Disclaimer: My experience with the game so far is limited to the demo versions; I am not a reviewer. I am also not an expert on Geoffrey Chaucer or his works, and have only begun reading them lately.
Hey all, this is something I haven't seen any (p)reviewers mention, and I thought it deserved to be brought more attention, as it lends a deeper appreciation to the game's outstanding localization, and may assuage some concerns about lack of party interactions in the characters' personal storylines by contextualizing Octopath Traveler's apparent inspiration.
To start with, I'd like to credit Lark, for bringing this parallel to my attention in this excellent post.
---
The Canterbury Tales. Heard of it? Perhaps not, if you haven't taken literature classes. Its author, Geoffrey Chaucer, was an eminently renowned poet in the Middle Ages (living from 1343 - 1400), most renowned for the aforementioned work, which sadly went incomplete, being in-progress prior to his death. It's one of the most influential, but now uncommonly known pieces of literature in the English language. What is it, and how does it relate to Octopath Traveler?
The Canterbury Tales is a collection of short stories told in verse by characters in the loosely overarching narrative. Broadly, it's about a group of archetypal travelers who convene at a tavern and decide to embark on a pilgrimage together, telling each other short stories of their lives along the way. Sound familiar? Like Octopath's archetypal-yet-personable characters (The Dancer, the Apothecary, the Warrior, the Cleric, the Thief, the Hunter, the Scholar, and the Merchant), Canterbury's protagonists are named by their roles: the Knight, the Merchant, the Squire, the Man of Law, the Friar, the Physician, the Shipman, etc. (there are a lot more of them!), and have their own quirks and personalities, having been based on people and occupations Chaucer had personal experience with.
Not only that, but Canterbury's protagonists similarly exist on a spectrum of Nobles to Rogues—virtuous to immoral—which is an important gameplay demarcation between the path actions of Octopath's two halves of characters.
Because they're travelers on a pilgrimage from London to Canterbury, simply telling each other stories, it contextualizes Octopath's own decision to feature a full party who interact, yet don't appear physically in one another's personal stories, in a way that's a little deeper and more deliberate than the various pragmatic development justifications I've already verbalized in the Preview thread.
Another crucial contextualization this inspiration lays bare is in regard to H'aanit's unusual dialect, which has been often criticized as bad or lazy writing, which couldn't be further from the truth: it's Middle English. Geoffrey Chaucer lived in the Middle Ages, prior to Shakespeare's modernizing effect on the English language, and thus wrote in Middle English—a period of our language rarely utilized in modern fiction, let alone streamlined as faithfully as Octopath has done.
Having H'aanit speak in this manner isn't just a smart reference by overeager localizers, because it serves to immediately convey how culturally isolated she is in her small hunting village. She's a naturalist more at home among the forest's denizens than in the bustling cities of Orsterra. Again, I must give Lark credit for noting the technical adaptation of Middle English to H'aanit's speech:
I hope this cursory write-up about what I believe to be Octopath's most primary homaging is illustrative that a compelling narrative need not have a singular goal, protagonist, or even a highly interactive cast of protagonists. If anyone more well-versed in Chaucer's work is able to find more connective threads, I'd be delighted to hear about it!
P.S. One more neat—if less presently concrete—reference lies in Octopath's potential number of chapters per character, and Canterbury's Prologue. Each traveler in Canterbury was meant to have four chapters, two on the way to Canterbury, and two on the return trip. According to recent speculation, it's somewhat likely that Octopath's protagonists have four chapters each, as well.
Hey all, this is something I haven't seen any (p)reviewers mention, and I thought it deserved to be brought more attention, as it lends a deeper appreciation to the game's outstanding localization, and may assuage some concerns about lack of party interactions in the characters' personal storylines by contextualizing Octopath Traveler's apparent inspiration.
To start with, I'd like to credit Lark, for bringing this parallel to my attention in this excellent post.
---
The Canterbury Tales. Heard of it? Perhaps not, if you haven't taken literature classes. Its author, Geoffrey Chaucer, was an eminently renowned poet in the Middle Ages (living from 1343 - 1400), most renowned for the aforementioned work, which sadly went incomplete, being in-progress prior to his death. It's one of the most influential, but now uncommonly known pieces of literature in the English language. What is it, and how does it relate to Octopath Traveler?
The Canterbury Tales is a collection of short stories told in verse by characters in the loosely overarching narrative. Broadly, it's about a group of archetypal travelers who convene at a tavern and decide to embark on a pilgrimage together, telling each other short stories of their lives along the way. Sound familiar? Like Octopath's archetypal-yet-personable characters (The Dancer, the Apothecary, the Warrior, the Cleric, the Thief, the Hunter, the Scholar, and the Merchant), Canterbury's protagonists are named by their roles: the Knight, the Merchant, the Squire, the Man of Law, the Friar, the Physician, the Shipman, etc. (there are a lot more of them!), and have their own quirks and personalities, having been based on people and occupations Chaucer had personal experience with.
Not only that, but Canterbury's protagonists similarly exist on a spectrum of Nobles to Rogues—virtuous to immoral—which is an important gameplay demarcation between the path actions of Octopath's two halves of characters.
Because they're travelers on a pilgrimage from London to Canterbury, simply telling each other stories, it contextualizes Octopath's own decision to feature a full party who interact, yet don't appear physically in one another's personal stories, in a way that's a little deeper and more deliberate than the various pragmatic development justifications I've already verbalized in the Preview thread.
Another crucial contextualization this inspiration lays bare is in regard to H'aanit's unusual dialect, which has been often criticized as bad or lazy writing, which couldn't be further from the truth: it's Middle English. Geoffrey Chaucer lived in the Middle Ages, prior to Shakespeare's modernizing effect on the English language, and thus wrote in Middle English—a period of our language rarely utilized in modern fiction, let alone streamlined as faithfully as Octopath has done.
Having H'aanit speak in this manner isn't just a smart reference by overeager localizers, because it serves to immediately convey how culturally isolated she is in her small hunting village. She's a naturalist more at home among the forest's denizens than in the bustling cities of Orsterra. Again, I must give Lark credit for noting the technical adaptation of Middle English to H'aanit's speech:
I hope this cursory write-up about what I believe to be Octopath's most primary homaging is illustrative that a compelling narrative need not have a singular goal, protagonist, or even a highly interactive cast of protagonists. If anyone more well-versed in Chaucer's work is able to find more connective threads, I'd be delighted to hear about it!
P.S. One more neat—if less presently concrete—reference lies in Octopath's potential number of chapters per character, and Canterbury's Prologue. Each traveler in Canterbury was meant to have four chapters, two on the way to Canterbury, and two on the return trip. According to recent speculation, it's somewhat likely that Octopath's protagonists have four chapters each, as well.
