[UA] Re: Translation problems

[Mattias Östklint]

----- Forwarded by Mattias Östklint/Husqvarna AB/Sweden/Electrolux Group on
2004-04-01 08:48 -----


This little post did spawn some replies, I'll just lump them together (the
ones worth answering):

>From: "Adrian Long" <adrian at subliminal.demon.co.uk>
>
>Culturally, "A Few of My Favorite Things" relies heavily on ideas that
>relate to the USA.  Outside of that it takes some tweaking...

snip

>Drop in a few representations of your local culture, put them in conflict
>with the american ones, and you have social commentary on the
>americanisation of your country.  It might not always work, but I think
>it's
>a reasonable way of taking that scenario and making it work outside of the
>USA.

Thanks Adrian! That should work!

>From: Greg Stolze <holycrow at mindspring.com>

I should probably be honoured by this, or something. But I'm not, it's my
game and I can do what I want with it:-P

>>Car. We have a public transportation system worth the name, sidewalks
>>pretty much everywhere, cities are eminently bikeable, you can get a
>>drivers licence at 18, we don't have sex in our cars.
>
>Barbarians.

Vikings.

>> I'm 33, have a
>>licence but no car, live 10 km from work (bus and bike both take 20
>>minutes), live in a smallish town and have never had sex in a car.
>
>I wonder what percentage of US citizens really HAVE had sex in a car?  My
>gut instinct is that the transformative experience is not actuall
>auto-intercourse, but getting busted parking by cops who THINK you're
>having intercourse.

Well, that never would have happened here either. First, it's not illegal,
second, we don't hang around in our cars, even for privacy, third, we don't
have as much of an overlap between old enough to have a car - old enough to
have a place of our own - as in the US. Most people I know got laid the
first time in their parents house, and most families let the
girlfriend/boyfriend stay overnight, after having that embarrasing speach
about condoms, of course.

>>Cars
>>aren't holy here.
>
>So wait, you think a place is holy because people have sex in it?

Don't you?-)

No, really don't you? Not holy in a christ-and-church kinda way, but it's
certainly charged.

>(Pictures Easter Sunday services in Sweden.)

>Wow.  And all Swedish women are blonde, blue eyed, fair of feature and
>stacked of physique, right, even when they're brown-eyed brunettes with
>love handles and big noses?

Hmmm... in what way does "These are a few of my favourite things" NOT play
on predjudices of USA? I'm not trying to beat up on USA or your wonderful
president/foreign politics/crappy-but-proud-of-them cars/apple pies or
anything, great country, my favourite RPG came from it! But since the
scenario deals so much with predjudices (or "the soul", as I think I
remember John Tynes said earlier), that is what I'm discussing.

>Okay, I'm being puckish.  I'll stop now.

No you won't.

>>Gun. Contrary to what you might expect, there are quite a lot of guns per
>>capita here, but almost all of them are for hunting. Home protection
means
>>getting a better lock or possibly an alarm, not a pump-action shotgun.
>
>The research is hoary (I read it way back in high school) but I remember a
>sociologist named Dane Archer arguing that guns were symptomatic of
>American violence, not causal.  According to him, America has a violent
>culture because we have a violent culture hero (the cowboy) as opposed to
>our well-armed but peaceful brother to the north, Canada, who grow up
>hearing stories about the law-enforcing Mountie.  (And Canada's never had
a
>girlfriend, I'm just sayin'...)

Hmmm, our hero is the Viking. Violent enough? "Bowling for Columbine" did a
fine job on disseminating this, the film lacks that final punchline, but
makes a solid argument, and is funny as hell, recommended.

>Okay, I'll stop NOW.  Seriously.

I belive it when I see it.

>His other argument that really resounded with me was that capital
>punishment makes citizens MORE likely to kill, not less.  Instead of the
>deterrent effect you'd get if they empathized with the executed criminal,
>you get an encouraging effect -- essentially, by slaying its proclaimed
>enemies, the government models that behavior for citizens and justifies
it.
>Sure enough, murder rates seem higher in capital punishment states (though
>here you can get into a real vicious cycle if Archer is correct).

One interesting thing about this is that there are only about ten-twenty
countries in the world that practices capital punishment (none in europe),
most of them are dictatorships.

>Also, he found that murder rates rise in nations that have just won a war
>-- again because the people see violence as a legitimized way to solve
>problems.

It probably also rises in nations that have just lost a war as well. And it
certainly flourishes during the war (not talking combat here, read Anna
Politkovskaja's "Tjechnia", go on, get to it)

>Now, in UA terms... does this mean that certain Archetypes have laid claim
>to entire nations?  Is the US under the thrall of the Warrior and the
>Masterless Man?

I think the godwalkers live there, yes...

>>Flag. In europe in general, patriotism is right up there with nazism and
>>fascism, words mostly used to describe people with extreme-right leanings
>>and very short hair. The flag as a symbol has little meaning, and not all
>>of what it means is positive. IKEA is a stronger symbol for sweden than
>the
>>flag.
>
>Your national symbol sold me some bookshelves!

It's not our only, and not our strongest, just stronger than the flag. I
think. Sold me some bookshelves to, gotta love Billy:-)

>>Flags aren't holy here.
>
>Meaning you don't have sex on the flag?  Man, you guys ARE missing out.

But you agree guns are holy, interesting...

>-G.
>
>I will never stop.

Are you tired today, Greg?


Mattias
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