timeline possibilities and other Theories

[Misses Elise-chan!]

New theory, the Emmeryn you recruit actually came from the Outrealms and the real one is actually dead.

Another theory, Libra

Libra, Lucius, and Claude are actually women.

[MCProductions]

might as well throw Soren into that mix

heck when I first started the spotpass paralouges due to doing Yen Fey's first this is what I thought was the case for ALL OF THEM bar Priam.

I honestly did mistake Soren as a female initially

[IceBrand]

Guys, here a good theory I thought of, what if FE6 is a parallel world of FE1? Think about it, both have very similar stories and events. Both only a few changes to difference them.

[MCProductions]

I was going to quote eariler in the thread where we disscussed that possibility but my tablet glitched so I wasn't able too.

all well in any case we came to the conclusion that that's why Roy's a clone in Smash

[Oisín]

Or they're just common dragon names in dragon culture and the Holy War dragons weren't the first to have them. So basically it'd be the equivalent of Bob's Might and the great lord of the winds Michael.

My first and middle name are Robert and Michael respectively, which amused me greatly and pushed me over the fence for registration.

My one question is this; I've played Shadow Dragon and FE 7 and poked around a few wiki, but I haven't really dug into the prequel games so I might be missing some info, none the less; Why couldn't the Scouraging and Naga's Wars be seperate localized reactions to a global catastrophy? I'm going to posit what I think might be a decent theory on how below.

For the differences of the story, it might just be that the Divine Dragons who resided on Elibe might have opted to stay neutral, leaving the Humans to take a more active role in fighting the Feral Earth Dragons while on Archenia the Divine Dragons took a more active role in warring their mad cousins. Alternatively, the Ending Winter might have been what triggered the rather ambiguous degeneration of Dragons.

It's Tellius I have the most trouble reconciling, but Awakening is sort of committed to folding Tellius into Archanea canon; Zunanma proto-species where Humans and Laguz evolved from the same species, other Continents (presumably temporarily?) sunk and is the first part of the series to bring in explicitly Divine elements, who on the Game+ ending returns to usher in an era of peace.

My theory there is;

Zunanma are wierd and I'm going to ignore them mostly but don't post any serious continuity issues, except meaning that Tellius is definitely a wierd Prologue rather than an Epilogue. The relation of Dragon Laguz to Dragons is ambiguous, but other Laguz are clearly related to animals which exist in the setting so it seems reasonable to assume Dragon Laguz are offshoots of Dragons in the same way. So presumably, Dragons are still around but not as active on Tellius. Since Dragons are known to be capable to laying dormant and generally great feats of Magic, it's possible that they might have avoided the Flood through other means and thus didn't need to evacuate to Tellius.

The regular ending doesn't really make much reference to the Goddess and in this case she could be assumed to have disappeared, I sort of prefer this as Canon but there is another possibility. The Game+ ending has her returning a thousand years later to usher in a Golden Age (which would correspond with the Dragon's Golden Age). It is possible that some event might have caused Asheruna to depart or otherwise seal herself away and thus reduce the available magic in the world, causing degeneration and general tragedy. The only pertinent reason I can imagine for this is the Scourging where Humans are now picking fights with Dragons which are another of her creations and it similarly ends with a reduction of Magic. This would fit in well with the "Jahn is not a liar" timeline.

Meanwhile to the question of Laguz and Beorc making very little appearance in other games, I'd argue that it is because Laguz generally seem inclined to isolationism and are more technologically slow, while Beorc seem primed to rediscover lost continents; Ike's travels might have turned up Elibe, Archanea and etc which Beorc simply did a better job of colonizing. The end of the game shows a relative promise of better relation between Laguz and Beorc, but the way the games show it, intermixing generally shifts the progeny towards Beorc and away from Laguz; Laguz loose their power and their children are Branded who largely pass as long lived Beorc. It's unclear what would come of a Branded/Laguz union, or someone who was a quarter Laguz, but from what the games show? Intermixing is going to end with Beorc descendants fairly quickly down the line, maybe long lived and highly talented ones but that only suits the atmosphere of this lost golden age better. The only Laguz left would be highly isolated tribes like Panne describes, which would be pretty rare if Beorc were primarily leading the settlement movement. Certainly, Panne and Yarne seem surprised by Yarne's status as a functioning Taguel despite being a hybrid. This implies, perhaps, that at some point Laguz shifted to become more like Pure-Dragon Mankete's and seal their power away and the result of this is the ability for Hybrid children to maintain this power (This decision might have saved by Laguz from simply being bred out by Branded/Beorc). Generally this seems like a good explanation for the scarcity of Laguz outside of Tellius; most stayed behind, those that didn't either learnt quickly to be isolationist/entirely hidden or their great grandchildren became nigh indestinguishable from Beorc.

If the above seculations are correct, I think I can lay out a Unified Time Line for Fire Emblem, keeping to a single planet (Using Archanean Years, AKY);

Before -4800 AKY: World is Flooded by mourning Asheruna, who then splits in two.

Before -4000 AKY: PoR and RD take place. The Goddess leaves the world and Humans begin to spread through a slowly healing world.

About three thousand years of peace (GotHW's Golden Age length) last as Humans spread over the globe and encounter the Dragons already residing in the rest of the world.

At some point between -1000 AKY and -548 AKY: Dragons begin to decline, both Naga's War against the Earth Dragons (and later Divine Crusade) and the Scouraging take place. the Humans on Elibe likely found themselves up against increasingly feral Earth Dragons, with a community of "Divine Dragons" (possibly just a later name for those willing to seal their powers and retain their sentience) who opted to remain neutral on this continent, leaving Humans to combat the Feral Dragons alone. Naga's choice happens with an implied drain on magic already happening, while Elibe's canon talks about a resulting an Ending Winter where Magic was significantly drained either by Dragons or Human Weapons (I'd side with both). Considering this, the Loptyrian Cult might have risen to prominence in light of a significantly reduced amount of magic in the world, by accessing one of the very few active Dragon's remaining to gain their power. In light of this, I'm willing to draw out the beginning of Galle's travels as roughly corresponding to the end of the Scouraging; He might have been seeking out a new source of Magic. This is tenative however, and the Elibe Cycle could have happened at any point between roughly -1100 AKY (This would imply a war between Humans and sentient Earth Dragons, where Jahn is right and it is humans who caused the Ending Winter through their Weapons, it can't have been more than a hundred year before the Decline since the Ending Winter presumably did not last long after the weapons were sealed which was done within the span of the Eight Hero's natural lives, likely well within 10 years) and -500 (at which point Naga was clearly seeking out Earth Dragons, including a cult on Jugdral which was operating rather covertly. Since the Divine Dragons were neutral during the Scouraging and Earth Dragons were operating overtly, it is likely well before 500 that this occured). This means that even at the earliest possible date, Elibe still takes place around 100 AKY (long after Genealogy) and at the absolute latest, it takes place around 500 AKY (a comfortable century ahead of Marth's story). Further I'm inclined to push the Scouraging somewhat later than -1100 AKY, since there is no record of Naga's intervention and things seem to imply Dragons were already in decline. Further it seems likely that the Jahn is an unreliable source as the use of four of these Divine Weapons didn't have any long term effects, so I am more inclined to believe that if the Eight Weapons did anything, it was merely to worsen an already damaged or declining state of magic in the world. That's a personal view though and Ending Winter could absolutely have been the cause of the Decline of Dragons where Naga and the Dragons of other continents simply didn't feel the need to intervene.

-1000 AKY: Decline of Dragons. Naga requests that Dragons seal their power in stones. Divine Dragons comply (becoming Mankete), Earth Dragons who refuse slowly become Feral.

-750 AKY: (Speculatively) Scouraging concludes, Ending Winter begins reducing Magic and driving Elibe's Earth Dragons to Dragon's Gate and Divine Dragons into hiding.

-700 AKY: Naga leads Divine Dragons against (mostly) Feral Earth Dragons, resulting in a victory.

-548 AKY: Naga intervienes with Earth Dragon cult in Jugdral.

-423 to 403 AKY: GotHW and Thracia 773 happen.

0 AKY: Archanea founded.

Approx. 350 AKY: Elibe Cycle. The story takes place over more than 20 years, but the date is rough anyway.

500 AKY: Naga's Death. Falchion created.

600 AKY: Ankoku Ryuu/Shadow Dragon.

606 AKY: Gaiden, Alm united Valentia.

609 AKY: Conclusion of (New) Mystery of the Emblem. Foundation of United Archanea.

Post 609 AKY-

Alm's Falchion (A fang gifted by Dragon-kin and fashioned into a sword) presumably travels to Magvel and into the hands of a minor Princess by the name of Nada Kuya of Caer Pelyn. Presumably the wielder is a blue-haired descendant of Alm's line. The only theory based on this assumed that the descendant was Marth's but Eirika's hair (who is said to closely ressemble Nada Kuya) is closer in shade to Alm's interesting and Valentia doesn't claim anything like the Falchion during their invasion of Archanea, while Alm did have a Falchion of his own...

Sacred Stones takes place some time after this (presumably long enough for Nada to have faded largely into legend but not be entirely forgotten) on the relatively isolated and small continent of Magvel, as it must follow after the creation/discovery of the Falchions but precede Awakening (as it is the last game of the continuity)

Approx 1600 AKY: Archanea is divided into two nations by holy war; resulting in the schism of Ylisse and Plegia.

2600 AKY: The events of Fire Emblem Awakening take place.

Edit: So in summation;

The Scouraging and Degeneration of Dragons seem like they could definitely be linked. If Tellius is linked into it, it seems that they came at the end of a golden age of exploration and magic for Humans and Dragons. The reason this golden age ended is fairly ambiguous, if you're willing to buy Jahn's explaination; it might have been due to Humans creating the Eight Sacred Weapons in Elibe which seem to have basically been Fantasy Nukes right down to an "Ending" Winter. This might have had some long term effects that made it hard for Dragons world wide to live. Alternatively, it might have been a slower sort of "climate change" in magic, where it slowly started to dry up through over use and over population with the Dragons who were forced to seal their powers or go mad. Both work (or a combination of the two) but there seems to be no reason that the events on Archenia and Elibe which happened as result of this declining Golden age shouldn't be seen as interconnected.

Also Eirika seems to share a ressemblance to a possible junior descendant of Alm's line who ran off with the second Falchion.

By this theory, the timeline is;

PoR->RD->GotHW->Thracia 776->Blazing Sword->Binding Blade->Ankoku Ryuu/Shadow Dragon->Gaiden->(New) Mystery of the Emblem->Sacred Stones->Awakening.

Potential Plotholes/Other Theories:

Tellius, sinking of the continents: I've seen this mentioned a few times, but it's solved interally to the game; Ike (and possibly Soren, as well as other supports IIRC) can leave to explore other continents during the Epilogue. Tellius is the only surviving continent, but that is only because it is "Mountainous", Mountain dwelling Dragons may have gotten through the flood fine. Humans meanwhile /are/ resettling these continents during most of their histories, all of which could have happened well after Tellius; Jugdral has lore about "the first settlement" which implies that relatively civilized Humans were coming to a continent which was already occupied by Dragons, Elibe's lore seems to cast it in a similar light and shows Humans as only later carving out nations. The idea of other continents slowly arising from the Ocean over thousands of years, possibly with the Goddess' direct intervention seems plausible.

Tiki remarks on the rarity of Dragon-Human Half-Breeds: This implies that the Elibe's Half-Breeds (Nil, Ninian and Sophia) are something Tiki has never seen. That said, Sophia's home of Arcadia is quite reclusive while Tiki is similarly mostly dormant or generally keeping to herself. At very least, Dragon-Human hybrids are /very/ heavily implied by the blood lines in Genealogy which is definitely in the Archenian canon.

Mila/Duma: I'm unclear on their specific power qua dieties, but they are sibling Gods. It's possible that they're particularly powerful Manketes (maybe a pair of Earth Dragons who sealed their powers? This would explain why Mila's Sword is also identified as a Fachion) but outside of Asheruna, they are the only identified dieties who appear in the plot and are not explicitly said to be mislabelled Mankete.

One Interesting point to this theory: This would explain the lack of Dragonstones in Tellius in favour of a Transformation gauge. Laguzstones are the precursors to Dragonstones and the ability of the Laguz to use these stones to tap into power, might have inspired the Divine Dragon's in regards to their semi-human forms and sealed power. Unlike the Laguz who can shift naturally however, all Mankete in the dark age have sealled their powers in stones and require them to transform. This also explains the minimal prescence of full blooded dragons (they are few, widely dispersed and likely could simply end the plot since they wouldn't be Mankete at this point).

Priam: This is the wierdest account, since according to this timeline, Priam is claiming descent from a man who lived roughly 8,000 years ago. Still, considering Ike isn't royalty and in most endings spends his life exploring rather than establishing a lasting royal house (and considering fan theory, might very well have been gay or bi and settled with a man), it's possible that either Priam or an Ancestor simply found Ragnell like one would stumble onto the Holygrail and because of his ability to use the weapon, he can claim descent from Ike. Considering the prominance of ancestral swords which are usable only by members of the bloodline in Archenia? This seems pretty feasible for a legend, even if it amounts to basically claiming to be the descended from the most senior branch of Adam and Eve's line (since after 8000 years, your descendants would essentially be everyone). The possibility of being an early time traveller (ala Lucina and the like) is also present and would fit the game but while it is still wierd to me, it /would/ be carrying on his ancestor's tradition of exploring though and could certainly explain why Tellius both seems to be treated as another Continent /and/ a different world; Priam may be from a sort of mythical garden of Eve, but travelled to an alternate future. Considering Ike is named as "The Radiant Hero" from a different continent, whose name may be lost to time, and who is recognized mostly through his sword but had a hand in preventing the destruction of the small remenants of Humanity (and Laguz) from being wiped out? It's entirely possible he's a major feature in their creation myth which a Prince (or another education person) might recognize.

Dragon's Gate is Archenia Theory: By this theory, Dragon's Gate was a pretty substantial failure and very far in the past; since 1. Divine Dragons didn't need to leave through it as they were neutral and 2. Earth Dragons left to maintain their forms and then went insane/feral. It seems to me far more feasible that Elibe's Scouraging and Archenia's Decline of Dragons shared a substantial link but were simply two very far apart regions, with little or no contact, reacting differently to the same global event. Also, the role and actions of Divine Dragons in is harder for me to reconcile if Naga's actions followed after the Scouraging.

Nils/Forseti: This timeline puts the kibosh on that theory since, well, Nils would almost definitely be on the otherside of Dragon's Gate by then and only dragged back by Nergal like 900 years later. Though it's theoretically possible according to this theory anyway (Nils left shortly after and returned) but I feel this theory is sort of playing fast and loose with Nils' story and Elibe canon already and doesn't really have a lot of substantial backing from canon.

I think that all the theories addressed in this thread are touched on here and I haven't missed anything...

Edited April 10, 2015 by Oisín

[lonelyVoxel]

Wish I had the wall of text emote from another forum, but this emote still describes me well after reading that post. The only thing you didn't touch on was the Outrealm Gate, but, like the Dragon's Gate, its existence is lightly explained. The FE canon works much better without those two ambiguous sites, but Nils and Ninian sort of force the DG to be important. In any case, that was a great summary/timeline of events. I have not seen anything that does not theorize two worlds, which is the way most people worked in Dragon's and Outrealm gates. Thanks for taking the time to write this. =)

[Oisín]

Thanks! It sort of started out muuuch shorter but then things snowballed.

Dragon's Gate and the Outland realms should be important but they just don't seem necessary to link the worlds together.

I think what might be a cool theory would be tying them to Time Travel and the Bad Future DLC; Both of them represent the pinacle of FE universe magic and are tapping into infinite possible worlds, from very similar (Canon Awakening v. Bad Future) to really radically different ones (Dragon's Gate is to a world with "different air"). The reason they don't pop up in more games is because the Dragons were originally the only ones able to do it and most of them disappeared; it took millenia of scholars and mages to get something like it back in place. Meanwhile this knowledge might have been lost again in the bloody Schism; perhaps it was even the cause as the scholars accidently (or intentionally?) summoned Grima through a second Dragon's Gate and tore Archenia/Ylisse to shreds in war (explaining why Grima isn't Feral despite nearly 2000 years before his first appearance; he's an Elibe Dragon).

This would still allow "Separate but linked worlds" but there doesn't seem to be enough reason to separate the Continents into different worlds without risking the claim that every single play on each individual game through represents a completely different universe; Cool but unnecessarily messy for canon when I think we can put together a single straight line of history from Ike to Chrom.

Edited April 9, 2015 by Oisín

[NoirCore]

I haven't read through the whole topic, but I personally believe that while Jugdral, Archanea, Valencia, Ylisse, and Valm are of the same universe, Elibe, Magvel, and Tellius are separate universes accesableaccesable to and back via the Outrealms.

First, Ylisse's game was the first game in FE where the existence of other worlds is acknowledged, especially with other's weapons ending up in said world. However, it is also the first game where traveling to countless MULTIPLE worlds is possible. Prior games did not acknowledge the existence of other worlds, nor did they have any indication that traveling to multiple worlds was possible (the best we got was Elibe's Dragon's Gate heading to the dragon world, but that was the only world, and it was sealed off).

Secondly, the tomes. In male Robin and Laurent's non-relative C support, Laurent says that the magical tomes serve both as magical weapons and history books. Also, in Ricken's supports with Miriel, he shouts the names of the tomes he casts, if at all, confirming that Robin's shouting of tome names in SSB wasn't just something added just for the fighting game. However, this information contrasts with the tomes of Elibe and Tellius. In Elibe's case, Nino tells Erk in her supports with him that she can't read, and the reason she can even cast spells was by listening to Sonia's chanting of spells from within the book. However, Ylisse's books contain history instead of spells, and one doesn't exactly have to chant to use a tome, so the two worlds' tomes don't match up. For Tellius, in Radiant Dawn's Act 1 cutscene, Miciciah has to chant to use the magic, and someone (was it Ike? Or a mage?) mentions that the books contain "ancient" language in it which is chanted. Again, a contradiction to Ylisse's tomes' content and way of usage.

Finally, the act of matching up worlds into one timeline... It seems very complicated, and I'm not sure the designers had just one singular timeline in mind when making the games, so to me, that gives the impression that I shouldn't be having to go through the vigorous trouble of mixing and matching worlds together.

And that is why I believe the worlds are separate.

[Oisín]

Alright, I'm going to hit each of your three points;

1. The fact alone that there are multiple worlds doesn't really justify splitting up canon into multiple worlds. Admittedly, Awakening is sort of the first game to go full fan service and explicitly include a character with ties to another continent and other heroes, so the Multiple worlds could be seen as a justification for that. However, it could just as easily be seen as a justification for time travel which would be necessary anyway. Ties between continents and allusions have always been there and the theory I put in above doesn't rely on Awakening for too much to explain canon.

One point you have to anwser for here; How does Chrom & Co. recognize Priam as descended from "the Radiant Hero"? Knowing of other worlds is one thing but actually being that familiar with the history of a random alternate universe to know that? It seems more likely that the Radiant Hero was a part of their history somehow and Ike explicitly went Continent Hopping as Tellius (by your own argument here) has no mention of other worlds.

2. This is easily justifiable by saying Magic is a large and only vaguely understood force at work in the FE universe, probably somewhat analogous to Physics in ours; People on separate continents with hundreds and even thousands of years between them are going to have different traditions. The people of Elibe, Tellius and Archenia have different magic traditions which work in different ways. Merric might have used a different system than Ricken, time changes things.

Also, from a metaperspective, you're committing yourself to claiming that /every/ Archenia game released has and will describe magic as working in the same way. I don't have anything directly contradicting you that I can pull out here but ehn, it's not something I'd bet the house on.

3. The developers definitely shifted continents because they wanted a fresh start, sure, but they explicitly kept to "Continents" and kept making little references here and there in old games. Awakening tried a huge fanservice-y tie in which led to a lot of plot wholes and the "Outrealm" escape clause to keep things ambiguous. Over all, I think they have deliberately left the possibility of a single world theory open for us but have left the plossibility of diverging canon open as an easy out of contradition between games.

As fans, I figure it's our perogative to figure out how a Unified Theory would go if we want to. Whether it's Canon is another matter, but I mean with how pander-y Awakening was? I could see them trying something larger scale to bring everything together or I could see them decided to play it safer from now on.

[MCProductions]

Honestly, I'm amazed this topic is still alive.

In any case, these are all great points, but I've recentally reached the conclusion that there is a Nintendo Multiverse connectting every Nintendo game

Proof:

Warning: really long list and potential spoliers coming from a guy who does not know how to spolier on the mobile version of Serenes. read at your own risk.

Hyrule Historia's Link dies timeline can only be explained by multiverse theroy

In Super Paper Mario, each stage takes place in a different dimension meaning Multiverse

Smash Bros, obviously

Outrealms, obviously

In Mario and Luigi Dream Team, Luigi's and other character's dreams actually become new worlds so...

The Dragon's Gate, Obviously

Termina from Majora's Mask

Labryyna and Holodrum from the Zelda Oracle Games

Lorule from Zelda Link between worlds

Sacred Realm from MULTIPLE Zelda games

even tho it's not Nintendo, he might as well be at this point, Sonic has an established multiverse as is.

There's probaly more but all I know of Nintendo's games are Mario, Zelda, and FE so...

[Oisín]

Don't forget the Early Zelda games with obvious Mario elements in them; Link's Awakening is a particularly obvious offender but it was a dream.

If you want to go that route, my personal theory is that there is some Lovecraftian stuff going on with Tatuu and Master Core and etc invovling mind warping sequences, bizarre dreams with elements which do not belong to their universe (Mario Bros 2) and particularly surreal and bizarre games which happen either in strange universes or twisted dreams (Majora's Mask, Super Mario Land, Ripened Tingle's Balloon Trip of Love). As well as cases where mortal enemies and best friends from different universes are brought into being in strange realms of existance and forced to bizarre sports, fight to the death and play board games as the pieces.

Little shout outs from one game to another might actually be the early signs of an unravelling web of worlds which have been twisted by the incomprehensible will of insane and/or malevolant beings.

Still that stuff sort of fits better into Smash Brothers theorizing.

Edited April 10, 2015 by Oisín

[MCProductions]

Yeah, I honestly prefer single world theroy, just thought I should point out that FE isn't the only series made by Nintendo to feature a Multiverse.

My headcanon is Smash is canon, and you, the player, are Master Hand so Nintendo games are only canon if you want them to be

[Jotari]

A headcanon that something is canon seems like an oxymoron.

[MCProductions]

I was joking about ridiculos some headcanons are so yeah, its an Oxymoron.

[Oisín]

I still want to touch on this quick since "FE isn't the only series... to feature a multiverse" isn't the case buuuut we're also veering from FE though I'll be brief and introduce a new FE central theory at the end;

Mario games seem to pretty well all happen in their own unique canon as far as I can tell; there are a few sequel games and broad references to history, but nothing that is strong enough to tie the whole franchise together. There are bits you could point to that might imply the ability to dimension hop and Mario's status as some kind of slider, buuut trying to find a connection that way is abotu on par with listing all the games as a dream or the ramblings of an insane man who thinks he is Italian.

Zelda, meanwhile, has always committed to a single timeline, which means parallel worlds are somewhat at play. Termina is explicitly called one in the manual of Majora's Mask, while the official Timeline makes it clear that there are at least 3 possible worlds which lead into different canon timelines.

Labrynna and Holodrum are explicitly "Far away countries"; it's possible that this is euphemistic but there isn't much reason to put them as alternate universes. The Sacred Realm I'd also hesistate with since we visit it and usually it's pretty tiny and only important for one location. It's more of a pocket realm than a parallel world.

Twilight Realm seems closer to Dragon's Gate; both lead to magical places which we barely understand but are very different from Hyrule/Elibe, and so fit well in a multiverse but are some ambiguous. Lorule is bang on the money with Termina as alternate Hyrules though.

I've played a few other Nintendo games, but I think Zelda is the only other one I'd play this sort of game with. Smash Bros teases it; Brawl is /definitely/ showing all of the games as existing in tandem in some sort of Nintendo World which would be your best bet for a unifying theory. Still, it's kind of playing fast and loose with Canon and knows it; SSB is not going to give serious results.

Here, thinking about this got me to speculate on what exactly consists of a parallel world and how Fire Emblem's multiverse keeps pretty strictly to Fire Emblem and it got me thinking about the possibility that the Outrealm gate connects primarily to two different parallel worlds; the first is alternate timelines which vary from close and feasible (Bad Future DLC) to ridiculous (Murdering thieving Risen) and the other is collecting Einjenhar.

Since the Heroes grabbed are Einjenhar rather than just themselves, this seems to imply that you're obviously not just time travelling and plucking Marth away in the middle of an important campaign to save his world's Archenia. Rather, I think, based off the wierd disjointed way that the Einjenhar respond to everything and their perhaps eternal replication of old Battles?

It seems pretty possible that the Einjenhar /are/ the spirits of the fallen heroes from different timelines, or at least some part of it, which have been replaying their same battles over centuries or millenia (thus loosing a fair bit of cognitive capacity, if it wasn't lobotomized out of them). If that's the case, it seems like the Outrealm Gate is dedicated to visiting a particularly strange version of Valhalla where Heroes eternally relive their deeds.

An add on to that idea, tying it back into the Unified World Theory, would be looking at Norse Valhalla, which was mostly a hall for practicing war at Odin's behest until they are prepared for a final showdown between Gods, as a model for this. It seems pretty possible, if Nintendo were ever to revisit the idea of Einjenhar, that these spirits (whether literal fragments of the Heroes' souls, the Heroes themselves after upwards of two millenia reliving the same experience or something significantly more benign) were created with the purpose of leading a sort of final showdown/charge against a powerful figure; maybe to prevent Asheruna from a second flood, or to support either Earth Dragons or Divine Dragons in a final war.

It'd basically be the Loptyrian Deadlords on a massive scale.

At very least it'd be a more novel way to reuse the idea than what we have now.

[Magical Glace]

Labrynna and Holodrum aren't alternate worlds, they are other nations in the same world as Hyrule.

Zelda's alternate worlds are

The Dark World, a corrupt version of the Sacred Realm from ALttP

Lorule, an alternate version of Hyrule doomed to crumble since they destroyed their version of the Triforce

Termina, a doomed land from Majora's Mask, similar in people to OoT Hyrule.

The World of the Ocean King from Phantom Hourglass, which is just an alternate sea, there isn't much more to it. It has fish though!

The Twilight Realm in guess what game.

FE in contrast, has two games with "other worlds" being mentioned, 7 and 13.

I'm not sure what you're getting at by bringing up LoZ, though...

[Oisín]

I was responding to Randomsonicvideos (The OP) in regards to Many Worlds theory as it relates to Nintendo's general canon; While there's a lot of reboots and cross overs, only LoZ (and now FE) seems interested in tying their respective universes together into a (semi-)coherent metaplot.

It's a little off topic admittedly, but it is worth looking at LoZ as precidence for Nintendo deliberately creating an elaborate meta-plot with Alternate Worlds and diverging timelines tying everythign together.

/If/ we think Fire Emblem has a huge metaplot then LoZ is handy for arguing that Nintendo does this sort of meta-plotting and even for arguing that there can sometimes be odd plotholes or only tangential relations. I mean, if you want to argue for shifting rules of magic, changing concepts of divinity and so on being a proof that the plots are not related, I'd be inclined to think Legend of Zelda is a far, far worse offender than Fire Emblem.

This is contra-DarkGod's point that because a single meta plot seems "very complicated, and [it is not clear that] the designers had just one singular timeline in mind when making the games" that we should just treat them as separate time lines. Judging by Hyrule Historia, it seems unlikely their metaplot was in place until /at least/ the success of Ocarina of Time (Personally, I'd be inclined to think Windwaker was the first game that tried to tie into older games while diverging from canon).

Edit: I'm also amused by the thought that FE had a similar (though significantly more complex) reincarnation cycle invovling all of their different archetypes to Legend of Zelda's tendancy to re-incarnate Link, Zelda and various other figures in an eternal war for the Triforce.

Edited April 10, 2015 by Oisín

[Magical Glace]

I was responding to Randomsonicvideos (The OP) in regards to Many Worlds theory as it relates to Nintendo's general canon; While there's a lot of reboots and cross overs, only LoZ (and now FE) seems interested in tying their respective universes together into a (semi-)coherent metaplot.

It's a little off topic admittedly, but it is worth looking at LoZ as precidence for Nintendo deliberately creating an elaborate meta-plot with Alternate Worlds and diverging timelines tying everythign together.

/If/ we think Fire Emblem has a huge metaplot (One-World, Two-World or even Three-World), LoZ is sort of presidence of Nintendo doing this explicitly in the past.

I hope there's no diverging timelines, FE13's was a disaster logic wise and Zelda's is barely sensical itself. Why there's not "Hero kicked it" Timeline for every game we'll never know.

I wouldn't mind a metaplot in FE, so long as it doesn't have an Ocarina of Time taking it and making it ludicrously hard to figure out.

[Radiant head]

As fans, I figure it's our perogative to figure out how a Unified Theory would go if we want to. Whether it's Canon is another matter, but I mean with how pander-y Awakening was? I could see them trying something larger scale to bring everything together or I could see them decided to play it safer from now on.

From what I understand, Awakening was sort of acting like a swan song of the FE series because it might have been the last one. I kind of doubt they'll go crazy with allusion pandering in If.

[MCProductions]

From what I understand, Awakening was sort of acting like a swan song of the FE series because it might have been the last one. I kind of doubt they'll go crazy with allusion pandering in If.

My thoughts exactly.

tho this dissapoints my cause the spotpass characters are the sole reason I enjoyed Awakening so much

[Oisín]

I hope there's no diverging timelines, FE13's was a disaster logic wise and Zelda's is barely sensical itself. Why there's not "Hero kicked it" Timeline for every game we'll never know.

I wouldn't mind a metaplot in FE, so long as it doesn't have an Ocarina of Time taking it and making it ludicrously hard to figure out.

Agreed. I'm just pointing out the Awakening DLC where you can go to the future where Chrom and co. are dead and help the younger generation fight. I haven't bought that any DLC (I might end up doing so once I finish up some other games though).

From what I understand, Awakening was sort of acting like a swan song of the FE series because it might have been the last one. I kind of doubt they'll go crazy with allusion pandering in If.

I didn't hear about that but I sort of figured that might be the case. I kind of figure the amount of pandering in the next one will depend entirely on how well the pandering went over in this one; considering it was nearly the last game and they're now looking at making more? It's possible that they might see what they did as a smart move and bring more in.

Honestly, while I do like speculating on there being a metaplot and some elements of awakening's shout outs were cool; I wouldn't be sad if If sort of kept itself more self-contained (though it reads suspiciously like Gaiden with new names sticked on and the option to side with Rigel).

Especially if it meant toning down the scale of the story and making more down to earth characters, but I don't know if we'll be seeing that.

[lonelyVoxel]

There's a new TRS translation going on, which has lead me to wonder where it and Berwick fit on the FE timeline. I'm not sure how much Kaga has said that connects FE and the Sagas, but I believe that Jugdral is mentioned at some point. I think it's even said that settlers from Jugdral inhabit the continent where TRS takes place in, though it is mentioned as Jugd.

[MCProductions]

There's a new TRS translation going on, which has lead me to wonder where it and Berwick fit on the FE timeline. I'm not sure how much Kaga has said that connects FE and the Sagas, but I believe that Jugdral is mentioned at some point. I think it's even said that settlers from Jugdral inhabit the continent where TRS takes place in, though it is mentioned as Jugd.

I'm pretty sure that TRS was originally named Emblem Saga and stared Xane from FE1(of all people) as the protaginist, and in the interest of advoiding lawsuits,(which failed, btw) Kaga changed both the premise and removed all FE related objects from the game,(tho they remain in the games code), so due to lawsuits, there's no official connections.

That doesn't stop me from placeing it in my headcanons, however

[sirmola]

Honestly, I'm amazed this topic is still alive.

In any case, these are all great points, but I've recentally reached the conclusion that there is a Nintendo Multiverse connectting every Nintendo game

Proof:

Warning: really long list and potential spoliers coming from a guy who does not know how to spolier on the mobile version of Serenes. read at your own risk.

Hyrule Historia's Link dies timeline can only be explained by multiverse theroy

In Super Paper Mario, each stage takes place in a different dimension meaning Multiverse

Smash Bros, obviously

Outrealms, obviously

In Mario and Luigi Dream Team, Luigi's and other character's dreams actually become new worlds so...

The Dragon's Gate, Obviously

Termina from Majora's Mask

Labryyna and Holodrum from the Zelda Oracle Games

Lorule from Zelda Link between worlds

Sacred Realm from MULTIPLE Zelda games

even tho it's not Nintendo, he might as well be at this point, Sonic has an established multiverse as is.

There's probaly more but all I know of Nintendo's games are Mario, Zelda, and FE so...

You forgot the phantom hourglass, all of which exept bits of the first and last cutscenes takes place in another world.

Other references include link sleeping in mario's bed in super mario rpg and a toad in the english version of "Paper mario: the thousand year door" talking about how much he loves playing fire emblem on the GBA (refering to fe7). (this is not in the japanese version, in which he is playing the NES super mario instead. For more info see: http://legendsoflocalization.com/legit-translation-or-clever-fire-emblem-advertisement/). Then there are franchises like punch out (mario is a referee), DR. Mario (mario is a doctor instead of a plumber), or mario is missing (which takes place on earth.) Then there is the super mario brothers super show, in which mario and luigi are plumbers from our world who got sucked into the mushroom Kingdom universe, but i don't think that counts.