My mind wandered enough to start asking how G’raha Tia would be received if he were a woman. And then my mind kept wandering to a BUNCH of other questions. So, here’s a cavalcade of hypotheticals: What would any given character in FFXIV be like if they were the opposite binary gender? How are they written differently? Received differently?
My Ko-Fi’s at https://ko-fi.com/cleretic, and my Discord server’s at https://discord.gg/gB6hJSpj5j! (But still comment, I suspect this video will need the algorithmic help)
Section timestamps:
0:00 – Intro
2:15 – 1.0/A Realm Reborn characters
21:24 – Heavensward characters
24:38 – Stormblood characters
31:24 – Shadowbringers characters
36:20 – Endwalker characters
43:06 – Dawntrail characters
48:56 – Outro
The article I mentioned when talking about Zero: https://www.hercampus.com/school/toronto-mu/non-binary-not-woman-lite/ It doesn’t go into people’s actual responses to this sort of thing like I was hoping (sadly, nothing formal does, but it’s an ever-present topic in TGD circles), but it does introduce you to it.
Questions, suggestions, hot takes about how I completely misunderstood your favorite little guy/girl? Drop a comment here! You can find me on Twitter at https://twitter.com/Cleretic/, or on Bluesky (I promise I’ll use it sometime) at https://bsky.app/profile/cleretic.bsky.social!
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Ok but you assume that female Thancred would be flirting with mens and not still women. The yuri would work.
I also have to ahrd disagree on Godbert: Julyan. It would be extremely uncomfortable to have a male Julyan scaring his wife…
So many characters skipped but it was an interesting thought exercise
Sphene is a very blunt personification of colonialism. I don't think MSphene would have worked but I do think he would be much less empathetic.
I disagree with you strenuously with Cahciua, but I don't read her as an affectionate, supportive parent, but a severely emotionally negelectful one. She does love Erenville for the sake of loving him, but nothing she ever does is actually for her sake. Erenville even calls her out on this at the end – "There you go, deciding everything by yourself again."
Genderswap this, and you get the cold, distant father whose notice and approval are something their children are always chasing.
I’d want a female Gegerguju to be sexy and sexual (voluptuous but smol, clearly a grown woman), but I don’t think the community could be cool about that.
"Male Kan-E-Senna just makes us realize that they're a Cult Leader." We mean, we realize that pretty early on playing the game. Why she our least favorite leader of the great three (that and we kinda think she boring as a character.)
Jegan spotted. Stay awesome
Female Fandaniel as described here is Xal'atath from World of Warcraft and I don't hate it.
It’s very funny to hear someone say that a male yotsuyu could not work when basically every Chinese story set in WW2 (and therefore by extension many with more fictional settings) has a male yotsuyu.
Gosetsu has fans, but they're all us Roegadyns, We have very few players and very few characters.
Pretty good video so far but gotta stop and ask.. who the heck likes Illbread?? I've disliked his sloppy ass since before he backstabbed us. Only person I see as more of a dipshit than him is ol dipshit fan dan
this video reminds me just how many hinted at gay relationships are in the MSQ or important storylines. Also I kind of got a gay read on Haurchefant, but it was more a vibe and physical mannerism thing, which could be just played off as the "Blood Elf" issue. Attractive Blonde Elf who's clean shaven looks gay.
And while I disagree with how you feel overall on a few characters I agree with your assessment of how a gender shift would affect them all.
LOVE THIS
Bozjan hrothgars cannot be gender swapped it seems. It’ll turn into harem simulator which is ew, and the gender role and number thing is so intrinsic to bozjan culture as is.
I’ll need to reread some NPC text before i can remember what Hunmu Rruk’s tribe makes of the number issue I remember there was a comment but that’s it
i want to say that for the record that i'd be completely OBSESSED with a female zenos and a female emet and DEFINITELY a female ilberd (i love fordola so much). i understand the arguments against but i simply do not agree with them in emet's case
ilberd's case i agree that unless you gender-swap raubahn there's some UGLY gender stuff that happens with a male raubahn and a female ilberd – their dynamic only really works if they're the same gender – i just know that i'd adore her
(femzenos like, works extremely well honestly, given how zenos's entire story is about what happens with the empire – already masculine coded – given to someone who neither desires nor is suited to it, and yet is elevated to the position of absolute power and the isolation derived from)
Gosetsu as a woman would just be Baiken from guilty gear but without the coolness of fighting without an arm and eye.
Thoughts:
– The Genderflipped Chais would be extremely silly, especially if we kept Dulio-Chai Heavyset. I feel they'd be played more for laughs than they already are.
– Male Kan-E-Senna wouldn't be caught dead wearing the upside down cow. We'd need another male-gendered Animal.
– Femcred would be the one that ends up in Dissidia.
– You absolutely HAD me with Namo El Nanamo, thinking of him as the silly little man in the silly little outfit (who happens to also be absolutely RUTHLESS when it comes to matters of state) is hilarious to me.
– Lady Haurchefant wouldn't be very popular IMO. She'd just be "Another token Expansion love interest that maybe comes off a little too strongly in the Japanese dub."
– TOTALLY Agree on wanting to see the Male Ysale/Female Shiva Thought experiment. That's worth it's own damn video!
– As I mentioned in a tweet, the only thing i'd see with a Lady Zenos would be a lot more of the fanbase unrepentantly saying "WOULD."
– Yes plz, Gimmie Badass Grandma Samurai/Geomancer Gosetsu!
– One thing i'd do with a Fem Magnai: Make her Bi, Fem leaning. She has all the men she could ever want, but she wants her moon… If only to keep Y'shtola's FIRE V BURN.
– Genderflipped Eden should be SUPER DUPER GAY. Like.. More than it already is.
– Bonus: I want to see Godessbert Manderville. but only if the rest of the characters weren't genderflipped. Hildi running away from home to become a gentleman and stay as far away as humanly possible from his loving, but scary mom, and his other loving but even SCARIER mom (Julyan) is wonderful comedy material. 🙂 (Also the gold saucer would be WAY more popular with a giant golden statue of a woman clad in nothing but a white bikini for some reason)
I disagree pretty hard with the idea that Elidibus wouldn't work as a woman just because men are more likely to aspire to be knights, or whatever. Brienne of Tarth Eluidibus sounds cool to me. However, the Ascians being representative of Zodiark, and him in particular being Zodiark's heart, it makes sense for them and him to be male more often than female, to contrast Venat and Hydaelyn. Also, I would love genderswap Thancred and need fan art of her now.
Female 'fant just becomes Aerith which could work but, bluntly, I was super sick of seeing Aerith get got as her big character moment and definition, Blimp World me would be about ready to rejoin the planet if we had to see it another time.
So, an intresting idea; Instead of being the WoL, Fem-lidabus becomes Princess Sarah- with the understanding that SoP is before that- maybe have Jack / Garland representive as a stand of the sort.
I don't know if it's my cis male point of view, but I don't see why many of them would change much aside from their reception to the public. For example, we already got male Kan-E, it's essentially E-Sumi. And female Hildibrand may shock people with the slapstick, but there are precedents of such, like the manga/anime Aho Girl. Also, maybe thanks to their masks and early statements about their body swap, they always felt genderless as a whole to me. We just so happened to deal with Lahabrea first instead of Igeyorm, for example. Still, this all is very interesting to think about, looking at who's more or less gendered already, who benefits more or less to sexism and gender bias, etc…
I started playing FFXIV about when 6.2 had just come out. My first thought when seeing Zero in the 6.3 promo-art (was going through Stormblood at the time) was "oh wow, did they give Estinien a boyfriend?", which in hindsight is really funny considoring 6.4. I do that my reaction sort of speaks to the limited gender space of socially acceptable androgeny that Zero's design occupies. A genderswapped Zero could maybe have some fanbase as a sort of anime soft boy, but only if they kept the design basically the same, and any male signefiers would quickly destory that.
Great video <3 it was fun guessing how gender swapped characters would work in the story.
I think Tataru's skill with money was always secondary. Her relationship with the scions and the WoL as a sort of surrogate/found mother figure are what made her compelling to me. Her concern always feels genuine, and she is always the first to make me cry. I was actually disappointment that this aspect of her character wasn't even mentioned, to focus on the good with money thing. Where the money thing is more of a racial trait, as a Lalafel.
I think this could be interesting as a gender swap, and having a male character take this role would be a breath of fresh air.
Koko deserves more love. He's the Dotharl character you see yelling at Baatu for cutting in line in the cutscene in Reunion, and the way Baatu disappears for awhile after the Naadam with an injury strongly implies Koko ganked his ass in the fighting which is funny as hell.
Something I wonder is if the Blessed Siblings have ever developed as intersex or bigender; like one head/side is male and the other is female.
So M!Ryne is Shinji Ikari, wholesale. A child soldier who hates it, and just wants affection from their father (figure), sorta-kinda reluctant messianic figure, drawing strength from their mother (figure), and with the potential to destroy their already dying world. Also, gay romance with their antithesis.
Edit: about Emet-Selch – I somewhat disagree. There's a character in a show called RWBY, Salem, who is more or less an almost complete gender swap of Emet (also actually predating him), down to unhealthy relationship with one of the protagonists, and I'd say she works pretty well.