Jaxword, thanks for compiling all the "whatevers" from Squall. Having played both the Japanese original (once) and the English translation (three or four times), but never close enough in succession that I could remember individual lines, I've always wanted to match the English up with the original and see if "whatever" really is the appropriate choice. I'm going to break your quotes apart and analyze them, if you don't mind.
I have the Final Fantasy VIII Memorial Album: Wish You Were Here, which is basically the transcription of a playthrough of the game, with lots of screenshots interspersed. Square made books like this for FF7, 8, 9, Xenogears, and maybe a few others, and reading this while listening to the OST can be a nice, quick, Cliffs-Notesish way to "replay" the game in a single sitting or two. I'll use this book as the source for the Japanese quotes.
Quistis: When I come with them, a lot of students can't perform up to their usual level. I wonder if it's because of my charm.
Squall says なんて教師だ, which means roughly, "what kind of teacher (would talk like this)?", and could be loosened to "and she's an instructor" or "how can an instructor talk like that?"
"Whatever" doesn't really fit here.
Here everything is fine, but Squall's response starts with 悪かったな warukatta na, which is a casual, friendly, not-too-obsequious "sorry". "Yeah, sorry about that. But you're an instructor, and I'm..." would have done OK.
In Japanese, he talks to himself using the third person, asking どうするどうするラグナさんよ, which is hard to work with in English because he's running words together without a pause (and has been ever since he saw Julia), but どうする means "what will (someone) do?"
And Squall's answer really is perfect: 勝手にしてくれ means "Do whatever you want." So following on from Laguna's previous thought, you could go with,
Laguna: (She says she wants to talk, just the two of us! What am I gonna do, what am I gonna do!?
Squall: (Just do whatever.)
Here Squall says うるさいな; the word "urusai" means "noisy" or "annoying" or "loud" (he describes Zell with this word before the SeeD mission), but is used colloquially to tell someone to shut their mouth. Here his thoughts would probably be better translated as "(Will you just shut up already?)" He could conceivably even be reacting to both Rinoa's words and the Laguna "fairies" that have just gotten into his head and are about to take control of him in a few seconds.
It's also interesting that the thought before that isn't strictly that he "doesn't believe in" relying on others, but rather that it's "amai" to get people to do things for you. "Amai" literally means "sweet", but carries the implication of "weak" or "coddled".
I can't find this one in the "Wish You Were Here" album (the path taken by the authors is arbitrary), but the path they do take contains another "warukatta na" ("sorry"/"I was wrong"/etc.) after Rinoa tells Squall how kind and sensitive he is for worrying about his comrades at the missile base, and she insists that he's got nothing to be sorry about.
This one isn't in the book either; the authors let Irvine cheer her up in this scene.
Here too Squall says なんだよ which means "what (is she talking about)?" or "what (is going on here)?"
Squall says そんなことより、, meaning "(rather) than that", which is a way of quickly changing the subject in a conversation "Don't worry about that"/"Enough about that". "Whatever" is just a little too dismissive, but it's not really wrong.
Here Squall is back to "warukatta na" again. "Yeah, sorry about that," would do better.
(Having gotten to know how Squall talks, she picks up on what he's about to say just like Quistis does with "none of your... business" in the opening scene. Just noticed that now.)
Here too. Some kind of mumbled apology would have been a lot better than "whatever". "Yeah, OK" would be fine.
I can't find this one or the Odine one; where do they come from?
Squall says まあ、いいか which means, "OK, fine". "Yeah, whatever" is really good here.
Basically they should have kept a lot of these "whatevers" as the mild apologies that they're supposed to be. Squall doesn't need a catch phrase (like Raijin's "you know?"), but he does say warukatta na quite a lot. I thought he also said betsu ni, which is an abbreviated way of saying "in particular" but implies a negative verb, but I don't see any in these examples.
Reading the Japanese original again, I keep finding small things I would like to change if this game were to be re-translated. Can't complain, really -- back in 1999 translation was nowhere near what it is now, not least because (if I'm not mistaken) the poor translators were left playing the game and then writing down what was said, or trying to figure out who was talking just from looking at context-free bits of text, and didn't even have the opportunity to search through the complete script to make things consistent. But with the "whatevers", maybe, keeping Squall's shyness and his desire to look fearless in mind, they could have consistently used one- or two-word answers for this stuff. As it is he comes off sounding too abrasive -- he's supposed to be one part abrasive, nine parts shy. Mumbled apologies would have been better, with the occasional sprinkling of something more emphatic.
I have the Final Fantasy VIII Memorial Album: Wish You Were Here, which is basically the transcription of a playthrough of the game, with lots of screenshots interspersed. Square made books like this for FF7, 8, 9, Xenogears, and maybe a few others, and reading this while listening to the OST can be a nice, quick, Cliffs-Notesish way to "replay" the game in a single sitting or two. I'll use this book as the source for the Japanese quotes.
Quistis: When I come with them, a lot of students can't perform up to their usual level. I wonder if it's because of my charm.
Squall says なんて教師だ, which means roughly, "what kind of teacher (would talk like this)?", and could be loosened to "and she's an instructor" or "how can an instructor talk like that?"
"Whatever" doesn't really fit here.
Here everything is fine, but Squall's response starts with 悪かったな warukatta na, which is a casual, friendly, not-too-obsequious "sorry". "Yeah, sorry about that. But you're an instructor, and I'm..." would have done OK.
In Japanese, he talks to himself using the third person, asking どうするどうするラグナさんよ, which is hard to work with in English because he's running words together without a pause (and has been ever since he saw Julia), but どうする means "what will (someone) do?"
And Squall's answer really is perfect: 勝手にしてくれ means "Do whatever you want." So following on from Laguna's previous thought, you could go with,
Laguna: (She says she wants to talk, just the two of us! What am I gonna do, what am I gonna do!?
Squall: (Just do whatever.)
Here Squall says うるさいな; the word "urusai" means "noisy" or "annoying" or "loud" (he describes Zell with this word before the SeeD mission), but is used colloquially to tell someone to shut their mouth. Here his thoughts would probably be better translated as "(Will you just shut up already?)" He could conceivably even be reacting to both Rinoa's words and the Laguna "fairies" that have just gotten into his head and are about to take control of him in a few seconds.
It's also interesting that the thought before that isn't strictly that he "doesn't believe in" relying on others, but rather that it's "amai" to get people to do things for you. "Amai" literally means "sweet", but carries the implication of "weak" or "coddled".
I can't find this one in the "Wish You Were Here" album (the path taken by the authors is arbitrary), but the path they do take contains another "warukatta na" ("sorry"/"I was wrong"/etc.) after Rinoa tells Squall how kind and sensitive he is for worrying about his comrades at the missile base, and she insists that he's got nothing to be sorry about.
This one isn't in the book either; the authors let Irvine cheer her up in this scene.
Here too Squall says なんだよ which means "what (is she talking about)?" or "what (is going on here)?"
Squall says そんなことより、, meaning "(rather) than that", which is a way of quickly changing the subject in a conversation "Don't worry about that"/"Enough about that". "Whatever" is just a little too dismissive, but it's not really wrong.
Here Squall is back to "warukatta na" again. "Yeah, sorry about that," would do better.
(Having gotten to know how Squall talks, she picks up on what he's about to say just like Quistis does with "none of your... business" in the opening scene. Just noticed that now.)
Here too. Some kind of mumbled apology would have been a lot better than "whatever". "Yeah, OK" would be fine.
I can't find this one or the Odine one; where do they come from?
Squall says まあ、いいか which means, "OK, fine". "Yeah, whatever" is really good here.
Basically they should have kept a lot of these "whatevers" as the mild apologies that they're supposed to be. Squall doesn't need a catch phrase (like Raijin's "you know?"), but he does say warukatta na quite a lot. I thought he also said betsu ni, which is an abbreviated way of saying "in particular" but implies a negative verb, but I don't see any in these examples.
Reading the Japanese original again, I keep finding small things I would like to change if this game were to be re-translated. Can't complain, really -- back in 1999 translation was nowhere near what it is now, not least because (if I'm not mistaken) the poor translators were left playing the game and then writing down what was said, or trying to figure out who was talking just from looking at context-free bits of text, and didn't even have the opportunity to search through the complete script to make things consistent. But with the "whatevers", maybe, keeping Squall's shyness and his desire to look fearless in mind, they could have consistently used one- or two-word answers for this stuff. As it is he comes off sounding too abrasive -- he's supposed to be one part abrasive, nine parts shy. Mumbled apologies would have been better, with the occasional sprinkling of something more emphatic.
