Quote Originally Posted by Catapult View Post
On the gender issue, I'd go with not knowing the gender leading to an instinctive assumption. We all do it every day. If we don't know someone's gender, we take a stab: Usually make, unless you're more of a feminist, or perhaps envisiging them as a Miquo'te.
Thanks for pointing this out Catapult!

This was exactly what I was trying to get at when translating the purposefully ambiguous Japanese lines. Assuming that your Path Companion doesn't know who this Paragon is, he/she is going to use the pronoun that feels the most natural to him/her. When writing the 9 variations, I took into consideration the companion's personality, and chose a pronoun accordingly.

Now, while we're on the subject of pronouns...

Japanese is a unique language, in that it can completely omit the subject (and on occasion the object) of a sentence. Japanese writers (in particular, the writers on FFXIV) use this technique a lot to fudge the gender of a individual that they want to keep 'mysterious.' Another way of fudging comes by way of repeating the name of the subject in place of where we would use a pronoun.

For example: The Paragon tied the Paragon's shoes while reading a diary entry that the "gender-less entity that is the Paragon" wrote earlier that morning.

Now, I could throw that into the text files as-is, but I'd have Grammar Nazis poking me with their red-hot pitchforks, so I often find myself going to the original writers and asking them if it's OK to reveal the gender of a character through pronouns (usually for the sole reason of keeping the text natural-sounding, and avoiding the gender-neutral plural pronoun--they).

Then again, what if there was an even simpler answer?
When is a Paragon both a male and a female?

(from Anonymoose's post #327)
-> I overheard on the Ashcrown linkpearl that one of the Paragons was sighted in Thanalan
-> I have learned from the Ashcrown Consortium linkpearl that the sylphs have sighted one of the Paragons

(cue dramatic riff)


Have a good Turkey Day, guys!
Tryptophan is your friend!