09 Footnotes
From Beyond A Wiki
Disclaimer
These are all applicable footnotes from Chapter Nine of the Final Fantasy VII fanfiction story, Beyond Good and Evil. This is not a source of official canon information and, while all of the information stated herein is based on and derived from what is given in canon, this information is not and can not be considered official or supported by the game creators or developers.
Footnotes
Captain, my Captain!
Veld was the leader of the Turks in Before Crisis, and due to some...extenuating circumstances he had to literally disappear, else his life would prove forfeit. During his days at ShinRa, the Turks called him 'Shyunin' 「主任」, meaning literally, "person in charge". There is a lot to be said for the connotational and inferential meanings behind the honorific terms used to refer to one's superiors or elders in Japanese, and we wanted to maintain different titles for each of the individuals the Turks answered to. Rufus is called 'Shyachou' 「社長」, meaning "company president"... Durr. It sounded terribly ridiculous to have Reno calling Rufus "Mr. President", so we had to decide upon a term that showed a degree of respect, but that all the Turks would call Rufus. We settled on 'cheif', since it carries a similar connotation to 'president', but sounds significantly less formal without being insubordinate. Tseng was called by his name with 「-さん」 added to the end, indicative of formality, but without specific title. Even Reno uses the honorific 「-さん」 when addressing Tseng, and so 'boss' was used in this case (however, Elena calls him 「ツォンさん」 as well...and since the suffix can also be used as a term of endearment [rather like calling someone "name", dear], we chose to have her call Tseng by his name instead of as 'boss', since we all know how she feels about him. ^_~).So when we got to Veld, we were somewhat strapped for how to transfer the word 'Shyunin' to English, since cheif and boss were already taken. We decided to use 'captain', since it not only shows the high respect the Turks have for Veld, but it can also be used colloquially. The Japanese word for captain is actually 'Kanchou' 「艦長」, and Veld is actually never called thus...we just wanted to clarify our decision to use this title, since calling Veld "Hey Guy In Charge" would have been rather silly.