Dominance Challenges: Seeker Cultural Conflict Explored

[FreelanceWizard]

I don't believe you're right, though. "Battle" and "survives" are pretty clear-cut terms. One typically wouldn't refer to tightrope walking or chess as "battles" in a fantasy setting; certainly my reading of other dev posts doesn't suggest that they regularly engage in such glibness. Note that nowhere in the dev post does it say that the "tia makes a challenge." It says, "the tia can challenge the nunh to battle" (emphasis mine).

 

The wording doesn't seem to permit other ritualized activities in a "normal, average" tribe. That doesn't mean that you can't have tribes that don't do it that way, but again, you have to have a reason why and be prepared for IC responses to that, because you're not doing it the way the lore specifies.

[Dehqon]

So, that's it, really. There is no other way to challenge for nunh other than a fight if your character is a "normal" tribal Seeker of the Sun. Now, certainly you have a tribe that's different from the norm, but because this would be a pretty major variance from lore, you need to explain why your tribe is like that and be prepared for flak from other tribes that call yours weak because you don't do things the "right" way.

I think the idea is that there may be more than one way for a Nuhn to be challenged, but straight up brawling until one submits or is killed sounds pretty standard. Seekers want what's best for the future of the tribe and, since some still live in very harsh environments, may be unwilling to waste resources or leave things to chance.

 

Counting broken shields or weapons is a good way to test endurance, but those are things the tribe needs to fend off monsters or rival tribes. Depending on where and how the tribe lives, they may not have a ready supply of metal, wood, or bone that can be thrown away like that. Trading is always an option, but would a tribe that prefers to keep to itself really spend a whole day mingling with outsiders just to get metal and lumber when fists work just as well for ceremonial combat?

 

First blood scenarios have so many technicalities and isn't a good way to see who's the best at fighting. One could trip and skin his knee, drawing blood, and technically count as drawing first blood. It wastes time trying to cover every little technicality like that and too many rules become hard to remember when limbs are flailing around as fast as they can.

 

A tightrope joust would be interesting, and probably one of the more elaborate ways a duel can be carried out, but the rest strike me as too human for a race that was previously compared to animals.

 

This, of course, coming from a person who doesn't have decade-old textbooks, works of fiction, or meals with authors as reliable credentials.

[C'io Behkt]

I don't believe you're right, though. "Battle" and "survives" are pretty clear-cut terms. One typically wouldn't refer to tightrope walking or chess as "battles" in a fantasy setting; certainly my reading of other dev posts doesn't suggest that they regularly engage in such glibness. Note that nowhere in the dev post does it say that the "tia makes a challenge." It says, "the tia can challenge the nunh to battle" (emphasis mine).

 

The wording doesn't seem to permit other ritualized activities in a "normal, average" tribe. That doesn't mean that you can't have tribes that don't do it that way, but again, you have to have a reason why and be prepared for IC responses to that, because you're not doing it the way the lore specifies.

 

 

I want to politely disagree by pointing out that the above image depicts the beginning of a battle called upon by a challenger.

 

In all seriousness, though, my take on it is that the nature of the battle or the skill being tested is up to the values of the tribe. Some tribes might follow more closely the ways of their chosen totem animal, for instance. Carnivore-based tribes might have more vicious life-or-death scenario battles while herbivore-based tribes may simply call for feats of strength or cunning. If a tribe is more magical, it may require a show of mystic aptitude, or if it is more martial, it could just be a straight arena fight.

 

The use of "survives" does not need to be interpreted as "all tribes engage in brutal Battle Royale" but could be taken as "depending on the tribe, surviving a challenge may not be optional for the loser." So far, the lore given for FFXIV: ARR has been broad and open, deliberately littered with loopholes and exceptions to emulate the feeling of a real world with diverse choices, so I really don't see how that dev statement is special enough to be interpreted rigidly.

 

And with -at least- 26 tribes out there, combined with cultural interchanges with the "modernity" of the city-states and even the Empire, I don't know if there can be a singular and definitive normative.

[Khaze'to Zhwan]

I don't believe you're right, though. "Battle" and "survives" are pretty clear-cut terms. One typically wouldn't refer to tightrope walking or chess as "battles" in a fantasy setting; certainly my reading of other dev posts doesn't suggest that they regularly engage in such glibness. Note that nowhere in the dev post does it say that the "tia makes a challenge." It says, "the tia can challenge the nunh to battle" (emphasis mine).

 

The wording doesn't seem to permit other ritualized activities in a "normal, average" tribe. That doesn't mean that you can't have tribes that don't do it that way, but again, you have to have a reason why and be prepared for IC responses to that, because you're not doing it the way the lore specifies.

 

 

I want to politely disagree by pointing out that the above image depicts the beginning of a battle called upon by a challenger.

 

In all seriousness, though, my take on it is that the nature of the battle or the skill being tested is up to the values of the tribe. Some tribes might follow more closely the ways of their chosen totem animal, for instance. Carnivore-based tribes might have more vicious life-or-death scenario battles while herbivore-based tribes may simply call for feats of strength or cunning. If a tribe is more magical, it may require a show of mystic aptitude, or if it is more martial, it could just be a straight arena fight.

 

The use of "survives" does not need to be interpreted as "all tribes engage in brutal Battle Royale" but could be taken as "depending on the tribe, surviving a challenge may not be optional for the loser." So far, the lore given for FFXIV: ARR has been broad and open, deliberately littered with loopholes and exceptions to emulate the feeling of a real world with diverse choices, so I really don't see how that dev statement is special enough to be interpreted rigidly.

 

And with -at least- 26 tribes out there, combined with cultural interchanges with the "modernity" of the city-states and even the Empire, I don't know if there can be a singular and definitive normative.

This ^

 

Thank you C'io for explaining it better than I, my brain is currently melting

[FreelanceWizard]

Hm, that's a good point. I didn't even consider the possibility of RL cultural differences mucking up the localization of lore posts. As an American, when I read "battle," I think "combat." In Japan, that's not necessarily so.

 

I'll concede that there's probably a lot of ways that modern miqo'te can interpret the concept of "battle," and frankly, we don't know enough about historical ones to make a statement either way about them. We're seeing some examples of that in this thread, actually, as each of us bring our personal interpretations to the table based on what we want to do with our characters in their pasts and in their futures. Personally, I find the "red in tooth and claw" argument especially persuasive given what else we know about miqo'te (territorial, solitary, predatory, nomadic -- all things that don't really go with complex ritualized activity but instead with quick, brutal resolutions, IMO), but that's just me. I also find the "other challenges are okay, too" argument vastly less persuasive because of the effort the devs put in to explaining other ways to become nunh, for instance. If they really wanted to open the door to all types of challenges, they'd have said so. (We have to look at lore as both things the devs say, and also things they don't say. A dev never said that you can't transdimensionally port characters from City of Heroes into Eorzea, but that doesn't mean that's a grey area of lore and so it's cool to do so.)

 

Regardless of what the norm is (or whether you believe a norm can be determined -- I do, others don't, and without a dev saying, "By battle, we mean physical fights to the death," or, "We meant to permit all forms of conflict when we said 'battle'," no one has a monopoly on being right here ), you should come up with a reason why your tribe acts the way it does and be prepared for conflict with others on that basis.

 

Actually, that gives me an idea. Perhaps one of the reasons why tribes conflict is related to the nature of challenges. If one tribe uses, say, cooking to the death and the other uses violent battles of fists, the second tribe may actively seek to subsume the first because they're "weak." Of course, I'm getting off-topic with this line of reasoning.

[Desmond Aryll]

Something else to consider is the general nature of the Miqo'te in-game. The entire tone of the game is somewhat lighthearted and a bit on the cheery side. So if there are chipper Miqo'te NPC's in every city and encampment then I would make the assumption that not all Nuhn challenges would be physical battles to the death.

 

A people (even one removed from their native environment) don't change so drastically from ready to accept the death of their own for being genetically inferior to a generally gregarious lot selling you an airship ticket.

 

There must be varying levels of competition for Nuhn. From death games to wherever you might decide to take it. Just my two cents.

[FreelanceWizard]

The entire tone of the game is somewhat lighthearted and a bit on the cheery side.

 

Actually, the main scenario quests take some very dark turns, and as I'm sure members of some FCs (Misericorde, for instance ) can point out, there's a fair amount of ugly stuff going on in Ul'dah especially, ranging from refugee abuse to crushing poverty. The game often is darker than it at first appears, though that doesn't minimize or eliminate the ability to be cheery or lighthearted.

 

One big dark turn is around level 17 or so, when you have to fight off the mercs of a merchant who essentially wants to turn a refugee into his sex slave by claiming she stole from him. The Immortal Flames and other Ul'dahn don't get involved, and basically, only you stand between her and him.

 

At level 21, you find out that Primals can "temper" people to them, which essentially instantly both brainwashes them so that they worship the Primal and binds their life force to the Primal, allowing it to draw Aether from them to sustain its existence. The Echo protects you from this, as it's essentially you being sworn to "no god." Thancred points out to you that, while it's regrettable, everyone who was with you at the Ifrit fight and who doesn't have the Echo is going to be executed by the Scions in order to prevent the Primal from drawing power from them.

 

 

[Desmond Aryll]

The entire tone of the game is somewhat lighthearted and a bit on the cheery side.

 

Actually, the main scenario quests take some very dark turns,

 

That's definitely true. There were quite a few darker themes I was surprised and enjoyed in-game.

I was referring more to the bright and vivid color palette, general tone of the musical score and the selection of emotes offered to the player. From a design perspective, it's an optimistic place. All those facets are angling towards a warm, inviting game where fun is first priority (which is a great thing!)

 

I just think that in keeping with that mindset, the game allows for a wider interpretation of what at first sounds like an exclusive "battle to the death." The personalities of the NPC Miqo'te don't backup the assumption that all of their Nuhn challenges would be open and shut cases of socially acceptable homicide. Although it certainly can be that in some or even many cases.

[Grott]

The entire tone of the game is somewhat lighthearted and a bit on the cheery side. 

 

Uh, are we talking about the same game? Spend about ten minutes reading some lore and get back to me on how lighthearted and cheery this game is.

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The personalities of the NPC Miqo'te don't backup the assumption that all of their Nuhn challenges would be open and shut cases of socially acceptable homicide. 

 

In all honesty, this game does an absolutely terrible job of connecting the Miqo'te we see out in the world and the Miqo'te we read about in the lore. From the lore we get this image of tribal cat-people hunting prey with their primitive weapons and powerful senses. They battle each other for mating rights, and they've adapted to become perfect predators. Then you enter the game and they're just sitting around in nice clothes with perfect hair and the soft skin of children, doing nothing. It's why I decided not to play one. I read the lore and thought "Tribal beast men. This is awesome." and then the game, most disappointingly, provided me with the option to be a fourteen year old boy.

[Myxie Tryxle]

My sarcasm meter sometimes breaks on the written word. You're joking, right? Like, you don't legitimately think eating breakfast with a guy counts as credentials, do you? I don't really know who you are so I'm going to need some clarification before I take anything on this thread seriously.

I think that was meant to be tongue-in-cheek. As saying "I'm a biologist, not a sociologist... but this sounds like a great topic to get input on from the community."

Kyatai has the right of it. Mostly I included that section in this thread as a lighthearted joke in reference to the previous thread which was full of biology. I wanted to point out that when it comes to sociology and culture, I'm a hobbyist at best and would like some real input from those more familiar with the field as well as with the lore. You'll notice that nothing I wrote has any particular depth. It's almost plagiarism if you go to some of the Wikipedia pages for the different types of dueling. Most of my contribution here was offering a little bit of creative writing in the alternate forms of dueling I brainstormed and a general push to get the ball rolling.

[Desmond Aryll]

  Most of my contribution here was offering a little bit of creative writing in the alternate forms of dueling I brainstormed and a general push to get the ball rolling.

 

It's easy to get invested in a thing to the point where one forgets to have fun.

 

I think threads like these are a wonderful way to remind ourselves that we're supposed to be having fun with this.

 

Thanks for filling a bit of my day with FFxiv related brain exercises. I'm don't have a degree in an applicable science and I can't even come close to calling myself a loremaster. But I greatly enjoy hearing the thoughts of anyone who is as enthusiastic about this game as I am and this thread provides that. Keep feeding us your awesome threads, Calli.

 

---

 

 

I'd just like to say that I was delighted to find a place online where internet sarcasm was almost non-existent. It's a very rare thing in this day and age. Let's try to keep it up!

[Myxie Tryxle]

I'd just like to say that I was delighted to find a place online where internet sarcasm was almost non-existent. It's a very rare thing in this day and age. Let's try to keep it up!

Most of my sarcasm tends to be self-denigrating. I've learned that on the internet this is interpreted as a sign of weakness and an opening for attack. Thus very little sarcasm from me. I agree that on the whole, this community is a lot more civil than the internet at large, which is quite nice.

[Myxie Tryxle]

In all honesty, this game does an absolutely terrible job of connecting the Miqo'te we see out in the world and the Miqo'te we read about in the lore. From the lore we get this image of tribal cat-people hunting prey with their primitive weapons and powerful senses. They battle each other for mating rights, and they've adapted to become perfect predators. Then you enter the game and they're just sitting around in nice clothes with perfect hair and the soft skin of children, doing nothing. It's why I decided not to play one. I read the lore and thought "Tribal beast men. This is awesome." and then the game, most disappointingly, provided me with the option to be a fourteen year old boy.

 

I've noticed this discrepancy as well, which was part of the reason I've been writing posts like this. I haven't found the desert tribe of Seekers Aysun mentioned, so having only seen the city Miqo'te that have mostly assimilated into the larger multi-racial culture, it seemed the implementation of Miqo'te in the game didn't match the vision described in the character creator.

 

I would equate it to the culture clash between colonists and Native Americans. Some of the tribes were very cooperative and assimilated. Some were suspicious but still willing to trade while maintaining their own cultural strength. Others were xenophobic and went to war to protect their culture and way of life. I would expect to see a similar culture clash with the Miqo'te, where the 26 different tribes would each have a different take on how much to integrate into the melting pot of society. However, I would be surprised if it became more than a footnote in the in-game lore.

[Spiritual Machine]

Personally, I just wouldn't make any claim that the lore supports any unconventional style of battle between a nuhn and a challenger until more detailed information is offered to us.

 

I believe FreelanceWizard is not incorrect at least in saying that different tribes, divisions and individual combatants within tribes may choose to battle in whatever way they want to set up in their roleplay without us having to claim improperly that the lore explicitly allows for this.

 

Just as some (likely a minority of) Miqo'te live a strictly non-tribal lifestyle, personal choice is allowed to run counter to tradition where it does not completely disregard its relevance. Trying to play with the definition of "battle" and "survives" in order to make the lore say what you want it to say, however, is downright silly.

 

 

 

I also want to note, as I said in a previous discussion, that there is a fine line between playing a Miqo'te that--for one reason or another--is entirely detached from the tribal lifestyle, and playing what amounts to a Hyur with fuzzy cat features.

 

The difference is in the presentation of the hallmarks of a Miqo'te's heritage in their approach to the world: ingrained curiosity or reservation, a psychological inclination toward family structures, the perspective of a wiry and agile creature in a world of less lithe and dexterous people, the advantages and perils of a hound-like sense of smell, slightly different grooming habits and dealing with non-human body parts, a perspective informed by instincts that have been bred into the race, odd sleep cycles and feelings about weather, senses that behave differently from other races (directional hearing from adjustable ears, eyes ideally attuned to certain amounts of light), family history, non-human familial structure and upbringing, traditions, habits and culture passed on by parents, an outsider perspective of being different from others and a minority, and on and on.

 

To offer a rule of thumb, if you're not taking any of this into consideration, your non-tribal Miqo'te may as well be a Hyur. As a non-white person who was raised by a white family, I'm still a member of the human race, but you better believe my experience in life has been a unique and sometimes challenging one.

 

Even if you never see a non-tribal Miqo'te address these experiences in-game--as you will probably never see me address my experiences in real life--that does not make them insignificant or non-existent.

 

If you are not taking advantage of the non-tribal Miqo'te's entirely unique perspective of the world in the story you tell and the development you offer the character, what is the point, really? Ask yourself if you actually just want to play a cat person without all of that complicated tribal lore stuff.

[synaesthetic]

It's not really a surprise as to why the miqo'te NPCs don't really exhibit the lore surrounding the miqo'te. Can you imagine the sort of media frenzy ARR would create in America if there were plots and in-game dialogue concerning miqo'te tribes and harem breeding?

 

Shit, look at the insanity that Mass Effect spawned because they showed a split second of Liara's sideboob.

[Grott]

It's not really a surprise as to why the miqo'te NPCs don't really exhibit the lore surrounding the miqo'te. Can you imagine the sort of media frenzy ARR would create in America if there were plots and in-game dialogue concerning miqo'te tribes and harem breeding?

 

Shit, look at the insanity that Mass Effect spawned because they showed a split second of Liara's sideboob.

 

I'll have to disagree on that one. I don't think the mainstream media gives a shit about FFXIV. And even if they did, look at how much people loved Avatar (I didn't, but people did.) and that's a very tribal culture. I'm not talking about miqo'te having weird sex in the streets. I'm talking about them exhibiting tribal behavior like Kimhari in FFX.

[Myxie Tryxle]

Can you imagine the sort of media frenzy ARR would create in America if there were plots and in-game dialogue concerning miqo'te tribes and harem breeding?

 

I'm not talking about miqo'te having weird sex in the streets. I'm talking about them exhibiting tribal behavior like Kimhari in FFX.

 

She's not talking about weird sex in the street either. She's talking about tribal behavior attributed to them directly in the lore of this game, not an unrelated tribe from a previous and unrelated title in the Final Fantasy series.

[Grott]

not an unrelated tribe from a previous and unrelated title in the Final Fantasy series.

 

Not what I'm saying. I'm saying the reason Miqo'te aren't tribal in-game while they are in the lore, isn't because "America's media would go crazy over it" or some such idea. There are plenty of highly accepted tribal themes in all forms of fiction and no one in America cares one way or the other. The real reason for the schism is probably because they half-assed the lore to make the race different from Hyur in more than just physical appearance. I'm not proposing FFXIV adopt the Rhonso. I was using that as an example of both a tribal race done correctly and a tribal theme that no one freaked out over. America isn't a giant Amish community, things like this are common in our games, movies, books, and television.

[Myxie Tryxle]

As Aysun pointed out, there is one tribal group, but I agree with what you're saying. I got to level 25 in phase 3 and didn't even know there was a tribal group or where to find them. It would be nice to see a range with some middle ground rather than just the two extremes with tribal being difficult to encounter. That middle ground would be an interesting place for RP storylines to explore, so it may need to be provided by the player base.

 

My own character is going to be a Keeper who grew up rural but runs away to the city in search of fame and fortune. Discussions like this have made me realize that the way I played her in phase 3 was much closer to the city side of the spectrum than the tribal side, so hopefully I can shift my slider back towards being a little bit more wild, and starry-eyed towards the city life.

[Grott]

I'd like to see a half-civilized/half-tribal Miqo'te who maybe has some nice clothes or speech patterns, but is still all tatted up and regresses to a more primitive state of mind when the time calls for it. Like Queequeg from Moby-Dick or Tarzan at the end of Tarzan of the Apes through The Return of Tarzan. I guess "if you want something done right, you do it yourself" kind of comes into play here, but I'm feeling too lazy to write up a back story for a new character today. I'll save it for a slow day in phase 4.

 

Anyways, my point is basically just the fact that there are nearly no tribal or even half-tribal Miqo'te NPCs out in the world, despite this deep tribal lore we're provided for the characters. They present them as feral big-cat/people hybrids, when in actuality they look like teenagers mixed with house cats.

[Kyatai]

Yeah.... I'd love to see a nice spectrum across all the races. But as it is, it seems that despite the varying lore, IG npcs are generic without any apparent history at all. I'd love to see different NPC reactions to Different player races. Maybe it happens later, but was disappointed to see that my miqo was treated the same as my dw by the wood wailer NPC when she entered gridania.

So... In the face of that lack, and because we RPers are a pretty creative lot, I just see what We can do in the wiggle room in the lore.