Talk:Vivian

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Vivian is NOT a transgender. She is factually a female in Japan. Bedlam only bullies her for not being "feminine enough" meaning while Vivian is a woman, Bedlam and her sisters pick on her and her jokes weren’t meant to be taken seriously. Goombella literally heard from vivian that she’s a female but her sisters like to pick on her for not being feminine enough. So no: Vivian is not a male. She is not a transgender. She is biologically a female. End of story. Japan is the original and others aren’t. Accept the facts.

Article contains false information/fancruff regarding "transgender"

The Japanese version of the game does not state that the Vivian character is "transgender", it merely states that he is a "effeminate man" (aka a dandy, bishonen, etc). The "transgender" cruft is just original research devoid of facts; it would be like stating the Vega from Street Fighter is "transgendered" just because he displays some effiminate tendencies.

It's pretty obvious that this has never officially been confirmed by Nintendo and really just originates from some rumors and fancruft started by some internet weirdos, so it should probably be removed as defamatory.--Verita (talk) 01:38, 14 September 2017 (EDT)

Also, for what it's worth, it's not even clear that Vivian was literally referred to as a man in the Japanese version to begin with; Beldam referring to a woman (Vivian) as a man in Japanese is culturally considered an insult, and the other in-game references are possibly just a continuation of this in-joke:

http://brokenbase.com/post/76043788098/is-vivian-from-paper-mario-transgender

Unless Nintendo has an official statement on it somewhere, this rubbish should be removed, since no one other than a handful of weirdos with too much time on their hands are trying to perpetuate this anyway; if I were Nintendo, I'd be suing for defamation that this is stated as some confirmed fact:

--Verita (talk) 02:18, 14 September 2017 (EDT)

"Defamation?" How is it "defamation" if a character can be reasonably interpreted from explicit dialog to be transgender, to say they're transgender? I'm transgender, and I don't know what all the fuss you're going over is about. Doc von Schmeltwick (talk) 03:42, 14 September 2017 (EDT)

The entire explanation for the content is up above. Hello, I'm Time Turner. 09:13, 14 September 2017 (EDT)

Sorry, I kind of overreacted with my response given how much internet flaming has been raised over stuff like this, and it was excessive. My personal opinion is that Nintendo should officially confirm this before shoehorning it into the article, or else it would be just like stating that Vega from Street Fighter is "gay or transgender" just based on speculation.--Verita (talk) 17:01, 14 September 2017 (EDT)

FYI, unless you really have something to counter this point, bringing this stuff up is usually fruitless and actually goes against our courtesy policy. Honestly, just best to avoid it. If Nintendo says something about this in the future, someone will make a note of it. 17:04, 14 September 2017 (EDT)

Well the "sources" in the article are just Youtube videos, and article I read (that I linked above) from another fan says he is unsure whether or not the game was literally saying Vivian is a man, or whether it was just an insult from Beldam; I'm not fluent in Japanese so I'm not sure; I just find it annoying that some folks are so obsessed with speculating on the 'sex lives' of minor video game characters from 10 years ago, I think the article should at least state that Nintendo's never officially confirmed anything rather than stating it as an 'offical fact' (e.x. there are fan theories that Vega in SF is gay, but since Capcom never confirmed it I don't think a SF article should state it as fact). But but fine, it's not worth arguing or insulting folks about.--Verita (talk) 17:08, 14 September 2017 (EDT)

Sorry, but you're completely wrong on this: the first reference of the article is an essay written by Francesca Di Marco, one of the Italian translators of the game, which was then a Lecturer in Japanese Language and Modern History of Japan at the University of Perugia. In that essay she translated the sentences of the dialogue between Vivian and Beldam correctly and clearly stated what was the localization policy at the time, as well as the reasoning behind the Italian localization of said dialogue. By the way, transgenderism is explictily mentioned in said essay. So, there's that, more official than this you will hardly find, really.--Mister Wu (talk) 19:23, 14 September 2017 (EDT)

Proposed rewrite of the "Gender" section

Let me precede by saying that, yes, I'm aware that this is a controversial concept that has been heavily discussed on this page in the past. But controversy of a subject should not get in the way of the wiki's factual accuracy. The text as currently written describes Vivian as transgender in the Japanese version of the game, a classification that shows a lack of understanding of subtle aspects of Japanese culture. Vivian is intended to be a otoko no ko, a Japanese concept with no real Western equivalent (concepts like "cross-dresser" or "drag queen" are related but not identical). This is a male who dresses and sometimes acts like a girl, but still fully considers themselves to be male. It's effectively an extension of the modern Japanese fascination with the concept of kawaii (which is often translated as cute but again has no real Western equivalent).

Anyway, I've written a proposed rewrite of the "Gender" section of Vivian's page here (For convenience, citations have been removed. In the final version on the page, the citations should be retained in the same places they are now). This integrates the term otoko no ko more fully into the text while still acknowledging that the Italian localization team opted to present the concept as transgenderism. In addition to this rewrite, I feel that information on Vivian's gender identity/lifestyle choices should be removed from the intro paragraph (in other words, cut the last sentence of the intro). It's really more of a trivia point and shouldn't be one of the first things the reader is told about the character. For comparison, Birdo's article, which has far more complex issues related to gender, does not mention the subject at all in the article's intro.

Thoughts on the accuracy of my proposed revision compared to what is currently on the page? -- 1337star ^{(Mailbox SP)} 13:41, August 21, 2019 (EDT)

I'd suggest integrating your findings with what is written in this article, as it fully reports the reasons why the choices about the various localization were made. Keep in mind that the term otoko no ko was used in Super Paper Mario, at the time the material they had could not be used to unambiguously infer that Vivian was an otoko no ko.--Mister Wu (talk) 20:29, August 21, 2019 (EDT)

I skimmed that article but opted to ignore it as I'm not sure how we've come to the conclusion that the Francesca di Marco who wrote that article is the same as the one who worked on TTYD. It is a rather common Italian name from what I understand. Even if she is, I think she could really only be used as a reliable source on the thoughts of the Italian localization team, not the American team or the intentions of the original Japanese writers.

Nonetheless, what do you think of Version 2? It integrates comments from that page while I think making it more clear it represents a decision from the Italian localizers and not the original intended portrayal of the character (if nothing else, the show of defiance against her sisters is at odds with her portrayal in the rest of the game). However, I personally would not be comfortable using this over Version 1 unless it can be more concretely shown that that article was written by the same di Marco that worked on TTYD. I also implemented the references from the original page into both proposed versions. -- 1337star ^{(Mailbox SP)} 10:38, August 22, 2019 (EDT)

Looking at this resume, you can see that she is indeed her who translated Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door (1998-2008 Localization Specialist in Japanese-Italian and English-Italian for Square-Enix, Nintendo, Pokémon Company, Codemasters, SCEE) and who wrote that article (2005–2009 SOAS PhD History of Modern Japan). Furthermore, while that article is indeed about localizations, your claim that it was exclusively related to the Italian localization is also incorrect, as you can see from this excerpt:

The game was rated as suitable for those aged 3 and over in Japan, and it aimed to obtain the same rating in the US and Europe. After having noticed the problem, localizers changed the original text in an attempt to maintain a ‘Japanese flavor’ (an unusual inclination towards sexual references and a captivating intercourse among the three sisters) whilst avoiding mention of transgenderism.

Therefore, you now should take that article into account when talking about localizations, while of course in terms of what the actual Japanese text says, we need to rely on the original text, and as LinkTheLefty (talk) pointed out, there's some ambiguity that we can't solve right now.--Mister Wu (talk) 18:35, August 24, 2019 (EDT)

The phrase otoko no ko (オトコのコ) is also used right in Vivian's party member description: 「カゲ三人組の一人だった　オンナのコのようで　ホントは　オトコのコ」 (and in Super Paper Mario as well). The katakana makes the meaning ambiguous - a quick search shows that Japanese websites go with either the kanji for otokonoko (男の娘) or boy (男の子), so I feel like the only way to really know what was meant for sure is to check an official guide or find a developer interview. The Italian translation article stating "In the original Japanese version of the game, it appears that Vivian is transgender." and further changing up the script to actually be more overt in the Italian version (e.g. “That’s true, you are two sisters… But I am a woman too now, and I’m proud to have turned into a woman!” was a direct statement that simply did not exist in the original text and is a case where the English version was closer in tone) can easily lead one to think it was localized into a concept more recognizable to a western audience, or at least to remove the ambiguity. However, if Vivian is intended to be an otokonoko, I should point something out: in the scene where Vivian gets the name of their group wrong, instead of "Shadow Beauties" (in the English version) Vivian refers to them as the 「三姉妹っ」 (Three Sisters) - and then later, during the ending, Goombella (whose Tattle concludes that Vivian is the group's younger brother) makes a confused reference to this line in her letter: 「これからは　姉妹（？）3人で　なかよく　くらしていくでしょう」 (From now on, the three sisters(?) will live peacefully.), though that question mark makes it inconclusive. Additionally, Clyde Mandelin seems to think that Vivian is supposed to be transgender and connects the use of the pronoun atai, but he makes the mistake of using Flea from Chrono Trigger as another example (in that game, he gets offended at being called a woman, so it's made clear immediately that's not exactly the case). So overall, with current knowledge, I believe the game's meaning of otoko no ko was intentionally designed to be ambiguous. LinkTheLefty (talk) 12:02, August 22, 2019 (EDT)

Edited my proposed rewrite to take into account your points. I've also reduced it to a single version again since the Italian text alone is enough to support that Vivian is intended to be transgender in that version of the game. -- 1337star ^{(Mailbox SP)} 12:40, August 22, 2019 (EDT)