Love for the female characters

[Transient_Shadow]

I may be getting OP's point wrong but are we relly concerned at the 'lack' of waifu culture? The fact that not really any of the female npcs are treated like dolls by the community has always been a plus for me. The main reason people dislike Lyse and Minfilia so much is more about them as characters and people as apposed to 'shit tier waifus'

I feel you don't see a lot of gushing over the female characters is because they're seen as someone to respect instead of desired. Honestly if anything not enough emphasis is placed on male characters. Especially player characters. I can't tell you how many times I see a cute outfit gender locked or designed well for female characters and poorly for male characters

[Lacan]

I suspect this is because most of the weird guys who obsess over female npcs are off playing the more perverted mmos, leaving the XIV community with a more active female+LGBT presence. :v That's why you hear more about the husbandos than the waifus. It's better this way, trust me.

[Burningskull]

To be honest... Other than a few character archs that I like, Yotsuyu for example, most NPCs are just there to progress the story and get you from point A to point B while our character does all the work. Doesn't matter weather they are female or male, most of the npcs are kinda useless when it comes to doing anything in the game other than story progression.

[Lersayil]

It's not like we dont have a healthy waifu economy going on. Seeing posts on reddit like waifu and best girl rankings isn't THAT rare.

But yeah, the game generally panders less to the waifu culture by keeping sexualization on the low key, and relationships strictly in the friendzone (aside from some ambiguous lines here and there that can be taken as flirts if you reeally look at it that way).

That and most of our female leads are somewhat underdeveloped in the characterization department. I mean, did I miss something or we barely know our poster child Y'shtola? I think I could count the number of quests she was involved in as a main character per expansion on one, maybe two hands.

[JackHatchet]

Y'shtola looks like a grandma to me. White hair? Only old people have white hair.

Sign me up for Minfilla!

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If anything. I think there's more female characters that players gush over--which is why it's so diverse. When it comes to men. It's basically Aymeric, Harchefrnt, Hien. The fandom isn't so splintered.

[Mixt]

Meh, forget about the cat girls.

Dragon girls are where it's at.

Hey Sadu, what lewd noises you are making while i'm beating your face in, really, someone who overheard might think you were engaging in bedroom activities rather than getting your teeth kicked in by a shield swipe.
Bullying that pompous oaf Magnai is hilarious by the way.

Yugiri? Ninja chick is a plus, but otherwise kind of bland, needs something a bit extra.

Kurenai is a good one as well, even if she's not really a fighter she's got a number of other things going for her.
Like actually having the sense to tell tradition where to stick it, unlike most of her fellow underwater denizens.

And then there's Vidofnir. I really do like that dragon, even if there are some...logistical difficulties.
I'd also ship her with either Estinien or Aymeric if given the chance.

[Keddera_StormMoon]

Believe it or not, the reason I like Y'shtola has nothing to do with the fact she's a cat girl and has everything to do with the fact that she knows how to put the little boys around her in their place. Her savage "Little Sun" take-down ranks up there as one of my favorite Stormblood moments.

It's also why I adore Krille so much - and I look forward to every appearance of Matoya. They all remind me of my dearest granny who had the same sass and wit. (I miss that ol' girl so much. She made the best cookies)

[Edax]

The one female NPCs I see a lot of hate for reasons that deeply elude me is Lyse. I often hear people talk about how useless she was in SB or how disappointing her arc was or the most baffling is how she took all the credit for liberating Ala Mhigo. And I'm just like, did we play the same game? She's right next to me punching dudes in the face. I do know that the transition from Yda to Lyse put some people off but I thought she was fine in the story. Could it have been better? Of course but I still liked her and thought she was fine. She and several others are aware that she was given the role of leader of the resistance out of nepotism but she wants to be a leader by her own merits and we see that in 4.0-1. Nanamo goes though a somewhat similar arc were she wants to stand on her own feet and lead Ul'dah to a brighter future without relying on Raubhan who she wants what's best for him.

Cause she's barely got a story. To sum it up, she's a fake scion that was too airheaded to even function as an honorary member. She's got a secret backstory that isn't very interesting, it's just nepotism. She can fight like a grunt soldier, so I'll give her that, but the fact that she becomes the rebel leader through nepotism instead of from merit, skill or person ambition makes her a sort of Mary Sue. If the story actually exposes her weaknesses, she'll stop being a Mary Sue, but so far it has failed to give her any personal challenges in her new role. The typical Mary Sue is often given power despite said Mary Sue not having any tangible personal goals and had previously just been drifting through life. "Punching dudes in the face" does not make for a leader, imagine if the local drunk at the bar became your boss. When Lyse was a scion, she at least had the laid back brawler personality to contrast amongst a bunch of eggheads, but by becoming the fighting leader of a bunch of fighters has caused her to disappear into the background. Especially since she's now competing with Raubahn whom has actual skills and leadership qualities and M'naago whom is actually hands-on in rebuilding Ala Mhigo and dealing with the fallout of the rebellion. Lyse just stands there by the map doing nothing and I can't imagine she has any of the skills of leadership qualities to do anything with her position.

I suppose Lyse wants to be a leader of her own merits, but she isn't, in fact she didn't even try to be, she accepted her position out of nepotism instead of refusing and choosing to earn it instead. Because of that, she hasn't worked for it and worse, her one talent of punching things has been hamstrung by the fact that now she's a bureaucrat. She used to have a fun dynamic with Papalymo but that's gone too. The writer really bungled her character, it's almost DBZ levels of mishandling the potential of a female character. Heck, Yugiri is more interesting because like M'naago, she's still hands-on with her organization, even if the story has half forgotten her. I even daresay that YDA would be more interesting in 4.5 if she were still a fake Scion. Being the most militant Scion and being the last one standing in this crisis, she can assume a leadership role and partner with the WoL to deal with this crisis. This would be the chance for her character to develop into a leader. Instead she's stuck "leading" Ala Mhigo, which is baring her from participating in the Scion crisis and sucking away her screen time.

Girls like to talk about guys. And make fan art. and ship them with other guys. or themselves. or inanimate objects. or anything and everything.

Guys are like "hey, minfilia is cute, and lyse is cute, and hilda is really cute" and thats the extent most care. Unless they're really annoying to the point they stop being cute. Then they're annoying,


discord in the last year I've heard "Hey, lyse is cute without the mask" and "Minfilia is cute".

and hours upon hours of how "omg hein is so hawt omgomgomgomgomgomgomg" "is he hotter then haurchefaunt though" "are either hotter than aymeric" "omgomg theyre all hot omgomgomg"

FGO would never have gotten to where it is now or have such a disproportionate number of gender-bent female character if guys really were so disinterested.

[Gemina]

I liked Yotsuyu much more than Fordola. Felt so sorry for Yotsuyu.

I like to dabble in writing fiction, and I think something anyone who does or tries to write will all agree to is that writing interesting villains is FAR easier to do than hero's and heroine's. I think a big reason for this is because with villains, we always see the outside first before we find out how they became to be. With protagonists, it's the opposite. They are often birthed from tragedy and as a result, they have a full head of steam going forward to correct all that is wrong in the world with a myriad of motivations provided by the antagonist to choose from. Villains are just more flexible to giving them multiple sides to their personality and typically have one motivation that drives them that contrasts what is truly in their hearts. This creates internal conflict that all of us relate to.

Yotsuyu is no different. We are introduced to this absolutely vile woman. Ruthless, cruel, foul, rotten, and malicious. A true monster. Then here comes Tsuyu; a complete and total mirror reflection swap and as innocent as a toddler. Through Tsuyu, we see what Yotsuyu would have been under proper care and nurturing. Nothing brought me to tears more for her arc than when she lets us know that accepting Gosetsu's kindness is akin to torture.

Fordola didn't leave me in tears, but I still felt bad for her. Problem with her though is that I am now waiting for her to become Batman. Through her though we definitely get to see where the Garlean's perception of Eorzean's being savages comes from because well, we kind of are; or at least we are very capable of exhibiting the behavior of savages. What else would you call it when the WoL goes ham on the Heavensward guard and bathing him/herself in blood?

Still though, it's tough to find any Eorzean as rotten as some of the members of the empire. Yotsuyu's half brother was the very definition of a weasel with no morale compass whatsoever. Even Ilberd and Zenos still have respect for the WoL, but the way that punk talks to us prior to the prisoner exchange seriously ruffled my feathers. If we were truly savage, he would've died right there and then.

[Edax]

I like to dabble in writing fiction, and I think something anyone who does or tries to write will all agree to is that writing interesting villains is FAR easier to do than hero's and heroine's. I think a big reason for this is because with villains, we always see the outside first before we find out how they became to be. With protagonists, it's the opposite. They are often birthed from tragedy and as a result, they have a full head of steam going forward to correct all that is wrong in the world with a myriad of motivations provided by the antagonist to choose from. Villains are just more flexible to giving them multiple sides to their personality and typically have one motivation that drives them that contrasts what is truly in their hearts. This creates internal conflict that all of us relate to.

Yotsuyu is no different. We are introduced to this absolutely vile woman. Ruthless, cruel, foul, rotten, and malicious. A true monster. Then here comes Tsuyu; a complete and total mirror reflection swap and as innocent as a toddler. Through Tsuyu, we see what Yotsuyu would have been under proper care and nurturing. Nothing brought me to tears more for her arc than when she lets us know that accepting Gosetsu's kindness is akin to torture.

Fordola didn't leave me in tears, but I still felt bad for her. Problem with her though is that I am now waiting for her to become Batman. Through her though we definitely get to see where the Garlean's perception of Eorzean's being savages comes from because well, we kind of are; or at least we are very capable of exhibiting the behavior of savages. What else would you call it when the WoL goes ham on the Heavensward guard and bathing him/herself in blood?

Still though, it's tough to find any Eorzean as rotten as some of the members of the empire. Yotsuyu's half brother was the very definition of a weasel with no morale compass whatsoever. Even Ilberd and Zenos still have respect for the WoL, but the way that punk talks to us prior to the prisoner exchange seriously ruffled my feathers. If we were truly savage, he would've died right there and then.

Unfortunately I didn't find Yotsuyu interesting. You could show Hitler as a toddler, but so what? You can't rehabilitate genocide. Sure, Hitler could have gotten into art college and became a different person, but so what? You can't rehabilitate genocide. Tsuyu still had an ocean of blood on her hands, even if she was ignorant of it. I had no sympathy. What of the dead? They didn't get second chance, some didn't even get a first chance because of Yotsuyu. The community of Doma shares responsibility for creating Yotsuyu for not intervening with her parents, but the story doesn't show it. She was evil, then she had amnesia, then she was evil and then that was the end of her tale. The people of Doma just passively watched this tale. The moral of the story is to have a nice family? That's pretty weak. Children can't choose family.