In this question, it seems to me it was clearly established that わ
, at the end of a sentence, is decidedly feminine. There was talk of a Kansai-ben わ
with slightly different implications, but still within a range of femininity.
So, I'm reading Tintin in Japanese, as I do, and I come across the character Captain Haddock using わ
:
The situation is that he is on a plane that has dropped altitude suddenly, so his ears were plugged. They just popped, and he feels スッキリ("refreshed")
.
For those who don't know Captain Haddock, he is a gruff old sailor, who is not at all given to feminine speech. Quite the opposite. This expression really stands out.
Also, to the best of my ability to detect it, he does not use Kansai-ben, which I only mention because of the discussion of Kansai-ben in the other question.
So why did the translator opt to have the Captain use わ
to end the sentence here? Is it an ironic use of feminine speech? Does it have another use I'm not aware of?