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Hummingway

Hum hum-hummm...

Hummingway

The Hummingway are a rabbit-like race featured in Final Fantasy IV, Final Fantasy IV -Interlude-, and Final Fantasy IV: The After Years who live in the Hummingway Home on the Red Moon. Most of them can only speak by humming, but select few, such as Namingway, can speak in the human language.

Profile[]

In the original release of Final Fantasy IV, Hummingway are a short, vaguely leporine race with pointed ears and white or light brown fur. They are usually depicted as sporting a pair of spectacles and wearing turbans inlaid with a round jewel.

For the Nintendo DS remake, the Hummingway were redesigned by Art Director Akira Oguro to appear more rabbit-like; with longer ears, buck teeth, and larger eyes. Beginning with the mobile phone release of Final Fantasy IV: The After Years, they were redesigned yet again to include a hood, a trait originally exclusive to Namingway.

Story[]

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow. (Skip section)

Final Fantasy IV[]

HummingwayHomePSP

Hummingway Home in the Complete Collection.

The party encounters the Hummingway after traveling to the Red Moon. Though they do not advance the story, the Hummingway provide the only item shop on the lunar surface, as well as give an explanation for Namingway's appearance on Earth. When Cecil and his friends defeat Zeromus, Fusoya pilots the Red Moon out of Earth's orbit, taking the Hummingway away as well.

Final Fantasy IV -Interlude-[]

If the party speaks to the Hummingway found in the Tower of Babil on B10, he'll send them to the Developer's Office.

Final Fantasy IV: The After Years[]

The Hummingway appear during the The Lunarians' Tale, once again in Hummingway Home. They sell items for Golbez and Fusoya, and provide hints on how to get to the Lair of the Father and the Lunar Ruins. Hummingway are also encountered on the True Moon.

Spoilers end here.

Behind the scenes[]

Series composer Nobuo Uematsu appears as a Hummingway in the Developer's Office in the PS, GBA, and Japanese SNES versions of Final Fantasy IV. In the 3D remakes, QA staff member Tomokazu Nakamori appears as "Debuggingway".

The Loporrits from Final Fantasy XIV: Endwalker are based on Hummingways, with a similar design to the DS version of Final Fantasy IV. Their naming scheme is also the same, with a majority of the Loporrits's names originally appearing in the 3D remake, being aliases Namingway took during his sidequests.

Gallery[]

Etymology[]

The rabbit-like appearance of the Hummingways and their origins on the moon hearken to the myth of the Moon rabbit. Moon rabbit, a legend that interprets the markings on the moon as a rabbit grinding a mortar and pestle, in some interpretations the rabbit is using them to mix medicines. One legend says that the rabbit came to arrive in the moon when it threw itself into a fire to feed a starving man, and the man revived it and took it to the heavens to honor it for its generosity.

The names Hummingway and Namingway may allude to the surname Hemingway, shared by famed American author and journalist Ernest Miller Hemingway.

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