#zeikfried

[chpearcewrites]

Zed and Zeikfried from Wild ARMs, pencil, 2015. One of the first games I played on PS1 along with FF7 💚

[pyreflydust]

[thewapolls]

So, it's kind of well known that the original Wild Arms had some real janky "translation" issues, most of which actually accounted for transliteration from Japanese phonetics back to various original languages, rather than true translations from Japanese. Not the least of these being almost the entire big boss line up of Zeikfried, Alhazad, Lady Harken(she was the one who was fine actually) and Belselk, being mishandled from "Siegfried," "Alhazred," and "Berserk." (don't worry we'll come back to some of those later)

But one extra bit that gets sort of swept under the rug is Zeik Tuvai, Zeikfried's surprise final boss fight, where the mangled villain pries himself free from the amalgamation with the more conventional JRPG godmode "final" boss Motherfried to try and take the heroes out with him in a kind of suicide bombing run. (at least in the original where he's clearly been half absorbed and merged with his weapon, tearing his own body in half to escape, spinal cord still trailing behind him. Alter Code F seems to just be his own ascended dragon/angel form? Although he does appear to have taken Mother's heart with him when he escaped)

But that name, "Zeik Tuvai," also retained in the Alter Code F remake, is written in Japanese as, SHII-GU-TSU-VA-I[ジーグツヴァイ] which is very clearly meant to be the Japanese approximation of "Sieg Zwei." As in "Sieg(fried) Two."

But backing up a bit, his name, Siegfried is of course a reference to the Norse hero Prince Siegfried(aka Sigurd) of the Volsung saga, immortalized in various poetic, musical and theatrical works of the German and Scandinavian regions for centuries. Also just very well trafficked in Japanese pop culture as The German mythic hero of choice to reference.

And while we're on the subject of Seigfried... His "sword," the Dark/Demon Spear, GRAM-ZANBER (GU-RA-MU-ZA-N'-BAA[グラムザンバー]) as officially romanized in Wild Arms 5's art design, and originally localized as "Glumzamber"(which for the longest time I just sort of assumed was a sloppy juggling of Gloom Saber back and forth between English and Japanese) appears to be a reference to the mythic Seigfried's legendary sword, Gram(aka Balmung) crossed with a contraction of the Japanese zanbato[斬馬刀]: lit."Horse Killing Sword" referring to a type of giant sword used specifically as an anti-cavalry weapon, appropriate for Gram-Zanber's size.

And the sword Gram is specifically featured as a highlight of Seigfried's slaying of the greed corrupted dwarf turned dragon, Fafnir. Fafnir is Which is of course the boss dragon in Wild Arms 3 that Seigfried merges with to become his final form, Dragnaseig. Incidentally some form of Fafnir has been present in nearly every Wild Arms game, but not always as plot relevant or even as a boss monster.

In the original Wild Arms a monster, mistranslated in English as "Fafneil," appears in the same final dungeon that leads to the ZeikTuvai fight, but as a regular random encounter and without any comment or explanation. It is also a recolor of existing Drake monsters elsewhere in the game. This design appears to have been the loose basis of the Wild Arms 3 redesign.(notably the Wild Arms 2 model looks entirely different from either)

Oh and if it wasn't already clear the associations of Siegfried and the Volsung saga are why the villain Volsung, filling a hierarchical role similar to Siegfried's in Wild Arms 5, also wields his own conspicuously labeled version of the Gram-Zanber.

[littleeyesofpallas]

Well damn! I didn’t know Wild Arms Million Memories released an artbook.  Scan dump incoming...

[fargaiachronicle]

Wild Arms Million Memories Official Artbook - Dream Chasers & the Faces of Evil

On a personal note, I love that Janus’ necklace can be seen in such detail. It’s such an important part of his character history, after all.

[darkspeardrifter]

Something about the Dark Spear...

So apparently, Gram-Zanber (and by extension Gram-Zanber Nemesis) in WA3 looks more like a sword than an actual spear, and there’s a reason for that. In Norse mythology, Sigurd (also known as Siegfried) wielded a sword named Gram to kill the dragon Fafnir, and that same sword appears throughout the Volsunga Saga.

It’s just referred to as a spear in the WA series because its primary use is for piercing life that it can devour.

[pyreflyashes]

Okay, back to Wild Arms characters I haven't drawn. At least I don't *think* I've drawn Zeikfried.

[pyreflydust]