[SPOILERS] Are we getting to the level of "Zelda timeline" lore obsessiveness?

[shadowofchaos]

Just gonna mark the thread as a free for all for spoilers in all the games considering this is about lore.

Now there is nothing inherently wrong with going into the details of lore.

But I personally feel like the developers are being backed into a corner with fans just wanting more and more connections to each FE world.

It is definitely feeling like how sometimes creators leave ambiguity for the fans to have their own interpretation and thoeries.... But people going into the direction where there is some grand all encompassing master plan.

The lore of Fire Emblem felt like nods. Awakening was supposed to be the last game if it flopped... I doubt they explored every last avenue of the connection to Akaneia and Marth. Kinda obvious when details Gimle/Grima's origins is the postgame of Echoes.

 

Heroes by nature connects everything a la fanservice.

It never even is clear if heroes are summoned in the middle of their adventure or after or even sometimes after their own death... Or right before. I mean I personally don't think about it too much since it's a frigging gacha game. It's clear Ekura/Kiran being able to "S support" anyone including waifu'ing Dancer Dragons just throws everything out the window when it comes to using heroes as more than "grain of salt" lore source. I mean Marx/Xander tends to have the bad habit of choosing the wrong side lmao.

 

Are we going that route? We as a fanbase looking for that grand all encompassing something that isn't really there, forcing the developers to make that grand something but will ultimately fall short?

 

One particular thing I'm concerned about is that people really attempt to dig through Japanese sources... Without adequate translation.

Misinformation has spread more than once, that much I can clearly remember.

 

Edited April 18, 2018 by shadowofchaos

[Punished Dayni]

I have one question: Who wants that?

As someone who's okay with settings being linked together and clarifying ties in this and other series, I have never understood the appeal of everything being in the same world and don't know where this is coming from. I haven't seen much talk of things being linked together and when I do I still don't see it as all that sensible. I say this as someone who's okay with what happened with LoZ and the three timelines.

I'd also be concerned about ties causing more issues with continuity (imo Fates's ties were a mistake overall and felt as much about leaning on the fanservice).

Now to leave before Tellius spoilers show up, I've been spoiled enough as is here.

[The DanMan]

I haven't quite seen that. If anything, there were more crackpot theories were earlier on from what I've heard (the baseless "Elibe's Dragon's Gate leads to Archanea" theory, for instance). 

SoV's just doing a bit better of a job connecting what's already connected.

And besides, I think the more absurd part about the Zelda timeline is that the series itself was never about story, whereas FE has always put some modicum of focus and effort on writing and presentation (even if it's generally of sub-par quality). It makes more sense for a more plot driven series to flesh out lore and connections than for one that really isn't.

Edited April 18, 2018 by The DanMan

[Etrurian emperor]

I don't think its going to be a problem because by design the FE games are connected only very loosely. The connection between Archenea, Valentia and Ylisse is important because there's direct overlap between these continents in the games but the connection between Archenea and Jugdral is cute but ultimately not very important in the grand scheme of things. You can play Geneology five times without knowing its connected to Archenea and you won't miss a thing. 

Same with Elibe. It would be cute if the world Nils mentioned turned out to be Archenea but its of very small importance just as a connection to Elibe and Magvel wouldn't be important either.

If the connection between the continents is there for those who wish to look for it but otherwise doesn't intrude then that's no problem at all. 

[omegaxis1]

39 minutes ago, shadowofchaos said:

The lore of Fire Emblem felt like nods. Awakening was supposed to be the last game if it flopped... I doubt they explored every last avenue of the connection to Akaneia and Marth. Kinda obvious when details Gimle/Grima's origins is the postgame of Echoes.

Awakening was a reference game. Though people argue that they introduced the other dimensions things, even the Outrealms are actually a reference of the Elibe series Dragon's Gate. The Dragon's Gate is what brought in the existence of other dimensions. Awakening just brought it in further to allow more things to exist. But Awakening really only kept its connections in the story restricted to Valentia and Jugdral, both of which are continents that DID exist in the same world. 

I think the only real mistake was the Fates' Before Awakening DLC, where people got this idea that Fates took place before Awakening in the same world. Which is completely untrue. Awakening already confirmed that they've heard tales and stories of other worlds, like how the legend of Ike is that he's from another world.

Are we gonna have a Zelda timeline issue? I don't know. I never played Zelda and have little to no clue. 

However, if there's any kind of messed up connections, I think that would only be the case if we tried to connect ALL the series together. 

[Zapp Branniglenn]

I blame Awakening's need to have every incredible weapon together in one universe just as shout outs to fans. And the references, geez. Oh, look, Chrom is doing Aether. Oh, look, the Taguel may be a several generations evolved race of Laguz. Oh, look, Ricken and Olivia's support has them reading about the love between Sigurd and Deirdre. In fact, all of 3DS era has this incessant need to shout out old things such as classes the game wasn't designed for (witches and ballisticians).

The writers aren't being backed in a corner by fans. The writers have the issue of once BEING fans and wanting to reference everything. We've tried to connect the games in lore threads before, but have you ever seen such threads receive even half the replies of the monthly "Here's my take on Camilla" threads? They don't. There just isn't a lot to talk about beyond deciding what in Awakening is canon or noncanon, or what can be explained by those infernal outrealms. That's not the issue Zelda fans had before an official timeline dropped. Their issue was that they looked at Windwaker and other Zelda games that shout out Ocarina and decided these can't exist in a linear universe. For Fire Emblem to have that, we would need another game set 2000 years ahead of Archanea that confirms that Ylisse and/or the Exalted bloodline don't exist. Then bam, a crisis where Awakening and this new game can't exist together.

[VincentASM]

Personally, I'm not really familiar with how discussions on the Zelda timeline used to be, so I can't really compare, haha.

Although, in terms of Zelda, I feel like there are more games and more obvious threads (like some games are obviously sequels or prequels) compared to FE, so I can imagine the appeal of linking all the Zelda games together.

I don't think FE has gotten anywhere near that yet. Plus the existence of the Outrealms potentially makes things really complicated... or really simple, depending on your perspective.

I do not-so-secretly wish the developers would reveal more details about the greater FE world, but I can wait patiently. Although they really do need to tell us the name of Fates's continent at least.

[Armagon]

Honestly, i never got that feeling. The only times people have actually tried to make connections between games is in the Archanea/Valentia/Jugdral/Ylisse/Valm world. And anyone who tries to connect the other continents (Elibe, Magvel, Tellius, Fateslandia) usually gets the same response: "those worlds aren't directly connected. If they are, it's through the Outrealms".

[omegaxis1]

11 minutes ago, Glennstavos said:

I blame Awakening's need to have every incredible weapon together in one universe just as shout outs to fans. And the references, geez. Oh, look, Chrom is doing Aether. Oh, look, the Taguel may be a several generations evolved race of Laguz. Oh, look, Ricken and Olivia's support has them reading about the love between Sigurd and Deirdre. In fact, all of 3DS era has this incessant need to shout out old things such as classes the game wasn't designed for (witches and ballisticians).

The writers aren't being backed in a corner by fans. The writers have the issue of once BEING fans and wanting to reference everything. We've tried to connect the games in lore threads before, but have you ever seen such threads receive even half the replies of the monthly "Here's my take on Camilla" threads? They don't. There just isn't a lot to talk about beyond deciding what in Awakening is canon or noncanon, or what can be explained by those infernal outrealms. That's not the issue Zelda fans had before an official timeline dropped. Their issue was that they looked at Windwaker and other Zelda games that shout out Ocarina and decided these can't exist in a linear universe. For Fire Emblem to have that, we would need another game set 2000 years ahead of Archanea that confirms that Ylisse and/or the Exalted bloodline don't exist. Then bam, a crisis where Awakening and this new game can't exist together.

The legendary weapons we can get in the story are the Jugdral weapons. Jugdral is a continent in the same world as Archanea. The only other legendary is Ragnell, but that's only through Priam, who is considered Ike's descendant and Ike is from another world, so yeah. Chrom and Lucina's Aether might have the same title and effects, but it is not the same way Ike does it. So likely not the same technique. Taguel I have no explanation to this day. And Ricken and Olivia's support has nothing wrong with it being connected to Sigurd and Deirdre. Same world.

Yeah, they are not about to render the game that made the first biggest sales that IS has ever seen in a Fire Emblem series be dropped as non-canon.

[RJWalker]

23 minutes ago, omegaxis1 said:

The legendary weapons we can get in the story are the Jugdral weapons. Jugdral is a continent in the same world as Archanea. The only other legendary is Ragnell, but that's only through Priam, who is considered Ike's descendant and Ike is from another world, so yeah. Chrom and Lucina's Aether might have the same title and effects, but it is not the same way Ike does it. So likely not the same technique. Taguel I have no explanation to this day. And Ricken and Olivia's support has nothing wrong with it being connected to Sigurd and Deirdre. Same world.

Yeah, they are not about to render the game that made the first biggest sales that IS has ever seen in a Fire Emblem series be dropped as non-canon.

You forgot Sol Katti, Armads and Nidhogg

[omegaxis1]

1 minute ago, RJWalker said:

You forgot Sol Katti, Armads and Nidhogg

Sol Katti, maybe, but Armads and Nidhogg are only attained through Spotpass and Xenologues. Sol Katti is unique in that we can get it from the Paralogues. 

[Soledai]

45 minutes ago, VincentASM said:

I do not-so-secretly wish the developers would reveal more details about the greater FE world, but I can wait patiently. Although they really do need to tell us the name of Fates's continent at least.

You mean like a compendium or whatnot? I wouldn't mind that, if they avoided trying to convolute each world with ties and knots and all that jazz. Detail each world, leave it at that, I say.

I predict the name of Fates's's's's continent happening under one of two conditions: The tried and true: "You'll know when we know" approach or Heroes lol.

[Slumber]

No. I think the timeline with FE is pretty clear. 

1-5+Awakening are in their own world

6-7 are in their own world

8 is in its own world

9-10 is in its own world

Fates is in its own world

And there are Dragon/Outrealm gates that loosely connect them to each other, but by and large, they operate on their own rules and don't often dip into one another. There can be some weird one-off lines that get people scrambling to connect a world to another(Like some dumb Fates lines that mention/reference Awakening as being possibly the same world at a different time), but I don't think that's concrete at all. 

It's not like Zelda where people are determined to fit EVERYTHING into the same world at different times. I have yet to see anyone argue why the events of FE8 HAVE to fall into the timeline sometime between FE4 and FE1 or anything like that. 

Edited April 18, 2018 by Slumber

[Captain Karnage]

I think it's just a handful of people who do

there are some speculations, but nothing is written in stone

[Marty]

3 hours ago, The DanMan said:

I haven't quite seen that. If anything, there were more crackpot theories were earlier on from what I've heard (the baseless "Elibe's Dragon's Gate leads to Archanea" theory, for instance). 

SoV's just doing a bit better of a job connecting what's already connected.

And besides, I think the more absurd part about the Zelda timeline is that the series itself was never about story, whereas FE has always put some modicum of focus and effort on writing and presentation (even if it's generally of sub-par quality). It makes more sense for a more plot driven series to flesh out lore and connections than for one that really isn't.

 Wrong. The thing about the timeline discussions of Zelda is that the story has very little to do with it. Besides SS, Zelda was never really about story, yes, but the series has always about it's world. Hyrule is so magical because it's locations are so clear throughout the games, and considering the focus of the franchise is our adventure as we go through it's reimaginations through the years, some things stand out more than others and everyone is bound to make a connection. Not everyone who played Zelda before Hyrule Historia came out cared about the timeline, but we all recognized Lake Hylia or the altar of the Triforce and made a mental note of it's differences and similarities in each game. 

 I feel like this is quite a common misconception because people always interpret story as the actual plot we see in cutscenes and dialogue, but worldbuilding also plays a role in that and that has always been a constant in TLoZ.

1 hour ago, Slumber said:

No. I think the timeline with FE is pretty clear. 

1-5+Awakening are in their own world

6-7 are in their own world

8 is in its own world

9-10 is in its own world

Fates is in its own world

And there are Dragon/Outrealm gates that loosely connect them to each other, but by and large, they operate on their own rules and don't often dip into one another. There can be some weird one-off lines that get people scrambling to connect a world to another(Like some dumb Fates lines that mention/reference Awakening as being possibly the same world at a different time), but I don't think that's concrete at all. 

It's not like Zelda where people are determined to fit EVERYTHING into the same world at different times. I have yet to see anyone argue why the events of FE8 HAVE to fall into the timeline sometime between FE4 and FE1 or anything like that. 

 Agreed. I'm quite new to the FE fandom, but whenever I see someone arguing about an unified timeline they usually start by saying it's purely out of fun to see how they could fit the games together, I've yet to see someone go as crazy over it as TLOZ fans does- and I've been into TLOZ theorys since before Hyrule Historia came out.

 I'd also go on to say its the contrary, honestly: we fans aren't asking for connections or a timeline or whatsoever, we are happy with sequels and prequels and so on whenever we get them, but it's mostly Intelligent Systems who has been pushing out the connections as of lately since the Archanea saga is obviously more popular than it's other games and they don't really know how to handle the series immense growth in popularity besides exploiting it.

[DemolisherBPB]

2 hours ago, Slumber said:

No. I think the timeline with FE is pretty clear. 

1-5+Awakening are in their own world

6-7 are in their own world

8 is in its own world

9-10 is in its own world

Fates is in its own world

Yeah I've always followed this. I guess you could but the GBA games in the same world but that's just if your bored or something, Nothing really links them. It's clear that probably through the out realm tales of the other worlds has been spread to them if DLC from Awakening is anything to gleam (Chrom usually referring to the cards you get as "X of legend" or words to that effect) 

I think that a the timeline for Valentia was nice, and the little Archenea one below was a nice touch to see where things fall in line to each other, but I'd say we only care for timeline for each set world. 

2 hours ago, Soledai said:

You mean like a compendium or whatnot? I wouldn't mind that, if they avoided trying to convolute each world with ties and knots and all that jazz. Detail each world, leave it at that, I say.

If we got one each chapter could be each world!...I'd buy it.

 

If anything Awakening has caused a bit of this what with Priam and then getting a silly amount of Old games legendary weapons but anything you got by DLC or bonus box/Renown Rewards, I just thought as nods and as they are put nice bonuses that will be gone when you break them (If Infinite regalia didn't exist). But I'd say most fans know that Awakenings nods are just in a good taste "goodbye" if this fails and don't think about them.

[Emperor Hardin]

3 hours ago, Slumber said:

No. I think the timeline with FE is pretty clear. 

1-5+Awakening are in their own world

Awakening does certainly the Archanea continuity much more convoluted though with all the mistakes and retcons though.

[omegaxis1]

12 minutes ago, Emperor Hardin said:

Awakening does certainly the Archanea continuity much more convoluted though with all the mistakes and retcons though.

Yeah, though everything in Awakening is all a result of the plot point where the change began, 1000 years before Awakening. 

[Dandy Druid]

The Outrealms pretty much connected all of the worlds/continents and that's pretty much it.

[Ae†her]

The way I see it there's either a multiverse or there isn't. I know there's no single timeline for sure, but somehow they've tried to make the lore so that each FE World and it's heroes is somehow a legend in another world. It would be really cool if a Genealogy and/or Thracia Echoes was also able to clear up all of this lore stuff and how the different worlds and timelines are connected via clues that are naturally embedded into the story. Though IS will need Naga's help to do that, while also maintaining a good story, interesting character development, a nice UI, and excellent combat system and animations for the Switch.

[Ertrick36]

The FE universes aren't nearly as convoluted as the Timeline of Infinite Retcons.

Awakening was mostly just meaningless references.  They just threw everything together because they believed it was gonna be the last game.  Then Fates threw in the bullshit "every world's connected through the Outer Realms" device so as to prevent lore inconsistency issues whenever they want to throw in more senseless references.

If anything, the really confusing thing is the fact that every Awakening character can use any of the legendary weapons besides Falchion, and that Mjölnir in particular somehow wound up in the world of Fates as a C-rank weapon.  Are we just supposed to accept that all the lore had just been retconned?  Or are these weapons merely imitations based off of the real legendary weapons?  But if that were the case, why does Missiletainn exist then?  This is probably the biggest inconsistency lore-wise born out of Awakening/Fates having a gaff that has yet to be resolved.

[Acacia Sgt]

15 minutes ago, Ertrick36 said:

The FE universes aren't nearly as convoluted as the Timeline of Infinite Retcons.

Awakening was mostly just meaningless references.  They just threw everything together because they believed it was gonna be the last game.  Then Fates threw in the bullshit "every world's connected through the Outer Realms" device so as to prevent lore inconsistency issues whenever they want to throw in more senseless references.

If anything, the really confusing thing is the fact that every Awakening character can use any of the legendary weapons besides Falchion, and that Mjölnir in particular somehow wound up in the world of Fates as a C-rank weapon.  Are we just supposed to accept that all the lore had just been retconned?  Or are these weapons merely imitations based off of the real legendary weapons?  But if that were the case, why does Missiletainn exist then?  This is probably the biggest inconsistency lore-wise born out of Awakening/Fates having a gaff that has yet to be resolved.

Well actually, regarding the weapons, the old articles mentioned the possibility of the blood restrictions capable of being removed:

Quote

Usually, only those who have formed blood pacts with the dragon tribe can use the power of the dragon stones, but there are exceptions if the seal on the orb has been broken.

You can see it as a retcon if they ignored this, or being actually quite faithful to the old lore. After all, with ~3000 years between the Jugdral games and Awakening, it could be plausible. But well, it's hard to say what is really the reason.

As for Mjölnir in Fates... you got me there. Unless... what was its Japanese name again? To see if it's really the same tome...

Edited April 19, 2018 by Acacia Sgt

[indigoasis]

9 hours ago, Glennstavos said:

I blame Awakening's need to have every incredible weapon together in one universe just as shout outs to fans. And the references, geez. Oh, look, Chrom is doing Aether. Oh, look, the Taguel may be a several generations evolved race of Laguz. Oh, look, Ricken and Olivia's support has them reading about the love between Sigurd and Deirdre. In fact, all of 3DS era has this incessant need to shout out old things such as classes the game wasn't designed for (witches and ballisticians).

The writers aren't being backed in a corner by fans. The writers have the issue of once BEING fans and wanting to reference everything. We've tried to connect the games in lore threads before, but have you ever seen such threads receive even half the replies of the monthly "Here's my take on Camilla" threads? They don't. There just isn't a lot to talk about beyond deciding what in Awakening is canon or noncanon, or what can be explained by those infernal outrealms. That's not the issue Zelda fans had before an official timeline dropped. Their issue was that they looked at Windwaker and other Zelda games that shout out Ocarina and decided these can't exist in a linear universe. For Fire Emblem to have that, we would need another game set 2000 years ahead of Archanea that confirms that Ylisse and/or the Exalted bloodline don't exist. Then bam, a crisis where Awakening and this new game can't exist together.

Ouch. I'm slightly hurt by that statement.

Jokes aside, I read somewhere but can't remember where (I think it was somewhere on this site, actually) that Roy is a parallel character to Marth, and the Binding Blade is a parallel sword to Falchion, but set in separate realms. I thought it was a pretty neat idea, seeing as how Roy and Marth are similar but still stand out as their own characters, so maybe there are other characters and items that are parallels to each other and in separate realms?

And about the whole timeline deal, I don't think there is one anywhere. There are only the timelines that belong in their respective realms and directly relate to each other, like Path of Radiance and Radiant Dawn. Of course, with things like Outrealm gates, you can hop between different realms and whatnot, but it doesn't mean that certain realms are directly connected to each other, per se. What I mean is that one timeline or realm can't influence another (Radiant Historia begs to differ, but that's a different topic for a different day). The people can hop back and forth and do what Ike did, but that's about it really.

I'm probably super wrong, but hey, it's whatever.

[Armagon]

33 minutes ago, Acacia Sgt said:

As for Mjölnir in Fates... you got me there. Unless... what was its Japanese name again? To see if it's really the same tome...

I mean, Excalibur was in both Blazing Blade and Sacred Stones. Granted, it's called Gigascalibur in the Japanese version but still. 

As for Mjolnir, it's the same name in the Japanese version. But actually, Excalibur also appears in Fates, with the same name in both versions. Probably just a reference tbh.

[Ertrick36]

23 minutes ago, Acacia Sgt said:

You can see it as a retcon if they ignored this, or being actually quite faithful to the old lore. After all, with ~3000 years between the Jugdral games and Awakening, it could be plausible. But well, it's hard to say what is really the reason.

I wasn't referring exclusively to the Jugdral weapons, but I guess all legendary weapons could have such lore tied to them.

I really don't think they put any thought into the inclusion of any of these weapons aside from maybe Mjölnir, and I'd say that was only because it wasn't a playable weapon initially.

27 minutes ago, Acacia Sgt said:

As for Mjölnir in Fates... you got me there. Unless... what was its Japanese name again? To see if it's really the same tome...

It is still Mjölnir in the Japanese version.  Well I mean, technically it was called "Thor Hammer" in Genealogy, but that's essentially the exact same thing.  Kind of like how "Astra" has sometimes been translated to "Shooting Star Sword".

It has a similar looking effect and similar gameplay effects (high skill/crit rates) anyway, so even if they had slightly different names, it's still awfully similar to the spell our dear Reptor and Ishtar used.