Talk:Amazoness Quartet/Archive 1

Wikipedia usually supports the most common name for an article title. The common usage is without a doubt "Amazoness Quartet". See Google. The Mixx/Tokyopop manga uses Amazoness Quartet; the Pioneer DVD subtitled and episode titles also use Amazoness Quartet.

Fans don't generally use the term "Amazones Quartetto" either. Google's Usenet search only shows two mentions of the full term. I wouldn't be opposed to having some discussion on the page about the actual name meaning, however this would have to be referenced so not to be confused with original research. "Amazones Quartet" doesn't seem to fair too much better. There's the possibility that the thousands of fans are mistaken, however a Wikipedia articke is supposed to present the common usage as the title and discuss other forms.

I propose we move this back to Amazoness Quartet. --Sketchee 00:55, Jan 30, 2005 (UTC)

Just to be safe, I'll put it up for vote instead of just moving it. :) --Sketchee 01:00, Jan 30, 2005 (UTC)

Amazones Quartetto → Amazoness Quartet

I made the page Amazoness Quartet from what were proposed to be seperate articles (red links on other pages), moving the one existing subset into the new page. However, it has been moved to the dubious title "Amazones Quartetto". This is not the name used in fandom. A google search of the two terms shows that Amazoness Quartet is preferred by English speaking fandom. A Google usnet search of the quoted term shows that fan groups use Amazoness (vs Amazones) aside from discussions by the minority who insist upon Amazones. While I wouldn't oppose referenced discussion in this article about the reasoning between the terms as long as it was not original research, the common name is clear and so should be the title of the article.

The subtitled DVDs of the Sailor Moon SuperS series uses Amazoness Quartet as does the english manga release. --Sketchee 01:09, Jan 30, 2005 (UTC)

(Actually, not that it matters but these were four small existing articles that were merged not red links. --Sketchee 01:13, Jan 30, 2005 (UTC) )

• Support - Even though 'I'm pretty sure about the common usage, I put this up to vote. Since someone thought to move it, it must be a good idea to someone. --Sketchee 01:09, Jan 30, 2005 (UTC)
• Support - While the "Amazones" spelling is more technically accurate and should be mentioned in the article, "Amazoness" is by far the more well-known name. --Boco XLVII 22:03, 30 Jan 2005 (UTC)
• Support - Sketchee's Google argument (926 vs. 204) seems sound.--Daeron 08:37, 3 Feb 2005 (UTC)
• Support google argument. Kappa 09:21, 3 Feb 2005 (UTC)
• Some Google statistics: "Amazones Quartetto" = 208 hits, "Amazones Quartet" = 87 hits, "Amazoness Quartet" = 955 hits, "Amazon Quartet" (the dub name) = 4910 hits. The "correct" spelling is Amazones, but Amazoness is much more widely used. As the article names reflect the Japanese terminology (as the dub and English manga are inconsistent with each other and with themselves), "Amazoness" is the term to use. --Boco XLVII 17:53, 3 Feb 2005 (UTC)
• Oppose - "Amazoness" may be more popular but that DOES NOT make it more accurate - Amazoness is not word, Amazones IS. Wikipedia should strive for accuracy and not simply go with whatever is popular. Plus this all stems back to the terms that were used in old fansubs. -- GracieLizzie 19:13, 26 August (BST)

Hero Info

Dispite awakaning as Senshi and becomeing heros, there is only information on them when they were villans.

Aslo there is no picture of them in their villan outfits...Lego3400: The Sage of Time 01:26, 13 September 2006 (UTC)C)

Yeah, this article needs some help in general. I'll add it to the list at WP:SM. --Masamage 04:20, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

To hard to classify???

The way the link box is now it has them classfied as villans. But their true identity is in fact that of heros. So which classification do they belong under? Or are they the "black Sheep" charcters and belong to both? Lego3400: The Sage of Time 18:21, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

You bring up a very good point. I've been thinking about it for a while, and I've decided that I think the way they're categorized right now is appropriate. The link box actually does not list them as villains--it lists them as antagonists, which is absolutely true. Yes, they become good eventually, but most of the antagonists in this series become so (or were once). Not only that, but almost all the good guys turn evil, as well (at the end of the manga, among other times). The way people are listed here is really just how they spend the most of their cumulative screentime/pagetime, which in the case of the Quartet is as antagonists. So I think it's just fine the way it is. --Masamage 23:08, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

Spoilers

As we improve this page, it is going to be extremely difficult to totally hide the fact that the Amazon Quartet eventually becomes the Sailor Quartet. We'll have to litter the article with spoiler warnings--might as well be trying to hide the fact that Usagi is really Serenity. I'd like to see a vote: should we classify this fact as a spoiler, or just not worry about it? --Masamage 23:23, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

I ended up just plunking a specific warning at the top. --Masamage 23:34, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

Article needs help

Firstly, it cites Ian Miller who is in serious contention, both for his articles, heavy fan speculation, and failure to cite his sources on his website (He likes to cite older ones and ones that often fans and experts in the field have either discredited or generally not recognized as official, not to mention his antagonistic attitude towards others in the fandom). Secondly, the spoiling image is top center... if there is to be a section on how they become Sailors in the manga, it should be stuck later in the article, not front and center where it can ruin everything. I would suggest an anime picture much like the ones found on the other profile articles. Then sticking the image later on. Since this is a manga only event AFTER they are villians, I would heavily suggest putting a section dedicated to it after the announcing of the enemy section. Then after it's up to something reasonable, adding it to the article it belongs to where it's to be moved. Does this csound reasonable? Less fan fighting, more fact and less spoilage.

I don't mind them being mentioned up near the top, but you're right, the image needs to be moved.

Who is Ian Miller? And where do we cite him? The only references I used were Elizabeth Carroll and Gina Biggs, like the article says. --Masamage 00:09, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

Has to do with the Amazones thing, etc... I'm wondering if there is actual support from Takeuchi herself or strong indication as to if this is exactly what she meant. If there is a direct correlation to the Goddesses being referenced and this in question, it might have a fair chance. Otherwise we'll have to really think about it. Anyhow, this article needs some really ahvey-duty revisions. Th issue is exactly how to do them. --Hitsuji Kinno 01:21, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

Well, as someone mentions above, Amazoness is not a word; Amazones is (if you look at the Greek word, there's an e that for some reason doesn't get translated). We should definately say the intended pronunciation really isn't known, but Takeuchi used Greek and Roman mythology a lot, and I can't think of a single other character or character group whose name was just made-up. --Masamage 18:48, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, it's Amazones as in the Amazons, women. I don't know about citing Ian Miller since he can't really read Japanese and cites some weird sources on his website. While I would give him credit for pointing it out, I wouldn't cite him as the definite source since his sourcing is strange. (To cite Amazones, he cited a Japanese website when he admitted that he can't read nor has taken any course in Japanese, rather than, say a mythological website which would be more natural...) Should the katakana be listed? I would support that intentions of the creator were not explictly stated too.

I'd doubt him on the Quartetto though. Because if you read his article, you can see he doesn't understand Japanese all that well. Again, he can cipher, but he hasn't had any formal training to understand. (where as I've taken classes and have a bit better than a Kindergarten understanding of it) A double t in Japanese adds a letter to the next syllable. Japanese with double consanants used a "tsu" this "tsu" acts on the consanant of the next syllable. This doubles the sound of the consanant, but does not lend it to the former syllable. So for example, in quartetto in Japanese it would be broken like this: ku-a-ru-te-tto. However, his argument is that it's "Quartetto" because of how the syllables are constructed. This would be wrong, because the way it's broken up there is Quartet-to which does not conform, making the Japanese pronunciation, considering that o *has* to be added (which is conveniently failed to mention) closer to Quartette than to Quartetto. This is kind of similar to the words latter and later. Where the t sound is emphasised in the former, and not so much in the latter. And I have a source for this. The introduction to this book:

The dictionary info is : Nakao, Seigo Random House Japanese-English English Japanese Dictionary. New York: Random House, 1997.

Even then you have issues with that. First off the way it's spelled in Japanese the tsu can also be acting on the "e" of the "te" making it "teeh" rather than "teh" which is also common in katakana. This can be seen throughout the Sailor Moon manga that the dash can be replaced with a "tsu". And the o in "to" has no choice in romanization. Just like "u" in Ma-su (Mars) also has no choice in being there. In Japanese, since it's syllabary, there is no way to drop various vowels and write it properly except for the "n" properly, which does not sound like an English n, being far more nasal than most Americans (except for those in the north, especially North East) speak. Canadians might recognize it though. Given this, this would argue in favor of "Quartette" if one really wanted to argue an alternate spelling. or "Quartet". Even in spoken Japanese the "o" in a final syllable would be softer in katakana because they realize it's a foreign word, much like the aspirated "h" in Helios. The latter would make sense in terms of linguistics, which Takeuchi often delved into, since "ette" in Italian is "feminine" rather than masculine. similar to the "elle" use in french (think Cinderella). ^^;; Having a love of languages really helps out. I know osome Itallian too, and I can tell you that the final to would be more pronounced, forcing the katakana to have an extra "o" or even a "u" to lengthen the sound (hypen also works, or as I stated a "tsu")

Even if you believe him after that, the "Quartetto" is most certanly not greek... since it's a latinate base and thus should not be said to be greek...--Hitsuji Kinno 18:54, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

I'd go for Amazones Quartet. That sounds as proven as we can get. --Masamage 01:00, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

No one against this edit? I'll give until Wenesday, which I think is fair and first to see it without objects gets to make the edit.--Hitsuji Kinno 15:36, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

Clean up

I did general clean up, separate manga from anime, added a see also, and moved the spoiler beginning tag and then added the end one. I don't know how to comprimise the picture being placed at the top. It would be nice if it's there, but not immediately visible... I have one solution, we can split the image so that when the Sailor version is mentioned, it shows only that sailors. So, for example Cerecere's profile has an image of Sailor Ceres in it and so on. This would mean smaller image and separate, but would make it less difficult to place. Then the lead image can be the 4 of them together from the anime. I have the split up images and the joint images I can find easily (one with all of them holding their respective balls)... so is that fine? Last issue is the spoiling from the manga I think the last paragraph can be condensed into the manga version and simply state they do not show up in the manga. Feel free to edit what's written *needs to eat*--Hitsuji Kinno 21:15, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

Moving the article

Should we perhaps change the article's name to Amazones Quartet? --Masamage 18:20, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

I always that that "Amazoness" just ment that they were female. -SaturnYoshi ^{THE VOICES} 19:00, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

"Amazon" means they're female. :) (Which makes the Trio the weird ones here. (Not that they weren't already the weird ones...)) --Masamage 04:32, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

Give a date for a final objection before moving it. I'll support it for now. --Hitsuji Kinno 23:40, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

I've been thinking about this, and there's strong possible reasoning against such a move. e really can't prove that the intended name was 'Amazones'; it seems likely, but we can't be sure. This may be a time when the "most common name" principle should be followed. --Masamage 23:36, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

If "Amazon" means they're female, then why are the "Amazon Trio" male? "Amazoness" appears in a Japanese dictionary [1] which says it's "Amazon" the feminizing "+ess." We're not dealing with English or Greek here, we're dealing with Japanese. The Japanese language don't care the Amazons are all female and putting a feminizing ending on the word may be redundant.See: Concent, Salaryman, Virgin Road, minus driver, cunning, etc... they make no sense in English. The term's used in other places besides Sailor Moon i.e. here and it appears on merchandise boxes. Wikipedia Japan actually attributes the "Amazones" spelling to be the French version. Amazoness is also the preferred romanization of アマゾネス, it seems--with 633 for one esse and 871 for two.

The official Japanese merchandise uses the spelling, the spelling is used for other things in Japan, and the dub/sub uses the spelling. To me "Amazones" would be a "fan spelling" in this case.

Anyway.. when we have contested spellings, we should go by popular usage. In google, "Amazones Quartet" gets 205 to "Amazoness Quartet"'s 649. The opening paragraph really needs to be cleaned up and all of that "usage and origin" stuff needs to be footnoted. --Kunzite 06:07, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Besides, the usage of the word "Amazon" isn't used in reference to the all female group, it is used because they came from the Amazon Jungle as stated in the manga. That was where they were found by Nehelenia. -SaturnYoshi ^{THE VOICES} 06:46, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Whoa!! You found a merchandise box with romanized spelling on it! :O Dang, that totally takes care of it for me. If anything remotely official called them Amazonesses, I'll call them Amazonesses. --Masamage 07:18, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Okay, I've adjusted the lead. I'd like to source that merchandise box without linking directly to it, but I don't find any mention of it on the website where it's located. (Indeed, the article contained in that directory seems to be arguing against it, which is sort of weird.) Any suggestions? --Masamage 18:40, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

I'd say for the super anal list the link at least here, so they can see we took it into consideration and then after you link it we can figure out what to do with the image. If it's from Bandai that can be disputed... if it's from Kodansha/Toei proper, then there might be more of a case. Bandai did check with Takeuchi-sensei who helped design many of the toys (Punch!!) But I don't know if they checked on every detail. --Hitsuji Kinno 23:47, 19 October 2006 (UTC)