It's all about fandom theories and mythology links for this much-delayed post covering the last three episodes of the series, along with another of my usual translation observations.
Episode 21
Just a note on Project ADW, aka Project Aus Der Wickel. Google Translate suggests "out of the wrap", but other translation attempts also exist, such as this one from an
Ergo Proxy discussion page on Reddit:
The 'ADW' (Aus Der Wickel) Project's most credible translation is 'from the spool' (or thread), referring back to Ariadne
As for the "Ariadne" being referenced there:
Ariadne was the daughter of King Minos of Crete and his wife Pasiphae, in Greek mythology. By her mother, she was the granddaughter of the sun god Helios. She is best known for her pivotal role in the myth of Theseus and the Minotaur.
Ariadne was the daughter of King Minos of Crete and his wife Pasiphae, in Greek mythology. By her mother, she was the granddaughter of the sun god Hel...
www.greekmythology.com
Diving this deeper and adding "Ergo Proxy" to a Web search of the name Ariadne, it appears that theories based around mythology abound among the show's fandom:
I think Minos is Proxy One, Theseus is Ergo Proxy and Ariadne is Re-L/Monad. In fact, Real does use the ball of string as it is meant to be used - she drops the end and thus Daedalus finds her
Please read PART 1 of Ergo Proxy anime first, before reading this or you might not understand everything. Beware of spoilers if you havent seen the whole series yet. This is an episode guide where I add more information on some points of the plot and explain some of the mind screw episodes…
cureclover.livejournal.com
Episode 22
I've been spelling the name of Re-l and Vincent's home city as
Romdeau for the entirety of the simulwatch, based on a couple of electronic documents we saw on-screen in earlier episodes, but here we have some graffiti sprayed on a wall encouraging fellow rioters to "Take back Romdo". (Maybe the yobs can't spell?
)
There's actually one further spelling of the name seen in the show, hidden in the flashes of text displayed in the opening titles. There, it's spelled "Romud", in a classic instance of dropping the wrong sounds from the original Japanese. Simulwatchers might have noticed that the characters pronounce the name "
Romudo" (emphasis shown). That's because (with
N being the rule's only exception) Japanese words are built out of syllables containing a consonant sound and a vowel sound. This leads to "rogue" vowels cropping up in the Japanese pronunciation of foreign words, like "band" becoming "
bando" or "wife" becoming "
waifu".
When converting back into the source language, however, sometimes the wrong consonants end up being dropped or the
L/
R sounds get misinterpreted, leaving us with a mistranslation. This also happened with Isao Takahata's 1968 film
The Little Norse Prince, resulting in the main character's name being rendered as "Horus" when it's supposed to be
Holse. At least they got
Hilda right and didn't end up with "
Hiruda".
I noticed, too, that the
Ergo Proxy OP text also makes mention of the "cogit" virus, dropping a vowel that was meant to be retained.
Episode 23
And finally for this already long post, one last observation. In an earlier post of mine, I tried to shed some light on the names of the Collective and of Daedalus's pair of Entourages, but I intentionally avoided saying anything about Daedalus himself. That was because I wanted to avoid a potential spoiler for this last episode:
In Greek mythology, Daedalus was a skillful architect and craftsman, seen as a symbol of wisdom, knowledge and power. He is the father of Icarus
en.m.wikipedia.org
Or, in
Ergo Proxy's case, he is the creator of Real 2 Real, who loses her wings and burns up into nothing after flying high up into the sky and into the sunlight.
