Evildoers and Monsters

Discussion in 'Novel General' started by ArgosYesu, Mar 21, 2016.

?

Which sounds and is used better in Xuanhuan/Wuxias?

  1. Monster

  2. Evildoer

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  1. ArgosYesu

    ArgosYesu Lord of Some Lands, Editor of Others

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    I've read dozens of xuanhuan stories and the term evildoer keeps coming up. While I'm not a translator, I can't help but think there could be a better word...

    What the hell is evildoer? Villain? I've seen one translator who said evildoer was someone talented and strong in the martial way. Wdf??!?!? That makes no sense...

    If I had to make up a word and just replace it with 0 repercussions, I'd use Monster. I can see a person being a monster. For me, evildoer means exactly what the word says: "a person who does evil." Basically, a villain. Monster can be used for someone beyond genius... evildoer just sounds odd...

    Well, just here to rant. Say what you will. Bash me for trying to ruin the original which used "evildoer" and the TL's were innocent in translating it as such... I still stick behind the idea of Monster > Evildoer.
     
    Last edited: Mar 21, 2016
  2. Astaroth

    Astaroth empty

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    Do they mean Evildoer as in "Devil Cultivator" / "Devil's path of martial arts" thing? Cause that's most definitely different from a monster/spirit beast.

    Either way I do agree with evildoer being kinda out of place so to speak.

    That said I'm turning a blind eye to most of these imho obvious cases of poor sentence structure, redundancy, overly explicit, what more have you "Wolfs" instead of "Wolves"? And things I couldn't think off the top of my head... Not to mention the simply grammatical errors which any spell checker on your PC would catch, especially more sophisticated ones like Microsoft word with it's green ~~~~ for the inappropriate use of words in addition to the standard grammatical errors...
     
    Last edited: Mar 21, 2016
  3. Asf

    Asf 《《The aria of souls》》

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    Depend on the context. Evil doer are evil. Monster arent nescesarily evil..
     
  4. Saitama

    Saitama Hmph

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    Evildoer always made me cringe tbh
     
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  5. Devils

    Devils Well-Known Member

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    Yeah that actually annoys me to no end. In Martial God Space literally anyone who is a little bit talented it called an Evildoer (especially the mc). The problem is most of those people dont even do evil acts so I was really confused with that term
     
  6. Nyamsus

    Nyamsus Life is full of shit and we live in it

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    monster...
    dunno but it fine with me

    Evildoer is kinda awkward to be read
     
  7. Arcturus

    Arcturus Cat, Hidden Sith Lord

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    It depends upon the translator really. They choose whether they want to get the closest English term, or take artistic license to make the phrase more aesthetically pleasing.
     
  8. saffu

    saffu dead

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    closest english almost never works for piecing together a coherent story tho, often ends in weirdly-structured sentences and samey phrases
     
  9. Astaroth

    Astaroth empty

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    Oh yeah, this stuff, right. I think this also happen in LLS. In this context evildoer is more of a "genius" but it's so "out of this world" amazing that people would be thinking "What kind of evil pact with the devil have you made to get these benefits." type of thing, even if they don't mean literally mean that the person actually did do something bad for, it's just that incredible...
     
  10. Nyamsus

    Nyamsus Life is full of shit and we live in it

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    people understanding about something arent always the same.... he/she may has their own reason for choosing the word
     
    Last edited: Mar 21, 2016
  11. Yuki

    Yuki [Chaos-Order & Space-Time Magician,Owner of Void]

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    Yuki agrees with you. Evildoer just doesnt sound right.
     
  12. Sledjer

    Sledjer Well-Known Member

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    Evildoer always has, and always will, mean someone who does evil. Using evildoer to refer to someone who is talented is incorrect. Plain and simple.
     
  13. ArgosYesu

    ArgosYesu Lord of Some Lands, Editor of Others

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    lol. Like that simple line of thought. I was worried people would bash me for questioning translators. The main problem, I think, is that I even see "evildoer" when I read the MTLs... so I assume they did translate correctly... So I would blame authors? Or the language... Maybe it has a better meaning in Chinese...
     
  14. Astaroth

    Astaroth empty

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    This is what I think that it is, roughly, supposed to mean:
    I know nada about any Chinese though so I could be totally wrong ofc, but I thought it made kind of sense, at least when I read Long Live Summons because Yue Yang is also kinda shady and unscrupulous already you know.
     
  15. ArgosYesu

    ArgosYesu Lord of Some Lands, Editor of Others

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    For Yue Yang, I'd call him a freak or a villain instead of an evildoer.
     
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