Jump to content

Micaiah and Sanaki's lineage


Recommended Posts

This is something I've been wondering about for a while now.

So, we know from the epilogue of Radiant Dawn that Micaiah and Sanaki are sisters. Many people (laguz in particular) talk about how Micaiah is probably a lot older than she looks, due to being of Branded lineage, and we even see a CG that shows the first time Micaiah and Sothe met: in the CG, Micaiah is almost identical to how she is during the events of Radiant Dawn, but Sothe is 7-8 years old. Considering that Micaiah looks like she is 16 and Sothe looks like he is 20 or something like that, at least 10 years must have passed since their first meeting. Now, my question is: is Sanaki also Branded or does she hail from a different part of the family and is somehow Micaiah's half-sister or something like that? Technically, that would be impossible, since they are both Misaha's grandchildren and Micaiah, according to Lekain, was even supposed to be the new apostle. From what little I know about genetics, I seem to recall that some diseases can be passed down genetically, but I don't think the Branded characteristics are the same (and being Branded is not a disease, even though the people of Tellius seem to believe otherwise).

Is Sanaki Branded then? Do the Branded characteristics (like aging more slowly than others) only appear at a certain age (she is 13)? The game's timeline apparently doesn't think she is Branded, as she was made apostle when she was 5 years old and that matches pretty perfectly with 5 years prior to the events of PoR (she was 10 in PoR, btw).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Iirc, not every descendant of both Laguz and Beorc is Branded. If a Beorc has a Laguz somewhere in his family tree, there is a chance for his or her children to be Branded, but it's not a guarantee (I don't think there are any Laguz-born Branded mentioned in the game, but I guess it might work similarly).

And in Begnion's royal family, being Branded and the divination abilities Miccy has always seems to be inherited by the oldest child because magic and fate and stuff. So I'd assume that Sanaki is a perfectly normal Beorc.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Soren is the only known Branded to actually have a laguz parent, actually. That we know of. Amy's biological parentage is unknown, as is Petrine's. Stefan says both his parents were beorc. And we know Micaiah's were a beorc and a Branded.

And no, Sanaki is not a Branded. It was actually stated that only the first-born of each direct descendant of Altina would have the Brand. Micaiah was the first-born, Misaha was the first-born, and so on.

Edited by Anacybele
Link to comment
Share on other sites

So.... what about the other past apostles?

And uh, about branded inheritance, I think it works like this: Laguz + Beorc = Branded.   Beorc + Branded = 50% of being branded.  

We code certain Alleles, as dominant, and the Branded trait seems to be Homozygous dominant.  It always happens when a laguz and beorc mate.  Here's a  few punnet squares of my prediction of how this works:  

Branded Genetics.pdf

So, the chances of The eldest being a branded (if it is Heterozygous) are 50/50.  

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I don't think one has to be the firstborn to have a brand, it's presumably random, much like Holy Blood in Jugdral (even though the gameplay mechanics do not include the randomness in 2nd gen inheritance).

There is nothing that says the Apostle line only has the hearing of the Goddess's voice (the brand) carried in the females, though Apostles have only been female. It's possible that there have been male branded as well as multiple branded within one generation (be it siblings or cousins). This possibility leads me to imagine a slew of mystics posthumously turned into saints derived from the Apostle line, but who never became Apostles themselves. There is also the possibility of political struggles over who gets to be the Apostle/who has the real power in Beginon derived from having multiple people who can hear the goddess's voice.

And by the way- whose voice does the Apostle hear? Ashera asks how the world has been since she entered her sleep when Lehran is before her- did she not sense the world in her slumber? It sounds like Yune felt the world in her "sleep" in the medallion, but not Ashera. So could it be Yune was the goddess that the Apostles always heard, and Ashera was just snoozing away? Perhaps this is owing to Yune just being in a little hunk of bronze whereas Ashera's magical isolation was being atop a tower with a door magically sealed so that only Lehran could actually open it.

And lastly, why did it take nearly a decade for Micaiah's and Sanaki's parents to make another baby? The Serenes Massacre and Misaha's assassination was in 625, Sanaki's ascension is 640, and she's 10 in 645, the year of PoR, so she had to be born in 635, and conceived in ~634. That is 9 years later. Sanaki has no big brothers, (otherwise we'd expect them to play a role in political matters), so it can't be that. We must also assume that Sanaki's mother had to be unable to hear the Goddess's voice, but was the direct descendant of Altina and not Sanaki's father, because why wouldn't he have affairs with two dozen women if Begnion desired a new Altina-descended goddess-guided leader ASAP? Is the Apostle line inbred, and thus Sanaki was just the just the lucky daughter born after a spell of inbred infertility and or several stillborn/physiologically unviable offspring? Did they consider turning to a cadet branch of the line for an immediate if temporary goddess voice-hearer if such exists as I speculate?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Lord Tullus: Frankly, I don't think science can be applied here. What possible explaination could it give why Lehran lost his heron powers not after sleeping with Altina, but after their child was born? Fantasy settings don't tend to follow all the rule of physics, chemistry and biology and from what we know, Mendel never really made his way over to Tellius. For a millenium, the firstborn daughter of the royal family has always been Branded - I'd say that's a rather unlikely scenario if earthly genetics were a thing in FE.

(And given your explaination with Laguz being heterozygous, wouldn't two random Laguz reproducing have a 25% chance each to birth a Beorc or Branded?)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

If the Apostle's brand always appears on the back of the hand (as it did with Misaha and Micaiah), then the fact that Sanaki does not have that particular brand would prove that she isn't Branded.

But we haven't seen every brand of every Apostle, so it's possible that their brands might have been on different parts of their bodies.

Come to think of it, if the Apostle's firstborn is a boy, I wonder if he gets the brand too?

Edited by Paper Jam
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...

Sanaki is most likely not branded. She herself is unaware of a lot of family details and you'd think she'd notice something like that. Probably ages as a normal person as well as you can tell from her appearance changing between the two games.

The age gap between the sisters doesn't really make much sense. Micaiah has to be at least 10 years older than Sanaki. Since she's already been noted to be aging slower she could well be older than that. They could have filled in a few details about their parentage, but since the detail about them being sisters was dropped at the very end of the game, I guess there wasn't any room for that.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Quote

Sanaki is most likely not branded. She herself is unaware of a lot of family details and you'd think she'd notice something like that. Probably ages as a normal person as well as you can tell from her appearance changing between the two games.

To be fair, so did Soren when he was her age. He matured like a normal human boy until about three years before Path of Radiance, according to his support conversations with Stefan.

Edited by Paper Jam
Link to comment
Share on other sites

The Braded was inherited only by the first of the line. In this case, meaning Micaiah. Sanaki is not a Branded. With that said, I think people exaggerate Micaiah's age. Official Guidebook placed her "appearance age" as 15, so it's very feasible she was at that ballpark (and not any more than that) when she met Sothe. Also, keep in mind Sanaki's age. Their age difference can't be stellar.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Isn't there a thing somewhere that specifically says the Apostle's Brand has only ever appeared on the firstborn female of every generation? Not even firstborn, but female specifically? Or did I infer that from every Apostle being female maybe yes probably.

Man, things would've been a lot simpler if Misaha was their mom and they stuck with adult Sanaki. I love that design. Kid Sanaki's fine too, but man.

On 4/23/2017 at 11:59 AM, fangpoint333 said:

They could have filled in a few details about their parentage, but since the detail about them being sisters was dropped at the very end of the game, I guess there wasn't any room for that.

Support conversations would've been a primo place to put all that for sure. That said, there's a few major "how'd it actually happen" questions around the time of the Serenes Massacre that weren't explicitly laid out that I'd love to know the answer to:
- Micaiah and Sanaki's parents obviously
- Micaiah ending up in Nevassa (Lekain says she was assassinated along with Misaha "by herons" and has no reason to have kept her alive, Sephiran could've theoretically whisked her away with Warp powder and done the mind wipe but that's pretty cheesy)
- Lillia being kidnapped by Ashnard during the Massacre according to her Palmeni Temple scribbles, which means either it's retconned that Sephiran actually gave her to him (even though he has no reason to put her in harm's way directly after what he had just witnessed AND he knows she can't sing the Galdr of Release) or the process of heading to Daein, telling Ashnard about the medallion, and Ashnard flying back to Serenes all took place in like a few hours to a day at most (and still no mention of why Ashnard thinks herons can free Yune, though Zelgius kidnapping Leanne at least has the benefit of provoking Phoenicis)

Aside from these and the general messiness of the Blood Pact (which isn't that hard to fix), I can't think of any other plot things that legitimately bother me, at least off the top of my head.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, a bear said:

Aside from these and the general messiness of the Blood Pact (which isn't that hard to fix), I can't think of any other plot things that legitimately bother me, at least off the top of my head.

It sucks. Maybe they'll fix/add/explain it whenever we get Echoes: Shadows of Tellius.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 27/4/2017 at 9:19 PM, a bear said:

Man, things would've been a lot simpler if Misaha was their mom and they stuck with adult Sanaki. I love that design. Kid Sanaki's fine too, but man.

She sounds sort of amazing on paper, but I have trouble getting into her. ):

Link to comment
Share on other sites

5 hours ago, fangpoint333 said:

It sucks. Maybe they'll fix/add/explain it whenever we get Echoes: Shadows of Tellius.

I have to keep reminding myself that it's not a thing whenever I think about what I'd change. At least these specific issues can be easily addressed without retconning anything. Maybe not the Lillia thing actually, that's kind of a mess.

 

4 hours ago, Soul~! said:

She sounds sort of amazing on paper, but I have trouble getting into her. ):

Of course no one would've thought "hey, maybe she'd work better as a kid" had it been the case. She's still a great character, but it just makes so much more sense to me in so many ways for her to have been 21 by the start of PoR. Also I love that adult design, super elegant. Props to that person who uses it as their avatar here.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Do we know basically anything about her parents? I feel like it's a detail that's probably mentioned somewhere in the two games but in all my playthroughs I can'r remember anything being said.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

12 hours ago, Jotari said:

Do we know basically anything about her parents? I feel like it's a detail that's probably mentioned somewhere in the two games but in all my playthroughs I can'r remember anything being said.

Other than that they shared Misaha's desire for peace between beorc and laguz (as told by Sanaki in PoR), no, we don't know anything about her and Micaiah's parents.

It is pretty strongly implied that their father was Misaha's son, since it would have been a pretty big deal if Misaha had been survived by a daughter, but even that isn't stated explicitly.

Quote

With that said, I think people exaggerate Micaiah's age. Official Guidebook placed her "appearance age" as 15, so it's very feasible she was at that ballpark (and not any more than that) when she met Sothe.

She was a baby when Misaha was killed, and that was 23 years before RD; that would put her in her early or mid twenties as of RD. That would be approximately ten years older than Sothe. (I know he doesn't have an official age, but he looks about 12 in PoR and about 15 in RD.)

And Sothe did look about 5 years old in the scene when he met Micaiah.

Edited by Paper Jam
Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 hours ago, Paper Jam said:

Other than that they shared Misaha's desire for peace between beorc and laguz (as told by Sanaki in PoR), no, we don't know anything about her and Micaiah's parents.

It is pretty strongly implied that their father was Misaha's son, since it would have been a pretty big deal if Misaha had been survived by a daughter, but even that isn't stated explicitly.

She was a baby when Misaha was killed, and that was 23 years before RD; that would put her in her early or mid twenties as of RD. That would be approximately ten years older than Sothe. (I know he doesn't have an official age, but he looks about 12 in PoR and about 15 in RD.)

And Sothe did look about 5 years old in the scene when he met Micaiah.

I doubt they survived at all regardless as to which one was Misaha's child. Sank was apparently a screaming orphan when Sephiran appeared as the only one to calm her down. But it's kind of weird if they were killed in the assassination since you'd think that would be mentioned. Yet they couldn't have died much earlier or later given Sanaki's position. I don't see any real reason why Misaha was made Sanaki's grandmother rather than her mother in the first place. I suppose it was forward planning to leave room for Micaiah to exist but even then I don't think it would have been too much of a stretch. I mean the immense age gap between the two sisters is there regardless as to who their parents were.

Edited by Jotari
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Sanaki was born ten years after Misaha died, so Misaha's child must have survived her by at least ten years to conceive Sanaki.

That's also why Sanaki couldn't have been Misaha's daughter.

Edited by Paper Jam
Link to comment
Share on other sites

What I find hilarious, is how freaking convenient all of this is, for 1000 years, each firstborn of the current apostle get the brand (and not anyone else), since being Branded is outright stated to be random
It opens a lot questions: Does that means that no apostles had more than on child in 1000 years  or what ? How did ghey dealt with that then ? How did they dealt with the fact that each apostle could live up for 1000 years or so because of their Branded status ? Did no one wondered about that ?

And then, there's Micaiah...who is well, Micaiah.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 hours ago, Paper Jam said:

Sanaki was born ten years after Misaha died, so Misaha's child must have survived her by at least ten years to conceive Sanaki.

That's also why Sanaki couldn't have been Misaha's daughter.

Gah you're right. I have my continuity mixed up. I realised my mistake as soon as I saw there was a response on this page. Still though, I don't see any express reason why the Serenes Massacre at to be such a distant event. I don't think much would have changed if it was 10 instead of 20 years ago. I don't think Lehran actually does much in the interim between deciding to destroy all life and coming to Begnion in the guise of Sephiran (he gives the Medallion to Ashnard and then leaves it with Grail? Which seems to be counter productive if anything).

2 hours ago, B.Leu said:

What I find hilarious, is how freaking convenient all of this is, for 1000 years, each firstborn of the current apostle get the brand (and not anyone else), since being Branded is outright stated to be random
It opens a lot questions: Does that means that no apostles had more than on child in 1000 years  or what ? How did ghey dealt with that then ? How did they dealt with the fact that each apostle could live up for 1000 years or so because of their Branded status ? Did no one wondered about that ?

And then, there's Micaiah...who is well, Micaiah.

Branded don't have that much longevity. They're confirmed to age noticeably slower than humans but they still visibly age. Still weird for a high profile public figure considering how hated they are. Regardless Lehran's line is implied to be special since they're the ones with the ability to sing the Galdr of Release. So them having more than one child but only the eldest being branded is well within the realm of possibility. Branded over all are a headache though with the revelation that there's no divine conspiracy against them. Why and how the brand shows up or the laguz parent losing their powers is completely unexplained.

(also it hasn't been 1000 years, it's been less than 700)

Edited by Jotari
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I know it hasn't been 1000 years... I just threw that because I tought it was the closest number. :p

Oh I know, I was saying 1000 in random. They probably can live for 200...
... Another number given at random. xD
Then again, I suppose it depend of the laguz blood of the branded.

Lehran's bloodline might be special- I don't think it's the case, but it's possible- but still, I just find that too convenient.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

 Share

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...