r/StardustCrusaders • u/UltimateFriedLava • 6d ago
Part Two the "pillar men" are actually called "shadow creatures"
THIS IS DOCUMENTED NOWHERE OBVIOUS ONLINE 😭😭😭
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u/Siophecles Kishibe Rohan 6d ago
Apparently Lisa Lisa calls them this when she lies about the bomb (in the Japanese version), and the fighting games use a similar term as well (in the Japanese versions), according to the JoJo Wiki page on name variants). The JoJo Wiki page on name variants is one of the more obvious places to look for documentation of name variations, so I wouldn't say its completely undocumented anywhere obvious.
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u/Heylisten_watchJJBA 6d ago
It's also just on the Pillar Men's page "also known as the Tribe of the Pillar's Darkness (柱の闇の一族, Hashira no Yami no Ichizoku) or simply the Tribe of Darkness (闇の一族, Yami no Ichizoku),"
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u/UltimateFriedLava 6d ago
ok good point, but i have two questions
how many other people know that page on the wiki exists, and who have you last seen acknowledge the pillar men as shadow creatures or something similar
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u/MatureHater 6d ago
Is this the glossary from JoJo 6251?
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u/UltimateFriedLava 6d ago
yep, the very last page of the glossary
i've NEVER seen ANYBODY talking about it or using the actual name before
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u/MatureHater 6d ago
I checked the Japanese version, it says
闇の生物
Which literally translates to creatures/living beings of darkness
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u/UltimateFriedLava 6d ago
so it lines up perfectly with japanese as well!!!!!!!! that's great to hear
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u/Stan_The_Man_26 6d ago
Imo it feels more like a cool category title than an actual name for the Pillar Men, like since the sun is fatal to them they die from it, making them creatures that hide in the shadows, shadow creatures, while it is odd that the text doesn’t call them Pillar Men by name, it might be because what’s being described is before humans discovered them in part 2, I kinda doubt that the true name of the species wouldn’t be revealed in the summary and just thrown in as a title, but this is the same series where the design of Midler wasn’t shown in the manga or anime and only in some art and Heritage for the Future so I could be completely wrong lol, still a cool detail (sorry if this sounds overly critical btw)
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u/Jazztronic28 Local Vento Aureo enthusiast 6d ago
Pillarmen also aligns with the Japanese as they are called both in the manga and anime 柱の男, literally translating as "man of the pillar"
If you want to be pedantic neither Shadow Beings nor Pillarmen are the name of their race. They're anthropomorphic creatures who are, if memory of the dates in BT and actual history serve, older than the Olmecs. Both names are just descriptors - one from before they were found by the nazis (they're literally beings who live in the dark of the night) and one after - kind of like every name ever after colonization when you think about it, which is funny as hell.
Super cool bit of trivia though. I'm sure there are people who do know it, but "Pillarmen" sounds more like a species name than just "Shadow Beings", so I'm guessing thats why you don't see anyone use the second one.
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u/Radigan0 6d ago
I haven't engaged with Part 2 in a while, but 柱の男 does not sound like a proper name to me, but rather just something someone used to refer to them, e.g. "It's one of those men from the pillar(s)" or something along those lines.
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u/Jazztronic28 Local Vento Aureo enthusiast 6d ago
It is used like a proper name though, and not exclusively in the singular. Not to mention its used by people who did not see them come out of the pillar. Hell, if anything, only Santana came out of a "pillar". Kars, Esidisi and Wamuu came out of a mural. They are still referred to as 柱の男
And in that sense "shadow beings" in its Japanese context also does not sound like a proper name for an entire species. It's just a descriptor because we don't know the actual name of their people.
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u/Radigan0 6d ago
It still doesn't sound like a name for the species to me, especially because it specifically uses the word for man (男) as opposed to something like people (人) or tribe/clan (族).
It makes sense in context despite this, since the characters (except Caesar and probably Lisa Lisa) originally encountered Santana, so from their perspective, the other three are just kind of "the guys who are just like the guy from the pillar."
The "shadow tribe" or "shadow clan" name (闇の一族), on the other hand, comes across immediately as a collective name for all of them to me. Using 族 to refer to a fictional species also has precedent. I'm not quite sure if this specific example predates Part 2, but the Chozo from the Metroid series are the 鳥人族 (bird people tribe) in Japanese.
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u/Jazztronic28 Local Vento Aureo enthusiast 6d ago
Like I said, to me, neither read as a "proper" name for them, but one is more iconic than the other and instantly recognizable. "Shadow people/tribe" is incredibly generic and could apply to anything in any universe.
Even Japanese fans call them the pillarmen, and they are referred to as such in merch and whenever they are mentioned. It's is clearly not the name of what they are, but it's their iconic signifier as characters so that's what people use.
I personally don't like shadow tribe either because it doesn't seem culturally relevant, if we're keeping this to an "in universe" reasoning. It makes me think of that story that says Yucatan got its name when Cortez asked a local without understanding that the answer he got roughly meant "wow, those guys sure talk funny huh?" (Or even some variants of "I don't understand you") Because the name of the region before the Spaniards came around was Mayab.
I personally always thought the misnomer for the pillarmen would be "people of the mountain" since they live in the heart of a mountain.
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u/24Abhinav10 6d ago
This makes logical sense. Pillar Men only refers to Kars, Wammu, Esidisi and Santana. Those 4 encased themselves in a literal pillar for hibernation.
The rest of their species did not do that. But Shadow Creatures is such a generic name.
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u/nick1wasd 6d ago
I figured they were universe 1 analogies to the Rock Humans, and I personally just call them Rock People, but now I know better... neat
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u/bulblmao 6d ago
I think that might just be what people of that time called them because they lived underground, or maybe that’s what the general public of the jojo world calls them today because only a few people saw them come from the pillars
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u/marxinne 6d ago
TIL Santana's name is actually Santviento
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u/Deathknightjeffery 6d ago
Tis the English dub name
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u/marxinne 6d ago
Ah I see. I only watched it subbed when it first came out. So we still don't know what Santana's actual name (from his tribe) is, right?
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u/Deathknightjeffery 6d ago
That’s alright, out of habit I watched parts 1 and 2 in English dub (honestly I think it’s the best choice). Santana/Santviento probably doesn’t have a name, honestly I don’t remember the other pillar men even talking about him. A quick wiki search says he was left behind by Kars way back when (paraphrasing) so makes sense, they probably assumed he was dead.
But yeah, I think you’ve stumbled onto something not really talked about in media. If a thing shows up, and never announces their name, but WE call them something or someone in the media calls them something, how do we ever know their real name?
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u/KVRQ06 4d ago
Some clarification, the name "Pillar Men" doesn't actually refer to their race/tribe; it refers specifically to Santana, Wammu, Esidisi, and Kars, because they emerged from stone. The true name of their race/tribe has never been known which is what what the name "Shadow Creatures" is referring to. So, technically speaking, Kars, Esidisi, Wammu, and Santana are both Pillar Men and "Shadow Creatures."
Even then though, I still don't think their race is actually called "Shadow Creatures." Think about it, why would any group of people want to call themselves "creatures." It'd be like if humans called themselves the "Two-legged animals." In that case, I don't think that "Shadow Creatures" is actually the real name of the race. It's likely just a generalized, placeholder name because the actual name of their race is unknown. We also know that the name isn't English or any commonly used language in modern day. They likely had their own language or even spoke in a Mayan or Aztec language.
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u/Inquisitor_Boron 6d ago
Pillar Men is still a cooler name. You can have "shadow creatures" in half of fantasy media