What lore do you ignore?

[Cilia]

She also screams "his body and soul" belong to her. Not a super normal thought to have towards a parental figure.

Also fiction always has a reason to include everything. There's no reason to interject a scene where someone orders a subordinate to cross a professional line, such as meeting him alone in his quarters, if there's no subtext. And if it meant something else, they would have clarified that too, in that or a later scene. Instead later she says that.

The appropriate "subtext" requires a little bit of context; in a military setting, you never reprimand an officer in front of the soldiers they command because doing so could undermine their authority among the troops. With that context in mind, I always read the scene as Gaius going to chew Livia out for the Waking Sands massacre - the only officers higher in rank to Livia are Nero and Gaius himself, so he can't exactly discipline her in the open (and based on her dialogue with Nero after the Ifrit fight, she doesn't much respect him anyway).

To Gaius, Livia was just another orphan whose potential he could exploit in the pursuit of his conquest; Livia is possessive of Gaius because he's the only thing that gives her life meaning. There's definitely some unhealthy romantic (and plausibly sexual) obsession there, but it's entirely one-sided on Livia's part (which was confirmed by the Sorrow of Werlyt storyline).

[ThorneDynasty]

The appropriate "subtext" requires a little bit of context; in a military setting, you never reprimand an officer in front of the soldiers they command because doing so could undermine their authority among the troops. With that context in mind, I always read the scene as Gaius going to chew Livia out for the Waking Sands massacre - the only officers higher in rank to Livia are Nero and Gaius himself, so he can't exactly discipline her in the open (and based on her dialogue with Nero after the Ifrit fight, she doesn't much respect him anyway).

To Gaius, Livia was just another orphan whose potential he could exploit in the pursuit of his conquest; Livia is possessive of Gaius because he's the only thing that gives her life meaning. There's definitely some unhealthy romantic (and plausibly sexual) obsession there, but it's entirely one-sided on Livia's part (which was confirmed by the Sorrow of Werlyt storyline).

Which I pointed out is a blatant retcon. It's fiction with writers, not a document of events.

[Vyrerus]

The appropriate "subtext"

Having served myself, real world reprimands generally take place in an official office, generally not in a personal quarters. And unless you're being made to wait as part of the punishment, it generally doesn't take an hour, let alone an hour within the office where you're being reprimanded.

That stated, the Garlean Empire was not above reprimanding officers in front of others as shown by Zenos killing an officer in front of his other officers, including Fordola, at the start of Stormblood. It's also unusual to have the villains in a story actually care about morale of their subordinates. There's also the example of him hurting and belittling Yotsuyu in front of Grynewaht.

Of course, we'd need the two sentences in other languages to see if it carries across translation, or if it's an EN thing.

In the end, it was more for Livia's character arc than for Gaius's, as back in ARR they did not have any intentions on having either of them live past 2.0. Changing Gaius's reciprocation is an easy retcon having everything to do with humanizing Gaius for the Werlyt arc. Which honestly just makes ARR Gaius weirder, since he doesn't even mention Livia's death at all in Praetorium and such. With how much he's shown to care about Alfonse and the other adoptees, this weirdness does not go away. (Like I mean, seriously, the WoL directly killed one of his protege's, how does that not bother him enough to even mention it?)

It's all just sort of handled clumsily with a passing acknowledgment and shooed out of the story asap.

[Turnintino]

Although I agree that their relationship, whatever it was, was plainly uneven, I'm just not sure what we're meant to take away from the order to meet him in his quarters during the scene in question, if not that there was a little something else going on. Granted, the most jarring thing about that line to me is that he says it in front of her peers. Even if he isn't actually soliciting her in that instance, the implication is more than subtext without additional clarification, IMO. I say that as someone whose snap understanding of that line was as such, and who hasn't thought about it again until this conversation lol. I don't ship them, I don't particularly care about them, and I had no reason or motivation to go out of my way to dig for subtext to begin with. Still, the interaction is strange, if taken at face value. Whether or not she might've been the sort to take some twisted pride in that, it's... if not humiliating, certainly unprofessional. So that leaves room for doubt in my mind... However, he was basically a Super Sentai villain at the time, so it could really go either way, as far as I'm concerned. It could very well have just been a localization issue as well; I have no idea what the line was in Japanese.

[Destati]

Viera lore, in particular the aspect where their sex is indeterminate until adolescence. It makes me inherently uncomfortable and I also feel like it can lead to traumatic consequences. Like, what if an individual happens to be female-leaning in identity, but then their body suddenly develops to be biologically male and then they're whisked out of their home? I can't really subscribe to that.

[MikkoAkure]

Viera lore, in particular the aspect where their sex is indeterminate until adolescence. It makes me inherently uncomfortable and I also feel like it can lead to traumatic consequences. Like, what if an individual happens to be female-leaning in identity, but then their body suddenly develops to be biologically male and then they're whisked out of their home? I can't really subscribe to that.

I think it was said by the original writer somewhere that Viera have a completely different relationship to gender than modern-day western society does. If everyone else around you is who is the same age is also genderless and you've only seen women your whole life except for the handful of times every handful of years a male comes to visit, their concept of gender identity would be very alien to us and difficult to grasp.

But they seem to just accept things as they are in that regard and the genders are the roles you take in their seemingly interconnected and "greater picture" culture.


A Viera born and raised outside of their homeland with no context to their original culture would probably have a very hard time though.

[SannaR]

Neat fact is the whole unable to tell the gender of Viera thing is exactly how actual rabbits work. Just it takes years instead of weeks for that distinction to happen.

[Kuroka]

Neat fact is the whole unable to tell the gender of Viera thing is exactly how actual rabbits work. Just it takes years instead of weeks for that distinction to happen.

Which is kinda fine considering they get like 20x as old lol

Its always nice when they consider such things.

[SannaR]

Which is kinda fine considering they get like 20x as old lol

Its always nice when they consider such things.

It's not even the 1st time the devs have done this. You know how the further away you are from a shark mob when it's ramping up its slam into you attack the more it does? That's mirrors the same way how it works in real life. Scientists have figured out that part of why a shark bite is so nasty is because the shark was able to put some kinetic energy into via the speed they were able to get up to prior to the bite. Course this also applies to most other ramming attacks. All but the 1st boss in Bardam's Mettle work that way. And yet most of the playerbase just runs away and gets hit for a lot more damage than they would have if they kept the barreling attack short. Course the 1st boss of Dusk Vigil still needs at least one more person to help soak up the damage in its running attack. Not that anyone ever listens to said mechanic explanation.

[WhiteArchmage]

It's something I don't think XIV will ever go into but it'd be the perfect excuse for a gender dysphoria story, as a Viera believing their whole life they were one sex just for puberty to hit them with the other one. However, this sounds too... complicated that I don't think CBU3 will attempt to try.