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Naeva'to · **02-19-2014, 07:29 PM**

Wow this was a great read. Â You put a lot of thought into that. Â Really awesome.

Ildur · **02-20-2014, 08:39 AM**

I mentioned this before when the thread was still 'fresh', but I feel like I should point it out again: The original post, while well written and put, presents the matter as a study of animals and not of a human culture, rellying only on biology to make sense of Miqo'te. It ignore ethics, morality and abstract thought. Three things that a sentient, intelligent species would have besides their instinct. I find this to be a fundamental flaw on it that results in Miqo'te coming out as simple animals instead of as humans.

allgivenover · **02-20-2014, 09:57 AM**

Real life Humans have been capable of ethics/morality and abstract thought for a long while now, but even a cursory study of history will quickly reveal that it's done little to curb our inherent savagery - though it may be very difficult to see that given our privileged western lifestyle, a lifestyle that is mostly absent of the desperation that encourages that latent savagery. It is in the lore that the losing male in a Seeker duel for Nunh status may not survive the event, such a thing would widely be considered extremely barbaric and cruel to a real world modern mind, but not so much to a race like the Miqo'te.

However, we do have to realize that this is a fantasy setting, and what SE wants to portray may not necessarily 100% align with well thought out biology based extrapolation. The U' tribe we see in game seems to sit well with most of what OP wrote, though I'd be very surprised if SE ever touched the idea that a fresh Nunh might enact a culling of the old Nunh's cubs.

And again, none of this is a hard guideline for how you should play /your/ Miqo'te character. OP stated this as well, and it seems this is reflected in game. The Valentione quests portrayed a Keeper of the Moon female who was at one point willing to marry a Hyur male. So no one is wrong for playing a Miqo'te that doesn't follow tribal habits of promiscuity (unverified but likely given that it's the only model we have that makes sense) or harem keeping.

Now if only SE would show us a Keeper tribe in game so that we could do more than speculate and consider tiny tidbits like the fact that Keepers also have breeding males or at least show us a single Keeper male other than the CoeurlClaw King from that fate in the South Shroud...

Ildur · **02-20-2014, 10:09 AM**

My problems with the biology-centric exploration of Miqo'te culture has nothing to do with a 'privileged' western or modern mindset and all with how it disregards the effects of morals, ethics and reasoning as if they did not exist. Probably because it wasn't the intention of the post to do so, but then it dwells in places where those things would have something to say about the matter. It's an interesting read but mostly useless because of that.

I said it once before, but I'll say it again: studying Miqo'te culture based only on the biology of cats is like studying any real human culture based on the biology of apes. It may be an interesting exercise but that's all it is.

I wish Squee would have spent more time stablishing Miqo'te cultures instead of going for "Oh, yeah! Harem catgirls!".

Mimiko · **02-20-2014, 10:47 AM**

Well that explains my question why so many people name their characters Nunh or Tia. I think I'll have to be nicer to the "Tia's" of the world now. And to all the "Nuhn's" out there you'll get Nuhn from me.

allgivenover · **02-20-2014, 12:00 PM**

(02-20-2014, 10:47 AM)Mimiko Wrote: Well that explains my question why so many people name their characters Nunh or Tia. I think I'll have to be nicer to the "Tia's" of the world now. And to all the "Nuhn's" out there you'll get Nuhn from me.

This right here, the inability to separate the modern mindset from roleplay. It's the number one reason that Miqo'te lore discussions are always such a hot issue for debate.

Killing? Fine. Rogue characters committing theft? Also fine. "Evil" type characters committing terrible acts such as kidnapping or torture? You see it all the time and no one bats an eyelash, it's even considered great fun by many.

But sexual habits that defy political correctness or established norms? Cause for great offense and righteous indignation.

Read again, focus on the wording. "IÂ think I'll be nicer to the "Tia's" of the world now. And to all the "Nuhn's" out there you'll get Nuhn from me."

You are not your character, this is not your world. Try to remove /your/ viewpoint when you consider how your character thinks. If you don't at least consider this then in my opinion you're not really roleplaying, you're just putting on a costume so you can feel cool.

C'kayah Polaali · **02-20-2014, 12:28 PM**

I've never really taken it as canon that Tias get no sex while Nunhs get it all, to be honest. You don't see anything like that in human cultures, nor do you see it among mammals.

There's an interesting thing that crops up when you look at the genetics of the kids of animals in a Seeker-style group (where one male mates with the females and the other males don't mate at all): There's a sizable fraction of the kids who are not actually the children of the breeding male. One of the prevailing theories to explain that, amusingly called the "Sneaky Fucker Theory" says basically that these other males are mating with the females while the breeding male is off doing something else.

I can easily see something similar happening with Seekers.

I think, in Seeker culture, there's probably a lot of symbolism attached to the titles Tia and Nunh that don't necessarily bear out in practice.Â

There are a few people RPing Seekers named "blah blah Nunh" who are running around being adventurers. Where's their breeding group? Certainly not adventuring with them. I doubt that their group is somehow just waiting for them to return in the desert while they go on adventures. Yet they keep the title, probably because of its symbolic importance.

As another example, C'kayah left his tribe a decade and a half ago, yet still keeps the title Tia, despite having quite a bit of sex over the years and currently being in a Seeker-style relationship. He enjoys how the title leads to assumptions about him - in his mind, it's far better to be underestimated.

Jana · **02-20-2014, 12:33 PM**

(02-20-2014, 10:47 AM)Mimiko Wrote: Well that explains my question why so many people name their characters Nunh or Tia. I think I'll have to be nicer to the "Tia's" of the world now. And to all the "Nuhn's" out there you'll get Nuhn from me.

You should keep in mind when you're in the game at large that "Nunh" and "Tia" are the only surnames the random name generator will give to male seekers. If they're not a roleplayer, there's a good chance the player hasn't read up on what those titles even mean.

allgivenover · **02-20-2014, 12:36 PM**

That's actually seen a lot in species that arn't mammals too, crafty males mating without the alpha's knowledge. It's something that doesn't seem unlikely in Seeker culture as well.

It also goes without saying that it's possible many city Miqo'te don't care about the Tia/Nunh dynamic at all.

Aya · **02-20-2014, 12:54 PM**

Interesting :-X

TheShii · **02-20-2014, 03:23 PM**

(02-20-2014, 09:57 AM)allgivenover Wrote: Real life Humans have been capable of ethics/morality and abstract thought for a long while now, but even a cursory study of history will quickly reveal that it's done little to curb our inherent savagery

I think that's basically what I'm thinking when I read the first post. Sure, there are a ton of actual rl studies out there that don't even cover the basis of morality and sentience. This is of course all just theories and speculations all an all, that's why lore will always just be a guideline in the end.

(02-20-2014, 10:09 AM)Ildur Wrote: It's an interesting read but mostly useless because of that.

see though its not even that. I'm not going to quote the post like a bible, so I might have missed a specific phrase, but from what I recalled it was covered time and time again in the post that this was not everything or exactly as lore. There are going to be missing elements. That does not make something that can make the average person; ignorant to a variety of things, think outside their box of norm; as useless.

I'm no biology major; social interactions, even amongst animals are known minimally to myself at best. While rl, we as humans are 'not' actually apes... there will always be some sort of basic knowledge someone could walk away with in any sort of comparison study from any animal species. People can get defiant and offended, but there are so many instances where perfectly decent human beings act more on their instincts or basic desires. Sure you're not going to know why Stacy left their husband by watching Bubba the monkey play with a tree, but it's more a matter of environment I think. When it comes down to basics, there's bound to be some similarities now and then.

Far as seeker harems or typical mating/breeding social norms go, I think it's just a matter of the territory and the traditions of the tribe itself. Miqo'te seem to be very tribe loyal and hold to their inner traditions more or less from the various things I've read while playing. I don't see what would be so wrong with one area of territories of the same clan holding a similar likeness, while another does something differently. While I'm no expert, even I know that there's a socially accepted norm, but there will always be a key of evolution and deviation in sentient environments. Lesser common, but still present I'm sure.

Ildur · **02-21-2014, 07:32 AM**

Quote: There are going to be missing elements.

The post is a lot of biological extrapolations that start from lore and cannot be supported by it. I'm fine with that. What I'm not fine with is that it ignores that Miqo'te are humans. They are not lions, or any other type of cat. As far as the game world is concerned, they are people. And if we judge them by real life human standards, then they are still not lions; they are humans. But the post pretends that they are only lions anyway. It is not speaking of Miqo'te, really: it's speaking of hypotetical animals that share the Miqo'te societal norms without any of the thinking that would be involved. And that's why I call it useless: by ignoring everything that forms a culture besides the animal side, it is not talking about Miqo'te. It's a very interesting and well put strawman. But those aren't Miqo'te.

Quote:People can get defiant and offended, but there are so many instances where perfectly decent human beings act more on their instincts or basic desires.

This has nothing to do with it. You can't study Chinesse culture and societal norms only by studying their biology. Even more, you can't study them by picking a random individual and concluding that, because an individual took no ethical, moral or rational considerations in some of his decisions, then the culture they are part of won't either. You have to study what makes that culture like it is. What reasoning leads them to be like they are, their history, their morality. Human culture is much more complex than the social norms animals have. Studying a cultural group as if they were just animals makes no sense and leads nowhere.

TheShii · **02-21-2014, 04:42 PM**

(02-21-2014, 07:32 AM)Ildur Wrote:
Quote: There are going to be missing elements.

What I'm not fine with is that it ignores that Miqo'te are humans. They are not lions, or any other type of cat. As far as the game world is concerned, they are people. And if we judge them by real life human standards, then they are still not lions; they are humans.

Quote:People can get defiant and offended, but there are so many instances where perfectly decent human beings act more on their instincts or basic desires.

This has nothing to do with it. You can't study Chinesse culture and societal norms only by studying their biology. Even more, you can't study them by picking a random individual and concluding that, because an individual took no ethical, moral or rational considerations in some of his decisions, then the culture they are part of won't either. You have to study what makes that culture like. What reasoning leads them to be like they are, their history, their morality. Human culture is much more complex than the social norms animals have. Studying a cultural group as if they were just animals makes no sense and leads nowhere.

To the first part, in that same argument then we really can't say any of what we're saying can conclude what sort of environment or social cultural history the races have. It's very true that yes, the Miqo'Te aren't lions, nor are they strictly animals either. They obviously have sentience, morals, principles, guidelines in which they live. That goes the same for the other races. But there are also pieces of history in a rl sense where tribes or clans have taken after the animals ways of life in less than a literal sense (but that makes it less about human morality and more about their traditions) . They still have that factor of intelligence and difference of course, not downing that, really I'd love to see the original writer incorporate a second phase of their original writing that included the missing points. Smile

Ildur · **02-22-2014, 02:51 PM**

Quick question: why can't we judge Miqo'te by real human standards? And by 'real human standards' I mean what philosophically means to be a human being, not the specific morals we may or may not have.

Quote:It's very true that yes, the Miqo'Te aren't lions, nor are they strictly animals either. They obviously have sentience, morals, principles, guidelines in which they live.

An animal is a being that can move by itself. All humans can move by themselves, so they are animals. However, humans have a property that no other animal has: reason. Humans are rational animals, because they can use reason and move by themselves. Miqo'te have reason and can move by themselves. Therefore, they are humans.
Or, add "animals have instinct, movibility" and the other things Aristotle told us they have that I forgot, if you want. But details.

Deciding that their morality must be similar to certain animals is not only purely speculative fiction, but also arbitrary. It's based only on two facts: that Miqo'te have three animal traits (tails, ears, fangs/eyes) and that we happen to know that they are based on the catgirl/boy archetype. This is somehow more important that they are humans. The original post categorically ignores the human aspect of Miqo'te to concentrate on the biology, and then dares to make categoric statements about Sun Seeker morality, even though if you even run a cursory study of history of civilization you'll see there's always much more involved in the morality of a nation during a specific period.

Simply put: there is no lore evidence, as the post rightfully says, to support any of this conclusions. But the conclusions drawn are terrible by pretending to study what is a human culture in animal terms. Interesting, yes. Useful, no.

synaesthetic · **02-22-2014, 03:13 PM**

Actually, strictly speaking an animal is defined by being an organism that must ingest other organisms in order to survive.

Miqo'te fit that definition, too. Tongue

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