Regarding the Localization of Haurchefant in the EN/FR/DE Versions of FFXIV

[Chasely]

You force us to perv on female NPCs constantly, evne if our characters are female. yet, there's ONE male character who shows slight romantic interest in our character and you have to squash it. ONE CHARACTER. that's sexism and homophobia at its best.

[Emmanellain]

Haurchefant to me, has always been my absolute favourite character in FFXIV. He is up there with some of my all time favourite FF characters, and i think that says a lot. I only played with the EN version, and i had to comb the internet for fan made direct translations of the JP script to know what he was like to that player base.
I have played through the entire Main Scenario storyline twice on an alternative character after my first playthrough, because i wanted to chat up the NPC's between quests to learn more about them, mainly Haurchefant and our main cast of followers.
And it was so neat getting to learn about Haurchefant's mother and the reason why he is so besotted with well built people. (his mother was very frail and sickly) little things like that, and all the chat options with the people of Camp Dragonhead that constantly changed depending on where you are in the main scenario kept me coming back, and now i've found myself attached to the NPC's there. To me, Eorzea feels so empty now and i find myself missing his little quirks. And that is good writing - really good writing, and to that i want on behalf of my many friends and myself thank you for writing our favorite debauchee this way. We'll be looking out for his father and his brothers we promise!

Personally, I love both versions. After all Haurchefant is still Haurchefant, he is only toned down and become more chivalrous in the EN version. It actually feels more like he's courting you in his own little odd and dorky way. But it's still vague enough for it to be possible for people that would not want their character to swing that way to brush it off as close friendship.
Now, the JP Haurchefant has a whole lot of spunk and is pretty hilarious. And I'm not surprised that he has just as much if not more popularity than Hildie in the the JP community. I think the main reason why people feel a little cheated is the fact that if we DID want to have the original problematic version then we have to hunt down a fan made translation. Which is hard to come by, really, really hard to come by.
I love EN Haurchefant, but I also adore the JP Haurchefant and it would be amazing if we could see the direct translation of what he actually says in the JP version. (the fewest of us can read Kanji) But i know that would only add more work onto you guys if you didn't have the direct translation lying around. Wishful thinking aside, my friends and I appreciate the honest apology and we understand you've probably been under a ton of pressure due to this. We wish you all on the Dev team a happy holidays, and the best of luck on 3.2! :^)

[Emmanellain]

You force us to perv on female NPCs constantly, evne if our characters are female. yet, there's ONE male character who shows slight romantic interest in our character and you have to squash it. ONE CHARACTER. that's sexism and homophobia at its best.

Oh please, take that attitude back to Tumblr and keep a civil tone in here.
This is neither sexism nor homophobia, and this is coming from an actual homosexual. So please drop it with the buzzwords, if you think this is it then oh boy do i have a surprise for you... lol

He came with an honest and genuine apology, so please keep it civil.

[Fenral]

This is neither sexism nor homophobia, and this is coming from an actual homosexual. So please drop it with the buzzwords, if you think this is it then oh boy do i have a surprise for you... lol

On that note, the change they made, with similar intent, to the gay couple in the Wanderer's Palace HM quest is one I fully approve of, as the typical Japanese gay stereotype in play was kind of outdated and revolting. From what I remember, they got crap from Japanese players on that one, so I consider justice served.

[Anselmet]

You force us to perv on female NPCs constantly, evne if our characters are female. yet, there's ONE male character who shows slight romantic interest in our character and you have to squash it. ONE CHARACTER. that's sexism and homophobia at its best.

As a homosexual and a female, I completely disagree. The EN Loc team explained it had to do with the translations and cultural differences with Japan. If it had to do with Haurchefant being bisexual and into the WoL then why did FR and GE teams also follow suit? These are European teams that are not American. Further more, the EN team does not translate solely for America, but for other Anglo countries that are also more open towards homosexuality. However, us hitting on girls allows lesbians, like myself to enjoy hitting on the ladies. It also keeps us closer towards the JP team, where this type of interaction culturally acceptable. This has nothing to do with fake feminism or token lgbt activism. Your attitude, however, is probably one of the backlashes that the EN team feared with Haurchefant being too 'invasive' or 'problematic' or '#Haurchefantisrapingmewithhiseyes'. Do you understand what potentially the type of backlash Haurchefant could have governed from a certain group of people? I love him, but if he was in his original Japanese form, I wonder if your words would be the same towards the dev team after so many would be up in arms because Haurchefant was giving their female WoL unwanted attention.

[Chasely]

Oh please, take that attitude back to Tumblr and keep a civil tone in here.
This is neither sexism nor homophobia, and this is coming from an actual homosexual. So please drop it with the buzzwords, if you think this is it then oh boy do i have a surprise for you... lol

He came with an honest and genuine apology, so please keep it civil.

It was both sexism and homophobia. Just because you're gay doesn't mean you speak for all gay people.

As a homosexual and a female, I completely disagree. The EN Loc team explained it had to do with the translations and cultural differences with Japan. If it had to do with Haurchefant being bisexual and into the WoL then why did FR and GE teams also follow suit? These are European teams that are not American. Further more, the EN team does not translate solely for America, but for other Anglo countries that are also more open towards homosexuality. However, us hitting on girls allows lesbians, like myself to enjoy hitting on the ladies. It also keeps us closer towards the JP team, where this type of interaction culturally acceptable. This has nothing to do with fake feminism or token lgbt activism. Your attitude, however, is probably one of the backlashes that the EN team feared with Haurchefant being too 'invasive' or 'problematic' or '#Haurchefantisrapingmewithhiseyes'. Do you understand what potentially the type of backlash Haurchefant could have governed from a certain group of people? I love him, but if he was in his original Japanese form, I wonder if your words would be the same towards the dev team after so many would be up in arms because Haurchefant was giving their female WoL unwanted attention.

The difference being that straight guys think lesbians are hot, so they get to see lesbians. Straight guys think gay men are creepy, so no getting hit on by men. the same can be said for the female cosplay outfits we get with no male equivalent. straight guys like seeing almost naked girls, so they give us lots of almost naked girls. straight guys don't want to see sexy men, so we get bland male outfits.

[Arrius]

I still enjoyed Hauchefant more in the way how the EN localization brought him over. With him in a Garrus-like bromance, his death did cut far deeper than I imagine in the JP version, where I wouldn't be interested at all in romance with him.

[Anselmet]

It was both sexism and homophobia. Just because you're gay doesn't mean you speak for all gay people.



The difference being that straight guys think lesbians are hot, so they get to see lesbians. Straight guys think gay men are creepy, so no getting hit on by men. the same can be said for the female cosplay outfits we get with no male equivalent. straight guys like seeing almost naked girls, so they give us lots of almost naked girls. straight guys don't want to see sexy men, so we get bland male outfits.

And I date a bisexual female that thinks that gay men are hot? What's the problem here? If they think girls hitting on girls is hot, oh well, its a fantasy that they know they cannot get. Why in the world do you think Yaoi, the female equivalent, is so popular? Its the exact same thing. Straight men do not think that gay men are creepy. That is a terrible stereotype and guess what, sexist. Not sure why you are even bringing in cosplaying into this argument, but if you are implying that FFXIV is only sexist towards females with their gear and glamour, you should probably not say that to a Dark Knight that is currently stuck in leopard print armor with a leopard print speedo. There are more almost naked men running around in FFXIV way more often than females. So many roe men where the skimpiest things that is flat out hilarious. It is rare to see females do that and I have been playing since launch. Your argument is rather weak, because even as a lesbian, I like seeing naked men and women on this game because I know its for fun! Its a game!!!!!

If attire bugs you so much, I have a hard time believing you would be fine with JP Haurchefant frothing at the mouth as he screams SPLENDID at a female avatar. Sensitive feminists were already upset with the English translation, I cannot imagine how they would react with an npc giving them 'unwanted attention'.

Btw, you say Emmanellain cannot speak for all gay people? But that is essentially what you're doing when you just dispute her with restating what she argued against without even bringing new facts to the table. Which I believe to be rather insulting as a homosexual.

[Dualblade]

snip

As a straight male, I can say in full truth that EN Haurchefant with a Male adventurer is just as okay with me as with Female adventurer if such a thing were to have happened. Some of the things here are partly a problem with differeing cultures that changes in ours won't help with (like female vs male outift possiblities.)

[bizarrejelly5]

Haurchefant is one of my favorite characters, and personally I was always disappointed by the difference by the JP and EN versions in this case. I understand not everything translates well from one language to another and would not want a literal translation (I have no problems with the changes of Midgardsormr's dialogue for instance), of course. I happened to be trying out the JP voices in the scene where you meet him for the first time and I was puzzled by the difference in the dialogue I heard and the English text. I enjoyed EN Haurchefant as a character but I found JP Haurchefant a much more memorable and entertaining character at that point than the more, in my personal opinion, bland EN version. The JP version made a much more memorable impression on me personally and led to me getting attached to the character much more than I expect I would have had I only been familiar with the English version.

I appreciate this explanation, this was what I figured were the reasons for the change. However I can't help but think this change was only brought on because Haurchefant is a male character and a large part of the playerbase being straight males who might be uncomfortable being hit on by a man. Would the same thing have been done to a female Haurchefant? Since a lot of straight men think girl-on-girl is hot, I seriously doubt it. I do understand the concern about how he would be received since that character archetype isn't as common in Western media, though I expect a lot of the player base is familiar with it regardless. But couldn't he have been toned down or made less intense without removing that aspect of the character altogether? As a bisexual female I was happy to see a male character who's into your character regardless of gender, which is usually saved for female characters mostly only for straight male titillation (hot girl hitting on my male character is hot/girl-on-girl is hot), so I was disappointed the English version didn't match.

Like I said, I appreciate this explanation and the localization team's excellent work. Thank you very much for posting!