Garlean Playable Race (?)

[Bhearil]

Lucia using spells was either an oversight, or her using some magitech device to mimic heal, since her origins as garlean was kept in the dark and making her not using magic would spoil it.

Imagine how worthless garleans spies would be if they didnt have any way to disguiss their complete lack of magic.

[Jandor]

So now the argument goes from “ha you can’t name a single garlean that uses magic,”to now it’s “oh, it’s not a potent magic spell so it hardly counts.” Are y’all serious? I just find it hilarious tbh that people are still arguing the “muh lore” or “muh immersion” when we got Male Viera and Reaper.People constantly said we wouldn’t get male viera because of lore or we wouldn’t get a dark job because wol is a goody two shoes. You’d think after these reveals people would start thinking wow, SE seems to just be giving out what the players ask for, regardless of lore. They’ve bent the lore multiple times before, there’s no reason they wouldn’t be able to do it again. It’s a trivial argument because if enough people asked for it, as seen with male bunnies, we’d get it. That’s how the game works.

My first argument was that it doesn't fit the story, because it doesn't.

That they can't use magic is another hurdle, a hurdle which is not removed by one instance of one Garlean casting one basic spell.

[Theodric]

I guess we can agree to disagree on that.

There's a lot of Pureblood Garleans out there. Perhaps some of them acquired the Echo, which is a prerequisite for becoming a Warrior of Light. I don't think it's any more of a stretch for a Pureblood Garlean to set off on an adventure just like a Xaela taking their leave of the Steppe or a Viera departing their forest to do the same thing.

A clear distinction is also made between Imperial Garleans and regular Garleans and the inhabitants of Eorzea do not show immense hostility towards the latter. Indeed, we've seen our character and the Scions work with them many times already. Maxima, Cid and Nero spring to mind but there's other examples as well.

Personally I'd be happy with a third eye glamour, since you can design a pretty neat looking 'Garlean' using either a Midlander or Highlander model already. As many Garlean role-players already do.

I just don't think the lore is set up in such a way as to make it impossible for a Pureblood Garlean to exist as a playable option.

[Vyrerus]

The only one that I can think of was Lucia casting cure back in Heavensward. Many assumed it was just an oversight since Cid used "Aqua Vitae" to heal, but then there was that passage in the lore book that came later on.

That said, I rather they focus on more character creation options.

Oh, so there is one. And she happens to be one of my favorite characters. Neat.

There's a couple of ways we can go with this.

1) Who are Livia and Lucia's parents? We haven't been given a concrete on that, have we? However, recently in the Werlyt storyline it was brought up that even mixed blood Garleans can manifest a third eye through Gaius's associate, Severa. It's entirely possible, door's open, that Lucia's parentage isn't pureblood Garlean.

2) Perhaps purposely done to try and throw cheeky players who looked under her tiara earlier off the scent for the small twist in mid-late Heavensward where it's brought out that she's Garlean explicitly.

3) Lucia is a "goe" or an espionage agent, tasked with infiltrating a highly religious society as an acolyte to steal into their holy treasure vault. Given how long Garlemald has been fighting and conquering places like Bozja, who readily wield items that give anyone who know what they are the ability to cast "lost" spells and skills... I wouldn't put it past Garlemald's espionage branch to have some Lost Actions on stock, ready to give to those tasked with impersonating peoples capable of wielding magicks. Likely taken off of dead Bozjans.

4) Lucia was moved to being faithful and spiritual by Ser Aymeric. Upon becoming truly faithful, this allowed her part of what is essential to manipulate aether in the current age. This lets her cast basic spells. (this would be my preferred thing, but they haven't told us anything about it, have they? Unless you're talking about an EE article I'm unaware of?)

[KizuyaKatogami]

My first argument was that it doesn't fit the story, because it doesn't.

That they can't use magic is another hurdle, a hurdle which is not removed by one instance of one Garlean casting one basic spell.

Except that not only are we given in game proof with Lucia but we also have it in the lore book. Like, idk how much proof you need, but the argument of it not fitting the story is moot when again, you have things available like male viera, duskwights in gridania, male miqote and fem roes getting a complete lore bending after 1.0. Like someone asked for an in game garlean that has used spells and assumed we couldn’t find one, we did. The lore book states it’s possible. Idk how you’re going to argue against something the devs themselves have stated. I feel like a lot of people just have something against the Garleans or something lmao. They won’t speak up when there’s lore bending done in their favor, but if it’s done in favor of something they don’t like THEN it’s a problem. This community sure does love hypocrisy...

[Theodric]

As an aside, I don't think that concepts such as male viera are much of a stretch to begin with. The idea that not a single male viera decided to take his leave of the forest would be far more jarring to me.

It's also interesting how this sort of strict adherence to the lore isn't really applied across the board. For example, up until recently it was believed that there was no cure for Tempering and that traveling between worlds was nigh impossible - but both situations proved to not be the case as the story evolved.

I'd also note that the game has a very sizeable number of role-players. The sort who prefer to play inhabitants of the game world within the confines of the lore. So you might see someone play a Hingan merchant, a Buduga warlord or a Garlean Pureblood. These individuals generally don't play as the Warrior of Light. The MSQ's are just a 'what if' scenario to them, as they see the canon Warrior of Light as being the guy from the cinematics and promotional footage.

Personally I'd be fine with more options to support role-play. They're generally subscribed to the game even through dry patches with little to no new content.

[Jandor]

Except that not only are we given in game proof with Lucia but we also have it in the lore book. Like, idk how much proof you need, but the argument of it not fitting the story is moot when again, you have things available like male viera, duskwights in gridania, male miqote and fem roes getting a complete lore bending after 1.0. Like someone asked for an in game garlean that has used spells and assumed we couldn’t find one, we did. The lore book states it’s possible. Idk how you’re going to argue against something the devs themselves have stated. I feel like a lot of people just have something against the Garleans or something lmao. They won’t speak up when there’s lore bending done in their favor, but if it’s done in favor of something they don’t like THEN it’s a problem. This community sure does love hypocrisy...

I have nothing against Garleans, I already stated I find them and their culture and tech quite interesting, and have wanted the ability to learn Garlean jobs for a long time.

In other threads I'd even be arguing that people generally underestimate the Garlean capacity for magic and aether manipulation, and that limited is not the same as zero.
However, a limited capacity doesn't mean it suddenly makes sense for them to be freely darting around an Eorzea that spends most of the game embroiled in a war with Garlemald, spamming holy and flare and teleporting all over the place, with nary an eyebrow raised by anyone at just how exceptional it all is.

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Male Viera make a lot more sense, their lifestyle has two crucial factors to it that makes becoming an adventurer very plausible.

1st of all, it sucks, it sucks big time. "Hey there kid, noticed you've got a penis now so time to be banished, enjoy living solo in the woods for the next several centuries." Meh, I'd bin that nonsense off straight away.
The 2nd, said loner guardian of the woods lifestyle might suck, but it does create a very solid foundation for becoming an adventurer.

Viera lore does kinda suck IMHO (sorry FFXII fans,) but the fact it does kinda suck weirdly makes it better. The way they've organized their civilization is pretty stupid and seems incredibly implausible, but the fact I can't see how such a society would last does explain why so many Viera adventurers are appearing, their society is basically collapsing in real time as they're released to players .

[Bhearil]

Except that not only are we given in game proof with Lucia but we also have it in the lore book. Like, idk how much proof you need, but the argument of it not fitting the story is moot when again, you have things available like male viera, duskwights in gridania, male miqote and fem roes getting a complete lore bending after 1.0. Like someone asked for an in game garlean that has used spells and assumed we couldn’t find one, we did. The lore book states it’s possible. Idk how you’re going to argue against something the devs themselves have stated. I feel like a lot of people just have something against the Garleans or something lmao. They won’t speak up when there’s lore bending done in their favor, but if it’s done in favor of something they don’t like THEN it’s a problem. This community sure does love hypocrisy...

Lore books state themselves that they are not completely accurate. They were written like if they werent 100% meta information but collected in universe and so prone to inaccuracies due to a non omniscient writer. More like a compendium of info gathered by different sources, generally correct but also prone to errors

[KizuyaKatogami]

I have nothing against Garleans, I already stated I find them and their culture and tech quite interesting, and have wanted the ability to learn Garlean jobs for a long time.

In other threads I'd even be arguing that people generally underestimate the Garlean capacity for magic and aether manipulation, and that limited is not the same as zero.
However, a limited capacity doesn't mean it suddenly makes sense for them to be freely darting around an Eorzea that spends most of the game embroiled in a war with Garlemald, spamming holy and flare and teleporting all over the place, with nary an eyebrow raised by anyone at just how exceptional it all is.

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Male Viera make a lot more sense, their lifestyle has two crucial factors to it that makes becoming an adventurer very plausible.

1st of all, it sucks, it sucks big time. "Hey there kid, noticed you've got a penis now so time to be banished, enjoy living solo in the woods for the next several centuries." Meh, I'd bin that nonsense off straight away.
The 2nd, said loner guardian of the woods lifestyle might suck, but it does create a very solid foundation for becoming an adventurer.

Viera lore kinda sucks IMHO, but the fact it does kinda suck weirdly makes it better. The way they've organized their civilization is pretty stupid and seems incredibly implausible, which incidentally would explain why so many Viera adventurers are appearing, their society is basically collapsing in real time as the races are released.

Except a part of the lore is that literally no one has ever laid eyes upon one. Yet here comes hundreds of thousands of WoL male viera appearing out of thin air. So yeah...they don’t really care much about the lore when adding something the playerbase wants. It doesn’t make sense. But there are a looooot of things in the game that don’t make sense, even msq wise. There’s plot holes and plot armor everywhere. Again, it’s to be expected. The lore can be bent whenever.

[Theodric]

Lore books state themselves that they are not completely accurate. They were written like if they werent 100% meta information but collected in universe and so prone to inaccuracies due to a non omniscient writer. More like a compendium of info gathered by different sources, generally correct but also prone to errors

Is this not a case of simply moving the goalposts? It was stated with certainty that it was not possible for a Pureblood Garlean to wield aether, though an exception was found - and we've not yet delved into their homeland to see how many exceptions to the rule exist.

Or is every scrap of lore put forward now at the mercy of potentially being inaccurate because it just so happens to be present in the game's lore book?