Cymbalina's Revenge

ETA = edited to add. Old habit. As for Leif starting out unmounted and a sword despite being raised by a lance guy, don't forget that Raquesis raised him too for a time-- if you go by the FE5 artbook she didn't leave until he was nine or ten and then Eyvel came into his life when he was about twelve. Plus he had the Light Brand handy and it was his main connection to Ethlyn, though I think it's kinda-sorta significant that Leif has the class of Nanna's mum while Nanna has the class of Leif's mum. I personally kind of like what Leif's class progression says about him (and Raquesis too)-- they start out small and weak and at a big disadvantage in FE4's huge maps and then they become these amazing multi-talented mounted badasses. But then again if AU!Leif is raised by Travant, there's no Raquesis to inspire him toward the whole Master Knight thing, so he could definitely start on a wyvern.

Yeah, but FE12 in particular makes a big deal about there being more Altean knights than your playables. Cecille even comes over to your group from another platoon. He had knights, but they were mostly new trainees. You can spin it that Marth figured he'd take the best of the noobs plus a couple of veterans and leave Caeda and Cain to take care of Elice.

ETA: Travant seemed to know a fair amount about Quan, Ethlyn, and even Finn as people even though they never shared screen time in FE4 until the massacre, almost like some backstory stuff got snipped out of the game. I do get the feeling he had ill will and even contempt toward Quan personally. It was mutual. I figure Altena would've been a lance knight at base class. She's literally born to use lances, and with Finn prob'ly raising her to be Nova II it'd be her destiny to be death on a horse. And then she and Finn ride off into an ambiguous sunset after the war. Leif actually might work all right in his canonical Prince class-- he's got minor Baldur and minor Nova so really using swords vs lances is a toss-up. What if Ethlyn still had the Light Brand on her in Yied and Leif was using that? Not the slam-dunk of the Gae Bolg but he looks enough like his real parents that a little Quan/Ethlyn hybrid waving around the Light Brand would be highly suspicious to anyone who'd known Quan and Ethlyn themselves. It's not like Finn confronts Altena in-game immediately, anyway-- he broods over it until Leif notices something's wrong and asks him what's up.

Yep. As Deirdre's eldest son, he's first in line. Julius second, Julia third despite Major Naga.

Early FE games really don't go for child rulers like you see with, say, Sanaki. Arvis was supposed to basically be warming the throne until Julius-- the rightful heir as far as the anti-Sigurd people knew-- came of age. Seliph's existence was one monkey wrench in the plan and Julius being Satan was another.

The thing about killing male heirs came out of Treasure: "At the time [in war], any men in the enemy’s royal family, even children, were to be executed. The better case for women would be slavery, and the usual case was to be raped and murdered." Travant is already better than his era in taking Altena home as his daughter and not as war booty or as a servant for Arion. With that and his "would've been a hero under different circumstances" as above in mind, Travant might have taken baby Leif back home with him thinking he'd be of more use alive than dead. So let's assume the best of Travant for this hypothetical scenario. I can definitely see Leif as the younger brother with the inferiority complex trying to win Dad!Travant's love/respect and usually coming up short. Might do some stupid things in the process. Leif was two when Leonster was burned, which means Altena would've been five or so and definitely would've remembered it. Agreed with Chalis above that she'd almost certainly cling to Finn as her main emotional support-- she already adored him the way toddlers latch onto people. I don't think Finn would treat her exactly the same way he does Leif, though; Leif's his hope to unify Thracia under a male heir but Altena, even without the Gae Bolg, is a kinda/sorta living goddess and I think the whole "Nova reborn" business would factor a lot into AU!Altena's self-image. It'd probably work to her advantage in drawing people to her side if/when Altena started an actual rebellion. Throne inheritance is indeed messy and unless AU mechanics dictate that you kill Leif because he's too stubborn to recruit I think Altena would end up like Julia-- the major-blooded embodiment of legitimate power standing alongside and supporting her beloved brother, the ruler. Altena's actually a pretty lousy military leader in FE4, losing control of her subordinates and then standing by while her troops all die, so her adventures before joining up with Seliph would probably go about as well as Leif's campaign did.

You also have Leif and Altena as an example of a younger male minor-blood child taking precedence over the older female major-blood carrier. If Briggid hadn't disappeared maybe Ring might've decided to disinherit Andrei, seeing as they didn't get along (and then Andrei would've likely murdered him anyway) but there's definitely a sense that being male matters more than anything in Jugdral when it comes to inheritance. Julia doesn't get to be Empress of Grannvale at the end of FE4 unless you've married her to Seliph even though she's the Naga heiress. Legitimacy OTOH tends not to matter that much-- Deirdre wasn't legitimate and nobody cared because she had the mark of Naga and that was proof enough of her bloodline. Technically speaking Julia and Julius aren't legitimate either unless Arvis and Deirdre re-affirmed their vows after Sigurd was fried.

As non-Lord characters overall go, I think Palla/Catria/Est, Tiki, and Anna curb-stomp everyone but I do want to chime in some support for Finn as Jugdral goes: 1) Leif is playable in both games but Finn's the only one playable in all three campaigns for all three Lords. Aside from Lords and their tacticians he probably gets more screen time than anyone else plus multiple scenes in FE4 where other characters remind us what he's doing off-screen. That's not insignificant. 2) He basically got his own spin-off game? Yeah, Leif's the Lord but right from the opening credits you get a sense of Finn's investment in the fight over Thracia and many moments in the game, including the climax where Leif re-takes Leonster, reinforces that. Hell, even as recently as Akaneia Chronicle they used art of Leif and Finn to represent FE5 instead of Leif by himself or Leif with Nanna. And it was deliberately assembled art, not a clip from the game box. Also Lewyn's critical to the Jugdral saga even if he is offscreen for most of FE5. I liked how Lewyn's Einherjar in FE13 was one of the self-aware ones; it seemed like an appropriate nod to his specialness.

Blue-haired cravat guy looks like Sigurd. Blue-haired masked flier with the red/white/gold armor at 33 seconds might be Caeda. Green-haired young girl with the hair ornament at 0:52 has got to be Tiki. Dunno about anyone else. Thought I glimpsed Joshua the first time I viewed the trailer but I don't see him now.

Okay, Aideen/Holyn is so bad it never even occurred to me, heh. Part of the reason I consider Finn/Sylvia the bottom of the absolute barrel is the opportunity cost in making it. She shows up partway through Ch2. He leaves after Ch3. So you're either actively wasting turns sticking them together or you're misusing both of them on the field... for a really lousy payoff of squandered resources. On the bright side, unlike some other bad Sylvia pairings, there is no way in hell you can accidentally pair her with Finn. At least it's not an outright gameplay hazard.

I think you're onto something here and I'd argue Perceval is actually the next in line of this... well, I won't call it an archetype but it's a pattern IMO. The twist with Perceval is his deceased Lord comes back. We meet him after he thinks his world has come apart and then, surprise! So yes, I think they liked this type of character. :) That said, by the time IS was done developing Finn circa FE5 there are a couple of pre-Jugdral influences besides Wolf, I think. Like in FE5, Finn gets a foil in Glade, and that seems an echo of the older Cain and Abel from Book II of FE3 with their divergent paths in life[*]. Also-- and this is drawing on the interview bits from Treasure-- with Finn it's possible that hopeless loyalty really wasn't the point of the end of his character arc. For a character allegedly created as an "objective witness" to the Holy War he doesn't seem, um, very objective... but I guess there is that conversation where he's rebuking Leif for being reckless that could be read as a retroactive criticism of Quan's pointless death far from home. IDK. They were doing a lot with Finn and some of it goes in weird directions. But I still do think there's a pattern especially when you consider Perceval. * See also, Seth vs Orson. The dutiful-to-a-fault paladin and the guy who sells out his king for zombie love-- Book II Cain and Abel turned into a literal horror show.

Actually Lex/Sylvia provided a sturdy Leen who could hit back and a Corple who leveled up fast and could take a hit. Not bad for a dancer and a staffbot. Finn/Sylvia OTOH gets my vote for most spectacular waste of time imaginable. It doesn't even look good on paper.

Do it! Anyway, I do love poor Hardin but I'm surprised there's not more affection for Michalis. His motivations, both in a broad scale (elevating Macedon from satellite status to a crap overlord) and personal (whacking Dad before he gets disinherited) make sense, his pride and anger give him a perfect set of fatal flaws to counter his ambition and charisma, and up until FE12 made the awful decision to let him cheat death twice he got a perfect little redemption arc that actually cost something. He made a great foil for Marth. I guess I'd have to give Travant props as my favorite overall, but Michalis rocks. Or rocked, rather. Should've stayed dead.

Or disinherited ones. Some of those branches off Viktor are highly suspicious. What it doesn't show is Quan's dead sister so I guess she hadn't been invented yet. Thanks for the clarification on what the 20th Anniversary book implies, as I felt the same way as BrightBow above-- why even GO there if it wasn't intentional?

Not 100% sure on the jossing. If you mean this family tree as the Word of God in question, I believe it's a fan creation using a synthesis of information from different sources-- the games, art books, etc-- and therefore isn't technically Word of God. Some of the information on there is outright labeled as an educated guess, anyway. Clarification is welcome if anyone knows for certain!

Leif and Nanna were totally raised together. Allow me to quote from FE5: Mareeta: “Go on, Lady Nanna! Just say it!” Nanna: “B-But…” Mareeta: “You’ll regret it forever if you don’t say it now. Or do you just want to stay as his ‘cute little sister’?” Nanna: “But Mareeta…” Mareeta: “Come on, Lady Nanna! I know, I’ll help you out! Lord Leaf!” [A few sentences later...] Leaf: “We grew up like brother and sister, but you were always the one helping me. I was able to come this far because you were always there for me, to support me and cheer me up. Nanna, once this war ends, I’ll go look for Lachesis as well. And when I find her, I’m going to ask her directly…for your hand, Nanna…” Case closed with those two. It's deliberate and apparently it's meant to be cute and sweet, not wtf. As for Alm and Celica I thought they were just cute childhood friends but the DLC in FE13 really rammed home that this was a Leif&Nanna thing with sibling-type closeness leading to marriage.

Yes. It's awesome.

The Ares/Nanna lover conversation does confirm that Raquesis had a thing for Eldigan, though-- especially given the essence of that conversation is "LOL Mom should've kept it in the family but I'm not gonna make her mistakes!" In between the plot-mandated incest, Raquesis and Eldigan, the implied blood relationship between Sylvia and Claude, and all the Gen2 predestined cousin pairings it's rather a lot of circular family trees presented to the player as options. Not to mention the psychological incest like Arion/Altena.

If you had a high-leveled Finn he should have no problem at all with an iron lance when he first comes back. He'll probably struggle in the last couple of chapters since he doesn't have a holy weapon and his HP can't keep up with the Second Gen kids' but if he got blessed in STR he can stay useful for a while. (I always buy him a Horseslayer to pick off pesky enemy cavalry in Chapter 8 and later) And Briggid/Holyn is an excellent pairing. Hero Sword Patty + Faval with decent SKL = Win.

Actually, I believe the literal translation for Naga's form (osonai shoujo) is very young girl (like baby Tiki in FE1) as opposed to a Ninian-type young woman. One of Kaga's interviews even implied Naga and Salamander taking the form of a young girl and an old man was some sort of reference to Tiki and Bantu. I like the idea of gender-hopping dragons, not least because of Xane, but putting together a coherent picture of Naga is just frustrating.

This. If you're going to not get the Hero Bow until Chapter 8 anyway, may as well pair Aideen with someone that gets you Pursuit and isn't hell to train. A Lester with decent bases and good skills will do just fine with his base weapon followed by a Steel Bow the instant you land one. For the record Finn!Lana has great magic thanks to the Chapter 7 stat boost. Her RES was a bit of a problem, though-- the MCG/RES equivalent of a glass cannon.

She boasts of it in her dialogue with Ishtar in chapter 10. I agree there's no proof that she's one of Viktor's illegitimate kids (the Treasure artbook family tree hints at several of them beside Azel) but she's definitely a Velthomer.

Fergus is in his early twenties in FE5, so he had to have resulted from a pre-war liaison of Beowulf's. Ethlyn doesn't have Nova blood, though, and being her illegitimate kid wouldn't make Fergus the prince of Conote anyway, so we can rule that one out. Allegedly Beowulf was from Conote to start with but I don't know where that claim comes from. If he really is from Conote, it's simple enough-- he knocked up a princess and skipped town. Maybe it was more romantic than that but he ended up on the opposite side of the continent, so eh. If he's not actually from Conote at all then your guess is as good as mine. Fergus being the son of Beowulf and Mystery Princess is one of those aggravating things FE5 throws out there with no resolution.

And yet, the friendship between Cain and Abel is so legendary that the Sully/Stahl supports reference them in FE13. The lack of any conversation between them really is strange in retrospect.

You'll get him back in a later chapter at whatever level you lost him. Just don't let him die again or you won't be able to recruit somebody later on.