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Oh, I didn't know about the manga, I should check it out. I may have played a different translation, but I remember he felt his magic was inadequated and dropped the practice altogether. I'm going to check it out right now. EDIT: From the Artemis' translation: "Feeling inept in his magic, he left to a distant land." I guess I didn't understand that he left to improve his skills.

I don't think so, the only male unpromoted mages are Ryuto and Boey, and I don't remember them mentioning anything about Khadein. Are you sure you are not thinking about Ellerean from FE3?

Exactly, besides Zeke, the pegasus sisters and the Falchion/Gradius there is no other connection to FE1. The game takes place in the continent of Valencia, and the only mention of Akaneia is made by Palla. There is no mention to Marth, Mediuth, Naga or anything plot-relevant to FE1. FE2 takes place after FE1 and before FE3 Book 2. Gaiden is great and it is much more enjoyable than FE1, I think you should give it a chance.

Yes, I got what you meant, I was just adding to the original point of "why heron-raven?". They have gone down the incest route before but thankfully they didn't this time, it would have been too much. In any case Leanne is going to have a hard time repopulating.

A little summary of my opinions in other threads: Gameplay-wise: FE4 Reasons: lack of trading, individual gold, gigantic maps, annoying enemy skills (great shield), pairing/inheritance mechanics, over-reliance on holy weapons. But: its story is fantastic, it's so great it almost makes me want to play it again and beat it for once. I hated the villains in here more than I hated them in any other game, so it has to mean they were good at being villains. Story-wise: FE10 Reasons: This is saddening, because everything was great until halfway in Part 3, when the blood pact was introduced. Everything went downhill from there up to the chain of WTF moments that is the endgame. It really felt rushed and badly written. But: the gameplay is awesome, so much that I disregarded the weak plot until I beat the game. I loved the multiple armies, the switching every couple of chapters, the 3rd-tier classes, the variety in map objectives, the changes in the laguz transformation system, and even the aspect I like the least (the skills) was non-intrusive and easy enough to handle without any hassle. Oh, and I wasn't a big fan of the new support system either, but it proved to be quite useful. As you can see, my gameplay-wise reasons weigh much more to me than my story-wise reasons.

LOL, good one! That should totally be its own thing too! Man, we are getting great ideas for spinoffs from this thread. If this isn't brainstorming, I don't know what it is. Back to the point, why would Ashnard care for a fair fight? I believe his ideology is "if you want something, take it, anything goes" and in his vision "the strong" is the one willing to do anything to accomplish his goal, even murdering his family or destroying another country. I don't imagine him as some kind of philosopher supporting a merit-based system. He is more interesting that other human villains (Gharnef, Nergal, Manfloy), but I don't think he is so much deeper than them.

Fire Emblem Napoleon should be its own thing, I'd love to see that game!

Yes, but we don't know about it until the very end, and he never takes an active role as antagonist until that point. And he wasn't a member of the laguz society at the time, so he is not the laguz villain I had in mind. Also, the hidden villain that says "it was my plan all along" is not the kind of plot-twist I like to see, but that is just my personal opinion. I wasn't complaining, I just said I'd like to see an evil laguz king that could contrast to the good laguz kings, as we already see between the evil beorc kings and good beorc kings. For example, I would have liked Naesala to have a larger role in the story, as he is morally ambiguous already. I think he would have been a good secondary major antagonist. I totally agree with the last point, characters keep referring to it as old history that happened too long ago and few seem to remember or care about it. It would definitely have made things more interesting if it would have been cited more often.

I guess the writers weren't interested in showing us so many shades of each system, in an attempt to make the good guys totally good and the bad guys totally bad. I don't think they were going for realism either, as it would have required a more complex plot and more effort from them. I'm not complaining, though, as the plot is just an excuse to have battles and the writing is good enough to keep me interested, but from time to time I'd like to see an interesting plot twist (not blood pact-like, please). I'd like to see more traitors like Orson in FE8, or to see Camus-like characters as morally ambiguous main antagonists with a little more than "my country, right or wrong". But done right, not like bipolar nutcases like Zelgius. So if I'm not mistaken you go like this: Birthright (bad example): Elincia (I don't think she fits in here, at least plot-wise), Pelleas Birthright (good example): Sanaki (maybe?) Strength-based (good example): All laguz kings, except maybe Naesala Strength-based (bad example): Ashnard (I don't think he fits here), (laguz king example missing from here) Elincia has a nice development arc in RD, and I think the writers consider her an example of the "birthright-good" category, because she grows wiser and stronger, and she is good and good always triumphs. She is only considered an example of "birthright is bad" by her (obviously evil in the plot) opponents. So I don't think the writers tried to go with "birthright is bad, strength is good, but Ashnard is bad" but rather "good/bad guys are good/bad rulers, regardless of the system". In-game, I think the lack of evil laguz kings does not imply that their system is perfect, and the lack of strong and competent beorc kings does not imply that their system is flawed. They weren't going either with "laguz is good, beorc is bad" because the main characters are beorc, and I guess they tried to make the message "intolerance is bad" as clear and simple as possible, and evil laguz characters would make the plot more complex. Maybe an X-men like set-up would have been interesting but I digress. I used to read about history when I was younger, but it has been a while since I read anything. About hereditary monarchies being a force or reform, I guess you're talking about Reinassance, right? Because the guys from the French Revolution might think otherwise, :D.

And it would be awesome! At least inter-species bird breeding is a better option than some incest-based alternative...

I'm not trying to convince you that such system is effective. Ignoring for a moment that Ashnard is, well, evil, I understand your point that Daein's dictatorship and laguz kingdoms are superficially similar while the first is criticized and the latter is not. However, those details like his questionable method for gaining the throne (treachery and murder, not the same thing as laguz strength-based right to rule) and his foreign policy or warfare are what makes it different to me from Laguz kingdoms, as "the strong rules" means something different in both cases. In laguz societies it is stated to be a tradition, regardless of it being effective or right. It is never stated that this system is better, it rather goes mostly unchallenged. I think the only one who questioned it was Soren, because he was baffled to see how someone as dumb as Skrimir could be king. On the other hand, beorc system is questioned by laguz as over-complicated several times, but I think it serves more ot the purpose of establishing laguz as a different culture. I think it is the narrative's way to say "laguz are different from beorc", which makes less necessary to state that "beorc are different from laguz". I can't remember exactly, but I think even Ike said that the beorc system was unnecesarily complicated. But these are opinions coming from characters with established personalities, it is natural for Ike to say something like that given he is simple-minded and dislikes nobility and such. Even then, Sothe mentioned that many young men saw Ashnard's rule as a chance to have a career in the army and leave poverty, so it was an "effective" system to some people. Ashnard's rule is questioned (mostly by main characters) because Ashnard is evil, and his "strong rules" government implementation is evil. I also think that we don't have enough laguz villains. If we had some laguz dictator who defeated the previous king and slaughtered beorc for no reason then it could be seen more similar to Ashnard's Daein and more parallelisms could be drawn. But again, everything is heavily character-based. Most laguz kings being noble and wise makes it difficult to criticize their traditions in-game, which might not even be very well established by the writers in the first place. Honestly, at some point I believed Nailah and Raffiel would become villains, or at least major antagonists. Nailah being overpowered in Part I made me think she wouldn't stay for long, and I believed that Raffiel accused the senators for the Serenes massacre because he hated beorc and wanted revenge but didn't had any proof. Chapter 3-E was the closer I was to this, but it wasn't the case.

I completely forgot about that, thanks. So Nealuchi was speaking metaphorically then, although it didn't sound like a metaphor. Or could it be that Janaff lied to Ike?

I had the same doubt going in my mind for some time. It seems arbitrary and suspiciously convenient that laguz-laguz is impossible if they are from different tribes but laguz-beorc is okay. This goes against the "we are all humans" message, although I guess it could make sense if different laguz tribes were specialized sub-species from a common beorc branch. Which the game refutes as it is stated that laguz and beorc have a common ancestor. I agree that wolf-cat or heron-raven shouldn't make sense either, unless some FE4 genetics magic is implemented, but I don't think the writers put much thought into it. Maybe it is to give us hope that the heron population can be saved from extinction? Another doubt that I have is how bird laguz are born. Nealuchi told Naesala that he cared for him since he hatched his egg or something like that, is it just rhetorical or they actually are born from eggs? I believe this would complicate the branded mechanic for them, but I guess I shouldn't put much thought into it.

It is exotic to Ike, as Laguz don't carry weapons, to which Lethe replies that it is not a weapon but a tool. She sees it as something normal to use a tool if it is useful. Ike calling them "beorc-crafted tools" could just mean that Beorc invented them, not that Laguz are incapable of manufacturing them. From a Base Conversation with Lethe in Chapter 10:

I totally forgot about that, or maybe I didn't pay enough attention. Thanks for the info.