Are Taguel, Kitsune, Wolfskin, and Manaketes Laguz???

[Shoblongoo]

Never specifically addressed in Awakening or Fates--which always bothered me.

But do you consider the assorted beaststone using demihumansin these games to b Rabbit Laguz, Fox Laguz, and Warg Laguz respectively--In the same family as the beast-men of Tellius?

Would you regard Nowi and Nah and Tiki as "Dragon Laguz?" Naga herself as a Laguz Royal--Queen of the divine dragon "tribe," we may call it.

Can Nassir and Ena and Kurthnaga be properly regarded as "Manaketes?" Are the terms interchangeable? Is a dragon laguz a type of manakete, or is a manakete a type of dragon laguz?

Or do you regard this all as completely unrelated lore?

Edited August 9, 2017 by Shoblongoo

[MediocreLee]

I've thought about this and I always just kinda justified it as Laguz are a race that can shapeshift without the aid of a stone while manaketes and those that use the beaststones are their own thing and require a beaststone in order to shapeshift safely or at least on their own accord.  So I find them all to be unrelated to each other.

[Jotari]

No. They are Taguel, Kitsune, Wolfskin and Manaketes respectively.

[Jedi]

The number of transformation differences and culture differences indicate they aren't really cut from the same cloth.

[Zapp Branniglenn]

From RickenxPanne A support:

Ricken: Say, Panne. I heard taguel can turn into all kinds of animals. So what else can you become besides a big bunny?
Panne: ......
Ricken: Hey, Panne? Did you hear me? I asked what other animal—
Panne: You just won't take stony silence for an answer, will you? I've met some taguel who become lions, and others who turned into wolves

And that's it, the only solid evidence of Taguel and Laguz being related somehow. And really, Awakening is pretty spotty with its taguel lore through Panne's supports.

Whether you use a stone or you can will yourself to morph, I like to think these species may be related. Created by gods, something like that. 

[Night Zap]

A Manakete's dragon form is their natural appearance, and they only take on human form to not go insane. Dragonstones are used to safely store their dragonic power. Presumably, something similar is the case for Tagual, Wolfskin and Kitsune.

Laguz, meanwhile, are explicitly much closer to beorc than the stoneshifters are known to be, since they share a common ancenstor. Their ability to transform into humanoids is part of their natural biology (and considering that their animal form uses up energy built up in human form, as well as the humanoid appearance of the zunanma, it can be presumed that the human form is their default state), while stoneshifters artificially induced their transformations into humanoids. 

[Slumber]

No, Manaketes are specifically dragons who obtained human bodies to avoid degrading.

Laguz are another type of human that likely share a very close ancestor with beorc.

Taguel and Beastkin are... I have no clue. Taguel are honestly the most baffling, since they transform in similar ways as Manketes, and are part of the Archanae world... but unless there were high, god-tier rabbits who went through the same degrading process as dragons were and this was NEVER talked about, then they're just some random thing. Beastskin are probably closer to Laguz, but... they also eat people, which is some weird cannibalism.

Edited August 9, 2017 by Slumber

[Vaximillian]

Not sure if on-topic but here we are: is wolfskin supposed to be read and understood as wolf-skin (cf. greenskin) or wolfs-kin (cf. otherkin)?
I’ve always thought the former, but it can be either way, really.

[Magical Glace]

The manaketes at least are definitely different, since unlike with Dragon Laguz the humanoid form is more or less a not naturally occurring power conserver that wasn't used until dragons started going nuts for some reason (Archanea/Fatesland)/the Ending Winter drained their powers (Elibe). 

I guess they might be related to Magvellian manaketes though since I don't think it's ever explained why dragons take human form in that world.

As for Taguel/Kitsune/Wolfskin... no idea, FE13/14 never explained them very much.

[VincentASM]

Honestly, I like to think they're the same.

Awakening adding Beaststones as a parallel to Dragonstones only cemented my theory.

In my view, the Laguz existed at a time when energy was prevalent and they did not need to use stones to converse their energy. Then something happened (like the Scouring in Elibe) and they were later forced to use stones.

The argument about the "true" form of Manaketes and Dragon Laguz I can understand, but I don't really think it's conclusive evidence of anything.

Another thing, in the early version of Path of Radiance, the Goldoans were stated to be developing dragonstones to aid the war effort. So at one point in development at least, they were basically early Manaketes.

[Utzu]

5 hours ago, Slumber said:

Laguz are another type of human that likely share a very close ancestor with beorc.

It's mentioned by Yune in radiant dawn that they share the same ancestor.

[BrightBow]

In addition to what has been said there is also the fact that Laguz lose their powers if they have a child with a Beorc. And those children are not shapeshifters.

Edited August 9, 2017 by BrightBow

[VincentASM]

38 minutes ago, BrightBow said:

In addition to what has been said there is also the fact that Laguz lose their powers if they have a child with a Beorc. And those children are not shapeshifters.

That's an interesting side effect that I almost forgot about.

I always figured that was the first--and literal--instance of a shape-shifting race transferring their blood to a human. The resulting human gets a brand and superhuman powers (and longevity).

In a way, it's very similar to the effects of a blood pact between dragons and humans. Main difference is that (as far as we know), the dragon doesn't seem to lose any (or all) of their powers and the human has a "normal" lifespan.

Still, I'm unsure how to neatly resolve all of these threads, beyond the hand-wavy "things changed as time passed".

Edited August 9, 2017 by VincentASM

[Shoblongoo]

...Very interesting responses...

Concerning the beast-men

I don't see any of the points raised here as proving that they can't be Laguz, when you consider:

1) The events of the Tellius Saga happen thousands and thousands of years before the events of Awakening and Fates, and are considered ancient history by the time we get to the Age of Chrom and Robin and Corrin. The arrival of The Goddess and the creation of the ancient Zunanma on Tellius is, chronologically, the starting point of the unified narrative of Fire Emblem.

2)  When Yune confronts Ashera in the Tower of Fate she says something to the effect of: "I will tell you something you did not know. Beorc and Laguz can have children together. Given enough time, who knows what they can become?"

3) The stories of Tellius, ancient Valentia/Archanea, modern Ylisse/Valm, Elibe, and Hoshido/Valla/Nohr have all been linked together into some semblance of a single coherent narrative by the DLC and post-game content of the newer games. FE4, FE5, and FE8 remain the only oddball games that have not yet synced up to a unified story of the franchise.

I also believe its also some point mentioned that the Goddess never directly created the Beorc and the Laguz. She created their common ancestor--the Zunanma. Then was surprised when the Zunanma evolved into Beorc and Laguz, because these were the only beings she did not create.

The takeaway from these conversations are clearly that Beorc and Laguz are  evolving. The are not at the end of FE10 the same beings that the goddess created.

So it stands to reason that thousands of years later, they would not be entirely the same beings that they were at the end of FE10.

...they may well have gained the ability to interbreed without losing their ability to shapeshift
...they may well have changed the way they transform in relation to their stones

Concerning the manakete

...This one is harder to justify...what with the whole a Dragon's lifetime is vast part of the lore. Even supposing that something like 4,000+ years has passed since the end of the Tellius Saga and the beginning of the Awakening.

All that would be is the amount of time it takes Nowi to go from looking like a 12-year-old to curving out like Camilla.

So the well maybe newer generations of Dragon Laguz developed into the Manakete answer doesn't work, and the differences between the two cannot be so easily explained away. There just isn't enough time to have multiple generations of dragons undergoing multi-generational change.

Unless the Tellius Saga happened hundreds of thousands of years before the events of Awakening in nigh-prehistoric times, but I don't think that supposition can be supported by the lore. (thats way too much time to have a continuous traceable bloodline from Ike to Priam)

Its POSSIBLE, imo, that the manakete could be a cousin of the dragon laguz rather than a direct decedent or sub-group. Some other evolutionary offshoot of the ancient Zunanma.

Or perhaps the manakete (specifically the divine dragons) were a subgroup created from the interbreeding of old-stock dragon laguz and humans with "Holy Blood." (whatever the hell that means. Was that ever expanded on outside of the FE4/FE5 lore???)

idk. random thoughts.

In any event, I'm thinking there's a much more definitive case being made here that the manakete are NOT dragon laguz. Unless someone can clean up the lore clashed about their degeneration and the way they transform.

Edited August 9, 2017 by Shoblongoo

[Interdimensional Observer]

2 hours ago, VincentASM said:

In a way, it's very similar to the effects of a blood pact between dragons and humans. Main difference is that (as far as we know), the dragon doesn't seem to lose any (or all) of their powers and the human has a "normal" lifespan.

The only thing that happens with the blood pacts are presumably a transfusion of dragon blood into humans, no sexual contact or anything else. Not that we can necessarily explain magical power losses or anything via real world logical.

 

I also find it worth noting that in RD Nasir tells Almedha that had the Mad King's War lasted much longer, Dheg would have drawn Goldoa into it and the dragons in their rage would have razed the continent to the ground. Add in other remarks by Ranulf and Tibarn about how chaos affects Laguz, and we can see that while they don't "degenerate" as other dragons are all too oft to do in FE, they do remain more easily prone to going crazed than humans.

 

At the very best, Tellius as others have stated would precede the rest of the FE worlds and stories by thousands of years. But I think we're best off leaving Tellius in its own little dimension unaffected by the other ones. And that Priam and the Taguel exist purely as references to Tellius, with no effort made to really root them in the world or make them into a strong connection between Tellius and the rest.

Placing Tellius in the same world as Archanea and Valentia and Jugdral, contributes nothing to T, nor AVJ, due to how far in the past the Radiant duo would have to be set. Placing T in F or M does contributes nothing as well because those worlds are so underdeveloped.

[Emperor Hardin]

Taguel are a last minute replacement for the Beast Laguz.

Manaketes and Dragon Laguz share many similarities, but also many differences. While Dragon Laguz have always had a human form, most Dragonkin avoided using a human form until they were forced to. Fire Dragons and Red Dragon Laguz are probably the strongest similarity, but the Dragon Laguz and Manakete tribes are otherwise different.

[NekoKnight]

11 hours ago, Shoblongoo said:

1) The events of the Tellius Saga happen thousands and thousands of years before the events of Awakening and Fates, and are considered ancient history by the time we get to the Age of Chrom and Robin and Corrin. The arrival of The Goddess and the creation of the ancient Zunanma on Tellius is, chronologically, the starting point of the unified narrative of Fire Emblem.

3) The stories of Tellius, ancient Valentia/Archanea, modern Ylisse/Valm, Elibe, and Hoshido/Valla/Nohr have all been linked together into some semblance of a single coherent narrative by the DLC and post-game content of the newer games. FE4, FE5, and FE8 remain the only oddball games that have not yet synced up to a unified story of the franchise.

There is no official timeline or unified world. There are fan theories and easter eggs in Awakening but the confirmed linked worlds are: FE1-5 and the remakes, FE6-7,  and FE9-10.

I think it's telling that these supposed connections aren't brought up in the actual games and just have it retconned in later.

Edited August 10, 2017 by NekoKnight

[Shoblongoo]

Yoooooooooooooooooooooo.   Forging Bonds Event "Hearts As One"

Nailah: Support Convo (B)




FE Heroes is non-Canon.

Edited January 24, 2019 by Shoblongoo