Headscratchers / Fire Emblem: Awakening

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General/Unsorted Headscratchers

• Why is Olivia not acting all shy or nervous around Henry like she does with everyone else in the Support conversations?
  • Considering she supports with him the fastest, it's probably a hint that this is the closest one would get to a 'canon' pairing with her.
    • She actually supports with Lon'qu the fastest, Henry supports with Lissa much faster, and it all shows, unlike most if you pay attention it actually seems like they're falling in love not just friends then suddenly love, Ricken and Nowi are also most compatible with each other.
    • Incorrect. Lon'qu, due to his gynophobia, doesn't have any fast supports with women, and Henry's fastest support is in fact with Olivia.
  • Rule of Cautious Editing Judgement noted. Olivia probably wasn't afraid of offending Henry because she didn't like him at first. She said he was the creepy kid who loved blood, after all. She got used to him later.
• Why was Virion in Ylisse to begin with? Was Rosanne already under siege by Walhart at the beginning of the game?
  • Probably. By the time Chrom's army even gets to Valm, it's almost entirely taken over, and most of the rebel forces except for Say'ri have given up. Logically speaking Walhart had to have started his conquest a while ago, and given Virion's early appearance, Rosanne was probably one of the first (if not the first) territories to be captured.
  • Yup, from Panne's supports, which can occur before the Valm arc, she confirms that Virion is infamous as the coward who fled from Rosanne as soon as Walhart started his campaign. During the events of Gangrel's arc, Rosanne was already being overtaken. Virion's still quite haughty for a man who has lost everything.
• One question: when Chrom and co go to Regna Ferox, why did nobody tell Maribelle (who left the Shepards Garrison room after Vaike burped in repulse) about the expedition?! If they did, she wouldn't have been kidnapped, and the Ylissean-Plegian war wouldn't have started sooner!
  • Because Maribelle isn't a member of the Shepherds. She's a close friend of Lissa, and was explicitly waiting for her to get back.
  • But wasn't she technically part of the Shepherds initially? You know, as a horseback healer, even before Chapter 5?
  • Point taken. I actually looked back over and noticed she is frequently described as a Shepherd. It's possible that Chrom doesn't always take everyone with him; he left Ricken behind (though that was because of his age), and meant to leave Sumia behind.
    • I see what you mean. Maybe it's because Chrom already has one healer (Lissa) in the party, and thought that adding Maribelle would be redundant. Besides, Clerics and Troubadours can't attack, so having multiple might be a liability.
    • But if what if Lissa dies during the expedition?! There wouldn't be anyone left to heal the party members without wasting healing items! It's always good to have an extra healer just in case!
  • It's also a diplomatic expedition, so it might be Chrom thinking that taking too many soldiers along would be seen as an attack. Or, if he knew of Regna Ferox's battle culture, it might be seen as taking many weak soldiers to appear strong.
  • Or the Shepherds are doing more things off-screen in other places.
• The wording of the Avatar's ending (paired or otherwise) always confused me. It says that scholars wrote of his/her legendary exploits, but this is supposed to show the character's ending, what they did after the war. Does this somehow imply that the Avatar had other adventures after the Grima Wars? Or are the exploits referred to in the ending the Grima Wars themselves? The tense here confused me because all of the other endings referred to what the characters did afterwards, not how history remembered them. Furthermore, is there any reason suggested as to why the accounts of the Avatar's character are so vague (aside from their love for their spouse if they had one)?
  • The vagueness adds a sense of mystery to the character, implying that the Avatar is so extraordinary that no one could agree on what was fiction and what was true. All in all, their epilogue is deliberately vague to leave what the future holds for the Avatar up to the player's imagination. After all, the future is full of possibilities when you Screw Destiny as hard as the Avatar.
    • Also so they can get away with having all the different ways you can make Avatar look. I personally believe that since you are supposed to envision yourself as the Avatar, giving him/her a specific ending would break that for several people who view their Avatar differently.
• Why does the Falchion randomly glow?
  • Maybe it was sensing Grima's blood in the Avatar and was reacting to it as a type of warning?
  • This could also have something to do with Aether activating.
  • I assumed it was because the past was being changed, and the times it glowed marked points when current events made a significant divergence from what originally happened. For instance, it glows during the assassination attempt on Emmeryn. She was supposed to have died, which had a massive impact on the future Lucina comes from, but the presence of Lucina and Robin changes the course of history.
• Why did "Marth" choose to defeat Lon'qu and fight on behalf of Basilio against Chrom?
  • Perhaps in Lucina's future Chrom fought Lon'qu, lost, Basilio remained Khan and refused to provide Feroxi aid for the war, and somehow or another this led to the bad future?
  • Or Marth made the same deal with Basilio that Chrom made with Flavia, so that no matter who won, Ylisse would get Ferox's support, with the actual fight being little more than formality (or, see below).
  • Or alternately, Lucina just wanted a chance to test herself against her father without revealing her identity or alienating him.
  • Doesn't really explain why "Marth" will quite happily kill him and other important members of the party, which is completely at odds with the mission.
    • Though it would actually make sense if she tried to kill the Avatar then-and-there, given what happens later on.
    • At that point in time, “Marth” didn’t know who the avatar was, or how Grima would come to be.
  • A man◊ga◊ included in Nintendo Dream in Japan confirms that "Marth" first came to Regna Ferox looking for one of the Fire Emblem jewels, but became Basilio's champion, hoping to test "himself" against Chrom.
• Where did Grima come from? If he's an Earth Dragon, then how did he/she/it come about since the Earth Dragons were sealed away?
  • The Binding Shield was separated from its orbs (again), which weakened the seal on them (again).
  • That still raises the questions on where the degenerated dragons went, and why the Table and the emblem changed function.
  • Echoes explains where Grima came from. However, that still leaves the question of what happened to all of the Earth Dragons if the seal was removed...
• How are Grima and Robin connected? Was Grima reincarnated as Robin after losing against Naga and the First Exalt with the Awakening Ceremony, letting Robin regain memories, powers, etc. from centuries back? Was Grima lying dormant in Robin and then merged with them? Was Grima somewhere else and took over Robin through the ceremony?
  • Are you familiar with the continuity of Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War and Thracia 776? This whole thing works pretty much exactly like the Holy Blood system, with the Avatar being a non-evil Julius of sorts. To elaborate, Manakete can drop parts of their essence into other things. If they put it in items, they become artifacts, like Tyrfing or Falchion. They can also use this to create blood pacts with humans, giving them Holy Blood that they can pass on to their descendents and that allows them to channel these artifacts to their full power. By doing this, they obtain a limited connection with the person or object in question. Forseti could communicate with Lewyn through his spell tome, and even possessed him when he died. Of Julius, what we know is that he was a fairly normal child who could occasionally have strange moments of sadism until he took up the tome of Loptous and became his true reincarnation. So he was himself, but also a small bit of Loptous until then. The Avatar has no such connection to Grima via objects, only through blood. Presumably, Validar or one of his ancestors made a blood pact with Grima until they could breed a perfect vessel with enough Holy Blood to truly channel him (the stronger the Holy Blood, the stronger the connection). The point is that technically, the Avatar was only a small fragment of Grima. This is why they could be controlled by him to some extent, but not truly overcome unless they gave in and became the vessel, like the Hierophant. That said, this all becomes horribly headache-inducing once we favor in the whole time travel elements.
    • The Holy Blood idea makes a ton of sense considering certain revelations in Echoes. Considering Forneus gave Grima some of his own blood, it's highly likely that the modern-day Grimleal (or at least Robin's family) is descended from him, explaining the connection.
  • Although, it should be noted that Validar says that Robin has the soul of Grima, Robin says that he/she is the Fell Dragon, while the Hierophant also says that Robin has the heart of Grima while speaking as if he/she was seperate from the Fell Dragon even after going through a successful Awakening ceremony (with how he/she refers to Grima's power). As such, going by all of these, the way it seems to be is that apparently Grima's soul/heart/whatever went with the body of Validar's child, and in the event of a successful Awakening ceremony he/she well, awakens.
  • The Future Past 3 proves that Robin and Grima have separate souls, so Robin isn't a reincarnation of Grima or something like that.
  • The Heart of Grima was a figure of speech, note Validar also mentions Robin having all the markings. In Spotpass content, they even confirm it's the same as Holy Blood. Basically, Grima put some power in Robin's ancestor, Validar and his ancestors only got part of it, and Robin got the whole thing allowing Grima to possess him/her. As to why Grima doesn't just use a dragonstone like every other dragon, maybe no one really knows?
• How could Cynthia confuse the boss of her recruitment chapter for Chrom if he's her father? Did she somehow never see Chrom in person even though she isn't that much younger than Lucina (who remembered Chrom teaching her how to fight), never saw any depictions of him, and nobody who knew him personally described how he looked or acted?
  • Rule of Funny.
    • Which in itself doesn't seem like a particularly good explanation.
  • It could be that she's a fair amount younger than Lucina. I don't think any of the future children's ages are actually specified, plus Cynthia is one of the younger-looking ones (in my opinion, anyway). She could have been just young enough when Chrom died that her memories of him are kind of fuzzy. Cynthia does remember the nickname he had for her, but I guess that could very easily be chalked up to Rule of Funny.
    • This explanation doesn't work because Sumia says that she and Cynthia are "almost the same age". So unless Sumia is ALSO younger than Lucina, Cynthia can't be too much younger than Lucina.
    • There's no definite time given when Cynthia arrived in the past. For all we know, she could have been originally younger than Lucina before they went back, and Cynthia arrived a few years earlier than Lucina. There really doesn't have to be that much of a difference between Cynthia and Lucina's ages, anyway. Humans can't remember anything before a certain age, and Lucina could have been slightly older than that when Chrom dies, and Cynthia slightly younger.
    • As for the nickname, Cynthia could be testing Chrom to see if he really cared enough for her to call her that. Other theories include Cynthia's only memory of Chrom was him calling her that, or Chrom called her that before he died and Lucina and/or Owain kept on calling her that so that she would keep Chrom's memory alive.
  • Another question is how the idea that the bandit leader was Chrom to begin with popped into Cynthia's head. I mean, he does tell Cynthia not to call him Chrom in front of his men, implying that he wasn't the one who came up with it. Could Cynthia have just asked him if he was Chrom, or did he just pretend to be him?
    • He does run around convincing the neutral units on the map that he's Chrom. That seems to imply he's pretending to be Chrom for a little while, at least, even if it wasn't originally his idea.
    • It may help that Cynthia and the rest of that band are located on an isolated little island near the Valmese continent...cut off from both places, perhaps?
  • And then there's the question of how the townspeople mistook Chrom for his imposter at first sight. Before the stage begins, Chrom and the army get locked out of the town shops because of Ruger's (the imposter's) actions. So it's implied that Ruger really did look a lot like Chrom. Also, on the Fridge page, there's an alternate theory that states that since bandits reuse portraits, Ruger probably did look like Chrom. But then at the end of the chapter, Frederick says that he would post pictures of Chrom so that no one would try to imitate him again. Which wouldn't help if Ruger looked just like Chrom.
  • You can look similar to someone, but not exactly like someone. That's why there are things called "impersonators". Ruger could have likely had a similar build/facial structure/hair color as Chrom, but not exactly the same as him. Frederick's comment is along the lines of "this will help people know exactly how Chrom looks like, so bandits won't try that again."
  • Kingdoms used to mint coins with the faces of their rulers on them. Chrom at this point is the ruler of Ylisse, so they probably know his face from the coins. You can't get too much detail on coins, so Ruger probably looked close enough like Chrom in profile.
• Is there any particular reason why Inigo's father supports always mention Lucina? With Chrom, it would make sense because Lucina would be Inigo's sister in that case. But what about if Chrom's not the father? It just seems odd to that Inigo's father would bring up Lucina, let alone criticize Inigo for not being more like her otherwise.
  • Because Lucina is the only mandatory 2nd generation character, and could always be someone else Inigo would be compared to, in case none of the other characters were recruited.
    • Seems to make sense. But there's the whole issue about being compared to someone who probably wouldn't get much of a chance to know Lucina. The mention of Lucina in Inigo's father supports just seems odd in all but every possible outcome but one. (Read: Again, if he's Chrom's son, the support doesn't seem as odd.) I guess this is more fridge logic than anything.
  • Apperently, Henry is the only one out of Inigo's father options that doesn't mention Lucina. Which begs the question: Wouldn't it have made more sense for Henry's conversation with Inigo to be the generic one, and the conversation where Lucina's mentioned to be exclusive to Inigo's supports with Chrom?
  • Well, the Avatar definitely knows who Lucina is, regardless of his/her relationship to Chrom because of the scene with Lucina meeting her mother, and Gerome and Laurent's fathers speak as if they met her before. My headcanon is that after Chapter 13, Chrom had to introduce Lucina to the rest of the Shepherds and explain why she's in the present time. So it's not too farfetched that the other fathers (and some of the mothers) know who Lucina is.
• So Grima is an evil, super-powerful Dragon that will basically kill almost everybody in Ylisse and Valm, alongside the Risen. So, why is Validar so eager to do all of this when it could bring his death? What's in it for him and the Grimleal?
  • The same that was in it for Sephiran, and the same that was in it for Neo Exdeath: NOTHING.
  • You can't really apply logic to the actions of fanatical cultists...
    • Validar and Grima always read to me like Abdul Alhazred and Cthulhu/Yog-Sothoth. We simply cannot understand the motives of a being such as Grima on account of it being an Eldritch Abomination. Also, if Validar was raised by the Grimleal as part of their Super Breeding Program, that implies he would have undergone years of Mind Rape to brainwash him into being a faithful servant of Grima's.
    • Speaking of this, apart from all of the Mind Rape implications in the Grimleal explaining a lot, it's also possible that Forneus's goal of creating a super-powerful army, as seen in Echoes, was passed down through the Grimleal, but just horribly warped over time.
  • Considering what the original timeline was like, it's likely that the "logic" is that Grima eats them first so that they don't have to suffer through all the destruction he causes.
  • They do mention fate being unchangeable, but the Grimleal do all they can to help Grima, even defending him in the last chapter.
• Speaking of Grima, is he Medeus with his name changed over the years or some other dragon of the Earth Tribe? The wording is a bit too vague for me.
  • Probably not. There's a WMG that Grima is actually Loptous that goes into further detail about that.
  • Echoes explains this. Grima is actually an artificial dragon created by a Mad Scientist. Though he does have some similarities to both Medeus and Loptous, so it's still possible he has some connection to Earth Dragons via Forneus.
• So... how the hell did the Avatar survive in the end? How long did it take to return?
  • Why, the Power of Friendship of course! Friendship can do anything. Literally, anything. Judging from how Lissa still looks very young, it's likely Chrom and Lissa find the Avatar not very long after defeating Grima.
  • Other stories have had similar things as this. Think of what happens in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. As Robin has a portion of Grima in themselves/is a vessel of Grima, striking the final blow against Grima could cause a backlash into the "main" soul, destroying it.
  • Or for that matter, Final Fantasy VI. When Kefka is defeated and magic disappears, Terra loses her Esper side, but her human side is strong enough to keep living as a normal person. Similarly, when Grima dies, the Avatar's connection to him is severed (hence why s/he doesn't have the Mark of Grima anymore), but the Avatar's humanity (cultivated from the time he/she spent apart from Grima) is enough to keep him/her alive independently.
  • Same with Luvbi from Super Paper Mario. In the game Luvbi is a Pure Heart that was given physical form to protect it. Through the years as an angel her parents grew to love her like a daughter and she returned their love. After the events of Chapter 7 she disappeared, supposedly for good, after returning to her original form. However, she unexpectedly comes back to life later in the game. Although the game itself never outright states it, she was most likely brought back by the love given to her by her parents and friends. Her bond with them allowed her to continue to exist outside of being a Pure Heart, which is a solid form of love in of itself.
• In the final battle, while the heroes are fighting on Grima's back, why didn't Grima just do a barrel roll? Quick, easy deaths for everyone.
  • Because the only rabbits around to tell him about that option also happen to be fighting against him, and they're sure not going to tell him how to beat them.
  • A few reasons I assume: 1) The Avatar is also on his back — that'd surely kill them, too. 2) The other Avatar is also on his back, and doing a barrel roll will probably send them off, too.
  • Naga would probably find some way to intervene and keep the playing field even.
  • Grima is huge, remember. Agility is probably not his strong point.
    • Size isn't an issue here. Look at Deathwing. His size is estimated to be at least 800ft long, and he can do a barrel roll during his raid fight when the players are on his back. Grima doesn't do that likely because of the aforementioned reasons.... and Grima might not be too bright either.
  • It's mentioned that the Avatar was holding him back.
  • Future Grima, the possessed Bad Future Robin seemed to be the only thing holding the dragon Grima together without Robin as a host. Note that future Grima directs the present one with his movements like a puppeteer or conductor and that killing him destroys the present one too. There's no evidence pointing to possessed Robin being able to fly, so doing a barrel roll would cause Future Grima a Disney Villain Death and thus lead to present Grima's death too.
• Libra is often mentioned praying to gods and often uses "In Naga's name." Which would be fine, as he's a religious man, but he's also an Ylissean priest and one that is supposed to be directly supporting Emmeryn. Emmeryn is a follower of Naga and considered to be part of the Divine Dragon's chosen bloodline. So.. who exactly is Libra praying to? And why, when his closest "god" is a female dragon?
  • What's the problem here? He went to help save Emmeryn as part of his duties as priest, and he believes in Naga as much as any of the other Ylissean religious person. Just because Naga herself denies any claims of divinity, doesn't mean nobody, Libra included, believes in her as a god.
    • Now I'm picturing Naga as Brian from Monty Python's Life of Brian.
• Anyone else find it rather odd that Say'ri has so little support options for where she joins in the game? Especially since the second generation does? I'm not say, wondering why she wasn't the mother of a second generation character sans Morgan (since I think she actually died in the Bad Future the children came from, meaning she couldn't have had any kids to begin with.) She joins only a short while after Cherche, so how come her only support options are with the Avatar, Morgan, and Tiki?
  • Either A: The Dev Team ran out of ideas, or B: Say'ri is so foreign the only person she can relate to is the Avatar, her kid, and... Tiki.
    • I personally think it might be A, but B could be a good justification in-universe. Her being able to support with Tiki makes sense (after all, it was Say'ri who told Chrom's army to go look for her in the first place), but still, she probably would have a few things to say to Cherche given that she was from Valm more recently. (Virion had moved over to Ylisse over two years ago)
  • The above also doesn't explain why Say'ri can't make support conversations with Lon'qu - who is a compatriot. And before anyone talks about Lon'qu's aversion to women, he is able to have S Support with women outside of his country.
  • I think it's as you said, and because she died in the alternate future. The chapter with Yen'fay as the boss isn't too far ahead of her recruitment, so it might be possible that she didn't have much time to talk with that many people aside from the supports she does have.
  • It is possible in the original timeline that Say'ri never meets Chrom's army and therefore she does not have a child in the future or at least a child familiar with Lucina and the others.
  • Even then, why couldn't she have a Support with the alternate Dimension Yen'fay?
    • This one is a little easier to answer. Yen'fay states in his recruitment that he is not Say'ri's brother. They probably can't support because Yen'fay doesn't want get close to her.
• Walhart's empire's army being a million strong. That's not the problem. While a very high number, he is the ruler of an entire continent, and given his attitude, there presumably are pretty extensive recruitment laws. The problem is how this army is being defeated so easily by Chrom's band and a few thousand Feroxi redshirts. Even with the Avatar's genius strategizing, even with Yen'fay holding back, even with the support of the rebels, which are said to be hundreds of thousands (except then they turn against you too...), even with public support and all that, this sort of victory is hard to swallow. The thing is that even if the Avatar sabotages communication and sows disorder and everything, all it would take is a fraction of this number to crush the heroes. Just five percent should be sufficient to outnumber and outmaneuver them. It would be easier to believe if Walhart's troops were said to be mostly cheap, inexperienced recruits, but they explicitly point out that his forces have excellent equipment and training, as well as soaring morale. Even with each of Chrom's soldiers being a One-Man-Army, they would have to kill thousands of people each to balance this out. Just taking Steiger or Walhart's castle should have been impossible by sheer numbers of defenders alone.
  • Perhaps for some reason not all of the defenders were at the castle during the time of the attack. Others could have switched sides or abandoned the cause, like during the first war against Gangrel.
  • They could also be exaggerating.
  • Valm is a gigantic continent. With recently conquered states that may rebel at any time if they sense weakness, a million soldiers have to be spread out throughout the entire continent. How many soldiers does it take to occupy a chaotic and hostile nation? A million soldiers doesn't seem like enough for a continent that big and that recently conquered.
  • A few of the Avatar's schemes involve having a large force (Basilio, Flavia, the rest of the army) distract and fight the Valmese army outside while a small force (your units) attacks the fortress. Off-screen fighting.
  • It's implied that Ylisse has more than just the Shepherds as an army. Several generic soldiers appear on occasion, such as Lon'qu and Vaike's Harvest Scramble conversation.
  • When Basilio and Flavia charge north, they could have been in a few skirmishes.
  • They might be busy conquering somewhere else?
  • Bandits.
  • Or a combination of all of the above.
• As far as I've understood, Validar is the father of the Avatar. Doesn't this mean that Morgan and possibly one of the other children are related by blood to Validar?
  • Yes, so? Doesn't really have any practical effect. They can be related to Naga too if the Avatar marries Tiki, Chrom, or one of Chrom's relatives.
• A little curious about the censorship for the Summer Scramble DLC. Tharja's swimsuit-clad butt is blocked by a cloak, yet Nowi talks on and on about her "boingy bits" and feels her up in her sleep. Then again, it's possible the censors did some sort of trade-off. "Boingy bits are fine, but no butt cracks". Though that still doesn't explain Cordelia's top coming off...
  • Censorship, by its very nature, is inexact and arbitrary. Somebody apparently decided that a shot of Tharja's bikini-clad behind would set off Moral Guardian overreactions more readily than a fairly easily missed pair of conversations regarding Tharja's boobs (for the US version at least, the EU changes it to her hair). It's illogical, but that's the way censors know some people have weird standards, so they tend to be paranoid.
  • Also remember that there's a lot of Values Dissonance in censorship. In America, fanservicy images like Tharja's swimsuit scene sometimes get games as high as M ratings, wheras Euroupe has no problem with visual fanservice unless there's explicit sex involved.
  • Besides the censorship on that scene makes it look like instead of adjusting her swimsuit, she's getting ready to Going Commando. Which is even better.
• So, where precisely do the Risen come from anyway? Presumably, they are a result of Grima's presence. But Grima's not awakened in the past yet. So, are they invading from the future? Or are Validar and the Grimleal making them?
  • They are from the future. They are seen first emerging from the same portal that brings Lucina back in time. IIRC, they are supposed to be the reanimated corpses of soldiers that died fighting against Grima in Lucina's bad future timeline.
  • Seems like a case of Nice Job Breaking It, Hero on Naga's part: she let the Risen AND Future Grima return to the past. But since this ultimately allowed Lucina to avert the Bad Future, it's all good.
  • Though some came from the future, it's implied that not all of them did. If you remember, Aversa was shown controlling and summoning them seemingly out of nowhere around Chapter 9. It's implied that the Grimleal are able to control and maybe even create them with dark magic. That, or Aversa was simply given that ability after Grima decided to interfere in the timeline.
    • Henry also mentions figuring out how to summon Risen in his supports with Robin, so the idea of the Grimleal being able to create/control Risen seems pretty plausible.
    • Also it seems like at least a good amount of Risen who were people that were killed and revived as Risen so some of the Risen could be fallen soldiers who were revived as Risen.
  • You're questioning where bloody zombies are coming from in a video game? Really?
• In Hot Spring Scramble, why does Anna make Lucina dye her hair? I get the dyeing thing with Severa and Owain, so they don't have to make a different CG slide for every possible parent and hair color combination, but Lucina's hair is already and exclusively blue!
  • Presumably this is to make it slightly less obvious as to WHY they're doing the dyes for the other characters. Dyeing the other characters and not Lucina would make it more obvious.
  • Well, for what it's worth, the dye does make Lucina's hair look a little shinier and darker than usual. I guess Anna was just trying to be dramatic and didn't want to exclude Lucina?
    • I think it's just a case of Anna trying to sell Lucina something she doesn't need.
• In-universe, Lucina explains her reasoning for becoming "Marth". But did that plot element accomplish anything progress-wise in the greater scale? She loses the disguise fairly early and people still don't figure out her identity. The Mark of Naga is only visible if one goes really close, and Falchion makes Chrom scratch his head, but he still doesn't figure it out until she accidentally calls him Father. So, why make Lucina "Marth" and not just style her as "that mysterious female warrior" from the start? Were they just trying to gain more awareness this way because Marth is popular in Japan?
  • It is almost certain that the primary reason for the disguise was to appeal to Marth fans. Story-wise, since Awakening is a distant future sequel to Shadow Dragon, the writers probably wanted as many ways as possible to make that clear, such as bringing ancient hero Marth into the story somehow. Honestly, though, aside from adding an interesting, mysterious character to the first half of the game, Lucina's disguise didn't accomplish anything, but it's justified since Lucina was afraid of creating time paradoxes, which ultimately were nothing to worry about due to the Outrealm mechanic.
  • It also works as a misdirection for people who haven't played the game. Look at the cover. Seeing a mysterious masked man going in the opposite direction as Chrom and friends makes him look a lot like a villain, or at least someone with ulterior motives. This is reinforced when he introduces himself as Marth and has knowledge of the future, with the added benefit of his being Marth making us not question his hair color being identical to Chrom's. Now imagine that, instead, on the cover and throughout the game, it was a random young woman with the exact same hair color as Chrom. Just looking at the cover, people would likely assume that Lucina was either a younger sister or daughter of Chrom, which would be reinforced as soon as she started helping them. Plus, it allowed there to be multiple reveals about her character, instead of just one big one.
  • She may have wanted to avoid a named-after-herself situation. Or even risk having her parents decide to not name her Lucina, and to give her a name not related to the mystery warrior they met a few times.
• Am I the only one bothered by how many people are claiming Henry is a Stepford Smiler? Seriously, there's NOTHING in his support conversations (English OR Japanese) that suggest he's faking his cheerful personality. Especially in his supports with Olivia. Olivia came across as bossy and unhelpful, as if she could know Henry better than he knew himself. Her stupid ploy of randomly getting cursed to force an emotional reaction out of Henry came off as terribly manipulative rather than actually helping him. Clearly there are things in Henry's past that make him sad (the murder of his wolf friend, being sent to horrible schools/institutions), but I don't see why that HAS to mean he's obviously crying weepy tears deep inside his soul. Why can't people have a horrible past, but still turn out cheerful and optimistic? Is it because of Henry's morbid fascination with fighting and blood and so on? It seriously grinds my gears when people claim Olivia was "oh so helpful" and claiming their supports were heartwarming, because it's not. It's manipulative BS. Their S support in English was way better, where Olivia admits she was wrong and apologizes for doing what she did.
  • This is better suited for YMMV because it is mostly an opinion rather than a question that wants an answer. However, I agree that Henry is not a Stepford Smiler and is simply a bit insane. At least in the English translation. Apparently in the original Japanese version, he is a stepford smiler, so... maybe a little of both?
  • It's most likely just Flanderization on the fans' part; people took Henry admitting that he's not perfectly happy about his past in the Japanese version and ran with it. And as for the Henry/Olivia supports, I don't know about the Japanese version, but the English version comes off like it's parodying the "troubled guy becomes a better person because of the pure girl's love" cliche (granted, by the time Henry was recruited in my file, I'd already gotten Olivia married to Lon'qu, so I've headcanoned her supports with Henry as her maternal instincts kicking into high gear, but I digress).
• A little bit of a question, a little bit of something that just sort of bugs me... In the game, it is specifically mentioned that if the Avatar's ties to her/his companions are strong enough, s/he could conceivably be brought back from being Deader than Dead. Okay, cool. I can roll with that. I am a sucker for happy endings. What bothers me is that you don't have to earn it. If you leave all of your Avatar's supports with every single character at zero — which, granted, would take almost as much effort as maxing them all out — they will still survive. I really feel like there should have been some sort of condition for survival, such as requiring the Avatar to have at least B-level support with, say, half or more of the allies s/he has recruited by the time of the final chapter. Considering such an emphasis was put on the fact that strong ties were needed for the Avatar to survive, it struck me as strange that it didn't matter whether or not you'd put any effort at all into actually forming strong bonds between the Avatar and the other characters.
  • That would have been a fantastic dynamic to add to the ending, but it seems like the developers wanted to make sure the game had a happy ending no matter what. The ending itself is an example of Gameplay and Story Segregation, but could be justified that the player bonded with each character instead of their Avatar.
  • Even if you do not get all or none of the supports, you still bond with the Shepherds over the course of the game by leading them into victory against nearly impossible odds and not getting them killed (especially in a no causalities run). The supports is more like extras to learn more about the characters and make them become even closer, but they still trust and love the Avatar given all the crap they are put through together. Fire-Forged Friends afterall.
• In one of Henry's support conversations, he mentions that the reason he warned the group about Emmeryn's execution was because he didn't want to prematurely end a perfectly good war. The problem is that, as far as I can tell, he didn't warn them. He first appears two years after Emmeryn's death, and no mention of him is made at any point before that. It can't even be assumed that he was the one who warned Basilio's spy about the execution off-screen, either, as the spy specifically said that he heard about the execution straight from Gangrel's mouth. So is this possibly a bit of leftover dialogue that the writers didn't catch from an earlier script where Henry showed up before Emmeryn's death rather than after the Time Skip, or am I missing something?
  • The person he warned was Panne, and that was the reason why she showed up in the palace during the attempted assassination.
    • Oh! Thank you, that makes so much more sense now.
• Why doesn't Lissa have the Brand of the Exalt anywhere on her body? It kinda bugs me that she doesn't have it. Is the implication that she's unworthy for some reason?
  • As explained by Owain, who does have it, it was mere chance that Lissa did not inherit the brand. A one in a thousand coincidence.
  • It could also be that she does have the Brand — but it's in a place that can't be seen outwardly; maybe on her heart or something. Since Lucina has the brand on her eye, it can clearly appear anywhere on the body without causing discomfort.
    • This might be supported by something Owain says in his paralogue. While it could just be some weird wording, he specifically says Lissa's Brand never "surfaced", so maybe all of the royal family has the brand even if it can't actually be seen.
    • Adding onto the "surfaced" idea, it could have surfaced in a part of her body that could be seen, but it surfaced in a part of her body that's always covered up and she also can't see. Such as her buttocks. I'm guessing that if it surfaced, it would have been after she was old enough to bathe herself, so no one else could see. Except possibly her husband.
    • Thanks for that.
    • So you're saying Lissa could potentially have a tramp-stamp? Hot.
    • The problem with that is surely her husband would have told her it existed, especially if he knew about her anxieties about her legitimacy. And I find it unlikely that he never noticed, especially if he married her before the time skip, which would mean he somehow missed it for three years.
  • Guys... Maybe I just have a weirder mind than you but couldn't it be on her scalp? If you can't see it from the start or it moves after a while if she had it under her hair I doubt anyone would see it after she was at best a couple of months old.
    • A logical place for it to be, but it also seems likely that people would've noticed it when Lissa was a baby, depending on how light/fine her hair was then.
    • It's hinted in Fates that the Brand doesn't always appear right away. If what you say is possible, then it probably didn't appear until after Lissa's hair came in and it wouldn't be seen.
• Why do anti-mounted weapons work on taguel characters class changed to human classes? Anti-dragon weapons still working on class changed manaketes makes sense, because they're pretty blatantly magical weapons. But all the anti-mounted weapons are physically designed to be super effective vs cavalry, and while a shapeshifted taguel is close enough shapewise for that to make sense, there's no reason for Rapiers to be super effective lethal vs Panne as a thief but not other thieves.
  • The "anti-mounted" weapons are actually anti-animal weapons. Even when she's not turning into a Killer Rabbit, Panne is still blatantly part-animal. You might as well ask why rapiers are effective against horsemen in the first place.
• So, Grima ended up in the past because he followed Lucina back, right? Yet Robin loses his/her memories, which specifically happened because of Grima, shortly before Lucina shows up. Am I missing something obvious here, or is this supposed to imply that Grima just got paranoid and went back a little earlier than he thought would be necessary?
  • If Naga can't control the exact time and place the children landed in the past, I don't see how Grima, an equally powerful godlike dragon, would. He just happened to pop up in the past before Lucina did.
  • Maybe it was present Grima that attempted the possession?
• This is more of a gameplay question, but with stat caps, how are max-stat children stronger than max-stat parents?
  • For details on modifiers. But basically, children's modifiers are determined by this formula: Mother's Modifiers + Father's Modifier's + 1 for each stat.
    • Going on a bit of a tangent, it can also be explained in-universe, as the children have all been fighting the risen from a young age, while the Shepherds didn't have to deal with anything more threatening than a bandit until Lucina turned up. Presumably they would have been taught to fight by their parents before they died, explaining why they get modifiers to the same stats that their parents use.
• Nah's age doesn't make sense with how Manakete's aging works. Nowi is stated to be over 1,000 and looks like a child. Nah actually looks older than her mother. It's been stated Manaketes age very oddly, apparently every thousand years is about ten years for humans. This might get chalked up to her being half-human, but still...
  • This reminds me of how mythical creatures like vampires and demons usually work. They age normally until they reach a sufficiently mature age, then they age slowly. For Manaketes, maybe that age is 10?
  • Considering how there are several conversations (both DLC and Supports) about Nah's hybrid nature, it's probably safe to chalk up her aging to being half-human too, even if it's not stated directly.
  • I have a hypothesis that manaketes age at around the same rate as humans until they first use a dragonstone. There's no in universe proof, but it does make Nah's growth make a bit more sense.
• Why didn't Chrom and co. suspect the Avatar's origins from the beginning? His/her coat shares distinct similarities with the outfits of Henry and Tharja, right down to the colour and creepy eye motif, so it's safe to say it's a Plegian thing. It's understandable that Chrom might be ignorant of Plegian fashion, but you'd think Emmeryn, who would be educated in the appearances and culture of her increasingly hostile western neighbour, would figure something was up.
  • Well, in the prologue, Frederick identifies the bandits based on their accent, but nobody ever makes any such comments about Robin. I guess because Robin doesn't sound Plegian, perhaps everyone just assumed that Robin either a) only has some heritage and doesn't support them (since obviously, they're helping the Shepherds), or b) studied/visited Plegia at some point and just happens to like their fashion.
  • This outfit also begs the question; why is Robin wearing said outfit in the first place, if his/her mother ran away from the Grimleal around the time he/she was born?
    • Well... it's never stated when exactly Robin got the outfit, nor do we really know what they were doing in the years between leaving the Grimleal and meeting Chrom. They must be pretty good at hiding from Validar, if it took him that long to find them, so it's entirely possible that they went back to Plegia at some point and got a coat like that while they were there. Misplaced curiosity about their heritage, maybe? It's mostly guessing on my part, but it's possible...
• How is Plegia such a wealthy and militarily powerful nation? They were said to be reeling from the first war just as bad as Ylisse, and yet by the time the game begins they're a very wealthy and powerful nation despite being ruled by The Caligula and situated in desert and wastelands.
  • See the fridge brilliance. Plegia is a port country and is therefore doing quite a bit of trading with the other countries bordering the sea. It isn't completely unreasonable for Plegia to get back on its feet in 15 years. Especially considering Gangrel's exploits.
  • Given that Valm was being conquered at the time, it's likely that Plegia profited off the sidelines for a while.
• Why couldn't Laurent (or any other of the kids in Ylisse, for that matter) have contacted Chrom and co. earlier than his chapter? Why did he go to the desert to look for Miriel, when he could have gone to Ylisstol or the Shepherd's barracks? There has to be some way for the common people to contact the Shepherds for help. Why couldn't Laurent just have left a call?
  • It is quite a far-fetched story. Lucina's brand serves as irrefutable proof that she's of the Exalted line, even if she's not from the future. Laurent has no such proof.
  • But Laurent was waiting for Miriel in his chapter. Had she or Chrom come across him then, before they met Lucina, wouldn't Laurent have tried to join? If he's been so lonely, wouldn't that be more reasonable? He doesn't have to say that he's from the future...
  • Laurent also seemed pretty sure that he wasn't actually going to find anyone. It could be that he'd attempted to find the other kids (or even the Shepherds) but ultimately failed to do so, and then just waited in hopes that they'd end up coming to him.
• In the Avatar's supports with him, why is Gaius so nervous about people knowing that he's marked as a criminal? EVERYONE KNOWS HE'S A THIEF. It's not some big secret. Literally everyone in the army is fully aware of the fact that Gaius is a career criminal, and he has no problem talking about the fact that he steals for a living. Hell, he was recruited because he helped Emmeryn's assassins into the castle. If push came to shove, Chrom has the power to give Gaius an official pardon for any and all crimes he committed before joining the Shepherds, tattoo or no tattoo. So why is it such a big deal that the Avatar saw the tattoo?
  • Perhaps the tattoo on his arm is a mark of a condemned criminal rather than simply a criminal. There's a difference between petty theft and robbing a bank. Maybe the tattoo designates him as a criminal with a bounty, someone involved in assassination or other death-penalty crime, or as armed and dangerous? If Gaius escaped the noose, he could very well still be executed for his crimes. Chrom or Khan Flavia could pardon him, but only as long as Gaius committed his crimes on Ylisseian soil. Plegia or Valm could execute him.
  • Also, very few thieves would want to be publicly recognisable as thieves. It's kinda bad for their business.
• The Einherjar are supposed to be ghosts of fallen heroes, right? So how is there one of the still very-much living Tiki? This one's even lampshaded in-game if you have the two Tikis fight each other in the Lost Bloodlines DLC.
  • The Einherjar are more like living portraits or statues than sealed souls. Old Hubba says that's why there's a Prince Marth and a King Marth.
• Is Panne wearing shorts made of fur or do Taguel grow fur? Yarne seems to be wearing a fur loincloth, but he also has fur (or at least very bushy leg hair) on his legs, so it could be either one.
  • I'm assuming that's actually fur, mainly because of the fact that Taguel do seem to have fur in other places, as well. Also because the idea of Panne (and Yarne) wearing fur just seems a bit... creepy, or at least out of character for them.
• Grima can speak, make plans, etc., while also having his body (instead of being a ghost like Loptous). How is this possible when Medeus was the only Earth Dragon with his body who didn't degenerate since he became a Manakete?
  • Well... Grima isn't an Earth Dragon, exactly, he's an artificially created dragon intended to be a perfect creature, so that might explain part of it. It could be that there was something special about his creation that allowed him to do that.
• How exactly did the assassins get into the castle to assassinate Emmeryn? For that matter, how did Panne get in? Gaius probably helped the assassins in, but how did he get so many people in, even people with horses? If he could get cavaliers into the castle, then why didn't Phila immediately notice that that place was broken into (she says that there will be an investigation afterwards)? Shouldn't it be easy to tell where the castle was broke into? The problem is that all non plot relevant male characters are assumed to be dead, so there's no scene where Gaius confesses or explains...
  • No idea for Panne, but I always assumed that Validar found a way to warp them all in. It may be short-distance, but he does seem to teleport in Chapter 23 after you defeat him the first time, so it's possible the assassins got in that way.
• So. Why can't Chrom marry Tharja, Miriel, or Cordelia? Him being unable to marry Lissa and Cherche is quite obvious, and I can actually understand why they wouldn't make Nowi and Panne options (cutscenes would be difficult to do if there's the chance Lucina could be half taguel or manakete), but why not those three?
  • See the WMG page for details. Tharja would go pretty badly with the rest of the court, not just because of her personality but because she's Plegian. Normally, marrying a Plegian would smoothen diplomatic relations, but if the only known Plegian in the court is a Yandere, then there would be a lot of tension (Robin is Plegian, but they don't know that yet). Cordelia doesn't have an explanation, but Miriel would be a horrible queen. Her methods of solving problems are logical but cold (case in point: her Supports with Libra) and some solutions just won't go well with citizens. There's a difference between "I'm doing this because I know what's best" and "I'm doing this for you."
    • But would Miriel really be that much worse a queen than any of the other options? And would Chrom really be thinking that far ahead instead of choosing based on True Love™?
    • Let's face it though. Queen Miriel would be hilarious.
  • The only explanation I can think of for why Cordelia isn't a possible wife for Chrom is because about half her character revolves around her unrequited love for him, and having Chrom marry Cordelia would defeat the purpose of that.
    • More to the point, many of Cordelia's non-S-rank supports and plenty of her random comments all have to do with her love of Chrom. Having Chrom as a marriage option would break virtually every single support chain that she had (it wouldn't make much sense, for instance, to have Gregor coaching her on how she can attract Chrom's eye if the two of them are already married).
    • Cordelia is also a direct Mythology Gag to Catria from Marth's games. Catria had unrequited feelings for Marth, so Cordelia's unrequited feelings for Chrom had to be preserved.
    • Also, Cordelia is a Jack of All Trades in a lot of what she does...so what if one of the things she isn't good at is ruling? She's pretty anal retentive and a perfectionist, and that kind of attitude makes for a terrible ruler because they constantly look for problems that aren't there. And you can only imagine what Severa would be like as a princess.
  • Hmmm...Cordelia in canon doesn't like being called a genius, and toady nobles would probably lay 'genius queen' on pretty thick. The fact she borders on being a perfectionist likely runs the risk of her trying to do ruling perfectly, which history has shown does not end well. Miriel is not all that people savvy and talkable, and Tharja as Queen is just asking for problems, and nobles turned into toads.
• Why can't Lucina recruit? Okay, I could see why she couldn't recruit Morgan due to the timey wimey bs, but you'd think it'd be easier to recruit the other second gen characters with another character from that gen, one who actually knows what they look like.
  • Because Lucina can be benched on story missions while Chrom can't. The developers wanted to make sure you always have someone who can recruit the child characters in case you forgot to bring their parent or they get indisposed/killed during the mission. Don't get me wrong, Lucina should be able to recruit the second-generation characters (watching her try to figure out third-gen Morgan would be hilarious), but it would have been more writing work, so it's understandable that they just had "canon parent + Chrom."
• Who rules Plegia after Validar's defeat? Would it be the Avatar since technically, as Validar's heir he/she would inherit it? Would it be absorbed into Ylisse? Or would someone else take charge?
  • I imagine someone else would take over since the Avatar doesn't seem like they would be interested in ruling Plegia. It'd make things even harder if the Avatar married Chrom, Lissa, Lucina, or anyone else of royalty.
    • I can see your point about Chrom (and frankly, that'd also apply to Gangrel, Walhart and the Khans), but royal families have intermarried since the dawn of royalty, it wouldn't be that hard if Robin had married, say, Lissa, who's further down the line of succession, or a second gen character, who's technically not in line for this timeline's throne (and if supports are any indication, wouldn't pursue it anyway). If anything it'd just strengthen the Ylissean-Plegian alliance. As for 'the Avatar doesn't seem like he/she'd be interested', well, maybe not your Avatar. I think that's kinda the point of the Avatar role, it can have whatever headcanon you'd like. (I mean, personally, my version of Robin wouldn't particularly want to, but the alternative is civil war in Plegia and possible other nations trying to invade and take Plegia themselves. Better the devil you know, after all.)
  • This is actually somewhat discussed in Gangrel's supports with female Robin, where he considers going back (but ultimately seems to decide not to), for whatever that's worth. Also, speaking of Gangrel, considering how he took the throne, and how Validar obviously isn't related to him, I'd assume that the above troper is right that someone else could rise to power afterwards... Though it wouldn't be surprising at all if other countries did try to have a say in who that was.
• It's repeatedly said on this wiki that it's extremely easy to marry Chrom and a female Avatar by accident if you don't know about the forced marriage. But Female Avatar not only has the lowest auto-marriage priority with Chrom, she also has the slowest support growth with him, meaning if there's any tie in support ranks she will always lose. It seems highly unlikely that she's the one most new players end up with, unless they specifically focus on her and Chrom's supports and intentionally neglect Sully, Sumia and Maribelle's supports with Chrom. (since if any of those three have an equal support rank to the Avatar, they'll marry Chrom) Is neglecting those three (or letting them die) really that common? It seems very unlikely players would get this pairing by accident, at any rate. The vast majority of blind playthroughs This Troper has seen resulted in Chrom accidently marrying Sully, which makes a lot more sense.
  • It's entirely possible to have Sumia, Maribelle, and Sully already married to other potential husbands by the time Chrom has to marry. So, if those three are unavailable and you don't have Chrom get at least 14 support points with Olivia (who would technically have the lowest priority, wouldn't she, since she gets recruited right before Chrom gets married?) in Chapter 11, then he'll end up marrying Robin (unless, of course, you're playing as a male or haven't at least seen Chrom's C support with Fem!Robin, in which case he'll end up married to the Village Maiden, but that's neither here or there). That's the most likely reason for the majority of playthroughs where Chrom accidentally marries Robin, not necessarily because his supports with the other girls were neglected or the girls were killed off.
  • Also, since you don't get Sumia until several chapters in, it's quite possible for Chrom and Robin to have already gotten a Support or two by then. Which, in turn, may lead to players trying to get the rest of the Chrom/Robin conversations, therefore overriding Sumia's priority.
  • Not to mention, Sumia is made of tissue paper when she first joins, so it makes sense you wouldn't keep her on the frontlines with Chrom, allowing the sturdier Avatar and also Sully to fight side by side. Also Maribelle will be healing him a lot, so it's actally pretty easy to bond Chrom with any of his wives. Olivia is by far the hardest because you have to keep her glued by his side all the way through a difficult map.
  • On my first playthrough (having no knowledge of the game beyond what Smash Bros had told me), I ended up with the Avatar married to Chrom. I hadn't put much thought into supports, because I didn't really understand the support system or the team-up system for the first chunk of the game, but because Chrom and the Avatar were obviously the two main characters, and both pretty tough, they ended up fighting alongside each other on the front lines a lot more than anyone else. I'm not saying everyone's going to play like me, but it's clearly far from impossible to marry them without any planning.
• After Grima is defeated, thus averting the Bad Future timeline, why aren't any of the 2nd Generation characters from that timeline (i.e. Lucina, Morgan, Owain, Severa, Inigo, etc.) erased from existence (like what happens in the Back to the Future movies)?
  • Because it's not just the future, it's also a completely separate timeline? Awakening seems to run more on a multiverse (in which different timelines can, admittedly, influence each other), rather than one singular timeline like Back to the Future does. It's averted for Chrom and co., but not for Lucina's group.
• This didn't occur to me until a few times through the game (so I'm not sure if it belongs here or on Fridge Logic), but what exactly was the point of the Bad Future version of Grima/Robin trying to possess present Robin? Grima clearly already has a human host for himself that can access his power, so would he really need to possess present Robin in the first place? Unless he thought that would give him some kind of power boost, but it was kind of unclear.
  • If I remember correctly, Grima!Robin followed Lucina to the past and then he somehow lost a big chunk of his powers because... something... And thought fusing with/possessing the other Robin would allow him to be whole again or something like that. I need to beat the game again to be certain, though.
• Why can Sumia marry Frederick, Gaius and Henry, but not Stahl, Vaike, Kellam or any of the other male Shepherds? Especially Stahl, since they're pretty similar, personality-wise. It's just something that bothers me - her pool of husbands is presumably kept small because for some reason the game developers want you to ship her with Chrom, but her other potential candidates seem kind of random.
  • Henry's probably on the list entirely in case you already married off Chrom, Frederick, and Gaius (or a male Robin if you have one) by the time you get him... but that runs into the same weird gameplay reasoning that you mention. I do agree that Kellam or Stahl would have worked better than Gaius from a story perspective, though.
  • It may be very hard to justify the lack of Stahl/Sumia or Kellam/Sumia from a Watsonian perspective, but it makes sense from a Doylist viewpoint. Sumia's other love interests aren't really random - as part of the developers pushing Chrom/Sumia, each of her other love interests has some connection to Chrom. Frederick is his lieutenant, Gaius can support with him, and Henry's the only guy who can be recruited after he's married. Stahl and Kellam have no connection to Chrom like this, explaining why they can't be paired up with Sumia. Now, Vaike can support with Chrom, but the developers might've seen him as too fruity for the Pegasus Knight.
    • That makes no sense. You can marry a Psychopathic Manchild like Henry to Sumia, or Gaius who is a convicted criminal, but not Vaike because he's a bit of a lech?
• While I might ship Chrom/Robin, I have to ask; Why can't Chrom's other wives have more trust in him when they meet Lucina? Espeically since he's never given them any reason to doubt? Am I really supposed to believe Sully doesn't know him well enough to know that's not his character? Or that Maribelle, who becomes an magistrate in most of her endings, wouldn't AT LEAST wait and listen to their side of the story first? Or that Sumia, who not only resuced, but "slapped" Chrom to get his head out of his ass, would see him with another woman once and decide it's over? While Olivia's the only one who would have trust issues with her marriage due to Fourth-Date Marriage but she becomes a fucking doormat. "She's beautiful and your happiness should come first." WHAT?! So she'll defend a dog from Henry, but she's not even going to fight for her baby? But Robin? She's the only one who even says "I trust you, I just want to know what's going on." Yeah, she's not happy but she's the only one who's remotely calm and rational. Why can't the others be like that too? There's Rule of Funny and then there's Character Derailment.
  • Robin was right next to Chrom when Lucina saved him. If I recall correctly, Robin and Chrom were talking, then an Assassin came, Lucina performed a Dual Guard while shouting, "Father, no!" and then the assassin runs off. Chrom is incredulous at Lucina's outburst, then Lucina asks to talk to him in private. Robin was there the whole time, and had the chance to see that Chrom doesn't know what's going on, either. The other women don't have that luxury. Sure, that doesn't justify the reactions of the others, but it would explain why Robin is so calm.
    • Olivia is a doormat, it's her whole character schtick. It makes sense she'd start bawling and assuming Lucina has successfully stolen her husband, it's pretty consistent with her overall personality.
• Is Sumia's Pegasus male or female? In Sully's support, it's referred to as male, but in Cynthia's, it's female. If it is male, then why do male Pegasi have an aversion to male riders/handlers? I assumed the 'female riders only' rule was due to the Pegasi used being all female. But if Sumia's is male, that clearly isn't the case.
  • It's most likely an oversight or translation error or something along those lines. I'm not sure if the "female riders only" thing was given a specific reason, but either way I'm more inclined to say Sumia's is female. Going with her supports with Cynthia would make more sense in general.
• Awakening takes place about two thousand years after Marth's era, and his descendants have the Brand and can use the Falchion. The problem is, if Marth lived such a long time ago and is confirmed to have several descendants, then he would have to have at least a million descendants. Why do only royals have the Brand, if practically everyone is descended from Marth?
  • There are a couple of possibilities here. First, note that the brand isn't necessarily a guaranteed thing, even among royalty. It could be possible for any modern commoners who are technically descended from Marth to have the brand, but it seems like it would be uncommon, considering the above fact. So, it could be less like "only royals have the brand" and more like "you're not really considered a 'true' royal unless you have the brand" (or at least, worthy to wield the Falchion). True, Lissa doesn't have it, but Owain does, thus proving her lineage; but we don't know if any other brand-less royals were that lucky. Tl;dr — Royals just have the brand because they're royal; don't question it too hard.
    • Isn't the whole brand thing started with a descendant of Marth, not Marth himself? Only people descended from the first Exalt would have the brand right?
    • Ah, right. That could be the case, too; I need to replay the game and see if that's stated. But if so, that's a good point; it'd further limit the number of people who could potentially have it.
• If Ylisse and Valm are supposed to be Archanea and Valentia in the far future, then what exactly happened in the past that resulted in both continents changing their names and all the former kingdoms vanishing?
  • I don't know about Archanea/Ylisse, but Valentia was renamed Valm after Alm from Gaiden/Echoes.
  • Also, it's been 2,000 years. I'd be more surprised if all of the countries were exactly the same. Even in real life, there have been kingdoms that vanished and regions that had their names changed over time.
• Why on earth would Chrom want to recruit Walhart, an antagonist who is the killer of the parents of one of Chrom's allies (Say'ri)? Wouldn't it be problematic to have two units with bad blood between them in the same army, especially in an army of True Companions, not to mention a bit disrespectful to Say'ri?
  • The most logical thing I can think of is, after the Shepherds found out that he's still alive somehow, Chrom thought it would be better to keep an eye on him so it would be harder for Walhart to run off and conquer Valm again. That, and in-universe Chrom still seems to be a bit impressed by Walhart, so he could've just let that slide.
• It's been two thousand years since the first game. Why does it look barely different technology-wise?
  • It's just Medieval Stasis in full effect.
• Why wasn't Cherche with Virion right from the start? Was she busy doing other things while Virion was in Ylisse pre-time skip?
  • She was helping the people of Rosanne with any emergency procedures they needed while Virion was gone.
    • Yep, this is pretty much confirmed in her scene after the time skip. Virion wanted someone he trusted to be back in Rosanne while he went off to look for help.
• Why doesn't Cherche have a French accent like Virion? For that matter, why is Inigo British?
  • Could be that Virion is exaggerating his accent to invoke Everything Sounds Sexier in French. It wouldn't be too out of character for him, and it explains why Gerome also lacks an accent even when fathered by Virion himself.
  • Also, Inigo's accent isn't really that noticeable in this game. It's there, but it's stronger in Fates when he's actively trying to hide his identity.
    • Plus he sounds dashing!
• How come no one knew Validar had succeded Gangrel until they met him two years after the fact? Peace-building relations must have taken at least some time, so it seems odd that Chrom, Flavia, and none of their allies would have met him at least once prior to when we see in game.
  • It could be that they'd heard about him or had some kind of written correspondence, but simply never saw him in person until then. Between all of the general post-war recovery that Ylisse and Regna Ferox had to do, as well as Chrom's marriage and Lucina's birth, it's plausible that nobody would have time to schedule an in-person meeting before then.
• How can Chrom's fallback wife be a maiden even after she's given birth to his child?
  • "Maiden" isn't being taken in the literal sense here.
• If the Falchion becomes dull as stone when wielded by someone other than its chosen, how does Lucina's sibling use it to cut fruit?
  • Lucina's sibling is descended from Chrom, and thus counts as "chosen".
    • In a way, the sibling being able to cut fruit with Falchion is foreshadowing that they're chosen, which we know they are. At the end of Lucina's A-Support with any of her siblings, where the sibling tries to slice a log with Falchion and doesn't appear to have been able to, they shrug it off and go about their business. Then Chrom walks in, and finds that the log was sliced clean in two, proving that Lucina's sibling is in fact able to wield it.
• The marriage and inheritance system at work: Chrom is a descendant of the Exalted One and carries a special mark of Naga. Emmeryn also has one, Lissa does not have one, but her son Owain does, to her delight. On the other side of the fence, Validar, the evil wizard attempting to resurrect Grima, carries Grima's blood. The Avatar is the son/daughter of Validar and as it turns out, the perfect host for Grima because of centuries of genetic manipulation by Grima's followers. By extension, the Avatar also has Grima's blood. A Female Avatar marrying Chrom, or a Male Avatar marrying Lucina will wind up producing a Morgan (and Lucina, if you married Chrom) with blood from both Naga AND Grima. But despite that fact, there is little mention of Morgan's role in the story in the event you do marry one of them.]]
  • If you're wondering why Morgan or any one of the Avatar's children is incapable of becoming Grima's vessel, the simple answer is Grima's blood in them is no longer pure. Remember, the Grimleal spent generations just to breed the perfect person to become Grima where they most likely only pair up the purebloods together to conceive a child in each generation until a perfect pureblood is born. The Avatar marrying Chrom or Lucina for example would only produce a child that's no longer pure of Grima's blood, but also is tainted with the blood of the Exalted One making him or her incapable of becoming Grima.
  • Also: Morgan's amnesia is suspiciously similar to the Avatar's, with the only difference being that the former remembers all the time they spent with the latter (i.e. all the time they spent with Grima's human form). It's possible that Grima did try to possess Morgan in some other timeline, but failed because of Morgan's mixed heritage, leaving them with only memories connected to Grima, or by proxy, the Avatar.
  • This brings up another bit of Fridge Logic. Characters inherit hair color from their fathers. Emmeryn and Lissa are blonde. Chrom...isn't. Are we sure it's Lissa who has to worry about legitimacy?
    • Except for female Morgan, who inherits her mother's hairstyle instead. Chrom's mother could have always had blue hair.
    • Chalk it up to Gameplay and Story Segregation. Technically, unless you want to get into genetics, there should be nothing stopping any of the children from inheriting either of their parent's hair colors; it's just that all of them besides Lucina and female Morgan are tied to their mothers, and the hair color thing is just a token means of differentiating them based on their fathers without altering more important parts of their character (personality, build, class, etc.). Lucina always looks the same regardless of her mother because of plot reasons (it would be much harder to pass as Marth with pink hair, for instance, and you see her several times before determining her mother), and female Morgan gets her mother's hair color because male Avatar will always be her father, so the differentiation has to come from her mother instead. Chrom's parents, however, are set in stone and never show on screen, so whether he looks like Emmeryn and Lissa or not doesn't really matter.
    • Actually, consider this - Chrom and Lissa's parents are not seen in the story. For all we know, one of them has blonde hair, and one has blue hair. It could have been either one - maybe their father.
    • Or maybe Chrom just has recessive Fire Emblem Protagonist genes (which more often than not come with blue hair), and both his parents have blond hair.
    • I'm calling this one. It also would explain why Chrom's side of the family can wield Falchion while Lissa's (and presumably Emmeryn's) can't. Though if it's recessive, why does it tend to override everyone else's hair color?
    • Because you need blue hair and have your default class be Lord in order to use Falchion.
• Shipping Lissa x Donnel is possible. The S Support has Donnel worrying about bringing Lissa down in the world, being a peasant farmer-turned-soldier. In most historical societies where this was allowed, he wouldn't be bringing her position down, she'd bring his up, being the husband of the Ylissean princess (the closest Real Life equivalent is the Chinese fùmǎ, which roughly translates as Prince Consort). It would be funny to see his reaction to this knowledge.
  • Their paired epilogue has them going back to Donnel's village together. Either things are different in Ylisse when it comes to royalty marrying peasants, or she wanted to go with him. Considering that Chrom can marry the female Avatar or Olivia and apparently bring them up, it may be closer to the latter.
    • On Lissa's endings all of Lissa's possible endings save those where she marries someone connected to Ylisse's military has her either traveling the world or going off with her husband to wherever they originate from so it is likely she could choose to bring them up to royal status but chose to live on the same status as her spouse.
    • Yeah, but consider that Lissa has a lot more freedom of choice now that she's no longer directly in line for the throne with Lucina's birth, and probably other children of Chrom, displacing her in the line of succession. If she had still been next in line like she had been in Chapters 10 and 11 when she married she probably would have stayed in the palace. Hell, that's more or less implied to have happened if you marry Lissa off before the timeskip.
• More Fridge Tear Jerker, but: What happens to the child characters after the end of the game, when the Bad Future is prevented? Assume that this version of time travel preserves proximate causes, namely the presence of Lucina and the other children of the cast, and everything they did with their parents, so they aren't simply Ret-Gone. That seems like a happy ending, but it becomes a Bittersweet Ending when you realize that the children must stay away from their families to prevent interfering with their own lives or even births. The best Lucina's troupe can hope for in such a case is the knowledge that their families are safe and hopefully happy.
  • Well, as is seen in the endings, the children characters do just that, and go on to live their own lives in the epilogue if they survive the game, no Ret-Gone happening. However, supports with their parents show that they love them just as much as their yet-to-be-born selves, and there's always a place for them if they want to stay. In fact, Noire's solo ending involves staying with her family half to develop a real relationship with Tharja, half to make sure the cycle won't start again.
  • In Severa's solo ending she apparently visits her family once every year to yell at them. It's Severa, though, so whatever...
  • Lucina definitely doesn't have to worry about preventing her own birth, given that Chrom identifies Future!Lucina as definitely his daughter by comparing to her Mark of Naga to baby Present!Lucina's. Any of the kids born after the future!kid met the parents is gonna be a different person mentally if not genetically, if only because seeing how your parenting turned out will change things. The only way around that would be some sort of destiny bullshit, unlikely given the Screw Destiny themes of the game.
    • Arguably, not having to deal with the trauma of watching your parents die would also be a big game changer mentally. Remember, the kids got issues.
    • Cynthia only became a Tomboy obsessed with being a hero after Sumia's death - she was more of a girly-girl before. Since Sumia never died (in battle, that is) after the game's end, Parallel!Cynthia is different from Current!Cynthia.
  • I'd like to imagine they'd become cool aunties and uncles to their younger selves.
  • Well we do know in at least one timeline Owain, Inigo, and Severa go to Nohr.
• A Severa fathered by the male Avatar is angry with Cordelia for abandoning her "only" daughter, a Yarne fathered by the male Avatar is terrified of being the Last of His Kind, and a Nah fathered by the male Avatar mentions having been lonely due to her foster family never accepting her. What, is Morgan chopped liver now?
  • Morgan's solo ending raises the possibility they come from a different future than the others, so it's possible there is no Morgan in the bad future.
    • But Morgan still has sibling supports and her sibling clearly remembers her.
    • Except we don't know what happened to Morgan in the future. If she was, in fact, from a different future, (and this is the Fridge Horror here) then she died in one future, abandoned, alone, as the last human alive against her own father, the Fell Dragon. So the her/him from the different timeline survived instead.
    • There's always the possibility that Morgan died in that specific timeline.
  • Morgan is the boss of the first two Future of Despair chapters. Clearly, the Morgan in the bad future is Trapped in Villainy and left their sibling behind.
    • The Future Past chapters are supposed to be yet another Bad Future, though. That version of the Morgans may not apply to the Morgan you recruit.
• Owain's support with his father reveals that said father sacrificed himself to protect his son. Which kind of doesn't work if said father is the Avatar, for obvious reasons.
  • Owain didn't actually see him die, so it's possible that in Owain's timeline, the Avatar came to his senses after being forced to kill Chrom, and then was captured later by the Grimleal and turned into Grima. Still contradicts what Grima himself says later on, but not by as much.
    • Furthermore, in his supports with a Male Avatar as his father, he actually says that he was "gravely injured" rather than killed, and that he never saw him again.
  • Of course, Lissa could have just simply lied to Owain. Would YOU tell your son his father is now evil?
• The Shepherds must have a very loose policy on fraternization in the barracks. Think about it: female units don't die to prevent a child-related Time Paradox, but the male counterpart who fathers their children can. Conception has to happen at some point, but if they did didn't survive to a time of peace...
  • Well, in the bad future no one survived to a time of peace. Grima was awakened and the war went on until all of the parents were dead, so even in the bad timeline conception occurred in the middle of the war. Even if that were not the case, what would you expect? That married couples live in the same camp and just not get any for the months or even years that the war might last? I seriously doubt that a few thousand Risen are enough to overshadow humans' (and Taguels' and Maneketes') most basic animal instincts.
  • Plus, the Shepherds aren't exactly very formal in the first place, so I doubt they'd forbid the couples from being together.
• Who is the rightful heir to Ylisse's throne? After all, The time traveling Lucina is undeniably the oldest descendant in direct line from the Exalt, and her A support with her mother makes it clear that she is considered a true child of them, even if she is from an alternate timeline. It would be unfair to deny her the right to a kingdom that is not only hers by birthright, but also is saved as a direct consequence of her actions (No adult Lucina, no advice from the future, Basilio dies, the emblem is stolen and apocalypse all around) yet it would also be unfair to deny it to baby Lucina, which has as much of a birthright and is the descendant of the Exalt of this timeline.
  • Lucina's solo ending had her disappear, so presumably she gives up her stake to the throne. Her sibling and Owain probably do this also, considering all the kids go do their own thing after the war.
    • It's been speculated that if one considers Validar as a proper King of Plegia (even if he was a Puppet King to the Grimleal), then the Avatar can be potentially become an heir to the Plegian throne. Following that logic, the Avatar's only or oldest kid may be able to become Queen or King of Plegia; this would include a Lucina mothered by the Female Avatar, since her mother is already the Queen of Ylisse...
  • Adult Lucina is 20 years younger (by birth date) than her father Chrom.
• How is Lucina always the first born child out of everyone in the second generation? If one married Chrom later in the game (or paired him with Olivia) but previously had married a pair of characters earlier on and killed the father, wouldn't Lucina at the least be the second born? Since the father would be dead before Chrom married (or possibly even met) his wife, that would mean that the first child would have had to be born before Lucina to exist. It's not like the child's father could've come from the future either, since all first-generation characters were killed in it.
  • This is better suited for Headscratchers, but this is an easy one. Couples that married before the time skip simply refrained from having a baby for 2 years. It's not at all uncommon for couples to wait several years before deciding they are prepared and ready to bring a child into the world. I do not believe it is possible for a child to be made recruitable should the father die before the point the children become available. If they are available regardless, it is simply a developer oversight.
  • Also, you kind of have to be trying for this to happen, since this would have to be fairly early. Chrom has to be married by Chapter 11 - a bit less than half way through the game, and before the two-year Time Skip, even if things are getting a bit harder at this point. Given that Lucina is the only one we actually see as a baby, and the other parents imply / straight up say their kids haven't been born yet, it's pretty safe to say that any of the dads dying is just non-canon.
  • Remember, this is an alternate timeline. The war went differently, and people died during different times. All the game needs is for two people to be married, and killing off the father would only mean that he's dead in this timeline, not the one where the kids are from.
    • Also justified by the fact that it's impossible to kill off any fathers before the point in time when Lucina arrives to alter history.
  • Isn't there dialogue between some of the Future Children talking about how some of their age differences post-time travel aren't the same as when they left? Lucina is the oldest in their timeline but when they all come together in the past Laurent is older than her now.
    • That's because through some mishap, Laurent was shunted back three years earlier than the rest of the future children.
• If the Avatar is close enough to being Grima for them killing Grima to count as Grima being killed by it's own power to meet the conditions for Grima to die permanently, why isn't the opposite true? Shouldn't Grima killing another part of itself kill it?
  • Simple answer: Grima never kills the Avatar, he simply sends them back to the pocket dimension seen in the final chapter and absorbs them. Thus, game over.
  • That, or the explanation is similar to how Voldemort is defeated. The mark of Grima disappears from Robin's hand, so the Grima-related parts of Robin's heritage were killed off, but not technically Robin themself.
  • No. The bond between them is sort of a one way street in that regard. Grima doesn't need the Avatar to survive. He's already been resurrected. The Avatar simply has a pure enough concentration of fell dragon blood in his veins that he's able to replicate Grima's dark power, which is the only thing capable of permanently killing him. It's kind of like the difference between cutting off your hand or using your hand to commit suicide.
• Why is 'Marth's' Falchion stronger than Chrom's? It can heal, has higher might, etc.
  • When you get further in the game Chrom's Falchion has its power awoken and it becomes even stronger than "Marth's" Parallel Falchion. So obviously "Marth's" was simply awoken by a weaker divine being before they returned to the past.
  • Actually, it's simpler than that. In the Future Past DLC, Lucina says that in her timeline (the original one), at least one of the gemstones that make up the Fire Emblem was destroyed, making it impossible to complete the Awakening. That may not have stopped her from at least trying to perform the Awakening before going back in time, which may have given her some (but not all) of the Falchion's latent power.
• How did Plegia fund the war against Ylisse and Ferox? After all, Chrom's father led a war against it about fifteen years before the game, and by that time both Ylisse and Plegia were in ruins. It's explicitly stated that Plegia is rich and Chrom even asks them for ships, aid, fund, etc. before going to war with Valm.
  • Despite the horrible image Plegia gives off, it's very possible for Plegia to be a well-off country. It borders the sea, so naturally it must be the hub of foreign exchange with Valm. With the right resources and Willing Suspension of Disbelief on the player's part, it's not impossible for Plegia to get back on its feet in 15 years. Plus Validar's priorities was funding the end of the world, not being stingy with money. They may have given Ylisse EVERYTHING they had left.
    • It's also highly likely that some parts are rich and others aren't. As said above, zones that border the sea often tend to be atop of the economic chain due to being easier to trade with — take a look at Hong Kong or Shanghai, i.e. Validar likely focused on building/getting resources from these better-off zones and didn't super care about the rest.
    • Plegia is also a Theocracy. Because religious institution are usually exempt from taxes, Validar could have been keeping whatever money the Grimleal received from its followers and using it to further their goals. The money isn't coming from kingdom itself, but rather the massive wealth the Grimleal have been amassing.
    • Plegia is apparently the primary naval power on the continent of Ylisse, and since they control most of the coast that shares a sea with Valm, that means quite a bit of oversea trading would have to go through Plegia. And where there's trade, there's tarrifs.
• How does anyone know Kellam in his Supports (DLCs, etc.)? The Shepherds know him, but what about people recruited afterwards? They can't see him, but they recognize him.
  • Well, it's not so much that Kellam is a ghost or something, he's just difficult to notice. I'm sure Chrom at least had the new recruit formally introduced to everyone, and Kellam eagerly introduced himself hoping they won't forget him.
• If Priam's philosophy is that weapons should only be wielded by the one who forged it (he says this in his supports with a Male Avatar among other things), then why is he carrying the Ragnell when you fight and recruit him? It was originally used by Ike before it was passed on to him, and it's never even said who originally forged it. While it's possible that he reforged it considering the in-game model of the Ragnell is obviously very damaged and battered, this detail is never brought up in his supports.
  • Would you give up an ancestral weapon that's incredibly powerful, and has its own story? That'd be like King Arthur tossing away Caliburn (the Sword in the Stone) immediately upon pulling it out, or getting rid of Excalibur.
• When the group first learns about the gems on the Fire Emblem and how to perform an Awakening, why do they immediately decide to do it? It couldn't be as a way to win the war in Valm, except they continue to seek out the gems for the Awakening even after it's over, to the point where they risk walking into a trap in Plegia over it! The Awakening was necessary after Validar stole the Emblem and Grima was summoned, but there was no reason before that to do it.
  • They decided to do it as a precautionary measure against Grima. Remember, Lucina already told them that in the Bad Future, Grima was resurrected and the world went to hell, and unless something is done, it will happen again. They fought the war with Valm while being fully aware that another one was likely waiting for them back home, and were taking the steps to prepare for it just in case.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: Laurent is often criticised for being a male version of his mother, Miriel. And what doesn't help is the fact, that ALL of his Critical/Skill Activation quotes in the Japanese version are the exact same lines as hers.

Lucina's Timeline

• Where the heck did Lucina come from? It's made pretty clear that in the original timeline Chrom died from the assassins during the attempt on Emmeryn's life, which happened before his marriage and Lucina's birth, so where did Lucina come from? Another timeline? I guess that would explain why all the kids don't disappear from time travel mistakes, they accidentally landed in a different dimension. And Laurent definitely pointed out the possibility so they definitely could disappear, honestly this whole game's time travel set up is really just a big Timey-Wimey Ball...
  • Actually, Lucina only said that Chrom would have been gravely wounded had she not stopped his attackers. Lucina would still have been able to be born.
    • Incorrect, fate was originally written by Grima and to a lesser extent Validar, it's clear from what they say that he should have died there, Lucina doesn't say anything on the subject, just that she's about to save his life, and she didn't know about the second one, and the only way for her not to have known that was if no one knew that, which could only happen if he had died there, that one scene pretty much turns Lucina into a living paradox, she can't have been born without going back to save him, she's like a barely Stable Time Loop, and the act of her being there throws everything off as the bad future couldn't have happened in the first place. Timey. Wimey. Ball.
    • Incorrect correction. In Chapter 14, Lissa asks Lucina what would've happened if she didn't come to save Chrom, and Lucina answers: "He would have been gravely wounded. And those wounds would have played a part in the tragedies to come." So he wouldn't have been killed, just gravely injured, possibly preventing him from saving Emmeryn, among other "tragedies to come".
  • "The Future" is treated like an alternate timeline in the first place, so that explains the not Ret-Gone thing. As for Chrom and the assassins, it's obvious that Chrom would have lived through it, or else how would Grima!Robin have all those flashbacks involving him? I'm assuming Luci just said she was "saving Chrom's life" for dramatic effect or something. Otherwise, not only would she not have been born, the whole original timeline couldn't have happened the way it did.
  • So then they're really just from an alternate dimension? Keep in mind those flashbacks were the memories of the Grima from where Lucina came from, they probably ended up interfering and directing your dimension to a future similar to theirs even if Chrom had originally died, their interference changed all of that.
• When the Avatar recruits Morgan, he/she asks her/him if she/he came back from the future with Lucina. Yet, if the Avatar married a second generation character, this would be impossible, as Morgan couldn't possibly have existed in that timeline. Especially nonsensical if the Avatar married Lucina. Why didn't they change the conversation for this scenario? Or is there some explanation I'm not thinking of?
  • It's possible that the Avatar thought that he/she married a different person in the future timeline and that Morgan is the result of that relationship. Either that or he/she is just flustered.
  • For all we know, Morgan could have traveled back from a further point in the Bad Future if the Avatar married a second generation character... Though that raises a bit of Fridge Horror. Also, Morgan in general is very confusing...
• Actually, serious question...how old are the children from the future? And do they ever state how old they are in gameplay? I'm sort of confused about their age. All I know for certain is that Lucina's the eldest and that Brady is much younger than he looks, as revealed by his "C" support with Lucina. Likewise, Laurent looks to be the oldest, but I hear he says he went back further in time than the others.
  • Timey-Wimey Ball is in full effect — Whereas Lucina went back only two years before the invasion by Valm, Laurent went back five due to unspecified complications. There's no telling how far back the others went, nor what their physical age was before the journey anyway. It gets kinda confusing at this point.
  • Also, there's the possibility that not all of them came from the same time period or even the same universe.
  • Looking at hints throughout the game and supports, it looks like they are all around 18 years old. Lucina specifically says that Grima's return happens "over 10 years" from the present, and it's implied that they fought the Risen for a few years before traveling back in time. Also, they mention several times how weird it is to be "almost the same age" as their parents, and most first generation characters are in their early-to-mid 20s.
  • We know Lucina was born first, and in order for Laurent to be older than her, he had to have been born no more than three years after her. The rest of them don't really have a lot of other ways to guess their age, other than Morgan might be the youngest due to being potentially anyone's sibling (or third generation for that matter).
• If, in the Bad Future, Chrom was supposed to die in that particular battle against Validar, then how was his second child born? Unless his wife was already pregnant with the second kid at that point in the story, but then you'd think they'd mention it.
  • It's quite possible that particular battle happened much later in the timeline. Remember, Lucina's intervention changed, and quite possibly accelerated, events.
    • Either that or Chrom and his wife had a little Pre-Climax Climax off-screen before that battle...
  • I assume the person above me who stated the particular battle happened much later in the timeline was correct. Here's what my interpretation of events is: Without Lucina's intervention, when assassins came to kill Emmeryn, Chrom is wounded and can't fight off the assassins. Gaius is recruited with sweets, while he or the Avatar gets Chrom to safety. Validar tries to find the Avatar, but decides that stealing the Fire Emblem and killing Emm was good enough. But now he knows that the Avatar is with Chrom. The war against the Mad King continues, but Validar doesn't get every stone or become the ruler of Plegia until much much later, when Lucina and her younger sibling are children or teens. He needs the orbs from Valm, which are now held by Chrom, Flavia, and Tiki. Thus, it takes longer for him to get the stones and get ready to perform the Awakening Ritual... but to do this, he also needs to provoke Chrom and the Avatar to come after him. He attempts to assassinate Chrom or Lissa, and they naturally respond by declaring war with Plegia. They follow him, and the Avatar is possessed by Grima. Time continues for a few years while Grima gathers forces and causes a Zombie Apocalypse. The children travel to the past to avert this tragedy, while Laurent accidentally went back three years before Lucina did. Because Lucina intervened, Emmeryn wasn't assassinated by Validar, but instead captured by Gangrel. Her sacrifice caused the citizens of Plegia to rebel and defect en masse. The Mad King was defeated a tad earlier than normal because he lost support of the Plegian civilians, and Validar took the throne next. Thus, Lucina's intervention accidentally accelerated the events leaving to the Avatar's possession and Chrom's death, but her knowledge of what would happen allowed Basilio to feign death against Walhart and switch the green orb with a fake, subsequently letting the Avatar weaken his magic to injure Chrom, but not actually kill him. In order to let this ruse be successful, the Avatar had to not tell anybody, especially not Lucina, about this, so Chrom's "death" and Lucina's Big "NO!" will be legit.
  • Official translated material confirms that Emmeryn was assassinated by Validar in the Bad Future timeline, and that the war with Gangrel lasted longer as a result.
  • Actually, better idea, it wasn't so much Lucina's intervention as it was Grima's. Here's what I think happened — if it was just Lucina, then Validar would not be able to resurrect Grima because Validar is dead and would therefore not become ruler of Plegia. Because Grima followed Lucina and the other children, he revived Validar so he could accelerate events. Had Grima not chased Lucina into the past, Validar would have died, and that tragedy would be averted unless someone else in the Grimleal took Validar's place. I doubt Aversa would have done so.
    • Adding on to the idea of Grima being at fault, had he not tried to merge with the Present day Avatar, he/she likely wouldn't have lost all of his/her memories, and thus the bonds he/she forged with Chrom and the others wouldn't have been so deep for him/her to allow him/her to overcome attempts at possession or the will to sacrifice himself/herself. Thus, Grima became Hoist by His Own Petard.
    • Also, in the original timeline, with Chrom wounded from the assassination attempt, the task of defending Emmeryn and the Fire Emblem from Validar probably fell to the Avatar, who, without Chrom or Lucina as backup, failed to protect either of them. This probably shook the rest of the Shepherds' trust in him/her (possibly with some accusations that s/he let them in on purpose), which would later explain why the Avatar was more open to succumbing to Grima later on. Thanks to Lucina, Emmeryn's capture and death both happen under much different circumstances that the Avatar had little-to-no control over, which is why the rest of the Shepherds still trust them.
• How did Lucina know that Basilio was going to be killed by Walhart? She states that she's never been to Valm because all of the ships were gone in the future, so there's no way she could have known.
  • Simple. Reports come back, describing what happened. Don't forget that in the bad future timeline, Chrom and co. died much later than they would have in the changed timeline (I don't see how Chrom could possibly teach an infant how to fight).
    • Lucina states Grima would be revived in 10 years from the present day. So she was at least 10 when Chrom died. I don't think he turned her into a full-fledged warrior, but I'm sure he may have given her some tutoring, which she took and perfected on her own.
  • Original poster here. The real question is, why did the war in Valm happen in the first place if all the ships were gone?
    • It could be that the army's ships weren't destroyed until after the Valmese War happened (or, at least, started). It's not clear when they lose their ships; they're just gone by the time Lucina would have been old enough to go herself.
• In Panne and Yarne's C support conversation, Yarne says that, in his timeline, Panne died when he was still young, "before [he] could remember." The implication is that Panne died when Yarne was a baby/toddler, so are we to assume that, in the Bad Future, Panne is the first of the parent characters to die rather than Chrom?
  • It probably means that Panne was one of the first to die AFTER Chrom. IIRC, Chrom's death was what caused Grima to rise in power and start the Zombie Apocalypse you see in the game, which probably means that none of the other parent characters died before him.
  • Also, if Lucina is still the oldest of the children in the original timeline, then that would mean that the other children would, naturally, be younger than her when their parents died. Could be that Yarne is several years younger than Lucina, so his memories of Panne would be fuzzy anyway.
• Concerning the following quote in Chapter 13 below. If this is the case, should Chrom S-Support with the Maiden, as well as the only unit with an S-Support through the whole game, then who are these other people Lucina refer to, when the other children's mothers (and fathers) have not reached any S-rank support?
  • Lucina: I made the journey together with others, but... we became separated.
  • If it's not a simple oversight (or just being left since the player kinda has to go out of their way for that), then I'd assume it's a case of Stable Time Loop or Timey-Wimey Ball. Technically, the future versions of the kids were already born in their timeline, even if their present parents aren't together yet.

The Future Past

• What's the deal with the two Morgans in the Future Past DLC? Grima says in Future Past 3 that Morgan failed "twice", yet the Morgans you encounter are always different sexes.
  • Grima refers to the Morgans like they are 2 separate individuals. One guess could be that in this timeline, the Morgans are fraternal twins... who share the same name for convenience's sake. Another is that two different Morgans from two different timelines coincidentally appeared in the Future Past universe and both were drawn to Grima.
  • Actually, the weird thing is that Grima doesn't refer to the two Morgans as separate individuals, saying that he/she "failed twice" when the other child characters reunite with Lucina, rather than saying "you and your sister/brother both failed" like you would think.
  • Note that the line Grima says depends on the gender of your Avatar. With female Robin you get the failed twice line, but with male Robin you instead get: "Grr... So the Morgan I sent after your group failed as well." The female version could be a mistranslation: it was supposed to refer to the Morgans as separate individuals like the male version.
• How did Grima kill Naga? Naga said that herself and Grima couldn't end each other.
  • There's no definite answer, but it's possible that Grima found some kind of loophole. Perhaps he crafted his own kind of "Falchion" to put Naga to sleep and effectively take her out of the picture?
  • Or he just severed all of Naga's connections to the Future Past timeline (which a very-much-alive Naga confirms five minutes later), and was making up her death in order to demoralize Lucina and company.
  • Possibly the same way Naga killed Grima, by using her own power against her. There are three artifacts in the setting either created from Naga's body or infused with her essence; the Fire Emblem, the Falchion and the Book of Naga. The latter two can only be used by someone with the blood of Naga, which requires either a secret/distant relative of Chrom or a trip to Jugdral, but isn't completely out of the question. The Fire Emblem can be used by everyone, but beating Naga to death with a shield might be a little troublesome.
  • Actually there is one way for Grima to get his hands on a Naga-infused artifact and someone loyal to him who can wield it. If Lucina went back in time to fix the Future Past timeline and failed (which is supported by the fact that Morgan exists even if you married a second-genner), then her Parallel Falchion is unaccounted for. We know Morgan can use the Falchion if descended from Chrom; Grima could have ordered either of them to kill Naga using the Parallel Falchion, which would count as Naga's own power. All because you shipped the Avatar with Chrom or Lucina. Good job.
• Where does Future Past Morgan come from if you marry someone who died in the first timeline? Or if you married a second gen character, for that matter?
  • For the first question, it's possible that Robin impregnated Emmeryn (assuming Robin met her much earlier, or she was assassinated much later) with a daughter she gave birth to before her death, or Robin was impregnated by Basilio his death. You can say something similar for Say'ri. As for the second question, the Future Past never says either of the Morgans are from the same timeline as the FP versions of Lucina and Co.
    • I could take Basilio impregnating Robin, but the case with Emmeryn seems unlikely. Emmeryn was explicitly assassinated earlier without Lucina intervening. And even if 9 months managed to pass between Robin meeting Emmeryn and Emmeryn being assassinated, that would make Morgan older than Lucina, which wouldn't make any sense.
    • It's possible, at least in that particular timeline, that Emmeryn still being alive, just brain damaged, is canon. Scarier thought, Grima could possibly have kept her alive just so he could impregnate a descendant of Marth and have a child with both lineages in his/her veins.
  • Also, Naga repeatedly states that the Future Past timeline is fairly similar to the main one; this is still a different timeline from the original one, so it's possible that it stems from a timeline where Lucina went back and failed for whatever reason. There's a few WMGs on this topic that go into more detail on it.
• Seeing as how the Future Past Morgans fight under Grima, why didn't Grima ever keep with him any of the children who aren't Ylissean royalty?
  • Morgan is the Avatar's own child. It's stated that their loyalty to the Avatar was so strong they could overlook what their parent became. It wasn't a matter of brainwashing or We Can Rule Together, no other child could possibly have the kind of loyalty Morgan does.
  • And even if you paired up Robin with someone else who has a kid, it's specifically due to how devoted to Robin Morgan was before that allowed them to become that fanatically loyal to them in the future. Another Robin-parented kid having some conflict over it could've been interesting, but all of the other kids are still more tied to their default parent than to Robin.

Excessively recessive genes?

• I married Tiki and the Avatar, and that caused several problems with the plot. In Tiki and Nah's support, they make a point of saying Nah is the first and only Manakete human hybrid when Tiki's own child is also a hybrid! Morgan and Nah also have a conversation during Harvest Scramble about Nah's age and nature as part Manakete, which makes no sense when Morgan is also half Manakete. I know the Dev Team can't think of everything (and they did consider a lot when making the pairings for these games). but I still feel it needs to be pointed out somewhere.
  • I think that this may be the case because Tiki does not have a child in this game.
  • It was probably just an oversight since Morgan's parentage has little to no impact on the plot, even when it means she's the granddaughter of Naga. They probably wrote those lines that way because Morgan is only half-Manakete under some very specific circumstances. It might come up in a possible future DLC, but not until then.
    • Morgan can also be part-Manakete if her mother is Nowi or Nah. Though that's still a bit specific, and she wouldn't be Naga's granddaughter in those cases, but that's still enough of a chance that you'd think the devs would catch it.

Priam's descent from Ike

• So Priam claims to be a descendant in some fashion of Ike, but he does not have Aether. In Awakening, Ike still has it despite not being the same class as Chrom or Lucina. And Aether is one of the inherited skills, just like how Ike had it passed down from his father. So... why wouldn't he have it?
  • He's a descendant of Ike... but who says that a descendant of his sister couldn't inherit Ragnell, but not Aether?
    • This theory that he is a descendant through Ike's sister is looking more and more likely to me, also given his vague wording.
    • Actually, when you look at Lucina she has inherited Aether, yet Chrom's possible sons DON'T inherit Aether, getting Rightful King instead. In Awakening, Aether can only be inherited by a daughter. Ike could have simply been a special case as he perfected/invented Aether to begin with. Plus, it makes sense that Ike is the ancestor, given Priam's location NOT being in Tellius, where Mist remained after Radiant Dawn, unlike a certain intrepid Hero of Legend. More importantly is the fact that being related to Ike isn't worth much if you don't learn his fighting style, something Mist has no way of passing down.
    • Greil, Ike's father, gets Aether as well (this takes some messing around in PoR to see, but still...), and "could have been a special case" doesn't explain away why Priam, a first gen character, couldn't just be given the skill if he in fact is a direct descendant of the first main character who had Aether. It would be the most definite link between the two, and heck, how was Chrom able to learn it himself? Aether being lost in a generation might be understandable in a hypothetical gameplay sense, but since the character is introduced as a first generation character, it makes little sense as far as story goes (a unique and powerful trademark skill being replaced with a common and less impressive one). And Aether is also treated in-game as a skill that will always be passed down to certain people (even if Chrom doesn't have it, or if it isn't his fifth skill). Sol and Luna are obvious references to Aether, and yet Priam just doesn't get Aether? Him having "Aether in theory" would make more sense if that also extended to Ike in this game, but Ike can still get Aether in this game as well. Awakening also mentions people meeting the laguz and such, which gives the impression that traveling between the two worlds is not exclusive to Ike. And Priam is mentioned to be a world traveler. Ike is famous in both worlds and has had sparring partners in the games, so if in fact Priam does fight just like Ike, it's not like Ike couldn't have trained others who passed down his style. (It does give a "descendant in the disciple sense" theory an angle, as well.) It's too vague to call either way for certain.
    • "Descendant in the discipline" is an interesting idea. Though that means we have a character who looks like Ike, has Ragnell, claims to be a descendant of the "Radiant Hero", has trained in the style perfected by Ike, has the same eating habits (meat), has Sol and Luna despite not having Aether, and resides in the world of Awakening. Given that the Tellius games occurred at least 5000 years prior to Awakening (as the Archanea games were 2000 years before Awakening), and the fact that Ike left Tellius forever, WAS NEVER SEEN AGAIN, and took Ragnell with him after Radiant Dawn, the idea that someone else (be it Boyd and Mist's child or not) somehow found Ike in time to learn his style of fighting to continue the tradition either makes for a ridiculous fanfiction ass-pull or a GREAT basis for another Fire Emblem game (rekindling of the Radiant Hero's flame!). While it's true nothing definitive can be said, a straight descendant makes the idea a lot more plausible given the absurd amount of time that has passed since Ike departed Tellius.
    • If he was literally never seen again, that would make it a bit difficult for him to start a family. If "never seen again" applies to only the people of Tellius, Ike could have been a Hermit Guru just chilling on an island a la Yoda once he finished traveling (fight for your friends, you must). His fame that apparently carried over from Tellius might cause him to be sought out by many intrepid hero types, with some mastering it and then taking up that same role as SENSEI. Like a fighting style cult. Then the Tellius emigrant Priam or someone higher up tries tracking the footsteps of DA HERO and finds said cult. It would explain his obsession with fighting, anyway. And are we sure that Ike took Ragnell, Begnion's national treasure that he returned after Path of Radiance? But the question of where Ragnell is of less importance if we know that people other than Ike can go back and forth between worlds. Priam/someone from Mist's line could have taken it from Begnion or it could be some "sword in the stone" situation. Not the simplest of possibilities, but it doesn't contradict anything we know and it stays in line with "Ike doesn't marry/have kids/would probably pass on Aether". Those are liable to change, but given what we know, and I'm sure IS knows what they already have established. And the simplest explanations tend to make for a dull story anyway.
    • As far as appearances go, Mist also carries the genetic information of her brother that can resurface over that much time, unless there's an unnerving line of Generation Xerox for thousands of years. Not to mention that blue is not an uncommon FE hair color. How similar this "descendant" is to Ike outside of hair color can be called into question as well. Big Eater is a common enough trait amongst heroes and what else we see of Priam's disposition seems to... well, contrast with Ike's, so it's not like he's Generation Xerox anyway. And who knows, given all these implied apocalyptic happenings (the fate of the laguz, the situation of Altea), it could be somehow related to the upcoming Shin Megami Tensei crossover with Priam or someone higher up the line to see just what went down in Tellius. The epilogue of Radiant Dawn mentions another huge war in the making. Maybe young Priam/someone up his line gets involved...? This timeline stuff is all confusing. It's very WMG, but his existence that has not been very much expanded upon feels like some kind of hook for something between a sequel (for the Tellius saga) and a prequel (for Awakening).
    • That is something that needs to happen. Priam wasn't really even in the game, and look at all the discussion he's caused. Ensemble Darkhorse in the making!
    • He really does seem like a character who was introduced to be all mysterious and induce speculation, since details about him are vague. These vague details about Tellius as a whole do make it feel like we might be revisiting it. And "Megami"=Ashera/Yune/Ashunera? Order Versus Chaos being involved? It could be pretty cool if Priam was involved in something major Tellius-related, being the Marth to Ike's Anri, rather than a line of Ike doing nothing of interest until Awakening. And what if he was a Brande- wait, that's a bit much.
    • Oh, and though the obvious answer is probably "Tellius wasn't planned at the time", it could explain why no one from the relevant older games ever met someone wielding Ragnell during a conflict that needed strong warriors. Or why the legend about Ike was never mentioned then. Nice shiny clean continuity.
    • Ike didn't put Aether in the bottom skill slot. Simples.
    • Ike has the option to pick one of two smarties to go with him, no way would he make such a mistake. But really, lack of Aether defeats the point of trying to pass on sword skills.
    • Ike does NOT inherit Aether from Greil. He has to learn the skill himself. I think that's what they were going for with Priam. He hasn't yet mastered the skill.
    • Priam already looks older than Ike did in Radiant Dawn. For someone so dedicated to the sword, he must be a slow learner. Good enough to get all those Breaker skills he shouldn't have, and yet not Aether somehow? Perhaps he just doesn't have the inherent ability to learn it.
    • Priam could very well be the direct descendant of Ike. Aether is a Vanguard skill as of Radiant Dawn as it is no longer accessible to Heroes, and since third-tier classes are unavailable in Awakening, it's almost a no-brainer that Priam doesn't have Aether; he's not a third-tier class, only a second-tier one. If third-tier classes were accessible in Awakening, Priam would be a Vanguard instead of a Hero and have Aether unquestionably. The only reason he does not have it in Awakening is because Chrom is the only one who learns it in that game despite not being a Vanguard for some really odd reason, and only daughters of Chrom can inherit it (most likely to ensure Lucina will always inherit it). That brings up two more questions: how the hell does Chrom even get Aether in the first place and why the hell do only his daughters get it? No other Lord in the series other than Ike in Path of Radiance gets the skill. Ike started out as a Ranger, a class exclusive to him that is basically a special Mercenary class; when he promotes to Lord, he's essentially a special Hero (which can learn the skill), and Greil himself has it since he's a Hero. Even though the only Mercenary related class users were male (and related no less), that does not mean that Aether is a gender exclusive skill. Theoretically, anyone who becomes a Hero (PoR) or Vanguard should have access to the skill and pass it on to their kids if they desire so. The only skills that can not be inherited in Awakening were DLC Skills or skills from DLC classes (sons could inherit female exclusive skills such as Demoiselle and daughters could inherit male exclusive skills such as Counter). Chrom's inheritance system and by extension his descendants' are the only unique ones, as male descendants will always inherit Rightful King and female descendants will always inherit Aether. Aether should be completely inaccessible to Chrom and his descendants based on class-availability. His Lord and Great Lord classes (passed down to Lucina) are not related to the Mercenary-related classes at all, but he gets the skill anyways (probably for Rule of Cool as Aether is a very badass skill). Someone care to explain why this is so?
    • Priam's skillset doesn't seem to be all too concerned with what his classes are as it is, so he very well could have been given Aether. It'd be less of a question if Aether wasn't accessible at all in the game, obviously, but since Chrom and certain children can get it "for some reason" (indeed, Rule of Cool), why not the person who would have the most connection to the skill in the first place? Awakening itself makes a note of how Ike used Aether, so it is clearly a big deal. Like you pointed out, classes or tiers are not going to be a very rigid structure the designers are forced to abide by if they have a cool skill/idea in mind, so any technical reasons that Priam wouldn't have Aether don't make a lot of sense. And going by Rule of Cool, why not give Priam Aether so he'd have room for Tomebreaker? Not like the game is very balanced anyway.
    • The reason Priam doesn't get Aether is very simple. It is to keep Aether exclusive to Chrom's family. SpotPass and DLC units can't marry (with the exception of SpotPass/Avatar) and thus can't pass on Aether to anyone.
    • The explanation of Sol and Luna being an imperfect Aether actually makes a lot of sense to me. Maybe Priam relies too heavily on "Oh, I'm a descendant, why don't I have this down yet?" instead of "I should really train until I have this down."
• Also, the name for Rightful King is actually a translation error. In Japanese the skill is named Royal Weapon, which has nothing to do with gender. Just throwing that out there.