Alright, lemme put a cork in this right now. Midlanders are your typical 'intelligence' race, with what we know about them being that they're trained in their letters from infancy and tend to be more intelligent that the other races. In your 'perfect lore-based world', we Middies would be holding a conversation about the long-term detriments of aether exposure in dungeon delving adventurers as opposed to the long-term detriments of aether exposure to soldiers constantly battling freshly summoned Primals to later be penned for a tome, while most other races-Lalas are actually very quick witted, so they'd most likely chime in with valuable input-would say 'lolwaht?'.
This NEVER happens to be the case because NO ONE wants to be a dummy-most feel it's beneath them. It's no fun to feel like you have noticeable flaws when you could be 'Too loyal to a fault' or 'Work entirely too hard' or the popular choices of haughty behavior and lack of trust. You'll find out pretty damned fast that EVERYONE has the rough equivalent of a high school diploma. Is this bad? Meh, I'd like to feel like the Middies have something special about them, but the community would have to accept that they'd have to go from intelligent to wise if they want to be 'smart'. BIG difference in the two.
It's easy to say everyone's intelligent because that's something that can't really be measured, not like strength. Take comparing a Lalafell to a Roegadyn. We both know who's stronger, you can argue until the cows come home but that ain't gonna change the fact that the eight foot eight behemoth of a sentient being can most likely bench press an engine block with their bare hands where the cute little humanoid doll would be instantly crushed. Intelligence on the other hand? I could rant and rave all day but I'll sum in up here. You could roleplay an elderly character who's devoted their entire life to the pursuit of knowledge, yet there will always be more fresh-faced youth characters who can talk you around the block on any subject you so choose-even if you happen to be the sole reasearcher and pioneer in that field.
TL;DR: We ARE special. We're not ALLOWED to be special.
To be forgotten is worse than death
