Quina is labeled genderless, but the game treats quina as a male *Master Quale addressed quina as "he" in a cutscene *protect girls ability won't work with quina *Lamias entice spell works with quina (which only works on male characters) *Quina cannot equip female exclusive accessories/equipment
Are they really trying tho? or is it just based on the devs ignorance and the culture at the time to make joke characters thats outside the hetero norm (Ex : being effiminate flamboyant male, androgynous, or the case like quina. Im just concerned if you're giving Squaresoft to much credit for "Trying" when really it was just their meme effort for token "joke" character. I dont feel the need to celebrate that.@@everythingisfinalfantasy
I don’t think that Quina was part of a design to make fun of non binary people. And as of effeminate flamboyant male, if with that you mean Kuja, what exactly is wrong with him? He has charm and I kinda envy him. I mean he lives in a large and luxurious palace, he has charm, he is strong and powerful, can do pretty much what he wants, he is rich af and basically living the dream. He is not akward and not regarded as effeminate by other characters in the storyline.
@@daslaserkraft9124They literally never make fun of Quina's gender in the entire game. There are no lines speaking negatively of it, and Quina isn't even portrayed with a flamboyant personality to begin with. The only character who gets a flamboyant personality is Kuja, who also gets zero negative jokes about his sexuality and nobody ingame ever doubts him when he says he's a man. I think based on what we see in-game, there's no reason to assume this wasn't a genuine attempt at a respectful portrayal. Literally the only thing that didn't age well is the "s/he, him/her" pronoun, which is purely an issue of the dub coming out before they/them was widely known. It's honestly really progressive for the time and I'm confident it was made with genuine empathy and not an intent to joke about the characters.
The game inconsistantly treats Quina as both male or female in different gameplay mechanics. * Quina can equip female Accessories, just not female body armour like the rubber suit. This and Zidane's protect girls ability not working on them always struck me as the game going "nobody wants Quina fanservice" not "Quina isn't a girl". * The steam achievements count Quina as female for getting the achievement of making an all female party. * Quina can marry Vivi in the Conde Petie optional scene. * The obvious fact that their outfit and name are both far more stereotypically female than male. I'm not saying any of this is evidence that Quina is actually female, because both the game and the Ultimania state their gender is unknown. Just that I don't think it's as much of a clear cut case that "they're obviously male in the game mechanics". I feel like the devs just made a grab bag decision to shove them randomly into different male or female categories to show that they have traits of both. Also the bit about Quale calling them male is a translation error that doesn't prove anything. Every single issue with the inconsistant s/he and him/her is exclusive to the English version. Other translations have different mistakes in the opposite direction, the French version calls both Quina and Quale women. That's not canon either. All that's ever been said in Japanese is "gender unknown", and every modern cameo appearance of the character in later English media has switched to using they/them pronouns. I do still agree that the representation in the game isn't perfect, but it's very clear the intent was to make a genderless character even if they messed some stuff up.
Dissidia Opera Omnia and the manual and steam achievements for the FF9 port both already use they/them! So I hope this means the remake/TV show/whatever it ends up being will go with that too.
I cannot wait for the Final Fantasy IX remake, not only is it my favourite in the series but we get to play more of one of the greatest & unique Final Fantasy characters ever. They really deserve the correct representation, Quina is just so iconic. They are my favourite along with Vivi. Quina keep representing us who are part of the LGBTQ+ community. And being a Blue Mage chef on top of it? Perfection. I want them to bring Qu's back in future Final Fantasy's, bring them into a future XIV expansion SquareEnix!
Excellent video, deserves more views! I will say as a nonbinary person myself, it was really nice to play ff9 blind and find that representation. Quina is unironically hilarious and charming and i will always appreciate them
What is Kimahri supposed to represent? The analysis is interesting but flawed, imo. The game clearly operates on the binary in the sense that quina is either he or she as evidenced by the pronouns. Quina HAS a gender but it is unknown. The reason why Quina may not operate under the gender binary is because the Qu have their own ways. Quan and Quale are both males. Quina IS either male or female but we just do not know. I will say that the overall point stands that Quina does represent an alternative
@@thehater6189 Quina is only referred to as s/he in English, this analysis is flawed. The Japanese doesn't have any implication of them operating on the binary and it's completely ambiguous whether they identify as genderless or are simply a man or a woman and the audience doesn't know.
@Bunni89 no it's very clear that they, like the other Qu, have a gender but that the gender is unknown. It says so on their character profile. In addition, Quina's age is also unknown and ranged from 70-80. This does not mean you can reinterpret this as Quina being "ageless". We just do not know; that is the point. I am not sure how it changes anything though? The idea is the same either way, it is unclear to the player where quina fits. Why would it matter if Quina does or does not identify as genderless etc?
@@thehater6189 Why would "gender unknown" exclude non-binary from being one of the many options it can potentially be? You're getting extremely hung up on specific words and not what the actual definition is. I'm just saying genderless as a group term here because you insisted using non-binary would be bad and ahistorical for the time period. But non-binary doesn't literally mean "no gender", that's agender. That's why I headcanon them as being non-binary. I'm not saying it's true or intentional, I'm just saying "it's possible they might identify somewhere outside of male or female". For example of how this works: some non-binary people feel like "I'm both" instead of "I'm neither". There's also genderfluidity, and Third Gender, and other identities. It seems absolutely bizarre to assume "gender unknown" equals "so there's only two possibilities for what that unknown might be". For all we know Quina might be non-binary, and it's fine for people to headcanon that. We ain't saying nobody else is allowed to think different.
Like To use your own example Does the profile say "age unknown"? No. It says 70-80. So obviously they're one of those options. But does the profile say "male or female"? No. So why would you assume those are the only two options? It's only the English dub that uses s/he, there is no basis for that in Japanese.
@@thehater6189 Also gotta add at your last line: "why would it matter if Quina does or does not Identity as genderless?" EXACTLY. That's exactly what I'm saying! Why does it matter if other people wanna headcanon that? Who exactly are we hurting for seeing a character who acts exactly like us and going "oh hey, maybe they're like us! That'd be neat!" This entire thing is so bizarre to me, you seem to be arguing against things I'm not even saying.
Quina is either a he or a she and it's usually up to the players interpretation. I played the game years ago and I also saw Quina as a girl, hence why I refer to Quina as a her
