4

In Fate/Zero King Arthur turns out to be a a young girl who pretended to be a man to be able to become king. In the novel, after the main character uses the scabbard of Excalibur to summon her, she says:

私があの鞘の持ち主であることを疑われたのは、正直なところ不愉快でした

Referring to the fact that the main character doubted that she was really King Arthur when he first saw her.

In the manga adaptation, her line is slightly different:

私があの鞘の持ち主だと疑われたのは、正直不愉快でした

Doesn't the と particle make this sentence have the opposite meaning? Like she is unhappy with being thought of as the owner of the scabbard?

ssuga
  • 291
  • 1
  • 8
  • Could you explain why you think it has the opposite meaning? – user3856370 Jun 21 '21 at 13:54
  • I guess I'm just extrapolating by other uses of 疑う I've seen elsewhere. When used with the "だと" the meaning seems to be "suspect that something is the case". Some example sentences: "僕はキラだと疑われる可能性はまずない…" means "There should be no chance that I'm suspected of being Kira" and "キラだと疑われる人間がどんな気持ちか…考えてみろよ" means "Think about how the people being suspected of being Kira feel" – ssuga Jun 21 '21 at 14:08
  • Following that logic "私があの鞘の持ち主だと疑われたのは、正直不愉快でした" would mean something like "the fact that I was suspected of being the owner of that scabbard is honestly unpleasant to me", which makes no sense for this character to say. – ssuga Jun 21 '21 at 14:10
  • Just to clarify my original comment, I don't disagree with you. I just thought it would be a more helpful for everyone if you explained your thoughts. – user3856370 Jun 23 '21 at 17:37

1 Answers1

5

Your understanding is correct.

The question is about whether 〜を疑う and 〜と疑う mean the same thing, and the answer is they don’t.

The first sentence from the novel matches the first pattern, and this 疑う means “to doubt”. In this particular sentence, the whole of 私があの鞘の持ち主であること is the direct object of 疑う. They doubted that the speaker (私) was the owner of the scabbard, meaning they didn’t think she was the owner.

The second sentence from the manga matches the second pattern, which is similar in construction, and meaning, to 〜と思う, 〜と考える, etc. This 疑う would be better translated as “to suspect” than “to doubt”. They suspected that the speaker (私) was the owner of the scabbard, meaning they did think she was the owner although they were not sure if that was really the case.

I have no idea why such a mix-up happened when the novel was adapted to the manga.

[EDIT]

Though I generalized the question in my explanation above, the particles are not the only difference in these sentences. There are other differences that come with it.

私があの鞘の持ち主であること refers to the speaker (私) being the owner of the scabbard in general terms. It doesn’t have to be a truth. It could as well be a possibility. When it’s the object of 疑う, it means you doubt its validity.

私があの鞘の持ち主だ, on the other hand, is an affirmation that the speaker is the owner of the scabbard, although the degree of its certainty varies depending on what verb follows. 疑う adds a sense of suspicion but it’s not much different from 思う in this case.

[EDIT 2]

I have been reminded in the comments that 〜を疑う could also mean “to suspect.” In this usage, the object usually refers to something negative, such as disease or criminality. These days you can expect to get many search results containing 感染を疑う.

However, this doesn’t seem to apply in the current context at all. If I understand the description of the story correctly, the speaker is the real King Author, and therefore, the legitimate owner of the scabbard. And she knows it herself. If she says 私があの鞘の持ち主であること, that’s a fact for her. She wouldn’t be annoyed if someone suspected it to be true. Besides, it seems a fact that they doubted that she was the king when they first saw her.

Personally, I’m having a hard time seeing ambiguity in this sentence even without context.

aguijonazo
  • 15,868
  • 1
  • 10
  • 38
  • that's crazy so just a different particle and slightly different sentence structure can make that verb have the opposite meaning... – OtheJared Jun 24 '21 at 04:07
  • Is it possible to use both と and を together with 疑う, i.e. XをYと違う? For example X could be the name of the person you doubt and Y could be the reason for your suspicion. It seems like a logical extension of phrases like XをYと思う (regard X as Y), but It's hard to find examples. – user3856370 Jun 24 '21 at 07:42
  • 1
    @user3856370: Yes, 彼を犯人と疑う is a valid sentence that means what you think it means. (You seem to have put 違う by mistake.) – aguijonazo Jun 24 '21 at 07:54
  • There are cases where「～を疑う」 means "suspect" rather than "doubt". (E.g.「新型コロナウイルス感染を疑う患者の検体採取・搬送」「マレーシア警察が関与を疑う4人の男」「検察官(...)は、被疑者が罪を犯したことを疑うに足りる相当な理由があるときは(...)、これを逮捕することができる」「このケースでは何らかの理由によってパスワードが盗まれてしまった可能性があるため、パソコンがウイルスに感染したことによってパスワードが漏えいしたことを疑う必要があります」「敗血症は治療が遅れると、治療に時間を要したり、命に危険が及ぶことがあるからです。ここで介護をされる方でもある程度敗血症が起こっていることを疑うポイントを説明します」) The 「疑われた」 in 「私があの鞘の持ち主であることを疑われた」 is ambiguous to me and I can understand why a careless editor might get it wrong. – goldbrick Dec 31 '21 at 06:13
  • @goldbrick - If being the owner of the scabbard is considered to be a negative thing in the story, that interpretation might be possible. I assumed it wasn’t. Besides, according to the OP, the speaker *is* the real King Arthur. I thought it meant she *is* the legitimate owner. If that’s really what the story is telling, the editor must have been extremely careless. – aguijonazo Dec 31 '21 at 07:21
  • I meant 「私があの鞘の持ち主であることを疑われた」 was ambiguous *without context*. I was concerned that the way your answer was written, the reader would be given to think that you were claiming that the *phrase type* 「～を疑う」 meant "to doubt ~" as opposed to "to suspect ~", and therefore all of its instances did so too. – goldbrick Dec 31 '21 at 09:27