Talk:The Winged Dragon of Ra

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Translations Queries

Are we sure that the effect is "lower your lifepoints to 100 to gain", and not "you can lower lifepoints up until you have 100 left." ? Meaning you select how much to give like Wall of revealing light except the cap is you much keep the last 100lp? --75.140.157.238 06:50, June 7, 2010 (UTC)Dark Magic Ragnarok

According to the Japanese card text, it says "ライフポイントを１００ポイントになるように払う事で" which when directly translated into English roughly means "pay LP so that your LP becomes 100 LP".

For Wall of Revealing Light, its Japanese text says "１０００の倍数のライフポイントを払う", that translates into " pay LP in multiples of 1000".--HHTurtle 06:57, June 7, 2010 (UTC)

Ok, Thanks for the answer. --DarkMagicRagnarok 00:03, June 8, 2010 (UTC)

Which Shonen Jump issue is it coming in?

Soon, must be next one. As the image is reality in TCG of currently. --FredCat ^{Ta.P. • F.P. • J.R. • W.S. • Th.P.} 20:14, October 19, 2010 (UTC)

Two God Cards Down...

When the hell are they releasing a playable Slifer card? -Malus X (talk • contribs) 03:03, December 11, 2010 (UTC) Probably in the January 2012 issue. If you havent noticed already, its a pattern. Obelisk the tormentor came in the January 2010 issue. the winged dragon of ra came in the January 2011 issue. So Slifer the sky dragon will probably be in the January 2012 issue, in about a year from now.

Ra the exception?

So I noticed a lack of "This card cannot be targeted by traps, ect." on the card's lore. Is it looking like Ra is the exception to the "God Cards cannot be targeted" rule?| ~Omni

Missing something

Why would they forget the one effect that made this monster even worth looking at? The reason Ra was good was because he gained ATK points equal to the sum of the ATK points of the monsters sacrificed for him. Without that effect, I can not see this card seeing any play time for anyone more than a Yugi fanatic. I understand not making them as broken as they are in the show, but these monsters are supposed to be the Gods of this game. Yet these rereleases are never gonna see the outside of a binder.

First of all, sign your post! Second, that effect was probably omitted because of the fact that players always start with 8000 Life Points. Therefore, if this card is drawn and summoned early in the game, Ra will most likely have only 7900 ATK, which is still plenty, whereas if that effect was included, Ra would have had way more and it really would be broken. RedDrgn (talk • contribs) 02:49, February 15, 2012 (UTC)

Why different effects?

I understand that they didn't want this card to be uber powerful.. but he is an Egyptian God! He should have received the immunities like Obelisk? Why on earth would the makers first A., get rid of the ATK/DEF gain, then B., get rid of all the special summoning, and C., get rid of the target immunity? They gave legal Obelisk nearly identical effects to his video game appearances. Why? Would have made more sense to make them powerful then just ban em.

(76.180.173.64 (talk) 23:48, February 19, 2011 (UTC))

The reason why Ra had being nerf so hard is; Life Points payment would make it nearly impossible if he has same effect to Obelisk and nearly no way to get him down except by Honest at him. Obelisk has 4000 ATK/DEF, while Ra do not, which referring to not be able to bottomless trap hole or regular. Konami like to keep the game balance and making Divine-Beast legal, so that is the reason why they jacked Ra/Obelisk Special Summon power and fixing them into correct directions. --FredCat 23:58, February 19, 2011 (UTC)

The problem behind your reasoning for Ra being nerfed is that Synchros are far easier to summon and have stupidly overpowered effects in addition to being mostly splashable. The fact that nearly every "upgraded" form of Red Dragon Archfiend is given blanket immunity to destruction effects for no reason while the Egyptian God Cards are stripped of that and given the laughably weak "cannot be targetted" effect, is further evidence that Konami doesn't know how to balance their own game. The "real" Egyptian God Cards are turning out to be pushovers that are more trouble than they're worth - they even took away Ra's Special Summon abilities and made them Normal Summon only, which takes away part of what made him unique. The simple fact of the matter is that the Egyptian Gods didn't need to be nerfed when there's so many unbalanced/overpowered cards released before them, many with much easier summoning conditions.24.217.80.86 (talk) 10:20, May 25, 2011 (UTC)

"Winged Dragon of Ra" is just a lesser dragon that under the control of real Ra. While "Red Dragon Archfiend" is a real demon, which he can become more powerful with an update. That's one big difference, and you cannot make them in right way you want them to be. --FredCat 10:24, May 25, 2011 (UTC)

Under the control of real Ra? Real demon? You don't mean that serious, do you?--93.128.87.36 (talk) 13:32, December 15, 2011 (UTC)

I think here is a missinterpretation of the language. "The Winged Dragon of Ra" does'nt mean "Ra's Winged Dragon", what it means is "Ra is the Winged Dragon", in meaning, and more like he is "THE Winged Dragon" and not "a winged dragon like some others". The Winged Dragon of Ra is not a dragon under the control of Ra, it is indeed Ra. Another example of the meaning of it's name and the structure what it is followed in it's name can be explained in the following example of the same structure given in this text: "as expected, 'the chicken of' Carl have not seen that movie because he is scared with anything". Here, 'the chicken of' is not making a reference to Carl's chicken, what it mean is that Carl is the chicken who they were talking about.

So that was just an example, hope to have helped with that name issue.PyroPower (talk • contribs) 22:21, December 19, 2011 (UTC)

More of "The Winged Dragon version of Ra" so that's sound little fun with that italic word in and that's how they get the name for "him". --FredCat 22:27, December 19, 2011 (UTC)

It's totally stupid, first they show these cards (egypcian gods) being the beast of the game, them they creat a lot of cards who have better effects, power and easier to summon. They just don't like what they created themsealves? What the propose of this? The whole game is based on monsters that existed 3 thousand years ago, were put on tables and the pegasus take them with the millenium eye and creat the cards. If they want to creat other things stronger, take other places on earth with the same age and explain that there have other civilization with stronger monsters, idk, put something in the story to be more consistent and, at the same time, show us more about the story of this world. Now they take away the power of the "divine beast" and ok, no one cares in the show, the yugi's deck is like the worst in whole universe now days... Take the effect of the Ra and Slifer was the worst idea of all time, keep them with their power and ban them for the competition, showing some respect of they had creat... --Yuri162 (talk • contribs) 16:24, March 31, 2016 (UTC)

The difference in effects has to do with the anime. The cards are more powerful in the anime partially for dramatic effect. Had Ra been given the treatment similar to Obelisk and Slifer, he'd be an OTK card in itself, especially with cards like March of the Monarchs. "Oh, let me just take your best monster to Tribute with mine and bring out a powerhouse that could win in a single turn." It'd have been banned quickly. Of course, that doesn't mean they still went overboard with the nerfing, which they clearly did. It could've gained half the ATK of the Tributed monsters and at least had an effect that could be activated the turn it was Special Summoned and thus have been watered down but not to the point where it's virtually unplayable. --MasterMarik (talk • contribs) 16:48, March 31, 2016 (UTC)

Reminder that Ra's other forms, Sphere Mode and Egyptian God Phoenix, also exist as cards and were likely meant to be included in the deck with the Normal Form to balance its weaknesses. Chimera-gui (talk • contribs) 04:47, May 1, 2016 (UTC)

banned or not?

so is this card legal or not because i got a copy from a shonen jump magazine and idk if its legal

Legal: "SHONEN JUMP Magazine Promos: Up to, and including, "Malefic Truth Dragon" (JUMP-EN048) and "Troposphere" from the SHONEN JUMP Scholastic Edition Magazine"[1] (though note the regional restriction on some SJ promos). 「ダイノガイ千？！」^{? · ☎ Dinoguy1000} 07:05, April 20, 2011 (UTC)

Like Dino said, this card is real deal. It's an effect monster, not yellow-border monster with ridiculous text. This card is only ban in Asia due to "Shonen Jump" not exist in that area, correct me if I am wrong. --FredCat 10:13, April 20, 2011 (UTC)

Well a lot of JUMP cards are also banned in Europe too.. We can't use for example Obelisk until GOLD 4 Wilimut ^Talk_Mail Paris, 10:35, May 25, 2011 (UTC)

Yea, but at least you maybe not need him due to his Summon restrict. --FredCat 11:37, May 25, 2011 (UTC)

In the anime, the winged dragon of ra gained atk equal to the sum of the tributed monsters for its summon. Does this one receive that atk too.

No, because the effect text of the card doesn´t say so.--77.13.145.35 (talk) 12:07, February 26, 2012 (UTC)

"Winged God Dragon" or "Winged Divine Dragon"

In relation to this edit this edit, I don't see why 神 has to be an adjective in this context. Nouns can be used to describe nouns. e.g. 地獄詩人 = "Hell Poet", 竜騎士 = "Dragon Knight".

You're also claiming that they're not gods, only the servants of gods. But "Obelisk", "Slifer" and "Ra" are constantly referred to as gods throughout the manga and anime. I don't remember any instance of them being referred to as servants of the actual gods.

The Japanese manga and anime give the God cards both English and Japanese names. The English names being "The God of Obelisk", "Saint Dragon - The God of Osiris" and "The Sun of God Dragon". I know the word "of" doesn't help the claim that they're not servants. Its presence has struck me as grammatically unusual. But even so, in the cases of "Osiris" and "Obelisk", they are referred to as "The God", meaning they are gods. Dialogue also suggests that they are "Obelisk" and "Slifer", not their servants and that "Ra" is a sun god, not a sun, belonging to a god.

I don't know if it's worth mentioning, since a number of our translations differ from this and it has made a few mistakes, but the Master of the Cards section of the English manga provides translations of cards' Japanese names. For the God cards, it gives "Obelisk the Giant God Soldier", "Osiris the Heaven Dragon" and "Ra the Winged God Dragon". -- Deltaneos (talk) 21:23, July 29, 2016 (UTC)

Irregardless of all that, I generally support using "Divine" in translations for both shin and kami. Those are never actually retained in translations as "God" and "Divine" is just as accurate (obviously the same can not be said if the text reads goddo). The Egyptian Gods though.....I mean, even the dub directly called them the "God Cards" even if "God" was not used in the card names, so I support retaining "God" in the translations in this case. Cheesedude (talk • contribs) 21:31, July 29, 2016 (UTC)

@Deltaneos I don't regard the early Japanese/English translations provided in the anime, manga or games to be completely credible.

• The English names provided by Japanese sources are plagued with "waseigo".

• At that time, translation standards weren't as high as they are today.

• 4Kids really didn't care about translation accuracy. Example: "Slifer" & "the Tormentor".

The Japanese names are clear that these are not the god themselves. In the same way that 高橋さんの猫 means "Takahashi-san's cat", not "Takahashi-san the Cat"; オシリスの天空竜 means "Osiris' Sky Dragon", not "Osiris the Sky Dragon". The same goes for the other 2 cards. These are beings that "are of" or "belong" to the gods, they are not the gods themselves. If they were actually the gods themselves, their names would have been similar to cards like 光の創造神 ホルアクティ.

The original story initially had a clearer distinction when describing these cards as 神の僕 or 神の力. The implications are:

• When these cards are summoned, the duelists are only "borrowing" the power of the gods.

• These are only manifestations of a fraction of the power of the true gods.

My explanation for why the characters started calling these "Osiris, Ra or Obelisk" later in the story is because saying "オシリスの..." all the time is a mouthful and tiring, even in Japanese.

I don't disagree that "Nouns can be used to describe nouns", but using the word "god" to describe things that are related to gods is very clunky and awkward to read. Example: "Odin is a god in Norse mythology. He wields his god spear, Gungnir, and rides his eight-legged god horse, Sleipnir. He is often accompanied by his animal companions; the god wolves, Geri and Freki, and the god ravens Huginn and Muninn, who bring him information from all over Midgard."

We already have a word that means "relating to or belonging to God or a god". Wouldn't you agree that replacing the bold words with "divine" would make the sentence easier to read?

BTW, someone else has already asked similar questions on my Talk Page. User_talk:Hide_Head_Turtle#Ra.27s_Winged.2C_Godlike_Dragon  HHT   07:01, July 30, 2016 (UTC)

"God horse" wouldn't be my ideal choice to describe a horse that is associated with gods, but I might use it to describe a horse that is a god, which is what I thought was the case here with "God Dragon". But I accept your logic that they are connected to the gods and not the gods themselves. So, I'm okay with your translation. -- Deltaneos (talk) 17:51, July 30, 2016 (UTC)