Recently I went through the CD Drama for FE: Fates and then decided to replay Fates after watching Ghast Station/Faerghast’s video on the 7 biggest localization changes in Fates’ story. However, I also decided to walk through pegasusknight.com, which is essentially Japan’s Fire Emblem wiki. Several fans had pointed me there as it had the Japanese script for all of the games. This was a very good resource, for obvious reasons.
However, as I went through Fates while comparing the official localization with the Japanese script, I couldn’t help but notice some discrepancies–not between the original Japanese and the localization…but between the original Japanese and what people claimed was the original Japanese. I presume that people like Ghast based their assessments on the fanslation, and I can’t blame them for it, but it’s nevertheless inaccurate, which really bothers me since many people still claim that it is a more faithful translation.
One example is in Ghast’s video, where he states that Garon was supposedly written as more paranoid in the original Japanese. Mind you, it’s definitely a suitable characterization for someone in Garon’s station, but the evidence Ghast provided doesn’t quite work out. In Chapter 2, we all know that Corrin protects Kaze from Garon’s attack. Garon then orders Xander to finish the job. Ghast cites the fanslation, which has Garon explaining to Xander how the Hoshidans would kill him if their positions were reversed. However, this does not exist in the original Japanese.
Japanese:
[マークス] 父上、お許し下さい！ カムイは何もわからぬ身ゆえの…▼
[ガロン] よいか…マークス。白夜兵どもを殺せ。 逆らう者がおればもろともに殺せ。▼
[マークス] し、しかし…！▼
[ガロン] やれ。▼
My rough translation:
[Xander] Father, please forgive him/her! Corrin is a person who does not understand anything…
[Garon] Very well, Xander. Kill the Hoshidan soldiers. If anyone opposes you, kill them too.
[Xander] But…!
[Garon] Do it.
Fanslation:
[Xander] Father, please forgive him! Corrin didn’t understand…
[Garon] Very well. You must kill the soldiers of Hoshido. If things were turned around, they wouldn’t hesitate to kill us. (emphasis by me)
[Xander] But…!
[Garon] Do it!
Official:
[Xander] Father, please forgive Corrin! He doesn’t yet understand our situation…
[Garon] Fine. Xander, you kill them. And if anyone gets in your way, kill them too.
[Xander] Ngh.
[Garon] DO IT! KILL THEM ALL!
Another example exists in Chapter 7 of Conquest, where Garon initially decides to have Xander execute Corrin. Ghast claims that the Japanese text has Garon specifically state that he doesn’t want to Nohr to have a “tragedy” of its own like what happened in Hoshido. While I can somewhat see where he is coming from, that’s not quite what is happening. Note that the video doesn’t show the fanslation, so I had to pull it up independently.
Japanese:
[カムイ] あれは… あの剣は、白夜王国で壊れました。▼
…爆発したんです、僕の目の前で。▼
母…いえ、白夜女王に庇われなければ 僕は今頃…死んでいたでしょう。▼
[ガロン] ほう… それは災難であったな。▼
…
[マクベス] また王のことを疑われるとは…やはり白夜で何か吹き込まれたようですな？▼
ガロン王様、やはりこの者は白夜の手先である可能性が高いかと。
[ガロン] そうだな…▼
白夜との戦端が開いた今、憂い事は少ない方が良い。▼
…………▼
…マークス。カムイを処刑しろ。▼
My rough translation:
[Corrin] That…that sword broke in Hoshido…it exploded, right in front of my eyes. If my mother…no, the Hoshidan queen hadn’t protected me, I would probably be dead by now.
[Garon] Oh…what a disaster.
…
[Iago] To suspect/doubt the king again…It seems that Hoshido must have inspired him after all? (Note: this one was a bit harder to translate. 吹 literally means “blow.”) King Garon, I think it’s highly likely that this person is a Hoshidan pawn.
[Garon] That’s right… Now that the war with Hoshido has begun, it’s better to have less worries.
…Xander. Execute Corrin. (Note: the different translators all provide different responses for “憂い事は少ない方が良い”. DeepL suggests, “the less you worry, the better,” and “it is better to have little to worry about.” 憂 means “melancholy” or “sadness,” and yet within the context of the sentence, it seems that it means “worry.”)
Fanslation:
[Corrin] That sword… It broke while I was in Hoshido. It exploded in my grasp. If Mother… I mean, the Hoshidan queen… If she hadn’t sacrificed her life to save me, I would have died.
[Garon] I see… How very touching.
…
[Iago] You still doubt the King… As I thought, has Hoshido influenced you somehow? King Garon. The possibility that he is one of Hoshido’s men truly is much too high.
[Garon] Sadly, I must agree. Now that the war between our kingdoms has escalated, I have no choice. I cannot allow this little problem to go any further than it already has. Xander… Kill Corrin. That’s an order.
Official:
[Corrin] That sword…it broke while I was in Hoshido…it exploded before my eyes. If Mother…I mean, the Hoshidan queen…if she hadn’t sacrificed herself to save me, I would have died.
[Garon] I see…how very touching.
…
[Iago] Still doubting the King, are you? Those Hoshidans really got under your skin. King Garon. I think it’s safe to say we have a dirty Hoshidan spy on our hands…
[Garon] Sadly, I must agree. Now that the war between our kingdoms has escalated, I have no choice. I cannot allow this little problem to go any further than it already has. Xander… Kill Corrin. That’s an order.
These things, in my opinion, really hamper the discussion surrounding Fates, as if it didn’t already have enough problems on its own. On one hand, there are indeed some nuances and details that may get added or removed in the localization, such as BR!Elise’s last words to BR!Xander and how she relates to justice. On the other hand, when you have people claiming that such and such is “fixed” in the original, when such things were always there, you only get more problems and misconceptions. It doesn’t help that sometimes the Japanese script has elements that never really go anywhere and thus are trimmed out in the localization, such as Lilith revealing her dragon form and warning Corrin that one day she won’t even be able to communicate with them in her dragon form.
I really encourage anyone trying to properly analyze the story to actually use the raw script from pegasusknight.com rather than over-rely on fanslations to accidentally add in stuff that was never really there. And not just with Fates, but with any of the FE games. This sort of issue was always present for some time throughout FE’s history, as many memorable lines such as the infamous “Ike, father of Sothe’s children” that fans credit the original writers with were indeed added in by the localization. And as much as localization has hampered the perception of certain works like Metroid: Other M, most of the time, it’s fairly one-on-one, with some extraneous details either being implied elsewhere or trimmed out altogether. (But seriously, that C!Saizo/Beruka support change should have been something like an overworld conversation, not an override of an existing support like with A!Dozla/Garcia. Benny/Ignatius did the “…” schtick better in both the original and the localization.) I’d really like anyone who has better knowledge and understanding of Japanese to join the conversation and talk more about these issues as well as any discrepancies they find interesting. Dani Doyle’s video on Soleil is another interesting video that analyzes the Japanese script on its own terms without relying on hearsay.
[Edit: minor typo on one of Xander’s lines.]