Well it's certainly not implying she is trans either.
We'll see, but I really think it's the opposite here. It was heavily implied that all of the script was gonna be faithful to the Japanese script.
Meh, I'll reiterate what I said before; I don't think that it's that bad to go with the original English localisation approach of just not mentioning it in the first place. Vivian is far more defined by how the game is carelessly transphobic to her, even if it's trying to be sympathetic to her. You can't exactly "salvage" her narrative without seriously rewriting her arc because if you just change everything except for Beldam, the ending of her story becomes a complete mess with far worse implications.
Yeah, Beldam is pulling one over on Grodus during the game to get him to unseal the Shadow Queen. The thing is, the Shadow Queen is almost comically evil;
Yes, it's pretty different. Beldam's original line in the Spanish script is:
Which roughly translates as "And where did you get sisters from that? You are a man!" (Red text is from the game, not something I'm adding.)
Which Japanese script? The original Spanish line is faithful to the original Japanese. Given that it changed, I think that's a sign the Japanese script also changed.
As others have pointed out, while the English script erasing Vivain's identity as trans was disappointing, the original Japanese was rather transphobic (beyond Beldam, the game's own tone echoed that) and had its own issues. They're likely not changing the fact that Vivian rejoins the Three Shadows at the end of the game, which would make keeping Beldam as vehemently transphobic kinda... odd. They could be rewriting Beldam to be just mean while keeping Vivian as trans, while also removing the problematic lines from Goombella (and the Tattle log? I dont' quite remember).
I think they should just make all GameCube games available to buy, as well as other legacy titles. They’re not gonna do it obviously
Kinda-sorta. The problem is that Beldam wasn't the only one with transphobic lines; in-game character descriptions not tied to any particular character also used masculine pronouns and insisted Vivian was a boy. The other problem was reconciling Beldam's transphobia with Vivian's ending; they kinda just... don't mix, and there isn't really time to give Beldam an arc to justify it in any way.
The problem with that approach is that Vivian being trans was only expressed through insults and backhanded commentary. Which is especially not great in the current environment where politicians and others are waging war against trans healthcare and identity. Having Vivian be recognized as trans in 2024 solely through "edgy" 2004 dialogue that demeans her just isn't going to fly. Not because people can't handle it, but because it's just awful and makes Beldam come off as far worse than the devs' apparent intended portrayal.
I completely agree! There's a trend I'm noticing where younger people think a game containing any depictions of offensive content (e.g. a racist character) means the creators condone those views. Like.....no? That doesn't mean that. Bad characters with bad views should be allowed to exist. So long as those views aren't shown in a positive light it's fine.
I was in the camp of "I did not expect them to make Vivian explicitly trans" because so much of that is dependent on depicting actual transphobia from a family member and I did not get the impression Nintendo was going to be comfortable depicting that in their Mario game.I don't know if this has been brought up or not, but there are some screenshots of the Spanish localisation of the interaction between Beldam and Vivian:
This would roughly translate to:
Shortly after which I suppose we would then get this line from the English localisation:
Though at this point there's no way of knowing for sure how the entire scene will be handled in the English localisation, of course.
(Source for the Spanish screenshots: Nintendúo)
You're correct. But while I don't struggle to see Nintendo writing the transphobia out, I do struggle to see them writing in less problematic confirmation that she's trans. It's just not somewhere Nintendo's earned the benefit of the doubt; being non-committal is their MO in recent years.
This is what I'm expecting. The English script might leave it more to interpretation than it previously did, while the international text will go from pretty cut and dry to similarly vague. It'd be great to see otherwise, but I'm not hopeful.
Probably the latter. As others have said, a straight translation of the original Japanese script wouldn't work these days without massive controversy. While that script includes the Shadow Sister's meanness to Vivian over her transgenderism, which could work if handled appropriately, the rest of the script treats the whole subplot as a 2000s JP "trap" joke rather than a serious plotline. Goombella's JP tattle is a good example.
That's ultimately not what happens since Vivian does go back to Beldam in the end.
Do you have a link to where I can hear the new sewer theme?
The most relevant line seems to be this:
I don't know Japanese and only have machine translation available to me. Goombella uses "sisters" but appears to express confusion over whether that's the correct word.
Yeah it means:
I don’t think it’s really that cut and dry. Beldam’s abuse of Vivian is portrayed negatively in the Japanese version as well. It’s just another example of a long line of portrayals of trans/gender non-confirming characters that don’t use the most respectful terminology and tend to blur the lines on which is which. “A boy that dresses like a girl” has been a way to describe trans women plenty of times despite it obviously being dehumanizing and wrong.
I mean, this is the same subseries that has given Birdo a guest appearance in each of the three latest games, and she was cut from much the same cloth. Sure, she doesn't face the same in-character transphobia, but her original bios follow in the exact vein as Vivian's blurb: "He thinks he is a girl and he spits eggs from his mouth. He’d rather be called 'birdetta.'" The original Japanese version is near identical, just swap out "Birdo" for "Catherine" and "Birdetta" for "Cathy."
I feel like removing misgendering is not really a sign of them making her cis, I mean, look at Birdo over the years. We never got something as overtly transphobic as the Mario 2 manual, (though UK Mario Golf Super Rush exclusively misgendering her is pretty close and very clearly deliberate transphobia), but I feel like her being trans has remained enough of a hinted thing through Superstar Saga, the later Paper Mario games, and ironically, UK Mario Golf Super Rush for confirming it's never been retconned internally, even though in most of her appearances like various Mario sports games or Mario Kart there's rarely enough dialogue for any mention of gender to "confirm" her as trans.
To me it feels pretty cut and dry that throughout the JP script, it's Vivian who refers to herself as female, and is shown to be upset when referred to as male.
You are indeed correct.
Blow that dog whistle a little harder, why don't you?
Agreed, before this gets really heated.
Agreed, but why is Vivian coming out of a shark?Vivian is trans. Deal with it, corncobs!
The stuffed shark from IKEA is a LGBT icon, especially the T, for reasons that are... not entirely apparent, but it stuck at least in part because it was funny I guess.
Even when they're not being openly transphobic about it, I feel like they've never really moved past the uh, Persona-esque approach with Birdo as a character. The entire joke with Birdo has always been "this weird ugly thing is acting flirty". That hasn't ever changed much because it's very apparent from the design and the original bio that this type of comedy was the whole point. It's very hard to divorce the character from those origins...
