About a Pre-HW Interview

Hopefully interesting topic for you lot today. Mayhap discussion!

A few folks I know were having a discussion about the darker themes in Heavensward, and my mind drifted back to reading a Famitsu interview with Yoshi-P back before HW launched, wherein he talked about a miqo'te NPC we were supposed to be seeing that has a "wounded ear". The exact quote is as follows:

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"It's not so much about what we can write, but more about what we can show, it's not as unrestricted as it was years ago. For example, one of the new NPCs is a Miqo'te with a wounded ear, and that wound is a fundamental part of that NPCs back-story and character, but there could be some limits to how seriously we could treat that which limit our expression."

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So with that, I wondered if we'd seen this new NPC yet in the story. I don't think we have, but am I just missing something? Maybe the character was scrapped/replaced. I thought it might be Mide with a different injury.

I think it could very well be Mide. Perhaps - for whatever reason - they decided to change the character's race; perhaps to address the concerns that Au Ra felt very out of the loop. They've certainly drawn a lot of attention to Mide's wound at any rate...

Though I'd like to think we may see the NPC in question show up in 3.4, 3.5 or both. Hopefully it's a ruggedlygood looking male miqo'te for a change since there's a real shortage of them where NPC's are concerned.

Hmm, isn't that just an example? I took that as more "We could write a character like this, but we might be limited in how we show it, and that limits what we can write", not "G'raha Tia will be returning, damaged after an encounter with a certain forbidden land...", which is now what I want it to be...

If Mide was originally a male Miqo'te, then Alexander really would just be a complete retread CT. Really would like them to just suck it up and let one stick around, though. This isn't XI anymore; they're a playable race that deserves the sort of representative NPC every other race/gender combo has gotten. Or kill off Sidurgu so it's not just mancats feeling left out.

Yoshida tends to talk in hypotheticals a lot, that fans (especially /r/ffxiv) like to translate without paying proper attention to verb conjugations. I don't remember that specific interview, but it's highly likely that someone mistranslated. Then again, we still haven't gotten the side-story explaining Bahamut's capture that he said we would get, but I'm assuming that'll be part of the Triad story at some point.

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Originally Posted by Fenral

Then again, we still haven't gotten the side-story explaining Bahamut's capture that he said we would get, but I'm assuming that'll be part of the Triad story at some point.

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I wouldn't be surprised if that is covered by our incredibly brief and incredibly disappointing interactions with Tiamat... Though I seem to recall he also promised more on Omega, so perhaps that'll come up again along with more on Bahamut... Either that or we'll get new Mail Mog quests now that the Dragonsong War is over, and Hraesvelgr will send a letter to Tiamat, and it'll be perfectly justified, since I imagine he finds flying slightly harder now!

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Originally Posted by Theodric

Though I'd like to think we may see the NPC in question show up in 3.4, 3.5 or both. Hopefully it's a ruggedlygood looking male miqo'te for a change since there's a real shortage of them where NPC's are concerned.

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Not to hijack the thread but, yes, please, I'd love to see a male Miqo'te who is actually significant to the story for a change. The few prominent ones we've seen aren't exactly impressive so far. The Guild Leader of the Arcanist Guild seems incredibly irresponsible. The roegadyn woman made a much better leader figure in my opinion. The Nuhn of the U tribe is considered an oddity amongst Sunseeker Tribes, from what I understand, as normally women still hold the positions of authority there. Even then he doesn't exactly do a whole lot.


Maybe we could have a Sharlayan male miqo'te come help out the Scions, sort of like how Krile has. If Urianger goes the bad way, I could see a character like that taking his place. Bonus points if he's a Moonkeeper. Sunseeker males seem more prominent in the story than the moonkeeper ones. A moonkeeper male who even rejected his people's culture as systematic abuse of the male gender would be an interesting spin. We know so little about moonkeepers. Other than that males don't even get a name, just a number.

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Originally Posted by Vexander

Maybe we could have a Sharlayan male miqo'te come help out the Scions, sort of like how Krile has.

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You never met G'raha Tia, did you? He's even from the same organization, not that it was ever treated as that important a detail. Or mentioned ever again, considering there may very well not be any more Students of Baldesion at all besides him and Krile. He's not mentioned in Heavensward for... reasons.

Though there's always hope of him playing the Estinien card at some point, I guess. If they were to have a mancat rise to proper story prominence, I'd prefer they use one they've already introduced, considering the underutilized implications of his character.

(He's the good-guy version of Nael van Darnus, for Twelve's sakes!)

G'raha technically counts but he also has the whole 'Allagan' aspect to him. I'd prefer someone more down to earth and relatable who can accompany us on our journey for a time, help us out and form a friendship and alliance. As an extra bonus I'd love to travel alongside a tribal Miqo'te or Au Ra for a change. Most we meet are those who have, unfortunately, fully embraced Eorzean/Sharlayan/Doman culture rather than their own.

He could be relatable, if they chose to explore the thousand unexplored malms of character development between his penultimate and final scenes. One doesn't usually agree with the voices in their head right off the bat like that. Especially not artificially implanted mechanical voices. Ahem.

I mean, considering Ala Mhigo is home to the Allagan ruins where Ultima Weapon was unearthed, and we're moving ever deeper into conflict with their self-proclaimed successor empire... I can't seriously be the only one who sees the storytelling potential there. Much as I want the writers to put the Allagans to rest for good, if they must continue like this I'd like them to actually tie the disparate threads into something a little more cohesive than The X-Files' alien colonist storyline.

He could have been relatable if they spend some time developing him... but he's had more character exploration and development on this forum then he did on his own quest. Honestly, the whole tower quest line feels kind of rushed in hindsight. They seem to be giving the new 24 man much more story and character time. Not that I don't want more of both, and I love the story and the sky pirates are fun. I also want to live on their sky island.

The trouble is, the way the game's lore has been written practically preempts having male miqo'te of either clan as having major staring roles in the storyline - they're stated as being usually independently minded, transient and idle, if not downright lazy (this is why the ACN Guildmaster keeps going AWOL, wanderlust is in his blood).

Male Sunseekers especially are regarded as usually only being interested in trying to gain breeding rights with the women of their tribe (to become the nuhn), and male Moonkeepers are worse, taking a leaf out of their mithra cousins' book from FFXI where they're not even allowed out of the house and basically become househusbands for their family (this is why the only male Moonkeeper npcs you see are usually bandits who have violated the usual gender role for their kind and are acting independently). In fact, this was used as the reason why male miqo'te were not playable in version 1.0 - because there was so few of them and they lived independent, sedentary lifestyles.

So sadly I don't see this improving at all - the game's story basically prevents male miqo'te from being in a starring role in the storyline, period.

All this talk of cats has me thinking; why aren't there more MSQ cats? Y'shtola is literally the only one I can think of.

Enkidoh, your lore is outdated. HW includes a number of male Miqo'te in major roles, and even in 2.0 there was usually a token one (now two, post HW) hanging around the Scions' base, if only to say to male Miqo'te PCs, "It's not that odd for you to be here." So if A'aba and V'mah can stay part of the same organization for an extended period of time, there's really no reason one can't be a focal character in said organization.

Grayve, you're right, and wrong also. He actually had some quite revealing extra dialogue if you talked to him between quest checkpoints (or in the three-month stretches where he was just standing around Saint Coinach's). It was meant as foreshadowing, I think, but it only served to put his actions in a context that didn't justify the finale. I think each leg of the series was meant to be as long as that first long slog to collect the four fangs, but they ended up cutting everything down for some excuse or other, meaning the character they had meant to take charge got sidelined by the Cid and Nero show and then promptly discarded. This is probably why Cid now spends most of Alexander occupied offscreen.

Mildly Ranty Addendum:

I don't really want to debate this anymore. We all have our opinions, and we all know we're right, so it's not going anywhere. I just think that a lot of CT simply doesn't make sense from a stand-alone narrative perspective. If the story can't have any lingering effect, why give a character potentially lore-breaking knowledge that can't be allowed to exist in the outside world? If, in spite of that, his only actual purpose is to introduce Doga and Unei, and then exit by repeating the same emotional beats, why introduce him to begin with? Just introduce Doga and Unei off the bat, have Doga stay behind and Unei seal herself in the tower to the protestations of Nero. And why have him interact with Nero at all, if it's just for one scene that in all likelihood will never come up again? It's a waste of running time and doesn't actually develop either of them.

So mostly I feel sorry for G'raha for being a completely superfluous existence. It's a shitty way to use a character, and I'd feel the same for anyone treated like that. That it happened when male Miqo'te were at a premium is just an extra twist of the knife, really.

I suppose they could 'elevate' one of the 'minor' NPC's into a more prominent role where the Scions are concerned at least. One of the first things I do after completing major milestones in the MSQ's is to check back and see if the NPC dialogue for the various Scions has changed. It's a good way to see some interesting side stories that otherwise end up being completely overlooked. I was rather fond of A'aba, for instance, though his fate was rather unfortunate. Especially since it was entirely optional to speak with him for the most part, meaning many players likely never met him at all...which is a real shame.

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Originally Posted by Enkidoh

The trouble is, the way the game's lore has been written practically preempts having male miqo'te of either clan as having major staring roles in the storyline - they're stated as being usually independently minded, transient and idle, if not downright lazy (this is why the ACN Guildmaster keeps going AWOL, wanderlust is in his blood).

Male Sunseekers especially are regarded as usually only being interested in trying to gain breeding rights with the women of their tribe (to become the nuhn), and male Moonkeepers are worse, taking a leaf out of their mithra cousins' book from FFXI where they're not even allowed out of the house and basically become househusbands for their family (this is why the only male Moonkeeper npcs you see are usually bandits who have violated the usual gender role for their kind and are acting independently). In fact, this was used as the reason why male miqo'te were not playable in version 1.0 - because there was so few of them and they lived independent, sedentary lifestyles.

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This isn't the case at all though. The Postmoogle quests reveal that Male Moonkeepers aren't -allowed- to stay with their families. They're only allowed to return, briefly, -with gifts-, once in a GREAT while. Years. The family is the domain of the females, the males aren't allowed any say in it.


That said, exploring that cultural abuse of the male gender would make an interesting story to revolve around a character. Both Sunseeker and Moonkeeper cultures promote it, with Sunseekers being driven from a young age to fight one another to become Nuhn, and Moonkeepers not even getting a name.

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Originally Posted by Vexander

That said, exploring that cultural abuse of the male gender would make an interesting story to revolve around a character. Both Sunseeker and Moonkeeper cultures promote it, with Sunseekers being driven from a young age to fight one another to become Nuhn, and Moonkeepers not even getting a name.

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I find it darkly amusing that despite having cultural traditions that seem abusive on paper, most Miqo'te male NPCs we see don't seem to be personally bothered by, or even pay that much attention to, them. We have the two tias in the U tribe, who aren't actually physically fighting, and their quests revolve around helping them gain footing with more subtle means, the ACN guildmaster speaks for himself when you get to meet him, and as for the Keeper men, the single Keeper male NPC I can recall meeting off the top of my head (a pre-HW study of all the NPCs in Eorzea mentions there is one other Keeper male, but I don't remember seeing him), is rather more concerned with things other than gender inequality in his race, when you interact with him.

Zhai'a Nelhah is a bit of a strange case, though, in that his entire personality and character seems wholly divorced from Miqo'te culture, so much so that I didn't even realise he was actually a Keeper until I finished all those quests. In fact, no character ever mentions his race that I can think of, and his role in the storyline he appeared in, could easily have been filled by a character of any other race.

I'm not entirely sure if this is an example of the Token Black Guy trope, just with male Keepers, or if it's an example to show that male Keepers as a whole don't really care that much about their traditions, with other things to occupy their time. We don't know much about Zhai'a's background, of course, but presumably he's a naturalised Gridanian, living in the city, and so perhaps he's the exception that pays more attention to Gridanian customs and traditions, rather than Keeper traditions.

The only two pre-HW male Keepers are Nhaza'a Jaab ("The Negotiator" title quest series) and the otherwise unnamed King Poach (Poostmoogle quest, and South Shroud FATE: The Coeurl King), both minor antagonists, and both presumed deceased as of 3.0. Both are weird, kinky bastards, but Nhaza'a earned himself some fans with his swimsuit scene.

What about the Keeper who was one of the NPCs for Wanderer's Palace Hard? I distinctly remember quite a few people being surprised that he and his male Highlander partner were in an openly romantic relationship.

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Originally Posted by Mysterysword

I find it darkly amusing that despite having cultural traditions that seem abusive on paper, most Miqo'te male NPCs we see don't seem to be personally bothered by, or even pay that much attention to, them. We have the two tias in the U tribe, who aren't actually physically fighting, and their quests revolve around helping them gain footing with more subtle means, the ACN guildmaster speaks for himself when you get to meet him, and as for the Keeper men, the single Keeper male NPC I can recall meeting off the top of my head (a pre-HW study of all the NPCs in Eorzea mentions there is one other Keeper male, but I don't remember seeing him), is rather more concerned with things other than gender inequality in his race, when you interact with him.

Zhai'a Nelhah is a bit of a strange case, though, in that his entire personality and character seems wholly divorced from Miqo'te culture, so much so that I didn't even realise he was actually a Keeper until I finished all those quests. In fact, no character ever mentions his race that I can think of, and his role in the storyline he appeared in, could easily have been filled by a character of any other race.

I'm not entirely sure if this is an example of the Token Black Guy trope, just with male Keepers, or if it's an example to show that male Keepers as a whole don't really care that much about their traditions, with other things to occupy their time. We don't know much about Zhai'a's background, of course, but presumably he's a naturalised Gridanian, living in the city, and so perhaps he's the exception that pays more attention to Gridanian customs and traditions, rather than Keeper traditions.

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This is why I'd like to see a new scion, a Sharlayan Moonkeeper Male, being the one to explore it. Sharlayan doesn't seem to be homogeneous when it comes to culture and enforcing it (Y'shtola still has a traditional Sunseeker name, even if we never learn her father's name), but it definitely seems to instill an unbiased viewpoint when it comes to observing other cultures and nations. I think a Sharlayan Moonkeeper Male would be able to see this, whereas Eorzean male Miqo'te are simply too institutionalized by their own cultures. When viewed by a Sharlayan scholarly perspective, these cultures would no doubt be seen as a method of controlling the minority of the race's gender for the purpose of procreation, a kind of reversal of our own Earth history between the genders of males and females.

Yeah, other male Miqo'te in Eorzea would probably dismiss the character as eccentric, thinking they've got the good life, but that kind of adds to the tragic side of exploring the differences in gender for the race.

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Originally Posted by Vexander

When viewed by a Sharlayan scholarly perspective, these cultures would no doubt be seen as a method of controlling the minority of the race's gender for the purpose of procreation, a kind of reversal of our own Earth history between the genders of males and females.

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The problem is that Eorzean culture and values, as a whole, are very different from our own values. It's an integral part of the world these characters inhabit, and I seriously don't want to see some awkward attempt at political correctness shoehorned into the plot. I've seen way too many stories where the creator's social and political bias wound up ruining the story for me, and I don't want to see FF XIV's story ruined by the same thing.

This is why I'm actually enjoying the portrayal of Miqo'te culture the way it has been done so far: we on the other side of the screen, raised with a totally different set of cultures and traditions may see it as alien and oppressive, but the Miqo'te themselves don't exactly resent their roles, if they even really care about them in the first place. I would be fine if FF XIV chooses not to explore this question; in fact, I don't want it to.

If, and only if, bringing up the topic of gender politics could be done in an unbiased, objective manner, I would be fine with that. The problem with issues like these is that people bring their bias into it all the time, and ultimately I've grown very tired of seeing such discussions about it, especially when they lead nowhere.

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Originally Posted by Mysterysword

The problem is that Eorzean culture and values, as a whole, are very different from our own values. It's an integral part of the world these characters inhabit, and I seriously don't want to see some awkward attempt at political correctness shoehorned into the plot. I've seen way too many stories where the creator's social and political bias wound up ruining the story for me, and I don't want to see FF XIV's story ruined by the same thing.

This is why I'm actually enjoying the portrayal of Miqo'te culture the way it has been done so far: we on the other side of the screen, raised with a totally different set of cultures and traditions may see it as alien and oppressive, but the Miqo'te themselves don't exactly resent their roles, if they even really care about them in the first place. I would be fine if FF XIV chooses not to explore this question; in fact, I don't want it to.

If, and only if, bringing up the topic of gender politics could be done in an unbiased, objective manner, I would be fine with that. The problem with issues like these is that people bring their bias into it all the time, and ultimately I've grown very tired of seeing such discussions about it, especially when they lead nowhere.

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There's no reason for gender politics to come into it at all though. Like I said, it's a character who lets the players explore that aspect of the lore, an opinionated character to be sure, but its not as though they're coming to Eorzea to push a political plot and change the culture/nations and what have you. It doesn't need to be blatant and in your face, referenced in every sentence of dialogue. It can be as simple as extra text in the Rising Stones after MSQ patches.

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Originally Posted by Nalien

Hmm, isn't that just an example? I took that as more "We could write a character like this, but we might be limited in how we show it, and that limits what we can write", not "G'raha Tia will be returning, damaged after an encounter with a certain forbidden land...", which is now what I want it to be...

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I actually had the random delusion that perhaps the guide NPC to take us into Eureka would be G'raha's hitherto unnamed father, seeking the whereabouts of his wayward son. Nobody ever said he was dead, after all.