A fun fact about fantasy“Dungeons”
So... I was reading a book about the history of fantasy rolepaly and tabletop role-playing games and the like. And they pointed out something deeply interesting I never realized until now. Using the game “Dungeons and Dragons”.
Dungeons and Dragons. Dungeons: it’s in the title. The game literaly popularized the idea that dungeons=fantasy. To the point the early games like Dungeons and Dragons were called “dungeon crawlers”. Dungeons “crawler”. I insist. dungeons CRAWLERS. This name, to a French person, doesn’t sound right.
In French, when the game was translated, it became “Donjons et Dragons”. An equivalent translation of Dungeons and Dragons. And as a result, in France too “Donjon” became synonymous with fantasy. To the point we have a big series of BDs called “Donjon” dedicated to playing with and parodying the tropes of fantasy roleplay and “adventure dungeons”.
So... Dungeons/Donjons became typical of fantasy, archetypal of roleplay, the place where monsters and treasures await, the place where heroes go to fight and their adventures. Fine.
There’s just one problem.
“Donjon” is not a literal translation of “dungeon”. It is equivalent just in terms of sonorities. It is a wrong translation. An incorrect one. It keeps the sonoroties of “Dungeon”. But a “donjon” is the very opposite of a dungeon.
In English, a dungeon is an underground place. It is an underground prison, often under a castle. It is a cell, a cave, a jail, a basement, a hole. Hence “dungeon crawlers”. You crawl under the earth.
In French, “donjon” means the highest, tallest and strongest tower of a castle. The highest place of the medieval castle. It is the main tower of the palace.
And while I never realized it until now, this resulted in quite different fantasy landscapes in French-speaking countries and English-speaking ones. For decades people went on with these similar sounding words, to the point that now the two meanings are confused... but for me (and for many people), when you think “Donjons” of “Donjons et Dragons”, you don’t think a place you crawl into or the mines of the Moria - this is nonsensical. You think a tall tower, you think something tall and imposing like Dol Guldur.
It is a mistranslation that was never corrected and still today influences the way people see fantasy. Dungeons and Dragons means “Underground and dragons”. Donjons et Dragons means “Towers and dragons”.
