(12-28-2014, 02:00 AM)Isengrim Lacour Wrote:You also failed to acknowledge the point I made about it happening under the nose of the sworn enemy of the Dravanians.(12-27-2014, 09:07 PM)Naunet Wrote:(12-27-2014, 04:35 AM)Isengrim Lacour Wrote: Not to be pithy, but: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitochondrial_Eve
Not to split hairs, but the theoretical Mitochondrial Eve was not the only human woman alive at the time. Environmental pressures were just exerting a particularly harsh bottleneck effect, and it's entirely possible that children of her direct lineage mated with children of a different mother - in fact, it I'd hazard to say that would be necessary to avoid extinction-levels of gene pool loss. It just so happens that hers was the only female lineage preserved, as far as we know so far.
I'm not sure what hair you are splitting in my comment. Mitochondrial Eve is frequently misinterpreted so the clarification probably helps those encountering the theory for the first time from my link, but my point was simply that the notion of 'one woman siring an entire race' is not as fantastic as it first seems. Add to that the fantasy genre convention of mythologizing race and it should not be a surprise if they went that way for Au Ra.
Let us assume for one moment that Shiva banged a Dragon, and from that coupling an entire species was born from it. Then let us assume that Ishgard never found out about it, why then are all of the Au Ra now living on another continent? I have seen the reasoning that Ishgard did know about them and forced them into exile, but let me then pose this question. If Ishgard has been locked in a near losing war with the Dragons for a thousand years, what power do you think they actually have to exile an entire race of Dragonkin from Dravania? Do you think the Elezen Pope just walked up to the Dragons and said "Hey your kids need to gtfo or else?" I highly doubt that.
Considering how eager the Dragons are to defeat Ishgard, and the fact that they are willing to recruit heretics from within the ranks of Ishgard means it was also equally unlikely that the Dragons were the ones to exile the Au Ra, they would have been Dravania's greatest asset considering their human-like appearance.
Clearly Yugiri has shown no knowledge of Ishgard or their politics, which means that if they were exiled the stories of their lost homeland and their war with Ishgard was lost to them over the years, however long ago it was.
In short, the theory that the Au Ra might be tied to Shiva in some way is interesting, but flawed. There are a ton of holes in the idea people are conveniently overlooking simply because of hype, and I highly doubt we're going to get any indepth origin story for the Au Ra, just like we never got any origin stories for any of the other races. My bet is on the fact that the Au Ra are just another race that live in the world, who just happen to have scales and horns, and there is no rhyme or reason for it other than because SE wanted a race that resembled dragons for their dragon themed expansion.
![[Image: xivpads.png]](http://xivpads.com/i/sigs/24820/xivpads.png)
