Thread: "You're not HUMAN are you?" A question about lore accurate dialogue.

It's a simple statement really, something you might see yourself say after witnessing a seemingly normal person perform some kind of god like or incredible feat. In the world of RP here on FFXIV you're sure to encounter some characters that may play themselves as machines deities experiments, creatures etc, you get the point.

That said I found myself in this situation in a recent RP session and thought to myself "Wait....how would an Eorzean actually word that statement?"

Closest we have to Human by definition would of course be Hyur, but ultimately when extending this to interactions where there are ultimately 6 races that ultimately live according to Human standards in real life what term would one actually use? Within lore, the 6 races are often refereed to as "Enlightened." but this too seems a bit too broad and doesn't really fit the context of the statement very well either.

Has this been answered anywhere within the lore of the game or lore book? Do any of you have the answer or an idea of your own? Honestly I'd love to know.

(NOTE: Let's keep this clean. The subject isn't really about whether or not outlandish characters are weird or not. Honestly you could apply this to what you'd call the Ascians in the game's own story.)

The nearest Eorzean word I can think of is the term "Spoken". That is, all races that are capable of speech. Which itself is a very broad term as it includes not only the "Enlightened" races, but all the Beast Tribes and some non-Beast Tribe races (Sirens, Cyclopses, Tonberries...) as well. However, in the East, there isn't any such thing as "Beast Tribes" as the Eorzeans (and Garleans) know them either.

I don't really know. I don't think there's any good answer...

EDIT: Ninjaed by Anonymoose's "currently being edited" post...

I tend to think of the player races of FFXIV as being akin to different breeds of dog. Put a great dane, a corgi, and a chihuahua side-by-side and you'd be tempted to think they're all different species - but no, they're all dogs, and they can even interbreed (though technological assistance may be required for some pairings). In the case of this game, Roegadyn, Hyur, Lalafell, Au Ra, Elezen, Hyur, and likely any new playable races SE considers adding in the future are all human. Different "breeds" of human, but human nonetheless.

Supporting this view is the fact that the player races apparently DO interbreed from time to time, albeit infrequently, as is the case with Hilda and the unnamed Hyur/Au Ra crossbreed mentioned in the legends of Sui-no-Sato.

Originally Posted by LineageRazor

In the case of this game, Roegadyn, Hyur, Lalafell, Au Ra, Elezen, Hyur, and likely any new playable races SE considers adding in the future are all human. Different "breeds" of human, but human nonetheless.

I agree with this (and was of the understanding that it's canon), however the question here is - given that they are all the same species, one that we would call human, is that species referred to as "human" in Eorzea? ...and given the quote I posted above from Corvinoobus, it seems they are not, at least in the English version of the script.


On my earlier thought that "mortal" might work for the sake of the sentence, I remembered that in the Praetorium, Lahabrea says that the blessing of Light empowers us "beyond mortal limits", so that's sort of an example of someone using that description. Although he could have chose to say it that way even if "human" is a valid term.