There would have to be a lot less naked time and torn up clothes if there was genderswapping in the Hildi line. Also, if you swap Hildi, you HAVE to also swap Godbert, or remove the physical violence. Double standards and all, but its funny when Godbert suplexes his son. It's less funny if he knocks out his daughter with a hammer. It's also less funny if they both run away from Raging Dad with a Frying Pan -- although, a frying pan is stereotypically a woman's tool; male Julyan might have something different (brain says a belt, but oooof, that hurts my trauma bone). Geralt's discomfort is rooted in an entirely different problem now. Isn't there a gold saucer attendee casually objectifying the (naked) gold statue of godbert? honestly, i think swapping any of them disconnects them all from the comedic tropes that they are heavily playing into.
I feel like Y'shtola is kind of interesting example of the writers trying to skirt around the issue's present with what audiences will and will not accept from a female character because her archetype (smart person with a sharp tongue) is usually disliked in female characters that are protagonists but not main characters or love interests (where it is assumed that the male protagonist is smarter/more capable than her), but because she takes a more passive role and is never too mean or condescending to the player people are a lot more accepting of her than of other characters of the same archetype. That said I feel like a lot of the traits people actually do like about Y'shtola would be seen as whatever on male Y'shtola. You kinda need Matoya and Y'shtola to both be women for their dynamic to work, the stuff in the endwalker patches with Y'shtola and the Nixies would not work with a male character, and Y'shtola's big moment in the Stormblood patches where she calls Magnai "Little Sun" wouldn't even be all that notable. (Implying a male character has a tiny dick is like, the most intense insult a female character can get away with without people viewing her as an intolerable bitch, but for male characters though dick measuring contests are nothing, if Thancred called Magnai "Little Sun" people would probably not care nearly as much.)
Also I kind of disagree that Zenos would be viewed as mostly the same, as I feel like people would react far worse to the scene of Zenos basically beating the WoL in a fight at the beginning of Stormblood since one of the easiest ways to get people to dislike a female character is have that character show up a male character in any major way, female Zenos would still have a lot of fans but I doubt she would have nearly the same amount of "Ah, a worthy opponent" reactions that male Zenos has nowadays.
Female Zenos would be liked, but she would definitely face criticisms of being just a “strong female character”, of being a yandere, or of becoming a person madly in love with the Warrior of Light. Naturally, if she is the way she is in FFXIV now her story will not align with that, but that assumes they will write her the same way and not actually include romantic love as a motivation. However, no matter if they make female Zenos the way he is or go for the obvious move of making a romantic motivation for her female Zenos would definitely have the fanbase seeing red and swearing off FFXIV forever or at least have the refrain of “skip to Shadowbringers” far more likely.
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.
@@Morvelaira I think there is an interesting divide between people who read Cahciua's absence as neglect versus 'a person with more responsibilities than she has time to devote to them'. A male Cahciua might not exist in that same ambiguity.
@@EinDose I can see where that perception could be there for someone skimming her character, but there's never any mention of responsibilities. In fact, the opposite is called out - she follows such a great desire to explore that she drops whatever responsibilities she does hold to chase her passion. I must admit to an inherent bias here - as Cahciua reminds me of my own mother in the worst of ways - but I don't see her as a bad, or evil person. She's a bright, vivacious and curious woman with a drive to see everything in the world. Wonderful qualities in a 'young viera maiden' as she calls herself, but less condusive to raising a child with all the emotional stability they need. I believe Cahciua loves her son with every fiber of her being... but that doesn't mean she could give him what he needed.
@@Morvelaira Now I'd have to review the entirety of Dawntrail for this, but I believe thst most of Cahciua's life after Erenville was born was in being a village chief--kind of an important thing. So in terms of male character archetypes I don't think we're looking at 'dad who disappeared to go to the store', we're looking at 'career dad who missed his kid's big game/performance'
@@EinDose That is definitely more of the vibe I had intended with my original comments. I can certainly see an excited Erenville attempting to show male-Cahciua something, only to be told not to bother his father.
I have a LOT of words about Cahciua, and the TLDR is that I don't like her. She was NOT a good parent. And it's sad, because I think her character had a lot of potential to be likable. to be fun and interesting. to defy expectations, in a good way. She's at LEAST 70, maybe 100 ish years old, and yet she's fun, excitable, energetic. She rails against in-game gender expectations. Female viera are expected to stay at home and raise children and manage the village. It is the duty of male viera to leave and wander/patrol the forests. And she chooses to wander. Couple that the fact that viera CHOOSE their gender; she could have chosen to be a man and wander. But instead, she chose to be a woman who wanders. could have been interesting to explore, especially alongside some of the other viera quest-lines we got in DT. But they gave her a son. She neglected that son. They made that son our friend. and they had her manipulate that son into forgiving her because she's dying. and then had him kill her. Giving her a son twists her personality from fun, spontaneous, and excitable to immature, impulsive, and thoughtless. It puts her decision to follow her passions to wander and explore in a bad light; putting her hobby over her child's welfare. They don't explore the gender-aspect of it at all. And she emotionally manipulates and gaslights him several times. and the entire vibe of their dynamic in the final zone has an "absent father, MIA for 25 years, returns to reconnect after receiving clinical death sentence, but treats their 30 year old son like the 7 year old he abandoned" vibes. Imagine being a 50+ year old calling your fully adult child a "fussy lil bunbun" to their face, because they disagreed with you, and you want to shut that shit down by embarrassing them and invalidating their concerns by calling them fussy. Imagine being a 20-30 year old adult, and having your parent call you that. In front of your very accomplished work colleagues and business associates and kind of your boss? Oh, and the President. but the absolute worst part about it all to me is that we're supposed to like her. She's not framed as a bad parent. She's not shown to be a bad person. We don't talk about the consequences of her actions. Eren is not allowed to question her or be mad. But it's all hand-waved away by "that's just the way she is and always has been" well, that tells me that their dynamic has always been this way. Him parenting her. Him being the voice of reason. Her disregarding his opinions, deflecting his criticisms, generally disrespecting him. Her changing topics or running away when she doesn't want to deal with it. Her invalidating his feelings by telling him how he is allowed to feel. But, maybe it's just that I identify too much with Eren's personality, and she reminds me too much of my own parents, and their dynamic is absolutely triggering my childhood trauma memories.
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.
My understanding is that the whole "good with money" thing is associated with mothers in Japanese society. Something something, dads make the paycheck, gives it to moms and then goes back to work or something to that effect. I could be off base with this, but it's something I see come up time and again.
Dad-taru would be interesting for sure. I feel like there is a supreme lack of good dads around xiv. Kind of a lack of dads in general, but the few we've got are... not good lol.
Here's an interesting one. Make Elidibus Female, and keep the warrior of light as Male. It's way beyond the scope of the video, but you can play a lot into aspects the full loss of self they are going through during that fight, the expectation that they are wrong in assuming a hero has to fit a certain shape, and with the WoL design being androgynous, but still male it could still be sold.
@@bendonatier That's close to where I landed with Zoraal Ja, and I like that approach, I think I just liked 'female Elidibus as healer' more for that one.
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.
@@Bardic_Knowledge I feel like it probably did happen just by my knowledge of overall rates of intersex people, but that the sky-high infant mortality rate of blessed siblings probably didn't treat them well.
@@Bardic_Knowledge I dont think we've ever even heard of a female pair of blessed siblings. As a woman... I think Bakool's story would feel... very different if they were a woman. While I felt bad for Bakool, having survivors guilt and wanting to stop it... Gods I wanted to hug his mom so bad. Hundreds - literal, *hundreds* of still born, miscarried babies. Her children. And being expected to keep going. Buck up and go again. No time for grief. The thought of making yet another baby, carrying it, knowing in your heart, this one will probably die too. Like the one before. And the one before that. Their women are breeding mares in a puppy mill. Not only would lady Bakool be the one living sibling in a sea of a hundred dead babies, with the expectations of saving their people, burdened with bringing them to the light... Would she also be expected to step into the role of breeding mare? Blessed siblings are *supposed* to be sterile... but.... Galool wasnt? Would they then expect Bakool to TRY?
"Pursue a weird little thought experiment" you mean half of a running gag me and my sis are workshopping of the "Force Femmable Tier List" where G'raha Tia and Estinien top the charts with "They'd thank you for the estrogen"? Zenos is "It would make her worse, and that's hot" ftr.
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.
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.
@@EinDose that I did not know, now I need to see these versions of the scenes. Because he came off a bit gay but not really overt or anything. That would seal the deal IMO.
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)
This video has made me realise... how cool would it be to get a character that transitions gender throughout the story. I don't think we ever saw that happen in the game. And as a fellow trans woman myself, I think it would make for a very interesting new character type.
We do jokingly call the twins Red Alphanaud and Blue Alisaie for a reason. I think that’ll be fine albeit unoriginal yeah. Thancred and Urianger would probably be less shipped as the gay dads and more the lesbian moms assuming everything mostly stays in tact. Oh god now I’m imagining Godbert in a bra. I’d think they’d have to tone down that bit a lot cause it could be seen as a little sexist. Sure there’s an underlying double standard where male Godbert is less uncomfortable but that’s just because him being a buff near naked dude that preforms limit breaks with a goldsmitthing hammer is hilarious. Also shout out to Godbert’s statue needing to also be shaped differently. We’d lose one of the funniest pieces of NPC dialogue where the clerk that’s stationed in that section of the Gold Saucer believes that to be torture having to be stationed and forced to witness his bulge. Basically a Trans Shiva with Ysayle would be a fascinating take but I’d argue Heavensward’s issues itself would make this fall flat. Mainly Ysayle’s underutilization as a character and them being done the most dirty. Oh now I’m remembering how Gosetsu was introduced. I’m imagining a really large hammy voice from her and her face planting due to her being starving. A stubborn samurai woman who honestly has a MORE really tragic as a mother who loses her children would easily make her work phenomenally. Also it’s more female Roegadyn representation and I’m all for it. If I were to go off of the Innocence fight you were describing I could imagine a weird but cool looking Maria. Just look at SMT’s depiction of Maria and you basically get what you’re aiming for. She has the sin eater color scheme down to a T already. Do you know how many people already go gaga over the fact that Ryne and Gaia are “roommates”? Again. Jokingly calling the upcoming ultimate Lesbians (Ultimate). We’d lose quite a bit with that angle of gender swapping but I’m all for having the two still kinda be into each other. Instead of biscuits and coffee they’d be probably into something a little more different. You’ve also no idea how many people do genuinely thirst for Hermes. You’d lose a lot of the fandom there. Wuk Lamat is also just Simba. The memes about him being The Lion King would not be inaccurate at all. I’ve seen the mods for Bakool Ja Ja. I’d feel people that thirst for muscle moms instead of beefy dudes would go after them instead. On the other hand… no. Just. No…
@@LightbladeRiulo I liked pitching Godbert as 'one sentence then moving on', but my extended thought is that you could easily have her go for 'sweet old lady with a mean side', but I do still think there's value in something more direct. Might have to go beyond being in underwear, though, it kinda calls for actual design.
Loved all of this! 100% accurate on Lyse. If she was a guy, she would just be a normal shonen protagonist. Most of the time I see hate for her, the criticisms just boil down to traits that would be considered totally normal in a man in the same genre. G'raha is an interesting case where, I think a female version could work in a different, less transmisogynist world. Because the way to fix the problems with female G'raha is to start her as male and have her transition after Shadowbringers. The intention behind G'raha's lines is to make him boyfriend material. He is clearly in love with, or at least in awe of, the WoL. But as a trans woman I couldn't help but read a lot of that admiration as gender envy from my character. Do I think it works better than male G'raha? No. Especially not the way people treat trans women. But it is an interesting thought experiment. There's a lot to work with in the idea of the Exarch spending that century in the First coming to slowly understand her own identity and resigning herself to never making it real before being given a second chance at life to become her true self.
I think in a few places we veer into "how western writers would do a genderswapped version", rather than leaving the character as is or leaning into japanese tropes
Oh, absolutely, inescapably so; I'm coming at it from a western perspective no matter how much I try otherwise. I was deliberately making sure to use Japanese examples in comparisons whenever possible to avoid this as much as I feasibly could, but at the end of the day that is the only approach I can reasonably have.
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 feel like female Thancred would be the one that goes into Dissidia if male Y'shtola's also there, but that would clash weirdly with the fact I still think female Thancred would be really unpopular. That'd all be a bit interesting to see pan out, though: we already have people thinking Y'shtola MUST be the breakout fan-favorite because of her crossover presence, and that already sits weird when her response is actually 'yeah she's pretty good I guess'.
I honestly think most of the xiv characters would suffer from gender bends, which I think is why we don't see it often in the fanart community (at least I don't; at least not as commonly as other fandoms, where it's common or even rampant). And I think that's because a lot of them play into or against gender roles and tropes as it is. And those very things are intrinsic to why people like them. At least... that's why *I* like them. And swapping their gender takes that dynamic away, and keeping it would require reworking the character to the point that they're not even the same person anymore.
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...
@@Narlaw1199 For a few of these I'm escalating things to be able to make a point; one of my first drafts was 'male Kan-E is E-Sumi', but that just doesn't give us a lot to chew on, and Kan-E is also markedly more prominent and hardnosed, which I think would factor but is also just more interesting to focus on.
@@EinDose Fair point, escalating does allow more discussions and highlights interesting points and what may be missed, as you've excellently showed. And I also may be blinder to gender normes than I thought, since to me, Vauthry was already queen Brahne and because I assumed Ottis was more based on the protoype character who ended up split between Steiner and Beatrix, I was seeing aspects of the latter in him, mainly the skill and confidence. I join you in that some characters just don't work gender-swapped though, like Sphene and Yotsuyu, but I would also love to see how it would work for characters who embody an archetype, like Hydaelin still being worshipped as the Mother Crystal, but Venat being a man, with the same motherly personality. Would people react to that? Would characters do? Would Venat care about this gender norme? Would it be relevant to the story? etc...
@@Narlaw1199 Vauthry's actually more obviously borrowing from Corneo in other languages; in other languages he has a title befitting of a crime family boss, and only English translated his title as 'lord', probably because in 2019 calling him 'Don Vauthry' in English would've hit a bit too close to home. The idea of having characters themselves playing with their gender identity does feel like a really cool idea (and I did bring that up with Ysayle and Zoraal Ja), and I think with some characters it could bring some fun appeal, but sadly I feel like while they'd be celebrated in some circles, it'd probably be to their overall detriment in the rest of the playerbase, either being subjected to direct transphobia or just much harder scrutiny. You could do it REALLY well, and it'd be worth doing, but it'd still be an uphill fight.
@@EinDose Oh, I didn't know about Corneo's clearer inspirations. I only saw the red and blue twin jester-lackeys and Eulmore looking like the royal castle of Lindblum and its layers as the bigger hints of Vauthry's source inspirations. And yeah, your ideas on Ysayle and Zoraal Ja were very interesting and similar to what I'd like to see for an M-Venat. Sadly yeah, people are not quite ready for these kinds of portrayals. They have to avoid being seen as preachy and be written to absolute perfection for people to just be "ok with them".
great video! i think about this a lot myself, although usually with my opinion on the character first (as a lesbian) and then thinking about wider fandom's hypothetical opinion. personally i think i would find fem!g'raha somewhat... grating purely in terms of "oh god this is a moe anime girlfriend being shoved in my face and i hate dealing with forced heterosexuality." i totally agree with you on f!g'raha being extremely Typical. male!g'raha is kind of interesting in that he fits into the typically female "sleeping beauty princess in a tower" trope, and the moments of awkwardness and vulnerability that i find charming in a male character would feel dialed up to 11 in a female character, and how heavily gendered and expecting-heterosexuality that would feel to me would make me not really want to engage with her. i do think she'd be very popular with parts of the male fanbase, blugh.
I disagree with the assertion that a male Tataru can’t work, some people enjoy Eddy from Ed, Edd, and Eddy, and also long as Tataru is still firmly within the Scion’s corner the arc from small weak and timid Lalafell to boldly confident master of money and connection making can be a really fun character. I feel like it ultimately comes down to who’d you get to voice a hypothetical male Tataru, because I feel the character would live or die based on the performance of their voice actor, I don’t think I would like current female Tataru as much if her voice actress couldn’t pull of Tataru’s mischievous side.
Ed, Edd and Eddy was maybe my favorite show when it was new, I don't make that comparison without some amount of love, but I was putting forward that for a female character, that overall journey is one of an already-mature person breaking out of their shell and coming into their own; for a male character, it's childish mischief that might grow into a form of actual adulthood. As much as I hate bringing it in as a comparison, Fred and George Weasley in Harry Potter are a good example of that in a more serialized medium.
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.
@@FishSkeleton- It's less that female Elidibus wouldn't work as-is, and more that I think the natural first option if you made that character female is a different direction. That also gives me more to say; Healer Elidibus might not be better, but it does bring a new idea to the table.
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
@@ursulcx299 Sadly I think Lesbian Thancred still has the same end result of unpopularity. And Julyan's specifically a comedy trope that, yes, wouldn't actually be funny if done by a man. There were a lot of characters skipped in the interest of avoiding repetition and sticking to a 'core cast', yeah, but I do think I at least hit everyone I'd want to talk about unless we get REALLY into the weeds and discuss, like, Beatin from the carpenters' guild.
@@EinDose How you can do my girl Lyna dirty like that with a straight face I do not know /j And maybe Ranjit since he does have interesting paralel with Thancred in Ryne's story but I dont care about him as much as Lyna. But yeah the rest arent as important. Probably.
@@ursulcx299 Lyna and Ran'jit were in the original lit that I put together, but Lyna wasn't going to meaningfully change, and I just didn't really know what to say about Ran'jit.
@@EinDose I've got this one: Female Ran'jit doesn't get written unless Female Thancred does. His entire existence is as a dark reflection of Thancred and a representation of a fail-state of someone like Thancred.
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.
I was futzing with a comparison for male Ryne in the scripting before deciding not to bother, but you know what, Shinji's REALLY good, I'll give a thumbs-up to that one. As for Salem... well, I'll put it this way: I'm sure she has her fans, but I'm pretty good at learning things about nerd franchises through cultural osmosis, RWBY isn't exactly a blind spot among those, and I don't think I've ever seen or heard of Salem before, while Emet forced his way into being damn-near the ubiquitous face of the game itself for a while there. So I'm gonna say that, while it's not a total loss to zero, swapping out Emet for essentially Salem would cause a pretty big hit.
And now that I have watched the video to the end, one more analogy. Fem!Zoraal Ja is basically Azula. A "perfect" child with a giant weight of expectations put on them, grasping for father's approval, while at the same time trying to one-up him, furiosly jealous for affection other siblings get, and terminally unable to open up. And both suffer a massive meltdown when they realize that they're unable to live up to the standards they set for themselves.
@@EinDose About Salem - yes, she's not relatively as popular in RWBY's fandom, as Emet-Selch in FFXIV's, but I'd say it's for the most part because in a cast as... colorful as RWBY's Salem doesn't stand out as much, as Emet in FFXIV. If she was in FFXIV instead, I feel like the same contrast that elevates Emet would make the same for her, and the loss of part of his fanbase that is specifically after his sad clown tragic villain appeal would probably be compensated by people wanting her to step on them. Or to pat them on the head with all the appeal of a condescending mother. She can do both.
FFVII's central love triangle is a choice between vanilla and French vanilla, and I'm tired of acting like it's not! (and between those two, yes, obviously chocolate is the better choice)
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
@@sjacpswbs03162005 Hunmu mentions the rarity of female births, but the iq'braax don't seem to ascribe higher value to their women otherwise. I do think swapping one of the Bozjan hrothgar (probably Bajsaljen or Marsak) could be interesting in giving the Resistance a different claim to legitimacy. Suddenly, they have a 'real queen'!
There’s also the obvious gay Hrothgar player thing (I haven’t escaped the allegations) and the lore is written around the number issue which gay people contribute to and it’s probably a similar logistic issue as a female meteor/ardbert but gay
And the obvious tangent of lacking any obviously queer representation meaning we have to bisexual headcanon any bozjans we find but that’s..a whole different thing
@@EinDose ah genetic Hrothgar female rarity that was it that’s probably the same I think it does beg the question of Hrothgar migration (where did we originate from? Bozja or tural? How did it happen?) given the complete lack of Lost Hrothgars in Tural (but then Lost is just arbitrary a label) And yea. You’d think bajsaljen is intrinsically the better candidate, the plus being the more obvious monarchy/republican choice thing but we’ll have to consider Nanamo’s gender in this universe to see if we’ve done it already. Him being a conjurer feels a deliberate thing though as opposed to Kan-E-Senna 2.0 if he were swapped. Marsak would be just as supportive regardless but what is Misija but another power hungry male? Marsak would cease to be everyone’s boyfriend (just my own experience as a Hrothgar enjoyer and seeing others doing the same) but a popular choice as a queen. Then we’ll have to consider if Bajsaljen is male or female. If he remains male, would they get paired up (wait that’s kind of just Marsak/Misija)? If he also gets gender swapped, there’s a succession conflict and that’s a whole thing. Has to be one or the other not both.
Great video! Lots of points that really ended up lining up with my general thoughts as well (especially re: the anti-Hydaelyn squad). I think Cahciua would be an interesting swap given that one of the takes on the character is that they are/were an absentee parent that cared more about doing their own thing than really caring for their child.. and that tends to line up more with a male character. So I can't help but feel that making Cahciua male could potentially just end up leaning into that existing trope for better and/or worse. It being an established thing would lose the unexpected angle, though, and would likely also shove aside the discussion around the character (that I, at least, find interesting). Oh, and the bit on Graha really touched upon exactly what I don't like about the character. They truly are lab grown "non threatening potential love interest but also not if you don't want to see them that way." I just don't find or see anything interesting or appealing about them at this point and would have much rather they just stayed statue-ified in mid-ShB. Up to mid-ShB they were actually interesting and had a reason to exist. Graha's super laser focused design and personality is actually so obvious some part of me finds it actually offensive. And yeah, very "default romance interest" as well... which is only accentuated by how the "other options" in most romance games are the ones with actual personality and character. (and to jump on the actual topic of the video, I wouldn't like Graha any more if they were female though I do agree that a huge part of their fanbase would completely disappear) Love the nails btw!
@@Strider_Shinryu Oh god, male Cahciua reading as 'dad who went out for smokes and never came back' might happen there. But I never felt like the absentee angle was that common or that intended, so I pursued the angle I saw as the more clear one. G'raha basically got this whole project started, because yeah, I do feel like he's written to a very specific intention that'd get derailed if he weren't a cute boy.
"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.)
I disagree that male Wuk Lamat would be beloved. He might be slightly more popular than the female version, but not beloved. I am certain I'm not the only person in the FFXIV fanbase who is sick and tired of the stock shonen type. I think that to make him work you would have to do the same thing that should have been done with the female version - by subverting or challenging their naive outlook on the world. Overall, interesting video and with lots to think about. Thanks for sharing.
You mean like by having her lock horns with the harsh realities of war, or realizing that the thing her country needs isn't the sort of leadership she's seen from others or can provide herself? Because, for some reason, the playerbase didn't like a twist on a shonen protagonist archetype like this when they got it in 2017, and yet did like a much straighter take on a somewhat darker brand of shonen protagonist when they got it in 2015. And I'm sure you can understand my subtext when I say that I think there's a reason it worked exactly that one time.
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.
@@EinDose varies a lot but if you feel that is the essential core of the character rather than a downtrodden victim siding with outsiders against their own people in pursuit of an ultimately hollow vengeance then what you said makes sense (it’s just wrong)
@@EinDose Yeah I do agree from a historical and gendered standpoint, it's a lot different. And I absolutely agree with Yotsuyu specifically being a story that only logically works with women. But I guess I draw parallels with their stories for the idea of "trafficked individual tries to use the power structure that disenfranchised them to gain power and becomes ruthless while also having a fucked up relationship with sex and autonomy". It's certainly not the same story but it's a vibe that I think they share in common, and it's interesting to me as someone who grew up a woman to examine both the narrative and fandom treatment of a character like Astarion vs a character like Yotsuyu.
Oh, the arguments aren't. But the fuel for the emotions behind the argument are, they just wouldn't be mustering up the collective enthusiasm if the root of it wasn't 'being able to say a woman is wrong and bad'.
This video completely derailed my productivity because I was fascinated by the consequences of these hypothetical writing changes. Good job.
21:20 “Godbrand becomes a hard ass woman that everyone is scared of.”
So…his wife?
There would have to be a lot less naked time and torn up clothes if there was genderswapping in the Hildi line.
Also, if you swap Hildi, you HAVE to also swap Godbert, or remove the physical violence. Double standards and all, but its funny when Godbert suplexes his son. It's less funny if he knocks out his daughter with a hammer.
It's also less funny if they both run away from Raging Dad with a Frying Pan -- although, a frying pan is stereotypically a woman's tool; male Julyan might have something different (brain says a belt, but oooof, that hurts my trauma bone).
Geralt's discomfort is rooted in an entirely different problem now.
Isn't there a gold saucer attendee casually objectifying the (naked) gold statue of godbert?
honestly, i think swapping any of them disconnects them all from the comedic tropes that they are heavily playing into.
I feel like Y'shtola is kind of interesting example of the writers trying to skirt around the issue's present with what audiences will and will not accept from a female character because her archetype (smart person with a sharp tongue) is usually disliked in female characters that are protagonists but not main characters or love interests (where it is assumed that the male protagonist is smarter/more capable than her), but because she takes a more passive role and is never too mean or condescending to the player people are a lot more accepting of her than of other characters of the same archetype.
That said I feel like a lot of the traits people actually do like about Y'shtola would be seen as whatever on male Y'shtola. You kinda need Matoya and Y'shtola to both be women for their dynamic to work, the stuff in the endwalker patches with Y'shtola and the Nixies would not work with a male character, and Y'shtola's big moment in the Stormblood patches where she calls Magnai "Little Sun" wouldn't even be all that notable. (Implying a male character has a tiny dick is like, the most intense insult a female character can get away with without people viewing her as an intolerable bitch, but for male characters though dick measuring contests are nothing, if Thancred called Magnai "Little Sun" people would probably not care nearly as much.)
Also I kind of disagree that Zenos would be viewed as mostly the same, as I feel like people would react far worse to the scene of Zenos basically beating the WoL in a fight at the beginning of Stormblood since one of the easiest ways to get people to dislike a female character is have that character show up a male character in any major way, female Zenos would still have a lot of fans but I doubt she would have nearly the same amount of "Ah, a worthy opponent" reactions that male Zenos has nowadays.
Female Zenos would be liked, but she would definitely face criticisms of being just a “strong female character”, of being a yandere, or of becoming a person madly in love with the Warrior of Light. Naturally, if she is the way she is in FFXIV now her story will not align with that, but that assumes they will write her the same way and not actually include romantic love as a motivation. However, no matter if they make female Zenos the way he is or go for the obvious move of making a romantic motivation for her female Zenos would definitely have the fanbase seeing red and swearing off FFXIV forever or at least have the refrain of “skip to Shadowbringers” far more likely.
This was a really fun thought exercise. Although my fan girl heart could not wrap around a male Myrlwyb.
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.
@@Morvelaira I think there is an interesting divide between people who read Cahciua's absence as neglect versus 'a person with more responsibilities than she has time to devote to them'. A male Cahciua might not exist in that same ambiguity.
@@EinDose I can see where that perception could be there for someone skimming her character, but there's never any mention of responsibilities. In fact, the opposite is called out - she follows such a great desire to explore that she drops whatever responsibilities she does hold to chase her passion.
I must admit to an inherent bias here - as Cahciua reminds me of my own mother in the worst of ways - but I don't see her as a bad, or evil person. She's a bright, vivacious and curious woman with a drive to see everything in the world. Wonderful qualities in a 'young viera maiden' as she calls herself, but less condusive to raising a child with all the emotional stability they need. I believe Cahciua loves her son with every fiber of her being... but that doesn't mean she could give him what he needed.
@@Morvelaira Now I'd have to review the entirety of Dawntrail for this, but I believe thst most of Cahciua's life after Erenville was born was in being a village chief--kind of an important thing. So in terms of male character archetypes I don't think we're looking at 'dad who disappeared to go to the store', we're looking at 'career dad who missed his kid's big game/performance'
@@EinDose That is definitely more of the vibe I had intended with my original comments. I can certainly see an excited Erenville attempting to show male-Cahciua something, only to be told not to bother his father.
I have a LOT of words about Cahciua, and the TLDR is that I don't like her. She was NOT a good parent.
And it's sad, because I think her character had a lot of potential to be likable. to be fun and interesting. to defy expectations, in a good way.
She's at LEAST 70, maybe 100 ish years old, and yet she's fun, excitable, energetic.
She rails against in-game gender expectations. Female viera are expected to stay at home and raise children and manage the village. It is the duty of male viera to leave and wander/patrol the forests. And she chooses to wander. Couple that the fact that viera CHOOSE their gender; she could have chosen to be a man and wander. But instead, she chose to be a woman who wanders.
could have been interesting to explore, especially alongside some of the other viera quest-lines we got in DT.
But they gave her a son.
She neglected that son.
They made that son our friend.
and they had her manipulate that son into forgiving her because she's dying.
and then had him kill her.
Giving her a son twists her personality from fun, spontaneous, and excitable to immature, impulsive, and thoughtless. It puts her decision to follow her passions to wander and explore in a bad light; putting her hobby over her child's welfare. They don't explore the gender-aspect of it at all. And she emotionally manipulates and gaslights him several times.
and the entire vibe of their dynamic in the final zone has an "absent father, MIA for 25 years, returns to reconnect after receiving clinical death sentence, but treats their 30 year old son like the 7 year old he abandoned" vibes.
Imagine being a 50+ year old calling your fully adult child a "fussy lil bunbun" to their face, because they disagreed with you, and you want to shut that shit down by embarrassing them and invalidating their concerns by calling them fussy.
Imagine being a 20-30 year old adult, and having your parent call you that. In front of your very accomplished work colleagues and business associates and kind of your boss? Oh, and the President.
but the absolute worst part about it all to me is that we're supposed to like her.
She's not framed as a bad parent. She's not shown to be a bad person.
We don't talk about the consequences of her actions.
Eren is not allowed to question her or be mad.
But it's all hand-waved away by "that's just the way she is and always has been"
well, that tells me that their dynamic has always been this way. Him parenting her. Him being the voice of reason. Her disregarding his opinions, deflecting his criticisms, generally disrespecting him. Her changing topics or running away when she doesn't want to deal with it. Her invalidating his feelings by telling him how he is allowed to feel.
But, maybe it's just that I identify too much with Eren's personality, and she reminds me too much of my own parents, and their dynamic is absolutely triggering my childhood trauma memories.
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.
My understanding is that the whole "good with money" thing is associated with mothers in Japanese society. Something something, dads make the paycheck, gives it to moms and then goes back to work or something to that effect. I could be off base with this, but it's something I see come up time and again.
Dad-taru would be interesting for sure. I feel like there is a supreme lack of good dads around xiv. Kind of a lack of dads in general, but the few we've got are... not good lol.
Here's an interesting one. Make Elidibus Female, and keep the warrior of light as Male. It's way beyond the scope of the video, but you can play a lot into aspects the full loss of self they are going through during that fight, the expectation that they are wrong in assuming a hero has to fit a certain shape, and with the WoL design being androgynous, but still male it could still be sold.
@@bendonatier That's close to where I landed with Zoraal Ja, and I like that approach, I think I just liked 'female Elidibus as healer' more for that one.
On top of that, i'd posit male Zodiark, as well - Elidibus losing their 'selfhood' to the vision of the savior on both counts.
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.
Gosetsu has fans, but they're all us Roegadyns, We have very few players and very few characters.
@@Kpiozero That's fair, in retrospect I think there ARE only two roegadyn on this list.
At least Ketenramm seems to be getting response!
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.
@@Bardic_Knowledge I feel like it probably did happen just by my knowledge of overall rates of intersex people, but that the sky-high infant mortality rate of blessed siblings probably didn't treat them well.
@@Bardic_Knowledge I dont think we've ever even heard of a female pair of blessed siblings.
As a woman... I think Bakool's story would feel... very different if they were a woman.
While I felt bad for Bakool, having survivors guilt and wanting to stop it...
Gods I wanted to hug his mom so bad. Hundreds - literal, *hundreds* of still born, miscarried babies. Her children. And being expected to keep going. Buck up and go again. No time for grief.
The thought of making yet another baby, carrying it, knowing in your heart, this one will probably die too. Like the one before. And the one before that.
Their women are breeding mares in a puppy mill.
Not only would lady Bakool be the one living sibling in a sea of a hundred dead babies, with the expectations of saving their people, burdened with bringing them to the light...
Would she also be expected to step into the role of breeding mare?
Blessed siblings are *supposed* to be sterile... but.... Galool wasnt? Would they then expect Bakool to TRY?
"Pursue a weird little thought experiment" you mean half of a running gag me and my sis are workshopping of the "Force Femmable Tier List" where G'raha Tia and Estinien top the charts with "They'd thank you for the estrogen"?
Zenos is "It would make her worse, and that's hot" ftr.
the "Force Femmable Tier List" is such an awesome concept thank you for sharing this
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.
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.
@@gothicshark Harchefaunt's scenes were reshot for the English localization, in the original he's openly ogling exercising soldiers and the like.
@@EinDose that I did not know, now I need to see these versions of the scenes. Because he came off a bit gay but not really overt or anything. That would seal the deal IMO.
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)
Great video
This video has made me realise... how cool would it be to get a character that transitions gender throughout the story. I don't think we ever saw that happen in the game. And as a fellow trans woman myself, I think it would make for a very interesting new character type.
@@Paladinleeds we don't usually see that happen in ANY games! The closest might be, like. Bridget in Guilty Gear Strive?
We do jokingly call the twins Red Alphanaud and Blue Alisaie for a reason. I think that’ll be fine albeit unoriginal yeah.
Thancred and Urianger would probably be less shipped as the gay dads and more the lesbian moms assuming everything mostly stays in tact.
Oh god now I’m imagining Godbert in a bra. I’d think they’d have to tone down that bit a lot cause it could be seen as a little sexist. Sure there’s an underlying double standard where male Godbert is less uncomfortable but that’s just because him being a buff near naked dude that preforms limit breaks with a goldsmitthing hammer is hilarious. Also shout out to Godbert’s statue needing to also be shaped differently. We’d lose one of the funniest pieces of NPC dialogue where the clerk that’s stationed in that section of the Gold Saucer believes that to be torture having to be stationed and forced to witness his bulge.
Basically a Trans Shiva with Ysayle would be a fascinating take but I’d argue Heavensward’s issues itself would make this fall flat. Mainly Ysayle’s underutilization as a character and them being done the most dirty.
Oh now I’m remembering how Gosetsu was introduced. I’m imagining a really large hammy voice from her and her face planting due to her being starving. A stubborn samurai woman who honestly has a MORE really tragic as a mother who loses her children would easily make her work phenomenally. Also it’s more female Roegadyn representation and I’m all for it.
If I were to go off of the Innocence fight you were describing I could imagine a weird but cool looking Maria. Just look at SMT’s depiction of Maria and you basically get what you’re aiming for. She has the sin eater color scheme down to a T already.
Do you know how many people already go gaga over the fact that Ryne and Gaia are “roommates”? Again. Jokingly calling the upcoming ultimate Lesbians (Ultimate). We’d lose quite a bit with that angle of gender swapping but I’m all for having the two still kinda be into each other. Instead of biscuits and coffee they’d be probably into something a little more different.
You’ve also no idea how many people do genuinely thirst for Hermes. You’d lose a lot of the fandom there.
Wuk Lamat is also just Simba. The memes about him being The Lion King would not be inaccurate at all.
I’ve seen the mods for Bakool Ja Ja. I’d feel people that thirst for muscle moms instead of beefy dudes would go after them instead. On the other hand… no. Just. No…
@@LightbladeRiulo I liked pitching Godbert as 'one sentence then moving on', but my extended thought is that you could easily have her go for 'sweet old lady with a mean side', but I do still think there's value in something more direct. Might have to go beyond being in underwear, though, it kinda calls for actual design.
Loved all of this! 100% accurate on Lyse. If she was a guy, she would just be a normal shonen protagonist. Most of the time I see hate for her, the criticisms just boil down to traits that would be considered totally normal in a man in the same genre.
G'raha is an interesting case where, I think a female version could work in a different, less transmisogynist world. Because the way to fix the problems with female G'raha is to start her as male and have her transition after Shadowbringers. The intention behind G'raha's lines is to make him boyfriend material. He is clearly in love with, or at least in awe of, the WoL. But as a trans woman I couldn't help but read a lot of that admiration as gender envy from my character.
Do I think it works better than male G'raha? No. Especially not the way people treat trans women. But it is an interesting thought experiment. There's a lot to work with in the idea of the Exarch spending that century in the First coming to slowly understand her own identity and resigning herself to never making it real before being given a second chance at life to become her true self.
I think in a few places we veer into "how western writers would do a genderswapped version", rather than leaving the character as is or leaning into japanese tropes
Oh, absolutely, inescapably so; I'm coming at it from a western perspective no matter how much I try otherwise. I was deliberately making sure to use Japanese examples in comparisons whenever possible to avoid this as much as I feasibly could, but at the end of the day that is the only approach I can reasonably have.
Female Fandaniel as described here is Xal'atath from World of Warcraft and I don't hate it.
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 feel like female Thancred would be the one that goes into Dissidia if male Y'shtola's also there, but that would clash weirdly with the fact I still think female Thancred would be really unpopular. That'd all be a bit interesting to see pan out, though: we already have people thinking Y'shtola MUST be the breakout fan-favorite because of her crossover presence, and that already sits weird when her response is actually 'yeah she's pretty good I guess'.
You can't convince that male Nanamo wouldn't wear that exact same outfit, except with a giant turban and definitely not fake-mustache instead.
I honestly think most of the xiv characters would suffer from gender bends, which I think is why we don't see it often in the fanart community (at least I don't; at least not as commonly as other fandoms, where it's common or even rampant).
And I think that's because a lot of them play into or against gender roles and tropes as it is. And those very things are intrinsic to why people like them. At least... that's why *I* like them. And swapping their gender takes that dynamic away, and keeping it would require reworking the character to the point that they're not even the same person anymore.
Female Zoraal Ja sounds like Cersei from GoT. Minus all the sex manipulation
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...
@@Narlaw1199 For a few of these I'm escalating things to be able to make a point; one of my first drafts was 'male Kan-E is E-Sumi', but that just doesn't give us a lot to chew on, and Kan-E is also markedly more prominent and hardnosed, which I think would factor but is also just more interesting to focus on.
@@EinDose Fair point, escalating does allow more discussions and highlights interesting points and what may be missed, as you've excellently showed. And I also may be blinder to gender normes than I thought, since to me, Vauthry was already queen Brahne and because I assumed Ottis was more based on the protoype character who ended up split between Steiner and Beatrix, I was seeing aspects of the latter in him, mainly the skill and confidence.
I join you in that some characters just don't work gender-swapped though, like Sphene and Yotsuyu, but I would also love to see how it would work for characters who embody an archetype, like Hydaelin still being worshipped as the Mother Crystal, but Venat being a man, with the same motherly personality. Would people react to that? Would characters do? Would Venat care about this gender norme? Would it be relevant to the story? etc...
@@Narlaw1199 Vauthry's actually more obviously borrowing from Corneo in other languages; in other languages he has a title befitting of a crime family boss, and only English translated his title as 'lord', probably because in 2019 calling him 'Don Vauthry' in English would've hit a bit too close to home.
The idea of having characters themselves playing with their gender identity does feel like a really cool idea (and I did bring that up with Ysayle and Zoraal Ja), and I think with some characters it could bring some fun appeal, but sadly I feel like while they'd be celebrated in some circles, it'd probably be to their overall detriment in the rest of the playerbase, either being subjected to direct transphobia or just much harder scrutiny. You could do it REALLY well, and it'd be worth doing, but it'd still be an uphill fight.
@@EinDose Oh, I didn't know about Corneo's clearer inspirations. I only saw the red and blue twin jester-lackeys and Eulmore looking like the royal castle of Lindblum and its layers as the bigger hints of Vauthry's source inspirations.
And yeah, your ideas on Ysayle and Zoraal Ja were very interesting and similar to what I'd like to see for an M-Venat.
Sadly yeah, people are not quite ready for these kinds of portrayals. They have to avoid being seen as preachy and be written to absolute perfection for people to just be "ok with them".
great video! i think about this a lot myself, although usually with my opinion on the character first (as a lesbian) and then thinking about wider fandom's hypothetical opinion. personally i think i would find fem!g'raha somewhat... grating purely in terms of "oh god this is a moe anime girlfriend being shoved in my face and i hate dealing with forced heterosexuality." i totally agree with you on f!g'raha being extremely Typical. male!g'raha is kind of interesting in that he fits into the typically female "sleeping beauty princess in a tower" trope, and the moments of awkwardness and vulnerability that i find charming in a male character would feel dialed up to 11 in a female character, and how heavily gendered and expecting-heterosexuality that would feel to me would make me not really want to engage with her. i do think she'd be very popular with parts of the male fanbase, blugh.
I disagree with the assertion that a male Tataru can’t work, some people enjoy Eddy from Ed, Edd, and Eddy, and also long as Tataru is still firmly within the Scion’s corner the arc from small weak and timid Lalafell to boldly confident master of money and connection making can be a really fun character. I feel like it ultimately comes down to who’d you get to voice a hypothetical male Tataru, because I feel the character would live or die based on the performance of their voice actor, I don’t think I would like current female Tataru as much if her voice actress couldn’t pull of Tataru’s mischievous side.
Ed, Edd and Eddy was maybe my favorite show when it was new, I don't make that comparison without some amount of love, but I was putting forward that for a female character, that overall journey is one of an already-mature person breaking out of their shell and coming into their own; for a male character, it's childish mischief that might grow into a form of actual adulthood. As much as I hate bringing it in as a comparison, Fred and George Weasley in Harry Potter are a good example of that in a more serialized medium.
Making Lyse male gets you Future Redeemed's Matthew. Change my mind.
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.
@@FishSkeleton- It's less that female Elidibus wouldn't work as-is, and more that I think the natural first option if you made that character female is a different direction. That also gives me more to say; Healer Elidibus might not be better, but it does bring a new idea to the table.
Jegan spotted. Stay awesome
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
@@ursulcx299 Sadly I think Lesbian Thancred still has the same end result of unpopularity. And Julyan's specifically a comedy trope that, yes, wouldn't actually be funny if done by a man.
There were a lot of characters skipped in the interest of avoiding repetition and sticking to a 'core cast', yeah, but I do think I at least hit everyone I'd want to talk about unless we get REALLY into the weeds and discuss, like, Beatin from the carpenters' guild.
@@EinDose How you can do my girl Lyna dirty like that with a straight face I do not know /j
And maybe Ranjit since he does have interesting paralel with Thancred in Ryne's story but I dont care about him as much as Lyna. But yeah the rest arent as important. Probably.
@@ursulcx299 Lyna and Ran'jit were in the original lit that I put together, but Lyna wasn't going to meaningfully change, and I just didn't really know what to say about Ran'jit.
@@EinDose that is fair
@@EinDose I've got this one:
Female Ran'jit doesn't get written unless Female Thancred does. His entire existence is as a dark reflection of Thancred and a representation of a fail-state of someone like Thancred.
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.
I was futzing with a comparison for male Ryne in the scripting before deciding not to bother, but you know what, Shinji's REALLY good, I'll give a thumbs-up to that one.
As for Salem... well, I'll put it this way: I'm sure she has her fans, but I'm pretty good at learning things about nerd franchises through cultural osmosis, RWBY isn't exactly a blind spot among those, and I don't think I've ever seen or heard of Salem before, while Emet forced his way into being damn-near the ubiquitous face of the game itself for a while there. So I'm gonna say that, while it's not a total loss to zero, swapping out Emet for essentially Salem would cause a pretty big hit.
And now that I have watched the video to the end, one more analogy.
Fem!Zoraal Ja is basically Azula. A "perfect" child with a giant weight of expectations put on them, grasping for father's approval, while at the same time trying to one-up him, furiosly jealous for affection other siblings get, and terminally unable to open up. And both suffer a massive meltdown when they realize that they're unable to live up to the standards they set for themselves.
@@EinDose About Salem - yes, she's not relatively as popular in RWBY's fandom, as Emet-Selch in FFXIV's, but I'd say it's for the most part because in a cast as... colorful as RWBY's Salem doesn't stand out as much, as Emet in FFXIV. If she was in FFXIV instead, I feel like the same contrast that elevates Emet would make the same for her, and the loss of part of his fanbase that is specifically after his sad clown tragic villain appeal would probably be compensated by people wanting her to step on them. Or to pat them on the head with all the appeal of a condescending mother. She can do both.
Gosetsu as a woman would just be Baiken from guilty gear but without the coolness of fighting without an arm and eye.
@@blacktornado9877 See, I think Baiken's more in Hien's range, but I still see it.
@@EinDose Yeah, you have a point there.
LOVE THIS
Putting Aerith's and Tifa's picture next to "default love interest" is slander to both them and Barret.
FFVII's central love triangle is a choice between vanilla and French vanilla, and I'm tired of acting like it's not!
(and between those two, yes, obviously chocolate is the better choice)
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
@@sjacpswbs03162005 Hunmu mentions the rarity of female births, but the iq'braax don't seem to ascribe higher value to their women otherwise.
I do think swapping one of the Bozjan hrothgar (probably Bajsaljen or Marsak) could be interesting in giving the Resistance a different claim to legitimacy. Suddenly, they have a 'real queen'!
There’s also the obvious gay Hrothgar player thing (I haven’t escaped the allegations) and the lore is written around the number issue which gay people contribute to and it’s probably a similar logistic issue as a female meteor/ardbert but gay
And the obvious tangent of lacking any obviously queer representation meaning we have to bisexual headcanon any bozjans we find but that’s..a whole different thing
@@EinDose ah genetic Hrothgar female rarity that was it that’s probably the same
I think it does beg the question of Hrothgar migration (where did we originate from? Bozja or tural? How did it happen?) given the complete lack of Lost Hrothgars in Tural (but then Lost is just arbitrary a label)
And yea. You’d think bajsaljen is intrinsically the better candidate, the plus being the more obvious monarchy/republican choice thing but we’ll have to consider Nanamo’s gender in this universe to see if we’ve done it already. Him being a conjurer feels a deliberate thing though as opposed to Kan-E-Senna 2.0 if he were swapped. Marsak would be just as supportive regardless but what is Misija but another power hungry male?
Marsak would cease to be everyone’s boyfriend (just my own experience as a Hrothgar enjoyer and seeing others doing the same) but a popular choice as a queen. Then we’ll have to consider if Bajsaljen is male or female. If he remains male, would they get paired up (wait that’s kind of just Marsak/Misija)? If he also gets gender swapped, there’s a succession conflict and that’s a whole thing. Has to be one or the other not both.
@@sjacpswbs03162005 Female Bajsaljen/Marsak... Female Misija.
Suddenly, the future of Bozja is a literal and figurative Catfight. ;)
How many times have female Cid and female Nero been divorced?
Great video! Lots of points that really ended up lining up with my general thoughts as well (especially re: the anti-Hydaelyn squad).
I think Cahciua would be an interesting swap given that one of the takes on the character is that they are/were an absentee parent that cared more about doing their own thing than really caring for their child.. and that tends to line up more with a male character. So I can't help but feel that making Cahciua male could potentially just end up leaning into that existing trope for better and/or worse. It being an established thing would lose the unexpected angle, though, and would likely also shove aside the discussion around the character (that I, at least, find interesting).
Oh, and the bit on Graha really touched upon exactly what I don't like about the character. They truly are lab grown "non threatening potential love interest but also not if you don't want to see them that way." I just don't find or see anything interesting or appealing about them at this point and would have much rather they just stayed statue-ified in mid-ShB. Up to mid-ShB they were actually interesting and had a reason to exist. Graha's super laser focused design and personality is actually so obvious some part of me finds it actually offensive. And yeah, very "default romance interest" as well... which is only accentuated by how the "other options" in most romance games are the ones with actual personality and character. (and to jump on the actual topic of the video, I wouldn't like Graha any more if they were female though I do agree that a huge part of their fanbase would completely disappear)
Love the nails btw!
@@Strider_Shinryu Oh god, male Cahciua reading as 'dad who went out for smokes and never came back' might happen there. But I never felt like the absentee angle was that common or that intended, so I pursued the angle I saw as the more clear one.
G'raha basically got this whole project started, because yeah, I do feel like he's written to a very specific intention that'd get derailed if he weren't a cute boy.
"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.)
@@1701Rafael I actually don't think that IS the consensus or intent there.
@@EinDose oh glad we are not alone.
I disagree that male Wuk Lamat would be beloved. He might be slightly more popular than the female version, but not beloved. I am certain I'm not the only person in the FFXIV fanbase who is sick and tired of the stock shonen type. I think that to make him work you would have to do the same thing that should have been done with the female version - by subverting or challenging their naive outlook on the world.
Overall, interesting video and with lots to think about. Thanks for sharing.
You mean like by having her lock horns with the harsh realities of war, or realizing that the thing her country needs isn't the sort of leadership she's seen from others or can provide herself?
Because, for some reason, the playerbase didn't like a twist on a shonen protagonist archetype like this when they got it in 2017, and yet did like a much straighter take on a somewhat darker brand of shonen protagonist when they got it in 2015. And I'm sure you can understand my subtext when I say that I think there's a reason it worked exactly that one time.
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.
@@csrjjsmp do those stories have a core of forced prositution and comfort women?
Also Ascended Astarion has his fans too so I feel like her character put on a man has had some success but to a different degree.
@@lunapyrope9683 I think Ascended Astarion is a fundamentally totally different story.
@@EinDose varies a lot but if you feel that is the essential core of the character rather than a downtrodden victim siding with outsiders against their own people in pursuit of an ultimately hollow vengeance then what you said makes sense (it’s just wrong)
@@EinDose Yeah I do agree from a historical and gendered standpoint, it's a lot different. And I absolutely agree with Yotsuyu specifically being a story that only logically works with women. But I guess I draw parallels with their stories for the idea of "trafficked individual tries to use the power structure that disenfranchised them to gain power and becomes ruthless while also having a fucked up relationship with sex and autonomy". It's certainly not the same story but it's a vibe that I think they share in common, and it's interesting to me as someone who grew up a woman to examine both the narrative and fandom treatment of a character like Astarion vs a character like Yotsuyu.
I don't get how the anti Venat perspective loses steam or structure if you swap her to a guy. That argument isn't based off sexism.
Oh, the arguments aren't. But the fuel for the emotions behind the argument are, they just wouldn't be mustering up the collective enthusiasm if the root of it wasn't 'being able to say a woman is wrong and bad'.