Why is it a subjective trope?: Woolseyism

From my understanding, a "Woolseyism" is when a foreign-language version of a work uses a completely different (or at least heavily-modified) script from its native language instead of a direct translation, with little or no modifications to the rest of the actual work's content.

So why do many "Woolseyism" examples get moved to the YMMV sub-pages? I think it's pretty obvious to know when a work is a "Woolseyism" and when it's a direct translation if you know enough about two languages. Unless "Woolseyism" only applies to when a translated work gets a mostly-positive reception in contrast "Macekre" (frankly, I find Ted Woolsey's translations to be overrated).

I know there used to be a trope called "Streamlined", which was more neutral in tone, but now it serves as a redirect to the Streamline Pictures page.

..."suggestive?" Or subjective?

I would say this isn't subjective, but it should be trivia instead...

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Bleh. I must have been having a brain fart when I wrote the thread's subject header. Anyone knows how to edit a thread's title?

edited 19th Aug '11 8:05:53 AM by PowerRider

I saw the title and was all, what, If You Know What I Mean, much? That's why I looked at it.

But, yeah, it sounds like trivia, not subjective...

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The reason it's subjective is because it's supposed to be "a Cut And Paste Translation...that doesn't suck."

Which is something we shouldn't do, really.

Infinite Tree: an experimental story

Fixed the title. For the trope, I'd say that the "quality" of a translation is always subjective and that's why it goes in YMMV.

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

I don't even really think it's a trope, though. It's just trivia. "When exporting this product, they changed the translation in a strange and somewhat amusing manner, the end." That's not narrative or gameplay, it's just something that happened in the history of the work...

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Correction acknowledged: I used the word "trope" in the more generic sense of "wiki article".

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

What about when an anime or game has no content cut, but it has a completely different script in the localized version (even when it's something as trivial as a different backstory in the manual)? It's not exactly a "cut-and-paste translation" in such cases.

edited 19th Aug '11 8:12:42 AM by PowerRider

Good point. Should this line:

be removed from the article, then?

I still say we need to do something about how this article is "changing stuff in translations without ruining the work forever" and different articles exist to cover the same thing Done Badly.

edited 19th Aug '11 8:14:38 AM by INUH

Infinite Tree: an experimental story

That's a... massacre? Whatever the bastardization of massacre is, there is an article for that. Still not a trope, though...

Well, in that sense, it is subjective, but it isn't a trope that could go in the YMMV tab of a work. It's trivia, in relation to works...

edited 19th Aug '11 8:15:15 AM by USAF713

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^It's Macekre.

And my point was that there's no need to have two articles for the same thing based on execution.

edited 19th Aug '11 8:15:53 AM by INUH

Infinite Tree: an experimental story

Really? I thought they were different. Huh...

I wouldn't know how to go about dealing with that...

edited 19th Aug '11 8:16:20 AM by USAF713

I am now known as Flyboy.

Nevermind, I was wrong. See my edit.

Infinite Tree: an experimental story

Right... my point still stands though. Article-worthy? Yes. Trope? Not really...

I am now known as Flyboy.

Oh, yeah, it's not a trope regardless. I just see no reason to make it two articles, seemingly just out of fear of contaminating the Done Well examples by associating them with the Done Badly ones.

Infinite Tree: an experimental story

Well, I'm not really sure how we'd fix that. I'm just getting into the wiki-aspect of the site, so, I haven't been very active in TRS before... at all...

Look, you've got a noob here. I read the threads to know the terms but I don't know how to fix jack-shit.

I am now known as Flyboy.

What exactly constitute a "Woolseyism" anyway? I've noticed in the YMMV sub-section of Metal Gear that the manual for the NES version is considered one, since it completely changed the story from what actually happens in the game. The in-game messages of the NES version don't qualify as "Woolseyism", since they were direct translations of the Famicom version's messages (regardless of how badly translated they were). However, the manual is considered to be a "bad example" of Woolseyism in this case, since it turned the game's plot into a joke.

^That shouldn't be possible, since Woolseyism as-written is only for good examples.

Infinite Tree: an experimental story

Well, I think the reason that this is a trope, as opposed to trivia, is because there is no neutral trope for simply "changed in translation."

We have several of what would be subtropes for that - Dub-Induced Plot Hole for when the change causes a plot hole, She's a Man in Japan when the change flips a character's gender, Macekre for when it was poorly received, this trope for when it was well received, Lost in Translation when something gets left out in the process... but we don't have a general trope for general discussion of those changes.

Reminder: Offscreen Villainy does not count towards Complete Monster.

Exactly my point. Plus, it's a really minor change in the overall scope of things. You can always ignore the inaccurate backstory in the manual, since it doesn't affect the actual plot in the game. The NES version of the Metal Gear is still a bastardization of the original MSX2 game, but that's more of an Adaptation Decay (or Porting Decay) than because of Woolseyism/Macekre.

I think the Sonic The Hedgehog games also had different backstories between the Japanese and English manuals in the early games.

"Changed in Translation" would be a good trope by the way.

The best way to solve this would be to get rid of the "But GOOD' Woolseyism and the "But BAD" Macekre and put all of the examples under "Changed In Translation". That takes it off of the YMMV tab.

...if you don’t love you’re dead, and if you do, they’ll kill you for it.

I always thought Woolseyism was about things that could not be translated fully, so they improvised and made something up that Makes Sense In Context (or at least did so consistently).

An Ear Worm is like a Rickroll: It is never going to give you up.

It's not necessarily that they couldn't translate faithfully, though. Working Designs was rather famous for attempting this in situations where they found the dialogue a little too boring. The success of that is very much a YMMV situation; saying you liked their translations invites Internet Backdraft in some circles.

I personally like the idea of using Changed In Translation for the neutral supertrope, and relegating Woolseyism and Macekre to YMMV, unless we view those as excessively gushing/critical (I generally don't think that's too much of an issue, though).

Reminder: Offscreen Villainy does not count towards Complete Monster.