Male Viera as a playable character! show your support

[redheadturk]

If I can have a M. viera that looks like this then dhjkfvbhdashjukfdsafdsa YAS

That fanart, as I recall, was actually *based* on the concept art sketches that SE dropped during HW.

[Plainsrunner]

Not sure if this has been mentioned in the plethora of comments, but I see a lot of people talking about how it's not in the lore for male Viera to be out and about. We see in game that they hide in trees and guard the forest.

There are just a few troubles I see with that.
1. Female viera also stay in the forests by the standard view. And yet, we see several elsewhere. Could a man have not also have left the forest? Could a women not give birth to a male after leaving the forest?
2. The lore was in the hands of SE. They consciously chose to make it so that men were virtually non-existent to explain why men weren't in game.
3. How much of the lore for Fran's tribe and/or the First is universal to all Viera on the Source. We've stumbled across a new subrace of Roegadyn in the Far East (with different naming schemes), a different culture of Elezen in Ishgard (neither of Wood or Underground), and different cultures of Hyur in every new place we come across. Why should we assume every single Viera group follows the mold of tribes with men and women separate, with only women able to abandon their tribes and lifestyles?

[Fukuro]

There are just a few troubles I see with that.
1. Female viera also stay in the forests by the standard view. And yet, we see several elsewhere. Could a man have not also have left the forest? Could a women not give birth to a male after leaving the forest?

Something i like to think about too is, if a female viera leaves the forest, does she take her children with her? If yes - even though much rarer than the females - there must be already males around outside of the forest. The males and females (as kids) as we know are indistinguishable from each other and live with the females until reaching adulthood. I mean the warrior of light(darkness) might already have seen one of the males in the the villages of the first(viis)- just as a child?

[BunniEclair]

Male viera lore doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to begin with. Their complete isolation aside from training of-age boys and making more babies seems completely unnecessary from a cultural and practical sense. Female viera are fierce and skilled warriors in their own right- as WoL we almost became a kabob during our first encounter with them on the First. They can and do protect their village and the wood, as well as hunt and rear children and take care of day to day duties. They are not vulnerable. So why do the men need to devote their lives to total isolation to guard the wood and them, as well? I just can’t think of a reasonable explanation within 14. Especially with males having a super low birth rate to begin with, you’d think they would be the ones staying home and not being tossed to the most dangerous tasks.

[LisSquid]

Not sure if this has been mentioned in the plethora of comments, but I see a lot of people talking about how it's not in the lore for male Viera to be out and about. We see in game that they hide in trees and guard the forest.

There are just a few troubles I see with that.
1. Female viera also stay in the forests by the standard view. And yet, we see several elsewhere. Could a man have not also have left the forest? Could a women not give birth to a male after leaving the forest?
2. The lore was in the hands of SE. They consciously chose to make it so that men were virtually non-existent to explain why men weren't in game.
3. How much of the lore for Fran's tribe and/or the First is universal to all Viera on the Source. We've stumbled across a new subrace of Roegadyn in the Far East (with different naming schemes), a different culture of Elezen in Ishgard (neither of Wood or Underground), and different cultures of Hyur in every new place we come across. Why should we assume every single Viera group follows the mold of tribes with men and women separate, with only women able to abandon their tribes and lifestyles?

That whole argument can boil down to, very simply, the player's WoL is the only character that really matters. Other people's characters aren't canon or important to the lore. We're not even technically our chosen race, as the "canon" WoL is a midlander dude. The only thing they need to do to be lore compliant is not include any male viera npcs.

The WoL is a special little guy, and can be whatever they want because they are our vehicle to explore the story and the world. Being a male viera, or seeing other players as a male viera, does not break lore or canon anymore than seeing the 600000th cat boy (which are not as rare, but comparatively rare in the lore).

[Allegor]

Male viera lore doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to begin with. Their complete isolation aside from training of-age boys and making more babies seems completely unnecessary from a cultural and practical sense. Female viera are fierce and skilled warriors in their own right- as WoL we almost became a kabob during our first encounter with them on the First. They can and do protect their village and the wood, as well as hunt and rear children and take care of day to day duties. They are not vulnerable. So why do the men need to devote their lives to total isolation to guard the wood and them, as well? I just can’t think of a reasonable explanation within 14. Especially with males having a super low birth rate to begin with, you’d think they would be the ones staying home and not being tossed to the most dangerous tasks.

Low birth rate and high mortality rate, mind you. My guess is they just didn't want to make a copy paste of Miqo lore (basically irl lions), so they just reversed the culture while keeping the gender ratio lol

[Zanarkand-Ronso]

Not sure if this has been mentioned in the plethora of comments, but I see a lot of people talking about how it's not in the lore for male Viera to be out and about. We see in game that they hide in trees and guard the forest.

There are just a few troubles I see with that.
1. Female viera also stay in the forests by the standard view. And yet, we see several elsewhere. Could a man have not also have left the forest? Could a women not give birth to a male after leaving the forest?
2. The lore was in the hands of SE. They consciously chose to make it so that men were virtually non-existent to explain why men weren't in game.
3. How much of the lore for Fran's tribe and/or the First is universal to all Viera on the Source. We've stumbled across a new subrace of Roegadyn in the Far East (with different naming schemes), a different culture of Elezen in Ishgard (neither of Wood or Underground), and different cultures of Hyur in every new place we come across. Why should we assume every single Viera group follows the mold of tribes with men and women separate, with only women able to abandon their tribes and lifestyles?

1)
After a point for the Viera, they started to question their way of life. Some of them leaving the forest and losing the Word of the Wood; becoming outcasts that can never return home and have joined society in the outside world, even dying their hair to try and fit in. Cant males do this? Absolutely...but its just never happened. For how long Tactics has been out, and then we had FFXII, we to this day currently have just never seen a Male Viera.
Why? Good question. But, if a Viera is gonna possibly give birth to a Male Viera outside the woods, that would suggest the males have already joined the outside world, and if thats the case...why are they still hiding? Unless you wanna suggest they are crossbreeding with the locals. Which is possible, not like we were told they can't "mingle" with other races (to my knowledge)
Its one thing that they didnt have time to make them yet for XIV...but XII could have featured one or a few. Why didnt they? -shrug emoji-
2)
Well, its a placeholder excuse. They were clear that they just didnt have time to make male viera or female hrothgar, and frankly they just barely got what they have done. They were also clear about why they did what they did to begin with
3)
Because thats how Viera have always been. since tactics. Not saying they cant change it, but they pretty much havent. The Viera on the 1st is the only exception that we currently see so far.

[MoofiaBossVal]

Male viera lore doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to begin with. Their complete isolation aside from training of-age boys and making more babies seems completely unnecessary from a cultural and practical sense. Female viera are fierce and skilled warriors in their own right- as WoL we almost became a kabob during our first encounter with them on the First. They can and do protect their village and the wood, as well as hunt and rear children and take care of day to day duties. They are not vulnerable. So why do the men need to devote their lives to total isolation to guard the wood and them, as well? I just can’t think of a reasonable explanation within 14. Especially with males having a super low birth rate to begin with, you’d think they would be the ones staying home and not being tossed to the most dangerous tasks.

My impression from Shadowbringers is that the male Viera were hyped up as the high power level warriors watching from afar who would defend the forest from any truly insane threats, like sin eaters. If the WoL and the Scions were bad guys they would've been struck him down before they ever made it to the village. That said, it doesn't make much sense to me how Ran'jit was allowed through apparently unmolested.

[BunniEclair]

My impression from Shadowbringers is that the male Viera were hyped up as the high power level warriors watching from afar who would defend the forest from any truly insane threats, like sin eaters. If the WoL and the Scions were bad guys they would've been struck him down before they ever made it to the village. That said, it doesn't make much sense to me how Ran'jit was allowed through apparently unmolested.

That’s a good point! Still though...little wonder viera are so sparse when they’re like “20 males born out of 100? A life of mortal peril it is! ....it’ll be fine...”

*sweats*

[Rosenstrauch]

That said, it doesn't make much sense to me how Ran'jit was allowed through apparently unmolested.

To be fair, Ran'jit doesn't make much sense either. A lot of what he is on paper/in lore really didn't translate well into his appearances in game. I still find it a bit funny that your first fight with him could easily have been won through attrition, and the second fight is straight up curb stomping him despite him going all out, yet the story presented him as some unstoppable juggernaut you had to run from until you no longer had a choice in the matter.

EDIT: Third fight, not second! I completely forgot we actually did fight him in Rak'tika. But we handily whooped his behind there, only for the fight to end prematurely with Y'shtola acting like we could never hope to beat him and had to run, and then there was that fake-out Y'shtola death...