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[R^2]

Romo wakes with a start and starts barking in alarm.












Romo throws off the medical staff and continues stumbling toward his harp. Why they couldn't just bring it to him is never made clear.

[Thad]

Same reason Larry couldn't just SING "Pop Goes the Weasel" to Curly after his violin broke: because that's not as dramatic as crashing through the wall with a truck.

[Mothra]

Yeah, if you don't get why Edward dramatically and heroically needed to crawl across the room to his harp, you don't understand the man at all.

He absolutely lives for this kind of thing.

[Brentai]

Well, scale's kind of a tricky business in Final Fantasy.  It's possible that we're actually looking at a full-sized harp there, which isn't something you want a couple orderlies to be trying to rush over to you in a moment of crisis.

[R^2]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5x7oSSBQGH0


Kabbage: ...?
Mongrel: This music...
Brent: It's Romo!
Dark Elf: GAH! What is this torturOUS sound?


Romo: He cannot control the magnetic field while I am playing! Now! Draw your sword!


IT IS ON MOTHERBITCHES


I'm not entirely sure how, but Romo's music also gives the party a full heal.


Having decent equipment means our damage output increases significantly.


And the Dark Elf, distracted by the noise, can't bring to bear the sort of power he had before. This is the damage output from his Fira-Thundara-Blizzara combo, less than a tenth of what it was before.


His Tornado is back to single-target.

This is no problem at all! This fight's going to be a cinch!




The Dark Elf transforms into a Dark Dragon!


He  has a powerful Dark Breath attack that can be problematic...


But in this version, he's vulnerable to Tornado for a two-shot kill. This battle is a cinch!

[R^2]

It's not explicitly stated either way, but I always assumed that was the sort of little hand-held harp that Edward would carry with him into dungeons to sing at enemies with.

[R^2]

It's easier to walk out than walk in, now that you can use your best equipment in random battles... but why bother?




Clerics: The Earth Crystal! You've reclaimed it! Hurrah!


Niku: That voice!
Brent: Mars!
Mars: Bring the Crystal and board the ship. I will take you to Friday.


Another Cleric: The nature of the Crystal's power changes depending on the bearer. If it falls into the wrong hands, who knows what could happen?

Five of the other six just wonder who that voice was and admonish you to be careful with their Crystal and so on.

[R^2]

That's a lot of stuff! Most of it consumables, but they're good consumables like a couple of X-Potions and Dry Ethers.


A Silver Apple, too, which gives Brent a permanent boost of +50 to his maximum HP.

[R^2]

Brent: Thank you for your help, Romo.
Romo: There is no need to thank me.
Niku: What I don't understand is how that worked...
Romo: I first heard that melody back when I traveled as a minstrel. I recall it being a song to remonstrate elves and I thought it might work...
Kabbage: We owe you our lives.
Romo: No, I only... Ugh...


Mongrel: Courage, rising from integrity. She was fortunate to have your love. Now be silent and heal your wounds. I promise you I shall avenge Anna for the both of us.
Romo: Thank you...
Brent: Romo, I look forward to fighting alongside you again.
Romo: ...Anna, now I think I understand why you did what you did.

[Classic]

Is it just me, or does Ed-Romo have a perfectly goofy grin in his harp playing sprite?

And, you know,

It's not explicitly stated either way, but I always assumed that was the sort of little hand-held harp that Edward would carry with him into dungeons to sing at enemies with.

I'd always assumed that, but maybe Ro-ward has actually been lugging a full sized harp into battle the whole time. Making him the first character in FF to use truly impractically sized weaponry while being impossibly waifish.

[François]

Not to be that guy, but there's no such thing as a "hand-held harp", unless one means a lyre. Which is obviously what Eddie is using. I would guess it's just a case of enduring translation fuck-up.

[R^2]

Who you callin' a lyre?!

[Thad]

Not to be that guy, but there's no such thing as a "hand-held harp", unless one means a lyre. Which is obviously what Eddie is using. I would guess it's just a case of enduring translation fuck-up.

I'd say it's less a translation fuckup than use of a common but technically-incorrect colloquialism.

Wikipedia:

A number of non-harp-like instruments are colloquially referred to as "harps". Chordophones like the aeolian harp (wind harp) and the autoharp (with the piano and harpsichord) are not harps, but zithers, because their strings are not perpendicular to their soundboard. Similarly, the many varieties of harp guitar and harp lute, while chordophones, belong to the lute family and are not true harps. All forms of the lyre and kithara are also not harps, but belong to the fourth family of ancient instruments under the chordophones, the lyres.

I think it's reasonable to assume that most English speakers would look at a lyre and call it a harp.

Whether they used the English word "harp" in the original Japanese script or a native word that's roughly but not quite equivalent and "harp" was a translator's choice, I don't know.  But regardless, any way you slice it yes that instrument is quite clearly and unambiguously a lyre.

[Brentai]

I'd say it's less a translation fuckup than use of a common but technically-incorrect colloquialism.

You say that like you're okay with it.

[Thad]

When something's got hundreds of years of common usage behind it it's a little harder to classify it as a usage problem (see "damn" as adjective).

A musician would probably not refer to a lyre as a harp (so I suppose that, strictly speaking, Edward should refer to it as a "lyre" and correct people who call it a harp).  But everybody else would.

As it's a case of a specialized technical meaning by a practitioner of the associated discipline versus a looser and more general use of the same word by the mainstream population, it's more akin to "theory" as used in the scientific sense versus the common sense than, say, "literally" used to mean its own opposite (or even "hacking" used to mean "typing the name of Sarah Palin's high school", which, while rapidly on its way to becoming an accepted common definition, doesn't have the hundreds of years of common use that "harp" does).

[A²]

what does this have to do with final fantasy 4

[MarsDragon]

It should probably be mentioned at some point that silver isn't magnetic. I dunno about mythril.

[R^2]

Iron makes sense, silver does not, mythril is magic made-up stuff so it can do whatever it wants. Then again, the forcefield is also magic made-up stuff, so...

One of these days I'll hack in a suit of Adamantine armor and see if that's ferrous too.

[Thad]

what does this have to do with final fantasy 4

If you don't think discussing the minutiae of localization choices is germane to discussions of Final Fantasy 4, you either have not been paying attention for the past twenty years or are completely spoony.

[Rico]

When something's got hundreds of years of common usage behind it it's a little harder to classify it as a usage problem (see "damn" as adjective).

A musician would probably not refer to a lyre as a harp (so I suppose that, strictly speaking, Edward should refer to it as a "lyre" and correct people who call it a harp).  But everybody else would.

Oh, come on, you're not going to use "classical music" as your example?