(10-19-2014, 08:26 PM)FreelanceWizard Wrote: The implication I get from that is that professional adventurers typically are literate, while the average Eorzean isn't.
So interesting thing to bring up about this. Eorzeans are noted as being vastly illiterate, right? While adventurers are hinted and winked at being (for the most part) able to read. What do we know about the Player Character adventurers? They aren't from Eorzea...
Let's combine that with the answer Fernehalwes gave at yesterday's lore panel in regards to cross-racial relationships. He starts off by saying "adventurers come from different lands. From places slightly more progressive."
What if the real reason the Player Character Adventurers can read is just because they're from outside Eorzea?
The Goblins went on the Great Pilgrimage 100 years ago to Othard and Ilsabard to attain vast knowledge. We have Thavnair's Great Library. We have the (Island) Sharlayans to the north of Eorzea who are the keepers of knowledge. Garlemald teaches its soldiers to read so they can read/recognize Louisoux's intercepted letters. ( Faded Page )
Is Eorzea just that backwaters of a place? "A blighted realm..." Gaius van Baelsar described it. We're just that savage and have suffered so many calamities and wars and shifting alliances and political backstabs that in the 5000 years since the Allagan Empire we've just never had a chance to recover all that knowledge?
Outside foreign adventurers (I think the distinction should be made, because a native Eorzean adventurer is probably still illiterate) it's kind of interesting to think about who else would be able to read? Members of the Order of Nald'thal, the Arcanists of Melvaan's Gate, Ishgardian astrologians / Holy See, Goblins, Levemetes... probably more I'm not thinking of at the moment, but I think I'm just rambling now.
