(04-17-2015, 11:41 AM)Melkire Wrote: Culture doesn't just vanish because you emigrate/immigrate. Nomadic warrior peoples are not going to suddenly stop roaming or fighting territorial disputes just because they've been displaced. Assimilation is not instant, it takes years if not decades (I should know, my entire family immigrated to the U.S. back in the 70s and we're still VERY cultural w/ regards to our ethnic background).
It's like adding two tomcats who are new to each other to a household that already has two pugs for dogs. Staking out and fighting over and establishing territory is still going to happen... and the dogs rarely even care. (I've done this). I see Xaela in the same vein. Eorzea is just more territory over which to feud ("We earned the trust of the Gridanians, Johnston, YOU cant live here" "Well, Avery, Thanalan sucks, so we're moving in!")
Yep. Take the Ala Mhigans, for example; their migration into Greater Eorzea is very recent, having occurred only 20 years prior to ARR's launch, but the lore demonstrates loudly and frequently that very few of them have integrated into the cultures in which they now live. This isn't just a matter of them all being dirt poor and Ul'dah resenting their presence, either; quests in Little Ala Mhigo show that the 'Mhigans adhere stubbornly to their old customs and ways of seeing things.
The fact that so few 'Mhigans have managed to rise above the poverty of Pearl Lane, Little Ala Mhigo and the refugee camps says to me not that they are the feckless, ne'er-do-well layabouts the wealthy Ul'dahns claim them to be, but rather that they struggle with the collective and powerful wounding to the psyche that inevitably comes as a result of people from a warrior culture being dropped into a culture in which their philosophy, skills and traditional ways are not only undervalued, but seen as dangerous, primitive and worthless.
Like the 'Mhigans, the Au Ra Xaela are a warring people, and these cultures tend to be very proud. As such, we could reasonably expect the Xaela to cleave fiercely to their traditions and culture whatever they may be, wherever they find themselves living.