Why are Viera Males so small even when their lifestyle is so harsh?

[Hazelx3]

From what I've understood, their lifestyle is very harsh, yet they look so fragile and small compared to their female counterparts.
Was there a reason explained for it?
The male Viera if they are old enoug leave the village and get trained by an adult male Viera and they can even die through the training, only the strongest will make it alive.
Once they are adults too, they are only protecting their tribe outside and only come back for breeding. They are just like trained like killers, so their fragile and small body makes no sense to me, even the female Viera are so much bigger.
Anyone else questioned this and was there ever an explanation for it?
Maybe they couldn't find enough food so they stayed so small.

[MikkoAkure]

This is actually brought up.

There are two possibilities brought up in the encyclopedia:
- The first is like you said where the villages get more nutrition so the men living in the wilds end up not growing as all.
- And the second is that natural selection meant a more compact frame for the men who rely on stealth in the dense forest.

[Iscah]

fragile and small compared to their female counterparts

their fragile and small body makes no sense to me, even the female Viera are so much bigger

How are you making your comparison?

Male Viera are 172-186cm tall; female Viera are 178-191cm -- a difference of 5-6cm (about 2 inches) when they're at the same height setting, and that seems to be due to counting the women's high-heel shoes as part of their default height rather than a difference in actual build.

[MikkoAkure]

How are you making your comparison?

Male Viera are 172-186cm tall; female Viera are 178-191cm -- a difference of 5-6cm (about 2 inches) when they're at the same height setting, and that seems to be due to counting the women's high-heel shoes as part of their default height rather than a difference in actual build.

I don’t think the heels are being counted. The males being shorter is still enough of a thing that the encyclopedia talks about it.

[CNitsah]

I don’t think the heels are being counted. The males being shorter is still enough of a thing that the encyclopedia talks about it.

Isn't that a thing with rabbits, that the females are slightly bigger than the males.

[Cleretic]

Where is 'fragile' coming from? Male viera look pretty athletic. Certainly no less so than the women.

[Hazelx3]

Where is 'fragile' coming from? Male viera look pretty athletic. Certainly no less so than the women.

They were portraied as some killers that live alone in the jungle, atleast that's what I understood
so I expected them to be very muscular and bigger, similar to male Au Ra
They look androgyn for me, like not really male but a mix of both, especially if you wear female clothes on the male Viera
Also female Viera are tall, but look skinny, if you compare them to Highlanders

[Cleretic]

They were portraied as some killers that live alone in the jungle, atleast that's what I understood
so I expected them to be very muscular and bigger, similar to male Au Ra
They look androgyn for me, like not really male but a mix of both, especially if you wear female clothes on the male Viera
Also female Viera are tall, but look skinny, if you compare them to Highlanders

Well, you have an uninteresting and overly simpliestic view of bodies.

Male viera look plenty muscular to me, they just don't look necessarily like bodybuilders. There's some great pictures out there comparing different types of athlete, and male viera look specifically like they'd be comparable to runners and gymnasts; exactly what you'd expect from a hunter in a forest.

[programcanaan]

Isn't that a thing with rabbits, that the females are slightly bigger than the males.

This is only the case with certain species of rabbits due to their extraordinary fertility (similar to bats). Some species will have litters in the double digits multiple times a year, so yes the females of those breeds tend to put on some weight. The males still have very broad heads and bulky built frames.

At the end of the day the Viera are supposed to be humans not rabbits (all the races are more or less related).

Long story short on Viera Male is that they are reskinned Midlander Males. Which happens to be the case with many races but they didn't even try too hard to hide it. As a consequence they end up being shorter than the Females. Furthermore, any lore on the subject is the writers trying to cover for character teams interesting decisions.

Though to be honest it is the Viera Females that are too tall. Their height scale should have been reconsidered after nixing the heels. Viera are supposed to be a race that is "indistinguishable from humes save for the ears" not generally taller especially in the females' case.

[MikkoAkure]

Long story short on Viera Male is that they are reskinned Midlander Males. Which happens to be the case with many races but they didn't even try too hard to hide it. As a consequence they end up being shorter than the Females. Furthermore, any lore on the subject is the writers trying to cover for character teams interesting decisions.

Female Viera also use Midlander as a base. They can stretch the model however they want and male Viera are still taller than male Midlanders. The males are shorter because the developers wanted them to be shorter. I don’t understand why this necessitates some sort of conspiracy theory about them “having to make excuses for the dev team”. Matsuno, the creator of Viera in Final Fantasy, even approved the design and said he switched his character to male Viera.

Though to be honest it is the Viera Females that are too tall. Their height scale should have been reconsidered after nixing the heels. Viera are supposed to be a race that is "indistinguishable from humes save for the ears" not generally taller especially in the females' case.

Highly disagree with this one. Did you play FFXII at all? Viera women are tall and in 3D games have always been depicted as tall.