Frustrating relative lack of LGBT NPCs in this game

[Mhaeric]

What about the Bard quest NPCs. Or the Carpenter Guild master and his boyfriend. They were even paired together in the recent Hatching Tide event. Granted they were in suits but still.

Examples like those are what are known as queer coding where it's all subtext and with a good chance to not even be noticed by someone not LGBT. It's a bit of a controversial thing since it's not really proper representation and can very easily slip into the closely related and clearly negative queerbaiting. FFXIV is chock full of queer coding. You can see that just from the examples provided in this thread alone. Thankfully it doesn't yet have any queerbaiting, knock on wood.

The wikipedia article on queer coding doesn't really delve into the controversial aspect of queer coding much calling it "somewhat of a neutral trope" and pointing out then common 'queer villain' version of it which doesn't really describe the complexity of its historical use and impact particularly by queer creators themselves, but for anyone who wants to delve deeper into it there are some good papers and even some good youtube videos discussing it. Mass media articles on it are kind of surface level and often are actually talking about queerbaiting not queer coding, so I wouldn't bother with those if you want a true understanding of it.