Male Viera as a playable character! show your support

[Lauront]

It's a fantasy game, but only the very worst ones, when it comes to world-building, eschew having an internal logic as to why things work the way they do or are as they are. SE has gone to the efforts of differentiating the races (e.g. Lalafell are noted as physically weaker than other races), and yes, male Au Ra are stronger than the females in the absence of magic augmentation (hence why the Buduga engage in the strategy they do), which again, is not free and does not come without costly training. Not everyone is the WoL or an adventurer or a high ranking member of a wealthy city-state, with plenty of materia and magic equipment at their disposal. In the absence of such factors, differences between genders and races do exist in the setting and are factors in the decisions made.

Women simply partaking of the same activities as men will not mean they're as good at them as the males in and of itself. It just means they're partaking of the same activities.

The fact that the races differ physically implies they faced different evolutionary pressures and this factored into mate selection; Lalafell are specifically called out for being weaker than the other races. You can play dumb and try ignore this by bringing up red herrings and choosing to not process what factors into those, but it's not going to convince anyone outside of the echo chamber which is already in alignment with your desire for cutesy bunny bois. Their decision to specialise by having the males be solitary hunters defending the woods, whilst the females remain at home to protect the villages, means each gender is facing different challenges, and will affect their mating strategies over the course of their evolution.

Can SE just ignore all that and e.g. make them look soft and weak? Sure, but I doubt they will.

Was it ever stated that the females and males aren't equal in raw physical strength? If you think so, please post a citation.

"This, however, is not to discredit the martial prowess of female Viera. The women of the wood are as formidable as the men, and merely choose to devote their attention to the protection of their hearth and young. "
https://mirkemenagerie.tumblr.com/po...7699/the-viera

You used the word "strong", so I wanted to clarify what the exact quote was. As I thought, it refers to their prowess in more general terms.

[Tabbs]

You used the word "strong", so I wanted to clarify what the exact quote was. As I thought, it refers to their prowess in more general terms.

If their "general" martial prowess is "as formidable as" that of the men, then that is to imply the women could win in archery contests or in hand-to-hand combat with the males. They are just as good at these things if their martial prowess is "as formidable as". Thats what that phrase means. If we assume theres no great dimorphism between the two (same/similar height range), then there's also no reason to assume the women aren't as physically strong beyond real world preconceptions about how men and women "are" or "should be", which certainly sounds like what you're basing your argument on.