Godo and the dragon

egg of the king

Mort pour Rien
Hi all:

I wanted to see if anyone had any ideas about the dragonslayer and godo's history together. Now some might say it's a closed book: Godo built it and was banished because it was unweildable. However, there are pictures presented of a slayed dragon, he mentions someone named Aolsier who I can only surmise had killed it, and, when asked by Rickert whether the DH could actually kill a dragon, he responds menacingly stating, "Don't ask....about the dragon!"
I wonder if the dragon might have been sentient a la Tolkien--perhaps it told his dragon friends to all swoop down and do some damage as a result and the king became infuriated with Godo for the making of DH?

thoughts?....
 

Begemot

STOP UNDRESSING ME WITH YOUR EYES!
Whazzuh?

IIRC Godo just made the sword unweildable because he didn't believe in dragons.
 

egg of the king

Mort pour Rien
Woland said:
Whazzuh?

IIRC Godo just made the sword unweildable because he didn't believe in dragons.

yes, most people seem to think that he had no belief whatsoever in dragons. it can be interpreted that way. yet, as this is speculation nation, i wonder if you think there's any possibility that it had actually been used, and also if Godo might have responded the way he did not because he thought it was foolish for Rickert to believe in such things, but because he might have a personal "thing" about dragons. It's a very subtle scene, read it again and see if you think there's no possibility.
 

Aazealh

Administrator
Staff member
Hey egg,

egg of the king said:
I wanted to see if anyone had any ideas about the dragonslayer and godo's history together. Now some might say it's a closed book: Godo built it and was banished because it was unweildable.

He personally believed that dragons didn't exist, and that swords were weapons strictly meant to fight against humans. So when he was asked to, he forged a huge sword that he thought could really kill a dragon, even if that meant that the lord that wanted it wouldn't have been able to use it (guess he felt facetious at the time).

egg of the king said:
However, there are pictures presented of a slayed dragon

This picture (there's only one) is illustrating the tale, nothing more.

egg of the king said:
he mentions someone named Aolsier who I can only surmise had killed it

No, he doesn't say anything like that. Nobody killed a dragon, Godot's client just wanted a really "powerful" sword (whatever that means).

egg of the king said:
when asked by Rickert whether the DH could actually kill a dragon, he responds menacingly stating, "Don't ask....about the dragon!"

That's bullshit, I'd recommend you to never ever believe what you read in scanlations. By the way, this has been explained again and again over here, even recently.

Woland said:
IIRC Godo just made the sword unweildable because he didn't believe in dragons.

No, it's just that the Dragon Slayer wasn't what was expected from him, it was "beyond its own nature" to quote Godot (he believed that swords were only meant to fight against humans, remember), and thus had him almost killed. It's not unwieldable either, since our good friend Guts managed to do it, let's just say that not everybody can do it. :guts:

egg of the king said:
yes, most people seem to think that he had no belief whatsoever in dragons.

He says so himself, there's no speculation involved here.

egg of the king said:
yet, as this is speculation nation, i wonder if you think there's any possibility that it had actually been used

Well, I'm moving this to Manga Mausoleum, and seriously, it wasn't used. Please just stop clinging to bad translations (it's the first time so it's ok I guess, everybody makes errors :SK:). The scene is subtle, as you said, but there's no doubt about this. No doubt at all.
 

Walter

Administrator
Staff member
I wanna know where you got Aolsier from. He sounds really cool :isidro:

PS: AOLuser? a typo maybe? More likely it's who you got the scans from :badbone:
 

egg of the king

Mort pour Rien
I figured there might be a possibility of getting cut up for the post. To be sure, the translations have much to do with how things are interpreted, especially subtle scenes like the one I note. I have been reading the posts here for about a year, and what i notice from the two of you, Walter and Aazealh are that 1) you both seem to be quite intelligent, and more to the fore for this post 2) you both seem to have an understanding of Berserk that, either because of a command of the Japanese language or dilligent study, supercededs most others.
So I wonder...how is it that you come by these superior translations? I admit, I have downloaded mostly from the hawk, to whom you don't give much credit as far as their fidelity to the original intent of the language when they translate into English. Is your translator just better?
And, please, don't mistake any sarcasm here--I \sincerely want to know.
 

Walter

Administrator
Staff member
The only reliable translations Ive ever had came from Olivier Hague first (chronologically), then Puella, then Mizar, and now, Saiki. Without them, I'd be just another troll :troll:
 

Aazealh

Administrator
Staff member
egg of the king said:
I figured there might be a possibility of getting cut up for the post.

Well, you weren't yelled at. :void:

egg of the king said:
To be sure, the translations have much to do with how things are interpreted, especially subtle scenes like the one I note.

There's some degree of interpretation. However that degree is never on a scale were things can have totally different and opposite meanings. In this case, it's not even translating anymore, it's almost like inventing a new story by looking at the pictures without caring about the text. I literally burst out laughing yesterday remembering the "don't ask about the dragon" line. It's a parody of itself.

egg of the king said:
you both seem to have an understanding of Berserk that, either because of a command of the Japanese language or dilligent study

I'm afraid it's more of the latter. We've got several real Japanese speakers around though (Walter named a few), and personally my wife speaks Japanese, that helps quite a bit.

egg of the king said:
So I wonder...how is it that you come by these superior translations? I admit, I have downloaded mostly from the hawk, to whom you don't give much credit as far as their fidelity to the original intent of the language when they translate into English. Is your translator just better?

I'll tell you. First, these translations aren't originally from #thehawks. They're rough drafts from Walter, the very person that just replied to you, and mostly Doc Eirias, an old community member that isn't active anymore. They were done a long time ago as far as this community goes, and were rough drafts by amateurs that had no other way to know and let people know what happened after the Occultation, the end of the anime, etc.

They weren't meant to be taken as law, nor to be immortalized as "scans", and that's why their respective authors have since long forsaken them. However, #thehawks took these translations and made them their own, without asking for any kind of permission to do so (that would have been denied, of course), nor crediting the original authors. They may have modified a few things here and there, only making it worse since they apparently don't know a word of Japanese.

But over here, things evolved of course. People speaking Japanese corrected the errors, one at a time, and over the course of the years we got to be more and more accurate, disregarding early misconceptions. So yeah, our translations and knowledge of Berserk improved with the years (as a community), but these old scanlations you have didn't.
 

Kagami

Goo!
Walter said:
I wanna know where you got Aolsier from. He sounds really cool  :isidro:

PS:  AOLuser? a typo maybe? More likely it's who you got the scans from  :badbone:

I'm pretty sure it was a type-o: "after all, if you sent out A SOLDIER with a kitchen knife..." not Aolsier.

and "the dragon was killed by my sword" is a bad translation like they were saying. Some guy who can't speak Japanese that well probably just translated it based on the picture more than the words.
 
Top Bottom