In Word of Honor, Zhao Jing sometimes calls Xie Wang 小南蛮子 xiao nanmanzi - “little southern barbarian”. In the English subtitles, 南蛮 was translated simply as “barbarian”, however, the omission of “southern” not only makes Xie Wang’s ethnicity less specific but also deprives him of an important background characterization: in the Han Chinese folklore, “southern barbarians” have a long-standing association with sinister witchcraft, poison and venomous creatures.
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