Conception Lore

[Theodric]

Eorzea - and Hydaelyn as a whole - aren't particularly pleasant places to live in either. Especially when you consider the simple face that outside of settlements it's fairly easy for people to perish to all manner of horrible things ranging from the undead to bandits and everything else that qualifies as a threat. So interracial relationships are frowned upon very likely not because of something as simple as 'bigotry' and 'racism' but because there's a genuine risk of entire tribes, traditions and races dying out if sufficient levels of breeding aren't maintained.

[Enkidoh]

That would only ring true though if within each race gender roles and sexuality were enforced along similar lines, which they are clearly not - as I mentioned before women are not bound to be 'barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen' raising the children, they can go off to war or go into politics, and even take another woman as their wife (as my character has done). This clearly shows that the birth rate does not seem to be negatively reflected by non traditional gender roles and sexuality within each race, making the 'no interracial relationships because it impact on the birth rate' arguement meaningless.

No, that is clearly a social construct - given that the Spoken races were all stated as being originally "tribes" in Eorzea's creation story, it's clear that in Eorzea's early history each race developed their own civilizations based along racial lines and thus the malign tumor of racism developed with it, and thus the social faux pas of mixed racial relationships, which has only continued to fester into the present day.

Also of note is the two men in the Wanderer's Palace Hard Mode quest. They were driven away from their home, not because they're gay, but because they're different races. Fits quite nicely with the tone of Hilda being a crossbreed and therefore shunned.

Eternal Bonding isn't something to point at as the simple defining thing either. It's well known that Adventurers are quirky to say the least. The general populace probably just wave off our interracial marriages as another oddity of the lifestyle.

Actually, it is, there was at least one example of a same sex marriage between npcs shown in the game (or at least referred to) - during the first 'Rising' event in 2014, the Rising vendor npc, who was a blonde-haired Midlander woman dressed in Minfilia's old version 1.0 outfit, if the player selected 'Small Talk', she states that "her wife made the outfit for her" (paraphrased). This was just before the Ceremony of Eternal Bonding was added to the game if I remember rightly, so it basically showed then and there that same sex marriage is not just something for players.

As it is, the npcs during the Ceremony make no distinction if those being bonded are different or same sex or different races. Everyone is treated the same under the eyes of the Twelve.

[Theodric]

To be fair very few modern games dare to touch upon any themes that suggest that open sexuality can be anything but something to praise and be tolerant of. Many of the same reasons cited for why interracial relationships throughout Hydaelyn are frowned upon are easily applicable to other aspects of open sexuality too. Unfortunately most settings end up having their hands tied when it comes to such themes because there's the risk of a major outcry and boycotts from those who seek to treat such decisions as an attack against their lifestyle in the real world rather than a design choice for a make believe setting with gritty themes.

Ultimately it's just something to be hand-waved. It's worth noting that, originally, the Ceremony of Eternal Bonding was cited as being limited to same gender pairings until there was an (understandable) outcry against such a limitation.

We know, for instance, that the Hotgo tribe has been largely wiped out by the Dotharl. Other Xaela tribes have been scattered and displaced, thus it is logical to assume that if they wish to continue existing and maintain their culture a priority and inclination towards open minded sexuality is likely to be a more of a hindrance than a help. Though that is, admittedly overthinking something that is likely to never be addressed or touched upon in anything but a negative light.

[Lauront]

PCs are rather irrelevant exceptional speshul snowflakes, who have no bearing on how the broader populations in the game function. Most of the women in roles of power are not there as a result of careers in politics, but due to their birth (the Sultana) or supernatural attributes (Kan-E-Senna.) So it "clearly" shows nothing of the sort. As Graeham said, the choice to reflect equal proportions in e.g. military groups, which is completely counter-factual given basic biology whether SJWs like it or not, is most likely the result of people who are permanently "offended" by any game taking a more realistic approach in that respect. I mean your character can have an appendage not usually found on her gender, but it would still make no difference as to whether such a thing existed in the setting...


This "social construct" POV is meaningless if said tribes were subjected to millennia of evolutionary pressures, and therefore effectively are separate races, as they indeed are. This would also mean interracial mixing could produce hybrids inferior to both parent on physiological and psychological grounds, which on top of that are then rejected by both parents' groups. Given the level of devastation endured by Eorzea, it can readily be assumed most of its groups are at low population levels.

[WhiteArchmage]

Most of the women in roles of power are not there as a result of careers in politics, but due to their birth (the Sultana) or supernatural attributes (Kan-E-Senna.)

However, on the Sultana's case, she could have been forced to marry someone to act as the actual ruler of Ul-dah and being sidelined like many other such princesses or queens of our history. And it can be said that Kan-E-Senna was specifically chosen TO lead, seeing as the Elementals choose the padjals and padjals are normally in Gridania's government. Saying that they're "not there as a result of a career in politics" would completely invalidate their hypotethical male counterparts (the Sultan by the same accident of birth as the Sultana and the Elder Seedseer by the same reasons Kan-E is one) anyway. Merlwyb rose to power due to might.

[Cilia]

Well, since nobody else wants to directly address the question and I've already done so to a lesser degree with the Au Ra...

If all you're looking for is validation on whether or not interracial couples are a thing: they are, but are seen as taboo. While men and women may hit on members of the opposite sex regardless of race, actual marriage and coupling between the two is rather rare. There are few documented instances of it in-game. Aside from Hilda, there are no known biracial characters (despite the problems Ishgardian nobility has with illegitimate children) and her mother and sire are both unknown. The quest givers for Wanderer's Palace HM are a homosexual Hyur / Miqo'te couple (ostracized not because of their sexuality, but again because interracial relationships are seen as taboo), and a Hyur (whose name escapes me) persistently hits on Momodi during one of the Postmoogle quests. If I recall correctly there's also a Roegadyn with two Lalafell children in the Gold Saucer who says his wife "gave him" them, though whether or not he sired those children is unknown (adoption is a thing).

Aside from a single half-elf (Hyur x Elezen), though, no half-breeds have been observed in-universe.

Of course, PCs can engage in interracial relationships all they like. It doesn't affect the in-game world, won't alter the story, and we can't have children so [Y] x [Z] interracial characters don't need to be modelled; besides, who would ostracize [a] legendary godslayer(s) because of their personal relationships? Not like the world doesn't literally hinge on us winning every time...

Things are about to get pretty damn raunchy, so hide-boxed for discretion.

If what you want to know is whether or not sexual intercourse is possible between every race, well... that's a big maybe.

Do not assume that their greater stature means the males of larger races have bigger penises than the males of the smaller races. While this is an easy assumption to make, it has no real merit; yes, in real life the larger the species the larger the penis tends to be, but this is only a tendency, not a hard and fast rule. I'm not going to look up specific examples but needless to say it varies. Just look at humans.

The same holds true of the vaginas of the females.

Now, back to the question: "Can [X Male] have sex with [Y Female]?" Like above, maybe. It depends on the size of the genitalia of the couple. Even accounting for variance, if it don't fit... it don't fit. The only alternative is to assume that Lalafell females have proportionally sized vaginas and no male has a penis too big for it, which... might make sex for non-Lalafell women a bit less than satisfying, if you know what I'm talking about. The inverse is also an alternative; all females have vaginas capable of accommodating the penis of every male, regardless of size. This would get really weird following the "greater stature = bigger penis size" algorithm (a female Lalafell's vagina could go all the way up to her throat, f'ex, which would raise way more questions than it answers) and also make sex unsatisfying for non-Roegadyn males.

As to why you'd ponder this aside from wanting to write ero fanfiction I have no idea, but there you go. I'm not a biologist though, so take that for what it's worth.

Anything else?

[FJerome]

PCs are rather irrelevant exceptional speshul snowflakes, who have no bearing on how the broader populations in the game function. Most of the women in roles of power are not there as a result of careers in politics, but due to their birth (the Sultana) or supernatural attributes (Kan-E-Senna.)

Not really. If gender was genuinely an issue in the game world then women would just be excluded from succession/selection, as with a lot of existing real-world monarchies and theocracies.

[Aura_Shurifon]

For Kan-E Senna, there's at least 2 males padjal that could have been "chosen" instead of her, E-Sumi Yan and O-App-Pesi. But they still took Kan-E as chief.

So no, she's not the chief because she was a padjal, she was the "best" among them, independantly of her gender.

[Hinoto-no-Ryuji]

And then, of course, there's Merlwyb, who leads Limsa entirely because of her own strength and capabilities. And Xaela tribes like the Borlaaq and the Dazkar. FFXIV is clearly a game that doesn't place any qualifiers on women in leadership roles, no matter what one may think about "basic biology".

Sexuality, of course, is an entirely different matter, and there are a bunch of good points raised throughout this thread. I'd hesitate to say those gosh-darned Ess-Jay-Dubyas are making the developers "afraid" of being conservative in such matters, though - surely it's just as plausible that they're legitimately open-minded, or figured that attitudes towards such things have been historically pretty fluid and decided to give their world an open-minded flavor in that regard? And while it's certainly true that populations under duress/decline tend to favor more conservative sexual and familial norms, for all that has been said about Eorzea/Hydaelyn being a nasty place to live, it's now been pretty stable for the better part of two millenia, and it's not like populations are scattered or endangered. Given the cosmopolitan nature of Eorzea's cultural makeup, I think it's plenty believable that a variety of different lifestyles would be accepted.

[LineageRazor]

As shown by Hilda the Mongrel, mixed racial heritage is possible amongst the six races, it's just not very common (Hilda's case was her mother was a Midlander hyur who was employed as a servant for one of Ishgard's noble families, and her father was an Wildwood elezen nobleman - needless to say her mother was thrown out into the street as soon as his little 'indiscretion' had come to light. No doubt the same happened to a lot of those of mixed heritage sadly.

The same cutscenes that introduce us to Hilda also imply that these 'indiscretions' are regrettably common. Heck, even Count Fortemps has a bastard son, and he's presented in the game as an exceedingly noble man. It seems to be just an accepted part of being an Ishgardian nobleman, the assumption that they're gonna dally with the attractive serving wenches from time to time.

Given that all nobles seem to be Elezen, and that the Hyur population of Ishgard are pretty much all commoners, it's odd that half breeds aren't more common. You'd think that the whole taboo of interracial couplings would make Hyur women all the more exotic and tempting for horny young Ishgardian noblemen. (The reverse gender situation would likely also be true - but I'd imagine that commoner women have a lot less power to say 'no' to avoid getting knocked up than the noblewomen would, so scandalous pregnancies would be less common among noblewomen than commoner women.) So, it's kind of puzzling that there aren't more racial combos around.

One explanation might be that these couplings are a lot more common than people like to admit, but the fertility rate is low when dealing with mixed races. Or, possibly, it's far more common for a mixed-race child to favor one parent's race over the other so strongly that they can easily pass as a pureblood, with obvious half-breeds like Hilda being a rare exception.

The introduction of Hilda was a bit aggravating, to be honest, and opens up a whole big ol' can of worms that could have been avoided, much like the case with Lilisette in FFXI, another one-of-a-kind half-breed (Hume/Elvaan - yes, another "half elf"). They've opened the door to the existence of half-breeds, and I hope that they don't go the way FFXI did and never touch on the topic again... What's worse, before Lilisette was introduced, FFXI actually had snippets of dialogue that implied that mixed-race breeding DID happen, but that the child was always the same race as the mother, which would have been a tidy solution to the issue. Lilisette threw that notion to the curb - and never provided an explanation why.