So I was talking about some of the plants and references to smoking with a friend of mine when she mentioned the catnip item. Then I remembered this item exists and I noticed a plot hole! Or maybe it was intentionally left there by SE!
Item description for Gaelcatnip:
"A relative to pepper- and spearmint, gaelicatnip is an aromatic herb often brewed into teas. While it has no effect on the five races, the oil contained in the leaves is known to cause gaelicats and other normally aggressive feline beastkin to exhibit excessively playful behavior."
So it has no effect on the five races... Hyur, Au Ra, Elezen, Roe, and Lalafell. Ergo it must have an effect on Miqote also! Considering this item was released in Heavensward when a sixth race came out, clearly they were referring to the non-feline races in the game.
Miqote = Beastkin confirmed!
Or maybe it's just a plothole and someone forgot about the Au Ra when making the item description.
Gaelicatnip and Mi'qote
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11-10-2018, 07:48 AMKhalitharGaelicatnip and Mi'qote
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11-10-2018, 07:50 AMSeraphor
"The five races" implies there are only five races. Obviously written before Au Ra were added.
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11-10-2018, 07:53 AMKhalitharI figured as much, but when I saw the item I suddenly remembered there were six races. Someone get Koji Fox and Moose on the line! We need this critical piece of lore clarified immediately! For science!Quote:
Originally Posted by Seraphor
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11-10-2018, 08:01 AMFenral
I believe "the Five Races" is a general umbrella term for the races inhabiting Eorzea (Hyur, Elezen, Lalafell, Roegadyn, Miqo'te, Au Ra, and Garlean). All seven of them. And that's without counting the don't-call-them-beast-tribes that live in Eorzea and abroad.
Funny how you don't see that term used much any more. I wonder why? -
11-10-2018, 09:55 AMAnonymooseWe could undermine the whole concern by pointing out that Miqo'te are, all other things being equal, spoken, not beastkin, anyway. Or we could point out that whether comparisons to cats are embraced or scorned varies from Miqo'te to Miqo'te.Quote:
Originally Posted by Khalithar
But you all sound rather philosophical about a deeper concern; to summarize the last few posts: What if the term "five races" isanachronistic jargon from before the dev. team expanded the base gamejust an arbitrary distinction drawn by some centuries-old Eorzean pomp ignorant of all beyond Sixth Astral Era Aldenard and the most populous races which incidentally called it home at that time? Did the dev. team not use the term "race" to imply a shared "mankind-ness"? And did they not use "five races" even despite the fact that most Eorzeans of the last generation would surely know of the Garleans? Who was this long-forgotten fop to cap the line at five in the first place?
And is it really a text bug that people still say it? Or should we assume that such cases are always referring to the Hyur, Elezen, Lalafell, Miqo'te, and Roegadyn and that it has always been and will always be a junk cultural phrase perpetuated by ignorant NPCs?
Welcome (back) to the wild world of reframing (aka addition retcons). Who knows what's REALLY true when NEW REVELATIONS could strike at any moment? -
11-10-2018, 12:56 PMMistakeNotUntil quite recently neither Au Ra nor Garleans lived in Eorzea. The term "the Five Races" is undoubtedly older than that.Quote:
Originally Posted by Fenral
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11-10-2018, 02:32 PMYianKutkuYounger than the Allagans, though, since we know the Allagans obviously spanned the globe, and so had knowledge of the non-Eorzean races.Quote:
Originally Posted by MistakeNot
Also dragons exist in Eorzea and are definitely Spoken, but are not considered one of the Races, so who even knows. Are they Beast Tribe?
Also also surely it's not the Six Races, but the Twelve Races, due to the two variations in each playable character option? (Could we assign each to one of the Twelve?)
To be more serious, I think this is just Koji Fox being a bit too used to FFXI; I recall an interview where he was talking about the playable races, and went "Five Races... no, wait, six races now". -
11-10-2018, 02:39 PMLucke
I'm more nitpicky about the term "races". It SHOULD be the five* SPECIES. *6 now, and I wouldn't necessarily call Garleans as a different race, more like sub-race to regular Hyurs. Races can create offspring with each other, species can't. IE in real life, a Human cannot create offspring with a....cat, but a Caucasian human can create offspring with an African American for example. AFAIK, we haven't seen any legit mixed races except Elezen + Hyur. There's the Roegadad in the Saucer with a Hyur kid, but we don't know for sure if he's a biological child of Roegadad or simply been orphaned in the Calamity then adopted out to Roegadad. The Elezen and Hyur seem to be MUCH more similar and may even share an ancestor race since they can create offspring but still, I haven't seen any Laladyns or Miqo'hyurs. Thal's Balls this just gets confusing. "The Five Races" may just roll off the tongue better than "The Five Species".
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11-10-2018, 02:45 PMObsidianFire
We have one mention of Hyur and Au Ra having children, so there's that too...
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11-10-2018, 07:43 PMFrizze
There is no scientist mad enough to try cross breeding a lala with one of the acceptable races. They are loathsome soulless monsters, more closely related to the common potato then to any sentient creature. Miqozen? Augadyn? Hyurleans? Whatever else(that excludes lala)? All some degree of acceptable.
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11-11-2018, 12:43 AMIscahIt depends on the context, and "race" is perfectly valid as a synonym for species here. See: "human race", and generally in fantasy fiction other human-equivalent peoples (elves, orcs, etc.) will also be referred to as races. "Species" sounds more scientific and sort of.... distant?Quote:
Originally Posted by Lucke
Also, cross-species breeding is rare but not impossible. Related species with similar body shapes can still potentially have offspring. (Wikipedia: Hybrid)
Of course a human can't create offspring with a cat, but different species of cats can breed with each other.
Whether the races of Eorzea should be classified as a single species or several, it's still conceivable that the different races can have children together. We might just not see many because it's culturally avoided rather than physically impossible. -
11-11-2018, 12:49 AMIscah
Of course, the very important actual issue </s> with the description for Gaelicatnip is that 'spearmint' is incorrect. The description for Furymint makes it quite clear that it's the local name for spearmint (via association with Halone's spear).
(This has been your useless trivia for the day.) -
11-11-2018, 03:14 AMMistakeNotWe also have examples of Hyur/Garlean mixesQuote:
Originally Posted by ObsidianFire
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11-11-2018, 03:56 AMMPNZ
Um, aren't foxes and wolves both considered caninesor something. So Maybe the member of the five races that Miqo'te and Auri descend from have animal like physical traits
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11-11-2018, 04:49 AMCiliaI believe it was mentioned that while racial crossbreeds are rare, it's not impossible.Quote:
Originally Posted by MistakeNot
That said, I have ever operated under the presumption that Garleans are simply a racial offshoot of the Hyur, not an entirely separate species. Aside from the third eye and lack of ability to manipulate aether, they are exactly the same. -
11-11-2018, 06:42 AMDreggit
AFAIK, unless you start as an Au Ra; the 2.x story line and NPCs contained therein have never heard or seen an Au Ra. That's why it was such a big deal for Ugiri to hide her face for so long in the 2.x storyline because she was afraid of the possible ramifications of revealing her race.
Unless I'm of course remembering wrong.
Rougue/Ninja was added the same patch or around the same time that they added Au Re I think.
There's a lot of text in game that is outdated or irrelevant now because they've not gone back to edit some text. But I don't fault them for that either because there's thousands of item descriptions to go through. -
11-11-2018, 07:36 AMAnonymooseDevil's Advocate: And yet more differences than Hyur and Elezen.Quote:
Originally Posted by Cilia
My assumption is that "mankind" is just a pretty broad umbrella and "racial" differences are just exaggerated and varied compared to Earth.
And they wonder why we resent the gangly masses...Quote:
Originally Posted by Frizze
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11-11-2018, 09:46 AMEspQuote:
Originally Posted by Anonymoose
No worries Anonymoose. When we Mi'qote take over the world, we will be sure to spare you. xD
With such wealth of information, could be useful to us in the future. Bwa'haha! -
11-11-2018, 11:15 AMSannaR
I thought dragons don't really speak but sing along with talking in your head. Have to wait until this coming week to see if we get any hints at a seventh race. Yugiri also hid her race as a teaser to what might be under the hood as all we could tell was she was of a new race that had a scaly tail.
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11-11-2018, 03:18 PMMistakeNotRogue/Ninja was added to the game in patch 2.4Quote:
Originally Posted by Dreggit
Yugiri first showed up with in patch 2.2
Au Ra were added as a playable race with the Heavensward expansion (3.0) -
11-11-2018, 03:22 PMMistakeNotTrue. And if I remember right it has also been said that crossbreeds usually end up looking like their mother's race, so most of them will not be easily identifiable visually as crossbreeds.Quote:
Originally Posted by Cilia
They might equally well be an offshoot of Elezen, since most of them have the same tall and slim build.Quote:
That said, I have ever operated under the presumption that Garleans are simply a racial offshoot of the Hyur, not an entirely separate species. Aside from the third eye and lack of ability to manipulate aether, they are exactly the same.
"Apart from <quite significant differences> they are exactly the same." Can equally well be said about Hyur and Roegadyn who are the same except for size and skin colour. -
11-11-2018, 05:33 PMAnonymooseI hear this all the time, but I can't seem to find a Square Enix-sourced citation for it. The search usually leads back to some Tumblr or another seeking to make it easier for roleplayers to claim mixed-race heritage within the limitations of the character creator. (Though, if you find one, don't tell my friends who RP because I've been singing Mama's Got A** at them over it for years and that's gonna be some compound karma...)Quote:
Originally Posted by MistakeNot
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11-11-2018, 11:26 PMIscah
The one direct suggestion I'm aware of the races coming from a common ancestor is this from the Elezen section of the Naming Conventions page:
Well, that and this from the Hyuran serction:Quote:
There are Eorzean historians who believe that [similarities between Elezen and Hyuran names] may be proof that the two races are of similar origin─'open-minded' Hyuran historians claiming the Elezen are a bastard race spun off from the Hyurs (and not the other way around). Elezen historians, on the other hand, simply deny any blood relation whatsoever.
Quote:
Fun Fact: Some Midlanders like to joke that because Highlander names have a very Roegadyn feel to them (in addition to highlanders being very large and muscular), that the clan is somehow “less Hyuran.” Many an alehouse brawl has broken out as a result of a Midlander in his cups uttering such quips as ‘Your mother was a Sea Wolf ’ in the presence of a Highlander. Needless to say, most of these quarrels do not end well for the instigator.
Also the lorebook entry on the First Umbral Era (p.22) basically alludes to a "creation vs evolution" debate about the time before known history. So, the idea of evolution (and the possibility of it applying to the five+ races) is there.
Garleans would certainly be somewhere close to the Hyuran/Elezen split. Lalafells could conceivably be descended from Elezen - an isolated population on the southern islands that evolved to be smaller (compare theories on the real-world 'hobbits').
The 'novelty animal features' are a bit harder to explain though.
Must be coming from the Pokémon Trainer School of Genetics. (Crossbred Pokémon always inherit the mother's species, unless the 'mother' is a shapeshifting Ditto.)Quote:
Originally Posted by Anonymoose
Then again, it does add up with the few definite examples we have of mixed-race characters:
Arenvald - Highlander mother, Garlean father. Looks like a normal Highlander and didn't inherit the Garlean third eye. (Cid does say it's a mark of pureblood Garleans though, so maybe it wouldn't carry over either way.)
Hilda - Midlander mother, Elezen father. Looks like a Midlander except for her ears.
On the other hand, the lorebook notes that Teledji Adeledji is mixed-clan (Dunesfolk mother, Plainsfolk father) and looks like a Plainsfolk. Then again that's not a guarantee it's come from his father's side, as Papalymo and Dewlala are also supposed to be Dunesfolk but use Plainsfolk models.
And a vague one, but the briefly-mentioned Hyur/Au Ra...
With the story coming from an otherwise entirely Raen society, I would guess we can read that as "a Raen with almost no scales". So again, taking after the mother (if that's correct).Quote:
SHIOSAI
I believe generations back, a Ruby Princess and a Hyuran man were once joined in holy matrimony. The son they bore was said to have had almost no scales.
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11-12-2018, 02:09 AMCilia
As I recall, Elezen have a longer natural lifespan than Hyur. Combined with the presence of magically inept individuals among the playable races (it's what sets up the conflict in the THM quests), this suggests to me that Elezen and Hyur have greater physiological differences than Hyur and Garleans.
That said... yeah, there's not much difference between Hyur, Elezen (taller / pointy ears / longer lifespan), Roegadyn (taller / more muscular / flat noses), and Garleans (near race-wide magical ineptitude / third eye), and not a terribly huge difference between them and Lalafell (significantly shorter / significantly stockier lower halves / pointy ears / glassy eyes [Dunesfolk]). Some characters could pass as another race if not for some phenotype tells (Moenbryda, for instance, could easily be mistaken for a muscular Hyur if not for her nose). The only ones clearly not Hyur, or some offshoot thereof, are the Mi'qote and Au Ra. (Or perhaps Roegadyn are the common ancestor? Whooo knows...)
Whether that points to a common ancestor or is the result of Hydaelyn creating them all... well, that much I couldn't say. What I can say is that if the Garlean magical ineptitude is a result of genetics and can be remedied through genetic engineering, that implies evolution is a thing on Hydaelyn in some capacity.