Sylph Genders

Hey so My fc leader and i got into a argument about the genders of sylph using a In-game lore post in the minion guide stating

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Originally Posted by Wind-up Sylph

Unlike most species in which the female bears the offspring, only sylph males are capable of reproduction, and they do so via the single flower found upon their heads. After the flower is fertilized, it will eventually fall off, giving rise to a child known as a podling.

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but said by Fernehalwes.

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Originally Posted by Fernehalwes

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Sylphs
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While there exist two distinct genders amongst the sylphs, neither fall into what we would label as male or female. As has been revealed in the daily beast tribe quests, sylphs are “grown” from seeds known as “podlings.” These seeds are formed from the flowers which grow on the heads of adult sylphs. Not all adults, however, can produce seeds.

- Sylphs whose flowers bloom only at specific times during the pollinating seasons are capable of producing podlings. These sylphs have forenames ending in ~xio.

- Sylphs whose flowers bloom at irregular times throughout the seasonal cycle are (for the most part) incapable of producing podlings. These sylphs have forenames ending in ~xia. As they do not need to expend their physical and spiritual energies forming a seed, the ~xia sylphs tend to be more adept at wielding magic's.

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the forum post came before the minion Guide was put into the game and this caused a small argument, what i would like to know is which one of these two statements is correct.

I Was under the impression -xio names were males, while -xia were females. There are a few times where the 5 races use "him" and "her". The Sylphs just use "this one" that one" "touched one" instead of gender terms. When dealing with the Sylphs I always thought -xia were females and -xio were males based on their personalities. Maybe I'm just being ignorant.

To me, all sylphs look female, so I'll just ignorantly refer to them all as "she".

I think they are both true to some extent. I think the nomenclature for male and female is just something the player races need in order to create something comparable to themselves (easier to understand). Sylphs aren't literally male and female, only figuratively male and female.

Aye, some clarification on the matter would be great. I'm fine with either one being canon, but until something clear is said on which one is correct, I'll go with what Ferne posted.

What Velox said about figurative male and female designations has also occured to me, but I think that too, requires some clearer wording so that there's zero confusion.

Reading it, it looks to me like both are correct and without conflict. Ferne stated that they don't exactly match up with our concepts of 'male' and 'female', that only adults, and only some adults, produce seeds, and that these seeds become podlings. The minion calls these seed-producing adult Sylphs 'male', which doesn't exactly match our concept of 'male', sets 'female' as being non-seed producing Sylphs, and entirely works with previously stated facts, fictions and fabrications about Sylphic sexuality.
Sylphs are seahorse cabbages.

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Originally Posted by gornotck

Reading it, it looks to me like both are correct and without conflict. Ferne stated that they don't exactly match up with our concepts of 'male' and 'female', that only adults, and only some adults, produce seeds, and that these seeds become podlings. The minion calls these seed-producing adult Sylphs 'male', which doesn't exactly match our concept of 'male', sets 'female' as being non-seed producing Sylphs, and entirely works with previously stated facts, fictions and fabrications about Sylphic sexuality.
Sylphs are seahorse cabbages.

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I'm sort of leaning toward this too, but all I want is clarification.

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Originally Posted by gornotck

Sylphs are seahorse cabbages.

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+1 for the seahorse reference, a fun fact that I would have otherwise forgotten. :p

It might be a case of language-shortcomings, too. It might be that the language we, the five 'civilized' races, speak, doesn't actually have a word for what the Sylphs use in their own language for the two 'genders', that 'male' and 'female' is simply the closest term their words translate into our language. It's not an accurate translation, but since our language may not even have a word for the Sylphic terms of genders, 'male' and 'female' is as close to correct as we'll get, so that is what we use, and what the Sylphs use as well when they speak in our tongue.

I think there are some gender distinction among the Slyphs. While they largely look Asexual (and breed Asexually) some NPC's that aren't Slyph and maybe a Sylph on one occasion refereed to certain Sylphs by gender.

Regardless, beastmen lore and such should be explored more often. I notice alot of RPFC's on Balmung tend to focus on plot's and characters revolving around Humanoid's of the five (soon to eventually be six) races rather than having Beastmen characters, but thats probably because thats easiest to work with and due to the fact Beastmen aren't PC's.

Hi! I'm pretty new to these forums, and to the game itself, really. But I'm also a lore nut, and have been screencapping nearly all the conversations that appeal to me lorewise when npcs talk to my character. Since the Sylphs particularly interested me, I'll pipe up here.

It wasn't until later in the quests that Sylphs spoke with pronouns at all (as opposed to 'these ones', 'walking one', etc.), but when they did, 'him' and 'he', both in the quest text and by what the npcs said, lined up with Sylph names that ended in 'xio'. Specifically, the ones mentioned were Frixio (the elder) and Claxio, both ending and 'xio' and both having been spoken of by other Sylphs with 'he' and 'him' pronouns. Later, Noraxia is referred to as 'her' (by Minfilia), and consequently has a -xia suffix to her name.

While these are only a few cases, based on that, I'm willing to bet that the minion text, and the quote are both true. (Screens to be posted at request)