The Shrine

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>This is the first time I've been to a movie theatre in about 8 years. I've always been a fan of the Arthurian legend especially after Fate Stay Night, so I decided to check this movie out. I'm not really sure what to make of this movie. It isn't horrible, really, but like I said below, it's like a Moby Dick movie where Ahab kills the whale and win. It's like a reasonably good story (all cheesy story and battle aside, I thought it was good enough) that has no remote semblance to the original. Actually, it is like a fanfiction, someone writing about a game or an anime with characters whose personality that do not remotely resemble the original, and yet turning out to be a good story.

I never liked Guinivere and this movie is no exception. Excalibur seems like something Arthur picked up at a pawn shop as opposed to the most celebrated weapon of all legends. Since there was no Bedivere obviously there is no return the Excalibur to the Lady of the Lake scene (for that matter there isn't even a Lady of the Lake). No love triangle between Lancelot/Guinivere/Arthur either. Merlin wasn't a wizard. I don't know, I guess the movie deserves credit for being at least medicore after ignoring everything that made the Arthurian legend great, but really, why bother? They could at least have kept the Excalibur part... the Arthurian legend is very tied to the weapon Excalibur...</div>

<div style='font: 10pt verdana; text-align: left; padding: 0% 10% 0% 10%; '>The point is that it's not the legend.</div>

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>*I know it's off topic, but what better place to discuss ancient weapons anyways, we don't really have a forum for literature (which I think we should since it is a subject of growing popularity at the Shrine for the last few years) so I might as well post it here.

Since there's no real way of proving it since the original version Dark age epics are very hard to come by; all one can really do is speculate that they are one and the same. If they are one and the same sword then it would shed some light on Excalibur's origin: It was a sword which was forged by a God (Vulcan), and wielded by Trojan Kings and Princes, Hector is named among them. As the legend goes, the Trojans were the ancestors of the Romans, and the sword went with them into Europe. Orlando acquired the sword among other gifts from Morgan Le Fay; though there are about 3 or 4 different stories about how he obtained the sword, one was that it was given to Charlamagne by Morgan Le Fay who told the young King to give it to his mosst fearless and skilled Knight, another says that Charlamagne won it in one of his conquests. However, in later versions of the story, the sword is actually compared to Arthur's Excalibur among several other Legendary weapons, Durandal is said to be the greatest sword in existance. I am not overly familiar with Arthurian legend in comparison to other legends; though I have read Idylls of the King by Alfred Lord Tennyson and still know quite a bit.

This serves as no proof as to the linking of Excalibur and Durandal, but it is just an interesting fact: Orlando (well, I assume Orlandu is just the typical spelling error that is common in Japanese games for peoples names) in Final Fantasy Tactics has Excalibur as his weapon. FFT was a poorly translated game though, it is possible the translators just took the name Durandal and changed to to Excalibur; a much more recognizable name for a Sword of Power in the English speaking world.

Legends from the Dark ages are my favourite mythology. When I was very young I read about Beowulf and became quite interested in it along with other Mythology. Back in grade 2 or 3, I began writing a fictional story about Beowulf. Since Beowulf was originally a story of oral tradition and the story seems to be missing about 50 years of history, I always considered that there is much more to the story than is written, and that some of the details were originally different. I wrote it as if it happened around the year 160 AD; My story starred Wiglaf (again, I always assumed Wiegraf was bad Japanese for Wiglaf) who was Beowulf's successor. The Svear (Swedes) invaded Gothland (Gothland is a province in modern Southern Sweden, its capital is Gothenburg the second largest city in the country), and the Danes who had befriended the Goths during the time of Beowulf had allowed the Goths to settle in their land. For the most part, it is mainly a story which deals with the wars between the Teutonics and the Goths (I had all these fictional cities and characters involved). I never finished it, but it would have ended off with the Teutonics being defeated (historically they were defeated, and then were forced to look southward to the Roman Empire, Marcus Aurelius would defeat them, the same Marcus Aurelius from Gladiator, but Maximus is fictional). Anyways, I wrote this on and off as a hobby until grade 7 when I just became too busy in RL to write anymore. I was going to eventually write about the invasion of the Roman Empire later on 100 years later, and then how the Plague killed off over half the Goths and allowed the Romans to defeat them. It was to end in the third part, another 100-130 years later when they conquered Rome under King Alaric. Anyways, this is mainly just an example of how the myth of Beowulf could very well have some important historical factors involved; Beowulf did war with Teutonic tribes, but those tribes may have originally been different in earlier manuscripts and earlier oral tradition; proof comes because the legend of Beowulf is Pagan, but there is much Christian religion placed in the last surviving manuscript. It's hard to say with Germanic legends, there are so many different versions about everything. Beowulf is a fairly famous story now, but it was fairly unknown to the world before J.R.R. Tolkien made it famous.


As for FFT: if Final Fantasy Tactics really is littered with poorly spelled names, I will give them this, they did get Beowulf's name right =P</div>

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>It makes me wonder if Alexander will follow and be a fictional story which very little resembles history and legend.</div>

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>Then what is it?</div>

<div style='font: 11pt arial; text-align: left; '>As for the names in FFT, I think it's just due to the fact that the translators were probably not given much information (if any) with regard to the historic/mythical allusions in the characters' names. Wiegraf and Wiglaf would both be spelled the same in Japanese, the translator probably just saw the characters and romanized them as best he could.

I still can't figure out that "Orlandu" thing though. I don't know for certain, but I'd be willing to bet that in the Japanese version he was called "O-A-a-Ra-N-Do-o", since there is no such katakana character as "Du." The best I can figure, perhaps the enlongated vowel sound character (the dash thingie. I don't know what it's called) was turned into a "u," making it "OarLanDou," then they just dropped the "o" sound altogether to make "Orlandu." I dunno.</div>

<div style='font: 10pt verdana; text-align: left; padding: 0% 10% 0% 10%; '>I covered that in the thread below.</div>

<div style='font: 11pt arial; text-align: left; '>That being said, it could still be entertaining.

Also, does my font look a little better? I tried to make it a bit brighter.</div>

<div style='font: 10pt verdana; text-align: left; padding: 0% 10% 0% 10%; '>Correct on all three counts.</div>

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>DoU is common in Japanese to represent Do at the end of words. That's probably what happened with the Orlando = Orlandu translation. Sometimes playing through that game makes me wonder if they even proofread it. Some other names: Altima = Ultima, Draclau = Dracula (hmmm, LaU?)</div>

<div style='font: 11pt arial; text-align: left; '>I think they sometimes change names like Dracula for English translations because they have different connotations for an English-speaking audience. Like how they changed Mr. Satan to Hercule in DBZ.</div>

<div style='font: 10pt verdana; text-align: left; padding: 0% 10% 0% 10%; '><b>Link:</b> <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/ar ... l6.html</a>

"But he sees that the pagans -- they're called Woads here -- and the Romans can make common cause against the encroaching Saxons. And indeed, it is thought that the one true Arthur did such a thing: He unified Roman and Celtic troops and faced the Saxons 12 times, finally at the Battle of Badon Hill, where he turned them back and won for "civilized" Britain a 40-year respite, which might be seen as the antecedent of the storied peace and justice of Camelot, however brief it was."</div>

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>True, In Japan it is possible the reference probably is towards the historical figure Dracula Vlad Tepes.</div>