A letter to the Devs, Producers, and whoever else has a say

[Saefinn]

They might as well throw out all the lore for Male Viera while they're at it, don't give me that male miqote business either, they're at least seen here and there, male Viera are NEVER seen.

Lore hasn't concerned them on a number of things. I've defeated Rathalos in FFXIV and Monster Hunter: World, two games completely unrelated to each other with no connections in lore what-so-ever and made by two completely different game companies. And for the most part we were okay with it because we got a trial out of it and we got Behemoth in MH:W as a trade-off.

But taking that aside and you want to keep the Viera lore in tact? Males still exist in lore. They are never seen or heard of. We know that male and female Viera don't get along and the presence of the two ends in violence and females are the stronger sex here, so it just ends badly for the males.

During the events of Shadowbringers, perhaps a colony of males could be discovered, who have been completely cut off to avoid the persecution of female Viera. Or maybe even a colony where they get along, a similar principle to Red Mage lore, where there was a fringe group of Mhachi and Amdapori who put aside their differences as they recognise the violence isn't doing any good. Heck, we have beast tribes scattered all over the world who do this so we can have beast tribe quests.

They could write a side quest or series of side quests for this all. Perhaps the warrior of light/darkness helps aid them in some way in their questline and connects them to the greater world, some may find refuge in other cities, perhaps even Eorzea where their cultural clashes would not be tolerated and that these places would be safe for them. We already have stories of Xaela tribes that have had people defect and start up their own lives, some as refugees in other lands - like Sidurgu's lot, where he is the only known survivor. I roleplay a Hotgo, despite their tribe being wiped out by the Dotharl, but there were Hotgo who still lived in the lore and I chose to roleplay one such person. There are male and female tensions in certain Xaela tribes too.

In addition to this, there could also be Feols out there, who don't have that issue between males and females. We get 2 flavours of each race EG: Xaela and Raen are physically different and their lore and culture are also different.Viera and Feol would be a plausible approach.

The great thing about writing is if the lore isn't working for whatever reason, you don't even have to rewrite or retcon anything, you can write the future to accommodate what you need and you can find ways to do this and for it to feel like natural progression. Even if my ideas don't appeal, they're still give plausible reasons for male Viera and the writers of the game could surely do a better job than I?

After all, I never made it as a writer, which is why I'm a software engineer these days. So I expect they can do better than me.

[Leomoon]

cute for quote

The Devs do try to fit the events into the lore of the game. But just because you read something in the lore does not mean you are gonna see it. The invasion of Doma from what I read in the lore book sounded fucking amazing to see but I wont ever see it in game.

[Saefinn]

The Devs do try to fit the events into the lore of the game. But just because you read something in the lore does not mean you are gonna see it. The invasion of Doma from what I read in the lore book sounded fucking amazing to see but I wont ever see it in game.

Oh aye, my whole point is that you can write something into lore without changing the exist lore, even when it's something seemingly lore breaking, because writing gives you that kind of freedom. It's why I got into writing in the first place because of the endless possibilities and freedom. It is also why I roleplay, because I can take the game's lore and do something fun with it with my own characters that I create.

[Rishiko]

I very much agree with everything said here. It's really disappointing. I wasn't intending on playing a male Viera nor a female Hrothgar, but many would love to, and i personally would just love the have their general presence in the game.

The lore excuse is just an excuse, since, what - there are 4 canonical White Mages only and yet male Viera are too much to ask for? Not to repeat what was said about the male miqo'te, too. :/

[Violet_Galaxy]

Yes please! When we finally got the bunny outfits for everyone, I thought that was a sign towards gender locking being a relic of the past. This was was the most disappointing thing revealed at fan fest for me.

[Stanelis]

I just don't understand why you did this. Everyone has been asking for Viera for years, and we were all really excited to see the men after the women were announced, but then you announced the Hrothgar men would replace male Viera, and it really let a lot of fans down. I'm seeing so many people on twitter, tumblr, reddit, discord, the official forums, ect, whose excitement for Shadowbringers has been evaporated by this development choice. Once again in a fantasy game, a sexy beautiful race has been genderlocked to ONLY female, and a strong muscular race has been genderlocked to ONLY male, and gamers are getting tired of it, female gamers especially, as we feel our gender is just being treated as fetish bait. Women always have to be sexy and cute, and men always have to be strong and large, and anything else is "weird". This is what genderlocking races tells us.

A a heterosexual man who has been stigmatized all of its life because I cannot gain any muscular mass or weight, I can assure you I m fed up with it too.

[Hunky]

Great post, OP. You expressed it more eloquently than I could. Thanks for making this post.

I'm also disappointed in the genderlocking of these two races.

I'm going to keep posting fanart of both male Viera and female Hrothgar as a reminder of what we could have.

[MStowastiqVahlshdeh]

I agree, great post! Thumbs up! But I think it should be both, not either or.
Considering that they added the Femroe and the female Miqo later, there is still hope. Please add female Hrothgar and Male Viera SE!

[Mansion]

Excellent post OP. You have my full support and my thanks for wording it that way.

I am so tired of those old gender stereotypes that do not make sense in 2019.

[Bright-Flower]

I'm just baffled. It's repeating FF XI and 1.0 all over again. I thought they'd learned when filled out all the genders in 2.0 but they're repeating the same thing

I just don't get why they couldn't make male viera. Lore? The 'lore' was the same for Miqo'te. They added them anyway. Also, the lore is not some set in stone thing either. THEY WRITE THE LORE. That's not how this works. They didn't want to add male Viera but they 'couldn't because the lore says so.' They didn't want tomake male viera and use the lore as a shield.

And here's the thing. Male viera could have been buff. They wouldn't have to be effeminate. But no Yoshi P doesn't like bunny boys so they had to throw in a race nobody asked for instead. And now roleplayers who want to RP a male viera, or now a female hrothgar, are just SOL.

And I REALLY don't like that they released preorders between the fanfests while keeping this kernal tucked away until a lot of people would have claimed their preorder bonus items before fanfest 3.