About the Sundrop Dance naming scheme

[MilesSaintboroguh]

Any theories or explanations on how the dance got its name?

[Cilia]

The only stupid question is the one that goes unasked, as they say...

I got only two ideas.

• The name comes from the force of the dance, and a properly done Sundrop dance is like dropping the sun on someone. That is, it has great weight and power, which makes sense considering it's intended to be a war / deterrent dance.
• The name comes from a long metaphor. The sun, light, is hope, and by using the Sundrop dance you are destroying their hope. That is, the sun drops below the horizon, leaving only darkness and despair.

Might I add that, while it's highly entertaining to see the Vanu do it, the Sundrop dance is... significantly less powerful when my PC does it? Perhaps because I'm playing a waifish Auri woman, but...

[Fenral]

Might I add that, while it's highly entertaining to see the Vanu do it, the Sundrop dance is... significantly less powerful when my PC does it? Perhaps because I'm playing a waifish Auri woman, but...

Apparently, the entire thing is modeled off Haka, a form of traditional dance from New Zealand, which has radically different moves depending on whether a male or female is performing.

I knew about none of this until just the other day, so full points to the dev team for expanding our cultural horizons.

[Cilia]

Apparently, the entire thing is modeled off Haka, a form of traditional dance from New Zealand, which has radically different moves depending on whether a male or female is performing.

I knew about none of this until just the other day, so full points to the dev team for expanding our cultural horizons.

I figured there was some of that in there, considering the Vanu do seem to take cultural cues from Maori / Mariana traditional cultures. I immediately picked up on the differences between the male and female dances when I first saw Linu Vali use the Sundrop dance; while it's not as extreme as the differences in Haka, there are differences. Specifically, the third and fourth moves of the male dance are repeats of the first and second, while for females they cross their left / right arm across their chest as the third and fourth move.

Ehh. Minutiae.

EDIT
Yeah, after watching the male and female Sundrop dances side-by-side, I can say for sure the female version is significantly less, ah, energetic. Disappointing. Understandable, but even so. (If I didn't have swimsuits and underwear dyed with rare gold dye, I'd consider getting a Fantasia, but... ehhh.)

[Kaiser-Ace]

Apparently, the entire thing is modeled off Haka, a form of traditional dance from New Zealand, which has radically different moves depending on whether a male or female is performing.

I knew about none of this until just the other day, so full points to the dev team for expanding our cultural horizons.

Lol, I'd been calling it "The Vanu Haka" even before the official name was released. It just hit me the moment I saw the dance. (Tbh, I still call it "The Vanu Haka" occasionally)

[MilesSaintboroguh]

It's also cool how some Vanu Vanu quests have you using the dance for various things.

Everytime I hear Sundrop, I think of cough drops for some reason...

[CyrilLucifer]

Not going to lie, when I hear Sundrop, I think of lemondrop candies.

[Wadoka]

Sundrop is a lemony-sweet soda-type beverage in my neck of the woods

[Fenral]

Gonna throw out that I think the theme in play is "lost in translation." In native Vanu the name conveys the force and terror of the dance, but translated into Eorzean Basic (or whatever they call it) by our Echo it just sounds really cute and mild.

[Khalithar]

Here's my crazy theory. The sea of clouds is a place where a single misstep could send you plummeting off the edge in to the clouds themselves. This could be especially dangerous at night, where visibility is much reduced and there all sorts of other creatures lurking about that could threaten the native Vanu. So the dance with it's precise motions and appearance of psyching oneself up, was done as the sun dropped below the horizon to signal the approach of nightfall. Thus the dance became a way for the Vanu to practice precise movement and psych themselves up before going out at night. Over the years however it became a dance that symbolized that courage and strength of the Vanu and began to suffuse other aspects of their lives until it became a central part of their culture.