Hey, so in your recent DRK art tags you mentioned German Sidguru being extremely different from the English, and I'm Intrigued, can you spare any details?
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the thing is actually that german sidurgu isn't all that different from the english one, the german one is just (in my opinion) a way better execution of the same concept. fray and myste are completely different characters between languages so their english versions have their own appeal going for them but sidurgu is just The Better Sidurgu in german lol
the biggest point for me is that sidurgu is primarily driven by his trauma over having to watch his family be murdered as a child yeah? from which the german writers concluded that hey, I don't think this guy would be an asshole to myste actually (which is a name customarily given to orphans in the brume). he's still clearly not good with kids and struggling to keep his patience with myste, but he makes the effort to not be cruel to a child, because he's very aware of how much you can fuck up a child forever. it's just a so much more compassionate and nuanced take. his interactions with myste are more entertaining for it too, because instead of a gruff guy being mean to a child you have a gruff guy trying really really hard to not be mean to a child and then two quests later trying to pretend he's still sternly keeping an eye on this child and definitely doesn't have signed adoption papers in his back pocket.
another thing with sidurgu is that he claims to be fighting to protect rielle, but he's really just using her situation as an excuse to act on his violent hatred of the temple knights and lash out in response to his own issues, and doesn't actually listen to what rielle wants or needs. in german it's emphasised much more that he attached himself to rielle because she's effectively orphaned too and he recognised himself in that but it's precisely because her situation hits so close to home for him that he's getting caught up in his own desire to avenge what he lost and fails to see what he still has.
after rielle and the moogles rip into him for this he actually admits using the capital T trauma word that yeah, he's been so caught up in his own trauma that he failed to do right by her, because the german script isn't embarrassed to have the tall broody dark knight say he's traumatised and begin to heal from it. the real kicker on this part for me is that after this convo in english sidurgu is like, let's go back to ishgard, and in german he additionally says they can talk things over on the way back (because he does care for rielle and does want to do right by her and he's going to make active effort to listen to her), like it's such a small thing that makes such a big difference.
in english when it turns out the person hunting down rielle is her own mother, sidurgu gets mad at her for keeping this a secret when he and fray bled and died for her. in german he rages at her mother, because he's been so fucked up from having to grow up without his parents after they were violently taken from him that he can't even begin to comprehend a parent willingly withholding love from their child. when he initially spares rielle's mother he explicitly says it's because no child should have to watch their parents die, and rielle tells him to kill her anyway by saying it's her turn to get vengeance. it's the same general plotline but it feels much more internally consistent in german.
in the english 70 quest fray and sidurgu barely acknowledge each other. in german sidurgu calls fray by name, and fray says somewhat apologetically that they're just a painful memory from a corner of the wol's heart. sidurgu responds to this by throwing his sword at fray and saying "here, this way you can't complain the issue was a blunt weapon again", clearly referencing a memory he shared with fray because the memory of fray is just as important to him as the "real" thing was. when you ask sidurgu about fray after completing all the quests he wonders why you'd bring up fray of all people now, but then adds "fine, I do like remembering him". it's much more tangible that the two of them meant a lot to each other within the very few snapshots you get of their relationship.
overall when put next to each other it just feels to me like the english script was scared of ruining the image of dark knight being so cool stomping around in your spiky armor with your bigass sword, while the german script says with its whole chest that dark knight is about traumatised people banding together to hopefully spare others some of the same pain. both scripts tell you that being a dark knight is about love, but english feels embarrassed to say it while the german quest is permeated with it at every point, in so many ways that if i wanted to list them all it'd be more efficient to just translate the whole thing directly. in being so focused on sidurgu's image of edgy brooding knight the english script ends up being way less compassionate to him.
ironically german sidurgu as a character more purposely cultivates his brooding edgy image as an extension of how much it means to him to be a dark knight, which leaves him open to other characters poking fun at him for it to humanize him and he's way funnier in german because of that. english rielle calls him a chocobo's arse and german rielle jokes that his short temper seems to be an occupational disease among dark knights. he feels more like a complete person rather than a character archetype because they actually let him have a full range of emotions. in english he loudly complains about having to help myste because idk its uncool for dark knights to actually help people or whatever. in german he says helping myste is all well and good but he's not exactly a good therapist so he really hopes some of the people they'll be trying to help have problems that can be solved with violence (and is openly excited when you encounter that girl who poisoned you at falcons nest and he realizes helping her will involve beating the shit out of her prison guard).
i'll be real i think the german team are just straight up better writers than the english team. I've been replaying the msq in german and it's a consistent pattern that the german script has more elegance, is more thematically consistent, and above all isn't afraid to let characters be motivated by emotion. i'm getting off track but you know how in castrum meridianum livia says she's going to kill you because gaius is hers and you can't have him? in german she's mad at you for killing her friend rihtahtyn (yknow, from cape westwind) and she's going to kill you and avenge him before you can take gaius from her too, which just makes way more sense as a character motivation without compromising her possessiveness. in english cid left the empire over moral disagreements in german he's additionally motivated by the complicated resentment he feels over losing his father to project meteor (which in english doesn't come up until three expansions later in bozja) and having gaius fill that paternal role for a while only to lose him to a mad search for power too. it just really doesn't compare. highly recommend anyone who can to start playing the game in a language other than english.
