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Ok I think I know how this poll is going to go but...

I've seen pictures of people who have cosplayed as a male FF1 white mage or drew a white mage as male. Also even videos of people naming a white mage male names. So what is the popular opinion is the white mage a male female or whats the difference. The last choice was supposed to be a cute joke considering the poll and plus I like Flea.

This post has been edited by seraphimdreamer777 on 3rd July 2010 02:59

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I treasure those who I love that love me in return. <3

Female. It just seems to go together for some reason.

This post has been edited by Raian the Fallen on 3rd July 2010 03:51

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You forgot 3 and 5 in which you can change classes. Plus 7 if you really think about it didn't really have classes unless you use your imagination.

Possible spoilers: highlight to view

Aeris\Aerith could use healing and support limits

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I treasure those who I love that love me in return. <3

We're talking about theWhite Mage/Wizard in FFI? I always thought it was a dude, thought to be honest it never really crossed my mind it could be a female. After class change, the white wizard looks pretty masculine.

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"If art doesn't risk upsetting expectations and challenging its audience, it can only stagnate."

In the original version, after the class change, it looks like a guy, definitely.

After 8-bit theater established it as being a girl, and with the less-masculine renderings from Wonderswan-on and the concept art from DoS...it's canonically a female now.

Quote (yelanates @ 4th July 2010 22:12)

In the original version, after the class change, it looks like a guy, definitely.

After 8-bit theater established it as being a girl, and with the less-masculine renderings from Wonderswan-on and the concept art from DoS...it's canonically a female now.

Male. When the classes upgrade the white sage looks way too masculine to be a female, plus Minwu from FF II was a male white sage. It's possible that Square intended white sages to be just as a masculine role as the warrior, then after IV with Rosa ,guess they decided that White sages would fit a more feminine role. I just see White sages as real life doctors and nurses, they don't have to be all female.

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Currently playing Chrono Trigger !!
Currently looking forward to Don't Know.

The thing that makes FF1 (almost) unique is the way the characters are set up. They don't have names, they don't have genders, and they don't have personalities. Why? Because that's for you to decide! I'm kind of surprised that hasn't been pointed out in this thread yet.

In my own mind, there are actually two females: White Mage because she's sooooo feminine looking (being a woman I hate stereotyping but I just couldn't resist on this one!) and I always give her my real name, Amber. I have a very bad habit of naming almost all of the main cast after myself, I even make up male equivalent names like Adam, etc. Anyway, yeah, White Mage is so cool she gets my real name. So who's the other female?

Ever since I first played FF1 back in 2002 or so on PlayStation (I've never played the NES version, so don't kill me for saying this) I always thought Thief looked kinda feminine too. Not so much as White Mage, but it's definitely there. I'm a very tomboyish female so naturally I'm going to name Thief after my favorite personality: Krisp! On the internet I often pretend to be male because I think my personality fits the male stereotype more.

Amber is the White Mage who looks feminine and IS feminine; Krisp is the Thief who is female but likes to conceal it, even though she is obviously feminine too. I like to pretend the characters have personalities and stuff throughout FF1, it just makes the game more fun for me. I'll stop ranting now so I don't go into detail about Warrior and Black Mage, too. ^_~

Quote (Krisp @ 7th July 2010 12:46)

The thing that makes FF1 (almost) unique is the way the characters are set up. They don't have names, they don't have genders, and they don't have personalities. Why? Because that's for you to decide! I'm kind of surprised that hasn't been pointed out in this thread yet.

In the PSP version, I just checked on my copy, all of the white mage's names available in autoselect appear to be female aside from one, "Noah." The rest, as far as I can tell:

Luca
Sarina
Jenica
Sara
Sherko
Ruby
Mikoto
Kuku

Seems to me that would make her canonically female, but I certainly can't explain Noah.

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Why aren't you shopping AmaCoN?

Quote (Rangers51 @ 7th July 2010 17:26)

Seems to me that would make her canonically female, but I certainly can't explain Noah.

The female lead in Legend of Legaia was named Noa! It could go either way, I guess, even though it's traditionally a male name in the west.

This post has been edited by Neal on 8th July 2010 04:08

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Hey, put the cellphone down for a while
In the night there is something wild
Can you hear it breathing?
And hey, put the laptop down for a while
In the night there is something wild
I feel it, it's leaving me

I was going to vote option 2, but "Flea!" sold it for me. Nicely done.

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Run, run. Or you'll be well done.

Female. Very female.

I was just discussing this with my sister today.

The sprite on the PSP version seems as if it could be male or female. It looks female because, well, it just does. But if you look at the haircut, it looks similar to the haircut of the White Mage in Final Fantasy Tactics.

I've always thought it was female though, so it's basically just what you think.

EDIT: Except when she becomes a White Wizard, then it's obviously a girl.

This post has been edited by DarkFang on 9th July 2010 04:59

Quote (Krisp @ 7th July 2010 17:46)

In my own mind, there are actually two females: White Mage because she's sooooo feminine looking (being a woman I hate stereotyping but I just couldn't resist on this one!)
Ever since I first played FF1 back in 2002 or so on PlayStation (I've never played the NES version, so don't kill me for saying this) I always thought Thief looked kinda feminine too. Not so much as White Mage, but it's definitely there.

I agree with this saying that the FF1 Thief looks feminine. I just loaded up my old Gameboy and the way that the thief walks around the main map screen just looks very well... girlish. But in the GBA version the White Sage still looks like a male to me, just like on the Nes original. I haven't played the PSP version though.

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Currently playing Chrono Trigger !!
Currently looking forward to Don't Know.

Does it matter the sprite looks like it could be either.

At least in FF1 NES it is almost impossible to tell. Decide for yourself.

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FFO on PSX: Killed Chaos w/ 4 level 49 Black Wiz's

Begone, Flea, you don't belong in this game's white mage character class!

Also, I interpret it as androgynous, kinda like FEVII's Tactician.

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The female lead in Legend of Legaia was named Noa!  It could go either way, I guess, even though it's traditionally a male name in the west.

There was also a female character in Suikoden IV named Noah.

This post has been edited by Tryscal The Great on 5th October 2010 20:42

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We make games. Period.

Actually, White Mage is Legion.

Because White Mage's true name is NOA. As in, Nintendo of America.

Or, NOAA, as in the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

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You can find me on the Fediverse! I use Mastodon, where I am @[email protected] ( https://sakurajima.moe/@glennmagusharvey )

To be honest, I had a set of four characters in mind and didn't really care what Square'd had in mind.
As such, I had a male white Mage, Fin, and Maria my female thief. My warrior was Leo though and My black mage Andrew but that was more coincidence...

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Yours, with sarcasm,
Kjel

I just want to point that when you defeat the pirates and get the ship, he refers to you as "sirs" so I would assume that it's a man. Also, most female characters in the final fantasy series tend to be rather... erm... chesty, and this doesn't seem to be the case with this white mage, so I'm going to have to go with male on this one.

But "sirs" could just be a collective noun, and the convention in English is that the collective noun follows the male form.

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Check the "What games are you playing at the moment?" thread for updates on what I've been playing.

You can find me on the Fediverse! I use Mastodon, where I am @[email protected] ( https://sakurajima.moe/@glennmagusharvey )

Clearly, it's Flea.

They even have the same patterns on their coats.

Being that I first played FF1 on the NES when I was 5 (only a couple years after it first came out) I had always just considered that the white mage was a girl. I had never made it much farther after blowing up the opening to the outer ocean and never knew that the characters upgraded their class. It wasn't until I played through it again on the Gameboy Advance that I found out you could get the second classes. I was shocked to discover that white wizard is in fact a guy (maybe the class change gave her a sex change).

Also, I always thought the blackbelt was a chick because of the hair.

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That was my sin. And this... this... is my punishment.

So totally Flea.

Im with Either it could be a Chick it could be a Macho Man just lookin like a chick for the new games but in the old one the white mage look like a guy when it promoted into a White Wizard.

Could be either way i usually name the white mage my name (im a dude) really doesn't matter but you'll look really masculine with the ultima weapon (gba or psp)

Come to think of it, you can interpret the white mage sprite to be a really cutesy sprite of a boy. Y'know, like, the way animé art can be sometimes.

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Check the "What games are you playing at the moment?" thread for updates on what I've been playing.

You can find me on the Fediverse! I use Mastodon, where I am @[email protected] ( https://sakurajima.moe/@glennmagusharvey )

You can tell by the angularity of the lines of the White Wizard's sprite that it's supposed to be a it's a man so we can infer from that that the White Mage, as an earlier form of the white wizard, is supposed to be a boy. Let's not forget that the time period the setting draws inspiration from was likely a different, more biased era, where women didn't really adventure much. Granted, in the modern era there'd been a growing trend against such typecasting, even as early as Metroid but I think most females of the N.E.S. era were still damsels in distress, like Princess Sarah/Toadstool/Zelda and Final Fantasy didn't seem to be as far off as a departure from its inspirations as it is today.

I think he became perceived to be female because he has long hair, which is a trait most often associated with women and his robes have the coloring of a nurse, which is stereotypically considered a womanly profession especially since we associate healing with a nurturing motherly nature. It's made all that much easier by the fact that the Light Warriors were likely to be children in their earlier years, adding a sort of androginity to their character. In the absence of a gender balanced caste, the White Mage makes the best candidate for repurposing.

I think somehow Square somehow caught onto at least some of this sometime before the creation of FF IV (hence Rosa) and 8-bit theater took advantage of it because it'd be weird to lack a leading heroine who gets lots of screen time.

Nevertheless I'm fairly convinced it's supposed to be male, especially if you check out the final fantasy origins sprite and check it against an I can't believe it's not butter commercial.

Possible spoilers: highlight to view

Before I vote on this poll, does Fabio count as a macho man or something more?

This post has been edited by Tonepoet on 2nd September 2011 19:33

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Role reversal at its finest.

I'm with a lot of you guys when you say that White Mage was never "female" to me until 8-Bit Theatre. After reading that, my perception changed. Back in the day on the NES, white mage used to be just another four letter name. Some of my favorite names for FFI characters were: Dude, Bro, and Redd.

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kame, tortue, tortuga, schildkröte, tartaruga, turtle

"Arthur Dent?"
"Yes."
"Arthur Philip Dent?"
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Quote (Glenn Magus Harvey @ 1st September 2011 04:02)

Come to think of it, you can interpret the white mage sprite to be a really cutesy sprite of a boy. Y'know, like, the way animé art can be sometimes.

ACK! NOT JAWAPANESE!

I resent Japan for their overly feminine culture.

Back on topic, it actually depends. I think in the NES/VC versions, it's a man, but in the GBA/PSX/PSP versions, it's a woman.

The NES original sprites were probably all intended to be male, especially considering the class change makes them all buff. (Your reward for the TAIL? Steroids. XD) The sprites in the remakes (save for the Monk/Master) are a little less masculine, probably so players could picture their party as all-female. The White Mage is the most gender-neutral of the bunch though, having long hair and a gentle appearance. The PSP sprite of the White Wizard (pictured below) is especially feminine.



So I think that while the entire party was male in the original-sprite versions, the later remakes make the White Mage into a female.