The Midnight King (spoilers for last SotO episode)

[Futeko.9405]

A detail in the last episode that's been bugging me a bit: when Peitha takes the Midnight Throne, she becomes the new "Midnight King". Why not "Midnight Queen"?

She certainly is referred to as female and has female titles ("Lady"). Why does she keep the male version "Midnight King" then? Labris was even referred to as "Queen".

Is it not addressed at all, or is there some lore element I missed that would explain this choice?

[Squee.7829]

It's not uncommon to make ranks and titles agender. Irl, some countries don't refer to females officers as ma'am like in the US (and likely many other countries) because separating the ranks based on gender implies a hidden hierarchy. It creates a bias toward one gender, and in the military if someone outranks you, their genital arrangements are supposed to be irrelevant. They're better than you no matter what they're packing. 

 

In fiction we see it in games like Destiny. The Taken King was referred to with female pronouns until it became a king and in Elder Scrolls all the daedric gods are referred to as Prince.

[Squee.7829]

It's not uncommon to make ranks and titles agender. Irl, some countries don't refer to females officers as ma'am like in the US (and likely many other countries) because separating the ranks based on gender implies a hidden hierarchy. It creates a bias toward one gender, and in the military if someone outranks you, their genital arrangements are supposed to be irrelevant. They're better than you no matter what they're packing. 

 

In fiction we see it in games like Destiny. The Taken King was referred to with female pronouns until it became a king and in Elder Scrolls all the daedric gods are referred to as Prince.

[ugrakarma.9416]

Theres really no "Queen" title, the title or rank of Labris was "Mother of Nayos"(its shows when you click on the NPC).

The "Queen" is just a way to refer her as "mate of the king" Eparch.

anyway i think the devs tried mimic  all theses royals fancy stuff with all that titles. 

https://royalcentral.co.uk/uk/what-are-elizabeth-iis-titles-172181/#google_vignette

Edited May 23 by ugrakarma.9416

[Trejgon.9367]

In a number of societies, "King" is the Ruling monarch, and "Queen" is King's spouse.
United Kingdom has a spin on it, where King outranks the queen, so if the ruler is the Queen, her husband becomes to "only" get a title of a Prince instead.

So it would make sense, that in demon society where titles are taken very seriously, that when Peitha overthrows Midnight King, that she usurps his, and not his mate's title.

[Zok.4956]

On 5/24/2024 at 1:18 AM, Futeko.9405 said:

A detail in the last episode that's been bugging me a bit: when Peitha takes the Midnight Throne, she becomes the new "Midnight King". Why not "Midnight Queen"?

She certainly is referred to as female and has female titles ("Lady"). Why does she keep the male version "Midnight King" then? Labris was even referred to as "Queen".

This bugged me, too. This error is also in the german translation, she is refered to as the "Mitternachtskönig" ("midnight king", male) but not as "Mitternachtskönigin" ("midnight queen", female).

In German language, there is no female "King" (König) it's always "Queen" (Königin). So, calling Peitha "Mitternachtskönig" is an error.

 

1 hour ago, Trejgon.9367 said:

In a number of societies, "King" is the Ruling monarch, and "Queen" is King's spouse.
United Kingdom has a spin on it, where King outranks the queen, so if the ruler is the Queen, her husband becomes to "only" get a title of a Prince instead.

If the ruling monarch is male, he has the title "King", if the ruling monarch is female she has the title "Queen".

The wife of a "King" (he is the ruling monarch) is called a "Queen Consort", which is shortened to "Queen", but even if she is called "queen" she is not a ruling monarch.

Because in some monarchies the title "King" formally ranks higher than "Queen", the husband of a "Queen" (she is the ruling monarch) is usually not called "King" but "Prince Consort".  However, some monarchies use the title of "King Consort" for the role.  BTW: Prince Philip, the husband of Queen Elizabeth II requested the title "King Consort" but his request was denied, instead his title became "Prince Consort".

 

On 5/24/2024 at 1:18 AM, Futeko.9405 said:

Why does she keep the male version "Midnight King" then?

My guess: Some Anet dev/writer saw the movie title "The Woman King" and thought this movie was about a female "king" and then thought "Mindnight King" would be a good name for both king and queen.  😉😇

 

1 hour ago, Trejgon.9367 said:

In a number of societies, "King" is the Ruling monarch, and "Queen" is King's spouse.

Female ruling monarchs had a lot of different titles, but do you have any examples, where a female ruling monarch (queen regnant) used the male word "King" and not the female word  "Queen" for her own title?

 

Edited May 25 by Zok.4956

[Trejgon.9367]

21 hours ago, Zok.4956 said:

If the ruling monarch is male, he has the title "King", if the ruling monarch is female she has the title "Queen".

The wife of a "King" (he is the ruling monarch) is called a "Queen Consort", which is shortened to "Queen", but even if she is called "queen" she is not a ruling monarch.

Because in some monarchies the title "King" formally ranks higher than "Queen", the husband of a "Queen" (she is the ruling monarch) is usually not called "King" but "Prince Consort".  However, some monarchies use the title of "King Consort" for the role.  BTW: Prince Philip, the husband of Queen Elizabeth II requested the title "King Consort" but his request was denied, instead his title became "Prince Consort".

"In number of societies" as I said....

Also linguistics is fun, because in Polish language the word "queen" ("Królowa") means specifically "wife of King" ("Król" -> King, "-owa" suffix -> wife of, that suffix is a very general standard and very old grammatical rule that allows to convert nearly any reference to a male into reference to that male's wife). So while it English specifically it is much fluid and subject to changing definition, in Polish language it is already coded into the word itself. Which is why....

21 hours ago, Zok.4956 said:

Female ruling monarchs had a lot of different titles, but do you have any examples, where a female ruling monarch (queen regnant) used the male word "King" and not the female word  "Queen" for her own title?

Polish King Jadwiga, tho commonly referred to as queen instead, had a formal title of King of Poland (Król Polski). A number of older historians just love to correct people that call her queen :)

[Zok.4956]

52 minutes ago, Trejgon.9367 said:

Also linguistics is fun, because in Polish language the word "queen" ("Królowa") means specifically "wife of King" (...) So while it English specifically it is much fluid and subject to changing definition, in Polish language it is already coded into the word itself.

Yes, linguistics is fun. Thanks, that is interesting.  So, in polish "queen" ("Królowa") means always a "queen consort" and never a "queen regnant".

 

52 minutes ago, Trejgon.9367 said:

Polish King Jadwiga, tho commonly referred to as queen instead, had a formal title of King of Poland (Król Polski). A number of older historians just love to correct people that call her queen 🙂

Thanks. That's also interesting.   I'm not a historian, but from wikipedia about her:  "(...) suggests that sporadic contemporaneous references to Jadwiga as king only reflect that she was not a queen consort, but a queen regnant".

Which means, if someone were to translate it from Polish to English (or other languages in which a "queen regnant" is called "queen"), a good/correct translation would be "queen" and not "king".

And of course: If there was a Polish language version of GW2, "Król północy" ("Midnight king") would likely be correct for Peitha.

Of course we don't know what Queen Peitha is called in the demon language of the Kryptis, but in English (and German, what about Spanish, French?) she should be the Midnight Queen (German: Mitternachtskönigin).

 

Edited May 26 by Zok.4956

[Konig Des Todes.2086]

Not all cultures refer to the female monarch different from male monarch, so translating them to English would still result in King or Emperor instead of Queen or Empress. It's a fun little nuance of being in a language with gendered roles.

I imagine that ArenaNet was trying to emulate this, or bar that, was doing it to make Nayos seem a bit more alien or unusual than commonly expected in Western culture.

[mandala.8507]

On 5/25/2024 at 1:17 PM, Zok.4956 said:

This error is also in the german translation, she is refered to as the "Mitternachtskönig" ("midnight king", male) but not as "Mitternachtskönigin" ("midnight queen", female).

Because it's not an error, it's an intentional decision.

Words are all made up. Just fun sounds we've ascribed meanings to.

They can mean whatever we want them to mean, especially in a fantasy setting with imaginary alien races.

[draxynnic.3719]

10 hours ago, Trejgon.9367 said:

"In number of societies" as I said....

Also linguistics is fun, because in Polish language the word "queen" ("Królowa") means specifically "wife of King" ("Król" -> King, "-owa" suffix -> wife of, that suffix is a very general standard and very old grammatical rule that allows to convert nearly any reference to a male into reference to that male's wife). So while it English specifically it is much fluid and subject to changing definition, in Polish language it is already coded into the word itself. Which is why....

Polish King Jadwiga, tho commonly referred to as queen instead, had a formal title of King of Poland (Król Polski). A number of older historians just love to correct people that call her queen 🙂

In particular, there were some nations, and I think Poland was one of them, where there was a law that said that queens couldn't rule... but when a situation arose where there was a reason to put a woman on the throne, somebody noticed that the law didn't actually specify that kings had to be male. So they took that loophole and crowned her king instead.

[Zok.4956]

13 hours ago, Konig Des Todes.2086 said:

Not all cultures refer to the female monarch different from male monarch, so translating them to English would still result in King or Emperor instead of Queen or Empress.

There are countless types and sizes of monarchies and the ruler in a monarchy can have different names and meanings in different languages. However, when you translate terms into other languages and the terms have different meanings in both languages, the goal is always to make a translation that is as accurate as possible and that most closely corresponds to the original meaning. This can mean that "king" would sometimes be the wrong translation for a male ruling monarch (and one would have to translate to prince, elector, chieftain, emperor, tribal leader, etc.). This also means that for a translation of a female ruling monarch, "King" would be incorrect because "King" is the male form of the word.

13 hours ago, Konig Des Todes.2086 said:

I imagine that ArenaNet was trying to emulate this, or bar that, was doing it to make Nayos seem a bit more alien or unusual

Probably possible. I would have appreciated it if it had been characterized as more alien or unusual. But demons are unfortunately shown like "normal" Tyrians (who just look a little different). And the demon society is portrayed as a "normal" monarchy with a king as a tyrannical ruler and a military that helps to overthrow the king.

Making Peitha, who is clearly portrayed as female, a king instead of a queen without any references/hints to lore/society seems pretty erratic to me.

[Trejgon.9367]

7 hours ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

In particular, there were some nations, and I think Poland was one of them, where there was a law that said that queens couldn't rule... but when a situation arose where there was a reason to put a woman on the throne, somebody noticed that the law didn't actually specify that kings had to be male. So they took that loophole and crowned her king instead.

It's not that there was a loophole per say, unless my memory if conflating monarch here, her father took alot of steps to ensure that she could rule after his death on regard of lacking male heir, and not wanting succession crisis to undercut all the work he had put into the country in his life. Additionally there was a factor of nobility fairly early wanting to marry her off to Jagiełło for union with Lithuania (to help with balance of power vs teutonic state that was big issue for both countries, but they also did not want to just hand over Polish Crown to a foreigner as it would happen without crowning Jadwiga as a "King" first. That whole historic period was full of very complicated politics going on with basically everything.

17 hours ago, Zok.4956 said:

Yes, linguistics is fun. Thanks, that is interesting.  So, in polish "queen" ("Królowa") means always a "queen consort" and never a "queen regnant".

Well in terms of word origin, that's where it came from, but then everyone called Queen Elisabeth II "Królowa" regardless (and to my knowledge she was queen regnant).

17 hours ago, Zok.4956 said:

Thanks. That's also interesting.   I'm not a historian, but from wikipedia about her:  "(...) suggests that sporadic contemporaneous references to Jadwiga as king only reflect that she was not a queen consort, but a queen regnant".

Wikipedia in general can be iffy source of information on it's own, but that would be semi-accurate in the way, that Poland never had proper equivalent of "queen regnant" as a formal title. 

17 hours ago, Zok.4956 said:

Which means, if someone were to translate it from Polish to English (or other languages in which a "queen regnant" is called "queen"), a good/correct translation would be "queen" and not "king".

Well thing here is, that "queen" alone leaves alot of room for interpretation, when it comes to English language (could be regnant, and could be consort) which "King" does not have.

Also to be perfectly fair, Midnight Queen Regnant is kinda long, sounds weird, and I am unsure if kryptis society would take it as proper leader title ;) (and the one thing that we get hints of for kryptis society, is that they really pay alot of attention to titles).

17 hours ago, Zok.4956 said:

And of course: If there was a Polish language version of GW2

Fun side trivia all of GW1 was being localized for Poland (text-only edition, they called it "cinematic" localization) and localization was handled by local publisher CDP, which later have expanded it's localization devs into a proper studio, then separated this studio as new legal entity (CDPR). A number of Polish fans to this days have no idea why the cooperation have stopped with GW2. Wraping up this side history tangent, after a complete separation of CDP and CDPR, including exclusion of publishing branch from wider CDP group, CDP had to fill for bankrupcy after one of Cyberpunk2077 delays have been announced - basically they have put alot of money into making boxes disks etc. and delay in receiving sale money meant they ran out of cash to operate. That have spawned some minor panic among those whom did not follow CDP's corporate history, and thought it's CDPR :)

[mandala.8507]

3 hours ago, Zok.4956 said:

Making Peitha, who is clearly portrayed as female, a king instead of a queen without any references/hints to lore/society seems pretty erratic to me.

You're literally just overthinking it. Why you're overthinking it? Who's to say, really. 🙂