A little male Miqo'te lore help?

[T'salmaveth]

I swear I used the Advanced Search tool, as I'm sure that this discussion happened when they announced Male Miqo'te as finally gracing us with their delightful presence... but I just can't find and pin down an answer to my question and I don't feel that I can write up a nice solid backstory/history for T'sal that is correct in the formation of his personality through the interactions of those around him growing up without knowing this. (Okay, breathe... that was too long of a sentence. Way to sound pretentious there, yeesh!)

 

We haven't seen male Miqo'te until the Calamity. Or was this ret-conned? Are they still TECHNICALLY rare(minus the influx of adventurers *cough*) so that one growing up outside of the tribes would be a unique formative experience because those around would be surprised to see one?

 

Sorry if this has already been addressed. If there IS a thread of it I just didn't find, please link it to me with a 'look harder!' scolding and I'll tuck my tail and go read in the corner.

 

And thank you for any help. I'm hoping to have T'sal's wiki done today so I can try to sketch him up with my rusty rusty art skills. ^^

[Merri]

There is no official lore on why they've appeared in numbers after the calamity, though they've said in the past there there will be quests in-game explaining why the new genders are around now.

 

Suffice it to say, I think most people are choosing to go with the "These genders were around ICly during 1.0, even if we didn't see them in-game" route. Simply because it makes more sense for them to have been around, than for them to have suddenly just appeared out of thin air. An entire gender of a species off in some distant land could be canonical if SE chooses to go that route, but it seems highly unlikely. If they were around in Eorzea, there's bound to be some that went against the grain.

 

So, as it stands, most people I know at least are going with the idea that they were around.

 

That being said, canonically, male Miqo'te are supposed to be far, far more reclusive than their female counterparts. One of the reasons given for their lack of appearance in 1.0 is that they don't mesh well with Eorzean society, and instead chose to remain with their tribes and/or by themselves. It's likely the calamity brought them out of the woodworks.

 

In my own personal opinion, I feel as though they were around, but just not as much as the other races. You might have seen one around every now and again, but it wouldn't have been like "Oh my god what is that mystical creature over there?"

 

Again, personal preference. I'm sure others will feel differently on the subject, but that's my two gil.

[FreelanceWizard]

Just to add to this, we know that Keeper offspring are naturally female more often than male (dev post); based on the description of Seeker culture and use of "race" in that post instead of "clan," I think it's safe to say the same is probably true of Seekers as well.

 

An additional social consideration for Seekers is that nunh and tia interested in becoming nunh are probably relatively less likely to leave their tribes. A nunh who leaves won't be nunh for long (and would be societally shirking his duty to the tribe), and tia who leave will miss out on potential opportunities to battle for dominance. For Keepers, there'd probably be a social pressure for males to stay in the relatively small family units to keep the family line from dying out for lack of... "genetic material."

 

When you combine the rarity of miqo'te in lore with their female sex ratio bias, throw in the stated lore that the males are more reclusive and territorial than the females, then add in these probable (albeit speculative) social pressures, it makes sense why male miqo'te would be fairly rare and rarely seen in Eorzea. They'd have been around, but much like, say, encountering an Inuit in Egypt, seeing one would be a rare experience. It's entirely possible that a character, while being aware of them, never personally saw one until recently.

 

That said, until and unless new lore contradicts it, we can only go on what the dev posts and main site say, which is that miqo'te are rare and male miqo'te are rarely seen outside of their tribes (ignoring for the moment how exceedingly common they're going to be as PCs). By lore, a male miqo'te growing up outside of a tribe (or a close-knit family unit in a city-state) would indeed be a relatively uncommon thing, though I doubt most Eorzeans would be shocked by this; I'd put the reaction more at "huh, weird" than "OMG WTF?".

[Aysun]

That said, until and unless new lore contradicts it, we can only go on what the dev posts and main site say, which is that miqo'te are rare and male miqo'te are rarely seen outside of their tribes (ignoring for the moment how exceedingly common they're going to be as PCs). By lore, a male miqo'te growing up outside of a tribe would indeed be a relatively uncommon thing, though I doubt most Eorzeans would be shocked by this; I'd put the reaction more at "huh, weird" than "OMG WTF?".

 

We don't know that they would be any more rare within or outside of a tribe. They likely live everywhere (in 1.0 there was an NPC who spoke of them rumored to be living in Ul'dah even, just that he hadn't ever seen them), just like the females, they are just supposed to be much fewer in number. If anything, since tribal miqo'te are much more uncommon than non-tribal in general, that likely applies to them as well.

 

Male Miqo'te were around in 1.0, they're just rare and reclusive. I think a lot of us are just going to be going with the "they were always there" thing and trying to ignore that every other person we meet is one now. Other than that I'd wait to make any big conclussions as to why there are suddenly so many PC/adventurer male miqo'tes until SE gives us a reason (IF they give us a reason). There are only like 3 male miqo'te NPCs in the game that we've seen so far, so SE is being true to their description of them.

[Ildur]

The Calamity is a good excuse for explaining why Maleqo'tes are suddenly more common: the devastation of the land forced them to integrate into Eorzean society to rebuild. Alternatively, tribes might have been obliterated thanks to death rates increasing (because of giant balls of fire), forcing members to move to other locations, or whole tribes and communities disbanding due to low numbers.

They were always there, they just didn't have any kind of 'plot relevance', so to speak. Unless they are retconned PCs from 1.0.

 

Of course, Squeenix might present us with the 'official' explanation eventually but, until then, I'd explain it with the ones above.

[FreelanceWizard]

If anything, since tribal miqo'te are much more uncommon than non-tribal in general, that likely applies to them as well.

 

I don't seem to recall reading any lore that states that, though I'll be the first to admit that I may have missed something. I mean, sure, in game non-tribals are more common, but the game can't represent the entire world, of course.

 

At any rate, I think you were posting when I was making an edit. My larger point was that the reaction to a male miqo'te outside of communities of miqo'te would be less shocked surprise and more "huh, don't see a whole lot of them around."

[allgivenover]

There were three male Miqo'te NPCs in Phase 3. One in a tribe, one in the ahm... I forget the name of it, the place where Minfilia and the Scions of the Seventh Dawn hang out, and one Keeper male drinking alone in the South Shroud. So SE does seem to be keeping in line with the whole rarity thing. My personal opinion is that it's best to go with the "they've always been there" approach that many RPers are going with, even though we didn't see them in 1.0.

 

If anything, since tribal miqo'te are much more uncommon than non-tribal in general, that likely applies to them as well.

 

 

We literally have nothing solid to go on that reasonably points us in one direction or the other about how Miqo'te live. In fact, there isn't a single NPC Miqo'te that has a name that doesn't follow tribal naming conventions, yet at the same time there's a crap ton of Miqo'te in all of the city-states that don't seem to have a tribal association beyond that naming convention that we can see.

 

My own conclusion of it at the moment is that because there are no Miqo'te that break from traditional name conventions found in game (it's interesting to note that no other race/clan breaks from naming conventions either) and that the naming conventions post (http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/threads/61150-Miqo-te-Naming-Conventions) speaks about tribal culture in the present tense, and that we actually see a Seeker tribe in game, I'm thinking it might be a situation akin to Native American's in the United States today. Tribal customs (or modern versions of them) persist in private, but this is largely unseen by the rest of the population.

 

Of course this is just my present take on it, if/when we get more lore about it my conclusion will change, but at this point I'm doubtful we're going to see anything conclusive until if/when a story arc touches on it in a way that forces them to expand on things.

[Aysun]

Well, I'm basing my conclusions on the fact that there is all of one functioning tribe of Seekers in the game, where as there are a plethora of miqo'te making a living in and around Limsa that have no real evidence of living in a tribal group any more. Just because the naming conventions persist for the females doesn't really suggest to me that they all are still living in secret tribes.

 

We likely will never know, either. It's kind of one of those situations where I've stopped caring too much about it, because our characters should be about more than their upbringing (tribal or no) anyway. I focus more on the RPs than people's backstories.

[allgivenover]

It's fine to have a differing personal conclusion, but please refrain from posting that personal conclusion as confirmed lore when is isn't, no matter how much you'd prefer that reality match your conclusion. The truth is we just don't know.

[Aysun]

It's fine to have a differing personal conclusion, but please refrain from posting that personal conclusion as confirmed lore when is isn't, no matter how much you'd prefer that reality match your conclusion. The truth is we just don't know.

 

Like I said, basing my conclusions on what is blatant in-game. There is one tribe of Seekers, vs. tons that are living in the city. People can come up with their own conclusions still, obviously.

 

Edit: Also basing it on the fact that we went 2 years without this lore and there was no sign of tribes of Miqo'tes then either. I'm talking more about Seekers, too, since the "tribe" thing is more distinctive than the family groups of Keepers.

[Naunet]

Like I said, basing my conclusions on what is blatant in-game. There is one tribe of Seekers, vs. tons that are living in the city. People can come up with their own conclusions still, obviously.

 

Well, to be fair, there are significantly fewer towns represented in-game than there are likely actual settlements in Eorzea. So it makes sense that the majority of NPCs will be represented fairly loosely, as there's a very limited amount of space to plop down miqo'te tribe towns.

[Aysun]

Like I said, basing my conclusions on what is blatant in-game. There is one tribe of Seekers, vs. tons that are living in the city. People can come up with their own conclusions still, obviously.

 

Well, to be fair, there are significantly fewer towns represented in-game than there are likely actual settlements in Eorzea. So it makes sense that the majority of NPCs will be represented fairly loosely, as there's a very limited amount of space to plop down miqo'te tribe towns.

 

By that same token I would assume that SE would show us a representative population, despite not showing us every single settlement.

[Ildur]

Not necesarily. They would give a representation of the actual settlements, unless the settlements theirselves are just a representation of a bunch of other settlements. It depends on how you interpret it.

 

Just as an anecdote: in Fallout 2 there was the 'New California Republic', which was supposed to be large country with thousands of citizens. In-game, however, it was represented by a town divided in three sections. In-universe, it was stated that cars were somewhat commonplace. However, in-game, the PC was the only despicted owner of a car. So, in a way, the 'car driver population' was only represented by the PC.

 

It's very likely (and preferable, I'd say) to consider that many, many more towns and locations exist in Eorzea but are not reacheable for gameplay or mechanical reasons. That gives us roleplayers more options at the time of making backstories. The only 'requeriment' is that those places should not be relevant or critical to the game's plot.

[T'salmaveth]

Okay, so BASICALLY we can say 'not freak-out-rare' but 'huh, don't see that very often....' rare. Just so I can get to getting his backstory set down for the wiki.

 

Debates aside, since all the lore I have read indicates that male Miqo'te birth-rates are low in the first place, it makes sense that they aren't widely seen in general. Granted, I'm still a LITTLE confused about a few things after reading these replies...

 

Are the Miqo'te still living in clans away from other races or are they more or less fully integrated into society and living in the cities and settlements along side Hyur and so on? I guess I just assumed all the races still tended to gravitate to their own groupings except for the major cities(Ul'dah, Gridania and Limsa basically).

[shotgunbadger]

From what I understand they're still in clans in a large amount, but many also live in cities. There's no real uniform rule, and being in a clan doesn't ALWAYS mean you don't live in a city.

[FreelanceWizard]

Are the Miqo'te still living in clans away from other races or are they more or less fully integrated into society and living in the cities and settlements along side Hyur and so on? I guess I just assumed all the races still tended to gravitate to their own groupings except for the major cities(Ul'dah, Gridania and Limsa basically).

 

That's a point of some contention, as you can see. Let me speak to the miqo'te on this, since I know their lore better than I know other races' lore.

 

What we know by lore thus far is that, post-Calamity, refugees started heading to the city-states, with Ul'dah being afflicted by this most of all (main scenario quest, ARR, around level 16). We also know that Keepers of the Moon have historically been viewed as poachers by Gridanians, but that many have managed to work through that to live in Gridania (main site). As for the Seekers, a small number of them live in Limsa Lominsa, with others living in the Sagolii desert (main site). We know about the way miqo'te live in their tribes or family units from their naming conventions thread. We also know miqo'te are territorial, with the males especially reclusive (main site).

 

In game, you see miqo'te everywhere, though often less than other PC races. This is where the disagreement lies, you see: we have conflicting lore sources. On the one hand, the devs have given us considerable information on how miqo'te typically live. On the other, you see miqo'te showing up in cities. The resolution to this that I use -- which is speculative, since the devs haven't cleared this up -- is that most miqo'te are living outside of cities, in the "grey areas" of the world that the game doesn't let us see, largely in their traditional way. However, some smaller number were born in the city-states, lived in one their entire lives, or adopted the culture when they moved there (perhaps to be an adventurer). These are the miqo'te you see in the cities, and they seem to maintain their naming conventions but not, so much, their traditional cultural elements.

 

Of course, like I said, since the devs haven't cleared things up, that's all speculative, and others have different opinions on the matter. Personally, I feel my explanation above works well because it doesn't exclude anyone the ability to RP what they want; it puts no limits on what people can play (tribal, non-tribal, etc.). However, it doesn't really address the rarity issue that you raised, on which different people have different opinions.

[Aysun]

First to clear things up~ Clans are the two 'kinds' of Miqo'tes. One clan is the Seekers of the Sun, while the other clan is the Keepers of the Moon.

 

What we're talking about here are the tribes, which were first introduced to us via the naming conventions thread. I have no doubt that when ancestral Miqo'te first came to Eorzea over 1500 years ago they all lived in their tribes and were recluses. But Eorzea is a melting pot of cultures and races, and the in-game evidence thus far suggests that the tribal way of life is not something that all Miqo'te still practice, despite the naming conventions still being followed across the board. The Seeker females you see in and around Limsa live normally judging by their various occupations, and they far outnumber the lone tribe that is shown in the game. The naming conventions thread to me described how the naming conventions of the Miqo'te came about, rather than how they all live currently, especially since none of it was known in 1.0 what so ever. That said, even the tribe that does exist are very civilized and obviously have taken in the Eorzean ways of life in addition to their own. They're well dressed, they have nice homes with furniture and lights.. They're not feral or any such things. They're just a tribe, united by family bonds. I'd imagine the truly isolated Miqo'te tribe to be even a more rare thing to find than a regular one. But this is all opinion, and it varies from player to player based on our interpretations.

 

The thing is that either way anyone can play a Miqo'te how ever they want. If everyone wants to be in a tribe, or if everyone wants to be a city-Miqo'te, it doesn't really matter! The distribution of what is rare or common in game is set in stone via NPCs, but in OUR characters it can and will be what ever we want. There are a ton of Miqo'te RPers. That's known. There is no lore explanation we can use for that or any other rarity that is common in the RP world (Garleans, Ala Mhigans, etc!). We roll with it. As RPers we can't treat Miqo'te men as rare as the lore says they are, because we meet them so often. There just won't be any eyebrows raised at your character's presence. Unfortunately that's just how it is. Write where your character came from, and then focus on the RP!

[allgivenover]

That said, even the tribe that does exist are very civilized and obviously have taken in the Eorzean ways of life in addition to their own. They're well dressed, they have nice homes with furniture and lights.. They're not feral or any such things. They're just a tribe, united by family bonds.

 

It's a common misconception that tribal peoples are savage or "uncivilized" as a rule, nothing about the lore so far suggests that Miqo'te are savage aside from the lone detail that the Tia/Nunh struggle can sometimes end in death. I feel that perhaps some of the hostility towards the tribal lore is perhaps bound in this incorrect assumption that being "tribal" comes hand in hand with being backward, ignorant, violent (or feral as you put it) and uncivilized. Once again I liken it to modern Native American tribes, who are very modern while holding on to old tribal customs within their communities. Don't mistake my position as insisting that there are no non-tribal Miqo'te, as I said we have little to go on regarding how many stick to traditional ways beyond naming conventions. What I am advocating is that we don't know for sure, and at the moment there's no definitive evidence one way or the other which is more common for a the average Miqo'te.

 

I think that the complete adherence to the naming conventions suggest that most Miqo'te have at least a passive connection to tribal roots in some form, but that's just my interpretation of what we see so far.

[T'salmaveth]

Thank you for the replies. I just wanted to be sure that any writing I did for T'sal's backstory and view on things meshes with the RP community's over-view on things. I did not play much of 1.0 at all and was then too busy with the games I was working on job-wise to play anything for awhile so I'm wanting to be sure I don't A)tread on any toes and B)sound like a twit(more than usual).

 

I'm almost done with the writing for his wiki and will then take some time to read through more of the stories and RPs here.

 

Thanks again! I love lore-learning. :3

[FreelanceWizard]

@T'salmaveth: We're happy to help out. Because of how the lore in XIV is, there'll inevitably be disagreements, but hopefully seeing the various sides of the issue and the thought processes behind those will help you come to your own conclusion.

 

As a side note, I wanted to point out something subtle, yet awesome, that's happened in this thread.

 

Aysun and I seem to have a difference in opinion on how to interpret the (admittedly often contradictory) miqo'te lore OOC. However, since our interpretations don't make categorical, absolute statements about all miqo'te, if our characters meet and this topic comes up, they can have a discussion about it IC and build a bridge between the two perspectives. Both characters can chalk up their views (informed by our OOC interpretations) to what they've seen IC, and they can discuss that fruitfully; neither character has to point at the other and say, "you're nuts." In short, we can handle the difference entirely IC.

 

The moral of this story is that, when interpreting lore -- especially if there's grey areas in it (and XIV has a lot of those) -- it's always best to "leave the door open," so to speak, by not taking a universal stance on it. If possible, you always want to leave room to say, "but that was just my experience" ICly. That way, you can RP with people who may have different takes on the lore.

[T'salmaveth]

I agree! Seeing the differences and comments here have very much helped me in the way I wrote up T'sal's childhood... not so much because of how HE was touched by it but more where his parents had come from and their opinions.

 

I actually enjoy lore that has some grey-area wiggle room. It lets people play around a bit more and be creative/unique without having to slip dangerously close to the Mary Sue cliff-edge.

 

I got T'sal's wiki done last night around 3am, so hopefully it all makes sense/works out... though I need to start sketching to break up some of that Wall 'o Text that will probably make some people wince. Aaaaah, it's been too long since I got to do so this, I've missed indepth character creation/writing. :love:

 

Oh, and his Wiki, in case anyone had any issue with how I worked the random bits of Miqo'te lore in. (IE: His father was from a more integrated Miqo'te family group whereas his mum was from a very old-fashioned reclusive group.)

[Therese Villefort]

*snip*

Just wanted to say: its great to see people discussing things like adults, without getting angry or something. Really nice for a change.

[Aerion]

I'm glad you made this thread, its quite informative and very inspirational!

 

Thank you.