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FFIX's world surely has the most diverse population of all FF games. We have a plethora of different species: moogles, rat-like Burmecians, hippo-people, bird-people, the genderless Qu, and many, many, many more. It is perhaps the closest Final Fantasy has got to a fairy-tale setting.
And yet even within the human species there seems to be a variety of skin pigmentation that we don’t have on our own Earth: blue.
Queen Brahne and Amarant Coral are both blue-skinned, and I think there may be a variety of background NPCs with a similar pigmentation. These characters are usually listed as ‘human’ rather than as members of a separate humanoid species.
FFIX’s setting is medieval fantasy and so the characters are mainly white with European-influenced designs, but there are a couple of arguably Hispanic, black, and Polynesian-inspired characters too – in addition to the Japanese and Asian elements which would be expected in a Japanese game. But FFIX manages to sneak in an additional skin colour in the form of blue skin. It does this discreetly and I don’t know if many people think about it as the aforementioned species variety means that it doesn’t look out of place at all. It would look out of place in nearly every other Final Fantasy game, but FFIX is so unusual in its character designs that we do not question blue skin.
Imagine playing a version of FFVII where Cid Highwind was blue? Or imagine if Selphie in FFVIII was blue? Or FFXIII's Hope? It would look out of place there, but FFIX gets away with it.
What were they going for with this? Why do you think that they decided to add blue skinned humans? It is quite an odd thing to do, yet we rarely question it because we are distracted by talking hippopotamuses.
If there is a message behind it, is it that race shouldn't matter at all? Blue people simply exist, and we accept that without thinking about it while playing the game because the inhabitants of Gaia aren't concerned about race and don't comment on blue skin. Or is this nothing to do with that?
Alternatively, do you think that the blue skinned humans are supposed to be a different species, not Homo sapiens at all, and that Square-Enix forgot / felt it unnecessary to define them?
Thoughts?
And yet even within the human species there seems to be a variety of skin pigmentation that we don’t have on our own Earth: blue.
Queen Brahne and Amarant Coral are both blue-skinned, and I think there may be a variety of background NPCs with a similar pigmentation. These characters are usually listed as ‘human’ rather than as members of a separate humanoid species.
FFIX’s setting is medieval fantasy and so the characters are mainly white with European-influenced designs, but there are a couple of arguably Hispanic, black, and Polynesian-inspired characters too – in addition to the Japanese and Asian elements which would be expected in a Japanese game. But FFIX manages to sneak in an additional skin colour in the form of blue skin. It does this discreetly and I don’t know if many people think about it as the aforementioned species variety means that it doesn’t look out of place at all. It would look out of place in nearly every other Final Fantasy game, but FFIX is so unusual in its character designs that we do not question blue skin.
Imagine playing a version of FFVII where Cid Highwind was blue? Or imagine if Selphie in FFVIII was blue? Or FFXIII's Hope? It would look out of place there, but FFIX gets away with it.
What were they going for with this? Why do you think that they decided to add blue skinned humans? It is quite an odd thing to do, yet we rarely question it because we are distracted by talking hippopotamuses.
If there is a message behind it, is it that race shouldn't matter at all? Blue people simply exist, and we accept that without thinking about it while playing the game because the inhabitants of Gaia aren't concerned about race and don't comment on blue skin. Or is this nothing to do with that?
Alternatively, do you think that the blue skinned humans are supposed to be a different species, not Homo sapiens at all, and that Square-Enix forgot / felt it unnecessary to define them?
Thoughts?