A Question I've Always Had On The Races...

(I'll start with I know that this is a game so there are for this some impractical reasons but let's assume there are reasons thought of and put in place for the sake of an agreeable lore)

So I've always wondered, seeing the world of Eorzea, the races are always socializing, interacting and mingling with each other.

Shouldn't it then be an often occurrence that two from a different race and opposite genders would procreate?

So then what has caused characters of a mixed race appearance to be so rare to the point of a handful one in the game?

So far I only know of Hilda Ware, whom according the FFXIV wiki, "Her father refused to acknowledge her existence to the day he died" (Wiki's Source: Encyclopedia Eorzea).

Is it that they simply refuse to procreate with another race or is it that they do but the child turns out to only have the racial appearance of one of the parents or the other?

Has this subject been clarified by SE before? :confused:
Your thoughts?

Probably because that would take work to make a cross species race. That takes work and time which I doubt the dev will put effort into it

In lore its a social taboo.

Generally speaking in the real world interspecies breeding is rare.

There are a lot of biological reason why it doesn't work very well and while some species can intermingle the resulting children are often infertile.

I would suspect the case is the same in the game.

They seem to be rare because of taboo as stated in game, but I also wouldn't doubt there is some physical/cultural challenges with some of the races as well.

We know that Elezen and Hyur can procreate from Hilda, as well as Hyur and Au Ra (from the story in Sui no Sato of an Au Ra with no scales). Hyur and Garleans can as well as Arenvald is mixed race. Meaning that reasonably Elezen, Au Ra, Garleans, and Hyurs can all intermingle.

The other races I have a hard time imagining either because of their extreme statures, isolationist cultures, and some of their certain attributes being too different from Hyurs. Would a Miqo'te/Hyur hybrid have human ears on top of their head? Or cat ears on the side? Or Gods forbid a pair of both?

As an aside, I simply have the headcannon that Miqo/Viera + Hyur/Elezen/Garlean hybrids having hearing issues.

The quest "Its not easy being green" (unlocks Wanderes Palace HM) features an interracial, homosexual couple (Hyur and Mi'qote) and heavly implies that the interracial aspect of their relationship is a problem for society.

Given that interracial couples are a social taboo, as Caurcas already said, we dont see that many of them - they are there, though!

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Originally Posted by OranKells

Generally speaking in the real world interspecies breeding is rare.

There are a lot of biological reason why it doesn't work very well and while some species can intermingle the resulting children are often infertile.

I would suspect the case is the same in the game.

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Excuse me, while I understand the point you're trying to make, I disagree that a Hyur and a Miqo'te are like a Human and a Cat. :confused:
The only difference between the two is the ear and tail, that's it.
They are even both called "people", "person" and even "Humans" several times in the story.
Hell, they even are attracted to each other, seeing the Miqo'te female dancers in Ul'dah and Costa del Sol, attended by other races there.

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Originally Posted by TheVigilant

Excuse me, while I understand the point you're trying to make, I disagree that a Hyur and a Miqo'te are like a Human and a Cat. :confused:

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They didn't say that, though.

Even in the real world, closely-related species (like the various big cats) can interbreed but the offspring are often infertile.

And as Tsumdere pointed out, there are real physical differences between the races that may not neatly combine if their bodies have different shapes, particularly ear placement (and necessary difference in the underlying skull shape) and tails.

IIRC, it's been stated in lore that if two different races do procreate, the offspring is of the mothers race.

There are all sorts of plausible answers:

- Such unions really are infertile, with the sole human/elf exception we've seen in-game. (Nothing weird here - sex without the possibility of conception happens all the time IRL, whether homosexual, post-menopausal, fertility issues, trusting to birth control...)
- The offspring are their mother's race. (I was under the impression the lore said this too; though I dunno where.)
- The offspring are a 50/50 chance of being either parent's race. (This seems to be the case with Garleans / Highlanders; listen to Arenvald and other Ala Mhigan children of Garlean rape being worried about the 3rd eye showing up.)
- They're all in-game, but 'just hiding' (like male Viera, up til now. Plausible since interracial breeding seems rare - we just haven't run into any important ones.)
- We see them all the time, but most aren't identifiable at a glance. (Do note that G'raha must have some Hyur ancestry, unless I'm wrong and ancient Allagan royalty was in fact Miqo'te.)

I’d like to file this under “things I don’t think about and prefer not to dwell on.”

All of the entities we see ingame come from the character creator. Yes, that’s it; that will do.

Hybrids cannot exist because the Maker needs to select one of the discrete races at character creation. This also means a lala and a roegadyn can usher fourth a catgirl into the world, fully-grown, from nothing.

Thank you for hearing my lore talk. Please don’t think on it too much.

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Originally Posted by Avatre

IIRC, it's been stated in lore that if two different races do procreate, the offspring is of the mothers race.

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I'm fairly sure that's fan conjecture and not confirmed.

There's also at least one apparent counter-example in the sidequest A Jobb Well Done, where an Elezen woman sends you to deliver a package to her son, who is a Hyur – so unless he's adopted, that would disprove the "child takes the mother's race" concept.

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Originally Posted by Avatre

IIRC, it's been stated in lore that if two different races do procreate, the offspring is of the mothers race.

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This is fanon that was made up by RPers and keeps getting spread around like it's canon but there's no source for it. Hilda and Severa are both living examples of this being wrong since they have features of their fathers' race like elf ears or a 3rd eye. For Hilda, she is somewhat of a minor character and I don't think they were going to make a special body just for her. For Severa, Garleans don't have their own body model and use midlander and elezen bodies so her midlander body still works in this situation.

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Originally Posted by Jennah

- We see them all the time, but most aren't identifiable at a glance. (Do note that G'raha must have some Hyur ancestry, unless I'm wrong and ancient Allagan royalty was in fact Miqo'te.)

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In regards to G'raha, the princess of Allag magically gave the powers to G'raha. There was no interbreeding.


But like it was mentioned before, the real reason there aren't a lot half-races running around is the social taboo. Koji even brought up in an interview that these people have all been living in the same villages and stuff for eons but still won't mix with each other because how the culture is in Eorzea.

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Originally Posted by Iscah

Even in the real world, closely-related species (like the various big cats) can interbreed but the offspring are often infertile.

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basically

lions + tiger = ligers
horses + donkey = mule/hinny
wolf + dog = wolfdog

most of these hybrids are pretty viable but also incapable of further reproducing. While any two races might be able to have a child, there could be some genetic health issues that come up. This along with whatever racial strife exists in the lore is why you generally wouldn't want to intermingle.

I shudder at the though of a lala-ronso.

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Originally Posted by OranKells

basically

lions + tiger = ligers
horses + donkey = mule/hinny
wolf + dog = wolfdog

most of these hybrids are pretty viable but also incapable of further reproducing. While any two races might be able to have a child, there could be some genetic health issues that come up. This along with whatever racial strife exists in the lore is why you generally wouldn't want to intermingle.

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https://media.tenor.com/images/dcae7...1f4f/tenor.gif

An interesting way of thinking but unless we have proof from the game, this is merely a conjecture.
We're applying real life biology to a fantasy world without evidence from the game itself.

I think in the Sui-no-Sato part of the Stormblood quests there is mention of an Au Ra/Hyur hybrid who had Auri horns but little to no scales...

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Originally Posted by TheVigilant

An interesting way of thinking but unless we have proof from the game, this is merely a conjecture.
We're applying real life biology to a fantasy world without evidence from the game itself.

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okay the real reason is that devs do not want to make the 40+ new character models would be needed to make each hybrid. but if you're looking for a lore reason its a combination of racial/cultural tensions and biology 101

I recall reading somewhere that it was stated in an interview during HW times that all the playable races (at the time) can successfully interbreed and have viable offspring, just that it's very rare because of social taboo and because SE don't wanna make unique models. The rest seems to be headcanon or hearsay that everybody treats as canon (such as the resulting child being mostly the mother's race plus some minor trait of the father, likely due to Hilda who has a midlander hyur's body and animations like her mother but her elezen father's pointy ears).

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Originally Posted by TroySoFab

I shudder at the though of a lala-ronso.

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Just assume the lala is the father.

The only confirmed hybrids we've seen in-game are Hilda and Arenvald. Hilda has a unique head model, but Arenvald just looks like a regular Highlander, with no obvious Garlean traits.

My assumption was that some of the more obvious racial traits, like the Garlean third eye, would be a recessive gene and so it takes two of that race to produce it. Elezen ears are obviously the exception since Hilda got at least a little point to them.

Another thing we can infer from lore is that the races themselves predate the Sundering, since some of the races exist on the First albeit in slightly different proportions to the Source at this point. For example, Lalafell are some of the most common on the Source, but they're relegated to a handful of tribes on the First, and even that number probably wasn't much higher before the Flood of Light. Garleans do not exist on the First, interestingly enough, which makes me curious if they were a post-Sundering evolution.. (Like we know that Ixali do not exist on the First because they are a novel Allagan creation.)

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Originally Posted by TheMightyMollusk

The only confirmed hybrids we've seen in-game are Hilda and Arenvald. Hilda has a unique head model, but Arenvald just looks like a regular Highlander, with no obvious Garlean traits.

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There is another Hyur-Garlean hybrid in the Sorrow of Werlyt questline in the form of Severa. We know these hybrids eventually grow a black third eye. We can assume Arenvald's third eye was gouged out by his mother early on in it's development.

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Originally Posted by KylePearlsand

There is another Hyur-Garlean hybrid in the Sorrow of Werlyt questline in the form of Severa. We know these hybrids eventually grow a black third eye. We can assume Arenvald's third eye was gouged out by his mother early on in it's development.

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Ramza and Alma Lexentale are also both half-Garleans with no third eye and Arenvald said that he never had one and that half bloods shouldn't have one. Up until Severa we thought that was going to be the case.

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Originally Posted by Catwho

My assumption was that some of the more obvious racial traits, like the Garlean third eye, would be a recessive gene and so it takes two of that race to produce it. Elezen ears are obviously the exception since Hilda got at least a little point to them.

Another thing we can infer from lore is that the races themselves predate the Sundering, since some of the races exist on the First albeit in slightly different proportions to the Source at this point. For example, Lalafell are some of the most common on the Source, but they're relegated to a handful of tribes on the First, and even that number probably wasn't much higher before the Flood of Light. Garleans do not exist on the First, interestingly enough, which makes me curious if they were a post-Sundering evolution.. (Like we know that Ixali do not exist on the First because they are a novel Allagan creation.)

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What we know of Garleans might have died in the flood. Or their ancestors on the first didn't grow the third eye as I want to say that the race that we find the ruins of during the Ivalice Raids is hinted at being the ancestors of the Garleans. Then we have the reverse where we don't have the pixies a race that come into being from the souls of dead children. Now how that exactly happens we don't know.

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Originally Posted by MikkoAkure

Ramza and Alma Lexentale are also both half-Garleans with no third eye and Arenvald said that he never had one and that half bloods shouldn't have one. Up until Severa we thought that was going to be the case.

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They're not purebloods? I must have missed that part of their background. Which makes Severa even more unique and an odd duck.