Truth, will, and what we get out of it
I’ve spent time recently watching Series 1 and 2 of the engrossing Swedish crime series called, in English, “The Truth Will Out.” It’s a story “based on real events,” the subtitles tell us. Even though the translations are a decent near-equivalent, the Swedish title and contextual statement don’t make quite so bold a claim, and the significance for the story being told and viewers reactions to it is worth exploring.
In Sweden, the show is known as “Det som göms i snö” – what is hidden in snow. It’s the first part of a neat folk proverb that goes “what is hidden in snow is revealed in thaw.” Read metaphorically, that might well stretch to a claim of truth appearing later if not sooner. But it differs in two ways from “the truth will out,” one of which matters for the language of writers and translators, the other and arguably more important for the reaction that language can invoke for the viewer.
The phrase “truth will out” comes from Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice, Act II, Scene 2: “Truth will come to light; murder cannot be hid long; a man’s son may, but in the end truth will out.” The Swedish TV drama concerns murders in Series 1, with child abuse added in Series 2. Cold cases merge into current ones, leading to discovery (“in the end”) not just of the perpetrators in both series (“truth” revealed), but also corruption in the police and justice system itself (and justice restored).
Concerning language, consider the use of “will”: Shakespeare’s first phrase, “Truth will come to light,” is passive, less forceful than his second, “truth will out.” The first captures will the sentiment of what’s hidden under snow reappearing as the snow thaws, as in the Swedish title of this TV series. But Shakespeare’s second phrase – now as in late 16th century – resonates with “will” as a claim of agency, that truth has a will of its own. It is animate, a living force more powerful than human, superhuman, possibly transcendent. There’s nothing of that in the Swedish title. So, the question arises, is there anything in the drama that might justify the presence of a transcendental power? Possibly.
Concerning reviewers and their reaction, let’s consider what it means to be “based on real events” and the reaction that claim provoked in the discussion in our living room. The Swedish version of that declaration was rather different. A more direct translation would have been “inspired by real events.” That something is “based” in truth metaphorically evokes something foundational; the story is underpinned by a deeper truth – and more substantial than the Swedish original implies. The etymology of “inspiration” is breathing in, filling the lungs. Oxygen fires the imagination, the heart beats faster, warming the blood and the air inside the lungs. We imagine different possible realities, different levels of truth.
In our house, we wondered,
… is the Swedish police system really so corrupt? Was any real-life Justice Minister really so petty, so worried he might have to resign over faulty decisions made decades ago? Was that Justice Minister really murdered by a vengeful serial killer robbed of his victim when another man confessed to his crimes? Was a real-life police commissioner really a sex offender who blocked investigations into his actions while masquerading in public as an advocate of women’s rights?
What kind of truth does this story reveal? Is it factual? Where do the facts the story is “based on” stop and where does what it “inspired” begin? I don’t know.
A writer “inspired” by a news story might well try to get viewers’ blood racing by taking a couple of real-life corrupt detectives and transforming them, as characters, into powerful officials. If the writers of the English subtitles draw too heavily on Shakespearean, metaphysical understanding of the meaning, do the Swedish writers of the original perhaps rely too much on their inspiration to “elevate” the drama? If so, the story might have a foundation less strong, and then rise with lungs filled with hot air. (And a non-spoiler alert: there are more twists toward the end of the story than I’ve mentioned.)
Does the story misrepresent the Swedish police and justice system in seeking to reveal something less systemic but more human? If not strictly factual, perhaps this story reveals a truth of human psyches and not of the institutions of justice. If so, then, perhaps unwittingly, the English translators may have captured its meaning more forcefully than the original text.
The story carries both meanings to the attentive viewer of the subtitles, that corrupt individuals corrupt the system, and the system corrupts everything it touches. Does that sound like Sweden? Does that interpretation corrupt the minds of viewers into thinking that things are worse than – in truth – they are? Do we now know that justice has been restored? What kind of truth is this: of fact or of the type that fiction can evoke? I don’t know. I don’t know if this is a story merely inspired by real events, or one the storytellers have laden with larger but more fragile meanings than the events themselves contained.