Why is Grima so large?

[DisobeyedCargo]

Its insane. In Awakening this guy easily dwarfs Ylisse in size. He dwarfs a COUNTRY in size. 

And in echoes, this guy seems to be maybe about the size of Duma, possibly a little smaller. 

Any sort of idea at all?

Edited April 12, 2018 by DisobeyedCargo

[ChickenWings]

Echo Grima is the young, weaker Grima. By Awakening, Grima is stronger and larger.

[Ottservia]

well I mean the guy has at least 3000 years to grow and then there's the theory I've heard and believe is that grima just sort of went to the dragon's table and had a really really big dinner composing mostly of earth dragon meat

[Jotari]

He ate his vegetables and exercised daily for a thousand years.

Seriously though, he's not quite the size of Ylisse. He gets his own fancy big position on the map, we can only take that so far. After all, it would mean Chrom's an giant who can stomp across an island. No, we see that he's about the size of a castle in the Lucina flashback and when he reawakens near the end of the game. So still really, freaking big, but not big enough to have his own gravity field. Another unit of measurement you could use is the final map. At maximum width he's nine tiles wide, so we can assume that approximately nine horses could ride side by side on his back. So yeah, really freaking big, but not even Vatican sized as far as comparing him to countries go.

[Zangetsu]

I remember his eye being even bigger than Lucina. So I'm going to doubt Grima is the size of a continent like the map implies him to be, but maybe that was hardware limitations. Either way he still one of the biggest creatures in video game in general. The only ones I can think are bigger is maybe Cronos from GOW 3 & a few of the bosses in Asura's Wrath. Unless there was a huge Kaiju like monster in Shin Megami Tensei?

[DisobeyedCargo]

23 minutes ago, Otts486 said:

well I mean the guy has at least 3000 years to grow and then there's the theory I've heard and believe is that grima just sort of went to the dragon's table and had a really really big dinner composing mostly of earth dragon meat

 But doesn't the dragons table contain like every single non manakete dragon in existence barring necrodragons? How would Grima even be capable of taking on so many of those things at his original size?

[Jingle Jangle]

7 minutes ago, Otts486 said:

well I mean the guy has at least 3000 years to grow and then there's the theory I've heard and believe is that grima just sort of went to the dragon's table and had a really really big dinner composing mostly of earth dragon meat

I thought that the members of the Grimleal sacrificed themselves and others to make Grima stronger.

[Ottservia]

12 minutes ago, DisobeyedCargo said:

 But doesn't the dragons table contain like every single non manakete dragon in existence barring necrodragons? How would Grima even be capable of taking on so many of those things at his original size?

well first of I have yet to complete SD or new mystery(only really did 10 chapters of SD) so my knowledge on lore is a bit shaky. Second of all, grima was created with the intention of creating the "perfect" lifeform so obviously he's going to be powerful. He probably has a sample of every dragon's blood flowing through his veins plus all the other crap forneus through threw in there. Naga only knows what kind of DNA he got his hands on. Throw in the fact that unlike the manaketes in the table he actually 100% of his cognitive ability still in tact and if robin is anything to go by then Grima is fairly gifted tactician in his own right also he has an army of risen at his disposal.

3 minutes ago, Jingle Jangle said:

I thought that the members of the Grimleal sacrificed themselves and others to make Grima stronger.

That is a possibility

Edited April 12, 2018 by Otts486

[MCProductions]

18 minutes ago, DisobeyedCargo said:

 But doesn't the dragons table contain like every single non manakete dragon in existence barring necrodragons? How would Grima even be capable of taking on so many of those things at his original size?

12 retconned it to be this way, but in vanilla 3, Dragon's Table only had Earth Dragons

[X-Naut]

16 minutes ago, DisobeyedCargo said:

 But doesn't the dragons table contain like every single non manakete dragon in existence barring necrodragons? How would Grima even be capable of taking on so many of those things at his original size?

Who says they had to be conscious for him to consume them? He could have devoured them all while they were sealed in their eternal slumber.

And not all the dragons were sealed in that table, though by the looks of Awakening every non-wyvern feral dragon has died of natural (degeneration-related) causes or been slain.

[DisobeyedCargo]

3 minutes ago, X-Naut said:

Who says they had to be conscious for him to consume them? He could have devoured them all while they were sealed in their eternal slumber.

And not all the dragons were sealed in that table, though by the looks of Awakening every non-wyvern feral dragon has died of natural (degeneration-related) causes or been slain.

I guess Grima had quite the appetite...

 

[Emperor Hardin]

As his body is part of the background rather then a fightable on-map unit(Hierophant takes the role instead), Grima can be as big as they want.

Dragon sizes aren't consistent in FE, look at how Tiki changes sizes for example. Naga and Loptyr were bigger then castles in FE4 for reference, yet Adult Tiki is smaller then young Tiki's dragon form. The reason, it was hard to make playable dragon units big in Awakening and easy to make dragon sprites big in FE4.

Edited April 12, 2018 by Emperor Hardin

[De Geso]

Push-ups, sit-ups, and plenty of juice.

[Emperor Hardin]

2 minutes ago, YouSquiddinMe said:

Push-ups, sit-ups, and plenty of juice.

Reminder these are both Fire Dragons. FE has no set size for dragons.

[MCProductions]

2 minutes ago, Emperor Hardin said:

Reminder these are both Fire Dragons. FE has no set size for dragons.

Hate to burst  your bubble, but those aren't both the same type of dragon, the fire dragons in FE6 are War Dragons made by Idoun, and are smaller because they are artificially made while FE7's Final Boss is a true dragon and would be full size because he's a true dragon.

[Emperor Hardin]

1 minute ago, MCProductions said:

Hate to burst  your bubble, but those aren't both the same type of dragon, the fire dragons in FE6 are War Dragons made by Idoun, and are smaller because they are artificially made while FE7's Final Boss is a true dragon and would be full size because he's a true dragon.

Jahn is a regular non artificially made Fire dragon and he's the same size as the War Dragons.

From a artist/game designer perspective, its much easier to make the final boss a giant, then it is to make the regular enemies huge.

Edited April 12, 2018 by Emperor Hardin

[Jotari]

19 minutes ago, Emperor Hardin said:

Jahn is a regular non artificially made Fire dragon and he's the same size as the War Dragons.

From a artist/game designer perspective, its much easier to make the final boss a giant, then it is to make the regular enemies huge.

Which is precisely why I hope Jahn gets a big important model in the hypothetical future remake with boosted stats to cement him as the real final boss of the game (because let's face it, Idoun's heart just isn't in it).

Edited April 12, 2018 by Jotari

[Emperor Hardin]

Just now, Jotari said:

Which is precisely why I hope Jahn gets a bit important model in the hypothetical future remake with boosted stats to cement him as the real final boss of the game (because let's face it, Idoun's heart just isn't in it).

That'd be nice. Jahn was strong enough to be survive a blow from a Divine weapon in its prime wielded by one of the Eight Legends, something no other dragon has accomplished.

[omegaxis1]

Though Dragon sizes have generally been inconsistent, I believe that Grima only got to this size because of the fact that he consumed all the Earth Dragons in the Dragon's Table. It was the Altar of Dragons or something I believe, but since Grima feasted on the Earth Dragons there, it was his dinner table. 

But with the new info revealed, I like to imagine that Grima may have always been intended to grow infinitely as he grew in power more and more. But Forneus trying to kill him may have hindered Grima from this, and thus Grima must consume so that he can infinitely grow in power. 

[DragonFlames]

9 hours ago, omegaxis1 said:

Though Dragon sizes have generally been inconsistent, I believe that Grima only got to this size because of the fact that he consumed all the Earth Dragons in the Dragon's Table. It was the Altar of Dragons or something I believe, but since Grima feasted on the Earth Dragons there, it was his dinner table. 

But with the new info revealed, I like to imagine that Grima may have always been intended to grow infinitely as he grew in power more and more. But Forneus trying to kill him may have hindered Grima from this, and thus Grima must consume so that he can infinitely grow in power. 

Did Forneus really try to kill him, though? I don't remember reading anything like that in the Thabes Labyrinth. I could be wrong, though.

10 hours ago, Zangetsu said:

I remember his eye being even bigger than Lucina. So I'm going to doubt Grima is the size of a continent like the map implies him to be, but maybe that was hardware limitations. Either way he still one of the biggest creatures in video game in general. The only ones I can think are bigger is maybe Cronos from GOW 3 & a few of the bosses in Asura's Wrath. Unless there was a huge Kaiju like monster in Shin Megami Tensei?

Well, it's not quite SMT, but the final boss of Persona 5 is at least as tall as a skyscraper.
It's hard to make assumptions about creature sizes in vanilla SMT4, since you rarely see them alongside humans in battle (though I've heard SMT3 is an exception to this). Though I assume the two final bosses are quite large, because they fill up the entire screen. Definitely not Grima level, though.

Edited April 12, 2018 by DragonFlames

[omegaxis1]

51 minutes ago, DragonFlames said:

Did Forneus really try to kill him, though? I don't remember reading anything like that in the Thabes Labyrinth. I could be wrong, though.

Oh, it's a new thing revealed in the Valentian Accordion:

Spoiler

The Creation

At last, blood from a divine dragon!
Although it took some time to cross that dangerous bridge,
at least it wasn't a folly. Now I have the real thing.
Even just looking at it, the blood, its power is terrifying.
Beautiful.

After mixing the divine dragon blood with human fluids, certain herbs and nectar,
I sealed the concoction in a vial and observed it for 40 days.
New life had been born. At first, it was a tiny thing, the size of a thumbnail.
Looking at it, it looked no different than a human fetus,
but without a doubt, it was a new life form that had the blood of the gods.
I carefully decided to watch over the growth of this new life form.

I kept it at the temperature of a horse's womb and, each day, I gave it my blood.
On the 80th day, its humanoid shape gradually started to disappear.
Eyes appeared, its neck grew and I could see a tail growing from its behind.

Slowly and slowly, it began to take the shape of a dragon.
However, it was an unusually-shaped dragon, not at all like a divine dragon.
Its six eyes seemed to be smiling at me from inside the vial.
Does it possess consciousness? Is it I that it's smiling at?

I think I have created something truly tremendous.
Even though it is now as big as a puppy,
it shows glimpses of a terrifying power.
I have yet to find a solution to control its rampage when it becomes an adult.

Its voice echoes in my head; I feel like I can see inside of it.
Within it, I can see dark thoughts, Violent thoughts.
It makes me tremble from my heart.
At the same time, I feel like it can look inside me.
As it stares at the trembling me, it smiles re-assuredly.

"That thing has become a dangerous existence that nobody can control.
It pains me, but I have decided to destroy it with my own hands."

(The account comes to an abrupt end.)

 

[Ottservia]

29 minutes ago, omegaxis1 said:

Oh, it's a new thing revealed in the Valentian Accordion:

  Reveal hidden contents

The Creation

At last, blood from a divine dragon!
Although it took some time to cross that dangerous bridge,
at least it wasn't a folly. Now I have the real thing.
Even just looking at it, the blood, its power is terrifying.
Beautiful.

After mixing the divine dragon blood with human fluids, certain herbs and nectar,
I sealed the concoction in a vial and observed it for 40 days.
New life had been born. At first, it was a tiny thing, the size of a thumbnail.
Looking at it, it looked no different than a human fetus,
but without a doubt, it was a new life form that had the blood of the gods.
I carefully decided to watch over the growth of this new life form.

I kept it at the temperature of a horse's womb and, each day, I gave it my blood.
On the 80th day, its humanoid shape gradually started to disappear.
Eyes appeared, its neck grew and I could see a tail growing from its behind.

Slowly and slowly, it began to take the shape of a dragon.
However, it was an unusually-shaped dragon, not at all like a divine dragon.
Its six eyes seemed to be smiling at me from inside the vial.
Does it possess consciousness? Is it I that it's smiling at?

I think I have created something truly tremendous.
Even though it is now as big as a puppy,
it shows glimpses of a terrifying power.
I have yet to find a solution to control its rampage when it becomes an adult.

Its voice echoes in my head; I feel like I can see inside of it.
Within it, I can see dark thoughts, Violent thoughts.
It makes me tremble from my heart.
At the same time, I feel like it can look inside me.
As it stares at the trembling me, it smiles re-assuredly.

"That thing has become a dangerous existence that nobody can control.
It pains me, but I have decided to destroy it with my own hands."

(The account comes to an abrupt end.)

 

Well then it seems even Forneus knew he was in over his head. Damn what a tragic tale. Still though it does sort of explain why grima hates humans so much cause you know his own creator tried to kill him and all. Great now plot bunnies have started sprouting in my head. To the fanfiction!

 

edit: now that I think about it this goes hand and hand with something grima said in his level 40 dialogue.

”...They have no qualms asking for divine assistance when it meets their fickle needs... but how quick are they to shun their benefactors once they get what they desire...”

Forneus created him for whatever reason and once he realized grima couldn’t be controlled he tried to destroy  him and well yeah.

Edited April 12, 2018 by Otts486

[omegaxis1]

12 minutes ago, Otts486 said:

Well then it seems even Forneus knew he was in over his head. Damn what a tragic tale. Great now plot bunnies have started sprouting in my head. To the fanfiction!

Oh no, its cause Forneus realized that Grima was beyond his control. Dude's a massive control douche.

[Jotari]

Some how I've completely missed all this Accordion stuff, alongside the Book of Revelations. Researching now. What I find interesting (admittedly a little disappointing) is that Forneus was a human.  I, and a few others, used to assume he was a dragon, as Thabes was seen as 'the' ancient advanced civilization, so it was only natural to think it was the civilization of the ancient advanced dragons. But it was a city of humans destroyed by Duma. This also brings up another important point in that Gotoh only reintroduced magic to humans when he established Khaden, not long before the first game. So there's absolutely nothing stopping them making a game set in the era of the Earth Dragon war (that's something I actually argued intensely with someone before, can't remember who or where).

[DragonFlames]

36 minutes ago, omegaxis1 said:

Oh, it's a new thing revealed in the Valentian Accordion:

  Reveal hidden contents

The Creation

At last, blood from a divine dragon!
Although it took some time to cross that dangerous bridge,
at least it wasn't a folly. Now I have the real thing.
Even just looking at it, the blood, its power is terrifying.
Beautiful.

After mixing the divine dragon blood with human fluids, certain herbs and nectar,
I sealed the concoction in a vial and observed it for 40 days.
New life had been born. At first, it was a tiny thing, the size of a thumbnail.
Looking at it, it looked no different than a human fetus,
but without a doubt, it was a new life form that had the blood of the gods.
I carefully decided to watch over the growth of this new life form.

I kept it at the temperature of a horse's womb and, each day, I gave it my blood.
On the 80th day, its humanoid shape gradually started to disappear.
Eyes appeared, its neck grew and I could see a tail growing from its behind.

Slowly and slowly, it began to take the shape of a dragon.
However, it was an unusually-shaped dragon, not at all like a divine dragon.
Its six eyes seemed to be smiling at me from inside the vial.
Does it possess consciousness? Is it I that it's smiling at?

I think I have created something truly tremendous.
Even though it is now as big as a puppy,
it shows glimpses of a terrifying power.
I have yet to find a solution to control its rampage when it becomes an adult.

Its voice echoes in my head; I feel like I can see inside of it.
Within it, I can see dark thoughts, Violent thoughts.
It makes me tremble from my heart.
At the same time, I feel like it can look inside me.
As it stares at the trembling me, it smiles re-assuredly.

"That thing has become a dangerous existence that nobody can control.
It pains me, but I have decided to destroy it with my own hands."

(The account comes to an abrupt end.)

 

Holy hell, that's dark.
It's a damn shame we didn't get this full story in one of the games, though.