What lore do you ignore?

[Turnintino]

Although I agree that their relationship, whatever it was, was plainly uneven, I'm just not sure what we're meant to take away from the order to meet him in his quarters during the scene in question, if not that there was a little something else going on. Granted, the most jarring thing about that line to me is that he says it in front of her peers. Even if he isn't actually soliciting her in that instance, the implication is more than subtext without additional clarification, IMO. I say that as someone whose snap understanding of that line was as such, and who hasn't thought about it again until this conversation lol. I don't ship them, I don't particularly care about them, and I had no reason or motivation to go out of my way to dig for subtext to begin with. Still, the interaction is strange, if taken at face value. Whether or not she might've been the sort to take some twisted pride in that, it's... if not humiliating, certainly unprofessional. So that leaves room for doubt in my mind... However, he was basically a Super Sentai villain at the time, so it could really go either way, as far as I'm concerned. It could very well have just been a localization issue as well; I have no idea what the line was in Japanese.

[ThorneDynasty]

I admit I'm rarely able to pick up on romantic/sexual subtext unless it's shouted at me (and I usually hate it when they do that), but I never got this idea. I always thought it was a pretty clear superior-subordinate relationship with an element of uneven emotional investment; Livia clearly has stronger feelings towards Gaius than Gaius had towards her, but even they weren't sexual. I never caught a single hint of sexuality from either of them... honestly, ever, that corner of the story is remarkably sexless compared to a few others.

The only evidence I see people bring up was when Gaius went 'see me in my quarters', and apparently to some people that implied sex. But I thought it was pretty clear that he was just taking her to a private location so he can chew her out for screwing up without getting overheard.

She also screams "his body and soul" belong to her. Not a super normal thought to have towards a parental figure.

Also fiction always has a reason to include everything. There's no reason to interject a scene where someone orders a subordinate to cross a professional line, such as meeting him alone in his quarters, if there's no subtext. And if it meant something else, they would have clarified that too, in that or a later scene. Instead later she says that.

[Destati]

Viera lore, in particular the aspect where their sex is indeterminate until adolescence. It makes me inherently uncomfortable and I also feel like it can lead to traumatic consequences. Like, what if an individual happens to be female-leaning in identity, but then their body suddenly develops to be biologically male and then they're whisked out of their home? I can't really subscribe to that.

[MikkoAkure]

Viera lore, in particular the aspect where their sex is indeterminate until adolescence. It makes me inherently uncomfortable and I also feel like it can lead to traumatic consequences. Like, what if an individual happens to be female-leaning in identity, but then their body suddenly develops to be biologically male and then they're whisked out of their home? I can't really subscribe to that.

I think it was said by the original writer somewhere that Viera have a completely different relationship to gender than modern-day western society does. If everyone else around you is who is the same age is also genderless and you've only seen women your whole life except for the handful of times every handful of years a male comes to visit, their concept of gender identity would be very alien to us and difficult to grasp.

But they seem to just accept things as they are in that regard and the genders are the roles you take in their seemingly interconnected and "greater picture" culture.


A Viera born and raised outside of their homeland with no context to their original culture would probably have a very hard time though.

[SannaR]

Neat fact is the whole unable to tell the gender of Viera thing is exactly how actual rabbits work. Just it takes years instead of weeks for that distinction to happen.

[WhiteArchmage]

It's something I don't think XIV will ever go into but it'd be the perfect excuse for a gender dysphoria story, as a Viera believing their whole life they were one sex just for puberty to hit them with the other one. However, this sounds too... complicated that I don't think CBU3 will attempt to try.

[Cilia]

She also screams "his body and soul" belong to her. Not a super normal thought to have towards a parental figure.

Also fiction always has a reason to include everything. There's no reason to interject a scene where someone orders a subordinate to cross a professional line, such as meeting him alone in his quarters, if there's no subtext. And if it meant something else, they would have clarified that too, in that or a later scene. Instead later she says that.

The appropriate "subtext" requires a little bit of context; in a military setting, you never reprimand an officer in front of the soldiers they command because doing so could undermine their authority among the troops. With that context in mind, I always read the scene as Gaius going to chew Livia out for the Waking Sands massacre - the only officers higher in rank to Livia are Nero and Gaius himself, so he can't exactly discipline her in the open (and based on her dialogue with Nero after the Ifrit fight, she doesn't much respect him anyway).

To Gaius, Livia was just another orphan whose potential he could exploit in the pursuit of his conquest; Livia is possessive of Gaius because he's the only thing that gives her life meaning. There's definitely some unhealthy romantic (and plausibly sexual) obsession there, but it's entirely one-sided on Livia's part (which was confirmed by the Sorrow of Werlyt storyline).

[ThorneDynasty]

The appropriate "subtext" requires a little bit of context; in a military setting, you never reprimand an officer in front of the soldiers they command because doing so could undermine their authority among the troops. With that context in mind, I always read the scene as Gaius going to chew Livia out for the Waking Sands massacre - the only officers higher in rank to Livia are Nero and Gaius himself, so he can't exactly discipline her in the open (and based on her dialogue with Nero after the Ifrit fight, she doesn't much respect him anyway).

To Gaius, Livia was just another orphan whose potential he could exploit in the pursuit of his conquest; Livia is possessive of Gaius because he's the only thing that gives her life meaning. There's definitely some unhealthy romantic (and plausibly sexual) obsession there, but it's entirely one-sided on Livia's part (which was confirmed by the Sorrow of Werlyt storyline).

Which I pointed out is a blatant retcon. It's fiction with writers, not a document of events.

[Cleretic]

Which I pointed out is a blatant retcon. It's fiction with writers, not a document of events.

Outside of a single parenthetical, Cilia only outlined facts that were slapped down by ARR. They can't be retcons, because they're how the story was originally. Cilia's exactly right; there is a raw, organizational reason that Gaius does the thing he does, and that reason is not 'sex'. Livia's weird feelings towards him are ugly and terrible, but even back in ARR there was never a single word of a hint that they were requited.

It's something I don't think XIV will ever go into but it'd be the perfect excuse for a gender dysphoria story, as a Viera believing their whole life they were one sex just for puberty to hit them with the other one. However, this sounds too... complicated that I don't think CBU3 will attempt to try.

There's a few really interesting angles you could take with a story about gender dysphoria around the game's various races, because they have often have societies structured based on really specific gender roles. Off the top of my head I could see some solid exploration of societal roles and treatment of gender coming from the hrothgar or miqo'te, while the extreme sexual dimprohism of the au ra makes them a great way to explore bodily dysphoria. And on the flipside, the lalafel's near-total lack of sexual dimorphism could provide some interesting grounding for, say, a genderfluid or non-binary character; 'if there is no meaningful difference, what reason would anybody have to care?'

[Kuroka]

Neat fact is the whole unable to tell the gender of Viera thing is exactly how actual rabbits work. Just it takes years instead of weeks for that distinction to happen.

Which is kinda fine considering they get like 20x as old lol

Its always nice when they consider such things.