Why is it a subjective trope?: Woolseyism

In my experience, though, translations do add and subtract compared to their originals. And I have experience; I studied French and Japanese in college and I did several projects based on the translations of many works (to give a sample, Final Fantasy IV, Madame Bovary, Waiting For Godot, Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami, and Sartre's No Exit) that all demonstrated how each work reads differently in translation (Madame Bovary is the one least changed generally; No Exit the most).

Now, if you want, I can sit here and go into detail about how each of these is different in translation, but I don't think a thread hijack for literary analysis is all that apropos - look how long it took me to describe the effect of changing "from" to "to" in Godot earlier in the thread. Trust me, it gets even worse when I discuss Sartre, and I hate Sartre. Don't even ask about how much I could go on about something I genuinely like, like Final Fantasy IV.

My point isn't to get people dragging it back into subjectivity by discussing whether or not it was good to make those changes - a large part of why I want to keep Woolseyism and Macekre around as Audience Reaction tropes. My point is that it's worthwhile to objectively note that there was a significant change in the translation, which results in a different feel for the work and resultant change in its tropes and how they play out. As such, because of its effect on work, it is not trivia.

Speaking as a person who is paid to translate information, It is next to impossible to translate something and not change it. The more information you have to translate, the harder it gets.

That's no different from adaptating a work from one format to another. But this site has adaptation distillation and adaptation decay. They are analogous to woolyism and macekre, but are rarely seen as subjective.

That's because they aren't subjective. Losing something or changing things in adaptations is objective(tropers use them as complaint outlets though). And that's also why I'm arguing to drop the subjective elements here. It is possible to do and we remove one more gushing/whining outlet.

Oh, yes, certainly, but when I say "it doesn't change or add/subtract anything," I'm talking in terms of tropes. Even if it does change something, unless it involves tropes, this doesn't seem like the kind of thing that would be inside the scope of the wiki mission. If it is significant enough to start adding or subtracting tropes, then we'd have to account for that separately...

edited 24th Aug '11 3:36:02 PM by USAF713

Exactly. I've been accused of not reading this thread, but the definition of Wooleyism is can summarized as "Changes names or phrases in translation but does not change the plot." Makere is "Wooleyism but bad". But changes made due to the fact a direct translation can't be made is not a story telling device, not only that but it is not subjective. Teenager, for example, is a loan word in Japanese because they had no equivalent. Changed In Translation is not only objective, it's trivia. If you want a translation that changes plots go to cut and paste translation if you want to gripe or praise go to Wall banger or crowning moment.

What's subjective about Woolseyism (and Macekre) isn't "whether or not changes were made", it's "whether or not the changes were improvements". A Woolseyism is basically "a change made during the translation of a work that improves on the original" (or at least works better than a more faithful translation would have). A Macekre is "Cut And Paste Translation, but of an anime". I'd say that neither really counts as Trivia (the translation has a huge impact on the presentation of the work, after all), but they're both definitely YMMV. (I'd argue that Macekre is Flame Bait, too, actually.)

edited 24th Aug '11 7:01:25 PM by NativeJovian

I always thought the tropes worked like this.

• A Maekre is a Cut And Paste Translation done for the purpose of censorship.
• A Woosleyism is any translation with the aim of keeping the original intent of a translation rather than the literal meaning.

No, I think Macekre is just "translation done badly"

And, my point is that we should have an objective supertrope, at the very least, so we can tell people "yeah, this shit got changed in translation," and then the fanboy n00bz can argue over whether they like it or not on the forums and YMMV tab...

Wouldn't that just be Lost in Translation?

As I see it that Wooleyism is an intended subversion of Lost in Translation.

Well, the proposal for an objective supertrope is winning, at least.

I don't think there is really a whole lot of confusion over the difference between the tropes. A Woolseyism is about how there was a significant change but the replacement managed to stay in the same spirit, such as changing a perfunctory piece of dialogue made by a deadpan snarker into something more snarky. Sometimes it's pragmatic, sometimes it's not. The reason it's subjective is because fans will argue over what "the same spirit" actually is. The fact that macekre exists is proof of that. It's one of those tropes that would be objective in a perfect world, but in practice is not.

As for "Changed Translation" most anything can be translated in multiple ways and none may be the most precise and concise translation of the material. Because it is so broad of a subject I don't see much use in having examples, especially for a supertrope that only has a dozen subtropes under it.

That's not what the trope page says. To actually quote said trope page:

There is nothing to say that the plot stays the same. Nothing to say what is or is not allowed to be changed to qualify for the trope.

No, Woolseyism requires two things. One, for the translation to have changed something from the original source, which is objective. Two, for said change to be good (it's right there in the trope description, on multiple points on the page), which is inherently subjective.

It also has nothing to do with Lost in Translation - in part because there's nothing to say that the two can't coexist at the same time (it might still be an enjoyable translation even though some nuance was removed from the original).

If nothing else, the number of people incorrectly summarizing this trope tells me that, if nothing else, action has to be taken due to potential for misuse. If people are misunderstanding what the page itself says, they are not going to cite the trope correctly.

edited 25th Aug '11 7:23:31 AM by 32_Footsteps

Exactly. Objective supertrope (shit got changed) and subjective subtropes (is it good or bad? We don't care, put it on the YMMV tab).

Lost in Translation highlights where direct translations didn't work but you know what? It is pretty objective. A sister Trope...well sister trivia, of where things were changed because they would be lost in translation anyway, I'm in support of.

What I'm not is keeping the subjective pages. They don't add anything but long winded complaints and gushes... which is the exact reason why Small Name, Big Ego was refitted to an objective page. Sorry if I'm imagining the inconsistency. If you have a Macekre to complain about we already have a page for it. If you think something was translated well despite not being direct, Sweet Exists. Cider doesn't want to kill everything under the subjective banner because he pointed out two redundant pages but two less Ridiculously Similar Trope being potholed all over the wiki would be refreshing.

edited 26th Aug '11 4:26:22 PM by Cider

" That's because they aren't subjective. Losing something or changing things in adaptations is objective(tropers use them as complaint outlets though)"

Objective forms of these tropes Adaptation Distillation - work has been changed by changing media. Adaptation Decay - work has been changed by changing media. Woolseyism - work has been changed in translation. Macekre- work has been changed in translation.

Subjective forms of these tropes Adaptation Distillation - change is good Adaptation Decay - change is bad Woolseyism - translation is good Macekre - translation is bad.

All four of those tropes require those two definitions according to their descriptions. Both objective and subjective aspects. No requirement for tropes within the work to change, or for 51 percent of fans saying one thing or the other. There is generally a consensus on the subjective aspects, but work pages do appear with both adaptation tropes.

Bump. Looks like consensus. Should I go make the YKTTW now, or just make the page and start a Special Efforts to move everything?

Adaptation Distillation is not good. Unless you think simplifying avoiding being put to death to trying to trying to keep a cute guy's attention is a good thing. Adaptation Decay is not bad, unless you think its better to portray China as full of a bunch of Arabs and Genies because that was in the source Material.

Of course I'm talking about Arabian Knights. The point is Adaptation Distillation and Adaptation Decay are not the same thing but bad and good. Adaptation Distillation is when you simply something complex because you think all details are not needed. Adaptation Decay is about adding or removing something to not offend the audience or because the audience would be too dumb or ignorant to understand the concept entirely.

They aren't different sides of the same trope, they are different tropes linked only to the fact they both deal with adaptations. I mean dumb blond and hair of gold are both tropes about the same hair color but are not sister tropes and neither one is bad or good.

I may be on the losing vote but I'm still not convinced many of the opposition's arguments. Macekre and Wooleyism are the same trope but bad or good even though the idea of changing something in translation isn't inherently bad or good. That's why there only need to be one trope here instead of two like Adaptation Distillation and Adaptation Decay. Those are two different things and neither is inherently good bad or subjective.

YKTTW is up.