Why did you change the name to Dun Obel?
Oh, boy. I was hoping to avoid having this conversation for a little while longer, but you’ve forced my hand, anon. (Which isn’t a bad thing! This is just a…really uncomfortable topic to have to address, in no small part because the RWBY fandom has a tendency to be extremely vitriolic toward criticism of the show.)
Let me state for the record that I am white. Like, Wonder Bread white. Given that I live in the United States, I have privilege derived from systemic racism. Therefore, rather than presenting my own ideas and commentary, I will be reiterating facts and statements made by POC. When talking about racism and cultural appropriation, it’s important to amplify the speakers of marginalized communities, rather than having yet another white person talking over them on something they will never be able to fully grasp or relate to.
With that disclaimer out of the way, allow me to answer your question: Why was Kuo Kuana renamed Dun Obel in the Redux?
First, we need to talk about Kuo Kuana’s canon name.
When the settlement first appeared in Volume 4, a proposed translation started to circulate on social media. It seemed to be an accepted fact that kuo kuana was Hawaiian, and that it meant either “trash” or “rejected.”
For the longest time I wondered what the source on that translation was. Did the writers reveal it in the DVD commentary? Was it made in a Tweet that later got deleted? I spent quite a few days scouring the internet, and at the end of the day, the best I could find was a Reddit post made about a year ago. The OP claimed to have used Google Translate to figure out the etymology.
Okay, fair enough. That’s about the standard I would expect from CRWBY, so math checks out.
I typed in every single variation of kuo kuana that I could think of and could not get the same results. I tried capitalization, adjusting the macrons, apostrophes, variations in spacing. Nothing worked.
Fine, I thought. I’ll just go to the source. Surely any number of English-Hawaiian dictionaries would be able to confirm the etymology.
After consulting Ulukau, and then cross-referencing my findings with several other online dictionaries that seemed reputable, I cobbled together my results:
ʻōpala nvs. rash, rubbish, litter, waste matter
wilikōī n. dust or trash blown by the wind
So maybe kuo kuana doesn’t mean trash? That was certainly possible. I decided to try and search for kuana, or something approximately similar, to see if there was a potential alternative etymology.
kuana n. position, attitude, standing
kūana kik. a place value, usually used in compound terms (ie. unuhi kūana, helu kūana)
kūō, kūwō vi. to cry loudly, as with joy or pain; to howl
kuānea vs. lonely, forsaken, barren, desolate; cf. kuākuānea, ʻōnea
The only thing that looked like a possible match was kuākuānea, which is just a reduplication of kuānea. Menagerie is two-thirds inhospitable desert, after all, full of dangerous wildlife and Grimm. “Barren” and “forsaken” would definitely fit, especially if you stretched that definition to refer to the Faunus themselves—as in, they’re a people forsaken by the rest of Remnant.
Here’s the thing, though: None of it matters. Whether kuo kuana was a mistranslation from Google, whether it actually means barren, or whether it comes from a different Polynesian language entirely. At the end of the day, the etymology, unless confirmed otherwise by one of the writers, will remain fandom conjecture. We can speculate for hours, pouring through even more obscure sources in search of an answer, but the truth of the matter is that the initial assumption stuck. Most of the fandom either already assumes that Kuo Kuana means “trash” in Hawaiian; or, they’ll do a quick Google search like I did (some variation of “kuo kuana meaning,” “kuo kuana etymology,” “kuo kuana name”) and that Reddit post will be the top result.
For those of you who aren’t aware, Hawai’i was once an independent kingdom. Over the last few centuries, Native Hawaiians (Kānaka Maoli) have been repeatedly brutalized by white colonizers through disenfranchisement, environmental degradation, poverty, Christian missionaries, loss of land ownership, violent coups, outlawing of Hawaiian culture, and the bastardization of important traditions due to commercialization. (Remember in Lilo & Stitch when Nani quit her job and said she didn’t want to work at some “stupid fakey lūʻau”?)
Another important thing you need to know is that the native Hawaiian language (‘Olelo Hawai’i) was made illegal to teach in schools in 1896. The language was quickly classified as endangered, and linguists feared that it would go extinct. The ban wasn’t lifted until 1978, and by then, there were few speakers left. It took the efforts of activists running the local National Public Radio, the formation of the Pūnana Leo preschools, and widespread social movement to get the number of speakers back to ~24,000 people.
At this point, some of you might be thinking: Wait, isn’t it a good thing then that Rooster Teeth used a Hawaiian word in RWBY? Wouldn’t that help increase exposure and acceptance of the language? How is that cultural appropriation?
Cultural appropriation is a tricky thing to talk about, and depending on who you ask, what does or doesn’t constitute it varies. The general consensus seems to be:
Consent. Is the culture open to sharing this thing? (And don’t cheat by finding one person who consents while most of the culture disagrees.)
Context. If a culture is open to sharing a thing, but it’s a thing of great religious significance, take the time to learn what is a respectful way to treat it. Probably don’t use it as random decoration, or sexualize it unless that’s what it’s intended for.
Credit. Give credit and if possible, buy from the original creators so the money goes where the credit should be. (If we’re talking about purchasing a material object made by that culture.)
[Criteria borrowed from this post.]
Now let’s apply this to Kuo Kuana, under the assumption that its name is indeed from the Hawaiian language.
Did RT acknowledge where they got the name from? No. (Which is what started this entire debate in the first place.)
Was Kuo Kuana’s name used as random decoration in a work of media with no relation to the marginalized culture it was borrowed from? Yes. There’s nothing about Kuo Kuana’s setting that creates or reinforces a connection with Hawaii, which implies that the name was chosen to fit an aesthetic.
And last but not least, is the usage of the name offensive, or reinforces harmful stereotypes?
In the setting of RWBY, the Faunus are a marginalized ethnic group that were “rewarded” for their participation in the Great War by being “gifted” an island that was the least desirable real estate on all of Remnant (short of that place where Salem hangs out). Then, some years later, the rest of the human-controlled kingdoms enacted a war that tried to forcibly confine the world’s Faunus to Menagerie. And the Faunus had to go to war again to try and keep their rights.
To reiterate: the word allegedly used to describe Menagerie’s capital—a literal safe haven for a possibly-diasporic ethnic group—is trash or rejected.
So to answer your question: The reason why Kuo Kuana’s name was changed was because I couldn’t, in good conscience, continue to use a derogative term from an endangered language steeped in cultural oppression, and apply it to a fictional ethnic group.
I think that sends a pretty bad message. Wouldn’t you agree?
(Just as an FYI, anon, my tone isn’t directed at you. Thank you for asking in the first place! I hope my explanation was informative and helped to clarify changes within the Redux.)
