Not at all both are completely separate things. See below definitions.
Nonbinary
or non-bi·na·ry
[ non-bahy-nuh-ree, ‐nur-ee ]
adjective
not consisting of, indicating, or involving two.
Mathematics. noting or relating to a system of numerical notation that does not have a base of 2:
The decimal system is nonbinary.
androgynous
[ an-droj-uh-nuhs ]
adjective
neither clearly masculine nor clearly feminine in appearance:
Their new clothing collection is inspired by the androgynous look of many rock stars.
having an ambiguous gender or having both masculine and feminine gender characteristics.
The quick and dirty summary would be that non-binary is a mindset/identity while androgyny is generally an aesthetic. For example, in many fantasy fictions, elves are described as being physically androgynous relative to humans, which means that there's less of a difference between male and female bodies. But most of the elves in these universes still identify as being male and female, meaning they're not non-binary. Conversely, a big muscular bearded Roe with male primary and secondary sexual characteristics doesn't innately have what most people would consider an androgynous aesthetic, but that Roe can identify as non-binary.
In the lore of Viera, they all actually start out sexless, and when they come of age they choose which of the two sexes their bodies become. Due to this and other factors I personally wouldn't describe male Viera as literally being androgynous, but they do have a less masculine physical aesthetic compared to some of the other male bodies that are playable in the game, so I get why someone would see them that way.
Okay so why do we need a separate non-binary race if non-binary means anyone can identify as anything regardless of the aesthetic?The quick and dirty summary would be that non-binary is a mindset/identity while androgyny is generally an aesthetic. For example, in many fantasy fictions, elves are described as being physically androgynous relative to humans, which means that there's less of a difference between male and female bodies. But most of the elves in these universes still identify as being male and female, meaning they're not non-binary. Conversely, a big muscular bearded Roe with male primary and secondary sexual characteristics doesn't innately have what most people would consider an androgynous aesthetic, but that Roe can identify as non-binary.
In the lore of Viera, they all actually start out sexless, and when they come of age they choose which of the two sexes their bodies become. Due to this and other factors I personally wouldn't describe male Viera as literally being androgynous, but they do have a less masculine physical aesthetic compared to some of the other male bodies that are playable in the game, so I get why someone would see them that way.
Any race member can be non-binary if you choose it to be. Being non-binary isn't a biological function and, therefore couldn't be represented on a character model and therefore has no real physical evidence of it being so. You would just end up with the average dude playing the race like it isn't. While I am all for player expression, we need to think about how it's implemented. 45-60% of people really don't care or agree with the stance that it even exists, so it doesn't really matter if Square agrees because they don't pay the subscriptions and this group of people have been shown to be highly militant when it comes to expressing their political perspective no matter how small the request is.
Due to how small the LGBT community is and how large its opposition is, you would probably end up with fewer people playing the game as they would view it as square enix bowing to a radicle left-wing American ideology and then forcing it on the rest of the world who doesn't care for more American culture war nonsense.
I agree and it was great though the only reason they got away with it was due to the game being a 10/10 and once-in-a-generation game. It's really hard to call a fully complete, playable at-launch masterpiece woke without people laughing at you. If FF really wanted to do this we would need to be back at Shadowbringer's level of popularity and Square would need to be willing to take a hit in multple regions.
Last edited by Alec97; 10-12-2023 at 05:04 PM.
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