Otherarrow

The opening of FE3 is also basically a retelling of the skewed wrong version of events that humanity believes, not what actually happened. In other words, it's irrelevant. The game itself reveals that version of events is all lies. (likely pro-Akaneia propaganda, since it has Naga just giving the Shield to humanity, when in reality Adrah stole it)

If it counts, TRS has the goddess Utna, her four god children, and her god mother Miradona. Naturally, of those six figures, five of them are actually dragons. But yeah, I think Valencia is the only Kaga-era setting to have gods who aren't actually dragons (not that one-eyed slime monsters are more appealing to worship). Elibe and Magvel seem to both worship a generic "God" alongside their national heroes but it doesn't really go more into it than that. Apparently, Awakening era Valm worships both Mila and Naga because...uhh, because. The point is, it's dragons at least 60% of the time. Divine Dragon is just the name for Naga's specific race. Tiki is a Divine Dragon. Fa is a Divine Dragon. Hell, Xane is a Divine Dragon. At most, they are shinier and have anti-dragon breath, but I think at no point are they said to be actual gods.

If I recall, Kaga never was a fan of axe users anyway. It was only around Thracia 776 that he warmed up to them and put in effort to do more than make their inclusion obligatory. I wouldn't be surprised if his plan for a bit was to phase out Axes as a player weapon at all and have them just be enemy only; both Gaiden and Book 2 of Old Mystery have no playable axe users whatsoever. Anyway, yeah, the Silver Axes are meant to be sold, if I recall right they are even outright replaced with bags of gold in New Mystery (since that actually has axe users).

I think I heard once that any references to Naga using male pronouns or terms in the old fan translations were gender neutral in the original Japanese, and just translated using the male terms out of convenience. Could be wrong though.

Yeah, it's kinda always been a thing that humans have hailed Naga as their head god (often omitting the fact about her being a dragon; Awakening is the first where that seems to be widespread knowledge), but the various people who knew Naga personally (such as Gotoh, Xane, Forseti, etc) only refer to her as the Lord of the Divine Dragons. So yeah, Naga was never a god-god, but was worshiped by a god by the humans she protected.

I think the devs have outright said that Abel was in the game, but were being coy on if he was a playable Mirage. So it's very possible our last boy has Abel?

I wouldn't have been able to figure it out. Most basics of basics, remember? :P I didn't even know of the spoilered character's existence. Still, thanks! I admit, that is more intriguing a "secret identity" than I would have thought. Didn't see it coming, at least. And handling it subtly probably helps sell it better than a proper reveal would.

I admit, I know next to nothing about Berwick Saga's plot aside from the most basic of basics (evil empire, alliance of anti-empire countries, Lord is prince of small country fighting back, etc etc), so I might not get the significance of any potential reveals but... ...What's with Derrick? I mean, you have this faceless knight guy who barely talks, is apparently the worst unit in the game (doesn't he have a 0 defense growth or something dumb like that?), and from what I've seen is pretty much identical to the generic grunt armors in appearance. So...is there any special reveal behind him? Is he just a joke character, a kinda "hey, you ever wanted to control one of those dumb generics"? I admit, looking through the character art and seeing a guy who is just clad head to toe in armor is a striking design at least, but still. To further perk my interest, I recall stumbling on what I think was a beta roster which, among other things, included a beta Derrick who had a completely different design and class (in fact, I think his name and spot on the roster is the only resemblance to the final character at a glance).

Are there generics who use the DLC classes (Dark Falcon, Dread Fighter, Witch, and Ballistician, primarily), and thus do they have portraits?

If I recall, the notes linked identify the deities as nature spirits, as in animistic religions such as Shintoism, but they also note that Gotoh taught humanity how to work with these nature spirits because they couldn't use the advanced dragon magic. So that explains Anima (and by extension, Light and Dark via Tellius), but I remember The Sacred Stones going into the differences between Light and Dark magics; basically Light magic is derived from faith, while Dark magic is derived from knowledge. From this, I've always gathered that, compared to Anima being from pacts with powers of nature, Light magic draws from a higher power, that of mighty gods above and the like, and the strength of the spell is drawn from the faith of the caster. Dark magic, meanwhile, is more academic and draws from forces and laws that govern the universe, but the costs (such as losing yourself and going crazy) are due to the human mind struggling to understand those laws. This also works into the GBA magic triangle: Nature spirits have "home field advantage" against greater sky gods, said sky gods can bend and "bring order" to the ancient forces and laws that make up Dark magic, while nature spirits have to yield to those same laws. But enough about me rambling about made up stuff.

Honestly, I have no clue. Probably be easier to have Hidden Weapons at just "Hidden Weapons" and not worry about Knives. Some Kunai appear to be "etc Knife" though, but shrug.

Yes, that's perfect. Thank you. Sorry again for the trouble. What a odd name change though. Maybe they thought folks would be confused by the lack of nine heads? (He does have less than nine heads, right?)

Yeah, I probably just need someone to definitely step in and say one way or the other. Right now, it's basically "I heard" "but I heard", and as someone who was so bored with the commenters on the Treehouse streams that I couldn't sit through it, I really am not the person to check context on Anankos. I'll be honest, I've been taking you guys' word for it. Sorry for the trouble.

A variant of the "FE64 was recycled into another game" rumor that I mentioned had it that the game it was recycled into was Path of Radiance, based on I think some early low quality pictures from that game. Despite the three games that came between Kaga leaving and PoR. ...yeah.

Wait. Kaga worked in FE9? On FE6 even? I remember rumors having it that the planned FE64 he was working on when he left was recycled into a multitude of games, but they were just that: Rumors.