Headscratchers / Fire Emblem Engage

As a Headscratchers subpage, all spoilers are unmarked as per policy. You Have Been Warned.

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• Given that Lumera is shown to be fully capable of creating functional soldiers even out of twigs and rocks, why is it that her castle appears to have no real defenders and herself no bodyguards, even with Elusia on the warpath and the Corrupted known to be about?
  • She states the Corrupted cannot easily enter due to protection afforded by the spirits of other divine dragons, and sure enough when an attack comes no Corrupted are involved. As for Elusia, she didn't know (and indeed no other nation except perhaps Solm knew) at the time they were "on the warpath," the soldiers that invade aren't even identified by anyone as Elusians at the time. As for making Fabrications to protect her, perhaps she did conjure some (we see a big battle happening where she is while Alear and the party are delayed) and they got destroyed. As for why she wouldn't maintain a bunch as defenders, if they are like the Corrupted then their lifespan is quite limited so she'd have to keep making more. It's possible the process is power intensive too (since Emblems only make a bunch of Fabrications when the power of Trial grounds are available), perhaps in her drained state she could only make a few.

• Since the Emblems are apparently capable of conjuring small armies of creations ex nihilo, as shown in their Paralogues, why don’t they do this when it would be helpful to Alear and co. to have a large number of morally irrelevant bodies to throw at the enemy?
  • It's noted at least once that the Trial Grounds where the Paralogues take place are special places coursing with a particular sort of magic that empowers the Emblems. This would imply that they can only accomplish such feats of Fabrication army creation in these locations.

• During the scene where Veyle steals the first six rings, why is Alear pleading for her to give them back instead of charging her with sword in hand? She's like five feet away from them and just holding all six in plain view.
  • Alear knows from the attack that Lumera shielded them from that Veyle is very powerful, it'd be foolish to just charge at her, especially when Sombron is standing right behind her. They're also still reeling from finding out Veyle's identity. Lastly, if you check the scene again she is a lot further away from Alear than five feet, more like fifty feet.

• Where are any of the royals' other parents? Hortensia's mother is the only one specified to be dead by this time, but it seems incredibly odd for Eve and Seforia's husbands to be absent, particularly when their children are rushing off to fight in a war.
  • Alfred’s A-Support with Sigurd reveals that his father was, like Alfred himself, inherently frail and died during a plague when Alfred was still a child (in the main story it being noted his mother took him to where their second ring was hidden shortly after this happened).
  • Alfred mentions there is a "queen consort" for Queen Seforia, but that he didn't see him when they last visited. Perhaps like his children he is a bit of a roamer. He may well be part of the Sentinels like his kids too, helping defend the country as his role presumably comes with fewer royal responsibilities than the queen.
  • Diamant and Alcryst' mother is stated to still be alive, she just never shows up onscreen as she was moved to another residence for safety.

• Just how exactly did the heroes escape to Chapter 11 after losing the Emblem Rings? The Fell Dragon and his daughter were on one side, and the Four Hounds were blocking off their retreat.
  • Blasted/smashed a hole in a wall to the side while their enemies were gloating? Given the Corrupted wyrms and army of soldiers are present by the time Chapter 11 starts but were not there before, perhaps a fair bit of fleeing and fighting happened between the chapters.
  • And yet they thought they were trapped when the door behind them closed when they've been breaking doors for how many chapters.
  • The doors closing meant they were indeed trapped, for the time being. Necessity is the mother of invention, might have been nice to have someone note a window would be faster to break through than the doors or something.

• It's been established that all the other nobles had no idea what exactly the Emblems Rings were and how they worked, yet Timerra already knew Ike was in her ring and had to be summoned by the time Alear reaches her. Plot Hole, much?
  • It's explained that Solm has scouts (or rather, spies) all over Elyos that keep tabs on the other nations. As they were able to learn about Sombron's release before anyone else due to this, they presumably also got all the information Elucia had about the Emblem Rings that was hidden from Brodia and Firene. Alfred indicates some information on what the Emblems are is available, just a lot of people don't believe them.
    • And yet at no point were the rings discarded or forgotten over 1000 years?
    • With Lumera the Divine Dragon Monarch around to at least keep the knowledge the rings are important, why would they be forgotten? She's actively there to make sure that much at least doesn't happen. Everyone knows the Emblem rings are important, even if they don't know about or believe in the Emblems themselves.

• Why did Alear let Veyle go even when under the belief that she was evil after the chapter where you get your Dancer? Wouldn't capturing her have made more sense? It's given a Hand Wave that it could be a trap, except for the fact she's completely alone, has no rings with her, and there was very little she could have done if they actually tried to fight her here.
  • They'd just gotten done with a long fight, chasing after her may have just not been worth the risk. They already know she is very powerful and she had gotten the jump on them before without any rings. Falling for a potential trap by following her was a legitimate enough concern given they had no idea of her split personality yet. Also, she had repeatedly demonstrated a ability to teleport, making the prospect of pursuing her even less likely to succeed.

• At Chapter 17, what was the point of Zephia expositing about Veyle's Split Personality to her and Alear (plus Alfred)? It all but guarantees that the Avatar would have a reason to stop distrusting Veyle and try to get her to their side. That's what you get when a villain has to give exposition. What plan did she have? What was even the point of it all?
  • Alear already didn't trust Veyle, the point here was to try to break Veyle down as Zephia wanted her real personality to give up. Albeit one reason they were in Firene was they wanted to get the blood of the Firene queen for Sombron (and the other Veyle had ordered them to do so in order to draw Alear to them). Hurting Veyle was simply a bonus.

• Also from Chapter 17, after Evil Veyle is given the stolen Ring of the Hero King so that she can use Emblem Marth, why didn't Alear to take this opportunity and steal the Ring of the Hero King back from Evil Veyle while she monologues (like punch her and then grab the ring off of her finger), and reawaken Marth back to regular Emblem mode, immediately bringing the ring count advantage back to the heroes?
  • If you look at the cutscene the two groups are apparently standing a fair distance from each other, and Veyle has the hounds all around her. I don't see how Alear could just run up and punch her.
  • I mean, the Hounds were busy preparing for battle, including getting Corrupted Hyacinth onto the field, and Veyle seemed closer to attack than in Chapter 10, so Alear shouldn't have had a problem charging at Veyle to get Marth back from her by force!
  • Preparing for battle? Most of them were right there with Veyle. And even if Alear could somehow get past them quickly, you're underestimating Veyle's own capacity to defend herself. And of course, once the battle starts Veyle is on the other side of the map.

• The helmet. Veyle spends a solid two chapters completely struggling for control exactly once, and then at no point does anyone try to break or remove it, after Marni's first attempt. Instead, they see her good side surface for a few moments and are all shocked when the evil side fights for control back while Veyle is still wearing the helmet. Why exactly did it take so long for it to occur to anyone to just....take it off? Several characters spend their time at seeing the good Veyle come back and note it's because Marni damaged the helmet....but none of them try to follow up in damaging it any further than the slight crack Marni made. This is made even worse by when the good Veyle does take control again.....she does exactly that, but never tried to break the helmet before then after she had retaken control.
  • It doesn't seem like removing the helmet is easy, after all it was intended to never be taken off apparently (and Veyle notably seems to have to break the helmet fully before she can be free of it, even then it dissolves rather than being taken off). Notably Zephia refers to the helmet as being attached to Veyle rather than simply worn by her. And once the evil side resurfaces she restarts a battle that takes place offscreen (when we see her again she refers to the party fighting her and her army of Corrupted), and we don't see what they tried to do during it, but given they just saw Alear die they were probably not fighting all that smartly.

• In Chapter 21's ending, after Alear died Taking the Bullet for Veyle, why didn't Sombron just zombify Alear into a mindless Corrupted like what happened with King Morion in Chapter 10? It would've made a pretty good way to damage morale to the party seeing the now deceased Divine Dragon turned into a mindless shambling zombie that will attack them. And on top of that, since his original plan was to kill Veyle since she was no longer in her evil personality and refused to give him the Emblem Rings, why didn't Sombron carry out his original plan for killing Veyle since there was nothing stopping him from killing her this time. Even with the possibility of Evil Veyle somehow resurfacing after gaining unlimited power from the rings, there's no grantee Sombron would know that the helmet he created would reactivate since it was already cracked.
  • If Zephia knew the helmet would reactivate then chances are Sombron knew as well. He made it after all. As for not reviving Alear himself, Sombron's sole focus at the time was on using the rings to open the portal and raising Gradlon from the sea. He only made new corrupted like Lumera after that, at which time Alear may have already been revived by Veyle. Damaging morale would have been of no interest to him, since as far as he was concerned Alear's group was doomed as they lacked any ability to summon emblems.

• Why did Zephia need a child with Sombron specifically? By her own admission, she has no interest in him and is aware he constantly kills all of his children eventually. Sombron himself more or less suggests she could make children herself and doesn’t show any interest in stopping her from doing so, only debating if he should be the father himself, but overall seems mostly surprised by the suggestion, implying he had no problems with his servant having children with someone else, yet she never even thinks about trying to start one with anyone else, for well over a thousand years.
  • We don't know if she never thought about using another man, but as for why she was focused on Sombron fathering her children there are a few possibilities. First, the context of her getting a family was as much about having capable subordinates as it was about gaining unconditional love. And who could help ensure her children were of the highest caliber than the combining her genes with that of the King of Dragons? On a similar note, her history of killing weaker people by accident may have meant she wanted any children she had to be tough enough to not kill each other the same way as they grew up. Again, having Sombron father them she may have seen as a way to help ensure that.
    • Has she never, in a thousand years, heard of the concept of adopting a child? As unpleasant as it is to think about, I'm sure the war left a good number of orphans young enough to be cognitively malleable enough for Zephia's purposes.
    • It’s not that unrealistic that a dragon who lives for thousands of years wouldn’t want to adopt a child that would pass away in less than a mere century. Zephia would have to watch everyone of her adopted children die. Even the Four Hounds were only going to be a temporary “family” at most since they were all humans that would only be an abysmally small % of her long lifespan. As for why she waited for Sombron specifically? Well it’s not implied she joined Sombron solely for the prospect of having a child. She was already serving him and only expressed interest in having a child during the war. He said he would give her a child after the war. Seeing as he got sealed away, and we see no other living dragons it can likely be assumed all potential mates were wiped out. Same reason Lumera was the last Divine Dragon, they were all wiped out due to the war and she never took a mate. So in a way Sombron was Zephia’s last chance.

• So, during Chapter 11, [Veyle prevents you from just recovering the Emblems Rings whenever you defeat a Corrupted, by snatching them first and giving them to another Corrupted or to the Four Hounds once they show up. Previously on Chapter 10, it was revealed she can do this because she stole the Time Crystal first, using it to then steal the Emblem Rings. This should be fine, except that in Chapter 11 itself we learn Zelkov stole the Time Crystal back, very likely before they had even left the cathedral to begin with. Which means that through the entire chapter, Veyle is using a power she no longer has; and it is indeed the Time Crystal what allowed it. Since as shown in Chapter 17, she not only doesn't steal Alear's half of the Emblem Rings again like she did prior, but also doesn't stop you from recovering Leif's Ring from Corrupted Hyacinth. Because she can't, no longer having the Time Crystal again. So what gives then?
  • She wasn't using the Time Crystal after it was taken back, but rather that power she shows in cutscenes of being able to levitate the rings and bring them where she wants them to be. She didn't do it with Corrupted Hyacinth's ring probably because she herself was in battle and got beaten and weakened to the point of having to retreat (and the good Veyle took back control during this too).
    • With how the map is designed, it's unlikely the intention is that she gets beaten before Hyacinth. So nothing stops her from just magicking the ring back as before... if she could. Since she can't, then what made Chapter 11 different?
    • Judging from how the cutscene after it is constructed, as far as the story is concerned Hyacinth's ring is taken by the party near the end of the battle as the Four Hounds only make note that the ring has been "snatched" while they are retreating. Ergo, the other Veyle was either actively fighting when the ring was taken, or was on the retreat, weakened either in body or in mind (as the good Veyle was reasserting control). Both scenarios would mean she couldn't try to levitate the ring back to her. Or the party was used to her methods enough that they were able to grab the ring in mid-air this time. Alternatively, she was simply too far away when the ring was taken to levitate it back (this assumes there is a effective range to the power).

• Why did Sombron raise Lumera as a Corrupted when he had no way of knowing Alear was still alive or that Veyle had escaped his control until the final battle?
  • She was a powerful person and an old enemy, using her as a guardian was useful and a bit of petty vengeance at the same time as it allowed him to desecrate her by forcing her to serve him. Alear may not have factored into it at all.

• Why did Lumera never do anything about Veyle? Veyle was alone, the last Fell Dragon, and growing up without anyone— Lumera had 1,000 years to intervene. She learned from her first encounter with Alear that they were Sombron's child, and seeing as Veyle was another of his children, surely she could've pieced together that they were siblings. She was a Divine Dragon worshipped as a deity, and still in power up to her death, it's not like Veyle could've hid from her forever.
  • Veyle didn't have to hide forever, just for a thousand years, and during much of this she was kept hidden away by worshippers of Sombron. And unless Alear told her about Veyle, she wouldn't have even known to look (Sombron had many children, and no reason to think any survived except Alear).
    • It's said that Veyle only met worshippers of Sombron a few hundred years ago— that's still leaving a large time gap, and it's mentioned she specifically *hid* because people noticed she wasn't aging, and suspected her. Unless Lumera missed all of this new development, it still seems odd she wouldn't pick something up.
    • Not every person acts rationally when it comes to their morales. All you have to do is ask yourself: would killing a defenseless child be in Lumera’s nature? Then you’ll have your answer. It’s not in her character to do such a thing. Lumera took pity on a unconscious Alear, and even let Alear return to Sombron despite knowing Alear was Sombron’s child and one of his top enforcers. What makes you think she’d actively go out of her way to try to kill Veyle?
    • The idea is not that Lumera would kill Veyle, it's that she would provide her with guidance, stability, and protection as an older dragon to a younger. Perhaps even adopt her the same way she did Alear, and prevent her from going evil in the process.

• During his introduction, Mauvier reports that Veyle (he's referring to Veyle's good side since he never refers to her evil side as Veyle) had told the Four Hounds a lot about Alear and their company, but the Four Hounds are later surprised that Veyle had met Alear without their knowing.
  • As you said, he only calls Veyle’s good side by name. It’s possible that she met up with Mauvier off-screen to talk about all the new friends she’s met. The other Hounds may not have been around.

• If you play in Classic mode, the supporting characters can die in the Emblem paralogues, even thought they're supposed to be just friendly tests of strength. Why would the Emblems be willing to use deadly force when training with their own allies? And after the paralogue is over, why isn't Alear mightily pissed off at an Emblem who just (directly or indirectly) killed one (or more) of their friends?
  • Gameplay and story segregation presumably. In story they are just friendly tests, but in gameplay they are supposed to include some of the most difficult maps in the game, and difficulty in Fire Emblem tends to include consequence if you are playing on Classic mode.
  • Three Houses had a similar issue for late-game mock battle quests with elite military units for the Kingdom and Empire, unlike how you don't lose defeated units in the mock battles in Chapter 1 and 7, as well as auxiliary battles in Chapter 1. However, in that case, units you lost in those missions were forced to retreat and disappeared after the Time Skip, like all others you lost in the academy phase, instead of dying like units lost in the war phase.

• Lindon is loyal enough to Ivy and the Elusian royal family that he joins the Divine Dragon's army upon realizing Ivy is alive, and Ivy herself can convince him to join. Why can't he and Ivy support with each other?
  • Lindon is loyal to the royal family, yes, so when he finds out the crown princess is alive he is easily swayed. But nothing in the game says he's particularly close to Ivy herself; it seems that before the war he was closer to Hortensia, as he does have a support chain with her. And Lindon seems to be quite respectful of rules and traditions, so maybe in the current war situation he feels getting personally close to the proper ruler of Elysia would be inappropriate behaviour.

• The game says that the Emblems don't manifest physically, and Lyn even explicitly tells Yunaka that she'll have to satisfy herself just looking at Lyn's sword; she can't hold it because her hands would go right through it. If that's the case, how were we able to hold Marth's hand in the prologue, and how are Emblems able to damage enemies during fights (one example being the cutscene during the very first battle where you rescue Framme and Clanne) and inflict/receive damage in training/their paralogues?
  • The prologue seems to be partially a dream sequence. As for the other points, perhaps via expelling their magic the Emblems in battle can exert force and inflict damage in ways that mimic physical attacks despite being immaterial beings. But in casual activities outside of battle and sparring they cannot do this.

• Is Timerra supposed to be a bad singer or not? Her persona skill being "Racket of Solm" would suggest she is, and the actual singing we hear in her support conversations is usually off-key. But in the A support between Merrin and Pannette we find out Timerra has given the two some excellent singing training, and they feel they're now good enough to do public performances as a trio with Timerra. So is Timerra secretly a good vocalist, or are Merrin and Timerra just being deluded?
  • She's not bad, just loud and likes to sing at night, so she's a disturbance.

• In Chapter 14, Zephia mentions that Goldmary and Rosado tried to stop her from following Hortensia to Solm. Hortensia demands to know what she did to them, but Zephia coyly says Hortensia will have to see for herself. Two chapters later, Goldmary and Rosado abscond from the invasion fleet with the Ring of the Azure Twins, and their being described as "soldiers" implies they were supposed to fight in the invasion with everyone else, and the incident with Zephia is apparently never mentioned again apart from Marni mentioning that she thought Goldmary and Rosado were "behaving themselves lately." It seems rather implausible that someone as cruel as Zephia would let Goldmary and Rosado off the hook, so did the story forget about Zephia punishing them, or was Zephia just lying and/or playing mind games with Hortensia?
  • It's possible Zephia or another of the Hounds did punish them, they just didn't do any permanent damage (hence Marni having thought they learned their lesson and would be obedient). Zephia shows she is capable of this. On a pragmatic note, they needed all the capable soldiers they could get for their attack on Flora Port, so they had reason not to kill them. We also aren't told how Rosado and Goldmary tried to stop the Hounds. They may have simply tried to distract or misdirect them rather than actually fought them.
  • They got demoted, docked two months pay and had their cigarette rations reduced. Rosado was also told he had to cut his hair and wear a proper uniform the next time Zephia saw him which was absolutely unacceptable the real reason the two defected.

• This is a bit of a recurring problem with Fire Emblem games, but in the pre-battle scene for Chapter 10, Alear and their companions are in the same room as Hyacinth, Corrupted Morion and Hortensia, at the altar of the cathedral, close enough to speak to them. However, when the mission actually starts, Alear and co. are at the entrance to the cathedral, Hortensia is on a ledge about two flights of stairs up, Morion is midway between the entrance of the main hall and the altar, and Hyacinth is at the altar. Is there any way to explain this discrepancy apart from Gameplay and Story Segregation?
  • In some cases (like Ivy flying in ahead of her main force), it's indicated that through some form of battle etiquette the leaders will come to talk to the leaders of the opposing force before both proceed back to their main force to actually begin the battle. But usually it seems to just be Gameplay and Story Segregation for the sake of making longer, more intricate battles. The maps would after all often be a lot shorter if the characters started out in the same places they were during the cutscene.

• What exactly caused nearly everyone in the Alternate Elyos to die and get resurrected as Corrupted? Rafal repeatedly says he brought the world to ruin, and we know he revived Fogago and the other royals, but nobody ever says he actually killed everyone. It more seems like he made use of a apocalypse that was already in progress. For one thing you'd think somebody would notice an entire continent's population dying or getting killed. Further, are we to believe he then revived the entire population (small as it might have been after the previous war) and nobody noticed until Nel years later did? It's noted Nel doesn't know when the royals perished, making the mystery deepen as to just what happened. We do get dialog between alternate Celine and Alfred about how Elyos as a whole seems to be dying due to the Alear of that world dying, but can that really explain it all? Is the life of all Elyos and everyone in it bound to there being a Divine Dragon Monarch? And if so how did the Four Winds, Nel and Rafal not die? Are there no further details in supports? I haven't seen them all yet, but no answers seem forthcoming. Another possibility is that Sombrom did it in the chaos of the war, given that scene of him talking about more than just Rafal serving his purposes, but it again leads to questions of how he did it and how no one noticed death on that scale.
  • Alternate Fogado mentions in his dialogue with Alear that he was newly raised in Chapter 1, but Timerra reacts to your own Fogado by mentioning that he was already dead, meaning that he likely died earlier, possibly in the war. There's also the inconsistency with Hortensia, where her dialogue in the finale indicates that she died in Elusia while her Corrupted self is first fought in Solm and appears unaware of it. Combined with Ivy also reacting as though Hortensia being alive wasn't surprising, it seems that the mass resurrection is recent, and the resulting Corrupted are in the beginning stages of the same cognitive decay seen in the main universe's Hyacinth and Lumera, where certain things would cause their behavior to glitch out. The Four Winds also noticed no discontinuity in their scouting missions. So whatever killed the population of Alternate Elyos acted extremely fast (unlike any slow decay Corrupted Celine may have been alluding to), and was either caused by Rafal or at least had him trailing it close enough to replace everyone.

• How is Alear legitimately dumb enough to believe for a second that, after all the deception he's pulled, Rafal would actually release Nel once he had already given up his one potential point of leverage?
  • Alear is rather naive, what with having only maybe a few months worth of memories. It could also be argued they didn't have much choice in that situation, (compared to say the main game where Alear was confident Hortensia didn't have it in her to kill Queen Seforia). Thirdly, their driving motive through the DLC is to save both Nel and Rafal, due to the request of their counterpart.

• When Nil turns on Alear at the end of the Chapter 4 Xenologue, why is it both that they're dumb enough to just turn around and expose their back just because he said to and why are they not fighting back when he moves to capture them?
  • I doubt it had sunk in yet that Rafal was the villain. Further, Rafal was unarmed. As for not fighting back, we don't know what happened given the scene ends then and there. They may well have fought back.

• Alternate Sombron raises a pretty legitimate point: in their thousands of years of rule, why didn't Alternate Alear sire/bear any children or even adopt an heir in the manner of Lumera? Even assuming that they never found anyone they were interested in over all that time (seems kinda unlikely), did they never even consider what could happen if they fell without leaving a designated successor? You'd think such a long period of rulership would have acquainted them with the horrible mess that is the Succession Crisis.

• If Citrinne is so impossibly rich and is more than willing to casually give people things that are worth thousands, if not, millions of gold, then why doesn't she use that money to help her army? Why does Alear have to work their butt off in order to get around 360,000 gold to pay to the nations when Citrinne is right there and would probably be more-than-willing to pay the debt for them? She could also use her money to help her army, buying them new weapons, or improving their old ones.BTW.
  • Gameplay and Story Segregation. As far as the story is concerned Alear's army is never lacking in money, the war funds from other nations being shows of support rather than necessities. Logically speaking, Alear should have access to and reason to use all the wealth of Lythos to aid the war, given they are Lumera's heir, instead of the relatively small sum Vander gives them in the game. Funds are limited in gameplay for the sake of giving the player more of a challenge.

• In the original Japanese, Yunaka tends to use -shi on other people. According to The Other Wiki, -shi "is used in formal writing and sometimes in very formal speech for referring to a person who is unfamiliar to the speaker, typically a person known through publications whom the speaker has never actually met." Why does Yunaka use an obscure honorific like that, what is that supposed to say about her character and why does the localization not even try to replicate this?
  • It's possible that she uses -shi to try and butter up whoever she's talking to, or to emphasize that she's totally just a random thief stop asking. As for the localization, maybe they thought it wouldn't translate well or that her being a terrible liar would be funnier.

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