Why do people say 'this star' when referring to the world?

[Tregarde]

It's one of those things I've been wondering about for a long time. People are constantly saying 'this star' when talking about the world, instead of just 'this world.'  But why is that? Do they really mean what we would call the whole solar system? The galaxy? The universe?  Is it because some nuance is lost in the translation from Japanese, and the translators picked the best word they could?

 

Or is it just one of those weird things they do because the can and there is no real explanation?

[Kieron Lohengrin]

Because 星 refers to both star and planet.

 

This isn't limited to just XIV, a lot of JP media uses "kono hoshi" in dialogue.

[Tira Nophi]

I think having them refer to the world as 'this star' gives it a more mystifying sense of celestial existence within not only just one realm but of and among multiple others. I believe the word 'world' can sound particularly confined in the way that most of us are often naturally inclined to perceive it. Depends which way you look at it I suppose. But for them there is already an open door to the many other stars (worlds) out there that are reachable by magical means.

Maybe if we Earthlings could travel between worlds/realms we would probably use the word star or planet more often than we would use 'world'? I find it an interesting topic for discussion though!

[Tregarde]

22 hours ago, Kieron Lohengrin said:

Because 星 refers to both star and planet.

 

This isn't limited to just XIV, a lot of JP media uses "kono hoshi" in dialogue.

 

So, it IS a case of something being lost in translation.  Thanks, it makes more sense now.

[Unnamed Mercenary]

10 minutes ago, Tregarde said:

 

So, it IS a case of something being lost in translation.  Thanks, it makes more sense now.

 

Given that the game scripts are written concurrently between the 4 main global localizations, I find it hard to believe that this is the case. While the base script may have started in Japanese, the English localized by Koji and the rest of the team often adds more nuance and complexity to the setting, which then sometimes gets backported to the far more blunt and direct Japanese, French, and German locales. They're definitely referring to the planet that way purposely. (Or perhaps it's another one of those fun archaic terms that's fallen out of use and now sounds strange in English).

[Valence]

While I don't exactly know the reasons behind this, FF planets have been referred/translated as Stars as far back as FF9 iirc and not just in the english translation. It was planet in 7 though so it seems to mostly depend on the universe they're trying to picture (high fantasy magical vs high fantasy science fiction maybe).