A PoC Scion please? There is so much untapped potential here.

[Jandor]

That sounds like a great description of what little we know of Meracydia. Hostile, unexplored and home to strange and unfamiliar creatures from an Eorzean perspective.

Your original comment was that looking at the map indicates that Eorzea is Europe, but the map we have shows an African shaped continent in the place where Africa would be.

We do actually see a bit more of the planet in one cutscene, where we see Hydaelyn from space. Assuming that island far to the south of Eorzea is Meracydia, then it seems more like a potential Australia proxy to me.

I really do not see the parallels between that "idea of Africa" and Eorzea from an in-game perspective. Eorzea is set up as "home", the familiar place for the characters. There are cities and civilisations. Meracydia is the distant and unknown.

Of course the Eorzeans don't view themselves as particularly savage or their home as particularly wild, I doubt the Africans did either when the Europeans came over to conquer their cities and topple their civilizations.

[Iscah]

Your original comment was that looking at the map indicates that Eorzea is Europe, but the map we have shows an African shaped continent in the place where Africa would be.

Except it is not where Africa would be. It is mostly where Europe would be - entirely north of the equator, with the northern parts a long way north and only the southern tip reaching the tropics.

If anything it is, as I said earlier, positioned like Europe with the northern part of Africa mashed into it, and the southern land mass (presumably Meracydia) might be the southern part of Africa.

And please check your atlas because Australia is neither south of Europe, south of Africa or shaped anything like that - so if that's meant to be Australia then the "Eorzea must be Africa because it's shaped like it" argument doesn't carry in the first place.

If there is an Australia and the world maps 1:1 with ours (which I would say it clearly doesn't) then it is somewhere south of Othard. There does in fact appear to be the edge of a land mass there where the map is fading out.

As for my take on the how the rest of the "Three Great Continents" map out if Eorzea is Europe, I suspect that Ilsabard may be Russia alone if you split it off from the rest of Asia and slid it sideways. The northern coast of Othard loosely resembles the southern border of Russia - if you assume that inland sea on the western edge is somewhere around the Caspian Sea, and at the other end the Bay of Yanxia is the Yellow Sea, with that odd hook being the Korean peninsula. Hingashi doesn't exactly match the shape or placement of Japan even though it's clearly in the spirit of it.

Meanwhile, it looks like Thavnair might be shaped like India. There's even a Sri Lanka.

[Jandor]

Except it is not where Africa would be.

Except it really is. The known world is roughly laid out as Africa & Asia with Europe missing.

And please check your atlas because Australia is neither south of Europe, south of Africa or shaped anything like that.

Check my atlas, lol, that's rich.



It's obviously turned on its side, thought you of all people would understand that

[Iscah]

Except it really is. The known world is roughly laid out as Africa & Asia with Europe missing.

It's a northern hemisphere map. As the globe makes clear.

It's obviously turned on its side, thought you of all people would understand that

I know what my home country looks like. That is not it, sideways, backwards or otherwise and it is definitely nowhere near there on the world map.

That other continent on the very edge of the map though? That's exactly where it should be, south of Othard.

[Jandor]

I know what my home country looks like. That is not it, sideways, backwards or otherwise and it is definitely nowhere near there on the world map.

Cool, I know what my home looks like too. No matter which way you turn, twist or otherwise contort Europe, it doesn't look like Eorzea.

[Iscah]

Except it really is. The known world is roughly laid out as Africa & Asia with Europe missing.

On further thought I realised that this map is very misleadingly proportioned and is not comparing like to like.

The Earth map shows both north and south hemispheres, but the Hydaelyn map is only the north hemisphere - and you've stretched the image out to double its original height so the shapes are warped. It's not an accurate comparison of the two world maps in the same configuration.

We have the globe and the full world map derived from it that you posted earlier. Based on that, you can see where the equator should be, and that should allow you to proportion the two maps more accurately. They should be keeping their original proportions - scale it up or down, but don't change one dimension without the other.

[WhiteArchmage]

Except it really is. The known world is roughly laid out as Africa & Asia with Europe missing.



Check my atlas, lol, that's rich.

Your map is ignoring one (two, really) glaring flaw: Meracydia (and the Southern Isles). You're comparing a map of "The Three Great Continents" which are mostly north of the (Hydaelin-equivalent) Ecuador line, to a World map which includes countries North and South of said line. A true comparison would probably include Africa, but only the northernmost part that stops with Egypt, which is WAY above the Ecuador line.

[Jandor]

Your map is ignoring one (two, really) glaring flaw: Meracydia (and the Southern Isles). You're comparing a map of "The Three Great Continents" which are mostly north of the (Hydaelin-equivalent) Ecuador line, to a World map which includes countries North and South of said line. A true comparison would probably include Africa, but only the northernmost part that stops with Egypt, which is WAY above the Ecuador line.

If I'm comparing the Three Great Continents with Africa and Eurasia, why exactly would I cut most of Africa off? The three continents look like Africa and Asia, Eorzea looks like Africa, is where Africa would be, and fills a similar purpose in the setting to Africa. That's it, that's the point.

Some place somewhere to the south that has maybe a couple paragraphs of lore written about it doesn't really have any impact on that.

For the record, I physically can't include Meracydia, there isn't any map showing it.

[WhiteArchmage]

If I'm comparing the Three Great Continents with Africa and Eurasia, why exactly would I cut most of Africa off? The three continents look like Africa and Asia, Eorzea looks like Africa, is where Africa would be, and fills a similar purpose in the setting to Africa. That's it, that's the point.

Some place somewhere to the south that has maybe a couple paragraphs of lore written about it doesn't really have any impact on that.

For the record, I physically can't include Meracydia, there isn't any map showing it.

The point is, you're comparing The Three Great Continents to Africa and Eurasia. When it's just Eurasia. I would grant that Ul'dah (rather, Belah'dia) has some Egyptian influence, but that's mostly on an Alexander the Great's conquests (after all, the whole Ptolemaic dynasty in Egypt was Greek). Actual Ul'Dah has Moroccan influence, which again, yes, African, but NORTHERN Africa; as in, Right on the other side of Gibraltar strait from Spain.

If you're trying to say that Eorzea = Africa (as far as landmasses go), it's dead wrong. For comparison's sake, this is what I mean with the Ecuador Line.




The weather patterns don't add up. For the comparison to make sense, Limsa is too far North to be Madagascar, Gridania is nowhere NEAR the climate and culture of Sudan, and Ul'dah is not at all like Congo (actually, even further South, Zambia or Zimbawe). And it would also put Coerthas in Morocco... even pre-Calamity, Coerthan culture and weather where much more Scandinavian than Moroccan. It's NOT where Africa would be, Eorzea is TOO FAR NORTH. THAT'S why Meracydia is relevant (as far as we know): it's further South, and mostly unexplored, with some tribes trading with Eorzea's alchemists for materials; the fact that we haven't seen it in-game is besides the point.

And Eorzea doesn't serve a similar purpose to Africa, either. If anything, 1.0 to 2.0 is based on the Greco-Persian Wars, although the Garlean Empire is based on Ancient Rome instead of the First Persian Empire. And it follows much more closely with said wars (A bunch of scattered City-States joining together to drive back an invading Imperial force, which led to the founding of the Delian League, i.e. a treaty between the Greek City States against Persia) than the conquests of Africa. That's why I said I'll grant Ul'dah as being part of NORTHERN Africa, but it's ignoring the REST of the Cultures there; especially as Northern Africa has a lot more influence from the Middle East, Greece, and Rome (they were, after all, their direct neighbors).

[Packetdancer]

The point is, you're comparing The Three Great Continents to Africa and Eurasia. When it's just Eurasia. I would grant that Ul'dah (rather, Belah'dia) has some Egyptian influence, but that's mostly on an Alexander the Great's conquests (after all, the whole Ptolemaic dynasty in Egypt was Greek). Actual Ul'Dah has Moroccan influence, which again, yes, African, but NORTHERN Africa; as in, Right on the other side of Gibraltar strait from Spain.

I mean, also, as fun as it is to theorize on and debate about cultural and geographical inspiration used to create the various regions in-game—I enjoy it too, because worldbuilding is fun!—it's sort of tangential to anything else. Lots of fantasy world authors will take real geographies and flip them or mirror them or squash them or stretch them, because it gives you believable coastlines and archipelagos and whatnot. None of which necessarily has any bearing on what they put in those lands.

In a story I wrote, the map I made for the world had a continent and subcontinent that were literally Africa (mirrored along the vertical axis and rotated counterclockwise slightly) with Australia above it (also flipped and then shrunk) as a northwestern subcontinental neighbor. It gave me a continental coastline that felt 'real' rather than "I poured uncooked dry macaroni on a sheet of paper and then drew a line around where it all gathered" (which, to be fair, is actually a surprisingly effective way of building landmasses for fantasy-world maps), but the cultures inhabiting those landmasses (and indeed, the climate of those landmasses) had nothing to do with the real-world landmasses I took coastlines from.

So even if the rough shape of the Three Great Continents were based on the real-world map as inspiration—erase Europe to make the Northern Empty, squash the general shape down so it's all in one hemisphere, make Madagascar larger and flip what's now Vylbrand to the other side of Eorzea so it's off the western coast of Aldenard, etc.—none of that necessarily has any bearing on what those lands represent in the world they've created.