Talk: Zouwu

Is the ad ever seen in COG?[]

Hi, so I'm such a procrastinator, I've been wondering about this ever since the image was shared by MinaLima Design but I don't think I ever asked.

I'm asking because I understand what's written, but the name it used contradicts an earlier OOU promo. ~~I mean, if they are both OOU, I supposed people can choose to argue the "newer trumps former",~~ (strike later added, reasoning below. --Sammm✦✧(talk) 01:14, 12 July 2021 (UTC)) but for people who may not be aware, the former is one way to write the name that matches the Chinese mythological creatures (so factually correct, OOU speaking); the newer, is a fun transliteration I think (literally "walking thing"), and IDK if it should be seen as some pun, or if it's meant to be the canon Chinese name for the article. Thoughts appreciated. --Sammm✦✧(talk) 07:57, 10 July 2021 (UTC)

Ad - Zouwu — Was this ever used as an in-universe poster?

TCOG Chinese Posters 03 — Promo exclusive to China, released earlier

Yes the first poster does appear in the film. It appears in two scenes. You can see it in these screencaps: one (on the right) and two (on the left). However so far that I can tell by articles and videos including that one, the second poster was just a promotional poster designed by Zhang Chun who has designed six other promotional posters for the first film too. So they don't appear in the film. - Kates39 (talk) 11:00, 10 July 2021 (UTC)

Sweet! Thanks Kate! (I definitely missed those scenes lmao; incredible find!) For people interested the characters are 走物 and 騶吾, I'll ping MalchonC for input, but factoring the in-universe appearance, it looks like 走物 trumps 騶吾 then? (And thanks for providing the artist name. His other posters are on HPW as well but I don't think he was credited.) --Sammm✦✧(talk) 11:38, 10 July 2021 (UTC)

The Chinese screenplay uses "驺吾". MalchonC (talk) 13:10, 10 July 2021 (UTC)

Well spotted; it's an interesting dilemma (or trilemma, I suppose). Sammm additionally pointed out to me (because I needed it to be pointed out to me, since I know less than nothing about the Chinese language), that the Chinese screenplay is in Simplified Chinese which is potentially awkward since it would be an anachronism in 1927 — then again, the screenplay is not in-universe, strictly speaking, and screen direction, unlike dialogue, needn't necessarily be period-adequate.

So, basically, we have:

走物 in the MinaLima poster, featured in the film
騶吾 in the Chinese promotional poster, officially licensed
驺吾 in the Chinese screenplay, in (anachronistic) Simplified Chinese characters

I we had to choose one, I'd say option 2 is the one that's most easily "excluded" (as tier-three canon), but things are more difficult between options 1 (tier-two canon) and 3 (tier-? -- official translations are always difficult: the original screenplay by JKR is tier-one, but the Chinese translation does not come from JKR herself, so it can't be; it arguably stands on the same level as the MinaLima poster? I'm not sure.)

I don't know if there are significant irreconcileable differences between them that could make us categorically say they couldn't be synonymous terms, like "Leprechaun" and "Clauricorn". If that is not the case, I'd say we could treat them as equally acceptable Chinese terms for it. -- Seth Cooper owl post! 17:28, 10 July 2021 (UTC)

Usually I'd agree with ruling option 2 out, should it be something completely unrelated; what I find a tad bit tricky is the fact that 騶 is the traditional form of 驺 (see

騶#Glyph origin on Wiktionary), so it'd resolve the anachronistic issue. I was actually quite surprised to see the usage on the OOU poster; it made me wonder if production teams were trying to stay realistic with the era in-universe.

BTW, I actually completely forgot about "Clauricorn", no redirects, probably could use one? lol --Sammm✦✧(talk) 03:34, 11 July 2021 (UTC)

I actually think the second option is the best choice we have. In this case I'd think the official translation trumps the poster, because the translation was definitely done by people who understood Chinese, but we can't say the same thing about the poster, the name on which was probably just a placeholder (in a lot of films, mistakes like this exist). In China, "驺吾" is widely accepted to be the name of this creature, and "騶" solves the problem of anachronism. MalchonC (talk) 03:40, 11 July 2021 (UTC)

A quick note; I realized it was sort of irresponsible of me to make statements about "which one came out first"; the observation made previously was from the point of view of a viewer/audience; I have no real way of knowing, in reality, which one was produced first, and looking back, it is possible that given MinaLima's version was used as a prop within the film, it may have been produced earlier instead. So I'd like to correct what I wrote, hopefully no one would use the argument.

Have given the discussion a little more thought. Seeing that the article has stated Zouwu making an appearance in 2020s, where simplified Chinese exist in real-world; Seth's statement about them all being being equally acceptable makes sense. I mean, I probably would feel a tad bit uncomfortable if we picked to choose solely the simplified Chinese option, but canon time has past 1920s, so including them all seemed okay lol. I'll see if I can tweak {{lang}} a bit more to include specifications. Thanks for all the input. (More are welcomed if something crucial was missed lol.) --Sammm✦✧(talk) 01:14, 12 July 2021 (UTC)