Quote Originally Posted by Iscah View Post
The weird thing is, having the "more bestial race" itself seems more lore-jarring to me than hypothetically introducing the previously-hidden male gender for the Viera (who aren't technically the same race at all, just an identical alternate-universe counterpart). It wouldn't even need to break the existing lore, just say that times are changing and the old rules and gender-roles aren't so strictly followed any more.

Up until the actual reveal of Hrothgar, I've been arguing that we couldn't possibly get an actually beastlike playable race, because it would go against this game's established lore in ARR of the conflict between men and beastmen.

That distinction has been increasingly blurred as the game has gone on and we've expanded into new areas, but at least that's been limited to non-playable characters who won't be seen until later in the game, and especially won't be treated as "just another adventurer". Male Au Ra seemed as far as they could possibly go - beastlike features but still a distinctly human face.

If they want to stay true to their own lore, it seems really strange to me that they'd choose to develop this beastlike race at all. Even if people have been asking for it, I've been saying all along that it's because they don't realise the distinction and how strange it would be in ARR, and that's why the creators have been sticking to only human-like playable characters.

But now they've gone against that expectation, and I don't know what to think of it.
They did more or less confirm in the lore panel at JP Fanfest though that the typology of 'beastman' is completely constructed, so I dunno that it fazes the lore much. I'd like to learn what the story on Hrothgar is, since the feeling I get is they might mainly just be very elusive; starting as one in ARR would be really interesting to try to roleplay out, imo. A Hrothgar WoL really might have a lot to disentangle about the Spoken/'beastman' distinction.