, but there was yelling. It was kind of along the lines of, “What do you mean he's a girl!? You mean we've been using the wrong pronoun THIS WHOLE TIME!!?? Dang it dang it dang it dang it DANG IT!!!!” We were the opposite of happy. See, in Japanese, they don't use pronouns very much. Instead, they just don't use a subject at all, because everyone knows who or what the subject is already. Or if a subject is necessary, it's not uncommon to use a person's name instead. And when they do use pronouns, they're not always gender-specific. Of course because Natsuki Takaya was leading the readers to believe that Akito was a man this whole time, we'd been using masculine pronouns, as I'm sure everyone who reads Fruits Basket is aware. Then breaktime was over, so we composed ourselves and got back to work. And Kureno explained that Akito was raised as a boy. And we both breathed big sighs of relief. See, if Akito was raised as a boy, especially to the extent that even members of the Zodiac didn't know that he was actually a girl, that means that even the people who knew the truth would be so much in the habit of calling her “him,” that we had actually been using the right pronoun the whole time, and there were no problems at all. As for our reaction to it as a plot point... well, I think, to be honest, the shock and subsequent relief of the whole pronoun thing was enough that we didn't really think much of it otherwise. So there wasn't much more than an, “Oh. That explains all the Shigure stuff.” We actually don't get surprised by a whole lot these days. But anyway, the question now is how to deal with Akito's pronoun after “the big reveal.” This is where we go into the realm of opinion, so please take it that way. As for our translations, we think that even the characters who know that Akito is a woman have probably been calling him “him” for so long that they're probably still going to be using masculine pronouns. See, the Sohmas are crazy. And the Sohmas realize they're crazy, so they're very careful. And the best way to prevent mistakes is to just be in the habit of always saying “he,” instead of saying, “Oh, I can say 'she' now, since no one else is around.” This helps them to not forget when they're in mixed company, as well as prevents people from finding out through eavesdropping (we all know Isuzu was snooping around). Athena puts it like this: as far as they're concerned, Akito isn't a woman who was raised as a man; Akito is a man who happens to really be a woman. Once someone complained that there was a scene in volume 17 where Shigure and Hatori were talking about Akito and using the masculine pronoun, and that was inconsistent, because they both know. But actually, there had been scenes with Shigure and Hatori, alone, talking about Akito before volume 17, before the readers knew. And before the translators knew. So of course they were using the manly pronouns then, because everybody thought Akito was a guy. And at that point, the author wanted it to stay that way. But if they suddenly started using female pronouns just because “now the readers know,” in our minds, that is what would be inconsistent. And that brings me to my next point. Fan fiction writers seem to have a lot of trouble dealing with Akito and her/his pronouns, so I want to offer our opinion. We do think that gender is an important part of anyone's identity. However, it's just a pronoun. If you're writing something that you want to be spoiler-free for people who haven't read to that point, don't worry about trying to avoid using gender-specific pronouns--just use the masculine ones. You're not being dishonest by calling her a him even when you know he's a she. As far as that audience is concerned, Akito is a he. So just go with he. Don't be worried that the people who know will shake their heads at you, and say, “Oh foolish, foolish fan.” You know that you know, so be satisfied with that knowledge. I mean, think of how Shigure, Ayame, Hatori, and Kureno felt all those years. We have been criticized on our choice to have Kureno keep using “he” when he was telling the story. I argue that we decided he kept doing it out of habit, but I do wonder if another tack would have been better. This is the scenario I picture in my head: When Kureno starts telling the story, he started using “she.” Some readers might think, “What a dumb translator. Everyone knows Akito is a he.” And then they'd turn the page to where it shows how truly female Akito is, and they'd be like, “Oh.” It amuses me because I have an evil vindictive side. So as far as Akito is concerned, we were saved by his psychotic mother. (I'm using masculine pronouns to perpetuate the idea that the habit can be formed; also, it partly is really out of habit.) Sometimes you just have to make decisions based on what context you have, and I think one of the scariest things for us as translators is that we'll find out later on that we've been doing it wrong the whole time. We weren't so lucky when we discovered that there was a reason behind Tohru's strange usage of polite language, and that maybe it would have been a good idea to try and express that better in English. Alas. |
10 September 2008 26 August 2008 20 August 2008
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