Welcome to Talking Time's third iteration! If you would like to register for an account, or have already registered but have not yet been confirmed, please read the following:
Once you have completed these steps, Moderation Staff will be able to get your account approved.
Yes, but the root term has the same meaning (offering your services to whoever will pay), and when you're talking about someone who's ex-military and offering services as a fighter I think the connotation is essentially the same.Freelancer/freelance is used outside of military contexts than mercenary IRL (e.g. "freelance journalist")
The difference is one of context and connotation. You could freelance in just about any profession and there is no inherent negative insinuation. That’s versus being a mercenary which is strictly for military/murdering purposes.Yes, but the root term has the same meaning (offering your services to whoever will pay), and when you're talking about someone who's ex-military and offering services as a fighter I think the connotation is essentially the same.
Tell that to the English version of this game, which has a "merc" wrangling up chickens for some nice lady. Again, they never really call him a mercenary. It's always merc. I am now 100% convinced the localization team made this choice specifically to address your problem.That’s versus being a mercenary which is strictly for military/murdering purposes.
It's not just professional pride, and not just her doing bad service - but she gives the impression of a blatant grifter. And not just by taking advantage of people with whom she doesn't mind ripping off, but she is doing so by associating herself with Cloud & Co, and using their good names to gain business - potentially sullying their own business reputations in the process.Cloud doesn't want Kyrie to be called a merc because she's giving bad service and not doing the job; she's a poseur. It's professional pride.
For me to believe that Kyrie's role in the story was an intentional comparison between the English and Japanese definitions of Cloud's job, I would have to also believe that the Japanese script/scenario writers were aware of what the English side of the business was doing with their material. Which I don't. It's possible but imo unlikely. It is definitely an interesting juxtaposition though, and one I very clearly had in mind when talking about the definitions of the words above. Kyrie's entire M.O. and how she comports herself is not at all wrong or irregular for what a 'nandemoya' is or ought to be. In a civilized society, she could probably do the jobs she initially takes on without problem and without the appearance of grifting - but she lives in an uncivilized world, plagued with mako-monsters and run by fascists. The most generous read of her character is that she's simply naive to what "anything" means and the kinds of dangers out in the rest of the world.Right, right, I get that, but I got a definite sense of something from the fact that her odd-jobs were clearly not even indirectly violent and that she was caught unawares by the possibility of needing to hurt something or someone. It's as though all of the tension arising from the inequivalence of "merc" and "nandemoya" was foisted onto her character, which now has the trait of not knowing what words like "mercenary" actually mean. Broad-strokes consistent with her flagrant ineptitude, but possibly connoting a different kind of ignorance?
Merc literally has just one meaning: shorthand for mercenary. So much of the story, and the characters reactions to Cloud makes more sense when you realize his job title isn't as menacing and negative as it sounds to us - be it Tifa being surprised/appalled at his willingness to use lethal violence, or Aerith's playful and flirty demeanor when he literally falls out of the sky and presents himself as one.Tell that to the English version of this game, which has a "merc" wrangling up chickens for some nice lady.
I'm gonna stop you right there, because I feel I've been misunderstood. I didn't say anything about intentionality. I just meant that, if there's a difference in the way Kyrie is characterized between the two versions, that might reflect some interesting aspect of the compromises inherent to localization generally and this one specifically.For me to believe that Kyrie's role in the story was an intentional comparison between the English and Japanese
Yeah, and "nii-chan" has the same meaning as "onii-san" in Japanese.Merc literally has just one meaning: shorthand for mercenary.
If you can see that there are tonal differences in such small shifts in similar words with common roots, then surely you can see how the tone can shift even more when you change to a completely different word.Yeah, and "nii-chan" has the same meaning as "onii-san" in Japanese.
Sure, Mercenary doesn't mean the same thing as Nandemoya.If you can see that there are tonal differences in such small shifts in similar words with common roots, then surely you can see how the tone can shift even more when you change to a completely different word.
Zack's original idea of being a Jack of all Trades is because he just has a wide variety of skills most people don't have. And that's meant to be taken literally, and not as a dark implication like the movie Taken. ("I have a particular set of skills" yadda yadda.) And that honestly bears out both in-world, and in the real world. Soldiers (maybe not so much in the US, but in most other parts of the world) get used all the time as a mobile workforce by their governments to do all kinds of odd jobs. Be it building infrastructure, assist in the wake of disasters in multiple capacities, use their distribution systems to move goods around, etc. This attitude towards soldiers being mobilized, trained citizens who do all kinds of functions, not just fight wars, is very prevalent elsewhere - especially in East Asia. And that bears out in a lot of FF7R's dialog as well - where Cloud is constantly explaining to everyone else in the party all of the other things SOLDIERs do/what their lifestyle is like. Other expanded FF7 entries in the franchise show SOLDIERs carrying out survey missions and doing other jobs that aren't strictly fighting/warfare.Cloud as a mercenary is more believable than Cloud as jack-of-all-trades anyway. This is not a guy that you would hire to fix your plumbing. Probably not sending him to pick up the dry cleaning or fix the banister on the front porch.
Cloud’s attitude doesn’t scream adventure/openmindedness for sure, but his actions absolutely do. Dude trots across the globe and does everything from being a bodyguard to being a chocobo jockey. The juxtaposition of his attitude to his job title is part of the charm and humor of the games.The connotation of "adventurer" really doesn't work for Cloud, for me. That implies a level of free-spiritedness or thrill seeking that he doesn't exhibit, basically ever