Male Viera names?

[Iscah]

EDIT: To make it clearer, Matsuno could have said "in our world now, we try to allow boys and girls to be what they want. But Viera aren't raised like that, and they believe that boys and girls must have strictly different roles." That would make the statements clearer to me.

That's the opposite of what he's saying.

The first part of the statement is about human culture. Humans have a concept of male and female as children and have different expectations placed on them depending on whether they are a boy or a girl.

For us a big influence while growing up is our environment, "As a girl/boy this is what you have to do and how you have to behave".

In that sense, Viera aren't raised like that. Their approach to education and raising keeps this in mind. The surrounding enviroment is different to our present age.

Viera do not have that "big influence" because they have no concept of boys and girls. The rest of the statement is vague but it seems simple enough to me that would mean that they're not raised with the concept. They're not preparing some children to be future warders and some to be future villagers, they just treat them all the same.

[Fenral]

I imagine that, with the male models now completed, they could easily add a transgender Viera or two to an existing settlement. It may have already been established that nobody has ever seen a male Viera, but that would still be true if they met an AMAB Viera. It would be a very easy retcon.

[Iscah]

Except all Viera are eventually divided into warders and villagers, not due to skill or aptitude, but due to biological gender. This means it is gender essentialism, and an arbitrary one.

They are divided by gender as adults, but that doesn't apply as children. He's talking about how they think and are treated as children.

I imagine that, with the male models now completed, they could easily add a transgender Viera or two to an existing settlement. It may have already been established that nobody has ever seen a male Viera, but that would still be true if they met an AMAB Viera. It would be a very easy retcon.

That depends entirely how the culture treats it - and I can't see them even having such a concept as transgender. You developed that body shape, you're a warder whether you like it or not, and there's no such thing as disagreeing with the role that fate has decreed for you.

I think we could easily find them outside of the tribe, but even then their whole understanding of gender is going to be different, especially if they're all treated as female until they "become" male. (It seems likely they all use female pronouns, at least.) In that case it would be more about refusing to acknowledge that physical change and continuing to adhere to the gender they've had from birth.

[Fenral]

Fully aware you're speaking academically, but you've basically looped back around into gender essentialism, whether you meant to or not. What is gender but the notion that one's assigned sexual characteristics are intrinsically tied to one's personality and role in society?

[Iscah]

Fully aware you're speaking academically, but you've basically looped back around into gender essentialism, whether you meant to or not. What is gender but the notion that one's assigned sexual characteristics are intrinsically tied to one's personality and role in society?

It's the state of Viera society as adults but not as children, because they can't be assigned a gender as children.

[YianKutku]

I imagine that, with the male models now completed, they could easily add a transgender Viera or two to an existing settlement. It may have already been established that nobody has ever seen a male Viera, but that would still be true if they met an AMAB Viera. It would be a very easy retcon.

I'd be overjoyed to see this, yeah. It would be amazing and awesome and all sorts of superlative descriptors.

And it would also help with my confusion about Matsuno's answer, implying that he couldn't be specific and direct because he didn't want to spoil.

[WhiteArchmage]

I would say that their view of gender would be slightly different from ours. Though in particular because their formation SEEMS to be less based on "gender" and more on "DUTY": such as "You'll either grow into a Wood Warder or a [Whatever the term was for the females]", a "duty" that HAPPENS to be based on sex (on which I'll say no more beccause I don't want to do a whole diatribe on gender roles and expectations).

HOWEVER, given that most if not all the Viera we meet are outliers and rebels (I'm deliberately excluding the Viis here), or were simply born out of their "restrictive society"; it does give a good excuse for a female (well, Designated Female At Birth) Viera to have wanted to grow up to be a Wood Warder only to be told no because she developed feminine sexual characteristics. She (or He if we go by the "Trans" angle and not a "gender-non-conforming" one, or a "Cis Female but enjoys typically-male roles") would be presented to us in a mostly "male Viera" sort of upbringing while "biologically" being female. Do I think the dev team will go with that? No. Of course not. They were weirded out enough giving men dresses to chip in to the whole "trans people exist" issue. Do I think it's a perfectly acceptable backstory for a Viera character that is even accidentally Lore-appropriate? Yes, of course.

It feels... like a convoluted way to retcon the Males' existence into XIV when we could have just said "Yes, they existed all the time.. off-screen." Especially since Matsuno added that this did not apply to FFXII, meaning he's leaving his options open in the case there's another Ivalice game.

[JeanneOrnitier]

It feels... like a convoluted way to retcon the Males' existence into XIV when we could have just said "Yes, they existed all the time.. off-screen." Especially since Matsuno added that this did not apply to FFXII, meaning he's leaving his options open in the case there's another Ivalice game.

Agree with most of your post but just be be pedantic here; he also says they came up with it during XII's development, and that his reasoning for saying it doesn't apply to XII is only because he left that game's development before it had the chance to be published somewhere.

[WhiteArchmage]

Agree with most of your post but just be be pedantic here; he also says they came up with it during XII's development, and that his reasoning for saying it doesn't apply to XII is only because he left that game's development before it had the chance to be published somewhere.

My bad, then! Must've missed that part.

The thing is, where are they going to get that concept of gender from, and form that identity upon, if the only thing they know about men is that they're not allowed to live in the village?

And apparently the women do everything that the men would do anyway, besides the additional ultra-survivalist skills that need to be taught from warder to apprentice.

At most you'd have some kids showing a preference about what role they'll have to take up, but that isn't necessarily tied to gender even in a culture with the normal concepts of male and female.

That's basically my understanding, their concept of gender would be different than ours, and children not thinking of themselves as either male or female; and probably the rest of the village not thinking of them as either but just as a nebulous gender-neutral "children". Or they may think of them as girls until proven otherwise, who knows.

I don't think the idea is supposed to be easy to swallow. It's meant to be a harsh strict societal rule based on tradition over practicality. That's the only way a system like that can stay intact. If you start making an exception for the clumsy man who is good with kids and the woman who wants to be a warder, pretty soon it stops being a gender-based system at all.

Indeed, and I don't believe the intention is we're supposed to overthrow their traditions or anything of the sort. If anything, it serves as an easy way for player characters to leave said society. For any reason from "dislikes the role the Green Word gave them" all the way to "Gender dysphoria is a <kupo!> in a society with a heavy emphasis in a sex-based-binary." (though, of course, since backstory headcanons are JUST headcanons, it can also be as innocent as "the Will of the Woods said we'd be better off protecting the Jungle from X/Y/Z event")

[Theodric]

The situation appears rather straightforward to me. They're not the equivalent of modern day real world humans, they're an isolated group of tribes bound by the will of their forest. As such their society subscribes to strict gender norms. Some Viera see fit to take their leave of the forest altogether, probably right around the same time that they grow into their adult form. The number of individuals doing as much, however, is likely to be small - though that won't be reflected in the player character population. It will, however, be reflected through NPC placement.

I think Matsuno handled the questions rather well. Especially since some of them were arguably deceptive and leading in their framing - particularly the phrase 'it sounds scary to me'. Assuming we get another lore book, I don't doubt that there will be more detail to work with as well as snippets of potential lore to be found in-game during Endwalker.