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Degenerating dragons origin?


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So I have been reading up on the lore for the older Fire Emblem games I am not going to be able to get ( Shadow dragon and the blade of light, mystery of the emblem) except for Genealogy of the Holy war and Gaiden. I have read about the dragons and that they degenerated into madness. My question is, is there any explanation as to why the dragons started to degenerate? From what I have read, there doesn't seem to be a specific cause of it, like it just kinda happened with no specific reason. 

I like knowing all the bits and pieces of a story, and this is just really bothering me that I can't find a reason for this.

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It's left up to the player's imagination.

My personal theory? The Scouring in Elibe, which eventually caused dragonkin unable to stay in dragon form, transcended all worlds.

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1 minute ago, VincentASM said:

It's left up to the player's imagination.

My personal theory? The Scouring in Elibe, which eventually caused dragonkin unable to stay in dragon form, transcended all worlds.

I did remember reading somewhere that an unsuitable habitat can decrease the lifespan of Manaketes, so maybe the scouring created such a bad place to live that it caused the degeneration and fertility problems.

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10 minutes ago, VincentASM said:

It's left up to the player's imagination.

My personal theory? The Scouring in Elibe, which eventually caused dragonkin unable to stay in dragon form, transcended all worlds.

That actually makes sense, especially given my theory that the Dragons Gate in Valor led the dragons to Arcania (er, Marth's world, I don't remember what it is called) at the end of the Scouring.

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Just now, Rex Glacies said:

That actually makes sense, especially given my theory that the Dragons Gate in Valor led the dragons to Arcania (er, Marth's world, I don't remember what it is called) at the end of the Scouring.

Yar, that was my first thought as well. There's no way of nothing, but everything just seems way too convenient.

For instance, the dragons in Elibe are all very similar to ones that existed in Archanea (Fire, Divine, Ice and Mage Dragons). Plus the shrine where Ninian and Nils were guarding could totally be the Ice Dragon Shrine or the Fane of Raman from Archanea.

While it's true Elibe is heavily inspired by Archanea, I don't believe that's the only reason for the similarities we've seen. Rather, I like to think newer games subtly try to explain things that were ambiguous in previous games.

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Technically speaking, there is no official explanation for why Dragons degenerated in Archanea, Jugdral, Valentia, and Nolore Fatesland, but as Vincent pointed out, the Scouring could have very easily had much further reaching effects than FE6 and 7 would led us to believe. Something I always found interesting that could relate to that is that Earth Dragons are the only tribe to appear in Archenea but not appear in Elibe, and by the same token, Archanean Earth Dragons were the only tribe to be very vocally opposed to using dragonstones to attempt to combat degeneration. Why are the Earth Dragons the only tribe to be so highly against becoming manketes, could they be only ones without real knowledge that it works, because they weren't around to witness the scouring, and because of this lack of knowledge, their pride was able to overtake their better judgement?  

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Basic thermodynamics! Entropy increases! QED.

 

Unironically though it could be some metastability thing. A dragon form is significantly larger and looks like it requires a lot more energy to survive let alone thrive/reproduce. Taking the form of a human and sealing your shit in a dragonstone would take up a lot less energy.

That said I'm just a science nerd and I have my doubt any of the writers were thinking of any of that shit when they came up with this.

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The only answer I have is "changes in the magical climate". Which is like the normal climate- which consists of things like temperature, precipitation, humidity, wind speed and direction. The magical climate has similar, but undefined components. And just as the normal climate gradually changes over time, so does the magical climate. At one point, the Sahara was a lush green savannah, but over millennia, it turned into the desert we know today. Imagine the "magical climate" of Archanea in the ancient Golden Age of Dragons as being that Sahara-Savannah, and the state it that Archanea is currently in, wherein dragons need to take Manakete form, as being Sahara-Desert. The change in the magical climate took a toll on dragons in dragon form just as the heat and sands of the desertification of the Sahara did to humans.

The dragons could have left Archanea for a place with more suitable magical climate, if such exists in the Archanea-Valentia-Jugdral world. Instead, they adapted to the deteriorating magical climate and took Manakete form, just as humans would don thick face-covering robes and hoods to keep away the scourging sands and soak up their sweat to avoid water loss.

It is worth mentioning that the Ending Winter in FE6, which caused Dragons there to take Manakete form, Jahn describes as having made the "laws of nature" collapse, nature here meaning both the physical climate, and very clearly it is implied the magical one too. The Divine Weapons of Elibe which caused the Ending Winter, were the magical climatic equivalent of a meteor crashing into the Earth. Changes disfavoring Dragons that took presumably millennia in Archanea, happened virtually overnight in Elibe.

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Can I request this be moved to the General Forum? Because I was going to make the exact same topic there until I saw this one here. With its recent inclusion in Fates and Shadows of Valencia, the Dragon Degradation is very much a plot point encompassing more than just the old games. It has me speculating if they might be intending to set  a game in that era with the newer references. Unlike the other ancient events there a lot more freedom in this one to actually make into a new story as there's no restrictions on characters involved (as in we're open to having characters like Naga and Gotoh appear without it being problematic or contrived) and we don't really know how it'll end (aside from dragons becoming Manaketes). It's really an unexplained mystery that could make for an interesting game.

Edited by Jotari
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That'd also be appropriate considering that a significant amount of the answers cite FE6/FE7, which are my favourite NES/SNES FE games.

WRT the topic at hand, I'd prefer answers to actually be given (or more obvious hints, at least) rather than having to theory craft everything.  It helps to lend credibility to the theories and more importantly (to me, at least) shows that the developers care about the larger narrative at work.

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