(04-15-2015, 04:16 AM)Seriphyn Wrote: Let's take the egregious, caricature example of the Miqo'te Dragoon. My immediate response is that players who construct these characters are a textbook case of wanting to have their cake and eat it too. They want to play a pretty cat race and a badass spearman famed within the Final Fantasy mythos. I might be wrong, hence why I'm creating this thread to begin with!

I don't believe in the argument "It makes it more interesting", because I don't believe that an exotic race or exotic occupation is needed to make your character interesting (it is your character's character which makes your character interesting!).

(04-15-2015, 08:57 AM)Ryoko Wrote: Well, not quite a cat-dragoon, but I do play a half-miqo'te Ishgardian, which is possibly worse. It was, as many are, a case of making the character first, then joining the rp community later. I just love the character too much at this point to change her.  

That being said, I can absolutely justify it. Now, if we were trying to compare Eorzea to medieval Europe, inter-racial breeding would be almost unheard of. People just didn't get that far away from their place of origin, not unless they were diplomats or crusading armies. But Eorzea's not the middle ages, is it? It can't really be pinned to a time period, but if anything it's the late medieval or early colonial era. And during those eras, being a soldier or merchant meant you traveled a lot.  And you know what? Inter-racial babies suddenly became a thing.


Now, Ishgardian men are still men, regardless of their culture. Without fail, even today, one of the first things deployed soldiers will do in a foreign land is see the local women and say "I want to have sex with that." Hell, the US military has to give an entire speech/video about STDs for this exact reason. It is my understanding that Ishgardian knights venturing into the shroud pre-calamity was fairly commonplace. It was only a matter of time before some midlander saw the local cat-girls and decided he wanted to show them his lance.

Red post on the Official Forums Wrote:Can different races crossbreed?

Answer: Yes, but it is rare...and often difficult due to cultural differences, etc. which is why you don't see it often. The lore team has informed me that there will be future quests/events that touch on this and other issues, such as love and marriage.

Gamer Escape interview with Koji Fox Wrote:A: Some of the lore makes it sounds like the conflict between the Hyur and Elezen got pretty heated while others make it sound like a long standing tension. What was the extent of those hostilities?

MCKF: I touched on this a little bit today in the live stream and there was a question about relationships between the races and crossbreeding. A lot of it doesn’t happen because while we have all these races living together in Eorzea, there’s this tension between them. That’s there because they have these histories of fighting for a long time and then not really making up, but agreeing to disagree and living together because it’s better than living by our self and being more susceptible to Garlean attacks or whatever. We work together because we have a common enemy type of thing. Most of the races don’t really like each other and it”s gone on through multiple Eras. There are times when Eorzea has been more populated by one race over another and there will be conflict there. With the Hyur and Elezen, that’s very recent. In the sixth astral era, Elezen migrated in and in that era they were like “we’re the first ones here!” even though they weren’t, but they were the first at the beginning of the sixth astral era and they settled and of course the pesky Hyur who are everywhere come in and the Elezen are like “oh my god we left you that whole continent up there why are you here!” and the Lalafell come in and you have these cycles of clashing and moving part and that gets ingrained in their society and their racial cultures. There’s always these power struggles, you’ll have times when the Lalafell rise for whatever reason and they’l side with one group and then turn on another group and that’s one of the reasons there’s not a lot of interracial relationships because even though they’re living in the same towns it’s like well yeah… but you’re an Elezen.

F: I can just imagine some young Elezen bringing home a Hyur woman and the Grandma going “Why couldn’t you have found a nice Elezen girl!”

MCKF: There’s a lot of that going on. Like i mentioned in the stream, in the future we’ll have some characters that are half one race and half another and we’ll see how they’re treated in society and quests with that.

(04-15-2015, 09:10 AM)Warren Castille Wrote: Maybe.

(04-15-2015, 09:20 AM)Ryoko Wrote:

(04-15-2015, 09:10 AM)Warren Castille Wrote: Maybe.

See, I don't get the whole "they don't usually interbreed because of racial tension" thing. The Romans and the Jews had more cultural tension than possible anyone else in history, yet Roman soldiers getting Jewish women pregnant was so common that some people even theorize that Jesus was half Roman (although, full disclosure, that theory mainly existed in Nazi Germany)

Sexual urges almost always trump racial conflict. If you haven't seen a white woman in 2 years, the Vietnamese gals are gonna start looking awfully cute. Same goes for Ishgardans and cat girls.

(04-15-2015, 06:40 AM)Meena Wrote:

(04-15-2015, 06:06 AM)Lekka Meyren Wrote: As others have stated almost perfectly with memes... Here we go again.
I'm going to simply ask: Do they need a reason, really? I mean as long as they're not making up their own lore wildly and deciding to be a vampire tribe of Mi'qote Ishgardians who secretly run the place.. Why should they need to justify themselves.

I agree with all exceptions obviously, if you're just out to completely break lore to play your own thing; then expect people to take issue simply because they don't want their character influenced by things that seem inherently "wrong" in their character arcs.

...But as a minority in real life I have a little bit of a hard time not having some cynicism around this line of thinking. Gods know we have enough of an IRL problem of the majority experience being expected and all minority experiences being doubted or pushed into neat little boxes to fit the narrative.

Tl;DR: If it's not ruining your character arc in some way and it's not completely cross with the lore - It's highly likely you're overthinking it from the perspective of a majority experience.
It's not that freaking unlikely that some mi'qote walked up north at some stage.

I don't see how being a minority IRL plays into this - I mean, this is not a realistic setting. Its a setting with dragons and thousands of years of racial tensions and legitimate reasons for exclusion.

(04-15-2015, 09:33 AM)Zarek Wrote:

(04-15-2015, 06:40 AM)Meena Wrote:

(04-15-2015, 06:06 AM)Lekka Meyren Wrote: As others have stated almost perfectly with memes... Here we go again.
I'm going to simply ask: Do they need a reason, really? I mean as long as they're not making up their own lore wildly and deciding to be a vampire tribe of Mi'qote Ishgardians who secretly run the place.. Why should they need to justify themselves.

I agree with all exceptions obviously, if you're just out to completely break lore to play your own thing; then expect people to take issue simply because they don't want their character influenced by things that seem inherently "wrong" in their character arcs.

...But as a minority in real life I have a little bit of a hard time not having some cynicism around this line of thinking. Gods know we have enough of an IRL problem of the majority experience being expected and all minority experiences being doubted or pushed into neat little boxes to fit the narrative.

Tl;DR: If it's not ruining your character arc in some way and it's not completely cross with the lore - It's highly likely you're overthinking it from the perspective of a majority experience.
It's not that freaking unlikely that some mi'qote walked up north at some stage.

I don't see how being a minority IRL plays into this - I mean, this is not a realistic setting. Its a setting with dragons and thousands of years of racial tensions and legitimate reasons for exclusion.

A bit off topic but I wanted to touch on this.

How often do you see dark skinned and/or minority knights portrayed, generally? In fantasy games on the whole? For most it's far easier to believe in magic and dragons and fantastical races than the existence and prominence of minority races in that sort of setting. I believe there was even some backlash on having a black knight on a popular fantasy show here recently (Once Upon a Time I think?)

How is it related? People draw comparisons from real life places and cultures. They do it a LOT, actually (I'd quote you Warren but your post came in while I was typing this). Minority characters are typically fairly lacking in MOST fantasy tales (which is something FF is actually really good about not doing, and one of the things I personally enjoy about it). So dealing with the 'you shouldn't be like this' or 'your character should look like this' for years can and does create some cynicism as was stated.

(04-15-2015, 04:16 AM)Seriphyn Wrote: If I wanted to play an authentic Ala Mhigan, I would play a Highlander.

D'arimbeh Wrote:Nowadays, The Silver Bazaar's nothing but a refuge for Ala Mhigans.
And so what if it is? All the better, I say. They work hard and complain little. Not like Ul'dahns.

(04-15-2015, 07:56 AM)Kellach Woods Wrote: If you want to be technical about it, other than the Elezen every single race in Eorzea immigrated from across the seas.

Hyur : Surrounding continents and islands
Elezen : Sole inhabitants of Eorzea
Lalafell : Islands of the South Seas
Miqo'te : Walked across the seas in the Age of Endless Frost
Roegadyn : Not mentioned but assumed to not be natives due to Elezen description.

(04-15-2015, 10:22 AM)Milly Wrote: *I'm a newbie to roleplaying and this site in general so forgive me if I sound ignorant*

To me two different ideas seem to be conflated here.
1) stories that we 'make up' about our characters (ie they're Doman, Garlean)
2) Things that are an actual fact and possible to do within the game (ie a Miqo'te Dragoon)

Honestly, I'm of the opinion that if the game lets you do it, then it IS within the lore. You CAN be a Miqo'te Dragoon; the game doesn't gate you from doing that. However you CANNOT be Doman - you're given the choice of 3 city states to hail from.