Male Viera as a playable character! show your support

[MellowMink]

It's so weird to me that some people are bothered by male Viera being playable since that supposedly goes against lore, yet I'm supposed to believe that every single male Viera in the entire universe of Final Fantasy XIV's multiple worlds chooses to comply with this supposedly mandated isolation and has no independent will of their own to try some public adventuring? I think the idea that there wouldn't be a single outlier is far more unbelievable than the idea that a few could be adventurers as well.

What, do they spontaneously combust if they come into contact with someone outside of their species, followed by the people who see them always having an inexplicable memory wipe? Is it literally impossible for them to have a relationship with someone who isn't a Viera either? Because that would be pretty problematic if that's the case.

Same deal goes for the female Hrothgar; how do people think it's unreasonable that an occasional female Hrothgar wouldn't be enthusiastic about the idea of living in isolation for their entire life? It's just ridiculous to me from a commonsense perspective.

[MikkoAkure]

It's so weird to me that some people are bothered by male Viera being playable since that supposedly goes against lore, yet I'm supposed to believe that every single male Viera in the entire universe of Final Fantasy XIV's multiple worlds chooses to comply with this supposedly mandated isolation and has no independent will of their own to try some public adventuring? I think the idea that there wouldn't be a single outlier is far more unbelievable than the idea that a few could be adventurers as well.

What, do they spontaneously combust if they come into contact with someone outside of their species, followed by the people who see them always having an inexplicable memory wipe? Is it literally impossible for them to have a relationship with someone who isn't a Viera either? Because that would be pretty problematic if that's the case.

Same deal goes for the female Hrothgar; how do people think it's unreasonable that an occasional female Hrothgar wouldn't be enthusiastic about the idea of living in isolation for their entire life? It's just ridiculous to me from a commonsense perspective.

I'm not against their inclusion and I can see both sides of the argument, but pre-imperial invasion it's like seeing a male member of an uncontacted native Amazon tribe walking around in Kyoto, if said tribe only had 1 male in 10 births and each male went through a period of dangerous training before being set free to roam the jungles, being taught their whole life with no outside interference or knowledge that it's their position in life to do so. All of viera culture is heavily indoctrinated into a "this is the way of things". Up until recently, the men in the trees have had no contact or reference at all with the outside world and would have no idea if it was better or worse than their current situation. The only thing they may know is that once every rare now and again when one decides to visit the women to mate and drag pubescent boys off into the jungle, they may hear about a woman or two leaving the homeland and abandoning their culture.

That said, there's already a lot of upheaval going on in the viera homeland now that the Garleans have invaded and are actively fighting them. Viera are also described as voluntarily leaving after defeating the Garleans in order to see what the world they come from is like.

Female hrothgar meanwhile make 0 sense to me and I have no idea why we never got NPCs of them and the starring role was given to a roegadyn. The absence of female ronso is even more confusing since they don't even have queens or anything and the few that are described are normal women.

As far as having relationships outside of viera, all races in all regions have a taboo against interracial mixing. Hilda was noted in her story to be a very notable exception to the rule, and except for 2 half-Garlean siblings and an apocryphal fisherman's tale, all other mixed children are not products of a consensual mixed relationship. There were even 2 men chased out of their village in a side quest because they're in a relationship and are a hyur and a miqo'te. And while I don't know what FFXIV viera think of other races, but in the Ivalice series viera described humes as being malformed and ugly so I don't think they had much mixing going on and we only know of one instance of that happening and it did not end well at all.

[Lastelli]

I'm not against their inclusion and I can see both sides of the argument, but pre-imperial invasion it's like seeing a male member of an uncontacted native Amazon tribe walking around in Kyoto...

I mean, the lore was created that way to justify the fact that MViera are not seen in previous games and in ShB, since the race itself was basically created to pander to the prevalent horny male teenager audience. It's not like it's a fundamental and unchangeable state of the world. All it takes is an additional piece of lore that says "look, their homeland is in danger so they decided to venture out". Even without that, "mommy crystal called the MViera and he decided to leave his bros in the woods" would be a more than acceptable explanation given the circumstances and the fact that our character is a singularity. And to be honest, it's pretty weird that MViera are nowhere to be seen in two different worlds with two different catastrophes coming their way because they're oh so precious. Really doesn't make any sense, especially when you see beast tribes working with playable races on the First. FHrogh too of course. It was clearly due to resource constraints and they came up with a lore excuse so their white knights could do the rest of the work for them.

Either way, I feel vindicated, I remember having a few arguments when FViera was announced and I pointed out that not having MViera and FHroth was just stupid, the lore argument was weak and they'd eventually add them because the community would ask for it. Let's just say that I now agree with those people that say that many ffxiv players look more like zealots than actual consumers.

[Kaoru_Nagisa]

I mean, the lore was created that way to justify the fact that MViera are not seen in previous games and in ShB, since the race itself was basically created to pander to the prevalent horny male teenager audience. It's not like it's a fundamental and unchangeable state of the world. All it takes is an additional piece of lore that says "look, their homeland is in danger so they decided to venture out". Even without that, "mommy crystal called the MViera and he decided to leave his bros in the woods" would be a more than acceptable explanation given the circumstances and the fact that our character is a singularity. And to be honest, it's pretty weird that MViera are nowhere to be seen in two different worlds with two different catastrophes coming their way because they're oh so precious. Really doesn't make any sense, especially when you see beast tribes working with playable races on the First. FHrogh too of course. It was clearly due to resource constraints and they came up with a lore excuse so their white knights could do the rest of the work for them.

Either way, I feel vindicated, I remember having a few arguments when FViera was announced and I pointed out that not having MViera and FHroth was just stupid, the lore argument was weak and they'd eventually add them because the community would ask for it. Let's just say that I now agree with those people that say that many ffxiv players look more like zealots than actual consumers.

Meanwhile RPers are laughing at people saying "lore says they never leave the Wood!!!"

I've got one bun who left the jungle over 70 years ago, and another that left 20 years ago and has lived in Sharlayan since then.

And guess what? Neither break the lore - if the women can choose to leave despite the Green Word they all live under, so can males. Shocking, I know!

[MikkoAkure]

I mean, the lore was created that way to justify the fact that MViera are not seen in previous games and in ShB, since the race itself was basically created to pander to the prevalent horny male teenager audience. It's not like it's a fundamental and unchangeable state of the world. All it takes is an additional piece of lore that says "look, their homeland is in danger so they decided to venture out".

I'm not saying that the lore wasn't created as an excuse, I'm just saying that's how it's presented to us and why we wouldn't expect to see them until a certain moment of the game. Just like how up until the Doman refugees arriving to Eorzea and the recent events of Stormblood, no one had ever seen Au Ra or Lupin before in Eorzea. Of course things can change and that's why we have playable Au Ra to begin with.

Viera aren't the only pandering race either. We have Au Ra whose extremely weak lore just shrugs at the fact that SE made a race of edgy, brooding, muscular men and tiny, scrawny, cutesy women half their size in order to satisfy the lowest common denominator. And then the Miqo'te were changed from having more cat-like features to becoming more traditionally attractive and basically being humans with cat ears and a cat tail.

Adding male Viera wouldn't be the first time they retconned anything anyway. Dalmasca was originally much smaller and on the other side of the continent before they decided to make it actual content and wrote off the old lore as a "clerical error".

Meanwhile RPers are laughing at people saying "lore says they never leave the Wood!!!"

I've got one bun who left the jungle over 70 years ago, and another that left 20 years ago and has lived in Sharlayan since then.

And guess what? Neither break the lore - if the women can choose to leave despite the Green Word they all live under, so can males. Shocking, I know!

May not break the lore but RPers can say anything they want as long as the people they're RPing with accept it. During ARR and HW you had a bunch of people who RP'd as dragons who pretended to be hyur and elezen. I've also bumped into people who RP'd as robots that look 100% human and more than a few vampires, despite neither of those existing in the game. And then there's the hordes of dragoons despite the game saying there's only about 9 left alive.

[Theodric]

Viera aren't the only pandering race either. We have Au Ra whose extremely weak lore just shrugs at the fact that SE made a race of edgy, brooding, muscular men and tiny, scrawny, cutesy women half their size in order to satisfy the lowest common denominator.

What would that 'lowest common denominator' be, exactly?

It seems to me that they were designed around classical beauty standards - with the men being tall, muscular and handsome and the women being short, elegant and slender.

Granted, the height difference did not necessarily need to be quite so drastic but based on what I see in-game it doesn't appear as if either side of the coin is starving for interest.

On the other hand, the race and gender combinations based around niche aesthetics are decidedly, uh, niche. Roegadyn women being a prominent example, to say nothing of the lanky proportions that Elezen are bound to.

[MikkoAkure]

What would that 'lowest common denominator' be, exactly?

It seems to me that they were designed around classical beauty standards - with the men being tall, muscular and handsome and the women being short, elegant and slender.

Granted, the height difference did not necessarily need to be quite so drastic but based on what I see in-game it doesn't appear as if either side of the coin is starving for interest.

On the other hand, the race and gender combinations based around niche aesthetics are decidedly, uh, niche. Roegadyn women being a prominent example, to say nothing of the lanky proportions that Elezen are bound to.

Yeah, that's what "lowest common denominator" means. It's deliberately made to appeal to the greatest number of people. Instead of making a uniform race, it feels as though they took the concept art and said "well what's the simplest common value players want in a female character that would give us wide adoption rates for the new race?" and then applied it to the Au Ra, while leaving the men as musclebound hunks since that's the lowest common value players want in a male character.

Doesn't mean it's necessarily a good thing though, which is why you have people in another thread fighting over femhroths and whether or not they'll look like the men or be blue miqo'te. And you have Xaela women, who are supposed to be rugged nomads but don't exactly act like it because SE decided that we needed a second miqo'te instead in order to sell more fantasia.

[Kaoru_Nagisa]

May not break the lore but RPers can say anything they want as long as the people they're RPing with accept it. During ARR and HW you had a bunch of people who RP'd as dragons who pretended to be hyur and elezen. I've also bumped into people who RP'd as robots that look 100% human and more than a few vampires, despite neither of those existing in the game. And then there's the hordes of dragoons despite the game saying there's only about 9 left alive.

I mean, yes - the lore is not so fleshed out and filled in to the point people cannot deviate or come up with plausible ideas that are supported by what lore we do have. Not to mention Word of God (Yoshi-P) having stated in the past that people are free to RP as they want, regardless of what lore may or may not be there.

People RPing as dragons is perfectly plausible within the boundaries of lore. Glamour exists, for all manner of creatures - some innately, others through the use of spells or prisms. People turning into dragons is also within the bounds of lore, thanks to Thordan and his knights partaking of Ratatoskr's eyes way back when (and starting the Dragonsong War as a result).

Robots who look human is also supported simply by the fact Allagans existed. Honestly, a good chunk of weird ideas can be supported simply because of Allagans being Allagans. And now, we have Nier lore intertwined with the First.

Vampires can exist as well, if not exactly in the sense some people think of - but there's an entire Shard of creatures that are basically considered 'vampires' insofar as they feed on aether to sustain themselves outside the Void. There are also people who can end up doing the same thing, the Nightkin being an example.

Dragoons existed far before that little blurb in the Encyclopedia Eorzea, as well - and their continued existence after that can easily be attributed to a number of things, not least of which being former or retired dragoons. As well as people who could have simply been trained in the art of the dragoon by former, retired, or disgraced dragoons from Ishgard.

Much of the game's lore is very short, or few and far between - and sometimes, inconsistent. But that is part of the beauty of it, as well, especially for roleplayers. There can often be ideas that, while never explicitly seen or talked about, are plausible within the bounds of what we currently do know.

Which is why people who cling to this "but the lore says!!" really make me laugh; the lore in many respects are more guidelines to follow than hard-set rules. The lore said the same thing about male miqo'te, too, and has not been changed to reflect the fact we can play as them now since 2.0 onward. Lore has always been a poor basis for in-game character race limitations, tbh, and Yoshi seems to share that sentiment.

(Apologies if words string together oddly, been having to work on a homebrew system and it's doing my brain a scramble.)

[Zanarkand-Ronso]

Meanwhile RPers are laughing at people saying "lore says they never leave the Wood!!!"

I've got one bun who left the jungle over 70 years ago, and another that left 20 years ago and has lived in Sharlayan since then.

And guess what? Neither break the lore - if the women can choose to leave despite the Green Word they all live under, so can males. Shocking, I know!

Honestly....did the Lore Ever REALLY say that?
Like, Im one of those "But Muh Lore" types of people, but I dont think there is anything to suggest the Male Viera NEVER leave the Wood.
The whole argument with Male Viera stems from...We have never seen them illustrated until now, and then all we ever had was that Snippet from the...Dramturge I think its called. So those put together paint a picture that the Males Never Leave the wood, and their "rarness" is because of that, without 100% verification.

We dont necessarily NEED it exactly, but this is why I was kinda more in favor that the Male Viera should have Debut in their own ivalice game. Because yeah, there is no reason they couldn't leave the woods like the women, but the fact they never did presumably till now does make alot of questions popup...like is there a Reason?....or is it pure laziness or forgetfulness to ever make & Include the Males? Without this, some people such as myself just kinda draw the conclusion that the Males for whatever reason are more dedicated to the Word or the Woods then the Females. A Hazy, lazy slapped together lorebit can do that.
And it has a greater effect on Viera because they existed Before & outside of XIV. Unlike Hrothgar or the AuRa who can pretty much be written like WhatEv. .