Is the white mage male or female?

[admiral1018]

Never really been able to tell from the in-game graphics, but is the white mage supposed to be male or female in this game? It looks like all of the other characters are male, but was never clear about that one.

[Electric Cupcake]

While it's admittedly an outdated stereotype that RPG healers are feminine, I've always considered WM a woman, but if you look at the high-def sprites from the PSP version, Square made all the characters kind of androgynous, since they're considered direct avatars of the player.

Also, 8-bit Theater had a few gags with WM having a beard when off-camera.

Also, also,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUVI5ukXcRI

[Skoops]

Seeing as all of the party members are avatars, they're not really intended to be a specific gender. White Wizard looks more female, so by extension you could probably infer that White Mage is such, but most of the sprites are left vague enough to pretend they're whomever or whatever you want them to be.

[admiral1018]

Originally posted by Skoops:

Seeing as all of the party members are avatars, they're not really intended to be a specific gender. White Wizard looks more female, so by extension you could probably infer that White Mage is such, but most of the sprites are left vague enough to pretend they're whomever or whatever you want them to be.

The sprites are all very clearly male except for the white mage. I don't see any ambiguity in them at all, outside of that one class.

Originally posted by Electric Cupcake:

While it's admittedly an outdated stereotype that RPG healers are feminine, I've always considered WM a woman, but if you look at the high-def sprites from the PSP version, Square made all the characters kind of androgynous, since they're considered direct avatars of the player.

Also, 8-bit Theater had a few gags with WM having a beard when off-camera.

Also, also,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUVI5ukXcRI

Very interesting, thanks for sharing!

[Dimlhugion]

I could be wrong, but it was always my assumption that "wizard" is a male term for "advanced mage," and "witch" would be its female counterpart. Mage itself, seems rather gender neutral, much like fighter or thief or monk.

Even if I'm correct though, strictly speaking I don't think it really matters beyond personal head canon in this particular context. Single player game with zero player agency with regards plot or character development, and your characters are mutes with no dialogue, and their names are never used by any NPC's whatsoever.

I'm hard pressed to find lower stakes.

[Mauman]

The original NES artwork for the Nintendo Power game guide had the white mage as obviously male. Though, I must admit their rendition is certainly interesting with the liberties they took (he essentially looks NOTHING like the WM/WW in the game itself). And no, before someone looks up the pictures and brings up the color of the robe, that is NOT the red mage.

Besides that, while the original WM sprite had a feminine look, the WW definitely looked masculine to me.

Nowadays both classes look androgynous with a slight leaning to feminine.

Personally I call him a guy, but that's because I grew up with the NP game guide.

Ultimately doesn't matter.

edit - oh, and there's a novel that has a short story based on FF1 where the white mage is a gal. It's not canon though. So yeah, like I said, he's whatever you want him to be.

[CrescentMouse]

I think the white wizard looks male, but really they're all p androgynous.

[carnage_panda]

Yes.

[aidarainer]

in the game is descripted by "female mage" almost in the pixel remastered version

[Drain]

In FF1 every class is male except white mage/wizard which is female. People trying to speculate or argue about it are foolish. The game assigned them. It is what it is, whether you like it or not. That said, I wouldn't have been against allowing players to pick gender, a feature later versions of the game could have added, but Square Enix never did it.