glasnost said: But in the context of a fantasy world, "Lord" and "Lady" are often appropriate, and in cases where they are appropriate, I think they serve to get a message across to English readers better than "-sama" does.
Yes, setting does matter, to an extent. No honorifics in Gurren Lagann? I'll live. No honorifics in Saraiya Goyou? GTFO.
But I can not think of any situation in which I'd consider leaving honorifics in as an actively negative thing. Maybe a wash at worst.
It is, in a large way, creating a new work.
This is really at the heart of what I object to. I couldn't disagree with this more. For me, the objective is never to create a new work, it is to convey the original work with as little change as possible.
Creating a new work is the line of thought that in extremes results in "Robotech" or "Mew Mew Power", or that translator you mentioned earlier. That actually got a physical shudder out of me.
Changing people to be more cognizant of other cultures would be lovely, but I think the way to accomplish that is through actual, large-scale multi-national communication, not "TL note: keikaku means plan". (Yes, that was hyperbole.)
It needs not be anything so extreme. People adapt to these things in entertainment easily, naturally, if given the chance. If it's been excised by the middle man, then they're never even given the chance. Honestly, so very little credit is given to to the end user...
And really, if they're accepting of the unusual things going on on screen (to take anime as an example) name order is an absolute piece of cake. There are far stranger things about anime than -kun or Tanabata.
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(Although the idea that not even the creator of a work can authorize changes to that work is a fascinating one that I sort of want to agree with, but can't quite bring myself to actually do it.)
::insert Star Wars/Lucas debate I guess:: The real problem is that the user is rarely given a choice. If an altered edition were just one option alongside a faithful edition, I'd take the faithful and rarely think about these things. I'd probably still dislike the idea behind the altered one but it'd be hard to care a lot if I could ignore it. I'm so utterly adamant about this because it really is all or nothing in practice.
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