Lunar Threads

I didn't expect a real world racial slur against Italians in this game. I'm guessing the person responsible wasn't aware or something since a lot of the dialogue in this game is obviously badly translated. Fans need to do something with this game, because it could be a lot better with a proper translation. I'm in the town of Gumbo and loving the game so far. I just wish Working Designs would have been the ones to bring it over.

Oh man, I am SO glad Working Designs didn't get this game! For every favor they did the game, they would've added 5 bits of toilet humor. NO THANKS!!

I don't know what the racial slur is, because I don't speak Italian, so must of the words sound like gibberish to me. I'm sure the translators didn't speak Italian, either.

The Lunar games are some of the very few games that give me quality laughs. They had plenty of variety in that outside of toilet humor. Aside from Myght farting at the end of his introduction video, I don't recall much toilet humor in them..

The slur is guido. I wouldn't call an Italian person that and I wouldn't name a character that either. lol

Working Designs was too liberal for a lot of people. Vanguard Bandits they absolutely destroyed for me, and there's a few lines in the small amount of the game I went through that I won't forgive them for.

I'm certainly not happy that they added a racial slur, even if it seems like an obscure one for an American audience. I can't find if his name was changed for the UK release or not.

It's a perfectly normal name, though. Unless you're certain that the character isn't named that, there's no reason to assume it's a slur.

N.b., the level and type of humor does vary from game to game. Arc Collection was considerably more serious, as was Growlanser II (and I assume III). I don't recall much in the way of potty humor in either one.

I didn't realize that "guido" was a racial slur until Jersey Shore came out, years after playing and beating the game.

Guido the character doesn't strike me as an Italian stereotype. That's his name, and Guido is a pretty standard name. He has an Italian-inflected English accent (like most from Mogay). Otherwise, he's a wise merchant who acts as a mentor for the party - appropriate since the name means 'guide."

Thanks for the informative post! It reminds me of when I found out Goomba wasn't just something Mario related.

^ *looks up Goomba* ... and I just learned something. XD

I figured that if it was Italian, and not in The Godfather, it must not be all that important.

Guido is the character's name in the original Japanese game; it's used as a name here and not a slur.

Names, titles, and many other things can be used as racial slurs, but it depends on the context. It's like if you call someone a Hadji, that's a racial slur if you don't mean it literally -- if they've just returned from Hajj and you're congratulating them, then it's not a racial slur. I got other examples from my own youth but I don't really care to discuss it if I don't need to. KF

Kizyr wrote:Guido is the character's name in the original Japanese game; it's used as a name here and not a slur.

Names, titles, and many other things can be used as racial slurs, but it depends on the context. It's like if you call someone a Hadji, that's a racial slur if you don't mean it literally -- if they've just returned from Hajj and you're congratulating them, then it's not a racial slur. I got other examples from my own youth but I don't really care to discuss it if I don't need to. KF

Is that because of Johnny Quest?

No. Hadji from Jonny Quest uses some Indian stereotypes, but I find it unlikely he's the origin of the derogatory use of the term. I only became aware of hadji as a slur after the deployment of US troops in Afghanistan and Iraq. (ex: this New York Times article from 2005 explains the term in an aside: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/02/opini ... .html?_r=0 ). Soldiers applied it indiscriminately to everyone with brown skin whether they had completed a Hajj or not and whether they were Muslim or not. It follows such soldier-derogations as "gook" (used to refer to Asian people indiscriminately in the Korean and Vietnam Wars) and "Jap" (used during and after WWII in a derogatory manner to refer to Japanese people).

Using the Corpus of Contemporary American English, I can find no derogatory uses before 2005 in news and print media. If the derogatory use of the term didn't originate around the time of 9/11 and the military deployments of the next 20 months, it found a ready home there.

It sounds like the same thing happened in Johnny Quest as in Grandia. They named the characters without thinking enough about it.

No. Hadji is a normal name, just like Guido is. My entire point was that it depends on the context in which it's used, and when it's used as a name it's hard to make the case that it's a racial slur. By contrast, when it's used as a racial slur, it's usually really obvious. Also, as Sonic# said, Johnny Quest significantly predates the frequency of the use of "hadji" as a racist slur. KF