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+--- Thread: Miqo'te Lore, Please! (/showthread.php?tid=5891)
RE: Miqo'te Lore, Please! - MizoreYukii - 12-23-2013
(12-23-2013, 02:43 AM)Naihir Wrote:(12-23-2013, 01:16 AM)MizoreYukii Wrote: Ohhh! This is a big help. Thanks everyone! I have been a little clueless with people throwing the word "Nunh" around, but then I realized it's just a word for pimp basically.I'm glad to finally know what exactly they did and which group they were from.
I kind of want her background to be noticeable, so I'll have to take a look at the naming conventions and go from there, but there's not much I can do right now as their isn't a way to change your name without deleting your character. Thankfully I still have the fantasia if I need it for altering her looks.
One. A Nunh is not a pimp. Please. Roleplayers need to get this concept of Nunhs being womanizers out of their heads. That is not how the society is supposed to be. In a comical way - yes, I suppsoe so but in a socio-anthropolocial way? No.
Nunh's are just a term used for a man who essentially has 'multiple wives'. With the gender ratios - and how it is lorely portrayed in game - it is not uncommon for Nunh's to even exist. It has happened amoung human culture before where men are allowed more wives than not just to keep strong blood and a healthy population booming. For if a people go extinct there is no culture. If you visit the U' clan in the story and listen to some of the NPC dialogue, all bar one of the huntresses respect the Nunh. They think he is powerful and worthy of their duties. They have ceremonial names for 'mating', they dont need to love him to forfill their duty.
Ehh...Sorry...Was just being funny....I knew the basic purpose of his position, and your post helped me understand it a bit more, but still....Tough crowd.
Didn't mean for anyone to get riled up over a silly comment. Thanks though.
RE: Miqo'te Lore, Please! - N'taeyl - 12-23-2013
(12-23-2013, 08:23 AM)MizoreYukii Wrote: Ehh...Sorry...Was just being funny....I knew the basic purpose of his position, and your post helped me understand it a bit more, but still....Tough crowd.
Thanks though.
For the record, I just wanted to throw my thought out there. Nothing is sacred from the sense of good humor.
I really hope we get to see more NPC tribes soon, the world feels so small as it is. And for our first and only tribe to be an odd one out is...strange. Would also be nice to see some small keeper gatherings, even though they aren't super social.
RE: Miqo'te Lore, Please! - Michikyou - 12-23-2013
(12-23-2013, 07:12 AM)Saikoray Wrote:(12-23-2013, 02:43 AM)Naihir Wrote: One. A Nunh is not a pimp. Please. Roleplayers need to get this concept of Nunhs being womanizers out of their heads. That is not how the society is supposed to be. In a comical way - yes, I suppsoe so but in a socio-anthropolocial way? No.
Thank you. I am so tired of seeing people hate nunh for being a man whore. I had only a fleeting moment of dislike when I first heard about them, but it really is JUST a social structure. And, they rarely lead. He's just a buff guy that makes babies, healthy good babies.
Having said that though, sure there's room for a tribe to go off the wall and establish some extreme order. Ultimately those won't last (I would think) but it's there if you want your tribe to be crazy. But to stereotype every nunh as some male womanizer is ridiculous.
Its fine, it irks me when it crosses through to peoples roleplay though and then they make silly comments as such. Miqo'te are usually free to hold their affections to others - Its no more abnormal than many nomadic tribes.
RE: Miqo'te Lore, Please! - K'nahli - 12-23-2013
(12-23-2013, 02:43 AM)Naih Wrote: One. A Nunh is not a pimp. Please. Roleplayers need to get this concept of Nunhs being womanizers out of their heads. That is not how the society is supposed to be. In a comical way - yes, I suppsoe so but in a socio-anthropolocial way? No.
Thank you.
As was said, joking about it is fine and all but it seems to be a widely believed 'fact' that nuhns are living some life of luxury and indulge in the position only for the job description. Lets not forget that there are only one-to-a-few nuhns as opposed to many females. If there was something going on that the females didn't like then I highly doubt they'd just endure such a thing. 'Tribal' doesn't exactly equate to 'savage'.
RE: Miqo'te Lore, Please! - Rinh Hallani - 12-23-2013
(12-23-2013, 09:54 AM)K Wrote: Lets not forget that there are only one-to-a-few nuhns as opposed to many females. If there was something going on that the females didn't like then I highly doubt they'd just endure such a thing. 'Tribal' doesn't exactly equate to 'savage'.
Especially as the women are supposed to be strong hunters themselves so I imagine they'd all just gang up and beat the hell out of a Nuhn if he tried anything funny. /shrug
RE: Miqo'te Lore, Please! - Seriphyn - 12-23-2013
Eh, I'm pretty confident it is perfectly viable in-character to dismiss Seeker tribal males as misogynistic womanizers with backwards social practices, ESPECIALLY considering that all three leaders of the city-states are female (Kan-E-Senna, the Limsa Chief Admiral, and Sultana Nanamo Ul Namo). "Wait, you're telling me that Seeker women can't be the leaders?"
Even OOC, one could call it a "social structure that has been constructed over time"...but that's exactly the same as male-dominated sectors of Western culture (pop media and government primarily). And we accuse that of misogyny all the time.
Point is, whether or not Seeker culture is misogynistic "in reality", there is plenty of material to identify it as such both IC and OOC (and plenty of material to not identify it as such). And since these words are so subjective, there isn't really one truth, but multiple.
RE: Miqo'te Lore, Please! - Naunet - 12-23-2013
(12-23-2013, 04:34 AM)FreelanceWizard Wrote: There's been a lot of discussion on this topic, honestly. The devs have only stated that the nunh of a territory rarely holds a leadership position, and that the nunh is the only one who's socially permitted to sire children. Beyond that, there's only that one branch of the U tribe in game to work from, and even they seem to deviate from the lore post. IMO, then, there's a lot of room for RPers to write a wide variety of lore-compatible tribal backstories.
As the forums have had this debate countless times in the past, I'm just gonna quote FreelanceWizard here with a little bit of added emphasis to counter what appears to be a misconception on the part of some individuals in this thread. There. All done!
*wonders when people talking Seeker lore will ever discuss more than Nunh stuff*
RE: Miqo'te Lore, Please! - Seriphyn - 12-23-2013
Seems like appropriate artistic license to avoid tugging at Out-of-Character sensitivities. Even then though..."male gets all ze womens" still seems shady to me.
EDIT: What I mean is, shades of grey here. There are elements of it across FFXIV, so Seekers shouldn't be excluded from it IMO.
RE: Miqo'te Lore, Please! - Naunet - 12-23-2013
(12-23-2013, 11:53 AM)Seriphyn Wrote: "male gets all ze womens" still seems shady to me.
It only seems shady to you because of your cultural biases. It might seem shady to other Eorzean races who are more explicitly monogamous. It's pretty clear that Seeker culture is one of polyamoury, however, and feeling affection towards more than one person is likely not unusual (probably even the norm).
Now, to step away from this tired topic, one of favorite things about miqo'te lore is how wonderfully flexible and full of opportunity it is. I've had an absolute blast collaborating with the other members of the K tribe to gradually develop a fully-fledged society around the initial, vague concept of an extremely isolated, nomadic desert tribe. I'm in love with how we've woven Azeyma worship into their day-to-day practices and cornerstone rituals. I'm having a blast crafting a special brand of healing medicine developed by their shaman, though I've only gotten to showcase glimpses of it in RP so far. We've taken into account a variety of societal roles and picked out some key defining moments, and there's been a lot of outside research into how real life cultures survive in the extremely harsh environment that the Sagolii offers. And the greatest part is anyone can do this with their Seeker's tribe!
RE: Miqo'te Lore, Please! - FreelanceWizard - 12-23-2013
(12-23-2013, 11:53 AM)Seriphyn Wrote: Even then though..."male gets all ze womens" still seems shady to me.
EDIT: What I mean is, shades of grey here. There are elements of it across FFXIV, so Seekers shouldn't be excluded from it IMO.
One of the nice things about the tribal Seeker lore being ill defined except for some specific bright lines is that you can turn the "dark dial" for your character background all the way from "super-squicky" to "loving familial group" without running afoul of the extant lore. So, if you want to go shady for your character, you can do that. If you'd prefer not to, you can do that, too.
All that said, I personally feel that the "norm" is a patriarchal society where the nunh is akin to a celebrity and the ladies want to share a bed with him. After all, he is the strongest, most bad-ass man in the tribe, proved such through battle, and tribal Seeker society seems to be highly driven towards striving for and celebrating excellence. A strong female and the strongest male should produce strong children well-equipped to survive in a harsh world, or so the thinking goes. However, that's all purely conjecture on my part. All we actually know is that the nunh is the only one societally allowed to sire children in a territory, and that he doesn't typically do that by being the territory's leader. How exactly that works is up to players to decide for their particular tribal territory based on the needs of their backstory.
RE: Miqo'te Lore, Please! - Seriphyn - 12-23-2013
I can tell the community here is extremely protective of the Miqo'te race and is averse to discussing potential points of criticism, even despite FreelanceWizard's remark about how there can be a 'dark dial' that deviates between something positive and negative. A shame, but, harmony is better for the community I think.
RE: Miqo'te Lore, Please! - Ildur - 12-23-2013
I can tell you are extremely protective of your opinions about the Miqo'te race and are averse to discussing potential points of criticism and unable to articulate proper counterarguments to those criticisms. A shame, but leaving the discussion is better for the you, I think.
Jokes aside, I keep my posture that Sunseeker culture is based on a "sexy catgirl race" trope. Squee is aware of the fetish and capitalized on it in the game's lore. That's why they made them polygamous and the reason there is an oversexualization of Miqo'te in Ul'dah and Costa del Sol.
It's a shame Squee shot itself in the foot and went against its own lore with the U tribe and their nunh, but that might be the exception and not the rule. Sunseeker society might or might not be patriarchal: you might think that a man 'getting all ze women' is a sign of patriarchy, but that doesn't have to be the case. Miqo'te males are fewer in number by biologic bias, so keeping a stable population might need that kind of cultural norm depending on the math. You could even have women telling the nunh with whom to have children instead of the nunh being the one picking people. Then suddenly what you might end up having is the objectification of men.
But the lore is sketchy at best, so as Freelance said, you can turn the dial to whatever side you want.
Of course, what you can argue is that the devs designed the Miqo'te lore the way they did because they are a bunch of misogynistic blokes, but then that isn't discussing the lore; it's discussing the author.
RE: Miqo'te Lore, Please! - ansemaru - 12-23-2013
From an out-of-universe perspective: Seeker gender politics are kind of messed up from what we've seen of them, and things are skewed in favor of dude Seekers. It's also what we're given to work with in terms of canon lore. The one in-game example of a Nunh is decidedly the leader of his tribe politically and culturally, and though his position isn't secure and has as much to do with respect from his followers as it does with his having defeated the previous Nunh, he's still living in what appears to be for all intents and purposes a society where the Nunh is the leader and the only ones who have a shot at being the leader are the Tias.
In-character, we've got complete freedom to either accept or challenge the norms of Seeker (and Keeper) society, and that'd probably be pretty interesting. There's a lot of room for conflict between the matriarchal Keepers and the patriarchal Seekers, considering most raised in the respective societies would have an opinion about which group is in the right in terms of how things are run. It'd be especially interesting for characters who come from a Seeker parent and a Keeper parent! For that matter, are there Miqo'te who defect from their tribe to live with the other one, rather than take to the city and abandon traditional societal norms? Seeker women who want a shot at authority and seek to join up with Keeper clans, or Keeper men who take up the 'Tia' name and try to challenge a Nunh so they can be in charge of their own tribe?
And like has been said, there is a lot of space to play Nunhs in various ways. U'odh is the one canon example, and he's very much a standard tribal patriarch figure. That's an option. If you feel inclined, you could play a Nunh who took his position because he wants to have kids, or because he wants an excuse to sleep around and flaunt it to others. You could play a Nunh who doesn't care at all for the breeding bit of his role, and just wants to improve things for his tribe by being a good leader- or even views siring children as a distasteful duty, rather than a benefit of being a Nunh. You could play a Nunh from a Seeker tribe where the women hold the real power, and the Nunh is just the fellow they decided was the best option to have kids with when the time comes. You can play it as creepy or non-creepy as you want to, in the end. It's just important to keep in mind that flagging yourself in such a position is going to invite opinions, and the way you RP a Nunh is going to invite opinions as well. If you play a womanizer or a scumbag Nunh, people will react like they typically do to figures of authority who are scumbags or womanizers. There are going to be people who are critical of the entire system on which Seeker society operates. It's not your job to convince them that Seeker society is awesome and great and they should love it, but you can try if you feel compelled. Conflict breeds interesting RP.
RE: Miqo'te Lore, Please! - Tla - 12-23-2013
(12-23-2013, 03:00 PM)ansemaru Wrote: Â For that matter, are there Miqo'te who defect from their tribe to live with the other one, rather than take to the city and abandon traditional societal norms? Seeker women who want a shot at authority and seek to join up with Keeper clans, or Keeper men who take up the 'Tia' name and try to challenge a Nunh so they can be in charge of their own tribe?I don't know if there's such an example between the npcs, but as far as pcs go, I met a female Seeker who was joining her Keeper mate's tribe and changing her name, because she despised her tribe and their uses while feeling at home between Keepers.
RE: Miqo'te Lore, Please! - Jomoru - 12-23-2013
(12-23-2013, 11:45 AM)Naunet Wrote:(12-23-2013, 04:34 AM)FreelanceWizard Wrote: There's been a lot of discussion on this topic, honestly. The devs have only stated that the nunh of a territory rarely holds a leadership position, and that the nunh is the only one who's socially permitted to sire children. Beyond that, there's only that one branch of the U tribe in game to work from, and even they seem to deviate from the lore post. IMO, then, there's a lot of room for RPers to write a wide variety of lore-compatible tribal backstories.
As the forums have had this debate countless times in the past, I'm just gonna quote FreelanceWizard here with a little bit of added emphasis to counter what appears to be a misconception on the part of some individuals in this thread. There. All done!
*wonders when people talking Seeker lore will ever discuss more than Nunh stuff*
You cna quote it all you want, it won't change the distinct power structures around that sexual dynamic. Powers that can easily be abused.