ひとりでも and 多く usage and translation advice

Question

This line happens just before my previous question.

It is preceded by the following text:

そやから私は管理局に入れてもらって、 この夜天の力で働こうと思ってる。

自分の命を使って、人を救うための仕事をする。 そう決めてる。

Which roughly meany IMO:

That’s why I’m planning on entering the Administration Bureau to work this power of the Night Sky.

To spend my life working there for the sake of saving people. Such is my decision.

And those two are probably pretty much correct. Might need some brushing up to flow better, but the following one is a bit trickier.

理不尽な出来事に悲しむ人を、 ひとりでも多く助けていくために。

Problem here is twofold. Grammatical/meaning and overall context wise.

The first part of it is easy enough. It's "Sad people in preposterous situations" (probably could replace preposterous with unbelievable. But in the next part segmentation is probably:

ひとりでも - 多く - 助けていく - ために。

I assume ひとりで is personally and も is there to modify the personally into kinda even personally. Like she would like for people to be saved by her personally if possible.

In the next bit there is 多く used as an adverb? For the love of God I can't find many examples of it being used as such. Most seem to use it as "adjective" 多くの. So what is it's function here? To say that she wants to do much of such saving?

So the sentence would read as

For the sake of saving many sad people in unimaginable circumstances, (even) by my own hands.

Although I guess I can also see the segmentation like this:

ひとり - でも - 多く - 助けていく - ために。

Which would mean something more along the lines of:

In order to save even just one sad person in... (etc.) although I want to save many.

Although that reading doesn't really fit the usual pattern of such sentences.

Soo, how IS ひとりでも多く助けていくために。supposed to be understood. Especially given that she has already said she will dedicate her life to saving people.

Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

I think this answer explains it well. I would almost say that the expression 一人でも多く can be seen as somewhat of an idiom (i.e. is to be understood as a whole). As the answer explains this is an instance of 例示{れいじ}, meaning exemplification. In your case the narrator wishes to save many lives, but in the usual (japanese) way of not sounding too overconfident about one's personal ability, saving just one person would be plenty to be thankful for.

This is an instance of using the exact opposite example of what you actually want. But you have to keep in mind that what is meant is not what is written so this does not mean the narrator wants to save at least one person, it means the narrator wants to save many. The meaning is implicit and not explicit.

A translation which reinforces my answer is given here. For the sentence

一人でも多くの命を助けたい

the answer gives the translation

I want to save as many lives as possible.

In your case you could maybe just add a relative clause. I'm not sure if it makes sense to directly translate this notion of many in your sentences (unless of course you need a direct translation and not mere paraphrasing). I personally would probably write something along the lines of (using your wording)

To spend my life working there for the sake of saving people, especially those sad people in preposterous circumstances . Such is my decision.

For the grammar I cannot help you. But at least this should help with understanding. If you need 多くの for understanding you can just rewrite your sentence to

理不尽な出来事に悲しむ人を、 ひとりでも多くの命を助けていくために

or something.

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Addendum: If it does not make sense to you why you would phrase a wish by using using an example of the exact opposite, I think the example sentence from the first link is maybe better to build intuition:

忙しくて忙しくて、誰でもいいから一人でも多くの人に手伝ってもらいたい

Here it should be abundantly clear that the author requires help urgently, and more help is always better. This sense of urgency is exemplified by saying that the author would be thankful for even just one person.