History of the Emblem "Megathread"

[sirmola]

Tyrfing and Falchion simply cannot be the same.

Falchion has been sealed in the Ice Dragon Shrine ever since it was first used.

Out of curiosity, what's your source on that? I've seen this theory in a variety of places and i don't remember that being brought up.

[RedEyedDrake]

Is the fact that the two have completely different powers not enough?

[RJWalker]

Out of curiosity, what's your source on that? I've seen this theory in a variety of places and i don't remember that being brought up.

Canonically stated that events of FE4 take place 1000 years before events of FE1/11.

The timelines that can be found on the main site show that Naga fought the Earth dragons more than 1000 years before FE1/11. Specifically, according to the Archanean calender, Marth's expidition took place in the year 604. 500 years before year 000 (establishment of the Archanean calender), Naga sealed the sword and shield and died. The sword remained sealed in two places (Fane of Raman and later, the Ice Dragon Shrine) and stayed there until Anri claimed it in the year 498 (106 years before Marth's expedition).

[RedEyedDrake]

Actually, is there any evidence to imply that the Falchion was enshrined at the Fane of Raman at any point? Anri recovered it from the Ice Dragon Temple, after all.

[Lhyonnaes]

To refer back to my previous post, there is sufficient confusion on the subject that I'm not comfortable stating anything for sure on Falchion's origins. We lack an account that's actually authoritative. Jagen's recounting of human legends 1000 years after the fact cannot be assumed to be a reliable source for the specifics of events. Xane's account is similarly problematic about the specifics, as his stated location of the Falchion and motives for it being there simply don't make much sense with the rest of the facts that we have.

Personally, I'm inclined to believe that the Falchion and the Tyrfing are the same sword (though the blade was obviously replaced), but that's a somewhat contreversial theory. There's room for legitimate arguments on both sides, and the water is muddied by the fact that we do lack for authoritative accounts of Falchion's creation.

[Lhyonnaes]

Grima and the Exalt

The last History of the Emblem was quite a while ago. A week and a half, or thereabouts. I made some grand promises on future productivity, promises that I have utterly failed to deliver upon.

Ooops.

They were more than a bit unrealistic, it seems. Ah well. Regardless, it's still the 20th somewhere, and so I'm not technically late on the last history post of the larger Archanea - Jugdral plotline. Happy 25th Anniversary, everyone!

I think it's reasonable to expect more History of the Emblem every... week or so, though it might be a bit more than two weeks before the next installment - I've got a lot of stuff on my plate in the next fortnight, which will demand a good portion of both my creative and historical writing efforts. We'll see how things go.


Also, in general, keep in mind that this more or less a work of history, albeit videogame history. And as with all history, it is not and cannot be perfectly objective. I should probably be citing my sources like a proper academic paper, but honestly I can't really be bothered, but if you have questions about where I'm getting a specific point, ask and I can provide. Regardless, there is and will always be some interpretation on my part, interpretation that others might not agree with. And, you know, that's just how history is. I'll note when I get into the more speculative side of things.

And once again, unmarked spoilers ahead. This time, mostly for FE13.

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Last time on History of the Emblem, we left off by discussing the events that lead up to the beginning of FE1. If you want to know about Marth's story, go play his games or read a plot summary - we're moving onwards, around a thousand years in the future. It's time to discuss the final parts of the lore of the Archanea-Jugdral metaplot that's central to the series.

We ultimately know little about the events of the next 1,000 years in Archanea. We know that the descendants of Marth retained political power... probably.¹ And... that's about it. We suspect that Arcanea remained a unified kingdom, that the Khadein School eventually faded in relevance as knowledge of magic spread throughout the continent, that the Earth Dragons remained sealed in the Dragon's Altar (which eventually became known as the Dragon's Table), and so on. We might even suspect that a certain Nada Kuya, a wielder of the Falchion and thus like a descendant of Marth's, took the Falchion to Magvel to fight against the Demon king, but that's a bit more speculative. Regardless, there is very little that we know about this period. We simply know that it came to an end when Grima first arose.

The origins of Grima are murky, at best. We know that he is in some way related to the Earth Dragons of yore. We know that he is a truly massive being, on a scale not comparable to any other dragon in the rest of the FE universe. We know that he is, indeed, legitimately a dragon, showing all the usual types of draconic magic. We know that his power is so great that he seems to create Risen without a conscious effort on his part. And we know that he is driven by an insatiable urge to break, to ruin, to consume.

In absence of hard-and-fast confirmed information, let us speculate on the origins of Grima himself. We know that he is in some way related to the Earth Dragons, but we also know that the Earth Dragons - or at least the vast, vast majority of them, were sealed away in the Dragon's Altar. This seal is interesting and unique, in that it does not seem to have been simply a binding of the spirit but also of the body itself (after all, were the bodies destroyed and the spirits bound separately, then the Earth Dragons would require a massive quantity of energy to re-create new bodies for themselves, energy that does not seem to have been present en masse when they returned in FE3). Therefore, we know that the overwhelmingly vast majority of Earth Dragons were sealed, in their physical forms, in what must have been some odd sort of nether dimension.

Could Grima have been some sort of creation of some Earth Dragon who avoided being sealed away? Well, it's a possibility, but not a terribly likely one. Remember that all the Earth Dragons who did not become manaketes - that is, all of them except for Medeus - were driven insane by the degradation. Loptyr also got around this requirement, though he seems to have at least partially lost it at some point or another. It's unlikely that another Earth Dragon both survived the degradation and amassed sufficient life energy to create such a massive and terrifying creature as Grima.² Where could Grima have been created then? Well, there's only one place where such a titanic earth dragon could have been feasibly been created - within the seal.

Remember, as of Awakening, the Earth Dragons are clearly no longer a concern. The Shield of Seals is no longer needed to lock them away. We don't see a single one. They must have gone somewhere. To complement this absolute lack of Earth Dragons, we have a really really ginormous Earth Dragon-esque beastie. What if Grima was created from the bodies of all those sealed-away Earth Dragons? In all honesty, that seems the most likely outcome. In that case, one wonders how the seal broke to allow for Grima's rise, though there are several conceivable ways. The orbs could have been separated once again, or perhaps the seal was simply no longer sufficient to hold Grima. Of course, this theory also leaves the question of Grima's "consciousness" up for debate - there is clearly a single overarching intelligence driving the Fell Dragon, not a mass of minds driven to bestial insanity. We'll return to speculation-land shortly to discuss that.

Whether or not you subscribe to this theory on its origins, Grima arose, and the world broke. It can be noted that there are minor changes in geography between the world maps of the previous games and of Awakening - it is reasonable to believe that these changes occurred during Grima's rise. Certainly, we can attribute some of the wider ecological changes to the region - for example, why what was once Altea and Gra is now a desert-y wasteland - to Grima's pernicious influence.

After all, Grima is a being of an impossibly large size, with magical footprint that is no doubt almost impossible to sustain. Dragons of normal size could not remain in dragon form for extended periods of time without suffering from the degradation. But Grima does not seem to suffer that decay. Sure, his sanity is questionable, but he is still a far cry from a mindless beast. How is this possible?

We can arrive at the answer with a minimum of speculation. We know that the degradation is caused by lack of sufficient magical energy. We know that life-force is magical energy in and of itself. And we know that Grima's destructive capabilities are not to be understated. Lucina recounts that the world of her future is, in many parts, a barren wasteland, stripped of life. Grima is, in all probability, consuming that life because he requires it to sustain himself. The Fell Dragon does not simply consume because he wishes, but because it is an undeniable and insatiable need. Hunger for life-force is practically the core of his existence.³

The Fell Dragon's rise not only profoundly affected the world itself, but the utter devastation it wrought also broke the established political order, shattering the Empires of Archanea and Valentia (if they had even lasted so long). And such a giant and terrible beast could not be defeated by any means currently accessible to the men and woman of the world. Even the mighty Falchion, Sword of Heroes, was not a sufficient weapon against his might.

In this seeming darkest hour for humanity, a man who is remembered only as the First Exalt took up the Falchion and the Fire Emblem, as befit his position as a descendant of King Marth. Recognizing that their power would not be sufficient to face Grima, he made an important decision. He travelled to Mount Prism on the island (or former island) of Talys, from where Marth first began his conquests, setting off at the head of what would become the Archeanean League and beginning to turn the tide of the War of Shadows. For at that mountain slept the spirit of Naga.

We do not know why Naga would have chosen Mount Prism, when her spirit came to rest there, or how the First Exalt knew where to found her. Personally, I find it most likely that the shrine atop the mountain - or at least some shrine, as it could very easily have been renovated in the subsequent thousand years - was already there. Naga thought the consecrated place would be a proper location to rest, and the First Exalt journeyed to the holiest location he knew. But that is my theory. Regardless, the First Exalt came to the location where Naga's spirit slumbered, and he performed the Awakening Ritual.

We do not know what the Awakening Ritual consists of (though if Chrom can perform it, it's probably not very complicated), but its functionality is simple - it effective reverses the normal effect of the Shield of Seals. The Shield was created to passively seal away dragons, and when "reversed", it awakening dormant dragon spirits in the vicinity. Thus, by performing it, the First Exalt called forth the Spirit of Naga, and begged her for the power to vanquish Grima and save humanity and the world.

In many ways, this first Awakening is a mirror of the Miracle of Darna, for Naga bestowed her Holy Blood upon the First Exalt. After all, remember that a physical body is not necessary for Naga to directly interact with the world, and it seems that she can create items from parts of her (such as a replacement Falchion) while still remaining a spirit. This was not the Holy Blood of Jugdral, either, but something stronger in its inheritance, more akin to Lehran's blood in the Apostles of Begnion in its inheritance. The "main-line" descendants of the First Exalt for the next thousand years would all bear the Brand of the Exalt, marking them as carriers of significant amounts of this Holy Blood. And once again, a weapon accompanied the blood - while the Falchion lacked a Dragonstone and thus lacked the awesome power of the Holy Weapons of Jugdral, it was still given a blessing that empowered it against the Fell Dragon, and made its use require Holy Blood in its wielder.

So empowered, the First Exalt took the fight to Grima. He was not alone - we know that he had at least some companions in his war. But like Marth and Anri before him, the First Exalt took the Falchion and, against seemingly impossible odds, he triumphed. He slew Grima and returned a semblance of peace to a shattered continent.

In the aftermath of Grima's defeat, the First Exalt re-established royal control over the Archanean heartland of old, forming the kingdom of Ylisse, with the capital of Ylisstol being built near or possible on top of the ancient capital of Palles. But royal power could not project as far as it used to in the Archanea that Grima had left behind. Squabbling barbarians ruled the northern lands, and those fractious tribes would eventually consolidate into Regna Ferox. And in the west, in the land that had once been Medon and Dolhr and Gra and Grust and Altea, a third power arose.

Grima, while a force of destruction and devastation and hunger, was not without mortal allies. Indeed, these Grimleal were surprisingly numerous, and evidently actively favored by Grima, rather than simply acknowledged. At least one, and probably several, of their leaders were favored with the ultimate gift - Grima's Holy Blood, itself. These leaders, and their descendants who might have also bore the Brand of Grima, perished either before or shortly after Grima's defeat, but they did exist. Eventually, in the fractured and devastated west, the remnants of the Grimleal would come to power, and focus on re-discovering the magic of the Fell Dragon, searching for the descendants of his Fellbloods, and breeding a new carrier of Grima's mark - a new vessel for their dark master, should they ever successfully revive his spirit.

But that would not happen for some time, long enough that the bloodlines were twisted enough to repeatedly frustrate the Grimleal's efforts. Long before they took power and formed the kingdom of Plegia, the First Exalt broke the Shield of Seals apart, spreading the five orbs throughout the land. Their seal was no longer needed - Grima was kept dormant by the new sealing power of the Falchion, not by their might. The prospect of another Awakening was thus more of a worry - Grima's spirit could be returned to activity - than a desired outcome. The Fell Dragon's return thus frustrated, the First Exalt would pass down the Fire Emblem - now only containing the Lightsphere - through the royal family of Ylisse. For the next 1,000 years, the Fire Emblem would return to its duty as a symbol of royal power and legitimacy. For the next 1,000 years, there would be no great cataclysm in Archanea.

And then, almost a millennium after Grima's rise, the Grimleal succeeded in breeding a new Fellblood, a potential vessel for his rebirth. And at that moment, their plans, long in dormancy, began to stir to life once more...


1: We ultimately don't know if the First Exalt was a king or a prince or just some dude who was descended from Marth and managed to get his hands on the Falchion and the Fire Emblem. It could even be that he wasn't a descendant of Marth himself, and that him or his descendants married into that heroic family at some point. However, for the purposes of brevity, for the rest of this post we will assume that he was in fact a descendant of Marth with ready access to both the sword and the shield. Just keep in mind that this is a reasonable suspicion and not a confirmed fact.

2: Admittedly, this post makes reference to some of the functionality of Quintessence that I have not yet discussed. The abbreviated and relevant information is that you need life energy to fabricate bodies. Big bodies need big life energy - hence the mass Grimleal sacrifice in Awakening, which is necessary not to resurrect Grima's spirit but to create for it a new body.

3: Indeed, one wonders if, at the beginning of the Dragon War, the Earth Dragons attacked the humans not simply due to the degradation but in part or wholly because they wished to similarly use the life-force of humanity to sustain their sanity.

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There's more to be talked about with regards to the Grimleal, specifically how they connect back to Jugdral and what that can tell us, but that's a conversation for another time - I simply don't have enough space here to cover it, and it gets arguably a little more speculative-y that we already were getting with regards to Grima's origins.

Again, please feel free to post comments and criticisms and concerns. Next time, I think we'll talk about the Scouring. Fun stuff.

Edited April 21, 2015 by Lhyonnaes

[SonPancham]

With Grima, you could talk about the Dragon's Table. I think Validar or Aversa said its where he feeds. It could be sarcastic but I think its true. I think it means where people were offered to Grima to sustain him and ties in with your theory of Grima needing food.

[RedEyedDrake]

With the way a certain part of that last post was worded I couldn't help but offer an alternative interpretation. So here goes.

I'm strongly inclined to disagree on the notion that the Falchion is not as powerful as the holy weapons of Jugdral. In fact, I think they power levels are actually the other way around. Notice how the einherjar of King Marth wields an Exalted Falchion, identical to the ones you receive in the last stages of FE13. And if that doesn't work for you, notice how the Falchion starts out as relatively weak in that game. I think it is much more likely that the Falchion's power deteriorated by the time of Grima's first coming and the point of the Awakening ritual is to revitalize it to its former state, even if only temporarily. It has been around 2300 years since its creation by that point, after all, what with Naga already having it during the war against the earth dragons.

And not only was the Awakening ritual required to revitalize it for the first time, it also needed to be rebonded to the First Exalt's bloodline. And said new bond actually made it so the Falchion could only be properly wielded by those with the Brand of the Exalt on them when no such thing was required after the Falchion's first bonding. All of this would imply that the state of not needing a Brand to be used is the more advanced state for a dragoncrafted weapon to have, rather than a lesser one. And that would mean that the holy weapons of Jugdral are the cruder creations while the Falchion is the "magnum opus".

Edited April 25, 2015 by RedEyedDrake