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There hasn't been an update for a little while, and I was already 14 pages in and still no...

raindragon March 25, 2017 6:38 am

There hasn't been an update for a little while, and I was already 14 pages in and still not one single character had a name. I don't remember their names, and if they are all named hyung or seonbae then it is impossible for me to follow the story. I get so angry that I want to throw the computer across the room. Why, in every Manhwa, does every character have to have these meaningless titles: hyung, seonbae - generic titles that mean nothing whatsoever to people who speak only English. All they do is erode the quality and meaning of an otherwise excellent story. Repeating the character's names is an absolute rule of good writing. If you take even one writing class in your entire life, you will learn this simple lesson. People cannot be expected to remember someone's name if they read it only once in a while, and the rest of the time everyone's name is either zero1 or zero2.

Responses
    Anonymous March 25, 2017 7:22 am

    There are only seven main characters and you can't remember their names.

    Anonymous March 25, 2017 7:29 am

    Silly American, it has to do with language/cultural differences. This problem can easily be solved by learning Korean honorifics ( https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_honorifics) or avoiding things tagged "manhwa" altogether. I'm American too, English is the only language I know, and I think there's often too many honorifics removed in translations of manhwa. They really help with knowing the relationship between characters and without them English readers would actually be missing out on details of the story. Had to learn some honorifics for manga, just do the same for manhwa.

    Anonymous March 25, 2017 7:58 am

    ??? It also happen in manga tho.. Like senpai, onii-chan, onee-san, sensei etc. And those titles aren't exclusove in manhwa, it's in their culture to call an older guy hyeong/oppa and their senior seonbae, etc. Don't blame their culture just because you can't keep up lol

    Kira March 25, 2017 8:40 am

    You are just too lazy to remember their names and learn different cultures other than your own. Stop whining and get off you high horse

    Lelee March 25, 2017 10:03 am

    I don't think it's right of you to say that. There are many ways to remember their names if you just put in the effort. This is different from books, when the mc's name is constantly repeated, but because manga etc. have pictures it's easy to remember their faces and out from that also learn their names. Of course, mangas and manhwas will have will have different names from what you are used to, but that's a part of the manga and culture. It's the same as expecting people in American series or book will have typical English names. Therefor, if you want to continue read fantastic manhwas like this one, then I think instead of complaining you should just accept that it will be a little difficult for you to remember the characters name, but that if you try you will remember them.

    raindragon March 26, 2017 3:29 pm

    I make a good suggestion and you try to overthrow it? Who's complaining? Me? Or you - complaining about my feedback. Readers don't read to work at it, to "learn things." Readers read to enjoy the work, to be enchanted, to have a break from a hard day. That is our job as readers. The interpreter's job is to make that happen. That is the nature of the relationship between reader and translator. Learning new things is fine, but not when it distracts, frustrates, and erodes the reader's experience. In good writing, learning new things is seamlessly incorporated into the work almost without the reader's notice., and it's a lovely experience. If you ever listen to what the translators say, they want to be good at what they do. They usually do a wonderful job. They also want feedback. It is frustrating to get no feedback or ambiguous feedback. If this problem with name-overload in a serialized work bothers me, it bothers at least 25 others, more like 2500 or 25 thousand who remain silent, so if you think it's wrong of me to speak up when i'm troubled, I don't think it's right of you to make that call.

    raindragon March 26, 2017 3:36 pm
    There are only seven main characters and you can't remember their names. @Anonymous

    That's right. I can't remember them. When there is month or any time-gap till the next serialization, when I read a lot, when I work hard during the day, remembering what isessential to my existence. I know that expecting me to remember all the names is unreasonable.

    raindragon March 26, 2017 3:49 pm
    Silly American, it has to do with language/cultural differences. This problem can easily be solved by learning Korean honorifics (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_honorifics) or avoiding things tagged "ma... @Anonymous

    Some people don't want to learn this. Some people don't have the time. Some people want to enjoy themselves in what they read. Everyone has their reasons for reading manga. If I've already made the enormous and frustrating effort of remembering these things in other languages, it doesn't make me a "silly american" to not want to start all over in yet another language. It certainly doesn't mean I should follow the terrible advice of avoiding manhwa - or anything I like to read. I'm not silly or stupid, and I'm not about to go to websites to sort out the confusion when I'm still not going to retain it all. No matter if I like it or not, my time is better spent on my own work, or on the enjoyment of one of the most beautiful manga, Royal Servant.

    raindragon March 26, 2017 3:51 pm
    ??? It also happen in manga tho.. Like senpai, onii-chan, onee-san, sensei etc. And those titles aren't exclusove in manhwa, it's in their culture to call an older guy hyeong/oppa and their senior seonbae, etc.... @Anonymous

    I never blamed anyone's culture. You should think before accusing someone of that, in today's world especially.

    raindragon March 26, 2017 4:21 pm
    You are just too lazy to remember their names and learn different cultures other than your own. Stop whining and get off you high horse @Kira

    I'm not lazy, stupid, or whining on a high horse. Those insults made me laugh.
    These titles obviously have a connotative and denotative meaning in Korean. Clearly! You guys don't know me at all or you'd know how much I admire and respect the korean writers, artists, translators, and culture.

    However, any professional writer's group in USA America would crucify you for presenting a story that replaces real names with generic titles. Without names, there's not a publisher anywhere who will publish it. They will throw the manuscript into a slush pile forever forgotten - instantly - within the first paragraph. I know what I'm talking about.
    I love manhwa, but when I don't know the character's names, only titles used for everyone, when that character isn't present and someone mentions them, it's impossible to know who has been referred to. If his name is Lukaon, you consistantly call him Lukaon every chance you get so your audience knows who he is.

    If you think I'm wrong, go have a look at one of the best manhwa of all: Totally Captivated. There is not a single bit of confusion over titles and names. I remember their names to this day because the beautiful Korean names were consistent, spelled the same way with each occurrence, and always had the same look and shape.

    Anonymous March 26, 2017 4:33 pm
    I'm not lazy, stupid, or whining on a high horse. Those insults made me laugh.These titles obviously have a connotative and denotative meaning in Korean. Clearly! You guys don't know me at all or you'd know... raindragon

    Totaly Captivated is just an imitation of Viewfinder, manhawas like Let Dai and The Breaker deserves that title more.

    Anonymous March 26, 2017 5:19 pm
    Totaly Captivated is just an imitation of Viewfinder, manhawas like Let Dai and The Breaker deserves that title more. @Anonymous

    How dare you even say that. That's like an insult to that manhwa's author! Please refrain from saying such stuff. (╯°Д °)╯╧╧

    Anonymous March 27, 2017 4:09 pm
    Totaly Captivated is just an imitation of Viewfinder, manhawas like Let Dai and The Breaker deserves that title more. @Anonymous

    yea...dats tru! view finder and totally captivated goes together! like...the draft is identical!

    kyouran March 28, 2017 6:37 pm
    yea...dats tru! view finder and totally captivated goes together! like...the draft is identical! @Anonymous

    You and the other Anon are either the same person or coincidentally share the same cognitive deficiency (meaning that you are both asinine), because Viewfinder and Totally Captivated are a manga and manhwa with conspicuously different subject matter whose only commonality is the yakuza setting; the characters themselves have absolutely nothing in common with each other, not their personalities, psychological profile nor their backgrounds, with the two leads in Totally Captivated particularly characterized with great pathos due to their traumatic childhoods. The ignorance is astounding. This leads me to realize that some people actually don't bother to read the bubbles but just look at the pictures for the sex scenes.... smdh... (#-.-)

    kyouran March 28, 2017 7:03 pm

    This may serve as educational for you, but most probably you won't appreciate it; but I have to say that you are right, but your attitude is most definitely wrong. The reason why you find it difficult to make sense of all of these foreign honorifics is because as an English speaker/native, you are cognitively disadvantaged. Due that English speakers lack a heterogeneous linguistic background, you/their brains have difficulty cognitively processing and retaining foreign names and concepts that are non-Romance and non-Germanic. This is exactly the reason why most readers in manga forums don't use the characters' name, but descriptors such as "blondie" or "glasses boy" or "the uke" or "the seme", etc. So in this respect, you do have a point in feeling frustrated for not being able to remember the names; however, being cognitively disadvantaged doesn't mean you are cognitively impaired, so if indeed you greatly enjoy mangas/manhwas, it would be in your best interest to work your memory muscles by using memory techniques in order to transfer the names from your short term to your long term memory. This will not only help you strengthen your cognitive abilities, but it will also build up your linguistic receptors and even, as many studies seem to suggest, serve as your preventative to alzheimers in the long run (even though there is no definitive empirical data on this); or, you can give up on reading mangas/manhwas or remain lazy and frustrated, because whether you admit it or not, to refuse to work your memory muscles to retain these foreign names and honorifics is indeed laziness. You can hardly blame the scanlators for your own cognitive limitations and laziness.

    Now, regarding your attitude, it is wrong because it is callous. You remind me of people that are not raised right by their parents and grow up to be insensitive and selfish asswholes that navigate life completely focused on themselves, failing to notice ,much the less appreciate, the value of other people. To complain about the quality or effort of scanlators is highly inappropriate from an ethical standpoint because scanlators don't get paid for their hard work, they do it for love of the genre, and they enrich our community without getting anything in return, not to mention, that they make it possible for us to leech off of their efforts, they make unintelligible mangas intelligible to us and that makes their efforts priceless, and they should receive nothing but immense gratitude from all yaoi readers/leeches. And again, it is illogical to blame them for your own cognitive limitations, but most importantly, for you to have the temerity to criticize their work when you are nothing but a leech is beyond disgraceful, and the fact that you don't seem to understand this about yourself, doesn't speak very well of the quality of your character, irrespective if you consider yourself an outstanding individual, because here just like in real life, actions speak louder than words.

    Anonymous March 28, 2017 7:20 pm
    This may serve as educational for you, but most probably you won't appreciate it; but I have to say that you are right, but your attitude is most definitely wrong. The reason why you find it difficult to make s... kyouran

    I don't like the op's attitude too but, not remembering names has nothing to do with English language, I'm saying this as someone who can speak 4 different languages (3 European, 1 Asian) and still struggles to remember names even in real life. Not everyone has eidetic memory and it's quite difficult to remember some names if you have a really busy life.

    kyouran March 28, 2017 7:27 pm
    I don't like the op's attitude too but, not remembering names has nothing to do with English language, I'm saying this as someone who can speak 4 different languages (3 European, 1 Asian) and still struggles to... @Anonymous

    I'm sorry to correct you, but as a Psy major that extensively studied the subject, it is a fact that people of mono-linguistic backgrounds, especially English speakers, have a cognitive disadvantage compounded by cognitive biases that makes it extremely difficult for them to retain/process foreign names. Also, just like everything in life, there are exceptions which you seem to be one of them as being unable to retain names despite your heterogeneous linguistic background.

    Anonymous March 28, 2017 8:23 pm
    I'm sorry to correct you, but as a Psy major that extensively studied the subject, it is a fact that people of mono-linguistic backgrounds, especially English speakers, have a cognitive disadvantage compounded ... kyouran

    I was diagnosed with ADHD at age 5. Do you think it might be the reason? Because from time to time I even forget my best friends name and that scares me a lot.

    Anonymous March 28, 2017 8:59 pm
    Some people don't want to learn this. Some people don't have the time. Some people want to enjoy themselves in what they read. Everyone has their reasons for reading manga. If I've already made the enormous... raindragon

    I said "silly American" because Americans typically are the ones complaining the most about cultural differences. Sorry you felt so offended by it. Had you known the cultural context you wouldn't have said "Why, in every Manhwa, does every character have to have these meaningless titles". The honorifics are not meaningless and with a quick click to that wikipedia page you can see the meaning. If you really love manhwa, learning the honorifics shouldn't be that tedious of a task. If it is too much to learn, it is not worth the frustration of reading manhwa because you lack to time to understand it and you're not fully enjoying it anyways. Avoiding the manhwa tag will alleviate your frustration.

    Your opinion is based on writing styles in America. However this manhwa was created in Korea and intended for Korean audiences. We are fortunate enough to read it because a translator has taken on the task to translating it. The role of a translator is not to Westernize the story for English readers. It is to convey what the author has written with as much accuracy as possible. There is no way to translate the cultural context of "hyung" and "seonbae" when there is no English equivalent so they should be left intact.

    kyouran March 29, 2017 10:26 am
    I was diagnosed with ADHD at age 5. Do you think it might be the reason? Because from time to time I even forget my best friends name and that scares me a lot. @Anonymous

    Maybe, maybe not. You can only obtain a clinical diagnosis by consulting a qualified professional. The only thing I can tell you is that I was also diagnosed with ADD as a child, the type that isn’t hyperactive, and that it does not affect my ability to process and retain foreign names and multi-cultural contexts.