Fire Hawk question: Who is Joshua?

Paladin (934)

27-09-2015, 06:33

This may be a dumb question, but there are three names thrown around in the story to Fire Hawk: Thexder The Second Contact: There's Joanna, there's Joshua, and there's Arthur.

Joanna is the protagonist, and Arthur is the guy being rescued. But I keep getting confused by the sudden use of the name Joshua during both the opening and ending cutscenes. As best as I can figure, the guy being rescued -- the hero of the first Thexder game -- is named Captain Joshua Arthur, as that would definitely explain away most of my issues. And I'm guessing that IS the case... but it just strikes me as odd that the game keeps switching back and forth between his given name and surname as much as it does, even for a Japanese title. The points at which the names are switched seem much more arbitrary than I'm used to in other Japanese games.

So I was just wondering if anyone could give any confirmation on this. It's just one of those plot points that bothers me more than it probably should -- especially after watching this video on YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XDVKVqVmu8g

After getting to the actual vocal portion of it, the very first few lines translate to "I've always loved Arthur. I'm Joshua, and my ship is the Rapier."

Guessing the video's lyrics are just a bit off, though, since that's not actually the name of the ship either. ;)

EDIT: Hmm, according to the English manual for the MS-DOS version of Fire Hawk, Arthur's full name is Lt. Arthur Sheridan. And no one is listed with the name Joshua. So that just makes things even more confusing!

-Tom

By Randam

Paragon (1431)

27-09-2015, 08:03

The Joshua Arthur (or Arthur Joshua) thing is confirmed in the end demo if there was any doubt. Unfortunately I don't have the manual.

And indeed they changed his name for the dos version.

By wyrdwad

Paladin (934)

27-09-2015, 08:11

By "end demo," do you mean ending cutscene? Because both names are used in the ending cutscene, but never together, so I'm not sure that counts as definitive confirmation.

Either way, though, I'm glad to hear any confirmation at all, so thanks!

-Tom

By Randam

Paragon (1431)

27-09-2015, 09:04

Yeah and since she is talking to just that one guy which she both refers to as Joshua and Arthur I count that as confirmation (probably the full name is in the manual but can't confirm it from there).

By Sama

Ambassador (2068)

27-09-2015, 14:53

As you might know, I'm the one who translated Firehawk years and years ago. The protagonist's name is Joshua and the guy she wants to save is Arthur. To be sure, I just checked the manual, which confirms this. Where did you get the name Joanna? Maybe another translation in which they decided to alter the name because it's actually a male name?

By wyrdwad

Paladin (934)

27-09-2015, 20:59

Sama wrote:

The DOS version named the character Joanna, though I could've sworn the Japanese intro mentioned that name as well. Watching it again, though, it seems I am mistaken.

It never dawned on me that the protagonist might be the Joshua in question -- though that does make sense.

Thanks!

-Tom