Chenya · 1y
hello hello! I've been reading your answers on honorifics and speech patterns and how they tell a lot about character dynamics. now I'm interested about Azul, because I think he is usually very (perhaps sickenly) polite to people but in NA he has these moments where his real thoughts come out and then he doubles back (eg. "they're so stupid- I mean, so interesting!") and I was wondering how this works in JP? is he dropping honorifics in these situations?
It seems like Azul might not drop honorifics themselves (i.e. before correcting himself in his Halloween vignette he still refers to Silver as “Silver-san”), or drop his polite phrasing!
It is a little difficult to tell because a lot of what makes a sentence polite comes at the very end and Azul corrects himself midway, but it does seem like he keeps everything polite all the way through.
For those who may not know there are many ways (in addition to honorifics like “-san”) to keep your sentences polite when speaking Japanese. The Octatrio is a great way to see this in action: Jade and Azul both speak in polite forms, while Floyd uses casual/slang forms of the same words.
Jade and Azul use honorifics with everyone except each other (and Floyd), and they also use formal language with each other (and Floyd) which is how we get problems on NA like the “sir” situation that rearranges their dynamic. They are just as polite with each other as they are with anyone else.
https://twitter.com/YuuRei20/status/1616526963069554688
When Azul does drop his polite speech patterns, it seems to be moreso because something has surprised him than because he realized mid-sentence that he is saying something he shouldn’t.
Azul is described in the game guide as “not good at dealing with the unexpected” like Riddle and Deuce, which may be why he has this problem. As Azul usually expresses himself very politely (like Jade), when something shocks him and he slips into casual/slang expressions, he can sound more like Floyd.
