#9 - Doom

Happy Halloween!  Following up my series on the Seven Deadly Sins, this week we'll be talking about...

What tragic fairy tale, fantasy epic, or action hero smackdown would be complete without this word?  How else could a villain convey in a single word the absolute misery and ruination he intends to inflict?

Merriam Webster defines "doom" as:

1. very bad events or situations that cannot be avoided

2. death or ruin

A bit simplistic in my opinion, but we'll work with that for now.

Moving into French, WordReference offers the following translations:

1. mort ("death")
2. destin tragique ("tragic destiny")
3. perte, ruine ("loss, ruin")

A friend of mine also suggested the word fatalité.  This is great word in French.  The first couple definitions that LaRousse gives are:

1. Destin, force occulte qui déterminerait les événements ("Destiny, an occult force which determines events")
2. Caractère de ce qui est fatal, de ce qui est inévitable ("Characterized by something fatal or inevitable")

LaRousse also describes it as an inexplicable adversity, or even a malédiction ("curse, affliction").

It seems exactly the same as doom, but in fact, when you see it used, I would say it's more akin to "fate."

"La fatalité triomphe dès qu'on croit en elle." ("Fate triumphs when one believes in it.")
~Simone de Beauvoir, from L'Amérique au jour le jour

"C'est la faute de la fatalité !"  ("Fate is to blame!")
~Gustave Flaubert, from Madame Bovary 

Fatalité, and even destin tragique, might come close to capturing the meaning of doom.  But there's something entirely too polite about these words.  They're too sad and too dignified.  "Doom" is something primeval and profoundly sinister.  The single greatest genius of this word is the cavernous, macabre quality, the ringing note of finality, in the sound "DOOM."  Any villain with a deep voice can't help but sound awesome saying that word.

What's interesting too, is to see the way "doom" has been translated into French for certain famous works of fiction.  For Mount Doom, from The Lord of the Rings, they settled for the word "destiny," changing it to la montagne du Destin or Mont Destin.  Rather less unequivocally evil....

In Indiana Jones, they chose to take a little more liberty with it so that it would still sound cool in French: Indiana Jones et le temple maudit ("Indiana Jones and the Cursed Temple").  Correct me if I'm wrong, French people, but I think Indiana Jones et le temple fatal would just sound a bit silly.  And Indiana Jones et le temple du destin tragique would sound less like a fun adventure movie and more like, say...Hamlet. 

I tried to find a French version of Invader Zim...but apparently that doesn't exist.  In any case, there's certainly no way to properly dub the Doom Song:

Click here for the Doom Song!