WMG / Fire Emblem: Awakening

The Avatar's mother is behind the previous war against Plegia.

In Validar's monologue, he explains that Avatar's mother betrayed them, and ran away with him/her when s/he was an infant. This could mean Avatar's mother was behind the previous war against Plegia. What is Avatar's occupation again? A Tactician. This could mean his/her mother was Ylisse's previous Tactician for its Exalt before Emmeryn to snuff out Valdiar and his followers, making a justified grudge against Ylisse. The Avatar's hood is likely given to him/her after his/her mother likely retired or passed away.

• Unlikely. That "previous Exalt" would have been Chrom and Emmeryn's father. Wouldn't that mean that Chrom and the Avatar almost surely met each other way before the events of the game? Then again, that would explain why Chrom immediately trusts him/her... hmm...
• I did say "Previous Exalt before Emmeryn", so that narrows things down.

The world has lighter gravity.

OK, this could probably go for all of them, but in Awakening, it's much more pronounced:

• Think about the huge number of BFSes in the game. A Bronze Sword is reasonably sized, Iron swords could be used by normal people, etc. Then you see people wielding stuff like Armorslayers, Wyrmslayers, really most of the axes, ESPECIALLY the throwing ones... How do you even lift most of these weapons, let alone use them to kill things? Especially one handed!
• Look at dragons. Sure, they might not be as big as dragons from some other series (barring Grima, of course), but none of them have anything near a reasonably sized wingspan. Most dragons wouldn't be able to get off the ground, let alone fly or fight in the air. Again, this goes double for Grima. He's the size of a ship, if not a small island, but his wings are about a third the size of a ship sail. That's not anywhere near enough to fly, unless Grima is a lot lighter than he looks (read: he's made of Styrofoam or something).
• Think about the armor Knights and Generals wear. They're dressed like tanks! Sure, they're slow, but how do they not instantly collapse after putting all that armor on?

Grima has No Biological Sex.

Going from the idea that Grima came from a fusion of all the Earth Dragons in the Dragon's Table, Grima is a sexless creature, and the Avatar can become Grima, regardless of being a man or woman.

• Considering that Echoes reveals that Grima is an artificially created dragon while implying he/it/they may be some kind of hybrid creature, you may be onto something here... just maybe not for those exact reasons. If Grima is a fusion of a dragon with some of the humans Forneus collected, it would make sense for Grima to have No Biological Sex.

If Robin is Owain's father, then after Chrom's death and the Awakening ceremony's success in the bad future, Grima/Robin returned to the army and stuck around long enough to run into a group of Risen and get away from Owain.

In his support with Robin as his father, Owain says that Robin was struck by an arrow and then seperated from Owain. Owain also says that there were Risen at the time. It's made clear that the Risen are tied to Grima and would therefore not appear at this time unless Grima was active. Therefore, after the incident in the Dragon Table, Grima/Robin returned to Chrom's army, possibly to enact some sort of plan. As well as possibly Grima/Robin not being completey awakened. If the former, then Grima/Robin being struck by an arrow was part of an act, if the latter, then Grima/Robin being struck may have been the last straw for the Awakening of Grima.

The way time travel works was changed during development.

The game repeatedly brings up changing fate and the past. Grima!Robin goes through the trouble of leaving the future and putting himself at risk. One could ask why he even bothered, considering how Lucina killing Robin wouldn't have taken down Grima!Robin had he stayed in the future. Have the game work with the "new future erases the previous future" and things flow better, namely Grima!Robin going back in time. At some point, the game did work under the "new future erases the previous" rule, but this was changed to "changes lead to more timelines that are still around and can be accessed from other timelines", with Grima!Robin's actions not being changed to account for the diffrent approach to time travel.

• The game implies that Lucina's group were the first to ever try to change their own history in this way. They might have simply assumed that the "new future erases the old one" rule applied, only to find out about the branching timelines later when they actually made the jump. Even Naga and Grima may not have known until that point; for all their power, the gods in Ylisse are not omniscient.

If the Avatar is a playable character in the next Super Smash Bros., then the character will be a composite of the Avatar from the Bad Future and the one you play as.

Both of them are the Avatar in some form. Having a Composite Character would represent both of them.

• Well, they're the same person, one just succumbed to possession. There's nothing a composite character could do that just one couldn't. At the end of the game, the Avatar even uses Grima's magic on his villainous self. That could be a final smash, but it doesn't need to be a composite character for that to be so.
  • Think of Exdeath in Dissidia. He behaves like Neo Exdeath (Exdeath before being engulfed by the Void never said he wanted to erase himself) but he is in his humanoid and armored form.
• Jossed. Robin in Super Smash Bros for Wii U/3DS appears to have his/her default look, with a Purely Aesthetic Gender to boot. They use the Bronze/Levin Sword (switches between them in an as-of currently unknown method), and they use 4 different spell types: Fire, Thunder, Wind and (somehow as a Tactician) Nosferatu, with ramping levels for each ^note in the Lucina/Robin announcement video Robin uses: Elfire, Arcfire, Elthunder, Arcthunder, Thoron, Elwind, and Arcwind. Unknown (but likely) of Bolganone, and Rexcalibur are useable, as well as other levels of Dark Magic Tomes
  • Although, Robin was floating in the trailer that featured him/her and Lucina, not to mention how he/she uses a Nostferatu tome. One can speculate that both are nods to Robin's heritage and nature as Grima's avatar, considering how Robin's father Validar has shown the ability to float, along with how Grima and the Grimleal specialize in Dark Tomes.

Earlier in development, Cordelia was not only planned to be a wife for Chrom, but was even the woman that would have been pushed as Chrom's wife

Concept art for Cordelia in the Knights of Iris artbook has her with ''blue'' hair◊ (akin to Caeda), Lucina and Severa were paired together in a piece of artwork◊ and they even have a convo in the Future Past DLC. The artwork and convo are either leftovers from this, or are Mythology Gags.

• Not only that, but blue haired Cordelia looks almost exactly like Lucina.
  • She even makes an ideal choice for Lucina's mother gameplay-wise: she passes down positive strength, skill, and speed modifiers, as well as three classes that don't overlap with Chrom's (and two of which don't overlap with any of her other potential mothers besides the Avatar). And Chrom!Severa would also fare pretty well, since Chrom's class set is almost identical to Stahl's, only trading Myrmidon for Lord. So in exchange for not having Vantage or Lethality, Severa gains the ability to use Sol, Luna, and Aether, all at once. Yowch!
  • OR Cordelia was always meant to be 'the girl who can't get the guy she wants' and the blue-haired beta design was yet another callback to Catria but developers decided it was too obvious. Because Cordelia's crush is so goddamned subtle.

Alternately, Lucina and Cordelia were originally the same character before the second generation was added.

It would explain their physical similarities as well as their shared Iron Woobie statuses. Maybe IS just really liked Cordelia's design enough to make two characters out of it instead of just one.

• Lucina's the princess of a war torn country with little skill in anything but fighting. She's essentially a Child Soldier, why wouldn't she have Iron Woobie issues?

Cordelia helped raise Lucina after her biological mother died

We know Cordelia survived long enough after Chrom's death for Severa to recognize that she had a crush on him, and this would explain why Lucina acts so much like her, regardless of who her real mother is or the fact that said mother cannot be Cordelia, as well as why Lucina and Severa are so close in the Future Past.

• Then why can't Severa and Lucina support in the main timeline? And wouldn't this make Severa's issues WORSE?
• Actually, that might help explain Severa's issues. Of course she'd react so badly to Cordelia's crush on Chrom if Cordelia took in Chrom's child/children; she's jealous. That same jealousy might explain the lack of Luci/Severa supports; she'd be trying to avoid her.
  • The problem is the more cynical person would probably feel more for Severa than Cordelia, and this would not help the argument that there's more to Cordelia's character than her crush on Chrom.
• Given how Lucina reacts of a Female Avatar who isn't her mother, I can't see her being okay with an arrangement like this. And I can't help but see Severa as coming out worse than she is in-game.

Yarne and Panne's roles were reversed during development. i.e. Originally Yarne was the first-gen character and Panne was his daughter.

This stems from an oddity in Panne's inheritance. Despite Wyvern Rider NOT being a female-exclusive class, the game treats it as if it was when passing it to Yarne, so he gets it swapped for Barbarian. Panne -> Yarne is the only inheritance pair in the game where this occurs. This is certainly a leftover of something that got changed during development. It's possible Panne originally had a female-only class like Pegasus Knight instead of Wyvern, but look at this. While Wyvern Rider -> Barbarian doesn't make much sense, Barbarian -> Wyvern Rider does. Perhaps things went like this:

• Orininally, Yarne was a first-generation character. Perhaps a Proud Warrior Race Guy envisioned before the pairing system existed. When it did, the devs realized they'd have to give him the ability to have kids, him being the Last of His Kind and all. But they then realized this would go against the female-dependant children system they were using. Wanting to limit non-mother dependent children to Chrom and Male Avatar, they figured the best thing to do would be to swap the parent-child roles around, having him become a second-gen character and his child developed into the Panne we know. The inheritance oddity is a leftover of this.
• It is easily justified by the matter of Yarne being too afraid to ride a Wyvern, given his survival overfocus.

Liz's Dub Name Change to Lissa is solely due to Lip Lock problems

Liz is a perfectly fine name from an English perspective, but it's one syllable in English as opposed to two (Ri-zu) in Japanese. Normally this wouldn't be a problem, except Lissa is one of the very few characters whose name is spoken in animated cutscenes. This, the one-syllable Liz wouldn't have matched the Japanese mouth flaps, so it had to be changed to the two syllable Lissa.

Grima is the result of a mass fusion between every single Earth Dragon that was sealed within the Dragon's Table.

Both the Binding Shield (now called the Flame Pedestal), and the Dragon's Table both have completely different functions. In addition, none of the Earth Dragons actually appear, despite the Binding Shield being incomplete and Medeus swearing that he and his clan will return when the shield itself returns to incompleteness.

• Jossed. While it has been an extremely popular theory, in Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia, Grima is confirmed to be an experiment by an insane alchemist named Forneus in Thabes. They created the Risen Soldiers and Grima. Grima is a Dracozombie and likely infused with an unknown Divine Dragon's blood. Though, it is more heavily implied about the infusion with a Divine Dragon's blood than outright stating it.
  • Original theory as-is is jossed, but it is possible that Forneus could've used some Earth Dragon blood when making Grima. So it may be technically right/possible depending on how you look at it?

The Avatar is the descendant of the My Unit (Kris) and Katarina from Fire Emblem: New Mystery of the Emblem ~Heroes of Light and Shadow~

It's a common trope in various media that the protagonist of the sequel with time skips is some how related to his/her predecessor from the prequel.

• The Avatar may gotten his/her natural ability to formulate combat strategies from Katarina who was studying to become a Tactician at the time. The ability to use magic probably also came from her too.
• His/Her physical combat and swordsmanship came from My Unit (Kris) whose male default class was a sword wielding Mercenary.
  • Jossed with authority; his/her father is actually Validar of all people!
    • Yeah, but what about his ancestor, then?
    • Gharnef?
    • Two thousand years have passed between Shadow Dragon/New Mystery of the Emblem and Awakening. The fact we know who the father of the Avatar is doesn't exclude the possibility of MyUnit being his distant ancestor at all. In fact, assuming MU had offspring and his family line didn't get cut short on one or two generations, 2000 years is enough time for him to get a shitload of direct descendants. The Avatar descending from any Marth-era character wouldn't be surprising. Surprising is the fact that Marth himself appears to have only three living descendants by the time of Awakening.
    • That and Kris and Marth's A Support in Heroes of Light and Shadow has them wondering if their descendants will be friends too. If their respective decendants are indeed the Avatar and Chrom, this becomes an amazing Fridge Sequel Hook.
    • Actually, for a more likely theory, see below.
• DLC Katarina comes as a Grandmaster, becoming the only character with a tactician default class besides Avatar/Morgan. The resemblance she bears to Avatar and Morgan becomes rather uncanny.
• This is impossible, because whenever your avatar is female, so was Kris (and also the tactician from Blazing Sword as well). Thus this theory can only be possible in the "Robin is male" continuity. Unless you mean to imply that Katarina could have become pregnant with Kris's child regardless of Kris's gender.
  • Nope. Descended from two people doesn't mean that those people were married. Say, Katarina's daughter could have married Kris's son. Or somewhere along the line, the two lines met.

Travis Touchdown is going to be a DLC character.

Think about it. Yusuke Kozaki is designing the characters, they've already announced that there will be DLC scenarios, No More Heroes enjoyed a lot of popularity on the Wii... They'd be utterly mad not to do it.

The Identity of the Masked Man from the trailers.

Okay, so the guy obviously looks like Marth with a Paper-Thin Disguise on. The most widely circulated theory is that it's Marth time/dimension hopping into another version of Archaneia to save his own. But admittedly, that's a tad predictable, so here's a few other ideas:

• It's someone pretending to be Marth. Either to fulfill some sort of prophecy or personal gain. Or he's just a big fan of the hero from lore.
• It's some sort of guardian spirit masquerading as A Form You Are Comfortable With.
• It's the spirit of Krom's Falchion testing Krom's worth as a wielder.
• It's actually a girl. Not likely, but would be a fun twist.
  • Looks a bit more likely with "Marth" being Yuu Kobayashi (who admittedly does male voices as well, though that is pretty handy if you are faking maleness) instead of Hikaru Midorikawa as he is in the OVA and Super Smash Bros..
  • One needs to take into consideration his original VAs age (forty), and the fact he last VA-ed Marth in Melee. His Brawl voice is reused. He hasn't done Marth in 11 years.
  • Confirmed!
• Take A Fifth Option. Marth defeated Medeus but failed in his duties as a ruler after that, leading to his Archaneia being embroiled in chaos and war. His Falchion is somehow destroyed in the process. Hoping to end the chaos by finding a hero who won't fail, he reforges the Falchion into a new form that also serves as his Soul Jar (hence: "the Binding Blade Falchion") that Krom ultimately receives. When he does, he reawakens the dormant spirit of Marth inside.
• Is an Identical Descendant, some previously unknown relative of Krom's, who is claiming to be the real deal for some reason. Can overlap with the girl suggestion and the one below.
• Is using Marth's Falchion while Krom's is actually Alm's (hence the "sealing" in Krom's). Can overlap with any of the above.
  • Well, according to this page, it ain't him. Actual Marth confirmed for DLC.
    • Combining two theories: DLC Marth is from an alternate universe where the world didn't go to shit after he was crowned.
• As it turns out, she is Krom's daughter from the future. The reason she wears the mask is to hide the mark of Naga.

The Masked Man is a Hero Antagonist.

Because, if it is Marth, seeing a clash between two heroes with noble goals would be an awesomely good way to spice up Archaneia's Black-and-White Morality.

• Jossed. The scene of Chrom and Marth fighting in the trailers turned out to be a case of Superdickery (it’s an organised arena battle).

The new world setting for this game is a Crossover universe where all the previous Fire Emblem games exist on the same world.

Thus leading to Alternate Continuity versions of classic Fire Emblem characters that will pop up with only a few being playable during the main game.

• Pretty much Confirmed, though the classic characters are summoned spirits rather than Alternate Continuity counterparts.
  • It's more that there's a "Outworld Gate" that's 15 minutes away from the capital where once can access multiple dimensions and time travel. Via DLC you can fight a number of fights from each Fire Emblem game; and the game itself utilizes it as well as another shrine of time to explain plot events. And this is how Owain and Severa go to Fire Emblem Fates.
    • It's funny how the Outworld Gate is an Unusually Uninteresting Sight in the game as Chrom just glosses over it when describing where everything is in Chapter 4.

The dragon-mark-bearing hero tied to Naga, who is widely presumed to be Krom, is also a descendant of Heim, and that's where the mark comes from.

Upon consideration of the fact that the world of the game is practically identical to Archanea/Valencia, and that Jugdral is set in the ancient history of those worlds, that got me thinking, if working under the assumption that the world is indeed "future" Archanea. First, to refer to an excerpt from the logo text:

"Two heroes marked with the symbols of dragons."

With Naga confirmed to be one of the dragons, this reminded me strongly of the Twelve Crusaders and their bloodlines, the descendents of which have identifying marks on their bodies. Naga bonded with one of the Crusaders, Heim, who proceeded to have quite a few descendants carrying the blood themselves. So from here, what I'm thinking is this: Somehow, in the thousands of years since Monshou and Seisen's events, a descendant of the Heim line came to whatever the Kakusei continent is now called and had children with someone, whose eventual descendant is one of the prophecised heroes. Given that he has a dragonlike mark on his shoulder, combined with the standard trends for FE heroes, that could well be Krom and his family, and I guess that's the assumption I'm working under here: the royal family of Iris carries the Heim bloodline, aka the Naga bloodline, and that is the cause behind the dragon mark.

Consider also that there are only thee options for Heim ancestors here: Yuria, Linoan and Celice, the latter of whom may be used as a way to tie yet another main character into this world (assuming you buy the Masked Marth thing); on the other hand, Celice only had minor Heim and thus, without him or his descendants marrying Yuria, Linoan or their descendants, may not be able to sustain the line.

• Take a Third Option. Krom could be descended from Yuria and Lester or Finn?

• OP here: Linoan isn't an option, or at least is a very unlikely one, as her ending says she never married; obviously a child out of wedlock isn't out of the question, but it doesn't seem all that likely.
  • Celice marrying Yuria isn't an impossiblity — far from it. Given that would also tie them to Anri and Marth, however...
• Recall that Marth and Sheeda are distantly related, both descended from Anri — if Anri had minor Naga blood and passed this on to his descendants, than Marth and Sheeda could potentially both have minor Naga blood, thus allowing their children to have major Naga blood. As for how Anri would have minor Naga blood, that requires another whole crazy theory. Perhaps he's descended from Celice? (The Falchion and the Tyrfing do look rather similar...)
  • ...Marth and Sheeda are not distantly related. As for Celice and Yuria, yeah, negative love growth. They aren't hooking up outside of exploits. Anyway, the mark of Naga on Krom and co has nothing to do with Heim, but rather the first King of Iris who also made a pact with Naga to gain the power to defeat Gimle.
    • This is true — there is no reason to believe that the mark (called the Brand of the Exalt in the localization) has any relation to Heim. That being said, it's worth noting that the B support between Tiki and the Avatar does include a line where Tiki mentions that Chrom reminds her not of Marth but of one of Marth's ancestors who lived around the time or her birth. Given that she was born following the war between the Divine Dragons and the Earth Dragons, it seems unlikely that any human heroes of note would be present on the continent at the time. However, given that FE4 takes place around 300 years after some point in the Divine Dragon/Earth Dragon war (as Archbishop Galle had to have made a pact with Loptous before the Earth Dragons were sealed away, and then accounting for 200 years of Loptr Empire rule and 100 years of peace following its overthrow), and considering the fact that Sigurd is probably the most similar main character to Chrom in the series, it seems increasingly likely that Marth and by extension Chrom are related to Sigurd and Seliph.
    • Not only that, but Leif's conversation at the end of the Lost Bloodlines 1 DLC has him use the term "Brand" to reffer to the Holy Blood system in his home universe. Since descendants of Heim in FE4 were said to have a mark on their bodies, it's not hard to assume this is indeed the Mark of the Exalt.

"Marth" will have his name localized as "Mars".

For the sole purpose of screwing with fan theories.

• Jossed, and for good reason, considering the point is to trick players into believing it is in fact Marth.

My Unit will be able to Change Proofs to enter any class

Which would give a way for MU to be flexible yet start with a single class.

• Confirmed! My Unit can use the Change Seal to change into any class barring special ones like Manakete or Taguel.
  • My Unit can marry a Manakete or Taguel... and then Morgan can change into one of those two. (And Nah or Yarne will get all other classes too!)

My Unit and Marth are two parts of the same being

Marth looks more like an anti-hero here. My Unit is the lighter part of his personality, with the tactical genius included.

• Jossed

My Unit is Perezian royalty.

Saw this on Serenes, thought I'd post it here. The basis of the theory is that My Unit is dressed very similarly to the evil sorcerer in the trailer, who is assumed to be the ruler of the enemy nation. Additionally, if MU and Chrom are indeed the two marked heroes in the logo, it would be natural for Ylisse's prince to be the marked of Naga and for Plegia's hier to be the marked of Gimle. Makes you wonder if their meeting accidentally unleashed that Lovecraftian dragon...

• Being Plegian Royalty is Jossed, and the sorcerer is actually the head of the Grima Cult, with the king being Gangrel. Originally being from Plegia is confirmed, however, and MU IS Validar's son/daughter. MU's mark proves that he/she is a suitable vessel for Grima. Furthermore, Validar does become the king of Plegia after Gangrel's death. So... confirmed From a Certain Point of View?

The children from the Marriage option are from the future.

It's confirmed married couples can have children that fight alongside them, but, barring a long timeskip, the timeframe of the game doesn't seem like it spans an extremely long drawn out conflict. Also it doesn't look like Sumia aged a day in her scenes with her daughter (granted it would be taxing to have to redraw older versions of everyone). It could be that the children are recruited from the mysterious Dimension Gate after the parents have bonded.

• Confirmed!

My Unit's son, Mark, is the same Mark from Blazing Sword.

Same well, default name, the two characters start their games in similar circumstances, and they serve the same plot purpose in their respective games.

• But what if you made a female Mark? Making it non-canon seems unfair.
  • It turns out that Mark in this game is the opposite gender of his parent. If My Unit is male, Mark will be female, if My Unit is female, Mark will be male. This was probably done to match up with the FE7 guy.
  • Of course, this just means that now we're going to have flame wars about the other parent. Since the only thing we know about Mark from his/her sprite in Blazing Sword is that (s)he has brown hair, and the children in this game have the same hair color as their father, this means either Male MU with brown hair is canon or... Fe MU x Frederick?
  • To be fair, ever see an enemy unit tactician? Or a Player Unit Tactician? Or Purple-guys Tactician? Each changes the hair color. All "Other Units" (Green) have Brown Hair... even if they're canonically... Purple-haired or something like that, unless it's a Mage (Female) (Green Hair) or Lord (Eliwood) (Red Hair). So, there's actually nothing known about Mark of FE7, outside of him/her being really skilled. (Ala, the "Brilliant Mind" ending needs to happen for background of FE6)
    • Actually, the first CG makes it pretty clear that s/he has light reddish-brown hair. It's not even the sepia filter, either, since the unfiltered prototype version CG has hir with light reddish-brown hair also.
  • And of course, Mark might well have been simply have been dying his/her hair.
• JOSSED. Mark is not Mark... but... MU is. Or may be. Lyn seems to remember him/her/you from FE7, unless you don't remember that. She still thinks MU is the Tactician and would like to see for herself.
  • You can actually take this as either Jossed or Confirmed, since you're given the choice in-game to confirm or deny Lyn's claims that Awakening's MU and Blazing Sword's MU are the same person. There's nothing storyline-wise hinting at it being true or false, so any logic you use to justify/refuse it is your own.
  • However, Lyndis does refer to the FE7 tactician as whatever sex you made Robin. Whether or not Robin is the FE7 tactician is still unclear, but this seems to imply that Morgan isn't.
• Irrelevant in the localized version, which changed his/her name to Morgan instead.

Secret Character Support conversations

Will involve MU confronting them with the mistakes they made in the main plot.

• Emmeryn: MU will be happier than her about her survival/duplication at first, but later on will start arguing with her about whether her sacrifice was necessary or not.
  • Nope. Seems Emmeryn lost her memories... and MU just wants to help her get them back... She never does.
• Gangrel: Gangrel will try to be his typical arrogant self, but will be a bit deflated. MU admits that they are on the same side now and that MU's aims for perfect victories preclude a Uriah Gambit... in theory.
  • Actually, judging by their S support, Gangrel seems to actually try and become a better person, at least with Female MU.
  • He appears to be quite self-deprecating around his son if him and Female MU marry, saying among other things, "Your Father was a turd with a crown", suggesting his defeat has humbled him big-time.
• Aversa: These will revolve around MU's nature as an avatar of Grima. Aversa will compare and contrast their personalities, while MU keeps a close eye on her to prevent her from subverting Chrom. Finally, MU will call her out on the idiocy of her following a being which self-identifies as Evil and with a stated goal of Kill All Humans.
  • Jossed fairly hard. Aversa turns out to have been Brainwashed and Crazy.
• Walhart: MU will claim that their battles were rather pointless in the grand scheme of things, and distracted them both from the true threat of Grima. Walhart will try to justify his actions as pragmatism, but MU will counter that provoking more moral people like Krom was what (almost?) got him killed.

Griffons will eventually become their own class

Much like in the far past how the Dragon Knight was a promotion of the Pegasus Knight, as now Griffons are a alternate promotion for the Dragon Knight class, eventually they will become their own, being the Jack of All Stats to the Pegasi's Fragile Speedster and the Dragon's Mighty Glacier.

MU is Kris AND Mark.

Marth, Katarina, and Lyn all recognize him/her. How do you answer these time paradoxes assuming you say "Yes" to all of them? It's simple, they're all of them. It makes sense, considering MU is supposed to be the Player who "travels through time" quite easily.

• This is actually a valid theory, since Katarina's death quote in the Lost Bloodlines 1 DLC makes a reference to Kris... but with the gender pronoun changed to reflect the Avatar's. (I.e. Kris is male for a male Avatar and female for a female Avatar)
• The problem with this theory is that Kris and Avatar have vastly different personalities and established backstories. Also Tiki would've recognized Avatar since she was definitely around during both periods. Unless a silly Doctor Who style explanation is used, Kris and Avatar aren't likely to be the same person. Mark being Avatar is still a possibility though due to how vague Mark's details were.

The Grimleal are what's left of The Loptr Church from Genealogy and Thracia 776.

The Loptr Empire was originally founded when someone made a blood pact with a dragon from Akaneia. The events of Fire Emblem 4 pretty much destroyed the Loptr Church...HOWEVER, it's quite clear that they are still going, and have become the Grimleal. If anything, after the events of Fire Emblem 4, they fled the continent and went back to the land of Loputosu's birth...Akaneia. They discovered that Loputosu wasn't the only one, and Grima was another. So naturally...yeah. They became the Grimleal instead of the Lopto sect. And Validar having a child specifically to be Grima's next host... that's exactly what Manfroy manipulated Alvis and Diadora to do. If there were "Bloodlines" in this game, the Avatar would have major Grima blood.

• I support this theory. It would also explain the presence of the Deadlords. Presumably, the remains of the Sect took the knowledge of how to make them with them and it eventually ended up in Validar's or Aversa's hands. Also, the Deadlords wield some of Jugdral's Crusader Weapons. According to Word of God, after the war against the Loptr Church, the holy weapons lost most of their power and presumably also their blood-bond to specific lineages. After FE4, the remaining followers of Loptous might have stolen a few of the weapons, or, if we want to be darker (as if Jugdral isn't already dark), assassinated their wielders and took them. It would explain why they landed in Ylisse and are wielded by Deadlords. The only problem is that several thousand years lie between Jugdral and Awakening. It's questionable where the Loptr Church/Grimleal were in that time, particularly what they did during the events of the Akaneia games.
  • Apparently, the Jugdral games are set before Akaneia, so maybe they were in hiding there, or maybe they met Medeus before Grima... or maybe history isn't all it seems to be and there is some confusion as a result of lost records.
• This can still be plausible with the revelation of certain historical aspects in Echoes...

Playing off the above theory, the Avatar has major Loptr blood

We're still not completely familiar with how holy blood works; who's to say that just because Julia doesn't have it, her descendants won't? The Loptr Church, thinking the same thing, kept tabs on Julia after fleeing Jugdral and spent the next few centuries watching from afar, waiting for minor Loptous blood to surface in a male and female. Once it had, they kidnapped those two and forced them to inbreed until they finally got someone with major Loptous blood — the Avatar, who is described as "a heroic Julius" in the Expy trope on their character page.

• Alternately, Julius and Ishtar somehow managed to have male and female kids without anyone noticing, who were kidnapped by the Loptr Church and went through the process above. The reason it takes them more than a millenia was because Manfroy got really lucky and it actually takes Loptous blood a long time to become major.
  • Playing off of this theory... who says it was any descendant of Diadora or Alvis? Surely they weren't the only ones with Loptous blood out there. Was Diedre the only one living in the forest?
    • As far as I know. It's mentioned that her family was allowed to have only one child per generation, for fear of this exact thing happening, except Cygun broke the rule by having Arvis and Deirdre.
  • Or Saias, Arvis's bastard son, had Loptous Minor blood.

Morgan is the Dovahkiin

Considering the fact that Morgan is a descendant of Grima, can learn and master almost any skill, and pretty much has demigod levels of power, s/he probably fell into Skyrim at some point while time traveling, and doesn't remember due to the amnesia. Or better yet, an older Morgan travels to Skyrim via the Outrealm Gate.

• Am I the only one who read that WMG and was suddenly tempted to roll up a blue-haired Imperial girl who specializes in One-Handed and Destruction, with Dawnbreaker as a primary weapon?
  • Nope. Currently playing through on that Morgan build now. Lightning Bolt looks like Thoron to boot. However, Morgan's "default" hair color seems to be dark brown.
    • Ironically, the child character from the next game could count as a Dovahkiin in a more literal sense, seeing as how your avatar is part-dragon.

Lissa has a mark of Naga, it's just in a place no one can see it.

Chrom's children have theirs in the eye, so the mark can be fairly small and unobtrusive and not even on the skin.

• Perhaps it's just in a location that no one has bothered to look, like the underside of her tongue. Or maybe it's under her hairline.
• It might not be limited to just the outside of the body. Perhaps it's on her heart or stomach or some other symbolic organ.
  • She is The Heart, so it would make sense to be there if she had one.
• What do the skin, the outer ear canal, the oral cavity (inside the mouth), the nasal cavities, the interior of the lungs, the inner lining of the esophagus, the inner lining of the stomach, the inner lining of the small intestine, the inner lining of the large intestine (including the appendix and anus), the vagina, and the urethra have in common? They’re all technically on the outside of the body, as they have some degree of contact with the outside world. Of these, only the skin is readily visible, yet most of them are produced from the same embryonic tissues. A birthmark is typically the result of something weird going on with this proto-epithelial tissues, but if a birthmark formed in the anus, oral cavity, or vagina, it would be very difficult to see (and it would be outrageously rude to actively inspect for it); if it showed up in any of the other places I mentioned, it would be flat-out impossible to see without some sort of inner-body-scanning technology such as MRI (which in all likelihood does not exist in the Fire Emblem universe) or vivisection (which only happens in the context of surgery, autopsy, or murder).

Sumia is Chrom's canon love interest/spouse.

Chrom begins the game with relationship points already shared with Sumia. When Sumia rescues Chrom in a cutscene, he stares in appreciation/wonder at her for just long enough to be awkward if there isn't any romantic subtext. And the cutscene itself is titled "Lovebirds."

This is probably to avoid having the Avatar as Chrom's canon spouse (since female Avatars seem to overwhelmingly choose him), since the end of the storyline reveals that should the Avatar strike the final blow against Grima, he/she apparently dies, or at least vanishes for a long period of time. Also, since Chrom and his lineage may be referenced in later games, it would be useful to have the option to say who his wife was, rather than go New Mystery's route and say, "Chrom was married, but who she was/what she looked like is now lost to history."

• Seems about right: even the opening cinema for the game features Chrom with a woman that looks like Sumia holding their child in front of cheering crowds.
  • Forgot to mention it in my explanation, but it is indeed Sumia seen with Chrom in the opening. Further support for their relationship.
  • Basically confirmed by game mechanics. If Chrom has equal support level with all his eligible love interests, the game prioritizes Sumia as his spouse, and pairs him with her even lacking S Support.

Walhart becomes a Risen or otherwise undead.

The SpotPass chapter where Walhart can be recruited takes place in a graveyard, where every enemy save Walhart is clearly a Risen and Risen reinforcements spawn from tombstones. Further, despite Walhart being against Grima, none of the Risen attack him, even though he's apparently been trying to provoke them for a while. It doesn't seem unreasonable that you actually killed him earlier in the story, only for him to be brought back as a pawn of Grima. However, Walhart's Conquest skill negates armor and cavalry weaknesses, so in this case it might also negate his Risen weakness; that is, a mindless devotion to Grima. By driving Grima out of his mind, Walhart remained in control of his reanimated body, and after being recruited to your side he's all set to go Faustian Rebellion on the Fell Dragon's hide.

• One might see it that those Risen were actually his men at one time and despite their state, will not turn on their ruler. The fact that he was able to command them suggests a sort of Undying Loyalty.

The SpotPass team leaders are from Old Hubba's cards from the DLC levels.

If you play the DLC levels related to Old Hubba (like Champions of Yore), he tells you about the cards that contain the copies of brave warriors. Every last enemy from these levels has a blue aura, as they have been summoned by these cards. He also tells you that there are multiple copies of some of these cards, each somewhat different. The leaders of the downloadable SpotPass teams all have the same aura and icon, they even show up as cards when you talk to them!

Lucina will have a game to herself

In her unpaired ending it says that Lucina disappears after the conflict to unknown places, leaving IS with plenty of room to continue her story in a later game.

• Alternatively, Priam will get one. Come on, his appearence and backstory just scream Early-Bird Cameo!
  • Alternately, they both will be in a sequel. Lucina is already incredibly popular anyway, in addition to going off on her own in her solo ending, and Priam could really use some development. Them having Deuteragonist roles would be awesome as well.
  • Jossed for Priam, who is not in Fire Emblem Fates at all. Zig-zagged for Lucina in Fates though - she can be recruited if you have her amiibo, but she's more like one of the characters from Old Hubba's cards; no support conversations, unfortunately. Curiously enough Owain, Severa, and Inigo do appear in Fates as characters themselves.
  • Jossed for Fates and Echoes, sure. But any of the above could still happen in a potential FE16 or FE17.

Priam's English dialogue will, voiced or otherwise, parody Ike's "I fight for my friends" line from Brawl at some point.

• This certainly sounds like something the localisation would do.
  • Alternatively, we'll have Continuity Nods in his critical quotes, like "You won't get any sympathy from me!"

The reason why Naga plays matchmaker for Morgan (M) and Nah...

...may be to prevent or severely delay Grima's hypothetical future revival. There is no guarantee that the Avatar would sacrifice herself to kill Grima permanently. Though it'll take at least one thousand years for Grima to be revived again, if there is no suitable host, it may take longer still. By having the Avatar's son, a likely carrier of Grima's fellbloodline, marry and possibly have children with a half-Manakete, the Divine Dragon blood may weaken or dilute it greatly. Morgan and Nah's descendants may not viable for use in Grima's revival, or it would take longer than one thousand years.

Since the children are already crushing on each other, she figured she would just help them along while giving humanity a boon. This may not be as necessary if Morgan is the son of Chrom, Brady, Inigo (if they are Chrom's sons), or Owain and thus get exalted blood as well, but it may act as extra insurance.

• Unlikely, if that was the plan, shipping Morgan with Tiki would make far more sense - Tiki is Naga's granddaughter, and such an absurdly powerful Divine Dragon Bloodline would likely render Morgan's bloodline absolutely worthless for any future attempt to create a new avatar.

Yarne is incredibly nervous about being one of the last taguel alive because...

...he actually had several siblings in the future, all of whom, except for Morgan if a male avatar married Panne, were killed by Risen and/or Grima him/herself.

• I mean, taguel are obviously based off of rabbits, which don't exactly have children one at a time.
  • Plus, real-life rabbits do have offspring in litters, so... it would also make sense if Panne had twins or triplets when Yarne was born.
• Might also be why he asks his father for a lot of brothers and sisters.

The Spotpass Yen'fay came from the same Bad Future as the other second generation characters.

In the timeline they're from, Say'ri never acted as Chrom's insider to Valm; Cherche played that role instead, until they were forced to retreat through Demon's Ingle/Doma's Remains. At that point, Yen'fay was only with Walhart because he was a Death Seeker. He was too noble to take his own life, and too many people relied on him so he couldn't commit Suicide by Cop on Walhart, so he figured he would commit Suicide by Cop on Chrom instead, knowing that his own death would make the Resistance turn on Walhart. However, Chrom instead convinced the broken Yen'fay to instead join him — which turned the resistance around on Walhart. After the war was over, Yen'fay went back to ruling Chon'sin and Chrom's army went home to live their lives, until their children had grown up a little and now Plegia acts against them again. However, back on Valm, risen started coming and they were one of the first to fall, sending thousands of refugees to Ylisse to warn them. Yen'fay escaped when there was no hope for Valm anymore. (Chereche and Virion did as well, unless they decided to stay on Ylisse.) He didn't want to initially go back in time, but he was convinced that he could correct his greatest failure: The fact that his plan had failed, and Say'ri had died. Because of the second generation's intervention, Say'ri was found by Chrom and his men still. (It's possible the Alternate Yen'fay spoke to Excellus to ensure his plan would succeed, knowing what he would have told her back then.) However, there was a big wrench in his plan: Not only was he there, but so was the Parallel Yen'fay. Upon hearing that the parallel Yen'fay stayed with Walhart, he retreated to Chon'sin in hiding, thinking he didn't think his plan through and that no matter what, he was doomed to lose Say'ri — since while Say'ri would live, she would forever hate him and think him a traitor. He especially thought "What have I done?" when he heard that the real Yen'fay was killed in the battle when he defected to Chrom's side in the timeline he was familiar with. When he is found in Paralogue 21, he was finally given another chance to atone for what he did.

In the Future of Despair, (M)Morgan has a harem

The mission is to save all of the daughters from the prisons and the boss is (M) Morgan. If you had that many girls in your prison and your mother was an evil dragon who conquered the world and caused a risen apocalypse, why wouldn't you enjoy yourself to the survivors?

• ...I'm still having extreme difficulty seeing that, even considering that Morgan joined the dark side in that alternate future. Everything evil that Morgan does is at Grima's command, and that doesn't sound like something he'd be ordered to do or inclined to do otherwise.
• This assumes that Nice Guy Morgan would, in joining Grima, decide he wanted to defile his female FRIENDS bodies after they are horrifically killed. The very idea is just WRONG on SO many levels.

Lucina actually did accomplish one of her goals... to save Emmeryn's life

.In the Bad Future, Emmeryn was assassinated by Validar. And Validar made sure that she was dead, since Emm is quite resilient. In the revised events caused by the Timey-Wimey Ball, Emmeryn lived. Rather than being stabbed through the chest or killed with dark magics at the hand of Validar, she jumped off a cliff. Being as resilient as she is, Emmeryn survived but suffered a severe head injury that possibly resulted in brain damage, hence her loss of memory and childlike manner of speech. As for how the events of Paralogue 20 could be canon, she was moved there shortly after the mad king's war. Gangrel put her "Dead body" up for display, which further caused the citizens of Plegia to defect. One of these viewers, however, noticed one thing... Emmeryn's "dead body" was breathing. The sympathetic Plegians quickly snatched her off her display in hopes that she could be saved... however, now they made an enemy of Gangrel and the Grimleal. They retreated to the village seen in Paralogue 20 with Emmeryn, in hopes that she could be nursed back to health. However, she lost her memory and suffered brain damage as a result of her fall... and then Chrom enters a little over two years later.

• Well, in Chapter 9, Gangrel does bring up the idea of putting Emmeryn's body up on display. He may not have meant that seriously, but if he did, that would definitely be a plausible way to tie it in to Paralogue 20.
  • Who knows with Gangrel? He probably did. Emmeryn's death caused Plegians to defect en masse, and doing something like that could be seen as a Moral Event Horizon to them.

Miriel (and possibly Tharja) is pregnant at the end of the game.

If Miriel is married at the end of the game, her "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue mentions a newborn son, while Noire's solo ending involves her staying with her parents to help her mother with her work and (possibly) take Tharja's curses in the place of Baby Noire. Furthermore, Laurent comes across as being one of the older children even before we learn that he ended up arriving three years before Lucina and ended up three years older than her.EDIT: Upon closer examination, Miriel's ending doesn't always mention a newborn son. The mention of a newborn child shows up with whoever Henry marries.

• Miriel would still have to have gotten pregnant fairly soon after the end of the game, though, in order for Laurent to end up older than Lucina.
  • Who says that the parents have to have their kids right after the end of the game? Besides, in the Bad Future, Laurent can plausibly be born from one to two years after Lucina and still be older.
  • This is explained actually — Laurent wound up going further back in time than the others by mistake, three years before "Marth" showed up. So in theory Laurent could have been as old as the others or maybe older than the others by a year (Still younger than Lucina though), he just is physically older because he wound up going back five years later.
  • According to birth date, Lucina is the oldest of the children. We see her as a baby in game. None of the other children are born until after the game ends. Laurent, however, is physically the oldest because the time portal spat him out 3 years before everyone else. While most of the kids aged around 2 or so years, he aged 5.

Lucina is a Time Lord

Other than the "no duh" factor, she can even have Owain as a companion!

• Just Owain? Wouldn't all the kids be her companions?
  • Have her S Rank with Owain, and they become companions instead of spouses.

Priam didn't inherit Aether because it was locked to Ike's top slot in Radiant Dawn.

First, because any discussion about Priam's heritage tends to be Flame Bait, let me just snuff any potential flame war out before it starts by saying, "It's a game and this is WMG - we all have better things do than argue about what sexuality a polygon model has." (Although whether or not they even have one is in itself an amazing WMG)

I propose that Ike gets Aether, despite not being a Lord in this game, simply because he invented it and they had to pay homage to the skill's original creator. So why doesn't Priam get it if he's Ike's descendant? Other than the obvious reason that having a third (potentially a fifth) Aether-user would be the most broken thing ever? Because you can't move skills in Radiant Dawn. The inheritance system in Awakening means the last skill in your list is the one you pass down to your children. As a Vanguard, Ike's Aether was in the top slot and forcibly locked there. So, it could never have been handed down. Furthermore, he wouldn't have been able to move it even if he'd wanted to - the skill is locked to the top slot. In the Prologue, the Avatar states that he can "see" enemy information; like equipment, parameters, etc. This, and Flavia's Dual Guard of Basilio, imply that Fire Emblem runs on Gameplay and Story Integration rules. So, is it so far-fetched to assume that Ike couldn't pass on his trademark skill because the mechanics quite literally prevented him from doing so?

• Actually, Aether is inherited in Awakening regardless of slot, so this WMG may possibly be Jossed.
• The difference between Ike's bloodline and Chrom's bloodline though is that the latter is of royal blood, and such skills seem to be passed down almost like a divine right (and perhaps having blue hair/being able to wield the Falchion as well). Also, Aether is a skill that is automatically passed down to the females, while the males automatically get Rightful King (ignoring the fact that Lucina can also get that skill at lvl 15 Great Lord). So even if Aether was a skill that was in the family, Priam would not recieve it, and he wouldn't get Rightful King since he has no claim to any throne (I think).
  • Actually, the (first) above creates something of a hole in the Ike-Descendant and Mist-Descendant sides of the argument. Let's assume that Aether has to be passed down. This makes sense for Ike and Greil, the latter of whom could use it as shown in FE9 hackings of unused data. As such, it can be assumed that he passed down the ability to use it to his son. So, by that logic, Priam can't be Ike's kid if he doesn't have Aether... but then Mist can't use it at all. Why? Wait a minute. Maybe she wasn't Greil's kid to begin with...
    • Perhaps Greil's line passes it down through the male children. Or even the older child.
    • There's another problem with the Fanon of Mist being Priam's ancestor via "the Marth/Anri route": namely that Marth not being a direct descendant of Anri is actually a Retcon. In the original script for the first Fire Emblem game, and Book 1 of Mystery of the Emblem, Anri's name is only mentioned a few times and there's nothing to suggest that he isn't Marth's ancestor. The fact of Anri's brother being Marth's true ancestor isn't actually mentioned until late into the second book: which implies that it wasn't thought of until later in the series' lifespan. Marth's trophy description in Super Smash Bros. Melee actually hints at this by not actually stating that Marth is Anri's descendant — only that they share blood (which is technically true as they're family). So, when Priam says that he's a descendant of the Radiant Hero, it's very possible that that's true.

All of the characters are actually ...

Satyrs. It's why they have no feet; under their shoes/boots they have hooves!

• Jossed by the official art, which clearly depict feet.

Loptous was The Man Behind the Man throughout Awakening and, by extension, the Archaneia games.

Something that has always bugged me about the Marth-driven Emblem games is Medeus. In the second game, they try to pull the Well-Intentioned Extremist card by explaining that he raised an empire to punish the humans who were oppressing his people. To me, this just raises further questions — not the least of which being why he says that, as long as evil remains in human hearts, he'll have a chance at revival. Why? If you think you're the good guy in this scenario, why do you more or less define yourself as evil? That is not something a Well-Intentioned Extremist does!

So, yeah, this bugged me for God knows how long... and then I realised that Loptous basically says the exact same thing when you off him (with Celice, anyways). Suspiciously Similar Substitute? I thought so, too; but then Loptous actually is evil. He wants to create a hellish dystopia where he controls everything and tortures humanity for all eternity just because he finds it amus— Wait a minute! That's a word-for-word description of Grima!

So, here's my theory. Fire Emblem 4 is a prequel to the Archaneia games. After being defeated in Jugdral, Loptous is out of human bodies, so his spirit travels back to the land of his birth — Archaneia — and possesses Medeus. This explains why Medeus suddenly goes from being motivated by revenge to just sort of being an omnicidal tyrant. It also explains why Medeus is able to change from an Earth Dragon to a Dark one. Y'see, Loptous' design looks nothing like the Earth Dragons (who always looked more like dinosaurs to me) and is much more comparable to Medeus' Dark Dragon form. From hereon, this WMG follows the theory that Grima is a fusion of all the Earth Dragons. The dominant mind, however, is Loptous. It just explains too damn much about the Grimleal being Expies of his old cult.

• This is interesting. And Jugdral being a prequel to Akaneia is canon. Perhaps we could tie this into the theory above that the Grimleal are what eventually became from the remnants of the defeated Loptr Church? Let's say they either managed to preserve Loptous' spirit somehow, or just followed him to Akaneia, and then aided in the corruption of Medeus? If Lopyr is the head of this new super-dragon now named Grima, that would also explain why they changed their name to Grimleal, and why Grima seems much more powerful than previous dark dragons. I am not, however, familiar enough with Marth's games to be sure if there could be a place for the then-Grimleal during the Akaneia era.
  • Possibly! Gharnef does have a cult of dark magicians who serve him in Mystery and their ultimate goal is to resurrect Medeus as a Dark Dragon. Sounds kinda familiar to Manfroy, doesn't it?
• Also, according to the game, Grima once tried to destroy the world over 1000 years ago, but was stopped by Naga and the first exalt of Ylisse. As said, the events of Genealogy take place before Marth's games...which is more than 1000 years ago. And what spell do you use to kill Julius (unless you're feeling masochistic)? A spell calling forth Naga. This could also tie into the "Chrom is descended from Sigurd" theory if Granvalle eventually became Ylisse, who would likely regard Seliph as their first leader. Of course, there is the problem that the Jugdral map and the Awakening maps don't look the same...

The Dragon's Gate was an Outrealm Gate

Thus, the world on the other side Nils spoke of, which had mostly dragons, but also humans, might have been one of the other FE continuities. For instance, the past of the Akaneia games.

• Very probably. Perhaps Elibe is an Alternate Universe version of Archaneia?
• Hilariously, the DLC gate in Fire Emblem Fates is called the "Dragon's Gate". It might just be a coincidence, but who's to say that Elibean and and Ylissean dragons don't have similar powers to that?

Grima's Face

Grima's human like face under the exoskeleton helmet is most likely meant to be very similar to the Avatar's face due to their sharing a body.

• Well, it's less that Grima literally shares Robin's body, and more that he can possess them. That aside, though, it's far more likely that Grima shares a face with Forneus, his creator, due to things that Echoes revealed about his creation.

Grima's origin will be explained in the upcoming Shin Megami Tensei X Fire Emblem crossover.

• Remember the theory above about Grima being a fusion of all the sealed-away Earth Dragons? One of the hallmark mechanics of the Shin Megami Tensei series is the ability to fuse two or more demons to create a single, more powerful demon. What if someone from another dimension found a way to reach the space in which the Earth Dragons were sealed away and fused all of them to create the Lovecraftian abomination that is Grima? Or fused a single powerful Earth Dragon with an extremely powerful demon from their own dimension?
  • Not only that, but the dichotomy between the Avatar and Grima is a perfect fit for the Death Arcana, which has played a major role in SMT before. Death is even called the "Nameless Arcana" in some decks, fitting the Avatar's status as a customizable character.
• Jossed. It's actually explained in Echoes.

The Avatar fathers/gives birth to twins. The Morgan you recruit depending on the Avatar's sex is the twin who ended up in the timeline you play in. What happened to the other twin is anyone's guess.

• The Future of Despair features both Boy!Morgan and Girl!Morgan regardless of the Avatar's sex.
• Maybe the other one is wandering around, lost? Though this then raises the question if they're both named Morgan or not.
  • Since the first reveal of Robin in Smash Bros. featured Male Robin, I'm inclined to believe that Male Robin is the "canon" one. Which would lead to Female Morgan and Male Mark. Theme Twin Naming anyone? But that does bring up the other twin wandering around lost and that's frankly terrifying, especially if the other twin shows up after Grima's death.
• Except that Smash Bros is not canon to any other Nintendo franchise except its own, so the Avatar's canon gender being male because of Smash Bros is not good evidence of canonicity and it's rather unlikely Nintendo themselves are gonna say either way.
  • If I'm recalling correctly, Robin's first character image reveal for Awakening showed a male. So one could assume Male Robin is theoretically the "canon" one.

Alternately, Morgan is a shape shifter who can choose a male or female form at will.

• Admittedly, this WMG only came about due to some very strange wording on Grima's part. When the other children reunite with Lucina at the end of Future Past, Grima remarks that Morgan has failed to stop them twice, as if it was the same person who attacked both groups. If both Morgans were siblings, Grima would probably have said "so your sister/brother failed as well" or something more reasonable. If one of them (i.e. the one who is the same sex as the Avatar) was actually just a random Grimleal instead of the Avatar's child, then there'd be no reason to call him/her "Morgan," and it wouldn't have been possible for the real Morgan to have been present for both battles. Alternate!Avatar also refers to Morgan in singular, as well. Something is very odd about the two Morgans existing simultaneously. We know shape shifters exist in Archaneia/Ylisse because of Xane from Shadow Dragon, and female Morgan somewhat reminds me of Xion, who is also a shape shifter with a male form.
  • The dialogue actually changes depending on the Avatar's gender. Male Grima refers to Morgans as two separate people, saying that "so the Morgan I sent after your group failed as well" while Female Grima comments that Morgan has failed her twice, which makes it more ambiguous. If we go with what Male Grima says, it seems that there are two individuals who are both named Morgan.

Alternately alternately, Morgan is just genderfluid.

Sometimes the simplest explanation is the best one.

• Doesn't explain why male Morgan has a totally different voice from female Morgan.
  • They're just changing their voice to pass better.

Libra was castrated.

If you remember well, Libra's a saint and war monk of an Ylissean church, considering his Dark and Troubled Past, and his voice being extremely feminine, despite being a tall, athletic man with a stoic and elegant nature, it would make a lot of sense for Libra to have been castrated in his youth, especially so considering that Fire Emblem is settled, for the most part, on The Middle Ages.

• Jossed. He is still able to sire children.

Tharja, Henry, and the other dark mages weren't evil to begin with. Dark magic corrupted them. Furthermore, others can be corrupted in the same way.

• Throughout the Fire Emblem series, dark magic has always been the source of corruption and moral decay. Gharnef created Imhullu and its power warped his soul; the Loptr Church — according to Lewyn — were normal to start with but something changed them over time; Nergal lost his mind to the darkness and forgot about his family beyond the Dragon's Gate; Lyon tried to control the Demon King with his dark magic and ended up getting possessed by him... Face it. No matter how the likes of Canas try to portray it, dark magic is extremely dangerous and corrupting. This is why Tharja and Henry are Punch Clock Heroes. Both of them have Hidden Depths that reveal that they're not as evil as they seem, but there's no denying that they're creepy as hell on the surface. Why? Well, who's to say that their minds haven't already been warped by their own powers?

In fact, let's go on even further. Dark Mage is a reclass option for quite a few characters. Who is to say that they haven't started to feel the effects of this corruption as well?

• The Avatar: Was bred as a potential vessel for an Eldritch Abomination. Enough said.
• Miriel: Wants to know more or less everything about the world. Even things that she probably shouldn't. Also, while she's highly intelligent, she's also something of a Defrosting Ice Queen who isn't particularly great at social interaction. Maybe some of her empathy has already started to be drained away...
• Cordelia: Holds an unrequited love for Chrom. Who's to say that love can't be warped into something darker? Not to mention, the loss of her unit pushed her towards the Despair Event Horizon.
• Libra: He has a Dark and Troubled Past, which causes him to harbor a darkness inside him that even Tharja is scared to touch upon.
• Gangrel: Sought to create a great empire to match Valm strength-for-strength but ended up forgetting his goal and started pursuing power for its own sake. That's pretty much what happened to Nergal, sans the family aspect.
• What about Pelleas, though? He's just a spirit charmer — he's not actually evil.
  • Well, considering that the spirits slowly consume the soul, they very well might be.
• Aversa: Seems to be the only exception to the rule, as she had a natural affinity for dark magic from childhood. So, basically, if you level your heroes up as Dark Mages, you're pushing them closer and closer towards the same kind of madness that past villains have embraced. You're putting them on the road to evil.
  • Well Aversa's backstory is only in the overseas version, the Japanese version never explained why Fauder chose to brainwash this random girl.

The Exalted bloodline is the result of a centuries-long eugenics program by Naga to create the ultimate badasses using Marth, Seliph, and Ike's lines. Also, Chrom and Priam are distant relations.

For this WMG, we'll be looking at two other WMG's: namely, Grima actually being Loptous and the one about Priam's ancestry. Oh, and you might want to grab a sandwich or something... you might be here for a while.

First, let's talk about the Exalt. The game never actually says that Marth was the First Exalt. He's referred to as a heroic king of ages past, yes, but that's not the same thing. If it was, surely Chrom would have said something along the lines of, "Hey, that's the name of the First Exalt" when "Marth!" introduced himself. The timelines also don't add up. The First Exalt appeared 1000 years ago, while Marth's adventures were 3000 years before Awakening. So, we know that the First Exalt is a completely different character. But, according to Lucina, Falchion can only be wielded by someone of the Exalted Bloodline. Marth could use it, which implies that the weapon is like the Jugdrali Crusader Weapons and will only recognize users with the blood of Anri's family.

But who were they? Well, since they have the Brand, they must have Naga blood. That means it has to be someone descended from Seliph or Julia. Fire Emblem IV is a prequel to the Marth games and we know from the former that the Crusader Heim is the one who made the blood-pact with Naga while she had a physical form. By the time of Marth, Naga has died and most likely become the spiritual entity seen in Awakening. Ergo, the only living people possessing the blood of Naga are Seliph and Julia. Since Jugdrali Sagas are known to the people of Archaneia by the time of Awakening, we know that there has to have been some communication between the lands. Therefore, let's assume that this Naga-descended character from Jugdral came to Archaneia and started a family there. Perhaps they were even guided by Naga, who knew that her archenemy Loptous would revive in time. The Naga descendant is able to mingle their bloodline with that of Marth's descendants and, from this union, a Falchion-wielder with Naga blood is born.

But what about Ike? Well, following on directly from the previous WMG about Priam's lineage and the section about Marth being Anri's brother's descendant actually being a retcon. Let's assume for the purposes of this WMG that that's correct and that Priam really is Ike's descendant. This still does not eliminate the Ho Yay Ship Tease he has with Soren. So, what's the answer? He's bisexual. Ike and Soren arrived in Archaneia and started a One True Threesome with a woman from there. Or maybe he was just experimenting. Either way, Ike sired a daughter to whom he could pass down Aether via Awakening rules. ... See where I'm going with this? Yes. This line of Ike eventually mixed with that of the Naga-blooded Falchion wielder. The product of this union? The First Exalt; who grows up just as Grima appears. They're able to take down Grima with a mixture of Marth's Falchion, Seliph or Julia's Naga bloodline, and Ike's Aether. Their mentor throughout this journey? Why, Ike's Really 700 Years Old other lover, of course! After that fight with Grima, the guy also helps bring Tellius magic over to Archaneia. I mean, how else do you think the people of that continent are going to learn so many Tellius spells? (Here's lookin' at you, Arc-level spells and Rexcalibur)

So, yes. Chrom's line combines Marth, Seliph/Julia, and Ike into the most badass of bloodlines ever seen in Fire Emblem history. So, where does that leave Priam? He's descended from Ike, sure, but isn't part of the line that mixed with Marth & Naga's. Since Ike's other line didn't need Ragnell, on account of now being kings with Falchion and all that jazz, Soren made sure to use his remaining time to put this line of Ike on the path of the man himself and made sure that they inherited Ragnell.

The Future Past timeline is a lot more like the main one than we thought

In the main story, Grima implies that the Avatar of his timeline joined him willingly, either before or after killing Chrom (which one is irrelevant for now). This would explain why original!Avatar isn't seen Fighting from the Inside during the main story. The fact that futurePast!Avatar does try to resist Grima seems to indicate that s/he was a victim of Grima rather than a co-conspirator, just like main!Avatar was. It's possible that another version of Lucina intervened in this timeline, just like she did in the main one, causing them to follow one another. The only difference being that the Avatar's plan to save Chrom failed for some reason, resulting in the Avatar's unwilling possession by Grima. The presence of Lucina and company in this timeline would also justify Morgan's existence if the Avatar married a second-gen character.

• Naga repeatedly states that The Future Past timeline is very similar to the "main" one in the openings when she sends the party over. Could be lampshading that the parents will meet alternates of their children... or possibly confirmation of this theory?

There is no timeline where the Avatar becomes a villain.

When Grima claims that the Avatar joined with him willingly, he's either lying or has a Self-Serving Memory to the point of being delusional. Admittedly, the main reason I'm placing forth this theory is that Validar's and Grima's plans are so blatantly stupid that someone as smart as the Avatar joining them is simply not within the realm of possibility.

• It is if the Avatar in the original timeline was a Manchurian Agent.
• The OP did say "willingly." It wouldn't take too much tweaking to assume that this is (mostly) accurate in-universe.

The Morgan we recruit in the main game is from the Future Past timeline.

The Avatar's last words at the end of that storyline express regret at not treating Morgan better. It's possible that s/he sent Morgan back in time with his/her memory wiped (and replaced with vague-but-happy memories of time spent with the Avatar), so that s/he could be raised by a version of the Avatar from before Grima possessed them and have a (relatively) normal life.

• More evidence: In the Hot Spring Scramble DLC, both male and female Morgan have two copies of the exact same book, annotated by the Avatar, which they show to Inigo and Cynthia (respectively). In the Future Past, Morgan receives a second copy of said book from the Avatar if you try to talk them out of fighting.

Adding on to the above theory, the Future Past timeline is caused by Lucina and her friends going back in time but failing

My theory is that things play out the same way they do in the main timeline: Lucina and the other children go back in time, causing Emmeryn to sacrifice herself and the war with Plegia to end earlier. Unlike the game timeline but like the original Lucina's timeline, the war with Valm didn't occur for another decade, allowing the children of the Future Past timeline to reach adulthood. When Robin was possessed by Grima, the Lucina-timeline children all fell in battle alongside the Shepherds. This also explains the existence of the two Morgans if Robin married one of the time-travelers—in this timeline, the two had time to naturally conceive, birth and raise the twins before everything went to hell. One of the Morgans was sent to the main game's timeline by Future Past!Robin; the other probably ended up waking up in a field somewhere, which is why Lyn will talk about recognizing Robin—Morgan does strongly resemble them, after all.

Nah has a vore fetish.

She makes an awful lot of comments about eating people she likes and/or loves, especially during her supports with Inigo.

Chrom's wife options besides Avatar represent the spouse options of past lords

All of them share a class or archtype (or both) with one:

• Sumia: Fairly obvious. Marth/Caeda, Roy/Shanna, Eliwood/Fiora, Hector/Florina, Hector/Farina, and Ephraim/Tana...
• Sully: Slighly harder to pinpoint, but Lyn/Kent and Eirika/Forde or Seth.
• Maribelle: Ephraim/L'Arachel and Leif/Nanna. Technically also Roy/Cecilia.
• Olivia: Roy/Lalum and Eliwood/Ninian.
• Considering how the Avatar is the one who has the blood of Grima and becomes the Fell Dragon in at least one timeline, the Avatar could represent Deirdre. What with how Deirdre had the blood of Loptous and later becomes the mother of someone who was Loptous in human form.
  • Sully makes even more sense when you think about it. She's really tomboyish, and so naturally she's a gender inversion of the popular class for female lord love interests. Cavalier/Paladin is pretty much the pegasus knight of men when it comes to female lords falling in love with them. Eirika with Seth / Ephraim, Elincia with Geoffrey, Lyn with Kent/Eliwood. Hell, her tomboyishness may be a bit of an inside joke reference to this.
• Of course, over the course of the series' long history, nearly every class has been represented by a potential spouse. Conspicuously, there's no one there to represent the Alm/Cellica dynamic, no myrmidon to correspond to both Eliwood and Hector being able to marry Lyn, and certainly no mage to correspond to Lilina, who gains support points with Roy far quicker than any of his other potential spouses.

Kellam will be the antagonist in a direct sequel to Awakening.

Learning that it took Chrom and the rest of the army several years to notice his disappearance, Kellam will become disillusioned with the heroes who paid him no attention. Kellam will become the shadowy, masked figure known only as Mallek the Conqueror. Owain (shut up, you want him as a protagonist) will lead an army to take down Mallek the Conqueror. This army will consist of both young heroes and first-generation characters from Awakening. As Owain and his army finally confront Mallek the Conqueror in battle, the terrifying warlord takes off his mask to reveal his true identity. How do the first-generation characters respond? Do they tremble with shock? No. Do they deny that their old friend could ever betray them like that? No. Are they filled with rage toward Kellam? Nope. One of the first-gen characters just looks at Kellam and asks, "have I met you before?" Realizing that he will never be noticed, even as an evil conqueror, Kellam just gives up, goes home, and cries himself to sleep as he lets some other demonic dragon become the antagonist for the rest of the game.

• Jossed. Kellam is nowhere to be found in Fire Emblem Fates^note no pun intended. Curiously enough, you WERE right about Owain being in there - he just has a different name, Odin.

In Lon'qu and Nowi's S support, he marries her because their play-time reminded him of similar games he played with Ke'ri.

• Bonus points: Lon'qu mentions that he's less nervous around Nowi than he is around most of the other women. A possible reason? She specifically reminds him of the happier memories from when he and Ke'ri were children.

Anna, the Secret Seller's Secret is...

• ... That her sisters aren't actually her sisters. The original Anna kidnapped female merchants and brainwashed them to look, act and sound exactly like her, to form a money-worshipping cult. If they really were all sisters, than an Anna-born Morgan wouldn't look so much like Robin or even be named Morgan.

If the Avatar is ever given a canonical signature weapon beyond Thoron, it will be Tyrfing.

• Simply because Tyrfing was also made from Naga's fangs, and it would seem fitting for all three protagonists to wield swords made from her fangs.
  • This would be even more fitting if the previous WMG of Grima being Loptous is true, since it could imply that Robin is distantly related to Seliph, and in that case, that would technically make him/her Tyrfing's rightful wielder.
  • Where is it stated that Tyrfing was indeed made from one of Naga's fangs? Nevermind the fact that it's not even associated with those whom Naga shared her blood with.
  • Well, if the Smash Bros announcement is any indication for a "canon" weapon, M!Robin is wielding Thoron and the Levin Sword. However in the gameplay footage, it's shown to be able to switch between a Bronze Sword to a Levin Sword.

The Children characters represent the legacies of the Twelve Crusaders of Jugdral.

• Lucina - Baldur: The ancestor/descendant of the main Lord of the game.
• Owain - Hezul: His personal weapon is a misspelled version of the Mystletainn.
• Severa - Noba: Her mother's situation with the Ylissean Pegasus Knights mirrors Cuan's fate in the Yied Massacre.
• Cynthia - Sety: Silesse was known for its Pegasus Knights.
• Kjelle - Neir: Her attachment to her armor may be a reference to the fact that major Neir blood provided a boost to Defense.
• Noire - Tordo: "BLOOD AND THUNDER!" ...with less emphasis on "Blood". Plus, her mother Tharja is introduced with an Elthunder tome.
• Nah - Heim: He wielded the Book of Naga, the Divine Dragon. All of the playable manaketes in this game are classified as "Divine Dragons".
• Inigo - Odo: Odo's descendant, Prince Shanan, seemed to be quite popular with the ladies...
• Yarne - Ulir: As a taguel, he presumably has enhanced senses, including eyesight. Which would be pretty useful for wielding a bow.
• Brady - Blaggi: They're both Priests.
• Gerome - Dain: They're both Wyvern Riders.
• Laurent - Fala: They're both Mages.
• Morgan - Loptous: The offspring of Grima/Avatar, the Big Bad of the game.

The Bad Future would be saved for no reason other than the fact that the kids and Grima went back in time

Since the future kids didn't disappear after they changed their future, that would mean that their future still stands in the multiverse. This started off as Fridge Horror, but then I realized that Grima also went back in time with them. Assuming that the Risen are under Grima's control, Grima can't control them as long as he's in the present timeline. So no Risen and no Grima. The future's starting to look up...

• Plus, it's implied that Lissa survived!

The Risen go after Morgan in the chapter where s/he is recruited because Grima wants to recruit him/her

Grima would most likely know of Morgan's existence in the Bad Future, due to the fact that any siblings can remember Morgan. If this really is the same Morgan as in Future Past, where s/he is working for Grima due to his/her affection for the Avatar, then Grima may have figured that Morgan would be malleable enough to take the side of the first Avatar to find him/her. Why this wouldn't work for any of Morgan's siblings, maybe it's because Grima couldn't find them in time?

• This is most likely not the case, given that the dying words of the Risen Chief of that horde express their aim was to kill "the future child", ie, Morgan.
  • Perhaps Morgan refused to join with Grima (in whatever timeline he/she comes from), which is why the Risen are trying to kill him/her?
    • Well, considering Morgan^note I'm going to refer to Morgan as male for the sake of not being confusing as hell, but it applies to both. has inexplicably lost almost all of his memories save for those of his mother, i.e. Grima, it's possible that Grima tried to possess Morgan — whether willingly or not on Morgan's end — but it failed for two reasons: first, because Morgan's heart, like the Avatar's, could not handle it, and second, because Morgan's blood is no longer purely of Grima's line. Therefore, Morgan is useless to Grima, and potentially a threat if Morgan ever finds his mother and joins with her. So it would be prudent to kill him.
      Even if Morgan had been on Grima's side before, now that he's been wiped of all his memories of his mother post-Grima and has only the ones where she was kind and loving and non-genocidal, Grima has no guarantee that Morgan would be on his side again. And even if Morgan sided with Grima at first in the present, after meeting his "real" mother and seeing her being all kind and loving and non-genocidal, Morgan could just as easily turn on him in favour of the Avatar. Hell, even the Bad Future Morgan — of both genders! — flat-out refuses to fight the Avatar despite knowing that she's not the one from the Bad Future world. Who's to say that the Avatar wouldn't convince Morgan — who, again, only has memories of the Avatar as she is now — to switch sides? Grima knows exactly how powerful Morgan has the potential to be, and it's not as if Grima actually cares about Morgan. Again, it's better to just kill him off.

Lucina is Marth's reincarnation

Tiki notes she's a lot like Marth in their supports, that Lucina reminds her of Marth and thinks to herself in their A support "Could she truly be...?!" which is very odd. And for a 2000+ year gap between the two, Lucina looks an awful lot like Marth.

• Two other games majorly support this theory: Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U depicts Lucina as a Distaff Counterpart clone of Marth, and Fire Emblem Fates outright confirms the concept of reincarnation as canon in the Fire Emblem universe.

Lucina, not Chrom, is the main character of the game

This theory is mostly based on the opening cinematic. The whole thing seems to jump around in time a lot, first from a peaceful Elise to Risen attacking to Lucina and Chrom fighting together to Emmeryn committing suicide to Lucina being born etc. However, the series of events can be seen as perfectly chronological from Lucina's perspective. In the opening cinematic, if we take the moving light as representing Chrom and the butterfly as representing Lucina (as they are only present when that character would be), it can be seen that the light is shown getting chased down and encased in darkness right before Grima appears (Chrom getting killed by the Avatar right before Grima's return in Lucina's time line) and immediately afterwards Lucina is shown running towards a light that presumably will take her back in time, followed immediately by the video going back to the beginning of the story and proceeding chronologically. This is the exact order of events as Future!Lucina would experience them. Secondly, when Lucina, Chrom, and the Avatar are shown facing down Grima and then reflected on Falcion, Lucina is front and center while Chrom is off to the side and behind. Finally, in the actual game, Lucina is truly the one that saved the day, as it was her (and Grima) being in the past that changed the outcome from bad to good.

This still makes sense despite the fact that there are 10 levels in which we have Chrom and not Lucina, as in Eliwood's game the first 10 chapters are spent with Lyn.

Chrom's limited marriage options

There are thirteen playable women that can have children. Why Chrom can only marry five/six:

• 1) Since Chrom is kind of forced in-game and gameplay-wise to marry someone before the timeskip, Cherche is out.
• 2) Of course, Lissa is his sister, so she's out.
• 3) Nowi and Panne are out because Lucina has already appeared and is clearly full human, which bars Panne, and about Chrom's age, which would mess with Manakete's aging.
  • Morgan looks human regardless of who his/her parents are. And Sophia, Ninian, Nils, and possibly Roy are all part dragon with none of them ever being noted as looking draconic when in a humanoid form.
    • Being part Manakete may not show very many exterior traits, but they age very slowly. You never find out exactly when Morgan was born and how old s/he was when s/he came to the present, while Lucina is known to be the eldest child and looks older than, say, Owain.
  • It would complicate things immensely for Chrom to marry a non-human. Fantastic Racism is in play with Panne, and an already unstable country doesn't need the kind of controversy that would come with a half-taguel princess. For a manakete, would it really be a good thing for a country to have the same ruler for potentially over three thousand years? Even if Lucina stepped down, she'd still be virtually ageless, and any children she had would likely be similarly long-lived, as interbreeding appears to favour the non-human parentage. So her grandchildren could also be long-lived. And their children. And so on and so forth. Sooner or later, someone's going to want to hold onto power. There are just too many unknown variables with marrying a manakete. Chrom!Morgan can marry Nah, yes, and Lucina can marry Yarne, but those are their future selves. They're not truly in line for the throne and don't believe they can ever go back to their own time, so they're free to love and marry whomever they wish without being bogged down by politics.
• 4} Tharja is Plegian and a bit too... obsessed with Avatar for Ylissian nobles to go down well with. Female!Avatar is also Plegian, but no one knows that at the moment.
• 5) Flimsy reason for Cordelia. She seems to be out of camp a lot, and sometimes crushes avoid the object of their affection.
  • If we also look at a stat-based reason for this, a Cordelia-mother Lucina would be hilariously broken. And going from Cordelia's supports, she seems to get cold feet whenever Chrom's around.
• 6) No good reason for Miriel.
  • Miriel probably wouldn't make a very good queen, nor would she be likely to enjoy it. It's not just a title; a huge amount of responsibility and work comes along with it. She's far too obsessed with her studies to be willing to give up that much of her time to "frivolous" pursuits. And even if she did, she'd just approach everything like a scientific curiosity, which is a less than healthy attitude for a queen who is responsible for the well-being of an entire country and everyone in it.
  • More likely, it's because Laurent ends up older than Lucina via time travel shenanigans, and they didn't want to have to address it in supports.

Villager Girl is Chrom's canon marriage

Villager Girl is the only girl who marries Chrom by default unless the player changes things knowingly or not so that Chrom marries someone else.

Validar is actually a Risen

Case in point: the second movie cutscene of the premonition and the same cutscene from chapter 23 show Validar's death. To elaborate, he falls to his knees and then onto the ground, all the while slowly turning to smoke. When it's over, his body is gone, turned into purple mist. Guess what else dies by fading to purple mist and leaves nothing behind? That's right; Risen. And, of course, Validar's... pale complexion doesn't debunk it, either.

• That's a damn good theory, actually. Perhaps he was killed in Chapter 5 and then resurrected?
• I dunno, he was already plenty pale by then. He does mention being part of a Super Breeding Program along with everyone else on the father's side, and we later see that the Avatar's memory is wiped after Grima overloads him during his repossession attempt. What if Validar had the same reaction, but more extreme? It's possible that after siring the Avatar, Validar underwent the ritual and was killed in the attempt, at which point he was resurrected as a Risen.
• Alternate theory: the Validar that dies in the cutscene is a risen doppelganger of sorts. You'll notice Validar is still very much alive after that cutscene. And when you kill him for real, he doesn't vanish like that.
  • Plus, notice how his stats are wildly different between the first and second halves of the battle. This being because of two actually different versions of Validar would make a lot of sense.

Henry was originally a more plot-significant character

Henry is a Plegian Dark Mage, which Chrom recognizes from the get-go. Unlike Tharja, you recruit him automatically. His recruitment scene appears to be similar to Nowi's 'let's talk after the battle', but no conversation turns up.

• I don't know, I think the reason he's given so easily is he's more a last ditch attempt to give the player someone Sumia can marry if they accidentally married off the rest of her very small pool of eligible bachelors.

Future Grima and Future Past Grima are different entities

• Future Grima referring to themself as the Future Avatar may seem odd, but the way they word it makes it seem like the Future Avatar legitimately pulled a Face–Heel Turn. Future Past Grima makes no such indication and it's clear that they had hijacked the Future Past Avatar. The indication that the Future Avatar may have willingly switched sides may be why Future Grima has Anathema and Ignis sporting a crackling purple lightning aura while Future Past Grima replaces it with Aegis and Hawkeye while rocking an extremely thick and wispy dark aura. Also, since Future Grima is not as strong as Future Past Grima, that's why they don't have Aegis and Hawkeye yet.

The Spotpass units except Priam are possibly borderline zombies

• Both Gangrel and Walhart state that you've already killed them once, Emmeryn took a fall that by all rights should have killed her yet survived without having Miracle equipped (though she is stated to be the hardest to kill), and Aversa was most likely killed and seeing how suicidal she became after Validar's death, she likely was waiting for it to happen. Future Yen'fay is another exception... probably... he's possibly lying about being from the future considering how strained he and his sister had become in the present, and you do recruit him in the same place his present day counterpart was buried.

Chrom's present day family is slightly messed up due to early childhood ostracization

• From Chrom's stoic dickery and mannerisms on occasion, to Lissa's low self worth and numerous insecurities, and to Emmeryn's severe suicidal tendencies, there's more to this family than what's at the surface.
  • Chrom is a bit of a ruthless dick, and he knows it. Next to the Manaketes (Nowi and Tiki), he's the next big example of I Just Want to Have Friends; take note of his poor support pool as well as who's in it, read through his and Olivia's supports as well as Gaius' supports, and watch how vehement he is about not sacrificing the Avatar to kill off an Eldritch Abomination once and for all, and if they do, he nearly breaks down. Ricken and Nowi's B Support shows that the townspeople shit-talk him despite everything he does for them. That bit can also be part in due of him being scared that he'll lose his close ones and end up alone.
  • How is Chrom a dick? He seems to get along just fine with the characters in his supports and Ricken. He's quick to trust, from recruiting Robin when he/she were unproven and Tharja when she actively brought up the possibility of betraying him. He's not good at socializing, but that's hardly the same thing.
    • This also adds another layer to his remorse for not being there for Lucina and her sibling; the fact that his children grew up without parents just like himself, Lissa, and Emmeryn must have hit hard.
  • Lissa stated in her B support Lon'qu that she doesn't believe anyone would care if she died and that she was a bastard child thanks to not having a brand. And when she believed Emmeryn was dead and when they talk again in Hot-Spring Scramble, Lissa revealed that several times she was so depressed she was almost Driven to Suicide.
  • Emmeryn is probably the worst in regards to all this. How about sacrificing your entire self-worth for the good of the world, culminating in your suicide attempt? It's almost as if she wants to die.

Nowi is lying about her age.

Nowi and Nah appear to be about the same age. Nah would have come back in time close to the same time as her living friends; thus, she would be close to their actual age, not thousands of years older. So, either Manaketes age like humans until they are ten years old and then slow down rapidly, or Nowi is actually somewhere around 13 and pretending to be 1000 years old.

• Nowi is amazingly naive and ignorant, things that even an emotionally- and mentally-teenaged person would eventually grow out of after centuries of experience.
• She comments on her supposed age much more often than normal. Either she's trying to remind everyone (including the audience) that she's not too young for romance with folks in their twenties, or she's trying to keep up her lie.
• In her introduction chapter, Nowi explains that she's centuries old and gushes, "No wrinkles!" even though she ought to know that no manakete would have wrinkles at only 1000.
• All of this, however, can be somewhat justified in that she basically wasn't allowed to grow up. She was stolen from her parents and Tharja all but tells her that they are long dead. She also shows several Obfuscating Naivete moments, especially in regards to her daughter.
  • Actually, this makes some sense. If Nowi really is about 13 or 14, it's entirely possible. I can tell you, she could easily know more than she lets on. Obfuscating Naivete wouldn't be too hard. Not to brag, but I'm 15, and I know enough to be able to conceivably notice Nah's lack of stamina. It really isn't very complex to see when somebody is tired out from using too much power too fast. Alternately, Nah being half-human may have something to with it. Perhaps Nah (and possibly Morgan, if one marries Nowi) won't outlive her friends by such a huge gap as one'd think. It could easily be explained as, y'know, the whole "First ever half-Manakete half-human" thing being new and completely unexplored.
  • Nah doesn't age like a full-blooded Manakete. Her support with female Morgan brings up her age; while they never say exactly how old she is, it's implied she's only marginally older than Morgan. She ages slower than a human, but far more like a human than a Manakete.

Each playthrough is the same story told from a different narrator.

The endings for both a single and married Avatar allude to the fact that, aside from the married Avatar's love for their spouse, everything about them is a subject for debate. It can be surmised that the entire story of Awakening is being told by different narrators, and each narrator tells the story differently, which can also account for different couples, different decisions made, and suchlike, not unlike the past tradition of orally passing down legends such as The Odyssey.

The Morgan who comes to the present day is really an alternate-universe version of the Avatar

His/her memories become muddled, not unlike the Avatar's, when they arrive in the present day, but whereas the Avatar loses his memories, Morgan's mind fabricated memories of the Avatar being their parent. This could explain how their memories of their non-Avatar parent are lost, while the Avatar is still fresh in their memory.

Lucina binds her chest.

Lucina appears to have a notably flatter chest than many of the other female children, even though she is the oldest behind Laurent. Likely, she binds her chest. She would need to in order to pass herself as Marth.

• Pretty much confirmed. Many of her non-lord outfits, particularly the archer, show her being considerably bustier than her portrait would suggest.
  • OBJECTION! In case you haven't noticed, most of those models are GENERIC. Heck, Morgan/Build 2 Avatars are literally just shrunken models. Marry Anna and 13-14 Morgan has a considerable bust size for her age. Change her to a Tactician and her chest suddenly shrinks. Furthermore, you're operating off the assumption that ALL women have big busts, which is COMPLETELY false. As well, Warriors/Dark Mages always have very sexually attractive, exposed bodies, even on child/young teen builds. Seriously, think through what you're saying. Literally the only non-generic thing on a Class-Changed character model is the head. You KNOW this, because reclassing Flavia or Basilio suddenly gives whatever isn't their face a lighter shade of skin.
  • Further evidence that Lucina is naturally flat: she loses her mask very early in the game, revealing her gender as her hair magically grows out. Since everybody now knows her true gender, why should she still bind her chest? Especially with her Great Lord outfit. You could justify her normal Lord outfit since it already appeared when she was a "man", and the fact that Marth's Einherjar reuse the model, but you can't justify her Great Lord outfit.
  • Juuuuust gonna point this out: Concept art of Lucina showed her a bit bustier than in game outside of her normal outfit. So technically going by that, yes, she does indeed bind her bust. Also the official artwork of her, see here and here. Not exactly large, but still more notable than her normal outfit.

Inigo's chronic failure with women is at least partly due to a curse

Seriously, let's look at Inigo as an eligible bachelor. He's handsome, he's brave, he's strong, he's a soldier in one of the most revered and important armies in the world, he's from the future, and in many continuities, he's a goddamned prince. You simply cannot have that much going for you, try that hard, and fail that epicly. Women exist who would fall for a man with those credentials regardless of his personality (which really isn't all that crappy, he has plenty of good qualities). The utterly cold reception he gets, with every woman he comes across angrily rejecting him, simply does not make sense when you consider his position in the whole scheme of things.

This can really only be explained if he, without knowing it, fell victim to a curse that causes him to have horrible luck with women. By this, I mean not only that he is at times compelled to say extremely stupid things, but that women around him react to him far more angrily and contemptuously than they normally would. And this is pretty much a confirmed phenomenon. More than half of the women he can support with act Out of Character around him, sometimes to nigh sociopathic levels (I'm looking at you two, Nah and Noire).

And if we notice, the further he gets with a woman in spite of the curse, the more he will almost automatically screw it up, as if driven by a compulsion. The curse finds out he's about to get married? It tries to stop it by making a totally unnecessary comment slip implying he still plans to flirt with other girls. The curse finds out he has a future SON? Suddenly then, and only then, do we get any indication of him actually flirting with other girls after marriage (ignoring his other supports, which are all written assuming he's still single, as everyone he talks to still seems to think he has no girlfriend/wife. Thus, rather than being indicative of him being a cheating bastard to begin with, it's simply indicative of a plot hole in the support system).

He seems to be free of this curse in the outrealms, as he has a very healthy and charming conversation with the Avatar if she is his wife during Hot Spring Scramble, and his conversation with Mia in Smash Brethren 2 is quite pleasant, without any anger at all from Mia (though she could also be immune to the compulsion to hate Inigo due to being an Einherjar).

• I posit that it was Tharja who cursed him. After all, the Village Maiden seemed quite pleased with Inigo, indicating that she'd had zero issues with his behavior beforehand. Inigo only has issues after he joins up with Chrom. Tharja cursed him to keep him away from the Avatar. This doesn't only work for the female Avatar, either. Inigo has a few Ho Yay moments, and Tharja doesn't seem to be too hung up on little things like gender. She was just... being cautious. All of those Ho Yay moments end badly, after all, so it might not only apply to women — if Inigo tries to flirt with anyone, the curse kicks in. And if Inigo is the Avatar's child? Well, anyone Inigo ends up in a relationship with is one more person who's close to the Avatar. A daughter-in-law for the Avatar to dote on? Not on Tharja's watch.
  • Maybe, but there are a few holes in that theory. Notably, there's no guarantee that Tharja's even alive at this point. The player could have been an idiot and killed her in her recruitment chapter. And it's clearly not exclusive to the Inigo who went to the past. Future Past Inigo references his difficulty (in the context of it suddenly being gone and him not caring much) as well, and possibly mentions it in one of his potential father conversations, I really don't know, I haven't seen all of them. But the fact that it's suddenly gone by the time of the epilogue suggests to me it could, maybe, have been connected to Grima in some way. I doubt it's something Grima itself would do, that seems dumb, but something broke the curse by then.
• There are really only two people who could hex Inigo: Tharja and Henry. Ricken is shown to be able to use hexes in his supports with Tharja, but he's not likely to hex anyone on purpose. If it was an accident, he would probably ask Tharja or Henry to remove the curse if he couldn't. An enemy Dark Mage could have hexed Inigo, but it's more reasonable for an enemy to use a fatal curse if they had.

Chrom's limited Marriage Pool is because he isn't allowed to marry non-nobles and it becomes Gameplay and Story Integration.

Think about it. Maribelle is a straight-up example of nobility, Sully hails from a line of nobles who happen to be knights, Sumia is called a crazy noble by Gaius in the two's supports with each other, Olivia is essentially the adopted daughter of Basilio (who is one of the ruling Khans of Regna Ferox), which could potentially make her nobility so long as Basilio is a ruling Khan, and even though he didn't know early on, the Female Avatar is the crown princess/queen of Plegia.

• What about the Maiden Villager, then? She wasn't described to be a noble woman.
  • If I recall correctly, she's named 'Maiden', isn't she? It's just that the Villager Maiden portrait is reused for her, because a custom sprite or even a name for the wife of the Exalt and the mother of Princess Lucina (and, by extension, the Queen of Ylisse) would just have been silly. So technically I suppose she could just be a very... low-key noblewoman.

Cherche and Gerome have dormant Laguz blood.

and that's why they can understand Minerva.

• Henry can too, though...
  • Henry can talk to flowers. He's probably just an exception to the rule. To all of the rules.
• This would also make them branded. Are we to assume that they have brands, but they never mentioned them? Nobody even seems to remember what Laguz are, surely it can't still be a mark of shame millennia later. Plus, they don't have the ability of animal communion, they just have a deep bond with Minerva. In Gerome's C support with Cherche, he TWICE fails to understand what Minerva's trying to tell him.
• Libra can also learn how to talk to Minerva.

Olivia and Sumia were originally the same character who was Inigo's mother.

This accounts for how much the game pushes Sumia as Chrom's wife while Inigo has both a strong resemblance to Chrom and is the only non-Lucina child who is noted to have Naga's mark.

• It would certainly explain why he has Sumia's hair color in official art instead of Olivia's.
  • Inigo's is more blue-ish, though.
  • Kjelle has dark purple/brown hair in her official art. I don't think that means Tharja and Sully were originally the same character.

Kellam is either a descendant or ancestor of Shiro, the Stone Soldier.

Both of them have problems standing out, though it was so bad for Shiro that he literally couldn't be seen by the naked eye. Thus, they may be related somehow.

Owain is a reincarnation of Owain

In Final Fantasy VI Cyan's son, Owain, dies from poisoning along with his wife. When you get out of the Phantom Train, Owain tells Cyan that he will practice his swordplay and protect his mother. Owain, in this game, starts out as a Myrmidon, and vows to protect his mother.

In the Hierophant's timeline, the Avatar was a Tyke-Bomb Manipulative Bastard

A lot of people claim that the Hierophant is lying about the Avatar having been a villain, saying that it doesn't make sense, but I beg to differ. Think about it: we never meet the Avatar back when they were part of the Grimleal. That part of their life was forgotten when their mother stole them away — but that only happened in the timeline we play. Therefore, who's to say that the Avatar didn't turn out to be a villain in different timeline. It's entirely plausible for the Avatar to have been raised as a baddie in that original timeline, which means they could have infiltrated Chrom's ranks and served as a Double Agent until the time was right to reveal his true nature.

Priam's Ragnell is not the original.

But a replica carefully made by Priam himself. According to his philosophy, weapons should only be wielded by the one who forged them, but Ragnell would have been passed down to him from Ike and his descendants, and it's never even said who originally forged it. Combine that with Ragnell's visible damage and discoloration, lack of a beam attack, lack of a bloodline restriction, and limited uses, and you've got a good case for saying it's not the same sword. Note that this has no bearing on whether Priam is Ike's descendant or not; he might still be, but the original Ragnell could have easily been lost or given up at some point, prompting Priam to create and wield a replica based on the sword his ancestor used.

• Ragnell was never bloodline-restricted. Only being usable by Ike was purely part of gameplay.

One of Ike's descendants invented the art of Armsthrift.

The idea is fairly simple: Armsthrift was created by one of Ike's descendants when the unbreaking blessing of Ragnell started to fade. The idea was to harness one's inner energy to shield one's weapons from wear while using them, in an effort to keep using Ragnell once the blessing finally vanished entirely. Over the years, as more people ran into the Ike clan and heard about the technique, it caught on, and soon became a standard art of wandering, Jack of All Stats swordfighters-for-hire. One significant piece of evidence that this is true is that Priam's clearly doing something to make Ragnell unbreakable when you're fighting him.

• Adding onto this, maybe one of Ike's descendants taught one of Marth's descendants Aether, which explains why it's exclusive to Chrom's family in this game.

"Companions" are still romantically involved.

If you S Rank two cousins in the North American version, their tile conversations still have a romantic tone to them. Owain and Chrom!Cynthia also talk about getting "together together", and his supports with Chrom!Kjelle include a love confession, which usually doesn't involve familial love. Owain and Lucina's S support is the most chaste out of all his cousin S supports, but he still expresses a desire to "show how he feels" about Lucina and she refers to them as "partners". The label of Companions is simply a vehicle Nintendo of America uses to ship their crap past the censors.

• Alternatively, most Ylisseans in the North American version feel the same way most people in North America do regarding cousin marriage. The cousins cover up their relationship by claiming they're just very close in order to avoid scrutiny.

The opposite-gendered Morgan in the "Future Past" DLC is an Opposite-Sex Clone

I can't think of why Avatar would name both their twins "Morgan". Grima, for some reason, decided that two Morgans was better than one and cloned the original as the other gender, using its powers to accelerate his/her growth.

Basilio is the long lost ancestor of Nick Fury.

C'mon! I can't be the only one who thinks this. They look alike, both are Badass and you'd be reading his lines in Samuel L. Jackson's voice if there wasn't voice acting in the game, wouldn't you?!

The Avatar is descended from Saias

Going off of the Loptous is Grima theory, and Robin has Loptous Major Holy Blood, then Robin would be descended from someone with Loptous blood. Saias is Arvis's bastard son, and you can't see Holy Blood in Thracia. Plus, Saias is known for being a great tactician.

Olivia is descended from Navarre and Feena.

The ending of Mystery of the Emblem implies Navarre and Feena hooked up. Olivia has pink hair, high Skill and Speed modifiers, and access to the Dancer and Myrmidon class pools. Where did Olivia's Pegasus Knight class come from, you ask? Perhaps Navarre and Feena raised a son who had a fetish for Zettai Ryouiki...

In the end, Robin is still Grima. Or rather, Grima is now only Robin.

In possibly the DUMBEST move an immortal god-like dragon has ever done, it went back in time to a timeline where it itself was making a move. Grima had been working for millenia to build up its power, and it wasn't going to share, especially not with some copy of itself supposedly from the future. Now, Grima doesn't possess per se, rather it fuses. (Ask the children in the bad ending of Future Past) But getting amnesia at the same time as its target give Robin an even, if not better, chance at being the dominant personality. Sure there are "echoes" pulled from the void, but nowhere near what a full-blown eldritch abomination should be. So Robin really is Grima, no quotation marks needed, and by killing Present Grima; becomes the only personality. Oh, sure, by giving up dark magic, she/he almost discorporated; but having an army of people believing in Robin brought himher back in a more human form; bound to the personality of Robin and not Grima.

• Morgan is an extention of this personality, given free will by Robin who doesn't want to be a god.
  • Robin is also technically immortal; but only Nowi unconsciously realized it. Tiki was too busy comparing him to Marth.
    • Kamui is another extension of the Robin oversoul. In fact, this process is shown in Fire Emblem Fates when the Avatar can "breath life into the Earth" to create an extention (bond units) with another Avatar.
    • This is why Grima / Robin could be killed forever in Future Past; that Future version is the future version of Grima fusing with Fused Robin. Robin LET them kill him/her permanently.

All possible marriage outcomes are canon through the Outrealm Gate.

Basically due to the existence of the Outrealm Gate, one can say there are infinite realities, allowing all marriage options to be canon. For example, in one realm, Chrom married Sumia while a Male Avatar married Lucina and in another realm, Chrom married a Female Avatar. This also includes realms where some didn't get married like one where Tharja or Nowi stayed single.

• This even allows for pairings that can't happen in the game proper, such as Chrom x Cordelia, Stahl x Sumia, and Cordelia x Sumia.

Cynthia and Owain represent the Japanese and Western fanbases respectively

Cynthia likes basic hero stories, while Owain likes really dark and epic stories. The Japanese and Western fans GENERALLY (not everyone) have complete opposite preferences. The Japanese like the cleaner and more nostalgic plots of Akaneia and Binding Blade, while the Western fans like the more serious deconstruction stories like Jugdral and Blazing Blade. But both Owain and Cynthia get along, like how both sides love Fire Emblem.

The Aversa seen in Champions of Yore came from the Future Past timeline.

Old Hubba claims that she's not the same one that the Shepherds already met (and she seems unfamiliar with them). He also states that Aversa came from a timeline already on the way to ruin... which sounds a lot like the Future Past DLC.

The boss of Paralogue 21 is actually present-timeline Yen'fay.

It sounds weird, yes, but consider: present-timeline Yen'fay is confirmed to be dead; the Yen'fay recruited in the chapter is from an Alternate Timeline. The other main things to support this idea are: 1) the boss is of the Swordmaster class, and 2) the level explicitly takes place where he's buried. Frederick and Say'ri even have a conversation about the possibility of Yen'fay reviving as a Risen at the start of the chapter.

Lissa's brand is on her heart.

Got the idea from a post on Tumblr. Basically, the brand appears on the person's greatest strength. Emmeryn's strength is her wisdom, hence on her forehead. Chrom's is his brute strength, hence on the arm, and Lucina's is her foresight, hence in her eye. What's Lissa's strength? Her kindness and her heart. Hence, when she dies, if they perform an autopsy, they'll find the brand on her heart. (Only possible flaw I can find with this theory is that doesn't explain Inigo. But then it could just be similar to Lucina's, or perhaps there's another piece of eye symbolism I'm missing cause symbolism isn't my strong point.

• Well, at the very least, Lucina and a Chrom-fathered Inigo do prove that the brand doesn't have to be on the person's skin at all. It's not too much of a stretch to assume from there that it could be inside the body entirely. Lissa's heart would be some wonderful symbolism, since she has a couple of support chains revolving around her role as The Heart. It would be tragically ironic, though, since she'd technically have it but not know about it. (Also, I could see a Chrom!Inigo being explained by the fact that he's actually more perceptive than he appears, so the reasoning could be more similar to Lucina's than it seems.)
  • In the case of Inigo, it's entirely possible that his is on the bottom of his tongue, seeing as how we never see him stick his tongue out - reason I suspect his tongue is because of where Owain's brand is (his hand), and seeing as how he uses a sword the most, logically, a Chrom-fathered Inigo should have a brand on the part he ends up using the most - and he spends the most amount of time flirting...
  • Isn't it explicitly stated that Chrom!Inigo's Brand is on his eye?

Lon'qu is Olivia's canon husband.

It all adds up:

• They both have a strong relationship with Basilio.
• They both have trouble interacting with the opposite sex.
• In Olivia and Inigo's mother/son supports, it's revealed that the reason why Inigo is such a flirt is because Future!Olivia told him that flirting with women was the best way to overcome shyness, and was a sign of true bravery. Indeed, one of Lon'qu's greatest challenges was to overcome his fear of women.
• To top it all off, Inigo's daughter Soleil also tends to get nervous around women, which she might have inherited from her grandfather.

Marcia is a distant ancestor of Sumia and Cynthia.

The similarities in their personalities can't be denied.

Maribelle and Gaius are canon.

They do seem to have one of the strongest connections in-game, with Gaius being involved with Maribelle's father. Maribelle learns not to judge others so harshly via Gaius' explanations and Gaius admits that, after meeting Maribelle, he would have done the same thing over. Also, Maribelle is very close friends with Lissa while Gaius and Chrom can get an A Support, so the four all get along well.

• Brady's C-support with his father assumes the latter hardly ever drinks tea. Ricken, who gets Ship Tease with Maribelle in the main story, is established as a tea drinker. Gaius, on the other hand, makes sense as a non-frequent tea drinker due to his background.

Grima and Naga are the Dusk Dragon and Dawn Dragon, respectively.

Think about it. Both of them are worshipped as gods, just like the Dawn and Dusk dragons in Fates. It's possible that at some point Grima went mad like Anankos did, while the reason Naga remains in her human form at all times is to avoid a similar fate. Resurrecting the dead has only been an ability of two characters (as far as I know; correct me if I'm wrong), so it would make sense for them to be part of the same race.

• Honestly, Grima having gone nuts would explain a lot about him, as well as why he even has worshipers (if he used to be kind like Anankos, then the Grimleal may have originally been genuine, but now worship him more out of fear). Plus, there are a lot of tie-ins to Awakening in Fates — Chrom states he's heard of Nohr and Hoshido in a DLC, possible reincarnation of certain characters, Good!Anankos directly visiting Severa, Owain, and Inigo in another DLC... It's not impossible at all for Nohr and Hoshido to have heard of gods that technically originated elsewhere and then coming to worship their own versions of them, all things considered.

Nowi's father is none other than Duma.

• Unlikely, considering that Awakening and Gaiden/Echoes are ~2000 years apart, and Nowi claims to be around 1000, making her a bit too young for said character to be her father. His human form as seen in Echoes does kind of resemble her, though, so maybe they're related in some other way, like niece/uncle or grandparent/grandchild?

Nowi's father is Xane.

He's a divine dragon, and he seems young enough to live for another millennium.

Some of the DLC cards were made with flawed information, affecting some of their personalities and classes

The biggest example is Alm, using a class he can't use in Echoes and coming off as far more war like than in either game, which seems to go hand in hand with tales of his deeds reducing him to a traditional conqueror who embodied Rigel's ideas than someone who ultimately changed them. By a similar measure, DLC Erika might have been made with a different focus leading to her bride class.