Castlevania and Anachronism

[opensummer]

Got a comment of history's longest suicide note pointing out that coffee drinking is anachronistic and I figured I'd write some meta on it. 

+

SO I did actually consider throwing in a line about a speaker caravan having carried it back from the east and Sypha getting into it then but decided not to for two reasons. One is the handwavey something like 50% of castlevania is anachronistic, do not get me started on Trevor’s short sword it makes me want to tear my hair out, and therefore other anachronisms are more or less acceptable. 

Two, though, is the one I actually thought about, so hold on to your socks. So my theory of the castlevania world is that it doesn’t track with our historical development for three reasons.

1. Vlad Tepes the historical figure was born between 1428-1431 and died between 1476-1477. The action in the series kicks off with Lise’s appearance at the castle in 1455 and Dracula is explicitly stated as having been hundreds (if not thousands) of years old when he meets her, which means who knows what else they’ve messed with. 
2. Magic! They have magic that allows people to farsee, to teleport, and as sypha demonstrated the ability to use magic to clear land. Extrapolating from that I suspect they have lots of mundane uses for magic (building roads and house, creating timber, heating water, etc.) Because of those two factors I suspect that Castlevania’s world in 1475 was much smaller than ours was at the same time period. 
3. They clearly have some concept of globalism. Dracula’s generals are supposed to represent, as far as I can tell the Viking/Celts- Godbrand. India/Pakistan region- the female general in the headdress and sari? I think it’s a sari and the male general in turban. Hector is greek and Isaac is african. I personally like the idea of Moroccan!Isaac but I’m open to arguments there, and wiki tells me the disappearing female vampire’s name was Cho, which is a Korean surname. So I fall on the side of the argument that they haven extensive land networks. (And the reason that there are no New World Vampires is that they can’t cross the ocean to get there.) 

So I decided that Sypha as a nomad would have encountered coffee either through her own travels or be trading with another speaker caravan. Alucard, I decided was introduced to it by his mother, who got addicted when she first starting living with Dracula and he refused to tailor his hours to a human. So Lise discovered coffee as a way to make it through all the all-nighters she had to pull- Dracula’s Magical Kitchen has Everything, and never quite kicked the habit after. (Her pregnancy incidentally was the Actual Worst because she went eight months cold turkey. Her first request after naming Adrien was for a cup.)

My headcanon for Trevor is that after the Belmont Estate went up in flames, he did the whole soldier of fortune thing and never had the money for coffee and the few times he did, he spent it on booze instead. So Sypha and Alucard are both a little addicted and expect a cup in the mornings and Trevor takes good care of his husband and wife team by providing it to them. 

Comments

Disclaimer: I am not Japanese, just a Chinese person who can discern a lot of shit from kanji.

[bluewinged_songbird]

Cho or Chou is a Japanese name meaning butterfly but is rarely used alone. Usually as a compound name like Chouko or Chocho (Akimichi Choji's daughter in Boruto). Granted, I would have to take a look at the kanji in the last case because it's possible for it to be a naming pattern for the entire Akimichi clan. I think naming for specific butterflies is more common (i.e. Ageha - Swallowtail butterfly). Though I think Cho must be fine as an old-fashioned name, at least, since Konami did greenlight the script.

So when I was a kid, I used to headcanon that Cho Chang was half Japanese because it made no sense otherwise. The Chinese translation has her name as Zhang Qiu (meaning Autumn btw), because people with better grasps on the language than me couldn't make it work. And Cho Chang sounds too much like Mandarin for "melancholy" which would be unacceptable in a Chinese family where names and the possible meaning of homonyms means A LOT. A mixed family though, might be more willing to let things slide.

It's quite fun to look at how the original culture translates a character supposedly from that culture but written by foreigners. The Hong Kong dub for Cardcaptor Sakura has like a hilariously long bit of word vomit explaining Syaoran on his first appearance.

Disclaimer: *is white* what i know about naming conventions comes from my v salty korean friend

[opensummer]

I didn't realize komani greenlight the script. thats good to know. And of course they can always say that it's due to linguistic drift. We don't actually know how old any of the characters are (except Alucard)

oh that makes sense! I prefer half!japanese cho to the alternatives, at least. And it's good to know that other translations changed her name into something more in line with the culture.

I'll have to run that down, it sounds V Relevant to my interests

Re: Disclaimer: *is white* what i know about naming conventions comes from my v salty korean friend

[bluewinged_songbird]

Apparently Konami worked very closely with them to ensure no continuity errors. And it's little things too like which hand is Alucard's dominant one. Trevor btw is ambidextrous.

I love hearing translation choices. It's always fascinating and provides such a different insight into something. I practically devoured the article where Emily Wilson explained her translation choices for The Odyssey. Also Cho Chang deserved better!

The short version is they insist his family is from Mainland China and moved to Hong Kong because no one would dress that weird. *Cue the frame already moving on*

Justice for Cho Chang 2k18

[opensummer]

Ooh! Production facts are my favorite. I’m gonna make Sypha a leftie to balance them

Yeah it’s some really cool reading about translation choices. When I was like 15 I read an article about how they chose to translate studio ghibli movies to English and since then I’ve been hooked.

That’s fantastic and I love it.