Translations we're stuck with
As time goes on the 'tradition' of translating 'tengu' as 'winged goblin' bothers me more and more. They don't remind me of goblins at all.
The closest western equivalent in my mind would be a gargoyle. Gargoyles can be larger or smaller than humans, and many of them are winged. More to the point, tengu have a more similar role to gargoyles than goblins (which are really more like random small-time punks); both tengu and gargoyles defend religious places and are supposed to oppose corruption.
A goblin would harass you because it can. A tengu or gargoyle would harass you because it thinks you did something that offends it. It's sort of the difference between an internet troll who picks an issue so they can rant, and someone who rants because they're ticked off about an issue.
Your thoughts? I doubt we can get the world at large to start translating 'tengu' as anything other than 'goblin' (I wish they'd just stop translating it at all). But it still bugs me.
(got the dubbed version of tactics via net-flix this week).
The closest western equivalent in my mind would be a gargoyle. Gargoyles can be larger or smaller than humans, and many of them are winged. More to the point, tengu have a more similar role to gargoyles than goblins (which are really more like random small-time punks); both tengu and gargoyles defend religious places and are supposed to oppose corruption.
A goblin would harass you because it can. A tengu or gargoyle would harass you because it thinks you did something that offends it. It's sort of the difference between an internet troll who picks an issue so they can rant, and someone who rants because they're ticked off about an issue.
Your thoughts? I doubt we can get the world at large to start translating 'tengu' as anything other than 'goblin' (I wish they'd just stop translating it at all). But it still bugs me.
(got the dubbed version of tactics via net-flix this week).