Personal pronouns and the state

[narcasse]

Having managed to confuse myself by thinking that the Trinity Blood manga consisted of only seven volumes and isn’t in fact up to volume ten in Japan I decided that now would be the time to start picking them up, if only for the artwork and the little comedy panels at the end. So today with volumes three and four in hand after reading the endnotes and admiring the cover flap illustrations earlier I’ve only just picked them up again for a brief skim and no matter how many times anyone argues that Ion’s use of Early Modern English absolves all other crimes against the English language I’m going to have to disagree. The Early Modern English as an attempt to illustrate formal and somewhat unnatural speech I can live with even when balanced out against Radu’s seemingly stilted dialogue but what I can’t ever begin to take seriously is Ion’s use of the first person plural to refer to himself. Mostly because it’s ludicrous and also by extension because it means he’s verging on treason half the time.

The first person plural is generally accepted usage for a monarch because in that form the monarch is the state and what constitutes the state is the people. Leviathan is a construct of the entire nation even when Leviathan, in the person of the monarch, is addressing its nation. That royal ‘we’ is taken to mean the weight of authority conveyed by the monarch expressing the will or at least intent in the best interest of, the people. Seth should be using the first person plural, likewise Ludwig and later Esther. As monarchs, possibly even in the absolute sense, they are seen to express the will of the state as composed of its citizens. Ion on the other hand, is not.

He’s a messenger for the Empress certainly and in a sense may speak on her behalf but he isn’t in any capacity in a position to refer to himself as Leviathan. In addressing Caterina he’s perfectly correct to be speaking in terms of ‘we’ as the state because he’s speaking as the Empress’ mouthpiece and thus is seen to be expressing the will of all Methuselah but in private unless that ‘we’ drops from encompassing the entire state to just refering to him and his tovarăş, he really shouldn’t be using it. Expressing himself in the first person plural if he really does mean the entire state then becomes tantamount to treason because nobody other than the Empress can be Leviathan with the requisite rights and authority. Legum servi sumus ut liberi esse possimus goes the Cicero quote but it’s Seth who is the law and not Ion. He only represents her.

Granted, I’m fully aware that it’s just a case of a bad decision on the part of the editorial staff and I do understand that the archaic Japanese might have been difficult to convey in English but the use of Early Modern English would have done well enough. They really didn’t need to go that step further into using the first person plural. And that said Seth had better use the first person plural once she’s presenting herself as Empress otherwise I’m just going to end up laughing myself sick at the English adaptation. Honestly, all it would take would be a passing glance at The Way Things Are Done to gather that certain language quirks were rather unnecessary. But then perhaps, seeing as this is an American translation I should possibly forgive that, since lacking anything like a historical aristocratic structure they simply don’t know how it’s done.
Blest Isle! With matchless beauty crown'd? Damn right, it is. Correct form and other details encompassing.

Comments

[7veilsphaedra.livejournal.com]

He could refer to himself in third-person, like at least one of the characters in Death Note. "Minna does not like this. Minna wants this to stop." Reader did not like that. Reader wanted that to stop.

When I think about it, referring to oneself in third-person has that interesting split-off effect that goes so well with some of the irresponsible things that manga characters do: "Brother Peter is driving his megalotank. Brother Peter is not responsible for his actions because Brother Peter is watching all this from serene detachment on high while Brother Peter's body is being possessed by whatever floaty thing happens to have taken up residency in his skull."

[reichsfreiherr.livejournal.com]

There’s a character in Loveless who talks in the third person too, isn’t there? It seems to be a specific trait of generally cheery girls in that case and perhaps might then be an issue of translation. People say each other’s names quite a lot in Japanese dialogue after all but if directly translated into English it sounds a little strange. That said I’ve been known to refer to myself as His Imperial Narsusness in the third person for comedy effect on occasion, except I should probably be saying “Our Imperial Narsusness bestows upon all a Sunday with which to celebrate the magnanimous occasion of our birth in this given year of two thousand and eight” using the first person plural really.

Reasonably though the only way I can see it working would be in this sort of case:
“I think Radu’s drunk” Ion commented to nobody in particular as he bent over the figure sprawled across the bed for a closer look.
“Damn right, Radu’s drunk” came the muttered reply.
Or:
“…and so you see it’s perfectly obvious when you consider it…” Isaak swung his arms wide illustrating his point and requiring that Dietrich duck quickly or risk being backhanded across the face.
“Dietrich’s gonna bite chu.” Came the grumble, though Dietrich did remain with his head half tipped to the side as if expecting another near miss.

[7veilsphaedra.livejournal.com]

Yeah, those examples work well. Radu is really good at that deeply offended dignity, isn't he? He's like the airline passenger that customs officials automatically mark for the rubber glove probe just because. He probably decided he would have an easier time of it as Dietrich's marionette, than in any prison given his past experiences at boarding school.

And Dietrich's teeth really are very feral.

[reichsfreiherr.livejournal.com]

Somewhat irrelevantly, I think I you may have just given me a solution to something RP-wise there.

[7veilsphaedra.livejournal.com]

That's the kind of news I like to hear. I was going through a bit of a dry spell for awhile myself. (Or a bit of a sloppy tepid spell, depending on how a person looks at it.)