Quote Originally Posted by Tharne View Post
Concept art =/= developed in-game. Also a lot of concepts end up not being used, that the point of a concept. The male/female in the code could possibly be for security.
And yes the lore dumps, Yoshida said that they gave some hints inside. After reading them for the first time yesterday and having no positive nor negative feeling toward the male Viera subject, the one line that stuck out in this lore dump was the last one : "They simply do not exist to us."
When he said the line "They simply do not exist to us" he was talking specifically about his time in Dalamasca. Full lore quote, not just the part that people keep ripping out of context:

I spent many a moon in the Desert Sapphire and while I saw all manner of wonderous creatures, not once did I lay mine eyes on a male Viera, nor did I hear of one living in the city. They simply do not exist to us.

He wasn't talking about the male Viera population in the entire world, just what the population was specifically in Dalamasca. It has the same importance as somebody in Ul'Dah prior to Yugiri's arrival claiming they never met an Au Ra before and saying they might as well not exist to them. I wonder how relevant a statement about their numbers in Dalamasca is to their numbers in their homelands.

More to the point we are heading into Viera Territory, the Ra'Tika Greatwood, next expansion. Territory that the same lore dump says that all the male Viera guard and shoot outsiders on-sight when they enter. You really think we are not going to run into any hostile male Viera NPCs, who all serve as the border patrol and swear not to let evil encroach on said territory, while waltzing through the Greatwood after somebody, probably the Imperial Garlean Army, leveled one of their villages?

As for the concept art, the thing you are overlooking is that the female version of the concept art was used in the game.