Threads of Disloyalty

"Every thought is a string. You just have to find the right ones to pull."

Hello everyone to what might become an irregular series, of us looking at mishaps brought forward by Magic’s translation into other languages. Now, a number of these will probably be related to French, since that’s the only non-english language I (mod Barrin) personnally speaks. But if you have ideas, don’t hesitate to submit them!

Now that this is out of the way, let’s get to the main subject, the reason you’re probably reading this. It all comes down to one card:

This card right there comes from Jace Beleren’s Signature Spellbook, an ensemble of spells that we’re told are closely tied to the planeswalker. The Signature Spellbook was only printed in English, but all the cards in it were reprints of cards that already existed. In this case, Threads of Disloyalty was a Betrayers of Kamigawa card that was translated in French by... Fils d’infidélité.

I assume a large majority of you don’t speak French, so let me explain this translation. It’s fairly literal, “Fils” is the plural version of “Fil” (and is pronounced the exact same, this ‘s’ is silent). It means Threads or Strings, and has an extra flavor point because it’s the word used to describe a puppet’s strings. “Infidélité” is a straightforward translation of Disloyalty (literally, “fidélité” means loyaty). “D’“ serves as a ‘of’ here.

So, this translation is straightforward, works and is well and good... Except... French, as most languages, is weird.

“Fils” is also a word by itself. It’s the singular or plural (they’re identical) version of the word that means “Son”. This time the ‘L’ is silent, for some reason. In written form, no way to separate “Fils” and “Fils” outside of the context they’re in.

“Infidélité” is used to mean Disloyalty approximately as often as Disloyalty is used in english, once in a blue moon. However, it has another meaning used way more commonly. “Infidélité” is a ‘proper’ way of describing a spouse cheating on their partner. This is the first meaning of the word every french people will go to.

So, when you put all of this together, Fils d’infidélité can have two (well, to be simple) meanings in French. Either “Threads of Disloyalty”, a made up thing that makes little sense, or a floral yet insulting way to talk about someone’s bastard son(s).

Threads of Disloyalty

"Every thought is a string. You just have to find the right ones to pull."

Threads of Disloyalty

"Over time, Konda grew ever more suspicious, fearing even his most loyal allies were being manipulated by unseen hands." —*The History of Kamigawa*