(EW Spoilers) Tales from the Dawn #5 - Days Gone By, Days Yet to Come

[reginleif-]

Seeing a sable soul as Fandaniel's description, I thought the color of his soul was revealed. But in other languages, the description means only a dark unit, a dark figure: 黒の塊 (JP), masse noire (FR), ein schwarzes Etwas (DE). A dark color was possibly implied but wasn't stated.

Another lesson to myself to mind the poetic spirit of the English translation…

[Cleretic]

Seeing a sable soul as Fandaniel's description, I thought the color of his soul was revealed. But in other languages, the description means only a dark unit, a dark figure: 黒の塊 (JP), masse noire (FR), ein schwarzes Etwas (DE). A dark color was possibly implied but wasn't stated.

Another lesson to myself to mind the poetic spirit of the English translation…

I mean, either way it was gonna come out as 'dark'. If anything I think the poetic angle gives more useful and relevant context (albeit, again, nothing we didn't already know): That Hermes' current/eternal state of 'having a bad time' is down to the soul level. You don't say someone's soul is dark unless you want it to have meaning.

On the other hand, I don't really know what a color of a soul would actually do for us. We know souls have colors at least by some forms of observation--according to an ALC quest ours is blue--but there's never been any indication those colors mean anything. Like, genuine question, not being rhetorical or sarcastic: what would it even mean for... anything, if Hyth said someone's soul was puce? What meaning could that even carry?

[Alenore]

I think what Reginleif meant was that English uses the word "soul", whereas other language just comment on the physical Fandaniel: a black lump, a black mass, and a black thing in EN, FR and DE.

On the other hand, I don't really know what a color of a soul would actually do for us. We know souls have colors at least by some forms of observation--according to an ALC quest ours is blue--but there's never been any indication those colors mean anything. Like, genuine question, not being rhetorical or sarcastic: what would it even mean for... anything, if Hyth said someone's soul was puce? What meaning could that even carry?

It's a characteristic like any other. What does it do in the grand scheme of thing? Nothing. But for small details about xharacters and trivia? Cool!

[MikkoAkure]

I think what Reginleif meant was that English uses the word "soul", whereas other language just comment on the physical Fandaniel: a black lump, a black mass, and a black thing in EN, FR and DE.

Yeah, I think here "soul" is being used in the same way you could refer to people in English as "souls" rather than mean their spirit. The writer does the same thing earlier in the story when they refer to someone as an "industrious soul".

Though considering Hythlodaeus is a character who can actually see the colors of peoples' souls and is switching between normal and soul-sight in order to track Azem, I probably would've used a different word here instead of "soul" to avoid confusion.

[Vyrerus]

Seeing a sable soul as Fandaniel's description, I thought the color of his soul was revealed. But in other languages, the description means only a dark unit, a dark figure: 黒の塊 (JP), masse noire (FR), ein schwarzes Etwas (DE). A dark color was possibly implied but wasn't stated.

Another lesson to myself to mind the poetic spirit of the English translation…

Sable as an adjective means dark, black, or gloomy.

Though all the first things you'll see refer to a type of weasel, and the color usually refers to said weasel's pelt color. Which is a greyish shade of brown.

---

Also, I enjoyed the short story, but I voted for Aiatar. :^) Clearly most people in the XIV playerbase just want more Ascian society. Will XIV ever gain a more popular set of characters?

[Cleretic]

Also, I enjoyed the short story, but I voted for Aiatar. :^) Clearly most people in the XIV playerbase just want more Ascian society. Will XIV ever gain a more popular set of characters?

It'll be interesting, because we know the formula that works now, so they could quite plausibly try repeating it, but there's a few unknowns:

A: How many Ancient fans are now rusted onto the Ancients specifically, versus who are more inclined to accept new characters that fit their tastes. There's probably a fair amount of people who won't even care if they try, they've got their favorites and will just make fanworks about them forever.

B: Similarly, how much patience we'd actually have for 'Emet-Selch 2'; honestly, this playerbase is completely unpredictable as to whether they'll eat up an attempted repeat of a formula (i.e. Hildibrand), or reject it categorically (i.e. Bozja, Ran'jit). This is just sort of a 'never know until you try' thing.

C: If they even want to. Maybe they're just done with that sort of story for any number of reasons, and they just try entirely new things that can work in entirely different ways. After all, everyone who'd bite on an Emet-Selch probably already has.