About a Pre-HW Interview

[Mysterysword]

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.

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.