Why is it 'Thunder' magic and not 'Lightning'?

Dolores Haze

Dolores Haze

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I was talking to Jess on MSN, and an epiphany was had. Why isn't it Lightning magic? That's what actually hits the enemy: lightning. In a few games it's Bolt or something, but it's mainly Thunder. Thunder is sound. Maybe it was because Thundaga and such sounded better; you'd think they'd be accurate though.

It's like this in KH too.
 
Thunder does not strike you. Thunder is sound. Thunder does not come down from the sky and HIT YOU. UGH.

Yeah. She was talking to me and I had a mini-rant on it, because I'm in Luca and using Lulu and I noticed. WHY IS IT THUNDER?!

To be fair, Lightningara and Lightningaga just don't sound as good as Thundara and Thundaga. But... still. Lightning is the... energy/heat/light/whatever it really is and Thunder is the sound. It makes no sense, just like the water element being neglected >.> But that's a different thread >.>

Just... ugh. WAY TO SCREW UP, SQUARE ENIX.
 
It wasn't always Thunder. It used to be Bolt in some games, which makes a lot more sense. Bolt, Boltga, Boltara would seemingly have been appropriate.

But you're right. Fail, SE. Fail.
 
The Funny thing is that it was Lit in the NES version of Final Fantasy I. Most likely, this was due to space issues, but its still funny that modern day games give the freedom to translate it as Thunder.
 
It may just be a Japanese thing, I'm sure there's Thunder in Pokemon as well though there's also Lightning...they do the same thing anyways so whatever. But it's most likely because it sounds more fluent, as mentioned above the Lightning, Lightningaga etc just really doesn't work and would most likely sound/read horribly bad. Then again it might just be SE being stupid >.>
 
Lighning and Thunder tend to go hand in hand anyway, i dont think its any big deal, and as said before thundaga sounds much better than Lightningaga....hahaha I just made myself lol xD

Boltga would have been ok I suppose though, and Boltara sounds ok too....

I know I have wondered before, but I never gave it more than a passing though, when I think of thunder I think off lightning anyway
 
Maybe it was a translation error? Like Ryan said, in the Pokémon games Pikachu and other electric Pokémon have Thundershock, Thunderbolt, Thunder Wave, etc.

Or, it could just be that it sounds much much better. It could well be that Thunder is shorter, snappier and cooler than Lightning, and Thunder just sounds better than Bolt too? :gasp:
 
Bambi said:
Lighning and Thunder tend to go hand in hand anyway, i dont think its any big deal, and as said before thundaga sounds much better than Lightningaga....hahaha I just made myself lol xD

Boltga would have been ok I suppose though, and Boltara sounds ok too....

I know I have wondered before, but I never gave it more than a passing though, when I think of thunder I think off lightning anyway
Click to expand...

Yeah, those sound fine to me. Bolt, Boltara, Boltga...it'd certainly be nice for a change of pace if nothing else, and it is the shortest of those few possible names for the Electrical magic spells. XD

But anyways, yeah, Thunder/ra/aga doesn't make sense, the enemies are physically struck by some bolt(s) of lightning, while Thunder is a mere sound...a rumbling in the dark, cloudy skies.

So Bolt/ra(or ara...)/ga or Lightning/ra(or ara...again. :P)/aga (or maybe that would just be Lightninga, like Watera) seem like they'd be the way to go, but whatever, just one of the many mistakes Square Enix has made. :ness:
 
I noticed this a while ago, but I didn't really care. I'm not blaming SE for this, since the same error has been in Pokemon for so long and they've yet to "correct" it themselves.

It's just the little things you notice every so often in games, and then you move on :monster:
 
I have to agree that the Bolt/ara/ga sound better than the Thunder/ara/ga. Thanks to Bolt for making me think Eleca/Elecara/Elecaga as well. And that also makes me think... There are SO many elements out there.. Fire, Water, Thunder [blech], Ice [why Ice, though, when there's water? Isn't ice just a form of the liquid? I think either Ice should be a subelement of water or vice-versa], Earth/Ground, Air/Wind, Dark, Light, Poison.... But I have yet to see Sound [and no, I don't count Siren's attacks].
 
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I nevr really thought about it until this thred pointed it out... I guess they use Thunder because it just sounds better. Like Lightninga... sounds kinda dumb... And not many people know the difference between Lightning and Thunder. (Which is kinda sad, actually)
 
Yeah, I never really thought about this until now. Maybe it was for aesthetics, because Thundara DOES sound a whole lot better than Lightningara. I don't really know why they'd publish it like that though. I liked Bolt in FF7.
 
Sorry haven't read everyones posts

Thunder is made by lightning striking. So having a spell called thunder that strikes you with lightning isn't that hard to understand. They could just add a boom sound in the spell and maybe that would make people less annoyed at it.
 
It could perhaps be because of some sort of mistranslation? Maybe the spell thunder sounds much better than lightning? Maybe they did not want to confuse any light spell and lightning?

There is a lot of possibilities, but then again, normally you will hear the sound of thunder during a lightning spell attack, so it's not like they are wrong in calling it thunder. Maybe they want to focus more on the audio effect of the spell rather than the visual.
 
It could always possibly be a translation error. (I've noticed many in Final Fantasy 7... "I be stand over here.")
Though, if Square Enix wise up and call it "Lightning" in FFXIII, that would be weird... "Lightning uses Lightning!" (Or w/e)
o_O
 
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