VincentASM Posted June 3, 2012 Share Posted June 3, 2012 (edited) The things I do when I'm bored... With all the new concepts Awakening has thrown at us, I felt obliged to write a rather lengthy feature about how Awakening has affected the in-game world of Fire Emblem and some other hopefully interesting topics related to concepts from previous games. Anyway, it was just something I enjoyed writing about, so here we go! (I might add some pretty pictures later. Be warned that there might be a few typo's since I was using a different keyboard than usual.) Contains spoilers for Awakening and other games in the series! The World of Fire Emblem History In the past, Fire Emblem games have generally consisted of self-contained duologies, taking place on a single continent, with no real connections to other games in the series. Things were slightly different early on though. Gaiden, the second game in the series, took place on its own continent, but directly referenced the continent of Archanea from the first game and even included the pegasus sisters of Archanea as playable characters. Less direct, in Genealogy of the Holy, the founder of the Lopto Cult was said to have obtained his evil powers from a distant continent; in his designer's notes, Kaga, the creator of FE, explicitly stated that this continent was, once again, Archanea. At this early stage, we can already connect the first five games and three continents in the series to each other. If history were different, we could have included a sixth game and fourth continent to add to the mix, as Emblem Saga (which later became TearRing Saga) was originally planned to take place in the same world and timeframe as Archanea. Instead, from Sword of Seals and onwards, there were no more clear connections to other titles, but a few vague references to other lands or worlds planted by Intelligent Systems. Blazing Sword introduced the Dragon's Gate: a gate to another continent in another time and space, where dragons are said to thrive. Shadow Dragon featured a sidequest at another world where the mysterious Nagi rests. Finally, New Mystery of the Emblem allows Michalis to survive from the brink of death and when the war ends, he travels to another continent to conquer it and become its king. The Present Finally, we come to Awakening, which I believe changes the way we view the world of Fire Emblem. As well as taking place on future versions of Archanea and Barensia, lands from previous games, Awakening contains several hints and references to other games in the series and also introduces the concept of multiple continents and even dimensions. Awakening is the first game in the series where the main story takes place across two continents, Iris and Warm, and the first time we see such wide contact between continents. Besides Iris and Warm, Intelligent Systems have sneakily placed three continental landmasses on the far edges of the world map. You never get to visit these lands, so there's no gameplay reason for them to exist, but I believe it was a nice touch (and a bit of a tease) by IS to include them, as they help to further expand the scale of the world. In terms of references, Tellius probably gets the largest share, with songs of a heron princess and raven prince and mentions of Taguel who could change into cats, birds, wolves and lions. A bigger leap of faith is Mark, My Unit's child, who is speculated to be the same character as Mark, the Tactician from Blazing Sword. At the moment, there's no real evidence either way, but the circumstancial evidence is pretty strong: Mark can be a boy or girl, just like the Tactician, they're the child of a tactician and they're even suggested to be from a timeline outside of Awakening's. Meanwhile, the Other World Gate, home to the DLC episodes, directly links together all the games in the series, as the heroes and armies of Archanea, Barensia, Jugdral, Elibe, Magvel and Tellius, as well as Krom's crew, join forces or do battle against each other. The canonity of the Other World episodes is likely to come under scrutiny, but there's at least one character (albeit a bonus character) who goes through the Other World Gate in the ending, and the gate itself does sit proudly on the world map, so I like to believe they're canon. Other topics Going beyond the "world" of Fire Emblem, I'd like to talk about some concepts that Awakening addresses, which are linked to previous games. The Holy King's Lineage One thing that confused me early on was how various publications referred to Krom as the descendant of the Holy King or the Hero King. It turns out, perhaps not surprisingly, that he's actually both. Around a thousand years before Awakening, the first Holy King of Iris (who is not named) vanquished the evil dragon with Naga's help. This Holy King also fought for Taguel equality, during an era where the Taguel were enslaved in a similar manner to the Laguz. Going a thousand years before the Holy King, we find Krom's more distant ancestor, the Hero King, Marth. In a conversation with My Unit, Tiki, one of Marth's former companions, comments on how My Unit reminds her of Marth. More importantly, perhaps, she remarks that while Krom may be Marth's descendant, he's more similar to Marth's ancestor from a thousand years before Marth's time. Now this is interesting because Anri, Marth's earliest known ancestor, was living a mere hundred years before Marth's time, so this "Marth's ancestor" can't possibly be Anri. Tiki can't have been mistaken with the years either, because she claims "Marth's ancestor" was around when she was born, which again was around a thousand years before Marth. Could it be that Marth's first ancestor was helping Naga during the war with the Earth Dragons? Holy Markings Related to the above, Krom and his elder sister Emelina carry holy markings, which seem to originate from the time of the first Holy King and are evidence of the Holy King's bond with Naga. Holy Markings also appear in Jugdral for direct carriers of the gods' bloodline and the Holy Markings in Awakening appear to function in exactly the same manner. Jugdral's Holy Markings appear randomly and aren't tied to gender or age. This explains why Krom and Emelina both have Holy Markings and Liz doesn't. Moreover, Krom's daughter Lucina inherits the Holy Markings and not just her, but Wood, Liz's son as well. Moving away slightly and a bit more of a crazy fan theory, but perhaps the Branded of Tellius are an enhanced version of Holy Marking carriers. Both Brands and Holy Markings are the result of humans possessing special blood in their veins, whether it's the Laguz blood for the Branded or the dragon blood of the Holy Marking carriers. Carriers of Holy Markings usually have better combat abilities, but they don't have the longer life that Branded posses. Perhaps the difference is due to the reduced effectiveness of blood-bonding versus actually mating. The descendants of dragons, such as Sofiya or Ninian from the Elibe saga and even n_n from Awakening still have extended lifetimes compared to regular humans, even when the Laguz are no longer around. Naga, the Divine Dragon King Naga is spoken of in legends as the guardian god who saved Archanea from the raging Earth Dragons, the Divine Dragon King who once guided the majestic dragon tribe and the goddess who granted Jugdral's 12 Crusaders with divine powers at the Miracle of Darna. For the first time in a long time, Naga appears in Awakening as the kind divine dragon who helped mankind seal away the evil dragon long long ago. Unlike previously, Naga also appears physically (or in spiritual form) during the course of the main story. Naga's true form is not the gigantic man depicted of in Archanea, but rather the young woman described in Jugdral. If her title of Divine Dragon "King" put you on the wrong track, I don't blame you, as the Japanese word for "King" can be applied for females as well. Related to this: Before Naga showed her face, there was speculation that Nagi, the mysterious female Manakete from Shadow Dragon and New Mystery of the Emblem, was either Naga or Naga's incarnation. If you ignore Naga's missing headpiece, I'd say Naga and Nagi look almost identical. Taguel, the missing link Before, all attempts to connect all the Fire Emblem games in a single timeline were stuck at the problem of Tellius and the Laguz. Since Tellius is the only game to directly reference the story of creation, logically it should take place near the very start of the timeline. The issue arises when there is nothing to link Tellius to the other games and the Laguz of Tellius don't appear in the other games, except if you believe the Dragon Laguz evolved into the Manakete, but how do we explain the missing Beast and Bird Laguz? Awakening partially solves this problem with the Taguel, a race of people who can shapeshift into beasts and a direct parallel to the dragon-transforming Manakete. It also helps that there are mentions of Taguel who could shapeshift into birds, so that's both Beast and Bird Laguz accounted for. To make things even easier, Awakening is directly connected to the Archanea saga and thus Barensia and Jugdral as well. The big question now is how much time has passed between Tellius and Archanea. Dark Warlords First appearing in Genealogy of the Holy War, the 12 Dark Warlords are mighty warriors created from people who have died. They appear once again in Awakening, although I'm unsure why. Curiously, they wield the holy weapons of Jugdral, which can be no coincidence, but the implications currently evade me. The DLC episode "Infinite Divine Weapons" seems to shed more light (and more mystery), as 36 Dark Warlords guard legendary weapons in another world. These Dark Warlords claim that they died in a battle with the world at stake, which suggests to me that they are heroes from failed timelines. The children characters seem to feel an air of familiarity with the warlords and there is even a warlord with the Holy King's marking, so it seems some of these warlords might include Krom and his companions. Tiki outright states that she knows one of the warlords, which implies Marth or perhaps Marth's ancestor is amongst the warlords. If we consider there are 12 unique warlords, but 36 in total, perhaps the "copies" are from other worlds or timelines, which could include heroes from Archanea or Jugdral, helping to explain the identity of the warlords in the main story. Anna To be added. Just remembered this now. Edited June 3, 2012 by VincentASM Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
arvilino Posted June 3, 2012 Share Posted June 3, 2012 Intresting retrospective. Speaking of the Dark Warlords in FE13 as well as the Holy Weapons. Apart from the Zehn wielding Il(or is Il supposed to be the Hell tome with a new effect), the rest of them are wielding weapons that were bestowed to or "owned" by FE4 characters. Brave Sword: Lex or Holyn Brave Lance: Finn's Brave Axe: Lex's Thoron: Tiltyu's Brave Bow: Midayle or Jamka Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Othin Posted June 3, 2012 Share Posted June 3, 2012 Intresting retrospective. Speaking of the Dark Warlords in FE13 as well as the Holy Weapons. Apart from the Zehn wielding Il(or is Il supposed to be the Hell tome with a new effect), the rest of them are wielding weapons that were bestowed to or "owned" by FE4 characters. Brave Sword: Lex or Holyn Brave Lance: Finn's Brave Axe: Lex's Thoron: Tiltyu's Brave Bow: Midayle or Jamka I don't know of any connection between Il and Hell. Regardless, that's interesting, but I don't think it's meaningful. For the most part, the connection seems to be just that they wanted to use Brave weapons and that's how FE4 handled them. Regarding their weapons, I should note that in IDW, they restrict themselves to the ultimate weapons available in the map, but they take them from throughout the series - you can see Neun with Ragnell or the Sol Katti, for example. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aeon Posted June 3, 2012 Share Posted June 3, 2012 It seems to me that not only is Awakening trying to tie up some loose ends and offer fanservice, but also setting themselves up for several other games in the series... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trickster Posted June 4, 2012 Share Posted June 4, 2012 Makes you wonder about Awakening being called FE14. Could it be that if there is another game in production that we could see the future of Tellius, Magvel, Judral, or Elibe? On a side note could Valheart be a descendant of Michalis? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Othin Posted June 4, 2012 Share Posted June 4, 2012 Makes you wonder about Awakening being called FE14. Could it be that if there is another game in production that we could see the future of Tellius, Magvel, Judral, or Elibe? On a side note could Valheart be a descendant of Michalis? Awakening being FE14 is just because they started including the BS FE maps as FE5 and pushing back the numbers because of it. It's possible there's another game in production, but if so, I'm sure they'll call it FE15 and we'll call it FE14. I was wondering about Michalis, with that in mind. Valhart does have Dracoknight as a reclass option. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shun One Posted June 4, 2012 Share Posted June 4, 2012 Good read and has me grasping at even more straws to figure out just how all of these games are linked. I hope the additional content via SpotPass and DLC shines some more light on all of this. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Othin Posted June 4, 2012 Share Posted June 4, 2012 Well, SpotPass doesn't have dialogue, at least not the past-game SpotPass. DLC, however, has a lot of dialogue. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shun One Posted June 4, 2012 Share Posted June 4, 2012 I'm more so referring mostly to Paris' SpotPass sense he's the only one we know nothing about. The future DLC maps should provide some interesting tid-bits if nothing else. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Momo Posted June 4, 2012 Share Posted June 4, 2012 So you mentioned Naga, but what about the dark dragons? Do they not have similar connections like He/She does? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rewjeo Posted June 4, 2012 Share Posted June 4, 2012 Given that conversation at the end of RD, does it seem possible that Ashunera is Naga? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trickster Posted June 4, 2012 Share Posted June 4, 2012 I was wondering about Michalis, with that in mind. Valhart does have Dracoknight as a reclass option. He Does! coincidental maybe but when ever I thought of Michalis taking over another continent I always imagined him showing up a Valencia and a conversation going like this Alm: Hello stranger. Welcome to our kingdom I hope you don't plan on taking it over. Michalis: *Evil Grin* Why the very thought just puts me at loss for words I would never do anything ambitious to seize power like kill my own father. Alm: Wut? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ema Skye Posted June 4, 2012 Share Posted June 4, 2012 Excellent read and very informative. I can't wait to read more. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mysterique Sign Posted June 4, 2012 Share Posted June 4, 2012 Reposting this regarding the Naga/Nagi connection Actually, my personal theory is that Nagi is Naga as we know her, but she has some power and memory loss because you woke her up too early. When you you meet her she says "Take me with you. I must... finish what I started...I think. I must fight with you." And if she fights Medeus he says "Hmm?... So I am not the only dragon revived. I had heard you perished the last time. No matter; you've recovered even less of your power than me. This time, you have no chance!". Basically, people thought she died, but she was actually asleep, recovering. It would also explain what Naga's doing in Awakening if she's supposed to be dead. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Othin Posted June 4, 2012 Share Posted June 4, 2012 Reposting this regarding the Naga/Nagi connection It would also explain what Naga's doing in Awakening if she's supposed to be dead. In Awakening, Naga gets summoned or something and shows up as a spirit. I assume that part isn't an issue. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Otherarrow Posted June 4, 2012 Share Posted June 4, 2012 Given that conversation at the end of RD, does it seem possible that Ashunera is Naga? I think Naga explicitly says that she isn't a god. So unless Ashunera was a Divine Dragon the whole time, no. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VulneqSVB/= Posted June 4, 2012 Share Posted June 4, 2012 Wait, who carries the Naga tome in Awakening? Is it any member of the Iris royal family or is it DLC-exclusive? Is there even a Naga tome at all!? And why isn't there a theory that says Loptous = Medeus = Gimle? That alone would make this theory implicit canon, along with the fact that a carrier of Naga blood (which happens to be the blood of the Holy Monarchs of Iris) bears the blood of Loptous as well. Celice may not necessarily have the genes imbued with Loptous in his system, but that's only because they were recessive genes. Genes imbued with Naga were possibly the dominant ones, as per the recessive-dominant allele principle in genetics. Yes, it sounds stupid. AT LEAST, SOMEON PLEASE HELP ME~ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Book of Ereshkigal Posted June 4, 2012 Share Posted June 4, 2012 I'm pretty sure its confirmed that Lopt=/=Medeus in the developers notes and such. The Naga tome is DLC/spotpass exclusive. Julia has it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
I don't play for turns Posted June 4, 2012 Share Posted June 4, 2012 (edited) With the whole Michalis vs. Valhart thing I doubt they're related, because they were both said to conquer continents. If Michalis conquered Warm, Valhart wouldn't have anything left to conquer, unless something went wrong with the successors of Michalis before Valhart. Anyway, good connections, and I often found it strange how much Tellius looked like Australia, not including Hatari. Also, Warm looks like North America, and Iris looks like Eurasia, as we all know. Edited June 4, 2012 by I don't play for turns Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thor Odinson Posted June 4, 2012 Share Posted June 4, 2012 (edited) [spoiler=regarding Holy King] Marth is also referred to as the "First Iris Holy King" in a support. I'm reading the support in Chinese so there could be an issue with translation, but 提娅莫：嗯，传说中在初代的伊利斯圣王身前身后都一直支持着他的那位天马骑士哦。 时而奔赴战场，轻盈的在天空中飞翔，化作刺入敌人心脏的尖矛，让动作迟钝的重骑士们陷入恐怖的深渊，传说她手中的枪有如长了翅膀一样。 东尼：哈…那可真是厉害べ。 提娅莫：她的厉害可不仅是如此而已。 虽然在战场上有如鬼神，可是相反的在离开了战场的时候，她也拥有一颗温柔的心。 甚至拥有着超过了初代圣王的人望也说不定。 事实上，因为仰慕她而从敌营中叛变到伊利斯军队里的人也不在少数。 Tiamo: Yeah. Legend says that behind the First Iris Holy King is a Pegasus Knight who's always supporting him. She went to battle, flew gracefully in the sky and turned into the sharp spear that stabbed into the enemy's heart, so that the slow, heavy armour knights fall into the dreaded abyss*. Legend holds that her lance is as if it grew wings. *(note: fancy way of saying "they dead") Donny: Wow, that's amazing. Tiamo: That's not all. Although she's godlike on the battlefield, conversely, outside of it, she has a sweet and warm heart. She might have even exceeded the First Holy King in charisma. In fact, many people turned on the enemy and joined the Iris camp due to admiration for her. I'll translate the full thing eventually, or someone else will. But I found this excerpt interesting as it's a rather obvious description of Caeda, who's Marth's canonical wife. Edited June 4, 2012 by Fat Bunny Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lord Raven Posted June 4, 2012 Share Posted June 4, 2012 Looks like Donny's supports will reveal a shitton of FE lore, people should translate more of his supports Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Momo Posted June 4, 2012 Share Posted June 4, 2012 Looks like Warpskipping was canon then. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VincentASM Posted June 4, 2012 Author Share Posted June 4, 2012 I can't believe it, but the lore got crazier than I imagined. I just saw the conversation in Japanese now and Donny is clearly referring to the first Holy King. While there's a chance that the pegasus girl being mentioned is somebody very similar to, but not Caeda, it seems weird to mention all this if it weren't Caeda. Still, I can't accept Marth as being the first Holy King until there's further evidence. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Momo Posted June 4, 2012 Share Posted June 4, 2012 He said it was as if her lance had wings. In other words, a Wing(ed) Spear. It's her. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
arvilino Posted June 4, 2012 Share Posted June 4, 2012 (edited) He said it was as if her lance had wings. In other words, a Wing(ed) Spear. It's her. Or it's previous owner. Though Tiamo: That's not all. Although she's godlike on the battlefield, conversely, outside of it, she has a sweet and warm heart. She might have even exceeded the First Holy King in charisma. In fact, many people turned on the enemy and joined the Iris camp due to admiration for her. Castor,Nabarl,Roger(twice),Jake(twice),Lorenz and Samto only really makes it seem more like Caeda. Edited June 4, 2012 by arvilino Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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