Quote Originally Posted by Enla View Post
Yeah I still scratch my head at that one. You can explain it by saying the red chocobo migrated from Dalmasca due to the war and that most of the Doman refugees were civilians/children who would have never seen one before, but it does feel like it wasn't handled all that well.

It does still crack me up however that chocobo apparently smell AWFUL to the Doman's though.
It's a bending of the lore to make it a joke towards FF Tactics/FFXII which had red chocobos as enemies (and dangerous ones at that). So like most of the Ivalice raids it's just fanservice and thus don't read too much into it.

Lore wise chocobos are native only to Eorzea (specifically, Coerthas, where Ishgard became masters of breeding and raising them), with it mentioned that archeological evidence of cave paintings in the area suggesting that the spoken races have been domesticating them since the beginning of civilization.

Due to the long distances between Eorzea and the Far East, it's clear that chocobos probably did not reach that area at all (the Doman refugees in Eorzea after all were astounded by them and call them "horse birds", having no equivelant word for them in their language). So Garleans would not ride them either by extension; prior to their technological leap they probably used the same beasts of burden the other Islabardians/Othardians used like horses.

Incidentally for those who aren't aware the design of Garlean magitek armour is taken directly from FFVI, which was a deliberate reference.