What's the deal with Grima?

[AlexArtsHere]

Sorry if this has been asked/resolved before, but it's something that's been bugging me for a while.

Anyone who has played Awakening will know that the Fell Dragon Grima is a pretty big plot point, and also oft-mentioned is his defeat at the hands of Marth, the First Exalt. Thing is, I can't find any explicit reference to Grima in the classic games in my research, so I ask this fine forum: Has Grima appeared in Fire Emblem before? Is he a reincarnation of another dragon? Or is Marth's battle with him just some offscreen world building?

[ElementKasai]

I don't really know, but it looks like he is just Medeus with a different name. Or probably just Medeus' body possessed by the evil Robin.

[Acacia Sgt]

Marth is not the First Exalt. They're two separate people.

[Etrurian emperor]

I think its much more likely that the first Exalt is a descendant of Marth rather than Marth himself. 

Its a common theory that Grima is a fusion of all the sealed earth dragons which broke free from the dragon table. 

[Radiant head]

i also thought marth was the first exalt when first playing this game. 

i think it was a little confusing because if you isolate awakening's story from fates, it's a little weird that there's the legendary first exalt, but then lucina is adopting the imagery of a different legendary ancestor. 

[LucarioGamer812]

The way I see it, Grima is Medeus reincarnate basically. The exalt line confuses me too, but we know Anri started the bloodline by being the first wielder of the Falchion and slaying Medeus, time passes on and we then see Marth taking up the Falchion and slaying Medeus twice within 3 years of each other. We skip a few thousand years and awakening is happening. While the only people we know of the exalt line are Anri, Marth's father (and hence his mother as well) Marth, Elice (Marth's Sister), Caeda (since she married Marth), Chrom, Emmeryn, Lissa, Their father and mother, Lucina, and Owain definitely, and due to the marriage component of awakening ,either Sumia, Maribelle, F! Robin, Sully, or Olivia as Chrom's wife and either M! Robin, Stahl, Frederick, Vaike, Lon'qu, Henry, Virion, Ricken, Gregor, Libra, Kellam, Gaius, or Donnel as her husband, and either gender Morgan, and the rest of the children being possible in the line due to them marrying into the line or being descended from it (like with Brady, Cynthia, Inigo, Kjelle etc) and if we count fates, then Ophelia, Soleil, and possibly Kana and Shigure could be in the bloodline as well

Edited January 23, 2017 by LucarioGamer812
forgot Ophelia and Soleil

[Slyfox]

The First Exalt is pretty much a descendant of Marth. Since no one in this thread mentioned when in the timeline this happens, I'll tell you. The First Exalt, and his/her fight with Grima, which also seems to be Grima's first appearance (unless we go reincarnate, a la Ganondorf), happen 1000 years after Marth's time. And it's also 1000 years before Awakening.

 

Simplified version:

Marth: year 0

First Exalt (And Grima's first appearance and subsequent death) : ~year 1000

Emmeryn: ~year 2000

[AlexArtsHere]

Huh. I always assumed Marth was the First Exalt, since Lucina disguises herself as him. Still, the time of the First Exalt and the defeat of Grima does line up with the Schism, when the modern nations of Archanea and Valentia were founded. Kind of want a game about that now...

[Hero of the Fire Emblems]

Grima aside from the Dragon's Table being the location Medeus was sealed away has little to no explicit connection to Medeus aside from having antagonism with Naga

 

on the other hand, there's a positively startling amount of evidence for Grima to be connected to Loptyr, the main antagonist of Genealogy of the Holy War and Thracia 776 (4 and 5 for the uninitiated), or in fact be Loptyr himself returned under a new name.

*Loptyr and Grima both initially lack a physical body and absolutely require a host to have any influence in the physical world (the host being Julius in Jugdral and the Avatar in Awakening). This in and of itself is not enough, as the host must have a specific bloodline of Holy Blood, a trait the avatar is explicitly stated to have in the DLC involving Jugdral (the mark on his/her hand is a Brand, and the mark on Julius's forehead is strongly implied to also a brand, since his Mother's Mark of Naga was also on the same position, though it seems to be a mark of Loptyr instead of Naga). A worthy host being extremely difficult to sire is a major plot point of both Jugdral and Awakening, with Manfroy and Validar respectively spending a great deal of their lives trying to cause the birth of a worthy host.

*Both Grima and Loptyr have occult organizations attempting to take over the world; the Loptyrian Order and the Grimleal, respectively. Both organisations have the same suffix in Japanese, furthering the connection. Both organisations also plot and succeed in creating a nation completely forced into their sadistic religion.

*Both of the major religious leaders (Manfroy and Validar) are in possession of an evil regalia dark tome, the Book of Loptyr and Grima's Truth, which may or may not be one and the same depending on what their connection is, and Grima's Truth is implied to be passed down through the bloodline as the Loptyr tome was.

*Perhaps the most damning evidence, Loptyr has an elite guard known as the Deadlords, reanimated corpses designed to be subservient to Loptyr and Loptyr alone. They seem to be possessed by a recursive set of demons, or alternatively have identical roles that are fulfilled by different corpses. Furthering this rather explicit Jugdral connection, all Deadlords in Awakening have one of the Judrali Holy Weapons. It would be quite strange for a completely unrelated cult with a completely unrelated patron god to pull the mindlessly loyal servants of another cult with another god into their service, especially with as powerful, evil, and loyal a force as the Deadlords.

*Both appear in the form of very serpentine, almost snakelike, dragons, much moreso than Medeus's Shadow Dragon form.

*Loptyr has a specific animosity towards Naga, going as far as believing Naga is the only entity who can match his power and therefore doing everything in his power to kill bearers of Naga holy blood.

*Loptyr vows to Sileph that he will one day return and visit his wrath upon the world once again.

*And finally, it's somewhat implied Sileph (the main adversary of Loptyr in Jugdral) may be related by blood to Anri and Marth, which would directly connect Loptyr to Chrom and Lucina's bloodline.

Theres a lot more evidence for Loptyr than there is Medeus to be Grima. The fusion thing seems a bit far fetched but perhaps plausible, but it's equally possible Loptyr simply consumed them for sustinence or something similar.

Edited January 31, 2017 by Hero of the Fire Emblems

[Emperor Hardin]

11 hours ago, Etrurian emperor said:

I think its much more likely that the first Exalt is a descendant of Marth rather than Marth himself. 

Its a common theory that Grima is a fusion of all the sealed earth dragons which broke free from the dragon table. 

That theory has zero support and raises numerous more plotholes.

[Hero of the Fire Emblems]

14 minutes ago, Emperor Hardin said:

That theory has zero support and raises numerous more plotholes.

Something does have to have happened to the Earth Dragons due to the Binding Shield being broken again (unless something unknown and not referenced is at play) but exactly what happened is up for debate. Hence why the one answer we can safely conclude is Grima has a connection to or literally is Loptyr.

[DaveCozy]

I thought at first too that it was simply Medeus interpreted differently, but after reading the posts here Loptyr being related to Grima (or literally the same being with a different name) seems most plausible to me.

[IV-Red]

On 23/1/2017 at 6:51 AM, Hero of the Fire Emblems said:

*Perhaps the most damning evidence, Loptyr has an elite guard known as the Deadlords, reanimated corpses designed to be subservient to Loptyr and Loptyr alone. They seem to be possessed by a recursive set of demons, or alternatively have identical roles that are fulfilled by different corpses. Furthering this rather explicit Jugdral connection, all Deadlords in Awakening have one of the Judrali Holy Weapons. It would be quite strange for a completely unrelated cult with a completely unrelated patron god to pull the mindlessly loyal servants of another cult with another god into their service, especially with as powerful, evil, and loyal a force as the Deadlords.

*And finally, it's somewhat implied Sileph (the main adversary of Loptyr in Jugdral) may be related by blood to Anri and Marth, which would directly connect Loptyr to Chrom and Lucina's bloodline.

It's a pretty good theory and you've looked at it super carefully, for sure. There's one thing I'd like to comment-- well, two, and a question.

Firstly, I'm not sure similarities should be regarded as proof, I mean, couldn't they easily be just clichés? Both being evil dragons, both having cults, both using avatars... most of all, the first bit I quoted (the bit with the Dreadlords) is most likely an intended reference. Awakening DLC and other-world appearances are full of plot holes as it is (bringing Ashera's chosen in a world where her canon story literally cannot exist), the main Awakening story is one thing, but all the downloadables and extras aren't reliable sources of lore or things that can actually exist in that world. That's why I suspect the Dreadlords having Holy Weapons is just intended to be a cool reference.

That's my questioning bit. Now, the part where I'd really like to follow your theory and read some more is... well, a connection with Loptyr would imply a connection between the Akaneia-Valentia universe and the Jugdral universe. So far I've never seen any hard, not self-contradicting proof that any FE universes are connected aside from Akaneia (Ylisse) and Valentia (Valm). Can you expand a bit on the implication of Seliph being related to Anri and Marth? I never played Thracia 776 and never finished Genealogy of the Holy War, but this really really really interests me!

[AlexArtsHere]

3 hours ago, IV-Red said:

Firstly, I'm not sure similarities should be regarded as proof, I mean, couldn't they easily be just clichés? Both being evil dragons, both having cults, both using avatars... most of all, the first bit I quoted (the bit with the Dreadlords) is most likely an intended reference. Awakening DLC and other-world appearances are full of plot holes as it is (bringing Ashera's chosen in a world where her canon story literally cannot exist), the main Awakening story is one thing, but all the downloadables and extras aren't reliable sources of lore or things that can actually exist in that world. That's why I suspect the Dreadlords having Holy Weapons is just intended to be a cool reference.

Actually, I've been finishing up reading the Art of Awakening (one of the best Christmas presents I ever received :D), and it says, in these exact words, that the Twelve Dreadlords are "A group of extremely powerful Risen who appear in chapter 22 and the xenologue "Infinite Regalia." They first appear during Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War as members of the Loptyrian Sect. They are said to have a connection to the Twelve Crusaders, but what that connections is remains a mystery."

So, yeah, not only are the Dreadlords in Chapter 22 and the Xenologue the same group, they're also the same as the ones that appeared in Genealogy.

[Harvey]

Wait...wasn't Grima sealed long before it was summoned again? If that was the case, then someone must have defeated it and since Shadow Dragon and Awakening have the same world, it HAS to be Marth that killed it and it got sealed...right?

Or we can all assume that the dragon Marth has killed has somehow being reincarnated and got sealed untill In Awakening where it was summoned again...

 

Edited February 1, 2017 by Harvey

[AlexArtsHere]

Could be possible that Genealogy takes place pre-Shadow Dragon and Grima is a descendant/reincarnation of Loptyr. Honestly hard to tell.

[Hero of the Fire Emblems]

1 hour ago, InfinityAlex said:

Could be possible that Genealogy takes place pre-Shadow Dragon and Grima is a descendant/reincarnation of Loptyr. Honestly hard to tell.

Take this as you will, but Kaga outright confirmed this when FE4 first released, even going as far as to say Loptyr and Medeus have a specific kinship (Earth Dragons) and that Loptyr's origin revolves around the Dragon Crisis of Archanea detailed in FE3 Book 2 (the canon instance of which, as Awakening is concerned, is now FE12, as it references things added specifically to 12). Galle, the first host of Loptyr, is said to have travelled by sea to what would become Archanea, much as Ike is said to have at the end of FE10 along with either Soren or Ranulf.

 

So, a specific connection between the first 5 FE games with FE3 retconning FE1 at the time existed since FE4 was released confirmably, and now as far as awakening is concerned FE3 is now retconned by 11 and 12.

 

I fully admit I haven't played FE5 due to the Project Naga patch not being completed and the upcoming FE Heroes game likely laying more rules for fan translations with the names so I'll likely have to wait a while to play 5, but I've played every other FE game (sans FE1 for reasons that should be obvious) and there doesn't seem to be any specific contradictions to Ashera- under the caveat, however, that Elibe and Magvel taking place in the same world would make Tellius start to contradict.

In the main story even discounting Priam there are multiple allusions and references to Laguz in support conversations so it's pretty clear Tellius is meant to be the same world as Jugdral and Archanea; Fates likewise heavily implies it to be the same world as awakening, though Treehouse screwed the pooch on the translation with Anankos's explaination much like they probably did Priam. (Amazing how one word can change the entire context of something frankly...).

Ragnell is a non issue as the Black Knight specifically implies Ashera's blessings can rot away and fade over time in FE10, hence why he can be harmed normally now, Priam is a non issue regardless of Ike's sexuality because there's a little thing called surrogacy people like to forget about, so the only sticking point is the Laguz-

Which can actually be somewhat explained if we account for the fact Ashera is stated to influence the world around her much like Yune and then look at how affinities are talked about by Dayan in FE6 as being "divine influence".

 

Eh but that's veering way off topic as it is. 

 

Tl;dr if the timeline went Tellius -> Jugdral -> Archanea -> Awakening there wouldn't be too many issues if any at all. Fates is the biggest sticking point because of Chrom's comment in Fates about Hoshido and Nohr being mere rumors/myths, while he takes Tellius as fact- this can be taken as Hoshido and Nohr being destroyed by the Tellius flood, leaving no hard evidence behind, thus would make Fates the skyward sword of Fire Emblem (coincidentally, both are 25th anniversary games...) and place Fates before Tellius.

 

I know if that's not good enough for you there's multiple instances where they blatantly imply "Corrin" reincarnates into "Robin" and possibly "Kris", Rhajat outright states this to the players face in the lesbian s support convo in the Japanese version, which was removed from the English version and replaced with a copy paste of the male s support, so fates is at least the same world as awakening- and thus the same world as Tellius, Jugdral, Archanea.

 

But yea, both Loptyr and Medeus are Archanea earth dragons according to official art books. Hence why Grima would bear the slight resemblance to Medeus he has if he's Loptyr. All the pieces for him being Loptyr, most damningly his command of the Deadlords, while there's only vague evidence of him in favor of Medeus which would be explained by Loptyr since he is an earth dragon.

As for Harvey, a few support conversations confirm it was Marth's direct descendant that made the new blood pact with Naga (the first one being the blood pact of Jugdral that Naga made there) and defeated Grima, becoming the First Exalt, NOT Marth himself. It's shown the Hero King and the First Exalt are two distinct characters from supports. The door is open for Loptyr to be reincarnated especially if he has ties to Marth's bloodline through Sileph (he even tells Sileph he will return to the world again one day, a threat he would only make good on if he were Grima- Medeus's threat from FE11 is fulfilled in FE12).

Edited February 1, 2017 by Hero of the Fire Emblems

[AlexArtsHere]

Hm...this is all very interesting. Once Echoes comes out I think I'd be very interested in formulating some kind of timeline and universe, classifying which events take place when and which continents share worlds with others.

[RJWalker]

There is no timeline linking all games. Why do you think the Outrealms exist? IS can now safely add anything from any games without needing to explain anything by just saying Outrealms. Tellius' connection to Archanea is non-existent. Chrom's comments about the plots of older games being tales and myths are a meta reference, not necessarily something that should be taken literally.

[Hero of the Fire Emblems]

10 hours ago, Ranger Jack Walker said:

There is no timeline linking all games. Why do you think the Outrealms exist? IS can now safely add anything from any games without needing to explain anything by just saying Outrealms. Tellius' connection to Archanea is non-existent. Chrom's comments about the plots of older games being tales and myths are a meta reference, not necessarily something that should be taken literally.

Chrom doesn't treat Tellius as a mere tale or a myth. He and the avatar present it as a fact, something that was a historical event. He treats Ashera as a factual goddess and Ike defeating her a historical event, and outside of Outrealm DLC to boot. He chases a descendant of the "Radiant Hero" to literally the middle of nowhere while fighting a war against Grima's forces which would be a colossal waste of precious resources and even more precious time if he wasn't sure of it being a factual event. If that isn't good enough for you, multiple support convos (the most noteworthy one being Panne) allude pretty blatantly to Laguz. The only location chrom ever says is a "tale" or "myth" is Hoshido/Nohr in Fates, which already tie themselves into Awakening by just straight up explicitly telling the player "hey, "Corrin" reincarnates into "Robin" and Rhajat reincarnates into Tharja" point blank, something wonderful Treehouse decided to axe from the English version. Chrom alluding to a region being a "myth" never actually happens in Awakening itself. He treats the Radiant Hero with the same belief and reverence as the Hero King.

 

Chrom doesn't mention Elibe or Magvel at all outside of the DLC and it's pretty noteworthy by the point he himself mentions them in passing he's already had Elibe and Magvel explained and talked about by Old Hubba, so Intsys may be trying to say the GBA games are their own thing with this ambiguity with Elibe and Magvel; Chrom's silence about Elibe and Magvel in and of itself speaks volumes. However, Tellius is pretty blatantly alluded to a few times in the main game through supports. And then there's Kurthnaga's strangely specific name if we want to really dig into things, combined with his strangely specific role.

 

But you know what, fine. Even if I wanna bite at Tellius not being connected despite the sheer lunacy that would turn Chrom's dialogue into (which brings the unfortunate implication that Archaneans are gullible as sh!t if we go with no connection to Tellius, since they'd be taking a crazed Mercenary who appeared out of nowhere rambling about killing a goddess of creation at his word with no proof to his claims except his boyfriend and sword arm), we know Jugdral, Archanea, Awakening, and Fates all have some sort of canonical connection through the Earth Dragons and the MUs. Which is literally everything except 6-10.

 

edit: apparently after more digging there's also a reference to a "Heron Princess" and "Raven Prince" somewhere in the game but I don't know if this was outright removed from the English version or not, which seems to be a pretty specific reference to Naesala and Leanne and potentially their A Support FE10 ending where they bear a Heron Princess and Raven Prince

edit: yea, it was butchered out of the game into a completely random story about swans with the only hint leftover being a burnt down forest. Slow clap, localization team.

Edited February 2, 2017 by Hero of the Fire Emblems

[RJWalker]

There is no connection to the Earth Dragons in Fates. The dragons of Fates work quite differently to what is established in Archanea. As do the Dragon Laguz of Tellius. Until you can give an explanation that isn't wild speculation as to what happened to the Dragon Laguz and why dragons in Archanea and Tellius are different there is no connection.

Trying to link all worlds together is especially silly when, as I've already said, the Outrealms exist pretty much for the sole purpose of not having to create a solid link while still being able to use characters and concepts from other games. There is literally an in-universe way for characters to travel to completely different worlds.

There is no direct historical connection. There are too many contradictions between how things work in each world for there to be a direct link. No one has ever been able to provide any explanation for why things are so different other than the usual "lots of time has passed, things change" bullshit. That's not an explanation. That's just random nonsense. Come with something better if you want to insist there is some connection.

 

Outrealms exist. This is why they even exist.

Edited February 2, 2017 by Ranger Jack Walker

[Salamud]

I suspect that the First Exalt was planned to be Marth during development with Grima as Medeus. The game would have been more of an outright sequel to Marth's adventures instead of the sorta reboot we have now.

Edited February 2, 2017 by Salamud

[Hero of the Fire Emblems]

2 hours ago, Ranger Jack Walker said:

There is no connection to the Earth Dragons in Fates. The dragons of Fates work quite differently to what is established in Archanea. As do the Dragon Laguz of Tellius. Until you can give an explanation that isn't wild speculation as to what happened to the Dragon Laguz and why dragons in Archanea and Tellius are different there is no connection.

Trying to link all worlds together is especially silly when, as I've already said, the Outrealms exist pretty much for the sole purpose of not having to create a solid link while still being able to use characters and concepts from other games. There is literally an in-universe way for characters to travel to completely different worlds.

There is no direct historical connection. There are too many contradictions between how things work in each world for there to be a direct link. No one has ever been able to provide any explanation for why things are so different other than the usual "lots of time has passed, things change" bullshit. That's not an explanation. That's just random nonsense. Come with something better if you want to insist there is some connection.

 

Outrealms exist. This is why they even exist.

I never said a single word about earth dragons pertaining to Fates. What I said was Earth Dragons tie Jugdral to Archanea. Perhaps vague syntax is to blame so I won't make too much of a fuss, but I pointed out the MUs connect Fates to the rest of the series through the explicit mention that "Corrin" aka MU14 reincarnates into "Robin" aka MU13; there's some sort of connection there, however it plays out. Odin's ending in Fates may imply he made himself a bootstrap paradox, which is ALSO implied by his conversation with Lissa in Before Awakening (where he gives his fake name and Lissa declares she'd name her child something like that).

 

honestly there isn't that much of a difference at all between Fates and Archanea/Awakening Manaketes. They even have their own specific dragon crisis like the Archanean dragons did- with the exact same solution of using Dragonstones to seal away their dragon form, thus preserving their sanity- Anankos is probably the biggest shakeup here but he might not have used his dragonstone conventionally since it ended up becoming Azura's Necklace. They even perform specific blood rites with warriors to fight in their stead with weapons of their making; very specifically like FE4/5, with the blood in Fates used to activate dragon veins even being passed down to children in a similar manner to Holy Blood iirc correctly.

 

The dragon laguz are where it gets interesting, but you have to view FE10 from the context of 2007. FE11 wasn't even a twinkle in IS's eyes, so the canonical instance of Archanea Manaketes at the time was FE3. And there's pretty heavy similarity between how Manaketes and Laguz function mechanically in FE3 and FE9/10:

"The Manakete class is altered in Mystery of the Emblem, where Dragonstones are used as items to transform before Breath weapons are utilised for combat. The number of turns player-controlled Manaketes can remain in their dragon forms is based on their luck. This rule does not apply to enemy Manaketes with no Luck, as they will remain in their dragon form for the rest of a given skirmish after transformation. In their dragon forms, Manaketes boast a range of 1-2 with their breath attacks. For the first time in the series, Dragonstones have finite uses and will break once they run out of durability. Tiki is also granted the ability to use different types of Dragonstones, permitting her to assume other dragon forms apart from her standard Divine one. This incarnation of the Manakete class is most similar to the Laguz." - the wiki

At that point, the only real difference between Dragon Laguz and Manaketes, in the context of pre-Archanea remake 2007, is their non use of stones, the branded, and their lack of a need to use the stones to prevent insanity (as in Fates and Archanea/Awakening). Breaking it down, point number one isn't entirely true.

http://fireemblem.wikia.com/wiki/Laguz Stone

the Laguz Stones act identically to how a very low use Dragonstone would act in FE3, with basically the only difference being Manaketes in FE3 require it to transform and it's a nice to have for Laguz.

It's also very important to note the effects Ashera and Yune respectively have on the world around them. Yune is regularly said and repeatedly shown to induce insanity upon the world around her, at the very least while Sealed and sleeping in the fire Emblem. Ashera is also said to be sleeping and sealed in the Tower of Guidance, and to boot it's said she "guides" and "influences" the world from within the tower- how could she possibly do this if she's in a slumber as Yune is, except through the same method as Yune? (Via indirect residual contact on a much larger scale than the medallion).

Ashera is also directly said to be the opposite of Yune- Yune being Chaos and Emotion, Ashera being Order and Restriction. Yune, in her slumber, causes insanity through her residual energy; what would the opposite, Ashera's influence, be?

Sanity.

Combine this with the fact that in FE10's full ending, both Yune and Ashera are taken out of the picture and replaced by Ashunera, and we have a logical conclusion for why Dragon Laguz do not require the stones to stay sane.

The only sticking point left is Branded, which admittedly revolves around an assumption of how Dragonstones work- its described in FE12 that the Dragons sealed their very being into the stones- this makes them markedly more human than the Laguz, so much so that with their dragonstones destroyed Xane and Gotoh became near indistinguishable from humans. The much purer and intact state of Laguz could explain why they beget offspring with brands if they have children with Beorc, which the other manaketes that sealed their more bestial halves in stones do not do as seen in Awakening and Fates. 

 

again, I want to reiterate here; either Tellius and Archanea occupy the same world, or Archaneans are outright gullible idiots, since the Outrealm Gate is shown to generally be occult knowledge (Chrom doesn't seem to be aware of his surroundings in CoY 1 until old hubba explains himself). Either they keep records of both Tellius, Jugdral, and Valentia, or they believed a rambling lunatic that came out of nowhere and started acknowledging a goddess he could've made up on the spot.

 

Also- I'm not saying Elibe and Magvel are connected to the other games; quite the opposite as there's a lot of evidence that Elibe is a different world altogether from Archanea, and neither Elibe nor Magvel are acknowledged by the characters in the main game like Tellius is.

Edited February 2, 2017 by Hero of the Fire Emblems

[Acacia Sgt]

53 minutes ago, Salamud said:

I suspect that the First Exalt was planned to be Marth during development with Grima as Medeus. The game would have been more of an outright sequel to Marth's adventures instead of the sorta reboot we have now.

Hmm, this could actually sound plausible.

The C Support between Donnel and Cordelia talk about a Pegasus Knight who was close to the First Exalt, and some things do match Caeda. The description of knights fearing her lance and her convincing people to her side almost sound like too much for a coincidence. The way the support is worded kinda sounds, at least to me, like it's more of a nod to a what-if.

[Salamud]

To elaborate, I suspect that the developers were torn between doing a sequel to Marth's games (since they kept the franchise alive after the Tellius Flop) or doing a reboot that would have been set in another Archanea (if in Archanea at all). They ended up going with a compromise where Awakening happens a really long time after Marth's adventures but retcons elements of the setting and introduces more (see Taguel).

Edited February 2, 2017 by Salamud