What does Der Freischütz mean, anyway?

[Logress]

So the game is Japanese and the translation is in English, so why the heck do we have a card called Der Freischütz that has abilities called Freikugel?

For starters, these names are German, for those who don't know a good umlaut when they see one. Der Freischütz means "The Marksman." Freikugel is often translated as "Magic Bullet" although I think it's literally "Free Ball" as in musket ball. Our Der Freischütz, however, seems to be just throwing a metal ball, although those pouches around his belt could be gunpowder.

First of all, you may already be wondering where you've heard this reference before. Der Freischütz and the Freikugel or "Magic Bullets" probably sound somewhat familiar. Both names make their appearances in popular culture, especially video games such as Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne. However, I can't guarantee their all translated properly as Freikugel is in Nocturne.

To find the real origins of the word, we can hit up wikipedia's article on Der Freischütz, which is pretty exhaustive. It's an important German Opera by Weber from the 1800's.

One fun fact is that during the Opera, our hero (who is of course a marksman) is persuaded by his friend, who is a Warlock, to use Freikugel or "Magic Bullets" provided by the Dark Hunter. The Dark Hunter is clearly a devil-figure, and the Magic Bullets are able to unerringly hit and kill any target. Of course doom awaits our hero if he uses the Freikugel, in the form of the Dark Hunter taking him away to hades. Thankfully, a happy ending is possible thanks to the selfless acts of other characters, and instead of our hero being taken away, his best friend (who is a warlock, remember) goes to hades instead.

So let's get this straight, in order to unerringly kill his target, the Der Freischütz lets his friend the warlock die. It's almost as if he set one friendly Lawtia unit to HP=0 in order to set one target enemy unit within range to HP=0. This has to be one of the 10 most accurate adaptions of a 19th century German opera into an online card dueling game skill I've ever seen. And he totally cut out a song out of the last act about "spending 1 SP" during rewrites because too many of his listeners had no idea what that ment.

To add a final bit of coincidence into the mix, as our translator, aka GM Arakis was translating this, he was also working on translating the Manga Hellsing. In Hellsing there is a German character who fights with a giant musket that shoots (you guessed it) Magic Bullets. As she does so, she constantly sings entire versus from Der Freischütz, word for word.

[Nehless]

I thought it was a nice story. Something new you learn everyday eh! Thanks for explaining Logress

[Eladin]

i knew it was german.
a lot of japanese stuff seems to use german in it...due to..what? (dutch travelers arriving there oh so long ago or something? obviously not the same, but the closest reason i can think of...what with not living in japan, or germany, or knowing much about their relations.)
but...wow...that's the best back story to the creation of a single card that i've ever heard! you guys deserve a raise just based on that bit of genius i think.

[Romdeau]

Or the Japanese developers like to incorporate whatever fantasy awesome sauce influences they can get their hands on.

[Peralisc2]

Accept this http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/M ... tousGerman as it is or google for more.

[gabotheplaya]

sometimes the umlaut is used for other purposes too. ü

but thanks for the info. i saw this on the main page. good job. ü

[Spears]

Date much?

[Callonia]

I've always knew its in german but never know what it meant til this thread got necrobumped, I thank you all xD

I think I've read about that play before somewhere on the internet. no clue.

[phailures]

I didn't realize the reference was in Hellsing. It was a very interesting read.

[Khalida]

The reference is the opera for Hellsing and the card.
Freischütz can't be translated with marksman. The protagonist is a hunter who uses a "Freikugel". Frei = is related to the Freikugel (the magical bullet given by the devil/demon), schütz= someone who shoots, Freischütz= someone who shoots with a Freikugel. It's a word created for the opera that doesn't exist in german language somewhere else than in the opera.