Nietzsche is Pietzsche

topic posted Mon, March 14, 2005 - 2:19 PM by  Pie
So... I was just tumbling over a few irrelevant posts in another tribe when I was reminded, by a remark from another triber, that "Der Wille zur Macht" (the subtitle of Xenosaga I) is actually a book by Friedrich Nietzsche. Now, as I haven't put enough thought into it just yet as to what the relation between the book & the game is, I also researched that Xenosaga II, subtitled Jenseits von Gut und Bose, is also a book by Nietzsche.

Like I said, no connection has been made as of yet - but if anyone else was already aware of this or has read both the books & played the game, please, give us your insight.
posted by:
Pie
offline Pie
Maryland
  • Re: Nietzsche is Pietzsche

    Mon, March 14, 2005 - 3:14 PM
    Wow... that's... amazing. So let's see, guesses at future Xenosaga installments:

    Episode III: Twilight of the Idols (where all the heroes die and everything falls apart)

    Episode IV: The Anti-Christ (where KOS-MOS becomes the ultimate weapon and destroys everything)

    Okay, I'm MOSTLY kidding with those since I don't know any other Nietzsche books besides those two because they're on our bookshelf, but that's quite an amazing find. Good job. :)

    I'd definitely like to hear from anyone who has read both books to find out if there is any correlation.
    • Re: Nietzsche is Pietzsche

      Mon, March 14, 2005 - 3:54 PM
      Thank, lover. Why don't you read the books yourself? Maybe that will give you some insight since you've played (at least) one game that's "related".
      • Re: Nietzsche is Pietzsche

        Tue, March 15, 2005 - 5:27 AM
        Because I'm already in the middle of reading a couple other things. I'll put it in the queue though :)
        • Re: Nietzsche is Pietzsche

          Tue, March 15, 2005 - 5:32 AM
          I know, I was mostly kidding. :P
          • Re: Nietzsche is Pietzsche

            Tue, March 15, 2005 - 7:11 AM
            don't rip me a new throat for this, but i was noting to jamie that "Macht" directly means "makes", i.e. "Arbeit Macht Frie" (the sign above the entrance to Auschwitz) translate as "Work Makes Free"...

            I'm guessing it's colloquial... if you think about it, you could translate "Arbeit Macht Frie" as "Work has the power to set you free".

            However, if you use babelfish, macht = "makes", so... as Brian would say... there you have it, whatever it is.
            • Re: Nietzsche is Pietzsche

              Tue, March 15, 2005 - 7:26 AM
              oh yeah, jamie reminded me that the reason i posted this is that the way i read it was that the translation of "Der Wille zur Macht" would be "The Will of The Maker"
            • Re: Nietzsche is Pietzsche

              Tue, March 15, 2005 - 7:31 AM
              "The Will of the Maker" actually makes a LOT more sense to me as a title than "The Will to Power" ... but it looks like the actual English translation of the book is actually titled The Will to Power ( www.amazon.com/exec/obido...anelfcom-20 ), so I'm not sure what to make of it. I suppose we'd need the insight of someone who actually read the book or was fluent in German to tell us the "correct" translation... though I would THINK an official English adaptation would get it right... maybe.
              • Re: Nietzsche is Pietzsche

                Tue, March 15, 2005 - 7:57 AM
                OK kids.

                Yes machen is the verb :to do/to make. If you Babelfish "macht" it is makes. If you Babelfish "Macht" is it power.

                Direct translations are open to interpretation, therefore it could mean either & essentially, mean the same thing. More or less.

                Arbeit macht frei - work makes you free. Or work has the power to make you free.

                Either way it mean - you work, you're free. It wasn't true... but that was the implication.

                Fin.
                • Re: Nietzsche is Pietzsche

                  Tue, March 15, 2005 - 8:03 AM
                  That being said, I should add that in German the capitalization of the first letter of a word can greatly change the meaning of that word.

                  i.e

                  sie = you (plural)
                  Sie = you (Formal, singular)
                  • This is the maximum depth. Additional responses will not be threaded.

                    Re: Nietzsche is Pietzsche

                    Tue, March 15, 2005 - 8:15 AM
                    Ah, der, capitalization. I forgot we had that discussion... which would mean that the correct translation is most definitely "The Will to Power" as we have seen it written. There's always the possibility that it was originally written in german to be lower-case, but some publisher who wasn't up on their german thought capitalizing titles was a good idea, and Nietzsche didn't get a chance to correct it since his sister actually published this book against his will....... but we don't really have any reason to think that except for the fact that to us silly English-speaking think "The Will of the Maker" makes more sense than "The Will to Power" but seriously, what the hell do we know about the author's intent? All we can go by is the interpretation that the "experts" have provided to us.
    • Re: Nietzsche is Pietzsche

      Sat, April 9, 2005 - 9:44 AM
      Okay, I take it back... Episode III is Thus Spoke Zarathustra. That's my official prediction based on the fact that the last word in the game is Zarathustra.
      • Re: Nietzsche is Pietzsche

        Tue, May 31, 2005 - 2:52 PM
        Its definitely "The Will to Power" I have not read the book myself, but I've read things that talk about it. The idea that people have this deep seated urge to have more power, and thats what truely drives them. This was followed by differing schools of thought such as the Freudian "Will to Pleasure" and then the "Will to Meaning" , each one saying that mental instabilities are generally caused by a conflict with that will.
        • Unsu...
           

          Re: Nietzsche is Pietzsche

          Wed, June 1, 2005 - 10:47 AM
          I think there needs to be a t-shirt that says Nieztche is Pietsche.
          • Unsu...
             

            Re: Nietzsche is Pietzsche

            Wed, June 1, 2005 - 11:10 AM
            ...and of course I spelled it incorrectly. Lovely. One of these days I'm going to give Xenogears another shot. I played it a long time ago, but it wasn't mine, so I didn't get the opportunity to advance very far.
            • Re: Nietzsche is Pietzsche

              Wed, June 1, 2005 - 11:19 AM
              How dare you misspell Pietzsche!

              On a related note, the first time I played through it I got to the ending and never beat it. Then I sold the game. :P

              Actually, xenogears was the first RPG I ever played. I was in like 3rd or 4th grade.
              • Re: Nietzsche is Pietzsche

                Wed, June 1, 2005 - 3:23 PM
                Me to frist RPG I played seriously. Got through game got everything but still like anime cut scenes more now then before. Theare seem to be less anime cut scenes in most video games now.
                • Re: Nietzsche is Pietzsche

                  Wed, June 1, 2005 - 3:28 PM
                  There are anime cutscenes in other games? Besides lunar?
                  • This is the maximum depth. Additional responses will not be threaded.

                    Re: Nietzsche is Pietzsche

                    Wed, June 1, 2005 - 3:34 PM
                    was talking about talk about Xenogears. I know there other series of RPG and other genars. Just mean industrieing has been going away from anime in games. If look games now most animation is polygon but the game world is made of polygons. Mean even games that inspire by anime they use ploygons like Dragonball and Xenosage which Xenogears use anime.
                    • Re: Nietzsche is Pietzsche

                      Thu, June 2, 2005 - 3:57 AM
                      Full Metal Alchemist: The Broken Angel uses Anime cutscenes.

                      A note about the cutscenes in Xenogears... there's a trick you can use to watch most of them without playing through the game.

                      First you'll need a full copy of Parasite Eve, including the Squaresoft Demo Disc that came with it. Put the Demo Disc into your Playstation and wait for the main menu to load. Then switch out the disc with either one of the Xenogears discs. You'll still see the Demo Disc menu on the screen. Select the Final Fantasy movie demo and it will begin playing cutscenes from Xenogears. They do not play in order and it doesn't play all of them. In fact Disc One is rather brief, but Disc Two does play a LOT of them. It's a neat trick if you just want a refresher on some of what happened.

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