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Lyssie translates, to arrive at a conclusion the rest of fandom probably got years ago
So I was going to kh-vids to fact check on some Hollow Bastion stuff for the Doomy Death AU, and ended up watching Riku and Sora's reunion at Traverse Town. And then, since their KH1 clips are from Final Mix and thus have the Japanese subtitles, I found myself translating.
... That scene never really made sense to me before, for two main reasons: I'd (somehow) never really picked up on Riku's tendency towards insecurity until KH2 made it clear to me, and Sora seemed to be pretty blatant about really wanting Riku to come with them then and there.
Watching it again now that I know Riku is an insecure little ball of neurosis, and reading the decidedly more ambiguous Japanese text, it all became totally clear.
Really, even understanding Riku's personality, the scene in English is still a little baffling to me because, dude, is it not clear enough for you that Sora wants you around and missed youand wants to make out with you in the back of the gummi ship? Does he have to put up a neon sign saying RIKU I MISSED YOU TRAVEL WITH ME PLZ? But seeing how the conversation went in the original language, wow. They're just... having a complete and total communication BREAKDOWN. Where Sora probably thinks he's made himself clear, Riku misinterprets like everything he says because they're not working on the same assumptions. They are not having the same conversation.
The first trouble spot is after Sora cuts down the random Shadow with the Keyblade. (Of course, knowing Riku better now than I did when I first saw this scene, I comprehend how his jealousy also kind of ramped way up at that, which does not help his general outlook in this conversation.)
Sora: 俺だってリクとカイリを探してたんだ このふたりといっしょに。
("I've been looking for you and Kairi, with these two.")
Riku: いっしょにー
("With them...")
In the English, I got a sense of greater detachment from Donald and Goofy - "I've been looking for you, and Kairi too, with their help". It implies more clearly that Riku and Kairi were his first priority. But in the Japanese that doesn't come through as strongly.
You can see Riku's totally misinterpreting it, too - he's latching on to the "with those guys" part, like that holds more significance. Of course Sora's looking for him and Kairi, that's just a given - but he found other people to do it with. I mean, that much shows in the English too, but I see it more clearly here.
The tense Sora's using on 'sagasu' can also be misread. Sora's saying "I was searching for you (and now I've found you!)", but Riku could be hearing "I was searching for you (but I stopped)".
Also, when Sora says in English "We've visited so many places and worlds, looking for you!" that's a LOT more obvious than what he says in Japanese.
Sora: ３人でいるんな世界をまわってるんだ あちこち
("Us three have been to so many worlds, all over the place...")
Ouch. Sora almost certainly assumes that the "looking for you" is understood, but I can see how that comes through to Riku simply as "Dude, I've been having so many awesome adventures with these guys!" with him excluded.
Then there's talk of the Keyblade, obvious cause of jealousy for Riku, and then we get to where Sora's asking him to come along.
Sora: そうだリク おまえもいっしょに来いよ！
("Oh, hey, Riku! Come with us!")
Sora: 俺たち すっげえ船に乗ってるんだ
("We're riding on this awesome boat!") (Yes, I know it's probably more like "ship" than "boat", but I find it unutterably adorable that he refers to the gummi ship as a 'fune'.)
Sora: 特別に乗せてやるって
(tokubetsu ni nosete yarutte)
That last one gives me the most trouble to translate, but I think I get the gist - he's saying they can let Riku ride on it too, but it'll be a special circumstance. (He also appears to be rather excessively informal with the "let you ride" bit - yarutte? really, Sora?)
And it's just. If I understand this correctly, with the tone of the conversation and Riku's insecurity and the doubts Maleficent planted in his head before this, you can just see Sora going full speed down one conversational track while Riku veers to the left.
Sora's implication: "Riku, you're special, you can come with us no matter what."
Riku's interpretation: "You can come aboard too, Riku, but it'll be a special exception."
This is where it just goes down in flames. Sora's saying "it's no trouble at all, come with us, now, faster, let's go!" But Riku's hearing that they have to go out of their way to accomodate him. It's troublesome to accomodate him. He is troublesome to a group that includes Sora. It really doesn't help that Donald's followup is to accuse Sora of being selfish, and Sora's response is "It'd be okay, right?" (いいだろ?)
I mean, really. I read this scene at first as Riku just being an emotard, but it makes so much more sense to me now. I can really see how he heard all the wrong things and jumped to all the wrong conclusions.
I am of course aware that I'm probably the ONLY one for whom it took so long to understand that exchange fully, but hey. I got a little Japanese practice and I understand Riku a little more now. That was time well spent. XD
... That scene never really made sense to me before, for two main reasons: I'd (somehow) never really picked up on Riku's tendency towards insecurity until KH2 made it clear to me, and Sora seemed to be pretty blatant about really wanting Riku to come with them then and there.
Watching it again now that I know Riku is an insecure little ball of neurosis, and reading the decidedly more ambiguous Japanese text, it all became totally clear.
Really, even understanding Riku's personality, the scene in English is still a little baffling to me because, dude, is it not clear enough for you that Sora wants you around and missed you
The first trouble spot is after Sora cuts down the random Shadow with the Keyblade. (Of course, knowing Riku better now than I did when I first saw this scene, I comprehend how his jealousy also kind of ramped way up at that, which does not help his general outlook in this conversation.)
Sora: 俺だってリクとカイリを探してたんだ このふたりといっしょに。
("I've been looking for you and Kairi, with these two.")
Riku: いっしょにー
("With them...")
In the English, I got a sense of greater detachment from Donald and Goofy - "I've been looking for you, and Kairi too, with their help". It implies more clearly that Riku and Kairi were his first priority. But in the Japanese that doesn't come through as strongly.
You can see Riku's totally misinterpreting it, too - he's latching on to the "with those guys" part, like that holds more significance. Of course Sora's looking for him and Kairi, that's just a given - but he found other people to do it with. I mean, that much shows in the English too, but I see it more clearly here.
The tense Sora's using on 'sagasu' can also be misread. Sora's saying "I was searching for you (and now I've found you!)", but Riku could be hearing "I was searching for you (but I stopped)".
Also, when Sora says in English "We've visited so many places and worlds, looking for you!" that's a LOT more obvious than what he says in Japanese.
Sora: ３人でいるんな世界をまわってるんだ あちこち
("Us three have been to so many worlds, all over the place...")
Ouch. Sora almost certainly assumes that the "looking for you" is understood, but I can see how that comes through to Riku simply as "Dude, I've been having so many awesome adventures with these guys!" with him excluded.
Then there's talk of the Keyblade, obvious cause of jealousy for Riku, and then we get to where Sora's asking him to come along.
Sora: そうだリク おまえもいっしょに来いよ！
("Oh, hey, Riku! Come with us!")
Sora: 俺たち すっげえ船に乗ってるんだ
("We're riding on this awesome boat!") (Yes, I know it's probably more like "ship" than "boat", but I find it unutterably adorable that he refers to the gummi ship as a 'fune'.)
Sora: 特別に乗せてやるって
(tokubetsu ni nosete yarutte)
That last one gives me the most trouble to translate, but I think I get the gist - he's saying they can let Riku ride on it too, but it'll be a special circumstance. (He also appears to be rather excessively informal with the "let you ride" bit - yarutte? really, Sora?)
And it's just. If I understand this correctly, with the tone of the conversation and Riku's insecurity and the doubts Maleficent planted in his head before this, you can just see Sora going full speed down one conversational track while Riku veers to the left.
Sora's implication: "Riku, you're special, you can come with us no matter what."
Riku's interpretation: "You can come aboard too, Riku, but it'll be a special exception."
This is where it just goes down in flames. Sora's saying "it's no trouble at all, come with us, now, faster, let's go!" But Riku's hearing that they have to go out of their way to accomodate him. It's troublesome to accomodate him. He is troublesome to a group that includes Sora. It really doesn't help that Donald's followup is to accuse Sora of being selfish, and Sora's response is "It'd be okay, right?" (いいだろ?)
I mean, really. I read this scene at first as Riku just being an emotard, but it makes so much more sense to me now. I can really see how he heard all the wrong things and jumped to all the wrong conclusions.
I am of course aware that I'm probably the ONLY one for whom it took so long to understand that exchange fully, but hey. I got a little Japanese practice and I understand Riku a little more now. That was time well spent. XD
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There's another element here, too, which I think comes across more clearly here in front of me than it had for me with the official translation. Which is: Sora is trying so hard to impress Riku with his coolness, and it's backfiring. He's saying, "Look! I'm not just some dumb kid! I (can find people to help me search for you, have travelled the worlds, have a really nifty boat)!" Except I suspect for Sora, the conclusion is, "See, I'm totally cool enough to hang out with," because he's been spending the last howevermany years being one step behind Riku. He's been being second-best at things for so long that it's natural for him to want to show off a little.
But what Riku hears isn't "I'm trying desperately to impress you because you're my best friend and I think you're better at stuff than me and I want you to think I'm cool too." Because Riku is insecure, he hears, "I'm better than you, so I don't need you anymore. See, I even have nifty new friends to prove it."
I suspect this is because Riku thinks that his importance and value to them comes from what he does. Which is why he tends to try to prove himself by doing great deeds or making dramatic sacrifices, and which is why 'you fucked up, but we love you anyway, so get your sorry butt out of the darkness and over here, stat' is such a hard concept for him. So here, Sora says, "Look, I'm cool like you, now I can keep up and we can do stuff together," and Riku hears "Look, I'm cool like you, so I don't need you anymore."
And he always has been able to be the cool one by dint of being good at things. Sora learned that you don't have to make people like you by being the best, because he rarely was the best. Riku couldn't figure it out until their world collapsed, and suddenly there was something where Sora appeared to be outshining him -- by which point it was too late to learn the lesson easily.
End ramble. :D
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And yeah, that sounds like a pretty good diagnosis of Riku. He's another one who's myopic about himself, I think - he likes Sora and Kairi because they're Sora and Kairi, but he fails to comprehend that they can like him for the same reasons. He has to PROVE himself, he has to be WORTHY of being liked.
(... which is totally going to come into play in the Doomy Death AU. Man, the biggest challenge of this is going to be keeping Riku alive long enough for a happy ending. Angsting to death is a very real possibility for him. o_o;;)
Oh, those poor, stupid boys. Why did it have to take them three games to start communicating. D:
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Yeah: Riku clearly doesn't judge either of the two of them by his own impossible standard. Fortunately, by the end of KH2, Kairi and Sora have matured enough and figured enough out that they know to grab him and dig their heels in and hang on when he pulls his 'I'm not good enough for you, I'm going to pretend to be all aloof and run away' trick.
(This is all spinning around in my head because I"m working on the OT3 -- I've gone all meta-y inside my own head....)
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Yeah. When I read the Japanese, the ambiguity and the copious room for misunderstanding just made me whimper.
(Also, the perfection of your icon for this topic is amazing. XD)
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I'm so glad to be this much of a geek. I like being able to understand characters better. :)
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I'm at work, so the Japanese characters aren't displaying properly, but literally I would translate "tokubetsu ni nosete yarutte" as "we'll give you a [free] ride" -- i.e., it's REALLY COOL and you can ride it FOR FREE (special) because YOU ARE COOL TOO :D :D :D -- only Riku's not getting that.
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But I did get the general implications of the tokubetsu line right, yes?
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Anyway, not a problem. :) I guess I wasn't the only one who was still WTFing at that, so I'm glad I could be of assistance. :D
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But, yeah, this was a great help.
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Er, what? Ah, yes. Yeah. XD The talky parts are important! And this was a really fun exercise for me, so. :D
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WOW. NEVER EVER KNEW THAT. *knows nothing about japanese language, alas, it's horrible, and WOW that makes so much more sense now, kudos to you, ♥*
You're amazing, :DD