Migration of Majority-Hyur Population based on Cultural Schemes

[Aethornes]

Furthermore to add on, the Eorzea Encyclopedia does clearly state as well that Hyur quite literally did come from the northeast of Ilsabard, originally.

[MikkoAkure]

Furthermore to add on, the Eorzea Encyclopedia does clearly state as well that Hyur quite literally did come from the northeast of Ilsabard, originally.

That same exact passage also says that they came from there before the First Astral Era, Eitherys' stone age, which could have been as long as 12,000 years ago. Nothing of Europe today would have any resemblance of modern Europe culturally or linguistically and would have looked completely different to the people who are "native" to those lands now. During the same time scale, people of Britain had very dark skin, black hair, and blue eyes.

While there were still heavy migrations of Hyur from Ilsabard, we already know there were Hyur still in Eorzea before that. While it could be argued Ala Mhigo's Germanic names being different from the British ones of the Midlanders is evidence of original Eorzean Hyur vs Ilsabardian migrants, the Mhachi they're descended from had Celtic names and while I can't think of any names from Amdapor, the name of the city-state itself strikes me as vaguely Indian.

Meanwhile the oldest Sharlayan families are descended from Eorzean Hyur refugees from all over during the War of the Magi and have English names just like the Gridanians. And on the flip side I got super excited to see people from fantasy Vietnam (Nagxia) after we got teased with ao dai and it turns out they're blond Europeans...


While I love delving into lore and theorizing based on what we have, the reality in FFXIV is often that new lore is just stapled on top rather than something organically developed. For example, every single last one of the Thavnairans we met throughout the whole game until Endwalker were Hyur (Nanaa's family migrated there from elsewhere when she was young), but Endwalker suddenly hit us with "well actually, Hyur only make up 50% of the population and the rest are Au Ra or Matanga and we have no explanation to you why you haven't seen any or heard about that before this".

[Aethornes]

Okay, but that is comparing evolution or the way culture develops 1:1 with the modern world. It has clearly not developed within that exact fashion. Point being made is: yes the lore and world is 'messy' and new lore is stapled on- but that is part of the fun to me. Perhaps we never saw the rest of the Thavnairan races for certain reasons that we do not know, but we can theorize. Granted, yes, we cannot know for sure. However, in regard to Nagxia- I feel colors on characters are often used a lot more loosely by the Japanese than the west, so- white blonde Nagxian. However, the cultural representation is there regardless, which is great to see.

I agree to disagree though, but I see where you come from. It is 'messy' for lack of a better word. It is not always interpreted the exact same by everyone, which is fine. It is a game, and we are free to theorize or apply our own standards or concepts.

However, last note I would like to point out is that the book and similar passages refer to Eorzea as a world (the Eorzea which they came to pre First Astral Era), rather than the singled out Aldenard. It can be argued they were referring to Eorzea as a continent though, but I personally do not see that.