Character Creation Has A Race Problem

[Iscah]

The thing is, I never really saw Eorzea as a whole as being inspired by Europe. When I see Limsa, I see a tropical environment that reminds me an awful lot of the Carribean. When I look at Ul'Dah, I see Northern Africa, especially with all the ancient ruins and what not.

Working from different starting points, I guess. I first began the game in Gridania, and between that "European fantasy setting" and seeing the Asian-themed "Far East" (complete with Japan) on the world map, it seemed apparent that it was borrowing from real-world geography - so perhaps that's shaded my interpretation of things.

La Noscea only has the one 'tropical rainforest' map though, by my impression - the rest is farmland, temperate forest and the volcanic region (which perhaps keeps the eastern area warm enough for tropical vegetation? I don't know if it works that way).

Ul'dah was a slippery one for first impressions because it's a "sultanate" (expect an Arabian Nights vibe?) but it never quite went there and the sultana looks more like a fairytale princess, while Raubahn's clothing could be ancient Roman? Along with the coliseum and gladiators. I think the architecture might count as Byzantine (late Roman Empire, in modern Turkey).

Alternately I thought maybe Spain by its placement (particularly if you turn a map of Europe northeast-upwards and get something that's kind-of-sort-of Eorzean-shaped, with Britain as La Noscea and Scandinavia as Dravania), and also having watched a documentary a while ago on the Alhambra - although having gone to get that link, it doesn't look as similar as I was thinking it did, at least from those photos.

I wish I had better familiarity with all this to recognise things in-game better. Perhaps the artbook has better answers about their inspirations, if anyone has that.



Having gone looking through my atlas as I work through this, I've realised the map for Othard is pretty exactly Asia if you "deleted Russia" - the mountain ranges are the same (the chain starting west of Doma is the Himalayas) and the northern Othard coastline follows what would be the southern border of Russia. The inland sea on the west of the Othard map seems to correspond to a combined version of the Caspian and Aral Seas, which would make the lower mountain chain the Zagros Mountains in Iran (but further extended across India) and the Arabian Peninsula should be on the other side of that - so either under the clouds or split off as Thavnair. Alternately Thavnair is northeast Africa or some mashup of the two. (I notice there's a mountain named "Ras Dashan" in the Ethiopean highlands! Radz-at-Han??? and if you follow the northern border of Saudi Arabia and then down the Nile River, you get something rather like the Thavnarian coastline.)

I'll be interested to see the shape of the rest of the continent once all those clouds get lifted. I think it might be a bit more 'creative' with the south Asian coastline at least, but I'm going to take a guess and predict that Ilsabard is shaped something like a detached outline of Russia.

(well that was quite a detour.)

I actually think it's alot simpler than you might think. If you look at these two characters, Sawney and [Roland]:
[pics]
I think we can agree that these characters are meant to be black right? Despite their features.. and that's what I want to go to.

I believe it could easily be done, however the characters could be considered old models. Remember how Yugiri was first introduced with a Miqo'te model? Or how we never saw Miqo'te children until a certain point(still have yet to see Miqo'te boys)? Or Au Ra children? Until certain time in the game's life they either didn't exist or looked different until they were fully animated. We have many Hyurs out there with unique faces that aren't playable in Ishgard, Gyr Abania, and Othard.

I think this could be a perfect example. Say Sawney is a beta or alpha version. It wouldn't surprise me at all if they eventually made a character that is black but looks different. A more complete or up-to-date character. Their origin? Who knows honestly... But that's for SE to answer!

This goes for Male Miqo'te children, Roegadyn children, various mixed races, Lalafell children(under 12) and more. I swear those people must hide in the best spots for them to go undiscovered for so long.

I hadn't considered those two particular characters. Perhaps Roland didn't come to mind because the Gold Saucer always feels like a step away from the overall 'reality' from the game. Plus he's a bit of a non-character - does he ever do anything except stand around and watch GATEs? Is he a reference to some other FF thing? (Also where is Sawney actually from, quest-wise? I don't think I've ever had to interact with him.)

Still, that brings me back to my own question, or a reversal of it (which will now bug me) - if there's no clear Africa-equivalent, where are these guys from? Unless we do visit a location where these character designs are widespread, we can't be sure if their appearance is "typical of a yet-unseen race" or if they're just unusual character designs.

On other hand, if they are meant to be 'African' then we may have to conclude that the Hydaelynian race simply does not have the distinct features of their Earth counterpart (because they exist and are shown to have standard Midlander features).

It's also complicated by the fact that the character designers *may* like to use unsual skintones purely for effect. Specifically, the Ishgardian Elezen are mostly a pale-skinned race, including all the city NPCs as far as I could find, and yet several prominent characters are dark-skinned: Charibert, Grinnaux and most family members of House Durendaire, including their ancestor in the 1000-years-ago Echo vision of Haldrath and his knights (where again he is the only dark-skinned character in the scene). I don't think it makes sense by real-world genetics, but I'm no expert - can such a different skin colour occur in a small number of a population like that? Or are they being creative-but-unrealistic?


One possible additonal location for yet-unseen races that occurred to me: Cape Deadwind, the southern tip of the Eorzean mainland - the world map shows it in green rather than desert brown, and a trader in Forgotten Springs does talk about trade routes across the desert, suggesting there's some degree of settlement there. So that (and the Sagolii Desert) could be roughly Africa. But again, it's just a possibility that could be overturned by later canon.

(Alternately, if you suppose the Sagolii is supposed to equate to the Sahara desert, that would make the residents U Tribe Miqo'te and Amalj'aa...)


On the idea of "old models":

I wouldn't consider "Miqo'te Yugiri" to be a real thing (any more than the Garleans are 'really' mostly Elezen*) - from a programming side, they used a Miqo'te model but modified and covered up so you could never see that. From an "in-universe" view of course she was Au Ra from the start, and the face under her mask was never a Miqo'te face. Likewise, even though we don't see children of the different races we can logically assume they exist in the 'real' world of Hydaelyn, even if they don't in the game's programming.

* I seriously hope they build some proper unique Garlean NPC models by the time we actually go there. Unless they're wearing their specific armour that disguises the Elezen body proportions, they can look really 'off' and their heads don't fit their bodies properly. (See: Nero and Jenomis)

Also, even if they did add new character designs suited for black characters in general, I doubt they'd go back and change those specific characters with visible faces. Similar to Minifilia being a 'Midlander' because female Highlanders weren't programmed into the game at the time the character was created, and yet her design wasn't changed when they became available later.

Afrikan

Just wanting to know, what is that spelling supposed to imply? I assume it's some kind of technicality but I don't know what you're meaning by it.

Perhaps we can find a third clan elsewhere in the world for some of the races that have different facial options. I mean look at Gosetsu, he's a Roe, but he's from Othard and has a significantly different appearance from all the Roe's we've seen.

I think it's quite strange that they introduced Gosetsu as something unique and then just used Hellsguard models for the rest of the Doman/Hingan Roegadyn. They should have either introduced the whole clan, or just made him Hellsguard as well (instead of confusing people by making him unique but confusingly close to a Hyuran appearance).