Little Fears & Kleine Aengste: German and French edition

[Jason L Blair]

RE: French Edition
The removed the Defiler and put in a torturer. I forget his name but I can post it tonight.

RE: Names
Heh. Mike and I are on the same track here. I planned on The Bogeyman being changed in every edition (he's the generic childhood baddie in the States). Funny that.

[GreatWolf]

Could it be that the "Black Man" is a bad translation and "Dark Man" is better?  I seem to recall that DSE (?) translates literally to "The Black Eye", but it is normally translated as "The Dark Eye", since a black eye means something different in the U.S.

Seth Ben-Ezra
Great Wolf

[Ninchen]

There was a child's play when I was young (I dont know if its still familiar now): One person tries to catch as many opponents as possible. The game starts when the loner shouts: "Who' afraid of the black man". And the crowd response "Noone". Then it goes on with a "But what will you do if he is around?" Answered by a "We'll run away as fast as we can". Then the hunter tries to touch as many victims as possible.

I - PERSONAL - don't think this is detached from the european past and history. The black man in this game is the foreigner, the strange person you have to be afraid of. So said, its a term you could used for Litte Fears easily, cause it might transport some aspects of angst. One the other hand it comes from a racist background. You've keep this in mind and handle it with care ... and repect.

[Comte]

As for Kings around the world...I dunno it makes sense that there are diffrent kings for diffrent regions.  After all I help to make the boogieman strong by still being afraid of him.  In africa I doubt they've never even heard of the boogieman however I am sure there is something that could take his place.  It dose seem like the other versions of little fears are more ethnic than the american one, but then again I can't do a better job than the main book so what can I do?

By the way.  I would be willing to spend money on translated versions of the diffrent kings.  If we threw in some kings for spain, mexico, native americans, the orient, and india that would make for one hell of a rocking source book.  It also would make it easy for me to suddenly change things up without my players being aware.  Consider this a small hint and a nudge.  As it stands I would be willing to fork over cash for just the art, and translations of the diffrent kings now.  Food for thought.

In other news congradulations on getting the translations.

[Mike Holmes]

See that seems to two different things. Is there one "Boogeyman" with different names in different places (he's the Candyman in Barker's ghettos, for instance)? Or are there more than seven kings?

The names seem objective to me. That is, why is Baba Yaga called that, when no American child has ever heard that name, unless it's her "real" name? That would indicate to me that she was extant worldwide, wheras the Boogeyman was a local American phenomenon. Or, perhaps some have a single name everywhere, and other's have multiple names in different cultures?

Lot's of potential perspectives. And probably not important for play, which is somewhat surreal anyhow. Still, I like discussing such things.

Also, we've only covered the beings, but not the fears in question. For example, was the Defiler changed to a Torturer because the French fear torture more than what the Defiler represents (or was this a whitewash)? I understand the Black Man thing, but what about closets?

Mike

[Jan_Schattling]

Hi.
Im new here.

I think the Problem about the closetland is that we normally dont have closets.
Lets better say our closets arent walkable and dont lead into another room so there isnt realy big room for monsters in it.
Thats why german children only fear the "things" under their bed.
Hope that explains it a bit.

Jan

P.S.: I thing my enlish is awful, isnt it?

[Mike Holmes]

Hmmm. I guess I get what you're saying (your English is fine). And it's probably silly to quibble. But...

I'm not sure American closets are any bigger on the average. Hard to say, really. I mean, I'm sure there are kids with walk-in closets, and in older houses closets do seem to have some depth (often a nuisance, really). And I've seen adjoining closets though I'd say they're really rare. There might be a difference in size, in some ways, I suppose.

But I'm just not convinced that it's a matter of depth of any sort. There's not enough room under a bed for a monster, either. It's not a rational fear at all that tells a child that there might be something in their dead-end closet (especially after looking into it with the child to reasure them, which often doesn't work).  It's just another place that the child can't see, from which something could come.

The idea of closetland is that the closet, no matter how shallow in real life, opens up to another place from which monsters can arrive. Really, it's not the closet itself but the door that's important (see Monsters, Inc.). So, I guess I'm still baffled.

I think that these things might be transmitted subtly via culture. Or not so subtly, in the case of my son who now fears the creature under the bed because of the movie Monsters, Inc. Interestingly, that film will cure a child of potential fear of closets (the monsters in the movie who live in the closet are mostly just "regular folks"). But the first scene of the film involves a creepy scene in which a monster is hiding under the bed, and rises up in the dark to scare a kid. Turns out that it's just a simulation, and the monster bungles it badly, but the humor and nature of the situation is lost on my 3-yr old, who hides when that scene starts.

So, maybe I'm forgetting something about what made me afraid of the closet in my room when I was a child. But it's the fact that the closet wasn't really the source of my fears itself. That is, I had various fears over time. The closet was just a place where those fears could come from. For example, I remember for a short while I was afraid of shadows on the wall. If the closet was open, I felt that the shadows could creep out of it as a dark place. When I feared "robbers" later, that was a place one could hide.

The point is that it just doesn't seem to me to be the nature of the closet, or anything transmitted about it that I can remember (no Monsters Inc or the like in my day). It was just another dark place. Like under the bed.

So the explanation just doesn't make sense to me. I'm not saying that it's wrong - I could just not be seeing it. But I'm still trying to grasp what it is about European closets that make them non-scary. It seems to me that I'd have been scared of them when I was 3.

I guess what worries me is that the German authors read the part about Closetland, and assumed that there was something culturally American about fearing closets - which to me just doesn't seem to be the case. I mean, it may be empircally true, but I can't think of the cultural transmitter that would make it a cultural phenomenon. Is there some story that I'm forgetting or something (help me out fellow Americans? Perhaps I'm blocking? ;-)

Sorry to over-analyze. Too much time on my hands today. :-)

Mike

[Jan_Schattling]

mmmh... I can understand what you are saying.
I think its a cultural thing.

I asked many of my friends and none of them was ever in fear of something coming out of their closet.

Instead nearly all of them feared someting under their bed.

One of the problems with the bed is, that its out of the sight and you nearly almost got to lay down on the floor to see whats happening under it and so get yourself in one line with the monsters under the bed.

When I see the door of my closet opening, i can use my mag light while layin on my bed to lighten it up.

So its a bit more dangeous when the monsters come from under the bed.

But thats just another theorie.

Jan

[Mike Holmes]

It would make sense, except that American kids also have flashlights. Again, you've explained why closets aren't scary to kids in general, but now why they are scary to American kids. Maybe we're just more chicken in general than German kids (he said, intending to create some impassioned responses).

Hmmm. Maybe it's just me that was afraid of the closet. What we really need is a survey of Americans vs Gernans to determine who was more scared. ;-)

BTW, I would agree that under the bed is by far more scary overall. But that's my point. I think that the change to under the bed was made for purely artistic reasons, and not cultural ones.

Mike

[Jan_Schattling]

Yes good point.
I also think so.

Maybe they changed it because they tought that closetland migt to be to american.

Most american horror movies i know have monsters coming out of a closet.
(Yes or a mirror, or a wall, or under the bed, but the closet is one of the famous places for monsters in america movies. ;) )

I think i schould ask them about it...
I will tell you then.

Jan