Fray's gender could be clearer

[KooriGraywolf]

This is my first post in the forum so I don't know if the lore section can be considered spoilery by default, but just in case, this post contains spoilers for the Dark Knight job quests.

I did the Dark Knight quest on a female character, and I remember just automatically assuming that Fray was male. I thought that was just me being biased as a guy or just how people in general tend to assume male gender by default when ambiguous (for example with animals). I think somewhere in the middle of the questline, and by looking at other players on YouTube, I realized that Fray was supposed to be the same gender as your character.

Now, when trying New Game+ on the Dark Knight quests, I noticed something: The New Game+ description stated Fray's gender as "she", which was consistent with my newer understanding. But when talking to the Ishgardian Citizen in the quests "A Dark Spectacle" and "Our End", he describes the fallen dark knight as a "he". For me and possibly for other people, I think this reinforced Fray as male when we get the soul gem, regardless of our character's gender.

I think it would be more consistent to refer to Fray as the player's gender already on "A Dark Spectacle" and "Our End". Of course I do understand that the Fray that was slain and the Fray mentoring us aren't the same person, and the one that was slain could be consistently male across the board, but I feel it would make more sense from a player's perspective to make the slain Fray the player's gender as well. That way it would be more clear that Fray is our gender when they're mentoring us, and help it better connect to the end of the 30-50 Dark Knight job quests.

[Lunaxia]

This is my first post in the forum...

I don't think it's meant to be overtly clear that Fray shares your gender, though. If you play a male character, you'll have no way of knowing, since the original Fray was very much a guy and his own distinct person, and even if you play as female, it's something tucked away in the journal entries than actually commented on in dialogue. It's simply a very mild and oblique hint they keep vaguely ambiguous on purpose to keep you guessing about Fray's true nature. I'd even argue a facet of your subconscious (if you agree with that interpretation of the character) doesn't necessarily need a specified gender of its own match yours, and I've read the English version is the only one that bothers doing this. Supposedly in the others, Fray retains more of his original persona and continues to go by he/ him while still playing host to your innermost thoughts/ darkside, but for some reason they grafted more of ourselves onto him in this iteration.

It's really just a nudge nudge, wink wink from the writers and it's really not that important, to be honest.

[LilimoLimomo]

Supposedly in the others, Fray retains more of his original persona and continues to go by he/ him while still playing host to your innermost thoughts/ darkside, but for some reason they grafted more of ourselves onto him in this iteration.

Yep, in the original Japanese text our "Fray" was similar to Myste, in that others in the world saw "Fray" as an entity that was distinct to the Warrior of Light. The English translation, however, meaningfully deviates from that and tries to be Fight Club, where NPC's treat "Fray's" words and actions as if they came from the Warrior of Light. This seems to be the reason why "Fray's" gender was changed to match that of the Warrior of Light; because if the genders didn't match, the Fight Club twist where nobody else has even seen or interacted with "Fray" doesn't work.

And of course, even then that doesn't entirely work because of the how the English writers had to twist themselves in knots try to make the level 50 quest make any sense.

If the issue's of confusion are to be addressed, I think the way to do it would be to do a fresh, unchanged translation of the Heavensward Dark Knight quests. Anything less would leave things complicated and messy, but just a different kind of messy than they are now.

[Cleretic]

Okay, so the answers here are different depending on language as said, but here's how it works in English:

There are two Frays. The dead body we found was a real person, and was male. A Midlander if it matters. The Fray that we talk to the whole time is a figment of our imagination, who shares our character's gender because they're meant to be a reflection of ourselves. Once you know this, and are playing as a female character, the two Fray's genders are actually pretty clear: we internally call Fray by she/her pronouns, and scenes that appear to refer to Fray during 30-50 look to agree because Fray's not real and they're just talking to us (although I don't think anyone in that range actually uses any pronouns). but when anyone refers to Fray as the extant person, either as a dead body or as the living Dark Knight Sidurgu knew, it's with he/him pronouns or otherwise male signifiers.

In Japanese it's really simple: Fray's basically just an angry ghost animated by the soul crystal trying to appeal to the dark side of our personality that he's convinced exists. Crucially, Japanese actually does have dialog choices where you can disagree with him because of that, while English doesn't. So not only does he always exist in those scenes and is being directly spoken to, but he's always referred to as male. As Lilimo said, this is how Myste works in both translations; in English that just seems like a bit of a non-sequitir, but in Japanese it's something resembling an early clue, because you've dealt with someone like this before.


Now, in other languages DRK's apparently a real headache, because they went from basing their translation off English in ARR and HW (I gathered because that's an easier translation flow to hire for), to basing it off Japanese in Stormblood onward. Fray's not much of a presence after that point, but that does mean that they go from 'Fray's part of you' in their original appearance to 'Fray's real and just a jerk' in SB and ShB.

[Alleluia]

(...) Fray's not much of a presence after that point, but that does mean that they go from 'Fray's part of you' in their original appearance to 'Fray's real and just a jerk' in SB and ShB.

Wait. So, in the Japanese, Frey is NOT part of the WoL's psyche, but is actually just a spirit (of the dead guy?) attached to the soul crystal? Or am I misunderstanding what you're saying here? Cus this makes the fact Frey looks like the WoL in the HW quests very weird, if so.

[Cleretic]

Wait. So, in the Japanese, Frey is NOT part of the WoL's psyche, but is actually just a spirit (of the dead guy?) attached to the soul crystal? Or am I misunderstanding what you're saying here? Cus this makes the fact Frey looks like the WoL in the HW quests very weird, if so.

It's a little more complicated than 'angry ghost', but it's closer to that than anything; rather than being entirely a figment of the WoL's imagination, they're basically the real Fray's spirit intermingled with the soul crystal's aether. There's some of the WoL ambiguously in there, but there's enough of Fray to attribute a lot of it to him rather than us. The 'appearing as us' part in the level 50 quest I think is more him trying to appeal to us and perceived commonalities rather than pulling the mask off to reveal he is us, but it's been a while since I've checked.

It might also be worth noting that Fray himself is written differently, too. There's a lot less 'self-righteous, frustrated rage' and a lot more grim determinism occasionally mixed with some yandere tendencies. So it might not even be right to say that other languages get 'Fray's real and a jerk', because that's not really the lead descriptor at play with JP Fray.

[Iscah]

It's a little more complicated than 'angry ghost', but it's closer to that than anything; rather than being entirely a figment of the WoL's imagination, they're basically the real Fray's spirit intermingled with the soul crystal's aether. There's some of the WoL ambiguously in there, but there's enough of Fray to attribute a lot of it to him rather than us. The 'appearing as us' part in the level 50 quest I think is more him trying to appeal to us and perceived commonalities rather than pulling the mask off to reveal he is us, but it's been a while since I've checked.

It has also been a while since I read it, but IIRC it's more like "a repressed part of your psyche broke away from you and possessed Fray's corpse", and everything Fray says is actually coming from the part of you that was unwilling to become a hero.

[Astronis]

It has also been a while since I read it, but IIRC it's more like "a repressed part of your psyche broke away from you and possessed Fray's corpse", and everything Fray says is actually coming from the part of you that was unwilling to become a hero.

This is how I read it. English Esteem's and Japanese Esteem's personality and motivations are very similar, though obviously not identical. English DRK quests left it very much in the air if Fray's dead body was ever there and talking, though there are hints at the end that it was. Japanese left no doubt that Fray's body was there and animated by WoL's aether the whole time. That's where the confusion comes from, though. Esteem is WoL is whatever WoL is and sometimes Esteem looks like Fray (especially while wearing Fray as a skinsuit). Fray is male.

As far as the quest journal goes though, in English Esteem wrote at least part of them, so would refer to him/herself as whatever was appropriate. I don't know if the combat tracking refers to Esteem and Anguish as different genders, been awhile since I did that fight.