and now, yet another spin-off
6 Feb 2006 01:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kaigouThe previous thread got me thinking about nicknames, and not just the specifics of what we call lovers. I think one of the issues in fanfic (or any fic) about nicknames is that often writers don't actually think about the characters as individuals, complete independent individuals, and assess how a 'real' person might react. The characters are pixels to be moved about on the screen, and aren't always accorded serious thought in terms of 'would this person really permit this nickname to be used, let alone actually appreciate it'?
I didn't really have any nicknames in school, except for one or two very close friends, each of whom had their own personal nicknames for me. So my first major introduction to the power of nicknames was when we attended my mother's college reunion and some woman came running up to my mom, calling my mom by her maiden name. Mom was disgusted with this (though she smiled and chatted cheerfully like a good Southerner); after the woman left, my mother commented, "she called me by my last name, and I hate that. Only friends can call me by my last name, and she and I weren't friends in college." The woman had pre-empted a level of intimacy between herself and my mother, and for my mother, this rankled.
Now, multiply that by ten, given that the majority of fandoms I like are ones in which the male (and often female) characters do have the power to kick the average mortal's ass for presumptions (even if not all would). I can easily see Neji, in Naruto, not even pausing to respond other than to stab with two fingers and disable the person who dared call him Ne-chan if this person were one that Neji didn't see as having that right of intimacy -- and then he'd keep walking. Heero? That gun that never actually shoots Duo or Relena? I think we'd see it fired damn fast if he were called Hee-kun, let alone Hee-chan. Quatre might just ignore the nickname altogether, and not dignify it with a response. Trowa would stare blankly, perhaps; Wufei would level the person with a punch. Naruto would bristle, Sakura would punch the person, Ed (FmA) would go into fits, Alphonse would politely dissuade the person.
There's a second level to it, too, I think. Hinata might be the only person who could use the honorific (passing somewhat for a nickname in this context) of Neji-chan, but this isn't just because they're cousins. It might also be because Neji, in his delightfully warped way, sees her as a non-threat and thus her use of a nickname (which indicates a level of emotional intimacy) is not a danger to him. Think of your younger siblings or younger cousins who call you Dayday because they can't pronounce 'Kathy' or call you 'Cousin Wobby' as a holdover from the days when the R was a hard sound to manage. They get a free ride on an otherwise ridiculous nickname, but if one of your friends were to tease you with the name 'Cousin Wobby' you just might get a bit aggravated -- even if this is an otherwise good friend. It's still calling on a level of intimacy and back-history that's above and beyond, or different, from what you have with that friend, and we rarely allow such areas to mix and match. Wobby is your nephew's name for you; Rob is your friends' name for you, and to mix them feels wrong and uncomfortable somehow. Why would it be any different for a character? Some level of versimilitude is what we seek, after all.
Nicknames, to a certain degree, are infantilizing. "Babe," "pookie," "sweetie," are ones I've heard lovers use with each other, and there is a level of babying that does make sense--it creates a sensation for lovers of being protected, of being take care of, of being sheltered, just as young children are by their parents. But come on; the characters I appreciate are not characters who might really take well to being protected and sheltered; it's their very independence that attracted me in the first place, their strength against the odds, their determination to be strong on their own two feet. These aren't likely to be people to say, "oh, yes, treat me like I'm five!" as if they haven't spent the entirety of the series (and possibly pre-series) struggling to be treated like anything but a helpless infant.
(I suspect the infantilizing nicknames are as much a way of cutting these overly strong characters down to size as the tendency to turn the boy characters into girls and the girl characters into psychotic bitches.)
And it's not just who accepts a nickname but who uses it, too. Naruto uses 'Sakura-chan', but IIRC, he doesn't use an honorific for Sasuke. Duo never uses an honorific for anyone, and neither does Heero. Relena gives all the males her age a -kun honorific. Konohamaru gives Naruto the 'big brother' nickname, doesn't he? Anyway, Naruto using 'chan' for Sakura is, I think, indication of his attempt to claim some level of emotional familiarity with her as a female teammate (and as an extension of his crush on her), that is, as opposed to -san. But, as I understand it, the honorifics in Japanese are a great deal like my mother's experience in college: one's last name, used by friends, is actually an indication of greater closeness than one's first name. Look at the difference between, say, calling to one person, "Miss Sakura!" versus "yo, Uchiha." Even Americans, lacking formal honorifics, would see the second as being of greater familiarity and likely equality (at least from the perspective of the speaker). If the second person addressed turns around and punches the speaker and says, "don't call me that," then we'd know this familiarity was presumptuous on the speaker's part. And if the first person addressed frowned and said, "please, just call me Sakura," then we know the speaker was actually introducing more distance, not less, by the use of title plus first name.
Granted, all this is really something that boils down to "think about the characters and the situation before tossing this shit out." It's almost impossible to do rules-of-thumb, since a good writer could convince you of just about anything at any time. But we do, as social creatures, have some very clear (if rarely verbally defined) personal rules about the use of names in particular places. If you're at work and your mother comes by to take you for lunch and calls you by a childhood nickname, you're probably going to rankle, even if you don't show it outwardly -- your mother has, in your place of work as an adult, just reduced you (however unintentionally) to the state of a child, by reminding you of that part of your relationship. But when the family gets together at Thanksgiving? Everyone might be calling you by your family nickname and you wouldn't think twice. Duo might, upon occasion, call Heero 'Hee' or 'Ro' or even 'Yuy' but if 'Heero' is what we see Duo using in a business (or battle) context, then any deviation is going to be noticed by Heero and possibly remarked upon. If you've ever worked with someone you're dating (or living with), then you probably are aware of the discomfort if your lover slips and calls you 'pookie' while at work: that's your 'with-lover' persona, not your 'now-at-work' persona. We don't often like to have the lines crossed.
The reason it's impossible to do rules-of-thumb is because there are times when using inappropriate nicknames can be a strong, if subtle, demonstration of character interaction. A character who creates nicknames for everyone is someone taking familiarity before it's granted; it might be a sign of insecurity, or clinginess, or arrogance that s/he controls the speed of familiarity. A character who consistently refuses nicknames shows distance, refusal to grant intimacy. Using a personal nickname in a public/impersonal environment could be a way for one character to 'jolt' another; say, if Wufei were about to go ballistic, Duo calling him Wu-kun could be a skillful (if suicidal) way to distract Wufei from his fury with another point and transfer it onto Duo. With friends, sometimes we do that, and claiming a level of familiarity (or distance) is a much subtler -- if only because we react without thinking and don't always process why we're reacting like that -- way to manipulate.
And now, my lovely independent sap-hating minions, discuss!
I didn't really have any nicknames in school, except for one or two very close friends, each of whom had their own personal nicknames for me. So my first major introduction to the power of nicknames was when we attended my mother's college reunion and some woman came running up to my mom, calling my mom by her maiden name. Mom was disgusted with this (though she smiled and chatted cheerfully like a good Southerner); after the woman left, my mother commented, "she called me by my last name, and I hate that. Only friends can call me by my last name, and she and I weren't friends in college." The woman had pre-empted a level of intimacy between herself and my mother, and for my mother, this rankled.
Now, multiply that by ten, given that the majority of fandoms I like are ones in which the male (and often female) characters do have the power to kick the average mortal's ass for presumptions (even if not all would). I can easily see Neji, in Naruto, not even pausing to respond other than to stab with two fingers and disable the person who dared call him Ne-chan if this person were one that Neji didn't see as having that right of intimacy -- and then he'd keep walking. Heero? That gun that never actually shoots Duo or Relena? I think we'd see it fired damn fast if he were called Hee-kun, let alone Hee-chan. Quatre might just ignore the nickname altogether, and not dignify it with a response. Trowa would stare blankly, perhaps; Wufei would level the person with a punch. Naruto would bristle, Sakura would punch the person, Ed (FmA) would go into fits, Alphonse would politely dissuade the person.
There's a second level to it, too, I think. Hinata might be the only person who could use the honorific (passing somewhat for a nickname in this context) of Neji-chan, but this isn't just because they're cousins. It might also be because Neji, in his delightfully warped way, sees her as a non-threat and thus her use of a nickname (which indicates a level of emotional intimacy) is not a danger to him. Think of your younger siblings or younger cousins who call you Dayday because they can't pronounce 'Kathy' or call you 'Cousin Wobby' as a holdover from the days when the R was a hard sound to manage. They get a free ride on an otherwise ridiculous nickname, but if one of your friends were to tease you with the name 'Cousin Wobby' you just might get a bit aggravated -- even if this is an otherwise good friend. It's still calling on a level of intimacy and back-history that's above and beyond, or different, from what you have with that friend, and we rarely allow such areas to mix and match. Wobby is your nephew's name for you; Rob is your friends' name for you, and to mix them feels wrong and uncomfortable somehow. Why would it be any different for a character? Some level of versimilitude is what we seek, after all.
Nicknames, to a certain degree, are infantilizing. "Babe," "pookie," "sweetie," are ones I've heard lovers use with each other, and there is a level of babying that does make sense--it creates a sensation for lovers of being protected, of being take care of, of being sheltered, just as young children are by their parents. But come on; the characters I appreciate are not characters who might really take well to being protected and sheltered; it's their very independence that attracted me in the first place, their strength against the odds, their determination to be strong on their own two feet. These aren't likely to be people to say, "oh, yes, treat me like I'm five!" as if they haven't spent the entirety of the series (and possibly pre-series) struggling to be treated like anything but a helpless infant.
(I suspect the infantilizing nicknames are as much a way of cutting these overly strong characters down to size as the tendency to turn the boy characters into girls and the girl characters into psychotic bitches.)
And it's not just who accepts a nickname but who uses it, too. Naruto uses 'Sakura-chan', but IIRC, he doesn't use an honorific for Sasuke. Duo never uses an honorific for anyone, and neither does Heero. Relena gives all the males her age a -kun honorific. Konohamaru gives Naruto the 'big brother' nickname, doesn't he? Anyway, Naruto using 'chan' for Sakura is, I think, indication of his attempt to claim some level of emotional familiarity with her as a female teammate (and as an extension of his crush on her), that is, as opposed to -san. But, as I understand it, the honorifics in Japanese are a great deal like my mother's experience in college: one's last name, used by friends, is actually an indication of greater closeness than one's first name. Look at the difference between, say, calling to one person, "Miss Sakura!" versus "yo, Uchiha." Even Americans, lacking formal honorifics, would see the second as being of greater familiarity and likely equality (at least from the perspective of the speaker). If the second person addressed turns around and punches the speaker and says, "don't call me that," then we'd know this familiarity was presumptuous on the speaker's part. And if the first person addressed frowned and said, "please, just call me Sakura," then we know the speaker was actually introducing more distance, not less, by the use of title plus first name.
Granted, all this is really something that boils down to "think about the characters and the situation before tossing this shit out." It's almost impossible to do rules-of-thumb, since a good writer could convince you of just about anything at any time. But we do, as social creatures, have some very clear (if rarely verbally defined) personal rules about the use of names in particular places. If you're at work and your mother comes by to take you for lunch and calls you by a childhood nickname, you're probably going to rankle, even if you don't show it outwardly -- your mother has, in your place of work as an adult, just reduced you (however unintentionally) to the state of a child, by reminding you of that part of your relationship. But when the family gets together at Thanksgiving? Everyone might be calling you by your family nickname and you wouldn't think twice. Duo might, upon occasion, call Heero 'Hee' or 'Ro' or even 'Yuy' but if 'Heero' is what we see Duo using in a business (or battle) context, then any deviation is going to be noticed by Heero and possibly remarked upon. If you've ever worked with someone you're dating (or living with), then you probably are aware of the discomfort if your lover slips and calls you 'pookie' while at work: that's your 'with-lover' persona, not your 'now-at-work' persona. We don't often like to have the lines crossed.
The reason it's impossible to do rules-of-thumb is because there are times when using inappropriate nicknames can be a strong, if subtle, demonstration of character interaction. A character who creates nicknames for everyone is someone taking familiarity before it's granted; it might be a sign of insecurity, or clinginess, or arrogance that s/he controls the speed of familiarity. A character who consistently refuses nicknames shows distance, refusal to grant intimacy. Using a personal nickname in a public/impersonal environment could be a way for one character to 'jolt' another; say, if Wufei were about to go ballistic, Duo calling him Wu-kun could be a skillful (if suicidal) way to distract Wufei from his fury with another point and transfer it onto Duo. With friends, sometimes we do that, and claiming a level of familiarity (or distance) is a much subtler -- if only because we react without thinking and don't always process why we're reacting like that -- way to manipulate.
And now, my lovely independent sap-hating minions, discuss!
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Date: 6 Feb 2006 07:24 pm (UTC)Arg, nothing bothers me more than clingy Duo calling for Hee-chan. @_*
And Harry Potter fandom is really guilty of this too. Snape should never be called Sev or Sevvy, and Sirius should never ever ever be Si or Siri. *froths*
Sorry, will stop ranting now. ^_^
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Date: 6 Feb 2006 08:58 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 6 Feb 2006 09:16 pm (UTC)I went to southern school myself, so calling my classmates by their last names isn't really out of the ordinary for me. but I can see if it was a nickname only your friends used, it would be really annoying to hear it from someone else.
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Date: 7 Feb 2006 04:25 am (UTC)...and I'd think woe be to him (or her) who used those nicknames for the inner group without the inner group's permission, which harkens back to the whole idea of "you're allowed, you're not allowed" when it comes to who can use which nicknames, when, and where.
(and do feel free to rant, if you like; you may prompt a tangent, in which case I'll make another post for that topic, instead.)
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Date: 6 Feb 2006 08:20 pm (UTC)And then there's the fact that nicknames can be used to show some kind of defiance of the "normal" thing -- as in, every single teacher at the school I attended while in Japan had a nickname that was used to refer to them when they weren't around. Maybe that was something special in regard to my school, maybe it was the Japanese high school students' way of saying "to hell with the system, I'll do the 'yes sensei' routine when you're around, but only then". I don't know.
It's very difficult to take a general view on honorifics based on the Gundam series. That's because the series adopt an "international" standard to a point -- all characters address each other with their first names (sometimes plus honorifics), no matter whether they've just met or what. IIRC, even the teachers call the students "given name-kun/san", which according to what I've gathered simply wouldn't be done out of elementary school in Japan... It's dangerous terrain to try and play with honorifics here, especially for us foreigners.
I actually looked through some of the GW doujinshi I own to see whether there were any nicknames at all in use, but without success.
The closest thing I could find to a nickname occurs in a saga-esque eight-volume doujinshi by NATTSU (Kume Nasuo), which retells the entire GW storyline -- with twists.
Here, Duo tells Heero his name when they're repairing their Gundams, but Heero won't give his -- "I didn't make you tell me your name, you can't make me tell you mine."
To which Duo reacts by calling him "Pochi", which is the Japanese universal doggie name (kind of like calling your cat "Kitty"). He keeps using that name until he learns Heero's actual (code) name, at which point he switches to Heero.
Stupid example -- I think that Duo wouldn't let a lover call him "Duo-chan", but I also don't think that Heero would be the type to give such a nickname, for the reasons you pointed out above.
Confusing topic, that. *sighs*
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Date: 6 Feb 2006 08:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 6 Feb 2006 11:25 pm (UTC)Also, Duo sounds weirdly Kansai-an in this, which endeared him even further to me. ♥
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Date: 6 Feb 2006 09:04 pm (UTC)I think, though, in some ways the -san/-kun designations in some points in GW are to balance the quite adult actions of the characters. Giving them adult designations pushes them further away from the 'childhood' position, and GW was walking a real edge in terms of Japanese perceptions of kids. Err, that is, age fifteen is the point where one is on the brink of adulthood, and thus is still 'innocent' to some degree, or at least pure, and therefore not going to bear the burdens of their adult actions to quite the same extent. There are marked differences in their actions, after all, when EW rolls around and the characters are now all 'adults' -- Duo, Trowa, and Quatre go out of their way to avoid killing, while Heero swears to never do it again; they're learning lessons, as adults, that they could avoid the burden of as kids.
Which has nothing to do with nicknames so I'll stop on that now.
The big lesson I took away from GW in terms of honorifics was that Heero, Duo, Wufei, and Trowa don't use them, and the absence is notable in contrast to the use by Quatre, Relena, and Dorothy. So it felt less like a specific point for each character (each of whom are most definitely rather lightly-drawn archetypes) adn more like an issue of contrasting.
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Date: 6 Feb 2006 11:18 pm (UTC)Oh, definitely. For characters who move in high circles like Relena and Quatre, it's crucial that they know exactly how to address whom, and when, while Duo probably never much got the hang of it and Heero never bothered. Trowa might be aware of it, but doesn't use it unless it serves his purpose, and Wufei... I must confess that I don't get Wufei. He's the only character who uses "Kisama", which used to be as honouring a century ago as it is insulting now (or so I was told), and has pretty polished speech overall, but honorifics? Nuh-uh.
The downside of honorifics in fiction written by people who never really looked into the system further than "-chan for kids or lovers, -kun for subordinates (usually male), -san as a general thing" really disturb the flow of the story. I remember being floored at the concept that some Japanese mothers actually call their children [Name]-san until I'd spent some time there. It still seems weird, but I kind of get where they're coming from, now.
Language is quite an issue in GW overall. They all talk differently; refer to themselves differently, and that both helps with and complicates characterisation. At least for me. And then there's always the thing that you can't do some of that stuff in English, e.g. Duo uses a huge amount of emphasising particles -- and I have no inkling how one would do that in English. Or German, for that matter.
I had a point. Maybe I'll remember tomorrow. *sighs* Too dang late.
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Date: 7 Feb 2006 12:06 am (UTC)I'm not sure what you mean by that -- would it be roughly equivalent (at least in feel) to someone who often says things like "man, it was totally excellent, everything's insanely awesome" -- that kind of overuse of something to make "X" into "very X"? A sort of exaggerated feeling in the speech? Or is it something else?
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Date: 7 Feb 2006 03:20 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 7 Feb 2006 03:59 am (UTC)And while we're on it, do any characters in that (or any other) fandom use such elements as well? Curious to see who's got these extras going on, that I've missed, and what it might say about the characterization.
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Date: 7 Feb 2006 05:05 am (UTC)From what I understand, in the case `-daro` it's not used politely. It's considered rough and the stronger an accent you put on it (rolling the r) the stronger of a meaning you convey. It indicates that you are more powerful in a way. Which might be why Ichigo uses them a lot in Bleach. Imagine a swaggering yakuza bragging and talking smack, I guess.
I can believe that Duo would use such particles often, most of the male characters in Bleach do (well the rougher ones anyway).
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Date: 7 Feb 2006 10:19 am (UTC)The attitude that goes (or can go) with it -- all those you named, but not limited to it. I'm trying to come up with examples and failing. Attitude... I guess it would need a level of confidence, and a certain way of looking at yourself (because characters with low esteem for themselves use these particles as well, occasionally)
Maybe you could see that of all pilots, Duo sounds most like your average teenage boy and all the lingo they've got going on.
I thought Heero's sentences often sound rather clipped, not unnaturally so, but short. Quatre has a polished way of speaking, Wufei is more outspoken than Heero (too much to sound polite), but sounds similar-ish otherwise. Trowa... dang, I really need to listen to him more closely, I come up blank. But because Duo uses these particles, he sounds rather natural, like someone you might actually run into on the street -- as opposed to Heero or Wufei, who really kind of stick out with their curt (and in Wufei's case, also exclamation-mark ridden) sentences or Quatre with his "boku" (modest way for men to say "I") and polite sentence endings.
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Date: 7 Feb 2006 05:55 pm (UTC)It's amazing, the more I learn the subtleties of the language, the more I can start to grasp even just the barest when watching a series. Well, that, and the more I learn about Duo's language in particular, the more I'm utterly baffled as to why anyone would think 'surfer dude' was a good amalgamation of an accent. I keep thinking, wait, they picked a Western accent that's the absolute pinnacle of the lazy, easy-going, laissez-faire hippy/stoned/slacker attitude, but Duo talks like he's from Brooklyn, people! I think it would've changed Duo's characterization (especially in fanfic!) if he'd had an accent in the dub that made him sound like a rough from New Jersey or something.
I can totally see Duo tagging on the end of every other line, "you gotta problem with that?"
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Date: 7 Feb 2006 07:47 pm (UTC)Waitwaitwait. Where? 14-17? Must go and rewatch. Interesting. I remember thinking that Trowa talks to Noin like she was one of the guys -- albeit one of the guys he wouldn't trust as far as he can throw them... Cussing? Must go see. :D
And Duo would probably use "temee" if he were to insult someone through versions of "you".
I can totally see Duo tagging on the end of every other line, "you gotta problem with that?"
XD Absolutely! Especially when addressing Ozzies or stuck-up people in general.
Btw -- I finally got to see the English dub and don't think it's all that bad (after I got over the shock of Quatre's VA, whose accent killed me, and Relena's voice -- heck, she sounds so incredibly obnoxious in the first few episodes, no WONDER she's made out to be such a bitch by many!). Most is translated really well, like Duo's "This is such a lame way to die!" etc. -- often, it's just the tone of voice that is a bit off-putting. Like... sounding aggressive when the original didn't etc. But I guess that's character interpretation, like you have it in any play or audio recording. It's not necessarily bad, just different.
Can't say much about the accent as it just sounds "thick" and "American" to me, but I think this is the part where I admit that I really like Trowa's English voice. Sounds and "feels" a lot like the original one to me. (^_^;;)
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Date: 7 Feb 2006 03:23 am (UTC)I was given the impression (actually I just asked during lunch) that that would only happen with the case of a step-mother. A mom might call her child -kun or if elementary school age -chan. Most cases though, they just use their first name.
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Date: 7 Feb 2006 04:02 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 7 Feb 2006 04:10 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 7 Feb 2006 09:56 am (UTC)They were the only ones I knew who did that outside anime, but it seemed really weird at first.
I just had a look at your profile page -- w00t, another ALT! :D I still hope I'll be able to do that once I've finished school... /irrelevant chatter
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Date: 7 Feb 2006 10:46 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 6 Feb 2006 08:35 pm (UTC)People I have worked with:
Lumpfish, aka Lumpy
Colonel (a black man whose last name was Sanders)
Bulldog, aka Bullfrog
On-account-a
Val (a guy)
Bugs
Skeeter
J.D. (not his initials)
Goonior (Like Junior, but beginning with "Goon-")
Chopper
Hinkley (after Reagan's would-be assassin), aka Hink
Faggot Fucker (actually, that was me -- because of the long hair) aka FF
Pig Farmer, aka PF
Chubnik, aka Petunia
Porky
Casper
Willis
Bones
...and others I've forgotten.
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Date: 6 Feb 2006 09:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 6 Feb 2006 09:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 7 Feb 2006 12:27 am (UTC)"You think that's bad, you should feel sorry for my older twin brother, Two-Dogs," One-Man-Bucket said.
The person replied that they couldn't see what was so bad about being named Two-Dogs-Fighting.
"Two-Dogs-Fighting?" One-Man-Bucket said. "My brother would have given his left arm to be called Two-Dogs-Fighting."
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Date: 7 Feb 2006 10:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 6 Feb 2006 08:36 pm (UTC)And that goes for pretty much everything, in the end. The problem is that there are too many people who equate writing with a sort of mental splurge, and never consider that thinking about what you do, and how you do it, are the basics of good fiction.
I think the -chan and -kun have been suffixed into far too many characters' names with the hopes of making their dialogues sound 'more japanese' (with dubious results).
Nicknames do generally imply a level of intimacy, or reflect a position in the relationship. In Chile, for example, everyone has nicknames, it's impossible to get through your teenage years without being called at least 8 different names... and that's just counting the non-insulting ones. Eventually, depending on the name you're called you can peg where this person met you or - as with Sol's mom's example - how close they feel to you. I've been called 'Toffee' on and offline for ages because it IS - to some degree - a deformed result of another nickname:
Sofía --> Sofi --> Chofie --> Toffee... voilá!
The people who meet me as Sofía start calling me Toffee when they think we've become closer. The people who meet me as Toffee, take up Sofia after asking for my permission, which is... interesting. :)
... which sort of makes me wonder about the Naruto universe: Characters relate to each other on a first-name basis in ways that don't really reflect (not 100%) what I understood of japanese culture. Any possible reasons? (or just plain Kishimoto-ness?)
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Date: 6 Feb 2006 09:11 pm (UTC)I've got the same thing going on. There are folks who've met me as Sol, and if they start calling me by my real name, I feel odd, as though they're moving into territory not occupied by Sol. People who knew me pre-Sol (of which there are few, but there are some), calling me Sol feels odd, as though they're trying to relate to me on a level that's never been part of our friendship. And the strangest is that while I've cosplayed Heero a few times, I really only tolerate being called Heero by maybe seven or eight people.
... which sort of makes me wonder about the Naruto universe: Characters relate to each other on a first-name basis in ways that don't really reflect (not 100%) what I understood of japanese culture. Any possible reasons?
I'm not really sure; I'd not really noted the honorifics other than Sakura's and Naruto's uses. I do note that it may be sort of like GW, where the use/lack of use is more to contrast characters, but it does seem those characters who consistently use honorifics are standing on a bit more formality/distance. The cases that I can think of in which none are used are usually in what I'd call a 'work' environment: Sasuke, Naruto, Neji, Kiba -- I can't recall them using honorifics. But Lee and Sakura use them, almost exclusively, and it seems to be that these are two characters for whom their position is often tenuous; Sakura distinctly feels herself weaker through the first major arc, and Lee feels himself inadequate for lacking the jutsu skills of his classmates. Their use of honorifics may be as a reminder (to themselves, and to others) of the level of their interaction/intimacy.
That might be my theory on it, but I'd still love to hear what others think (especially those who've noted the honorifics and can point out specific instances).
no subject
Date: 6 Feb 2006 09:17 pm (UTC)As for nicknames for lovers ... seeing one of the guys calling his lover 'little one' makes me want to cause something a lot of pain. 'Babe' and 'baby' are the ones I see most often and they make me cringe, but I don't know whether that counts as I hate that nickname in general. I can't see any of the G-boys calling each other 'sweetie' or 'pookie' either x_x. [shudders] Unless, again, it's done just to annoy someone. Then ... possibly. But I may be able to see them using things like 'lover', 'gorgeous', 'handsome' and 'sexy', depending on the setting.
The use of a last name as a nickname is an interesting one. From what I've seen, it could go anywhere from being only a little more familiar than calling someone a Mr. or a Mrs. 'last name' to being even more familiar than calling someone by their first name o_O.
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Date: 6 Feb 2006 09:44 pm (UTC)Naruto, on the other hand, is so tenuous with his social standing, so constantly on the outs, so rarely recognized, that he himself (to some degree) has internalized the villagers' attitude. Yet at the same time, he's determined to make something of himself, and I think that conflict shows up in the way he reacts/honorificizes (guh!) those around him: he's reminding himself, and them, that he's within the circle permitted to use such titles, that he's playing by the rules. His boisterousness comes out in that he does not (that I recall) give honorifics to those he sees as his opponents/equals (Neji, Sasuke, Kiba, Shino, etc) -- he's pushing the boundaries just a little in terms of what he can get away with, but he doesn't do that with just everyone.
Notice the only ones who get nicknames from Naruto are Lee and Jiraiya, both of whom are (to some degree) not really part of hte 'in' crowd (that is, Naruto doesn't know Jiraiya is Sannin until he's already designated the nickname). Fuzzy Eyebrows and Perverted Hermit are, possibly, a way for Naruto to be familiar with them, on some level. Naruto is like that, after all; he does draw people out, especially those on the outside, like himself. But nicknames in this sense aren't just to acknowledge a connection, but also designating that Naruto feels comfortable taking that quicker-into-familiar step; perhaps he's not threatened by either (at least at first).
Oi, I am rambly today.
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Date: 7 Feb 2006 10:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 7 Feb 2006 10:25 pm (UTC)Hrm. Could also be that Naruto nicknames those who truly intimidate him, so to put them on a lower level (of a sort) -- Lee, after all, may not have jutsu but his hardworking soul makes Naruto look like he's been sleeping for the past twelve years. Jiraiya and Ebisu are each high-level ninja, much higher than Naruto, despite his quick assumption that he could handle either of them easily...
Food for thought.
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Date: 6 Feb 2006 10:36 pm (UTC)The woman had pre-empted a level of intimacy between herself and my mother, and for my mother, this rankled.
I can relate. When I was little, everyone called me "Meimei"--Chinese for little sister, which is standard, but I absolutely hated it, and still do to this day. Last month, we ran into someone who was babysitting our cousins, and she didn't even bother to ask me my name, but called me "Meimei" anyway, and while I just smiled, it pissed me off to no end, because she said it in that saccharine way most people say that name in Chinese.
As for the English name I have, usually I have people call me by the full version--only friends and family, really, can call me by the nickname and not get stomped. And as for the other nickname some like to use, those people better be suicidal. XD;
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Date: 7 Feb 2006 04:21 am (UTC)So I can only hope that a momentary teasing is quickly forgotten (although I remembered it as an echo of my mother's own disgust at someone using a 'nickname' for her that she didn't feel was a granted right), but I'm not sure of how I'd react if anyone other than my parents were to call me that in public. Probably be highly, highly pissed, no doubt. Definitely a "use it only if you're suicidal" and for once I wouldn't say I'm really joking.
Hell, when people call me by the dimutive of my name -- -ie ending and all -- and they're not related by blood or have known me since Christ was in kneepants, I do get immensely irritated. I've gone so far as to correct people quite harshly that my name is NOT the one they just used. It feels like they're taking liberties I've not granted. That just mostly gets the glare of death, really.
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Date: 7 Feb 2006 04:57 am (UTC)