The Lord of the Rings - Valonqar Connection (Trigger warning)

[Tradecraft]

15 minutes ago, SaffronLady said:

 need at least one example of mistranslated in-world languages AS A PLOT POINT before I could suspend disbelief for this particular theory.

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On Braavos, it had seemed possible that Aemon might recover. Xhondo's talk of dragons had almost seemed to restore the old man to himself. That night he ate every bite Sam put before him. "No one ever looked for a girl," he said. "It was a prince that was promised, not a princess. Rhaegar, I thought . . . the smoke was from the fire that devoured Summerhall on the day of his birth, the salt from the tears shed for those who died. He shared my belief when he was young, but later he became persuaded that it was his own son who fulfilled the prophecy, for a comet had been seen above King's Landing on the night Aegon was conceived, and Rhaegar was certain the bleeding star had to be a comet. What fools we were, who thought ourselves so wise! The error crept in from the translation. Dragons are neither male nor female, Barth saw the truth of that, but now one and now the other, as changeable as flame. The language misled us all for a thousand years. Daenerys is the one, born amidst salt and smoke. The dragons prove it." Just talking of her seemed to make him stronger. "I must go to her. I must. Would that I was even ten years younger."

You ordered 1 error in translation. Will that be for here or to go?

[Sandy Clegg]

26 minutes ago, SaffronLady said:

need at least one example of mistranslated in-world languages AS A PLOT POINT before I could suspend disbelief for this particular theory.

Well, the concept at least has been alluded to by a maester:

Quote

What fools we were, who thought ourselves so wise! The error crept in from the translation. Dragons are neither male nor female, Barth saw the truth of that, but now one and now the other, as changeable as flame. The language misled us all for a thousand years. Daenerys is the one, born amidst salt and smoke. The dragons prove it."

Regardless, I think the OP has misrepresented his findings somewhat. That being said, I personally do like the 'Strangler' being an alternate name of a poison from far-off lands which is also called 'Valonqar' by other people, and the two terms are otherwise unrelated.  I think I've even mentioned it in a previous thread.

Valonqar is just odd-enough a name that Westerosi may have preferred to use a name based off the potion's properties, rather than any 'folk-tale' etymology such as 'Little  brother'. Perhaps in its country of origin the poison was used in a famous legend featuring a little brother, but without knowing that tale Westeros found the name meaningless and therefore redundant. So they just called it 'The Strangler'. The fact that Cersei asks a Septa, not a maester, is interesting.  A maester may have known more about the potion side of things. A septa would be more knowledgable of tales and parables, presumably.

EDIT: seems as though the OP doesn't need my help finding 'examples'  

Edited July 13, 2023 by Sandy Clegg

[SaffronLady]

42 minutes ago, Tradecraft said:

You ordered 1 error in translation. Will that be for here or to go?

37 minutes ago, Sandy Clegg said:

Well, the concept at least has been alluded to by a maester:

It's ... rather interesting that you both cite the same, unconfirmed example. I did a little search on "translate" and "translation", and found this seems to be the only case of a possibly erroneous translation. I call this one of GRRM's intentional plants: perhaps indeed it would, when he finally publishes TWOW, be confirmed that the translation was wrong (or confirmed it is correct). However, as of now, it is nowhere. 

The problem of course is rooted in my own wording. I had expected a confirmed translation error in the series to inspire this particular theory, yet there was exactly one UNCONFIRMED translation error. My bad.

Anyhow, if valonqar should have some connection to the High Valyrian word "strangle", the Essos chapters are good place to confirm them ... which they don't. The term valonqar exclusively appears in Cersei's POV. It doesn't even appear in the world book.

HOWEVER, I might add due to this line from The Mystery Knight, I am inclined to believe younger sons do have some connection to strangling.

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A shadow came at his command to strangle brave Prince Valarr's sons in their mother's womb. Where is our Young Prince now? Where is his brother, sweet Matarys? Where has Good King Daeron gone, and fearless Baelor Breakspear? The grave has claimed them, every one, yet he endures, this pale bird with bloody beak who perches on King Aerys's shoulder and caws into his ear.

Valarr and Matarys were Baelor's sons, Baelor was Daeron's eldest, and Aerys is Daeron's younger son. On top of that, Bloodraven himself is a younger son amongst Aegon the Unworthy's Great Bastards, and though he didn't strangle Daemon Blackfyre, the eldest Great Bastard, he did order his death at the Battle of Redgrass field, and in the above-quoted passage he is implied to have strangled the unborn grandsons of his trueborn elder brother, Daeron. The link is interesting, but nothing points to a translation error ... yet.

[Sandy Clegg]

16 minutes ago, SaffronLady said:

Anyhow, if valonqar should have some connection to the High Valyrian word "strangle", the Essos chapters are good place to confirm them ... which they don't. The term valonqar exclusively appears in Cersei's POV. It doesn't even appear in the world book.

Yes, this is where I veer off from the OP's interpretation. Valonqar means Little Brother, not Strangler. But that doesn't preclude  one poison having two names of varying origin. And we have plenty of real world examples of that.

'Ladybird' in Spanish translate as 'Saint Anthony's little cow', and in Dutch it's 'dear lord's bug'. In Italian it's a 'little berry'.

I think the Septa's translation of valonqar was a literal one. And she would naturally know nothing of its associations with a poison. She gives Cersei a literal, pure, 'Septa's version' of what the word means. Cersei maybe needed to do a little wider research?

[SaffronLady]

1 hour ago, Sandy Clegg said:

'Ladybird' in Spanish translate as 'Saint Anthony's little cow', and in Dutch it's 'dear lord's bug'. In Italian it's a 'little berry'.

I think I get your point. Also, in Chinese "ladybird" is "ladle bug". How different names are for the same animal.

[Alester Florent]

4 hours ago, Tradecraft said:

You ordered 1 error in translation. Will that be for here or to go?

I think there's a big difference between a grammatical oversight, i.e. translating a word in the neuter gender into the masculine because neuter doesn't exist in the target language (something that was also the default in English translations, which treated the neuter as masculine until very recently) and a complete mistaking of one word for another. Not to say that the latter is inconceivable: it does happen IRL.

But "strangler" is also not going to be a word that exists in isolation. In order for it to exist, there will need to be a verb form, "to strangle" or the like, and very possibly another noun form too ("strangulation"), and that's the sort of thing that any halfway competent translator would identify. Unless the words for "little brother" and "strangler" are actually homonyms, that level of confusion seems unlikely, if not impossible.

[Tradecraft]

11 minutes ago, Alester Florent said:

I think there's a big difference between a grammatical oversight, i.e. translating a word in the neuter gender into the masculine because neuter doesn't exist in the target language (something that was also the default in English translations, which treated the neuter as masculine until very recently) and a complete mistaking of one word for another. Not to say that the latter is inconceivable: it does happen IRL.

But "strangler" is also not going to be a word that exists in isolation. In order for it to exist, there will need to be a verb form, "to strangle" or the like, and very possibly another noun form too ("strangulation"), and that's the sort of thing that any halfway competent translator would identify. Unless the words for "little brother" and "strangler" are actually homonyms, that level of confusion seems unlikely, if not impossible.

They mistranslated the most important prophecy in the series. The one about the hero that will save the world. 

[Tradecraft]

5 hours ago, Sandy Clegg said:

Well, the concept at least has been alluded to by a maester:

Regardless, I think the OP has misrepresented his findings somewhat. That being said, I personally do like the 'Strangler' being an alternate name of a poison from far-off lands which is also called 'Valonqar' by other people, and the two terms are otherwise unrelated.  I think I've even mentioned it in a previous thread.

Valonqar is just odd-enough a name that Westerosi may have preferred to use a name based off the potion's properties, rather than any 'folk-tale' etymology such as 'Little  brother'. Perhaps in its country of origin the poison was used in a famous legend featuring a little brother, but without knowing that tale Westeros found the name meaningless and therefore redundant. So they just called it 'The Strangler'. The fact that Cersei asks a Septa, not a maester, is interesting.  A maester may have known more about the potion side of things. A septa would be more knowledgable of tales and parables, presumably.

EDIT: seems as though the OP doesn't need my help finding 'examples'  

Great minds think alike, @Sandy Clegg

[Alester Florent]

37 minutes ago, Tradecraft said:

They mistranslated the most important prophecy in the series. The one about the hero that will save the world. 

Yes, but the point is that that's a translation error of a completely different type (and magnitude) to the one you're positing, and moreover one that may not even have been an error.

Let us imagine for the sake of argument that the line said "king" rather than "prince", because examples there are easier to come by. Now, anyone reading that would assume that it refers to a man, because kings are almost always men. But if the prophecy referred to Maria Theresa, it would be completely accurate, because she was a king and used the title "King of Hungary". People would be surprised, but had anyone identified a potential gender issue and corrected the translation to "king or queen" it wouldn't have made it any more correct. The error is not with the prophecy or even with the translation, but with the interpretation placed on it by the reader.

In fact Dany doesn't use the title of "prince" anyway so if we assume that it's her, there is already some interpretation being done by the reader of the prophecy and there's no reason that interpretation couldn't extend to gender as well as title.

Indeed, in English before very recently, a line referring to a potential "prince who was promised" would not consider to need amending to account for a female prince (if that possibility were recognised), because "prince" would be considered as a gender-neutral term covering both male and female princes, and "prince or princess [etc.]" would just be cumbersome, especially if used repeatedly in the same text.

This is not the same as getting a word completely wrong.

Edited July 13, 2023 by Alester Florent

[SaffronLady]

5 hours ago, Alester Florent said:

that's a translation error of a completely different type (and magnitude) to the one you're positing, and moreover one that may not even have been an error.

Great minds think alike indeed.

[Sandy Clegg]

12 hours ago, Tradecraft said:

Great minds think alike, @Sandy Clegg

I mean, I do kind of disagree that’s it’s a translation error Tradecraft  I just have a disliking for all the Tyrion/Jamie as valonqar theories as they are so bland. 

Cersei maybe choosing poison rather than a sword - then us finding out that the poison is called Little Brother in some cultures - would be a fitting end. Cersei deserves to be hoisted on her own personal petard - which is ignorance. Her brothers should have nothing to do with it. Give her an ending she creates out of her own idiocy and hubris.