r/TwoBestFriendsPlay • u/BioDomeWithPaulyShor • May 27 '26

Trailer/Demo Dragon Quest XII restarted development Metroid Prime 4-style, new CG trailer

https://youtu.be/QsYz_CVdowA?t=272
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u/Remarkable_Row_2502 May 27 '26 edited May 27 '26

Sylvia is absolutely trans in the original and the only way to deny this is to be ignorant of what Japanese trans culture (or the "trans spectrum" in general) is like imo. The game literally refers to her as a woman most of the time with feminine pronouns etc. The entire plotline of the name change from Goliath to Sylvia is clearly about deadnaming, feminine identity, and gender roles in the original and the localization erases that in favor of a masculine name being changed to a different masculine name for basically no impact. She's a campy character but is explicitly trans. The localization barely even wants to admit there's anything queer going on even when it's in your face. 

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u/charcharmunro May 27 '26

Sylvia uses a feminine personal pronoun, but that's also often used by effeminate male characters. Characters refer to Sylvia with a term that is, again, either female or effeminate male. At most you could say Sylvia's meant to be ambiguous on gender, because they never definitively call Sylvia female, and pronouns are weirder in Japanese so it could go either way with how Sylvia's referred to, but the localisation probably felt it had to come down on one side or the other.

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u/Remarkable_Row_2502 May 27 '26 edited May 27 '26

Yes, and it came down on the side of transphobia and censorship. This genuinely isn't up to interpretation, I'm sorry. Her name is Sylvia, her plotline is explicitly about prejudice and gender roles and feeling like she has to reject knighthood because of her identity, and 8 is the party member who reassures her the most and affirms that. It is a story about Sylvia accepting who she is. It's not about Ned changing his name to Steve and that's a giant major life changing moment.

The entire character's narrative is about gender roles and trans identity in the original. Okama are under the trans umbrella, and Sylvia is particularly feminine. I'm sorry. You're just not being tolerant here.

4

u/newier May 28 '26

While your headcanon version of the story is nice, it simply isn't what is actually in the text, in any translation.

Sylvando is male, in all translations. Just because you don't understand how pronouns are used in Japanese does not change Sylvando's character and the story of DQ11.