Kain: The Shooting Star

Kain: The Shooting Star

(Credit: Yoshitaka Amano)

Now I’m going to have to head this post off with a disclaimer: I love Kain. He’s the best. Kain > Cecil every day of the week. So yes, there may be some bias towards how awesome he is in this post but, interestingly, that does actually have a lot to do with the writing and translation. Let’s take a look, shall we?

Shooting stars are full of passion and spirit and energy…. and then they fall as lumps of cold, hard stone. Kain, in a similar vein, is full of passion and emotion in the Japanese translation…. and is cold and often emotionless in the English version. I should say, there’s nothing inherently wrong with either: they’re two very legitimate styles of writing. But when we compare the two versions, it’s interesting to note the differences it builds up in his character - right from the start to the end.

In the very early stages of the story, Kain and Cecil are ordered to go to Mist and, upon seeing the little Rydia still alive, conclude she must somehow ‘disappear’ too. Cecil, being our protagonist, of course, questions this. But in the English, Kain doesn’t, really. Here’s the line:

Kain: We have to obey the king’s orders.

Now, let’s take a look at the Japanese (and my translation):

カイン: 殺らねば、俺たちが殺られる！

Kain: If we don’t do her in, we’ll be done in!

Note not only how wildly diverging these responses are, but the difference in tone, too. Japanese Kain emphasises how dire the situation is; English Kain is cold and removed from the situation. Also note the difference in punctuation and syntactical structure: the Japanese uses repeated verbs for emphasis (殺る, yaru, a colloquialism meaning ‘to do someone in [as in to kill]’, is repeated twice in different conjugations), and uses exclamatives. The English, however, uses none of these. 

This moment, coming at the beginning of the game, produces two different Kains: the Japanese Kain who is more overtly emotional, and the English Kain who is colder and more internally-angsty.

Later, when Kain is being mind-controlled and kidnaps Rosa in Fabul and the mind-control slips for a moment, we see these two different Kains:

Kain (Eng.): No, I…

カイン: う・・・・ううッ！ 俺を・・・・見るな！

Kain (my translation): Ugh…. Agh!! I….. Don’t look at me!!

And again, we see this pattern recur when his mind control lifts (for the first time!) and he (wonkily in both languages, I must say) confesses his love for Rosa:

Kain (Eng.): Forgive me, Rosa… It’s true that I was being controlled, but I also… Rosa… I wanted to keep you with me at any cost!

カイン: 許してくれ ローザ・・・・操られていたばかりじゃない！ 俺は、君に側に・・・・いて欲しかったんだ！

Kain (my translation): Forgive me, Rosa! It wasn’t just that I was being controlled! I… I wanted to keep you by my side!

Note also the depth that his Japanese confession gives his feelings towards Rosa; in the English, his keeping of Rosa seems more a subconscious off-shoot of his actions whilst mind-controlled. In Japanese, however, it is implied that he had some cognisance of his actions whilst mind-controlled, and these were conducted for his own personal gain.

Another example, after Yang ‘dies’ in the Tower of Zott:

Kain (Eng.): Why does everyone choose death so quickly…?

カイン: どいつも死に急ぎやがって！

Kain (my translation): Always, always, these bastards going so quickly towards death!!

The Japanese even has a verb ending attached to the verb ‘急ぐ’ (to hurry, isogu; here translated as ‘going so quickly [towards]’), ‘やがる [yagaru]’ (conjugated as ‘やがって [yagatte]’ here; translated as ‘these bastards’), which shows a lot of anger or contempt to whoever is enacting the verb - in this case, Yang, Cid, and all those others who jumped to their ‘deaths’. The Japanese is grammatically and syntactically more emotional than the quite listless and internal version we see in the English.

So this pattern of the ‘two Kains’ is continued right up until the end of the game, with Kain’s final lines. It’s only a tiny difference, but nonetheless, it proves the sustained pattern of difference between the translations. Whilst in the English, Kain decides to hide away because he can no longer “face” Cecil and Rosa, in the Japanese he can’t come back to ‘congratulate/bless them’. The lines are here for immediate comparison:

Kain (Eng.): Cecil… Rosa… I cannot bring myself to face you both yet.

カイン: セシル・・・・ローザ・・・・今の俺には、お前たちを祝福することは出来ん・・・・

Kain (My translation): Cecil, Rosa… I cannot bring myself to congratulate you two, as I am now…

This is fascinating because the emotionality rests on one, subtextual thing: the Japanese Kain needs to work on himself because he still loves Rosa and cannot forgive himself for what he did; the English Kain simply feels guilt. It’s a subtle and interesting difference, but the climax of a sustained pattern of difference.

(Credit: Square Enix)

Now, I have just one more thing to add. It’s only a little difference, but one I feel obligated to note nonetheless. In the English, Kain has a cool final comeback to Barbariccia when they’re escaping the Tower of Zott:

Kain (Eng:) Let’s see about that!

Pretty cool, right? Well, it’s nowhere near as cool as this!!

カイン: フッ、空中戦はお前たちだけのものじゃない！

Kain (My Translation): Oh yeah? Well, fighting in the skies isn’t only for you!

I think it’s a cooler line, that is all.

So, to conclude: through the medium of translation we see two very different versions of the character emerge: one is very emotional, prone to exclamatives, and generally a bit more communicative. The other is more insular, says little, and tends to turn to listlessness in times of crisis. Interestingly, it is the latter, the ‘English’ Kain that is picked up on in further media, and ‘Japanese’ Kain is a thing relegated to the original Japanese game, only. If I were to pick? Well, I’m biased. I spent many years not speaking Japanese and therefore I have been far more exposed to ‘English’ Kain (who is my favourite). But both are interesting characters, and serve their narrative function well - the ‘English’ Kain is the stoic foil to the softer Cecil, whilst the ‘Japanese’ Kain is equally Cecil’s foil, just in the other direction. I love them both, and it’s a testament to both the original scriptwriter and translator’s skills that I do.