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It's common in FE games for deacons to go insane. However have you ever wandered why it happens?

What we know about the 'dragon condition':

  • Seems like every dragon eventually goes mad;
  • It's not exclusive to divine dragons, as Anakos goes insane as well (and he was an astral dragon);
  • It's not exclusive to male dragons either. In FE3, Tiki mentiones that she sometimes has an urge to go on a rampage, what can be seen as first simptoms of the condition;
  • Despite his age, Morva from FE8 seems not to be suffering from the illness;
  • Duma did go mad, but Mila and (especially) Naga seem to be completely healthy and sane;
  • There are young dragon around, but they never mention the illness nor seem to suffer from it (exception being probably Tiki, as mentioned before);
  • There is no record of dragons going mad in the previous generations of dragons (for example it is said that they coexisted peacefully with humans on Elibe);
  • Some dragons are aware that they will eventually go mad (Mila, Duma);
  • Dragons can be stopped form going mad by performing certain acts (Azura's song easing Anankos)

What is happening here? What is the source of dragon madness and why is it so selective?

Does somebody have any ideas?

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I think all it really is is just "plot disease" meant to justify a certain story direction or make things easier for the devs.  Kinda like how the Lord's parents are dead and/or never seen.

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I thought it was a side effect of the dragons having to create human forms and become manaketes when it was no longer acceptable to have large magic reptiles just strolling through towns minding their own business. Somewhere down the line, humans became wary, even scared of them. The dragons, being powerful magicians, created human forms to use. And some got this side effect.

Tellius dragon laguz do not have this. And Morva did kinda go mad, but I think it was the Demon King's doing.

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1 minute ago, Dragoncat said:

I thought it was a side effect of the dragons having to create human forms and become manaketes when it was no longer acceptable to have large magic reptiles just strolling through towns minding their own business. Somewhere down the line, humans became wary, even scared of them. The dragons, being powerful magicians, created human forms to use. And some got this side effect.

I thought it was the other way around, i.e. the Manaketes took on human forms to avoid degenerating.  I think that's how it is in Archanea.

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Different worlds (arguably), different rules.  Archanea/Valencia being in the same world means that their dragons should follow the same laws, which they do.  Magvel is its own entity, so those dragons will not necessarily align with the likes of Mila and Duma.

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First off, dump Magvel, Tellius, and Elibe because they are irrelevant, they all play by their own rules, as for the Dragon Madness as I like to call it, it is obviously a form of mental degeneration, it is also not wrong to say that mila was degenerating also, she was allowing her people to become so reliant on her to the point that without her famine would happen much too easily, compared to duma who was violent after he degenerated though always distant so it was less noticeable, they both succumbed to their ideological extremes, this is intended to show how mila was not in her right mind, I mean she went out of her way to seal falchion away to prevent alm from using it on duma, only after death she would actually be able to see that as a bad thing and unseal it, as for naga, we have never seen her alive so it seems that degeneration is a mental disease, if I had to make a guess, I would say that it is the base instincts of the dragon taking over as the mind deteriorates, this could explain things like the single mindedness of Mila, Duma, and Anankos (fates seems to use similar forms of degeneration), it also could explain a manakete's destructive tendencies, this is less a symptom and may be a biological predisposition to cause destruction, so over time after a manakete's golden years have passed they begin to degrade, the only exception to this is bantu who could have simply had the force of will to prevent himself from degrading so he could watch over tiki, he also threw away his dragonstone after mystery of the emblem so that could explain why he is still around in awakening and not completely gone having completely disconnected himself from his dragon form.

sorry if this is hard to understand, I am bad at formatting.

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For Archanean dragons, it's certain it's their own power that's hurting them. It isn't just the mental degeneration. Their bodies were also affected, as one of the first signs was declining birth rates among dragonkind. Consider this, the degeneration is practically stopped by separating themselves from most of their power. There's other alternatives, like what Loptyr did by blood-binding himself to Galle. Though you could argue the Tome is like a Dragsontone: his power in external storage. So ultimately, it's their own power betraying them.

Why this began all of a sudden? Nothing says why. Perhaps it's meant to be one of history's big mysteries without a solution for the forseeable future. By Awakening's time, thousands of years have passed and we're not any closer to the answer than it was since Marth's time. Perhaps we'll never get one. Of course, perhaps IS will eventually give us an answer.

Edited by Acacia Sgt
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2 hours ago, Dragoncat said:

Tellius dragon laguz do not have this.

Not naturally, no. However Izuka uses his Feral Drug both on Rajaion and the captured Red Dragon platoon sent to rescue him, and turn them all into mindless killing machines. So while an unstoppable madness in dragons doesn't occur naturally in Tellius, it can be induced into them via artificial means.

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31 minutes ago, NinjaMonkey said:

Not naturally, no. However Izuka uses his Feral Drug both on Rajaion and the captured Red Dragon platoon sent to rescue him, and turn them all into mindless killing machines. So while an unstoppable madness in dragons doesn't occur naturally in Tellius, it can be induced into them via artificial means.

Yes, but it also works on the beasts and birds so I didn't consider it a "dragon" illness.

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5 hours ago, Von Ithipathachai said:

I thought it was the other way around, i.e. the Manaketes took on human forms to avoid degenerating.  I think that's how it is in Archanea.

This is correct, and as @Acacia Sgt has said, it had physical affects too.

However, degeneration seems to me like some sort of plague rather than an inherent condition. Declining birthrates implies a reduction from a previous birthrate, for example.

***

We've mentioned Judgral earlier. I think that the Naga who gives Naga holy blood is the same Naga as Archanaea, and the whole helping the crusaders thing implies to me a certain lack of degeneration. However, I've only applied the translation patch yesterday, if you know what I'm saying. @Jotari, you know FE4 stuff. Help me out here.

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4 minutes ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

We've mentioned Judgral earlier. I think that the Naga who gives Naga holy blood is the same Naga as Archanaea, and the whole helping the crusaders thing implies to me a certain lack of degeneration. However, I've only applied the translation patch yesterday, if you know what I'm saying. @Jotari, you know FE4 stuff. Help me out here.

Naga and the other eleven dragons were already manaketes by the time they went to Jugdral. The ability to blood-bind with a human lineage doesn't require them to be pure dragons or manaketes, as it is. Or even having their power source, since Gotoh blood-binded the Falchion to Anri long after he discarded his dragonstone.

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I have just always chalk it up to an unexplained "magical climate". As in a climate for the magic energies and such existing usually unseen and unfelt in FE. As with the real climate, it naturally changes over time, most of the time it is gradual change, but at a few points, it is very rapid, and in the case of the Ending Winter of Elibe, it is anthropogenic change.

The dragons of Archanea started degenerating because the magical climate began to shift against them, just as a warming climate would cause apple trees to recede northwards due to needing so many cool nights in a row to bear fruit. Dragonkind for all its wisdom could not change it, and thus began its precipitous drop.

By the time of Awakening, although we know very little of dragonkind in this future Archanea, I would guess either died off almost completely, or hit rock bottom and has adapted to the modern magical climate. In the process, they regained the ability to reproduce- not that I can really be certain of this given Xane or another dragon stud (Robin doesn't count) isn't around to seed Tiki and or Nowi and or Nah. It's possible that dragon-human reproduction was possible all along due to humans being naturally more suited for the changed magical climate and hence allowing the half-dragon child to survive in the womb rather than be miscarried like a full dragon zygote soon after conception.

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1 hour ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

I have just always chalk it up to an unexplained "magical climate". As in a climate for the magic energies and such existing usually unseen and unfelt in FE. As with the real climate, it naturally changes over time, most of the time it is gradual change, but at a few points, it is very rapid, and in the case of the Ending Winter of Elibe, it is anthropogenic change.

The dragons of Archanea started degenerating because the magical climate began to shift against them, just as a warming climate would cause apple trees to recede northwards due to needing so many cool nights in a row to bear fruit. Dragonkind for all its wisdom could not change it, and thus began its precipitous drop.

By the time of Awakening, although we know very little of dragonkind in this future Archanea, I would guess either died off almost completely, or hit rock bottom and has adapted to the modern magical climate. In the process, they regained the ability to reproduce- not that I can really be certain of this given Xane or another dragon stud (Robin doesn't count) isn't around to seed Tiki and or Nowi and or Nah. It's possible that dragon-human reproduction was possible all along due to humans being naturally more suited for the changed magical climate and hence allowing the half-dragon child to survive in the womb rather than be miscarried like a full dragon zygote soon after conception.

This is a good theory, I like it.

Is it ever said why Xane doesn't transform into a dragon, but other units? Do any other dragons have this ability?

There needs to be more male manaketes in the series for sure.

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49 minutes ago, Dragoncat said:

This is a good theory, I like it.

Is it ever said why Xane doesn't transform into a dragon, but other units? Do any other dragons have this ability?

There needs to be more male manaketes in the series for sure.

His shapeshifting abilities don't seem to include transforming into dragons. Actually, I don't think he ever shapeshifts into anything other than a human form. Maybe that's a limitation? I'd ignore the gameplay of him also gaining a mount when applicable since... unless he actually shapeshifts into the whole shebang. I think you have to give him weapons so he doesn't imitate that at least. Now, if he had his dragonstone perhaps he could assume his own dragon form; but he got rid of it. I'd think it's a matter of power. A dragon form likely takes a whole lot more than what Xane has available.

In a way. Duma and Mila shapeshift into human forms without turning into manaketes. So perhaps Divines as a whole have shapeshifting abilities, which Xane decided to keep when putting everything else into his dragonstone.

I'd agree on that notion.

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1 hour ago, Acacia Sgt said:

In a way. Duma and Mila shapeshift into human forms without turning into manaketes. So perhaps Divines as a whole have shapeshifting abilities, which Xane decided to keep when putting everything else into his dragonstone.

I'd agree on that notion.

actually, mila is depicted as having (at least what appears to be) a dragonstone in the SoV cutscene where she fights rudolf and Duma is in the later stages of degeneration by the end of SoV so if he did decide to become a manakete it is meaningless now.

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15 minutes ago, thecrimsonflash said:

actually, mila is depicted as having (at least what appears to be) a dragonstone in the SoV cutscene where she fights rudolf and Duma is in the later stages of degeneration by the end of SoV so if he did decide to become a manakete it is meaningless now.

Perhaps so, though there's the issue as to why dragonstones came to be in the first place.

Duma and Mila left Archanea during the Golden Age of Dragons, long before anyone save Naga even thought it would end. Naga never said it outright, just handing a Kingsfang as insurance for the natives of whatever place they ended up with; but never explaining why exactly. There's no indication Duma and Mila knew what happened over there, to know they had to turn into manaketes. The fact both started to degenerate as well shows they never did. So far, at least as far as just the world of Archanea/Ylisse, Valentia/Valm, and Jugdral is concerned, turning into a Manakete should save you from degenerating. The only known exception was Tiki; but only when she was a child and the Binding Shield kept that at bay anyway.

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2 minutes ago, Acacia Sgt said:

Perhaps so, though there's the issue as to why dragonstones came to be in the first place.

Duma and Mila left Archanea during the Golden Age of Dragons, long before anyone save Naga even thought it would end. Naga never said it outright, just handing a Kingsfang as insurance for the natives of whatever place they ended up with; but never explaining why exactly. There's no indication Duma and Mila knew what happened over there, to know they had to turn into manaketes. The fact both started to degenerate as well shows they never did. So far, at least as far as just the world of Archanea/Ylisse, Valentia/Valm, and Jugdral is concerned, turning into a Manakete should save you from degenerating. The only known exception was Tiki; but only when she was a child and the Binding Shield kept that at bay anyway.

It seems that still being in contact with a dragonstone (and by extension, the power inside the stone) does not seem to absolutely save manaketes from degeneration, otherwise there is no good reason for xane, gotoh, and post mystery bantu getting rid of theirs, I also recall degeneration being why tiki sleeps so much. It probably holds it back for a time, but putting your power into a dragonstone does not seem to do much to keep you from losing it. there is also medeus, but that probably isn't fair due to him being an earth dragon and thus prone to degeneration.

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15 minutes ago, thecrimsonflash said:

It seems that still being in contact with a dragonstone (and by extension, the power inside the stone) does not seem to absolutely save manaketes from degeneration, otherwise there is no good reason for xane, gotoh, and post mystery bantu getting rid of theirs, I also recall degeneration being why tiki sleeps so much. It probably holds it back for a time, but putting your power into a dragonstone does not seem to do much to keep you from losing it. there is also medeus, but that probably isn't fair due to him being an earth dragon and thus prone to degeneration.

If that was the case, then we'd have more examples than child!Tiki. Besides, the getting rid of their dragonstones could be for any other reason, not because the dragonstones ended up radiating their power and affecting them anyway.

You mean sleeping while an adult? I suppose, though again, there's no indication it's due to that kind of degeneration. Besides, her issue as a child seemed to be more about being too young to wield all the power she had, which would drive her mad in a very different context than the degeneration non-manaketes suffered. It may still be that what she still needs to sleep for, not the degeneration.

Medeus's case is different. His second revival process seemed to have gone... somewhere, to make him go back as a dark dragon; and thus having a different mindset. Do remember Medeus's first revival, he came back as his regular Earth Dragon Manakete self; and he was still sound of mind.

As it is, the only time we've seen a Manakete still going mad is with Anankos. However, different world, different rules.

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I was always under the impression Mila was somewhat mad. Just not the "oh boy, here I go killing again" kind of mad. But more the quiet, disillusioned kind of mad. What's the word they throw around a bunch in Echoes with regard to people who don't want to fight? Right, "craven". She took her pacifism too far in her old age, making her followers weak with abundance. Even if Mila is never portrayed as the villain in Echoes, she is repeatedly regarded as a cause of the war and the terrors just as much as Rigel. And it's Alm's duty as king to teach the humans how to believe in themselves in the absence of Gods and their coddling.

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11 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

I have just always chalk it up to an unexplained "magical climate". As in a climate for the magic energies and such existing usually unseen and unfelt in FE. As with the real climate, it naturally changes over time, most of the time it is gradual change, but at a few points, it is very rapid, and in the case of the Ending Winter of Elibe, it is anthropogenic change.

The dragons of Archanea started degenerating because the magical climate began to shift against them, just as a warming climate would cause apple trees to recede northwards due to needing so many cool nights in a row to bear fruit. Dragonkind for all its wisdom could not change it, and thus began its precipitous drop.

By the time of Awakening, although we know very little of dragonkind in this future Archanea, I would guess either died off almost completely, or hit rock bottom and has adapted to the modern magical climate. In the process, they regained the ability to reproduce- not that I can really be certain of this given Xane or another dragon stud (Robin doesn't count) isn't around to seed Tiki and or Nowi and or Nah. It's possible that dragon-human reproduction was possible all along due to humans being naturally more suited for the changed magical climate and hence allowing the half-dragon child to survive in the womb rather than be miscarried like a full dragon zygote soon after conception.

So global warming then. Wibder if there was an Al Gore dragon expy warning everyone of their reckless use of magic polluting the world.

11 hours ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

This is correct, and as @Acacia Sgt has said, it had physical affects too.

However, degeneration seems to me like some sort of plague rather than an inherent condition. Declining birthrates implies a reduction from a previous birthrate, for example.

***

We've mentioned Judgral earlier. I think that the Naga who gives Naga holy blood is the same Naga as Archanaea, and the whole helping the crusaders thing implies to me a certain lack of degeneration. However, I've only applied the translation patch yesterday, if you know what I'm saying. @Jotari, you know FE4 stuff. Help me out here.

Honoured to discover I'm your go to guy for Jugdral.

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We can't assume that it's the exact same disease in every game that it appears in, since different continents means different stories entirely and potentially different rules. The only continents for which we can assume its the same illness are Archanea, Valentia and Jugdral. The timeline of events seem to be:

  1. Dragons are the dominant species on Archanea
  2. Humans appear on Archanea
  3. Some time after humanity's arrival (we don't know how long), Dragon birth rate plummets; the first warning sign of the degeneration
  4. Some dragons start degenerating; they lose their sapience as their animal instincts begin overriding their intelligent thought. Eventually, they become no more than animals; controlled solely by their animal instincts and incapable of speech or intelligent thought. This affects all dragons: Fire, Mage, Earth, Divine and Wyvern alike. Presumably, this affected them regardless of age, but the young and healthy would likely be less affected by it than the old, as is often the case with illnesses. But we know that entire populations degenerated, so it must have hit old and young alike. 
  5. The divine dragons propose a solution: seal their power and instincts away in dragonstones and become Manaketes, but this means being humanoid for a good chunk of their life, so some reject this, including every Earth Dragon except Medeus, as well as a huge chunk of the Fire Dragon, Mage Dragon, and Wyvern populations. 
  6. Loptyr, another Earth Dragon, flees Archanea and finds a different solution: put his mind and power in a book of dark magic and possess compatible humans through the book.
  7. Mila and Duma are banished to Archanea. Naga gives them another Falchion as a precaution in case they ever go mad.
  8. The Earth Dragons, naught but beasts and only remembering their resentment for humanity, launch a mindless attack on the human settlements. Naga, Medeus, and the Divine Dragons successfully hold them back at great cost; eventually sealing the Earth Dragons away and using the Shield of Seals to maintain that seal. 
  9. Naga gives birth to Tiki, puts her in an enchanted sleep, forges the Falchion from one of her (Naga's) fangs, and dies.
  10. Mila and Duma use their magical powers on half a continent each for 1,000 years rather than keeping those powers sealed away. This explains why they degenerate despite having stones. Even so, by the time of SoV, they have not yet fully degenerated as they are still capable of some amount of speech and thought; their instincts have just overridden their better judgement and driven them obsessed (Duma's gone mad about power, and Mila's spoiled the Zofians), so becoming manaketes at least delayed the degeneration, but their continued use of their abilities made it happen anyway. My theory as to why Duma is physically much further gone than Mila is the twisted magic the Duma Faithful have been using to keep him alive: the witches and soul offerings only made things worse for Duma's mind and body. 

And that's Archanea's version: first the birth rate plummets, then the mind becomes increasingly feral until it is that of a non-sapient animal. Mila and Duma were aware of the risk of madness because it was already happening on Archanea before they left. As for why it didn't happen before humanity's arrival, that's never explained, but there could be a number of different reasons. The most likely one is that it's genetic: a mutation somewhere down the line affected both their fertility and their ability to keep their animal instincts in check. 

 

As for the other continents, we have to treat those differently, as those are entirely different continents on entirely different dimensions/worlds. (Please bear in mind that I've never played the GBA Fire Emblem games, so please correct me if I'm wrong). 

For Elibe, it's possible that the dragons just never contracted the illness. If the Archanea version was genetic, then the mutation never happened. Whatever caused the dragons of Archanea to degenerate didn't affect Elibe either because it didn't happen on Elibe, or it was about to, but the Human-Dragon War and subsequent banishment of the Dragons beat the disease to it. 

For Magvel, we know they have manaketes and dragonstones, but do we know if they were ever at any point anything other than manaketes? Do we know if they were originally dragons, or if they always had dragonstones? I ask because I don't know; I never played Sacred Stones. Because it's self-contained, we can't assume anything about the other continents applies here. 

 

As for the Tellius games, those are extremely different. Laguz aren't manaketes. Unlike the Archanea manaketes, they aren't descended from dragons; they're descended from a humanoid race called the Zunanma, who are the ancestors of all Beorc and Laguz (which certainly explains why they all seem biologically compatible...), so they don't have to struggle with the same sort of issues. However, it is implied in Radiant Dawn that when Dragon Laguz go to war, they are slow to start, and nearly impossible to stop (mentally speaking). 

 

For Fateslandia, the history of dragons and humans is different (and a whole lot more vague). The timeline seems to be as follows:

  1. Twelve absurdly powerful dragons known as the First Dragons arrive on Fateslandia. These include the Dawn Dragon, the Dusk Dragon, the Rainbow Dragon, the Astral Dragon, and the Silent Dragon (Anankos). Presumably, other, less powerful dragons followed, or maybe not, as we never really see any... but, if there aren't any, then why are these twelve the "First" Dragons? (This is a worldbuilding issue with Fates). 
  2. These twelve go to war with each other. The Rainbow Dragon commits "the great sin" by recruiting humans into the war and forging the Yato (and the other four weapons) so the humans that he brought in actually stand a chance. The other First Dragons followed suit; giving humans some of their blood to grant them abilities including the use of Dragon Veins. The war ends, and the Rainbow Dragon, for bringing war to humanity, is cursed to live in atonement forever as the Rainbow Sage until peace can be brought to humanity. 
  3. The twelve eventually start to experience degeneration. To escape it, they leave Fateslandia. Anankos, however, stays with the people of Valla that he's grown attached to. He creates that magic song, and makes the pendant out of half of a dragonstone (why there would be dragonstones in a continent without manaketes is never explained) so that the royal family of Valla, who have some of his blood, can use the song to calm him down. But, unfortunately, it is not a permanent solution, and Anankos slowly goes increasingly mad. 
  4. The last part of his rational mind gets split off from him and becomes a humanoid being that his insane self tries to kill. His sane self falls in love with Mikoto and becomes the father of Corrin.
  5. Corrin has enough uber-dragon blood from being half-First Dragon that he is essentially a less-refined version of a manakete. So he does need a dragonstone, otherwise he can't control when he transforms, and his animal instincts override his rational mind whenever he transforms, both of which are what happened in chapter 4. 

Interestingly, Anankos' degeneration more resembles senility than the Archanea version, which resembles caving into animal instincts and losing one's sapience. Whether that's a way in which the Fates version is different, or if it's a result of Anankos' old age combined with the degeneration, rather than the degeneration itself, is unclear. But this could explain how he apparently still has enough of his mind to scheme and plot, unlike even Mila and Duma.

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7 hours ago, thecrimsonflash said:

It seems that still being in contact with a dragonstone (and by extension, the power inside the stone) does not seem to absolutely save manaketes from degeneration, otherwise there is no good reason for xane, gotoh, and post mystery bantu getting rid of theirs, I also recall degeneration being why tiki sleeps so much. It probably holds it back for a time, but putting your power into a dragonstone does not seem to do much to keep you from losing it. there is also medeus, but that probably isn't fair due to him being an earth dragon and thus prone to degeneration.

Xane and Gotoh didn't get rid of theirs; their dragonstones were destroyed when the Divine Dragons fought the maddened Earth Dragons. 

Medeus never degenerated; he very much still had his mind in Shadow Dragon and in Mystery. To be honest, the fact that he still has his mind despite the way Gharnef brought him back in Mystery is pretty impressive. He's the only Earth Dragon who became a manakete and retained his mind; that's the whole point. He isn't any more prone to madness due to being an Earth Dragon; he's just the only one who could swallow his pride and bigotry long enough to be willing to become a manakete. 

Tiki has to be put to sleep because she is so exceptionally powerful for a manakete; not only putting her at greater risk of madness, but, if she ever went mad, it would be catastrophic for the whole continent. She even has nightmares about the damage she would do if she degenerated. 

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16 minutes ago, vanguard333 said:

Xane and Gotoh didn't get rid of theirs; their dragonstones were destroyed when the Divine Dragons fought the maddened Earth Dragons. 

Medeus never degenerated; he very much still had his mind in Shadow Dragon and in Mystery. To be honest, the fact that he still has his mind despite the way Gharnef brought him back in Mystery is pretty impressive. He's the only Earth Dragon who became a manakete and retained his mind; that's the whole point. He isn't any more prone to madness due to being an Earth Dragon; he's just the only one who could swallow his pride and bigotry long enough to be willing to become a manakete. 

Tiki has to be put to sleep because she is so exceptionally powerful for a manakete; not only putting her at greater risk of madness, but, if she ever went mad, it would be catastrophic for the whole continent. She even has nightmares about the damage she would do if she degenerated. 

The other divine dragons over used their dragon stones and died. Gotoh and Xane willing got rid of theirs.

24 minutes ago, vanguard333 said:

We can't assume that it's the exact same disease in every game that it appears in, since different continents means different stories entirely and potentially different rules. The only continents for which we can assume its the same illness are Archanea, Valentia and Jugdral. The timeline of events seem to be:

  1. Dragons are the dominant species on Archanea
  2. Humans appear on Archanea
  3. Some time after humanity's arrival (we don't know how long), Dragon birth rate plummets; the first warning sign of the degeneration
  4. Some dragons start degenerating; they lose their sapience as their animal instincts begin overriding their intelligent thought. Eventually, they become no more than animals; controlled solely by their animal instincts and incapable of speech or intelligent thought. This affects all dragons: Fire, Mage, Earth, Divine and Wyvern alike. Presumably, this affected them regardless of age, but the young and healthy would likely be less affected by it than the old, as is often the case with illnesses. But we know that entire populations degenerated, so it must have hit old and young alike. 
  5. The divine dragons propose a solution: seal their power and instincts away in dragonstones and become Manaketes, but this means being humanoid for a good chunk of their life, so some reject this, including every Earth Dragon except Medeus, as well as a huge chunk of the Fire Dragon, Mage Dragon, and Wyvern populations. 
  6. Loptyr, another Earth Dragon, flees Archanea and finds a different solution: put his mind and power in a book of dark magic and possess compatible humans through the book.
  7. Mila and Duma are banished to Archanea. Naga gives them another Falchion as a precaution in case they ever go mad.
  8. The Earth Dragons, naught but beasts and only remembering their resentment for humanity, launch a mindless attack on the human settlements. Naga, Medeus, and the Divine Dragons successfully hold them back at great cost; eventually sealing the Earth Dragons away and using the Shield of Seals to maintain that seal. 
  9. Naga gives birth to Tiki, puts her in an enchanted sleep, forges the Falchion from one of her (Naga's) fangs, and dies.
  10. Mila and Duma use their magical powers on half a continent each for 1,000 years rather than keeping those powers sealed away. This explains why they degenerate despite having stones. Even so, by the time of SoV, they have not yet fully degenerated as they are still capable of some amount of speech and thought; their instincts have just overridden their better judgement and driven them obsessed (Duma's gone mad about power, and Mila's spoiled the Zofians), so becoming manaketes at least delayed the degeneration, but their continued use of their abilities made it happen anyway. My theory as to why Duma is physically much further gone than Mila is the twisted magic the Duma Faithful have been using to keep him alive: the witches and soul offerings only made things worse for Duma's mind and body. 

And that's Archanea's version: first the birth rate plummets, then the mind becomes increasingly feral until it is that of a non-sapient animal. Mila and Duma were aware of the risk of madness because it was already happening on Archanea before they left. As for why it didn't happen before humanity's arrival, that's never explained, but there could be a number of different reasons. The most likely one is that it's genetic: a mutation somewhere down the line affected both their fertility and their ability to keep their animal instincts in check. 

 

As for the other continents, we have to treat those differently, as those are entirely different continents on entirely different dimensions/worlds. (Please bear in mind that I've never played the GBA Fire Emblem games, so please correct me if I'm wrong). 

For Elibe, it's possible that the dragons just never contracted the illness. If the Archanea version was genetic, then the mutation never happened. Whatever caused the dragons of Archanea to degenerate didn't affect Elibe either because it didn't happen on Elibe, or it was about to, but the Human-Dragon War and subsequent banishment of the Dragons beat the disease to it. 

For Magvel, we know they have manaketes and dragonstones, but do we know if they were ever at any point anything other than manaketes? Do we know if they were originally dragons, or if they always had dragonstones? I ask because I don't know; I never played Sacred Stones. Because it's self-contained, we can't assume anything about the other continents applies here. 

 

As for the Tellius games, those are extremely different. Laguz aren't manaketes. Unlike the Archanea manaketes, they aren't descended from dragons; they're descended from a humanoid race called the Zunanma, who are the ancestors of all Beorc and Laguz (which certainly explains why they all seem biologically compatible...), so they don't have to struggle with the same sort of issues. However, it is implied in Radiant Dawn that when Dragon Laguz go to war, they are slow to start, and nearly impossible to stop (mentally speaking). 

 

For Fateslandia, the history of dragons and humans is different (and a whole lot more vague). The timeline seems to be as follows:

  1. Twelve absurdly powerful dragons known as the First Dragons arrive on Fateslandia. These include the Dawn Dragon, the Dusk Dragon, the Rainbow Dragon, the Astral Dragon, and the Silent Dragon (Anankos). Presumably, other, less powerful dragons followed, or maybe not, as we never really see any... but, if there aren't any, then why are these twelve the "First" Dragons? (This is a worldbuilding issue with Fates). 
  2. These twelve go to war with each other. The Rainbow Dragon commits "the great sin" by recruiting humans into the war and forging the Yato (and the other four weapons) so the humans that he brought in actually stand a chance. The other First Dragons followed suit; giving humans some of their blood to grant them abilities including the use of Dragon Veins. The war ends, and the Rainbow Dragon, for bringing war to humanity, is cursed to live in atonement forever as the Rainbow Sage until peace can be brought to humanity. 
  3. The twelve eventually start to experience degeneration. To escape it, they leave Fateslandia. Anankos, however, stays with the people of Valla that he's grown attached to. He creates that magic song, and makes the pendant out of half of a dragonstone (why there would be dragonstones in a continent without manaketes is never explained) so that the royal family of Valla, who have some of his blood, can use the song to calm him down. But, unfortunately, it is not a permanent solution, and Anankos slowly goes increasingly mad. 
  4. The last part of his rational mind gets split off from him and becomes a humanoid being that his insane self tries to kill. His sane self falls in love with Mikoto and becomes the father of Corrin.
  5. Corrin has enough uber-dragon blood from being half-First Dragon that he is essentially a less-refined version of a manakete. So he does need a dragonstone, otherwise he can't control when he transforms, and his animal instincts override his rational mind whenever he transforms, both of which are what happened in chapter 4. 

Interestingly, Anankos' degeneration more resembles senility than the Archanea version, which resembles caving into animal instincts and losing one's sapience. Whether that's a way in which the Fates version is different, or if it's a result of Anankos' old age combined with the degeneration, rather than the degeneration itself, is unclear. But this could explain how he apparently still has enough of his mind to scheme and plot, unlike even Mila and Duma.

Given how they worry Tiki will destroy the world with her power, I'd argue the degeneration actually afflicted the young more than the old in a reversal of most illness.

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1 hour ago, Jotari said:

The other divine dragons over used their dragon stones and died. Gotoh and Xane willing got rid of theirs.

Really; I thought for sure that their story was that their stones were destroyed. As for the other divine dragons, I didn't think they overused their stones; I thought they just died in battle while holding back the Earth Dragons. Then again, I don't think Shadow Dragon and New Mystery are entirely clear on those details, plus the person telling Marth all this is Xane, who isn't exactly a reliable narrator.

 

1 hour ago, Jotari said:

Given how they worry Tiki will destroy the world with her power, I'd argue the degeneration actually afflicted the young more than the old in a reversal of most illness.

I figured that that has more to do with Tiki's level of power having the potential to one day surpass Naga's. Her level of power is such that, even with a dragonstone sealing away most of it, she's still in a lot of danger given how much power the stone's having to seal away.

By the way, is the information about Loptyr that I mentioned correct? 

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6 hours ago, vanguard333 said:

Really; I thought for sure that their story was that their stones were destroyed. As for the other divine dragons, I didn't think they overused their stones; I thought they just died in battle while holding back the Earth Dragons. Then again, I don't think Shadow Dragon and New Mystery are entirely clear on those details, plus the person telling Marth all this is Xane, who isn't exactly a reliable narrator.

 

I figured that that has more to do with Tiki's level of power having the potential to one day surpass Naga's. Her level of power is such that, even with a dragonstone sealing away most of it, she's still in a lot of danger given how much power the stone's having to seal away.

By the way, is the information about Loptyr that I mentioned correct? 

Well you said Loptyr fled Archanea when instead Galle found him on that continent.

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