La Pucelle: Tactics (by Voltaire)

Is it just me who didn’t know the origin of the name “La Pucelle”? I have a tendency to ignore Japanese game names, but for once (at least) there is a nice literary reference here…

From http://www.jeanne-darc.dk/p_multimedia/literature/0_voltaire/00_voltaire_contents.html

Voltaire’s satirical poem about Jeanne d’Arc, first published in 1755, was an amusing burlesque containing a fair amount of licentious text. Not surprisingly, therefore, the plates are of a risqué nature.

“La Pucelle” became one of his most popular books: 17 illustrated editions were published in the 18th-century alone. View 21 engraving from the Jean-Michel Moreau school 1819

“The Pucelle” was Voltaire’s ribald, versified history of Jeanne d’Arc: “my Jeanne” as he often called it, and at one the plague and pleasure of his life: “the epic he was fitted for,” said Edward Fitzgerald, “poor in invention, I think, but wonderful for easy wit.”

Begun in 1730, it soon became a source of danger: cantos, read aloud to a few delighted friends in the Cirey bathroom, mysteriously found their way into print.

In 1755 an incorrect edition was published in Paris, and was publicly burnt there and at Geneva, its printer being rewarded with nine years at the galleys. The author himself–though he often had occasion to allude to it as “that cursed ‘Pucelle’”–never suffered anything worse than frights from it.

Learn something new every day…

She’s called La Pucelle in Shakespeare’s Henry VI, Part I, if that’s any help…

“Pucelle” is French for “virgin”.

Hey, cool! I’m used to assuming all Japanese game names are just bad translations!

-Tom

For those who didn’t finish the game, I would strongly urge them to do so. Though the story seems silly and farcial at first, it becomes really good in the last 4 chapters. Unlike Luc Besson’s alternate interpretation of Joan of Arc, http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0151137/ , this one goes for happy ending and redemption through love.

For those too lazy (or too busy) to bother, you can read the full transcript from the first FAQ by Crimson Phantom.

http://www.gamefaqs.com/console/ps2/game/566126.html

She actually called herself Jeanne la Pucelle.

Unlike Luc Besson’s alternate interpretation of Joan of Arc, The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc (1999) - IMDb , this one goes for happy ending and redemption through love.

She was burned at the stake as a witch, abandoned by her countrymen. How is the Besson interpretation alternate?

Luc Besson portraits the greatest heroine of his country as someone out for vengeance, and who is at best hallucinating, even delusional. The long sequence where Dustin Hoffman questions her sanity or whether she was really sent by God should be quite provocative in a country where she is still revered and served as the rallying symbol for the Right.

Oh, in that sense, it may be alternate, it was just that you mentioned “happy ending and redemption through love” specifically, which if something would be an alternate take on the Jeanne d’Arc story.

Personally, I like the Besson take, though the battle scenes weren’t very good. In my mind quite a realistic portrayal of a saint and martyr.

Except for La Femme Nikita, I absolutely loathe anything Besson touches. My own favorite screen interpretration is St. Joan by Otto Preminger. But there’s a German version I have yet to see as well.

Looking at IMDb, I see he’s directed a lot less movies than I would have thought. And I’ve never actually seen anything by him that sucked.