Miqo'te gender balance on the First

[pedromvilar]

So it's occurred to me that the First seems to have a pretty even number of male and female Mystel, to the point where they seem mostly culturally monogamous even. Why would that be? It's official canon that no one knows why male miqo'te are so much less common births on the Source than females, but whatever the reason is, it must be absent on the First.

Do we have any explanation for this? Has anyone else canonically remarked on it?

[Brightamethyst]

I thought the thing with miqo'te males was mostly cultural. I don't recall it being as issue of fewer males in general.

[pedromvilar]

According to the Encyclopædia Eorzea, "[f]or reasons yet unclear, female Miqo'te vastly outnumber males, a unique trait among Eorzea's races."

[ItMe]

Lol, then I guess your answer is "[f]or reasons yet unclear, female Miqo'te are as numerous as males, a common trait among Eorzea's races."

Seriously though... Your answer is that that quote is a meta joke. It's both a reference to the fact that players could only play female Miqo'te for quite awhile, and to the fact that there are many many more players rocking female Miqo'te than male ones.
It's in reference to player built demographics, not anything tied to game lore.

[pedromvilar]

I mean, that bit of lore was already true when 1.0 was released so it can't be a reference to itself. I'm pretty sure it's meant to actually be lore, especially with how miqo'te are based off FFXI's mithra who also do not have male PCs and also in-game lorewise have vastly more females than males. Also the two tribes of miqo'te we see do in fact have very few males.

Contrast with the roegadyn, who originally also did not have a gender available (females were not playable during 1.0) and players play the other gender even more overwhelmingly relatively often than is the case for miqo'te players - just look at statistics, female roegadyn players are a small fraction of all roegadyn players while male miqo'te are almost 40% of miqo'te players. And they are also based off one of FFXI's races. And yet no lore justification is given for the supposed rarity.

So clearly there must be some actual lore thing in the world that causes miqo'te males to be less common than females on the Source but not the First. And regardless of whether this lore reason has actually been thought out, I'm not interested in the doylist version of it, only in the canon implications.

(Not to mention that, if the First becomes easily accessible with patch 5.3, suddenly the gender imbalance that is the backbone of miqo'te cultures will no longer be true, female Seekers will be free to find males rather than staying with their nunh, etc etc etc)

[GrumbleBeard]

Maybe since their cultures differ, less males die while vying for power of a tribe so you see more of them around.

[pedromvilar]

It seems very odd for the Encyclopaedia to say it's for "reasons yet unclear" if it's just that they die a lot due to culture.

[FrightfulNight]

Maybe since their cultures differ, less males die while vying for power of a tribe so you see more of them around.

I do agree this might have something to do with it as Miqo'te on the source have a more hunter gatherer lifestyle where only the strongest males may pass on their genes, while on the first the Mystel seemed to be one of the more pampered and well off races, no doubt due to their history with the talos, thus there is not such a high mortality rate amongst the males as on the source and we see a more 50/50 split, this might show the gender gap not be genetic like with the Viera who also have the same difference on the first but rather due to lifestyle, in cat terms think of the Mystel on the first as the pampered house cat, which obviously have higher rates of survival and lifespans compared to outdoor cats.

[ItMe]

I mean, that bit of lore was already true when 1.0 was released so it can't be a reference to itself.

In 1.0 you could only play as a female Miqo'te.
What do you mean by this was "already true" so it can't reference the original state of the game.
Either way, does that quote exist outside of the Encyclopedia? Because that came out in 2016.

[MikkoAkure]

In 1.0 you could only play as a female Miqo'te.
What do you mean by this was "already true" so it can't reference the original state of the game.
Either way, does that quote exist outside of the Encyclopedia? Because that came out in 2016.

It’s also mentioned in the racial naming conventions pinned in this forum.

Though there are ten suffixes listed above, rarely do even the largest Keeper of the Moon families have more than two or three sons. This is not by choice. Nature merely sees to it that more females are born to this race.

There being a equal proportion of each gender mystel is something I noticed as well, but I don’t think it’s something that’s ever going to come up in-game and we’ll likely never know why unless there happens to be a mention of it in a possible Encyclopedia Norvrandt.