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What age is adulthood for all the races?


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All races, except the Elezen live normal lifespans comparable to real world humans. Elezen live slightly extended lives with prolonged childhood and puberty as a result, according to Fernehalwes at the Las Vegas Fan Fest. He did not, however, give specific numbers.

 

As for Padjal, they are born Hyur or Elezen and stop maturing physically when they reach puberty. They will look like children the rest of their lives. The length of the Padjal's horns is their only indicator of age. The only reason Kan-E looks older is because she's altered her appearance so the leaders of other nations take her seriously. Kan-E is in her early twenties.

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We should probably also consider the age this universe is set on. Ancient civilizations aside, I'd place Eorzea somewhere in the 1400 a.C. I'd consider adulthood to be in the twenties.

 

We REALLY shouldn't go by the Japanese modern age of consent, because not everyone here is okay with seeing 14yo characters get physical or sexually active.

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14 is legal in Japan but in Tokyo it's 16 (Which is generally more accepted). But that's only consent guys and not what they consider adulthood, in Japanese Tradition they don't beleive you hit adulthood till 20. For girls, there's even a ceremony and you can drink and smoke at 20. As of right now so is the right to vote, but that's getting lowered to 18.

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I think Miqo'te adulthood vary from tribe to tribe and gender, or in case of city raised, by the standards of that city.

 

For example, in one tribe, you might be considered an adult the moment you successfully perform your first hunt. In another tribe, a female will be considered an adult the moment they're fertile.

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We honestly have nothing to go on really, we are not even actually given any of the character's age at all, except for Nanamo (and that one had to be deduced, it wasn't outright stated).

 

My own personal way of looking at it:

 

As a non-modern society I think "adulthood" in Eorzea is likely to be loose at best. Historically, sexually mature people were never considered children, in fact the concept of being a "teenager" is a relatively modern development in our human history.

 

Having said that, puberty hit much later in the pre-modern world than it did now. It didn't start to slide back to where it is now until the 1850s. Obviously it's hard to place Eorzea in a time that's analogous to Earth history, but considering there's still an absence of an industrial revolution and that most people can't read yet I'd wager it to be somewhat similar.

 

In my own head cannon adulthood in Eorzea is whenever menarche starts up, which in the old world (pre 1840 Earth) was anywhere from 15-18 depending on where you were.

 

It's a bit harder to place for boys. Since there's more variation there when they start. I didn't have any facial hair until I was halfway through 20 years of age, some boys I knew in middle school were sporting scruff.

 

I do wish we had some ages to go off of, but in their absence I just stick to the real world counterparts. It's not that important anyway.

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Eorzea is a modern civilization, though; there's plumbing, some form of centralized power likely via aether manipulation (because let's be honest, I sincerely doubt the likes of Ul'dah has a candle maiden relighting the city in the wee hours of the morning), all forms of various mechanical contraptions from fold-out composite longbows to massive airships and that's without even stepping into magitek territory.

 

Bottom line: fantasy does not necessarily mean 'dark ages'. If we want to talk a subject like age of consent, it has to be done from a more recent perspective. Sixteen would be the figure I'd go with as it's a fairly reasonable average imo. It's bound to vary from person-to-person, though, simply due to the vast array of cultural backgrounds the player based is formed from.

 

As for Padjal, they are born Hyur or Elezen and stop maturing physically when they reach puberty. They will look like children the rest of their lives. The length of the Padjal's horns is their only indicator of age. The only reason Kan-E looks older is because she's altered her appearance so the leaders of other nations take her seriously. Kan-E is in her early twenties.

 

Where on Earth did this information come from? O_o To my understanding the age at which Padjal cease to physically age varies from child to child, hence why we have the older Kan-E-Senna versus, say, her younger siblings.

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Eorzea is a modern civilization, though; there's plumbing, some form of centralized power likely via aether manipulation (because let's be honest, I sincerely doubt the likes of Ul'dah has a candle maiden relighting the city in the wee hours of the morning), all forms of various mechanical contraptions from fold-out composite longbows to massive airships and that's without even stepping into magitek territory.

 

Bottom line: fantasy does not necessarily mean 'dark ages'. If we want to talk a subject like age of consent, it has to be done from a more recent perspective. Sixteen would be the figure I'd go with as it's a fairly reasonable average imo. It's bound to vary from person-to-person, though, simply due to the vast array of cultural backgrounds the player based is formed from.

 

As for Padjal, they are born Hyur or Elezen and stop maturing physically when they reach puberty. They will look like children the rest of their lives. The length of the Padjal's horns is their only indicator of age. The only reason Kan-E looks older is because she's altered her appearance so the leaders of other nations take her seriously. Kan-E is in her early twenties.

 

Where on Earth did this information come from? O_o To my understanding the age at which Padjal cease to physically age varies from child to child, hence why we have the older Kan-E-Senna versus, say, her younger siblings.

 

Those few innovations in the city states are not ubiquitous throughout the setting. Additionally I'd like to see some proof about aether manipulation giving citizens electricity.

 

Lighting lamps for the nighttime is a low level quest in Limsa Lominsa, so yes it's entirely plausible that Ul'dah has people who light the lamps every single night. That's how we did it in the real world before electricity came about.

 

Eorzea has mechanical marvels, but it is not a modern minded world like ours. Very far from it. If you disagree, fine. We don't have to acknowledge each other's interpretation of the setting.

 

If I remember correctly it was at Las Vegas. At the lore panel or associated interview.

 

This is also where I recall it from.

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Funny enough, one of the intro quests in Limsa Lominsa has you refueling the street lamps with oil. So, at least there, the lamps are oil powered and have their own oil stores. Presumably, someone goes to light them at night and we simply don't see it in game. I don't recall if they specify the type of oil that's used in the quest item description.

 

Conversely, we know that at least some lighthouses are powered through aetheric means. That's part of the whole problem with Pharos Sirius, and you actually have turn off the aether valves in the upper floors. It would appear that aetheric power, at least as used by Limsa Lominsa for that purpose, requires considerable machinery. However, IIRC, Pharos Sirius is actually extracting aether from the land, rather than using crystals.

 

Given that we also know that most of Eorzea is illiterate per Fernehalwes and that the average lifespan is pretty short because of how dangerous things are, I think it's safe to say Eorzea is a fairly medieval society in a lot of ways. Sure, it has some fairly progressive views (for instance, on sexuality) and magical conveniences (particularly with and for adventurers), but I think it's best viewed as a non-modern setting.

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Funny enough, one of the intro quests in Limsa Lominsa has you refueling the street lamps with oil. So, at least there, the lamps are oil powered and have their own oil stores. Presumably, someone goes to light them at night and we simply don't see it in game. I don't recall if they specify the type of oil that's used in the quest item description.

 

This is the quest I was referring too, thank you.

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As for Padjal, they are born Hyur or Elezen and stop maturing physically when they reach puberty. They will look like children the rest of their lives. The length of the Padjal's horns is their only indicator of age. The only reason Kan-E looks older is because she's altered her appearance so the leaders of other nations take her seriously. Kan-E is in her early twenties.

 

Where on Earth did this information come from? O_o To my understanding the age at which Padjal cease to physically age varies from child to child, hence why we have the older Kan-E-Senna versus, say, her younger siblings.

 

Las Vegas Lore Panel

 

This was actually one of my questions that got answered at the Lore panel:

 

Q: How old is Kan-E-Senna? Why is she the only adult looking Padjal?

 

A: Her age is- and I wrote this down - she is in her late twenties. But again, that's her spiritual age. As you know, the Padjal all physically stop growing at about 10-11 years old. That's why they all look like children. But they live full lives so you'll have people who look like children but are actually 40, 50, 60 years old. In the case of Kan-E-Senna - and up until the end of 1.0 it was E-Sumi-Yan that was the Elder Seedseer that was in control of Gridania, but when the Grand Companies came out, Kan-E-Senna, who was in the forest communing with the Elementals at that time, came back to take over the Grand Company.

 

The thing is... ...in the other city-states you have Merlwyb, y'know kickass, and in Ul'dah you have Nanamo who is Seventeenth in her line, you got Raubahn who's like rrrrrrrrrrr! And so you have these really strong leaders in the other city-states and then here... Y'know people in Gridania understand that their Elder Seedseers are really powerful but for the rest of people they're like 'that's just a kid you can't take these people seriously' and so again, her making herself appear older is to present herself to the people of the other nations so they will take her seriously. She's basically making herself look older than she really is so people will take her seriously. Spiritually she's in her late twenties. Physically in her early teens.

 

This was also hinted at in the 1.0 quest Disorganized Crime, in which Raya-O-Senna finds her sister Kan-E in the Woods at the center of a mass murder of Elementals. Raya-O does not recognize her sister. We at first assumed this was because the Padjal of Gridania rarely enter the city and spend most of their time in the Wood. While this is true, we learned from the lore panel that she changed her appearance. The information about the horns came from a 1.0 NPC.

 

You can find further lore about the Padjal (and how they come to be Padjal) from this Padjal Naming Conventions lore post by Fernehalwes.

 

 

_________

 

As for "coming of age" we do have some specific ages for at least two of the Eorzean city-states. In the Sharlayan Tales from the Calamity, we are specifically told that Sharlayan children are considered "of age" at 16.

 

Recent graduates of the Studium' date=' the twins were now sixteen summers old─old enough to be considered of age in Sharlayan society.[/quote']

 

Sixteen also appears to be the age of adulthood in Ul'dah as well, based off Nanamo. While it's true that Nanamo Ul Namo ascended to the thrown at just 5 years old, the 1.0 quest There Might Be Blood shows a 15 year old Nanamo accompanied by her Regent, Marcechamp. However, Marcechamp never appears again in the present day (pre-Calamity) when Nanamo Ul Namo is 16 years old. In every cutscene hence, she is seen acting alone in the political theatre, lending to the idea that, at 16, Nanamo was considered of age to rule alone.

 

 

_________

 

Back to my original post, I couldn't link the lore before, but here's the explanation from Fernehalwes on the differences between the Elezen and other races aging:

 

Q: What are the age scales of every race? How long do they live and how long does it take them to become an adult?

 

Fernehalwes: Okay, yeah I asked about this and I was told that age-scale wise the five races biologically they can live about- they have the same lifespan as we do here on earth. They can live one hundred, one hundred and twenty biologically. The thing is, here we have modern medicine, we have jobs that don't take us on to the battlefield, we have food in refrigerators not sitting in a barrel. And so we can live that long, whereas, in Eorzea its a much harsher realm. I mean you've got raptors roaming the jungle. "I need to go out and pick an ogre pumpkin!" "Oh sorry, daddy got eaten by a raptor as he was picking our dinner pumpkin so it looks like we're having nothing for dinner tonight." And so daddy dies of raptor and children die of starvation because they couldn't get the pumpkin.

 

On top of that you have wars and people are fighting Ishgard, I wouldn't expect most people would live longer than like thirty years. That's the thing, so you get an average lifespan that is a lot shorter, y'know in the forties, fifties. I mean there was the one quest about, back in 1.0... there was the Lalafell that was put in the Oubliette in Ul'dah, and he was in there praying and because he was this zen thing and he focused and he slowed his breathing and he lived for hundreds of years or whatever. Other than that people aren't going to live that long.

 

That said, Elezen actually do have a longer lifespan than the other four races. And this also appears in the- when they go from child to puberty to adulthood. So which is why you'll see in the- in 1.0 there was a bunch of Elezen children that appeared in some of the quests and they appear again in 2.0, and they're still children. And you think well it's been five years why are they still children? It's because again that childhood for Elezen can last much longer. And they end up living longer as well. Um, but for the most part it's pretty much just the same as us, but with more... fatality.

 

 

Hope this helps! ^^

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As for Padjal, they are born Hyur or Elezen and stop maturing physically when they reach puberty. They will look like children the rest of their lives. The length of the Padjal's horns is their only indicator of age. The only reason Kan-E looks older is because she's altered her appearance so the leaders of other nations take her seriously. Kan-E is in her early twenties.

 

Where on Earth did this information come from? O_o To my understanding the age at which Padjal cease to physically age varies from child to child, hence why we have the older Kan-E-Senna versus, say, her younger siblings.

 

Las Vegas Lore Panel

 

This was actually one of my questions that got answered at the Lore panel:

 

Q: How old is Kan-E-Senna? Why is she the only adult looking Padjal?

 

A: Her age is- and I wrote this down - she is in her late twenties. But again, that's her spiritual age. As you know, the Padjal all physically stop growing at about 10-11 years old. That's why they all look like children. But they live full lives so you'll have people who look like children but are actually 40, 50, 60 years old. In the case of Kan-E-Senna - and up until the end of 1.0 it was E-Sumi-Yan that was the Elder Seedseer that was in control of Gridania, but when the Grand Companies came out, Kan-E-Senna, who was in the forest communing with the Elementals at that time, came back to take over the Grand Company.

 

The thing is... ...in the other city-states you have Merlwyb, y'know kickass, and in Ul'dah you have Nanamo who is Seventeenth in her line, you got Raubahn who's like rrrrrrrrrrr! And so you have these really strong leaders in the other city-states and then here... Y'know people in Gridania understand that their Elder Seedseers are really powerful but for the rest of people they're like 'that's just a kid you can't take these people seriously' and so again, her making herself appear older is to present herself to the people of the other nations so they will take her seriously. She's basically making herself look older than she really is so people will take her seriously. Spiritually she's in her late twenties. Physically in her early teens.

 

This was also hinted at in the 1.0 quest Disorganized Crime, in which Raya-O-Senna finds her sister Kan-E in the Woods at the center of a mass murder of Elementals. Raya-O does not recognize her sister. We at first assumed this was because the Padjal of Gridania rarely enter the city and spend most of their time in the Wood. While this is true, we learned from the lore panel that she changed her appearance. The information about the horns came from a 1.0 NPC.

 

You can find further lore about the Padjal (and how they come to be Padjal) from this Padjal Naming Conventions lore post by Fernehalwes.

 

 

_________

 

As for "coming of age" we do have some specific ages for at least two of the Eorzean city-states. In the Sharlayan Tales from the Calamity, we are specifically told that Sharlayan children are considered "of age" at 16.

 

Recent graduates of the Studium, the twins were now sixteen summers old─old enough to be considered of age in Sharlayan society.

 

Sixteen also appears to be the age of adulthood in Ul'dah as well, based off Nanamo. While it's true that Nanamo Ul Namo ascended to the thrown at just 5 years old, the 1.0 quest There Might Be Blood shows a 15 year old Nanamo accompanied by her Regent, Marcechamp. However, Marcechamp never appears again in the present day (pre-Calamity) when Nanamo Ul Namo is 16 years old. In every cutscene hence, she is seen acting alone in the political theatre, lending to the idea that, at 16, Nanamo was considered of age to rule alone.

 

 

_________

 

Back to my original post, I couldn't link the lore before, but here's the explanation from Fernehalwes on the differences between the Elezen and other races aging:

 

Q: What are the age scales of every race? How long do they live and how long does it take them to become an adult?

 

Fernehalwes: Okay, yeah I asked about this and I was told that age-scale wise the five races biologically they can live about- they have the same lifespan as we do here on earth. They can live one hundred, one hundred and twenty biologically. The thing is, here we have modern medicine, we have jobs that don't take us on to the battlefield, we have food in refrigerators not sitting in a barrel. And so we can live that long, whereas, in Eorzea its a much harsher realm. I mean you've got raptors roaming the jungle. "I need to go out and pick an ogre pumpkin!" "Oh sorry, daddy got eaten by a raptor as he was picking our dinner pumpkin so it looks like we're having nothing for dinner tonight." And so daddy dies of raptor and children die of starvation because they couldn't get the pumpkin.

 

On top of that you have wars and people are fighting Ishgard, I wouldn't expect most people would live longer than like thirty years. That's the thing, so you get an average lifespan that is a lot shorter, y'know in the forties, fifties. I mean there was the one quest about, back in 1.0... there was the Lalafell that was put in the Oubliette in Ul'dah, and he was in there praying and because he was this zen thing and he focused and he slowed his breathing and he lived for hundreds of years or whatever. Other than that people aren't going to live that long.

 

That said, Elezen actually do have a longer lifespan than the other four races. And this also appears in the- when they go from child to puberty to adulthood. So which is why you'll see in the- in 1.0 there was a bunch of Elezen children that appeared in some of the quests and they appear again in 2.0, and they're still children. And you think well it's been five years why are they still children? It's because again that childhood for Elezen can last much longer. And they end up living longer as well. Um, but for the most part it's pretty much just the same as us, but with more... fatality.

 

 

Hope this helps! ^^

 

 

/drools over lore

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Eorzea is a modern civilization, though; there's plumbing --

Plumbing has been around for thousands of years. Not only did the ancient Romans, Greeks, and Persians have sewer systems and indoor plumbing for sinks and bathtubs, they even had water-flushing toilets. About the only things that are modern to the whole thing are water heaters, electric well pumps, detachable shower heads, high-efficiency particle filters, and honey trucks...

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16 seems the most appropriate. Perhaps it is worth looking at...

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_consent#Traditional_attitudes

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marriageable_age#History_and_social_attitudes

 

Level of technology has very little to do with social attitudes, as well. Even in the 19th century, it was still pretty damned low. We shouldn't wrinkle our nose at the possibility that the age of majority being less than what we're comfortable with in real life, because Eorzea is not real life, and closer to history.

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Throughout most of history, especially in Europe, around 20 is considered adulthood. Betrothals of children among noble families are of course common among nobles and royalty, as were marriages, but actual sexual activity? Not much as recorded before adulthood. As for commoners? Early 20's again is the most common age according to Church records (you know, the people that would have kept records of Births, Deaths and Marriages before formal Civil Registry Offices came about).

 

Besides, the the whole debate for FFXIV is pointless. It was confirmed at 16 in the Tales of the Calamity journals.

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