Talk:Balthazar's Theme

Lyrics of Battle in Draconis Mons

I am actually quite curious as to how Kossage managed to get "liberis Balthazar" out of those choir voices from the Battle In Draconis Mons song. I know that could just be conjecture, but i'm intrigued nonetheless as to me, it just sounds like your average modern-day advanced Choir VST utilizing basic "ahh"/"ee"/"ooh"/etc. vowel simulations. Again, not discounting you, i'm just curious! Saiabus (talk) 08:27, 31 July 2017 (UTC)

Always happy to see music discussion! :)

What's in the article is admittedly just conjecture at this point (hence the use of 'resembling'), as Maclaine hasn't responded to my inquiry about actual lyrics to the track yet. While the choir is indeed sampled and uses vowel simulations, there's an attempt by the composers to use the samples to produce legitimate lyrics at least as far as my ear registers it. At 1:10 in "Battle in Draconis Mons"--when the choir sings the second, 3-note phrase of the 6-note leitmotif statement--the choir sounds like 'ba-da-sa' which to me is an attempt to use the samples to construct 'Balthazar' and cleverly weave the god's name into the actual statement of his leitmotif.

As for 'liberis', that's something I thought about over and over again while listening to the track and writing the article: there is a kind of 'i-be-ris' (and later 'i-be-ri' with a notable lack of 's' at 1:44) sound being used where the 'el' sound is ambiguous due to the sound quality and noise in the Soundcloud track. However, due to the ambiguity and lack of reply from Maclaine since my writing of the article, I'm fine if people want to edit out the suggested lyrics part in the trivia section for now until we get confirmed lyrics from the composers themselves. --Kossage (talk) 00:02, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

Two composers?

I just want to say that this piece was composed by Maclaine Diemer and Brendon Williams. (Check Soundcloud of ArenaNet). —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 77.45.58.182 (talk).

What you're referring to is the "Battle in Draconis Mons" track which is just one of the many pieces composed for GW2 to contain Balthazar's leitmotif. The distinction here is that a piece (or track) can contain one or more leitmotifs (or themes), and this page focuses on listing the uses of the theme in various tracks. Given that Balthazar's leitmotif has appeared in pieces predating the "Battle in Draconis Mons" track (e.g. "Dragon Vigil" where it's subtly referenced alongside the Tyrian leitmotif) and those other pieces have credited Maclaine as the sole composer on SoundCloud, the evidence suggests to me that Maclaine came up with the theme on his own and only had assistance from Brendon specifically for the Draconis Mons track. If Maclaine discusses the music of Season 3 and Path of Fire at some point and does credit Brendon as a co-composer for the Balthazar leitmotif in particular, however, anyone's free to edit the page to reflect the updated information with a cited source. :) --Kossage (talk) 13:31, 8 August 2017 (UTC)

Feedback 2019/08/31

"dracōnis et occīdendum" seems to be mistranslated. (for reference, it is currently translated to "The murder of the dragon")

dracōnis is the genitive singular form of dracō, so it means "dragon" but in relation to something else. (either possessive like "the dragon's" or non-possessive "of the dragon"

"et" means "and". that's pretty simple.

"occīdendium" is the present active participle genitive plural of "occīdō", which means "to fell" or "to slay"

so this isn't saying "we should murder the dragon"

this is saying "there are dragons, and we are killing them all" (this doesn't translate well to English in a compact way, basically we are currently killing dragons and we are going to keep killing dragons)

--65.28.175.139 15:30, 31 August 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for the detailed feedback! These translations have been scavenged from various comments, and I've tried to look proper translations for them since they've been posted here, but Latin can be a tricky, very compact language when it comes to meaning, so some of these conclusions have been assumptions especially because the composers used these rather liberally (as originally they intended to combine e.g. Sanskrit and Latin for the lyrics) so some of the grammar in the used Latin phrases might even be off. It would be nice to figure out some compact English term or phrase to accurately depict the meaning behind this particular phrase that fits into the narrative the game depicted surrounding the plot centering on the Elder Dragons, so your comment is appreciated. :) --Kossage (talk) 00:10, 2 September 2019 (UTC)