"Never again shall you thirst, for I am come to wet your mouth with wine and water, to quench your thirst with kisses. Words of Love from my own lips will serve as your oasis, and you shall never want for drink again."
I am OVERJOYED at the news that it was not simply a rogue translator but a rogue dubbing team who said ‘hey this is a big moment! And dean hasn’t had a real love interest in years! Let’s just go for it it feels right.’ and made destiel canon reciprocated in Spanish because they could.
I want to clarify some misinformation I see going around in regards to 15.18
1. The script changed title back and forth. It was Despair, then The Truth, then back to Despair.
2. There was no version of the script where Dean reciprocated in English. Multiple people including Misha have said that there was no version of the script where Dean ever reciprocated. Some of these people are bitter Destiel fans who would love to call out the CW if they did chop something out, so they have zero reason to cover this up.
I myself came up with
the theory that perhaps there was one in the writers drafts that wasn’t
supposed to ever get out on the production side, but I’ve since learned
more information and this is untrue.
I am now in contact with people who are actually friends with the writers who have clarified things for me. Textual reciprocation from Dean was never planned nor pitched.
3. There was no “me too” added by Jensen.
There were Destiel fans on set that day and, based on how many leaks have come out with 4 different people leaking copies of 15.18, it’s unlikely that the people who leaked other information from 15.18 are unwilling to share a “me too” added by Jensen.
4. What happened was Jensen added a line that wasn’t in the original script.
Yes, these are productive drafts, but people who were on set that night have said that Jensen ad-libbed some lines.
Jensen ad-libbed “Don’t do this.”
The producer looked at that line, guessed at Dean’s intent because IT WASN’T IN THE SCRIPT, and translated it to “yo tambien” which was then later changed to fit the lip movement.
If Jensen had just said, “Cas[s]–” as was scripted, none of this would be happening. We wouldn’t be having these debates.
Key immediate takeaways (I’m bilingual and I’ll go through the whole thing again later to see if I missed anything):
The original script in English did not say have Dean reciprocation in it.
The Dean line “don’t do this, Cas” was translated by director Adrian Fogarty and it was his choice to make Dean’s reciprocation explicit. so rogue director rather than rogue translator
It was originally translated to “yo también” but was intentionally changed to “y yo a ti” which in Spanish is explicitly more romantic
Guillermo Rojas (the Spanish dub voice actor) stresses that he loved it because nobody saw it coming and all the actors were supportive. He hasn’t talked to the Castiel dub actor and doesn’t know what he thinks.
Guillermo also thinks it’s a good move because he views Dean as never having had any meaningful relationships with women beyond just empathetic. He’s a gay Dean stan lmao.
Guillermo also hasn’t seen the finale yet because he doesn’t want to watch it until he has to record the dub for it, which he hasn’t yet because he’s had COVID. When asked what he thought a perfect ending would be, he basically said that these characters have suffered so much for the rest of the world that it should end peacefully for at least the main three because they deserve it.
He confirms he has not been contacted about rerecording that episode without the ‘y yo a ti, Cas.’ (So as far as I can conclude the Spanish dub will eventually be uploaded to Netflix as is, and my assumption is that it might possibly be delayed because the last two episodes haven’t been dubbed yet.)
okay but in what scenario would jensen be allowed to ad-lib in reciprocation and have that ad-lib stay through multiple iterations of the episodes before it was ultimately edited out. like that changes the entire context of the scene. it’s not a quick joke bit or even something like a face touch. i can buy him doing it in-the-moment in one take, maybe, but i don’t understand how that take would ever get used in any semi-official cut of the episode.
and we’ve seen most of the script for that scene so we know there wasn’t a me too.
but also i cannot understand how a “rogue translator” could’ve gotten away with changing the entire context of the scene either.
INTERVIEWER “Do you know if Supernatural has a quality review for the dubbing through Warner Bros?”
MEMO: “I would be lying to you if I said yes, but I have been working for WB (LatAM) for many years as both an actor and director. And there is some specific material where they do have “filters”, but with something like supernatural I doubt it. I would assume the one left in charge of all decisions was our director (Fogarty).”
so it doesn’t sound like it would be all that difficult for the “rogue” translator-slash-director to “get away” with making an artistic choice here
okay yall are driving me insane arguing that we still don’t know if Dean reciprocated in the original script so here is the bit in the video, with a transcript, confirming that it was not in the English script.
TRANSCRIPT/TRANSLATION:
HARLEQUIN: [Pointing to the comment on screen from Laura Clark that says “From the comments people are confused if the script said anything from Dean about his feelings for Cas – or was that all added by the Spanish director?”] Ada, can we get a confirmation on this real fast? The comments are blowing up about it.
ADA (TRANSLATOR): Yes – [switching to Spanish to ask Guillermo] You’re breaking the Internet one more time. They’re asking whether the original script said something about Dean’s feelings for Cas–
GUILLERMO: No, never [Shaking his head]
ADA (TRANSLATOR): –or was it all added by the director, by [Adrian] Fogarty?
GUILLERMO: [Spanish] No, no, no, so the script, the original script we never had any indication that would tell you he was in love or that he reciprocated or that he knew, no, not at all. Really that phrase is what wrapped up the entire series.
ADA (TRANSLATOR): [in English to the audience ] Okay guys, I am going to go slow with this so it is put to rest: [in English, translating] No, the original did not say it [starts to stumble a little bit in her translation], it was not stated clear. But that last phrase is what concealed the whole series, the whole thing.
GUILLERMO: [Spanish] None of us saw it coming.
ADA (TRANSLATOR): [in English, translating] No one saw it coming.
GUILLERMO: [Spanish] No
ADA (TRANSLATOR): [in English, translating] But it was the director adding it because it was what made sense.
GUILLERMO: [Spanish] So on the Internet when so many people started bombarding me with questions, I set out to find out what happened, right? And yeah, I saw clearly that the director, and like the writer, decided to draw on a very hidden trend, in their respect, in various shots and in very simple lines where they made that kind of suggestion that they both had feelings for each other. But it was so, so subtle that almost nobody noticed it.
ADA (TRANSLATOR): [in English, translating] He’s saying that what the director [stumbles a little] in English were creating this love story, but it was so subtle and so tenuous, so discrete, that no one saw it coming.
GUILLERMO: [nodding] Yeah
ADA (TRANSLATOR): [in English, to the audience] Which brings us to the fact that yes, this man is a heller.
For the record, I am Spanish/English bilingual and I double-checked the translation of key words with my native speaker mother. I’m going through the rest of the video to pull together a proper summary of everything they said but you heard it here first folks: THE DEAN RECIPROCATION WAS NOT IN THE ENGLISH SCRIPT.
Also, no shade to the translator! It looks a little rough in this section but translating on the fly is mad difficult and she did really great for the rest of the event!
h-hey…didn’t the panel with the voice actor (Guillermo Rojas) who said “y yo a ti, cas” in the 15x18 mexican dub start like…20 minutes ago?
update he’s a gay dean supporter and said it was all his director’s fault and it was originally supposed to be something like ‘yo tambien’ (me, too) but they changed it to ‘y yo a ti, Cas’
his favorite scene to film was the one from 15x18, he said he “never saw it coming”
he says the original script did not say anything explicitly romantic, no one saw it coming, but the director modified the line because it “made sense”
Hey guys, it’s me (Amy McNeal), your Soulless Corporate Marketing Exec at a Major Corporation, back with an update on how this dubbing disaster happened. First thing this morning I set up a meeting with our head of video to get answers (like I’m getting any actual work done today lol). He used to handle Latin American dubbing for Viacom. Here’s his version of what happened:The dub scripts go out to the dubbing services way early. These companies generally do many shows on the same network. It’s extremely unlikely that the LA Spanish and the Portuguese dub were done by the same company. Then they mush the voice track into the video, but the important thing to note is that they record these dubs without seeing the video. Sometimes TV eps are versioned differently for different markets, but not typically for legacy shows. His analysis: The dubs were recorded first, then last minute cuts were made to the US version. Someone along the way (who generally doesn’t know shit about the show in question) noted that those 11th hour changes didn’t require substantial changes to the already recorded dub, so they mushed it together as usual. And thats how we got these OG versions. Also of note: He is a native LA Spanish speaker. I may have had him watch several videos of the scene in English and LA Spanish. First, the weirdness is obvious. Second, the decision to ungay it was almost certainly 100% Corporate marketing, and it’s likely the actors didn’t even know it happened until it aired. He also may be doing some forensic video analysis for no particular reason I’ll report back with updates as events warrant.This has been your Destielgate midday update. Stay tuned!
Ok, so the last 24 hours have been a bit of a rollercoaster and now I have another post to write about how dubbing is made. Because I love Misha a lot, and I respect him but… the whole rouge translator thing just doesn’t jive with reality.
Now, first of all I want to make a disclaimer: I do not believe that there’s a conspiracy to keep Dean closeted and away from Castiel. That makes absolutely no sense, no matter how you slice it. Among other things, conspiracy implies intent, and I really doubt the CW, Warner Bros and everyone involved in the marketing choices cares that much. At most, I think that there was a misunderstanding of marketing/PR and now people are doubling down on trying to pretend it didn’t happen. But a conspiracy? Nope. This isn’t THAT important, and it would require a LOT of people involved to make things work.
Which is precisely why the rouge translator thing doesn’t work. Because you would need a conspiracy to MAKE Destiel canon in order for it to be real.
Second: As I write this, I still don’t have an answer from the voice actors. But rest assured, WHEN they reply (or we can organize a panel so YOU guys can ask directly), I will tell you the absolute truth. If I am wrong with my assumptions, and it WAS a rouge translator, I will let you know, and I will admit I was wrong. And if it was from the audio (say, a Jensen adlib) or the actual script? I will also let you know.
Third: I don’t doubt that Misha REALLY believes the rogue translator thing, if it was told to him by TPTB. There’s no reason to believe he knows how dubbing works in Mexico, nor how many people check the final product. Or that he even watched the episode, instead of believing it was a fan clip. Also, I respect him immensely and I don’t want any hate send his way.
That said, let’s go into how dubbing works, again.
