Earth cultures in Eorzea. What next?

[Mahri]

Doma's a weird one. Although it does have that Sengoku-era feeling with both the Ninja and the Doman-garbed Garlean soldiers, the geography of what we've seen of the city-state is much closer to one of the river deltas in China. Even the name of the region (Yanxia) is Chinese.

What makes things more interesting is that looking at the more Doman-esque Garleans, it makes the story arc in Yanxia more like a reflection of the invasion of Manchuria....but that would be just crazy, right?

True; the aesthetic, name, and music is very...Chinese fairytale, for lack of a better description. It feels so incredibly appropriate to fly through on that promotional floating cloud mount from a little while back. I really do hope they plan on including other regions of Othard in future content, as there's tons of directions they could take with it.

As to the latter statement: I never thought of it that way, but if the parallel was intentional, given my understanding (albeit incomplete) of Japanese popular sentiment towards that rather ugly affair, it'd be a very bold call-out for FF's writers to make.

I'm sure there's been at least one Japanese forum thread to non-constructively discuss it. :V


So related to this still, something I'm wondering: What's the Ruby Sea like? The natives (pirates, mostly) might be sort of Okinawan, but I'm unfamiliar with their motifs. The settlements seem to feature a lot of colorful decorative sailcloth fabric that makes me think "ambiguously Polynesian" but it might be more specific than that.

Of course Sui-no-Sato and Shisui are as fairytale-Japan as it gets; seemingly a reference to the "dragon palace" folklore and such. I mean, they have a palace, and Au Ra are kinda dragon-like, right?

[Kazrah]

So related to this still, something I'm wondering: What's the Ruby Sea like? The natives (pirates, mostly) might be sort of Okinawan, but I'm unfamiliar with their motifs. The settlements seem to feature a lot of colorful decorative sailcloth fabric that makes me think "ambiguously Polynesian" but it might be more specific than that.

It's possible, although given the geography present in the Ruby Sea (and I think any pre-neutrality backstory as well), I'd wager the inspiration there is the Sea of Japan, which could also explain the style of storytelling we see in the Shisui story arc more consistent with traditional Japanese folklore. The Confederacy and the Ruby Tithe remind me a bit of the Wokou, but the source of influence there could just as easily be anywhere in the South China Sea.

Also Ala Mhigo has a strong Gaelic/Scottish influence as well as Indian architectural design (Ala Mhigan characters with spoken dialogue often have strong Gaelic accents, Highlander hyur originated there, musical cues for Gyr Abania having a Scottish influence, and the nation was originally an autocratic kingdom with European trappings).

I'm strongly expecting Meracydia to be Hydaelyn's version of Australia being a mysterious 'great south land' where everything trying to kill you is in play.

This was why I stated the link between Ala Mhigo and the Ottoman Empire, which had origin links to both Persia (Near Eastern) and Rome (Western/European). VA and music do tend to be a bit misleading when it comes to this stuff though, and it's usually due to artistic preference on part of writers and composers. What visual and musical themes found in Ala Mhigo to be deemed "Scottish" though I'd think would more likely be either Baltic or Eastern European (which both of those regions were under Ottoman influence to a degree and point in time).

As for Meracydia, given that we've seen influences of Judaism (Sephirot), Agnosticism (Sophia) and Zororastrianism (Zurvan); I think that place is just going to be a general mosh pit of cultural inspirations.