valleyofthelost

Oh NOW a dictionary is valid to rely on. Translation is not their job, they're not getting paid a salary for it. You can't fathom why someone who doesn't natively speak or read the language bothers to translate? Easy answer, practice. Don't they always say to immerse yourself in the language to get better at it? Reaming people this hard for unofficial translation projects is reductive, like ooo this person can't be ALLOWED to get BETTER at translating! Nooo they have to get EVERY nuance and implication right the first time around so I'll get mad at them for the minor use of this word, despite it not mattering that much in the grand scheme of the reader's enjoyment! /s

Dictionaries are limited, true, but still tools for translation. You can't reasonably always have a person on hand for translation.

But also let's be real here: An Eng speaker who is reading a translation will not actually divorce "spiritual and immortal powers" from their understanding of "magic" or a "magic system" in their heads. Chinese is simply an inherently more specific language than English is, and "magic" to an eng speaker is just the catch-all term for feats us normal people cannot do. Even if you translated it as "power/energy" like you said earlier, there is still the mental "(magic) power/energy" to them because you've just used a synonym. It is quite literally a fundamental difference in classification that you can't get away from between the languages simply because Eng uses it way more broadly and doesn't really have words to differentiate between "spiritual and immortal powers" vs "magic", because "magic" = "powers" is the same thing in Eng.

But even with all that, it is just semantics. The translator using "magic" instead of "power" or "energy" really has all the impact of tossing a pebble into a lake, especially to an Eng speaker. It doesn't change the magic system present in the book, it doesn't change the plot, and it doesn't change the character interactions. At the very worst, its a mislabeling thats honestly inconsequential to eng speakers, who are the main audience for eng translations in the first place.

Yes I'm using a dictionary because I trust a dictionary instead of believing everything I'm told by Random Internet Person. And the dictionaries pretty consistently translate it as "magic power" so it's not a matter of the translator themselves "westernizing" the term, it's a matter of the term not being translated in dictionaries like how it is used in xianxia works, apparently.

Though if you want to be real, xianxia still has magic systems even if the semantics demand it not technically be called magic for immersion purposes.

The original text: 「你看，我現在法力恢復了，而你只找到龍骨，沒有法力，從根本上來說，你是打不過我的，我不想幫你的話，你也強迫不了我。
The character in question is "法力", which translates to "magic power" in english according to the MDBG chinese-english dictionary. It's not westernization if thats just what the term translates as.

It's a good novel I highly recommend

Okay then that begs the question of WHAT other problems you have with that translator, especially since sometimes I genuinely can't tell if you have a problem with the og text and are mistakenly blaming the translator for it or you have an actual problem with the translation you just haven't elaborated upon.

Your problem is with bad translators/inaccurate ones, NOT the one whose translation I read Hu Xin through. I don't know why you still have a problem with them in particular when Jiu Lu Fei Xiang, Hu Xin's author, was the one who called Tian Yao a "dragon demon".

As for calling Tian Yao a "spiritual dragon"... I think that might be a change for the drama. They had problems with Love Between Fairy and Devil with XLH using DFQC's "big devil" nickname and changed the "demon tribe" to the "Moon Tribe" in the drama, if what I heard from that time was correct. So regardless of novel accuracy, I don't think Tian yao will be referred to as a "dragon demon" in the drama, even if thats what he is in the novel.

A thought occurs, if they have the same problem as "Love Between Fairy and Devil" with referring to Tian Yao as a "demon" like they did with Xiao Lanhua using the "big devil" nickname for DFQC, then regardless of novel accuracy they're def not gonna refer to Tian Yao as a "demon" lol.

Even on MTLnovel Tian yao refers to himself as "the Millennium Demon Dragon", like I don't know how many hoops you want me to jump through to show this.

Okay but regardless I disproved your assumption that the translator was the one who referred to Tian Yao as a "demon dragon" when the author's original text literally calls him a dragon demon. I don't know WHY Chinese news or neo hou is referring to Tian yao as a "spiritual dragon", maybe they changed it for the drama, but I did show you what he referred to himself as in the original Chinese text. This isn't a translator changing things problem here.

The translation for the onscreen text for the Hu Xin trailer was hilarious. "The destination of destiny"? Really?

O-okay? Even though I proved that Jiu Lu Fei Xiang and not the translator was the one who chose to refer to them as "demons"? You do you, I guess.

Good, then we're at an agreement finally?

I pulled up the og novel text and Jiu Lu Fei Xiang did indeed use "妖 (yao)" which translated to demon and not spirit/spiritual. The full line of Tian Yao introducing himself is in my above comment, I am asking your thoughts on it because previously you said using "yao" wouldn't make sense.

I'm sure he can give a good vocal performance and it is a shame if he is dubbed in this drama + I get being disappointed if he is but disregarding that he still has to act in the role regardless like this person was is kinda yikes and disrespectful to him tbh.

According to what I found, the og text of Tian Yao introducing what he is: "「我乃千年妖龍。」", which indeed contains 妖 (yao). Thoughts?

If you mean in the comment before I clarified, my sentence was "I'm saying in the og novel, Tian Yao's species (not just him as a dragon, but his entire species, be he spirit or demon) is discriminated against (a Xianxia trope in of itself)". I apologize for the confusion but you can clearly see I was talking about the discrimination towards a group being the Xianxia trope and not discriminating against dragons specifically. As for wording specifics, you'd have to pull up the novel raws for what specific term the author used to refer to Tian Yao's species, because as we are we're not going to come to a conclusion.

Big investors = people funding the drama, so they have a lot of sway in what happens to it bc they can threaten to pull or reduce funding

Please stop misconstruing my words because I said none of that. It wasn't dragons specifically that are discriminated against by xian cultivators (*specifically in the novel, not talking about irl here), it's demons/spirits. And it wasn't the TRANSLATOR who wrote them as discriminated against in the novel, it was the AUTHOR, Jiu Lu Fei Xiang. Also the xianxia trope I was talking about was NOT "dragons are discriminated against", it was "the group that is initially framed as evil is not actually evil but they're often named/nicknamed/translated as demon sect or some variation of that". The point of this all being, I'm more inclined to think this was the author herself taking her own creative liberties instead of the translator. Are we on the same page now?

No, I do get it. I'm saying in the og novel, Tian Yao's species (not just him as a dragon, but his entire species, be he spirit or demon) is discriminated against (a Xianxia trope in of itself) which is probably why most likely the author used "demon" instead of "spirit". And I say the author because I can't fathom why the translator I read would make such a leap from "spirit" to "demon" with no explanation given the pattern of their behavior throughout their translation. I also just don't find it so unbelievable because xianxia tends to nickname or translate the "evil-but-not-actually" side the "demon sect" or something of a similar vein. And the appeal to accuracy to Chinese myths is kinda funny because if it were true than Tian Yao's element would be water like a traditional Chinese dragon and not FIRE.