I've been wondering, wouldn't healing magic have a higher chance of giving somebody cancer?

[Nozomi Kasaki]

Sorry if this topic contains a very sensitive topic such as cancer. Some of you probably have loved ones who are suffering or have died from this condition, and I am truly sorry for bringing this up. But I just couldn't help myself because I could not help but wonder how exactly does healing staves in FE, well, heal people.

You see, I stumbled upon a post in some subreddit about how Healing Magic, while helpful, could potentially cause health issues such as cancer.

I forgot where I found it, but I still remember the part of it. It basically says something like this:

"There's a lot of the method to explain the healing magic, however the most plausible explanation is that the spell is accelerating the cell growths, however this also mean that the spell would increase the chances to give patients cancer due to the abnormal cell growths"

I'm not sure if my quoting is accurate, but it does have the same idea that magic can cause cancer.

So when I first saw this post, I was wondering as to why units in Fire Emblem don't get cancer whenever they get healed by a Cleric, Bishop, or whatever class that can use a staff.

I'm not necessarily saying that it should be a gameplay feature in FE for units to get cancer if they get healed multiple times by healing magic. It's just that there hasn't been a case in-lore where somebody got cancer for getting healed by some cleric so many times.

Again, sorry for bringing up this topic. I just want to know why nobody in FE lore suffers from cancer due to healing magic as it over replicates cells or white cells in particular or whatever.

[Saint Rubenio]

Well

I guess we now know what happened to Arran.

Curse you, Lena.

[vanguard333]

The short answer would be for the same reason Wolverine doesn't get cancer from his accelerated healing factor: narrative convenience.

That's the Doylist reason out of the way; as for a possible Watsonian answer:

I imagine that the healing spell probably works like a salamander's rapid regeneration (contrary to popular belief, it's not lizards that have amazing healing; it's salamanders. Lizards can only restore their tail, and even then, the lost bones have to be replaced with cartilage).

[Imuabicus der Fertige]

1 hour ago, Nozomi Kasaki said:

I'm not necessarily saying that it should be a gameplay feature in FE for units to get cancer if they get healed multiple times by healing magic. It's just that there hasn't been a case in-lore where somebody got cancer for getting healed by some cleric so many times.

Cancer doesn´t exist in FE because it hasn´t been discovered yet. As with any of the not-very-delightful things, such as the bubonic plague, influenza, small pox, cholera.

Imagine telling one of your devs to implement a % chance a unit contracts cancer. I mean, cancer also just doesn´t just kill you on the spot.

 

Chernobyl Staff: 7% chance to grow additional limbs. If legs +2Mov; if arms, always double. 

[Nozomi Kasaki]

44 minutes ago, Imuabicus der Fertige said:

Cancer doesn´t exist in FE because it hasn´t been discovered yet

Umm… I'm pretty sure cancer was technically first discovered back in Ancient Egypt in 3000 BCE I think and Fire Emblem games usually take place years after that time period. So it is not impossible for somebody in FE's ancient time period to discover and make some records about it. Sure, the records won't mention anything about cells since they cannot be discovered until the invention of a microscope, but cells still exists in every living being as those are how all living beings on Earth exist in the first place, people just won't know that they exist and healing magic still needs to affect a human's cells in some way in order to heal a person's wounds.

Edited September 19, 2023 by Nozomi Kasaki

[Jotari]

4 hours ago, Nozomi Kasaki said:

Umm… I'm pretty sure cancer was technically first discovered back in Ancient Egypt in 3000 BCE I think and Fire Emblem games usually take place years after that time period. So it is not impossible for somebody in FE's ancient time period to discover and make some records about it. Sure, the records won't mention anything about cells since they cannot be discovered until the invention of a microscope, but cells still exists in every living being as those are how all living beings on Earth exist in the first place, people just won't know that they exist and healing magic still needs to affect a human's cells in some way in order to heal a person's wounds.

Fire Emblem people aren't humans. Proof? They vanish when killed instead of leaving behind a bloody corpse (unless there's a good narrative reason to have a corpse). We call this mysterious substance they're made of EXP.

[X-Naut]

That's what Restore staffs are for.

[Acacia Sgt]

I mean, that whole "accelerated cell growth" is, ultimately, a guess. There's no concrete answer as to how exactly Healing Magic works. Considering that in any given setting healing magic has been in use for centuries, you'd think they would've long found out any negative side-effect if there was any. So, it's more reasonable to think there's none. Maybe the magic itself ensures the cells are fine. It's... well, magic. It ain't gonna explain...

[Shaky Jones]

8 hours ago, Imuabicus der Fertige said:

Cancer doesn´t exist in FE because it hasn´t been discovered yet.

3 hours ago, Jotari said:

Fire Emblem people aren't humans. Proof? They vanish when killed instead of leaving behind a bloody corpse (unless there's a good narrative reason to have a corpse). We call this mysterious substance they're made of EXP.

Fire Emblem fans when you stab them and they bleed out (they thought they had 6 more retreats in them)

[Acacia Sgt]

Casual reminder...

[Armchair General]

9 hours ago, Imuabicus der Fertige said:

As with any of the not-very-delightful things, such as the bubonic plague, influenza, small pox, cholera

I'm pretty sure that an plague has  existed in the Holy Kingdom of Fearghus, at some point. Plus, Rhys was hinted at having an weaker-than-average immune system.

 

As for the rest, it's hard to say. Unless we count "walking through the swamps of Duma" as wading through an actual biohazard. Speaking of which, has any actually poisoned an well in the series?

[Acacia Sgt]

1 minute ago, Armchair General said:

As for the rest, it's hard to say. Unless we count "walking through the swamps of Duma" as wading through an actual biohazard. Speaking of which, has any actually poisoned an well in the series?

Izuka suggested it, but Micaiah shot the idea down. Other than that... I don't think so.

[Jotari]

10 minutes ago, Armchair General said:

I'm pretty sure that an plague has  existed in the Holy Kingdom of Fearghus, at some point. Plus, Rhys was hinted at having an weaker-than-average immune system.

 

As for the rest, it's hard to say. Unless we count "walking through the swamps of Duma" as wading through an actual biohazard. Speaking of which, has any actually poisoned an well in the series?

 

8 minutes ago, Acacia Sgt said:

Izuka suggested it, but Micaiah shot the idea down. Other than that... I don't think so.

Poison is a recurring staus effect.

And as pictured above, Arran died of an unspecified illness.

[Acacia Sgt]

I'll admit I wasn't thinking on the status ailment. Was replying more on the "poison the enemy's water supply" bit.

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

It's worth keeping in mind that the "campaign", in most games, plays out over the course of about a year. Some will have skips of a few months to a few years, sure. But generally speaking, we're not seeing decades-long gaps where units disappear and become playable again. Finn, Marcus, Bartre, and Karel notwithstanding.

Ergo, it's possible that we are giving our units cancer with the heal spells. We just don't have enough time in-game to see the cancer have any particular effect on the sufferer's health. In theory, the epilogues could contradict this, but it's not as though they're keeping track of how many times you used Mend on a given unit.

[lenticular]

It's an interesting question, I think. I know that there's a bit in Three Houses where Manuela talks about the difference between magical and medical healing, but I can't remember when it is, nor exactly what it is that she says. I think that the basic gist of it is that magical healing is more of a stop-gap temporary measure, good for closing up wounds on the battlefield so the person doesn't immediately die, but not for longterm health.

There's also the consideration that hit points are an abstraction. If a unit is reduced to only 1hp, that doesn't necessarily mean that they have two broken arms, a ruptured spleen and a severed femoral artery. It can just mean that they're exhausted from fighting, aren't able to defend themself properly any more, and the next enemy that attacks them has a high chance of landing a fatal blow. So in that case, healing magic isn't necessarily closing up any wounds at all, but rather restoring their vigor, concentration or even luck.

It's also worth remembering that healing magic in FE is usually associated with faith, deities, and religion. There is an implication, I think, that the cleric is channeling the power of their world's god(dess) rather than just doing all the healing personally. It is quite possible that a healing staff typically would cause cancer, but the deity in question is the one who stops that from happening. And actually, that makes some other stuff fit better. I can't remember when exactly, but I know there are points in the series where someone says that only people dedicated to serving good are able to use healing staves... which is then directly contradicted by seeing someone comically evil using them a couple of chapters later. So what if only people who are dedicated to serving good can use healing staves without causing cancer, because they have divine supervision. People who are evil and impious, can still do healing magic, but will give everyone cancer in the process. Except that they don't care if all their underlings will die because they're evil.

[Acacia Sgt]

45 minutes ago, lenticular said:

I can't remember when exactly, but I know there are points in the series where someone says that only people dedicated to serving good are able to use healing staves... which is then directly contradicted by seeing someone comically evil using them a couple of chapters later. So what if only people who are dedicated to serving good can use healing staves without causing cancer, because they have divine supervision. People who are evil and impious, can still do healing magic, but will give everyone cancer in the process. Except that they don't care if all their underlings will die because they're evil.

I think it was Serra who said that. Whether you consider that a credible source...

That said, the idea that light/healing comes from faith is something that is brought up often. Natasha and Knoll talk about their types of magic in their supports for example. The idea of faith/worship is brought up when relevant.

In Blazing Blade itself we have Kenneth (who I guess is the 'comically evil' you were referring to?), who says Nergal is his god.

Kenneth:
“Are you referring to my relationship with the “gods”? Are you still held in thrall of such a concept? You’ve met Lord Nergal, haven’t you? Then there is something you must know. Gods are lies created by the weakness in all mankind. …If a god truly exists, then it is my lord Nergal. Only him.”

So, if his faith is to Nergal, that still powers his ability to use Light Magic, and Staves I guess too.

I think this is also meant to explain Riev. His faith is to the Demon King, so he can still use Light Magic.

And so on...

Oh yeah! Radiant Dawn has Valaura, outright stated to be a corrupted Light Magic tome, and it can poison the target. Who carries this tome? Senator Valtome. So it can give credence to the idea of bad people making Light Magic inflict negative ailments.

Edited September 20, 2023 by Acacia Sgt

[lenticular]

40 minutes ago, Acacia Sgt said:

In Blazing Blade itself we have Kenneth (who I guess is the 'comically evil' you were referring to?)

The character who I mostly had in mind when I said that was Oliver, but there's really no shortage of villainous staff users across the series, I don't think.

[Jotari]

21 hours ago, lenticular said:

It's an interesting question, I think. I know that there's a bit in Three Houses where Manuela talks about the difference between magical and medical healing, but I can't remember when it is, nor exactly what it is that she says. I think that the basic gist of it is that magical healing is more of a stop-gap temporary measure, good for closing up wounds on the battlefield so the person doesn't immediately die, but not for longterm health.

There's also the consideration that hit points are an abstraction. If a unit is reduced to only 1hp, that doesn't necessarily mean that they have two broken arms, a ruptured spleen and a severed femoral artery. It can just mean that they're exhausted from fighting, aren't able to defend themself properly any more, and the next enemy that attacks them has a high chance of landing a fatal blow. So in that case, healing magic isn't necessarily closing up any wounds at all, but rather restoring their vigor, concentration or even luck.

It's also worth remembering that healing magic in FE is usually associated with faith, deities, and religion. There is an implication, I think, that the cleric is channeling the power of their world's god(dess) rather than just doing all the healing personally. It is quite possible that a healing staff typically would cause cancer, but the deity in question is the one who stops that from happening. And actually, that makes some other stuff fit better. I can't remember when exactly, but I know there are points in the series where someone says that only people dedicated to serving good are able to use healing staves... which is then directly contradicted by seeing someone comically evil using them a couple of chapters later. So what if only people who are dedicated to serving good can use healing staves without causing cancer, because they have divine supervision. People who are evil and impious, can still do healing magic, but will give everyone cancer in the process. Except that they don't care if all their underlings will die because they're evil.

That perspective brings up some headscratching paradoxes when it comes to Radiant Dawn and the goddess people are praying too is the very person they're fighting. Ashera should be able to just turn off Laura's ability to heal in the final battle (unless Laura shifts her world view entirely and Yune administrates the healing, but she's kind of busy in that battle herself to cure cancer). Though funnily enough they never alter Laura's death quote, so she's still referring to Ashera. "To die here, if this is the will of the goddess, then so be it", uh yeah, pretty explicitly the will of the goddess when she's the one directly killing you XD (and yes, we can headcanon imagine goddess here shifts to Yune after the end of part 3 even though it's the exact same text throughout the game and it obviously wouldn't be Yune's will for her soldiers to die. Let's face it, she still shouldn't have the exact same death quote).

Edited September 21, 2023 by Jotari

[Imuabicus der Fertige]

17 hours ago, Nozomi Kasaki said:

Umm… I'm pretty sure cancer was technically first discovered back in Ancient Egypt in 3000 BCE I think and Fire Emblem games usually take place years after that time period. So it is not impossible for somebody in FE's ancient time period to discover and make some records about it. Sure, the records won't mention anything about cells since they cannot be discovered until the invention of a microscope, but cells still exists in every living being as those are how all living beings on Earth exist in the first place, people just won't know that they exist and healing magic still needs to affect a human's cells in some way in order to heal a person's wounds.

Since we don´t got none of them documents... no cancer.

8 hours ago, Shaky Jones said:

Cancer is only the first step to crustacean.

We are born of the crab, made men by the crustacean, undone by the shrimp. Our carapace is yet to grow.

[SnowFire]

On 9/19/2023 at 11:04 AM, Nozomi Kasaki said:

"There's a lot of the method to explain the healing magic, however the most plausible explanation is that the spell is accelerating the cell growths, however this also mean that the spell would increase the chances to give patients cancer due to the abnormal cell growths"

I disagree with the premise here.  This sounds like the explanation you'd come across in a Star Trek show where magic isn't real, but super sci-fi tech is real, so the local witch doctor's "healing staff" is unknowingly a primitive version of a medical tricorder accidentally deposited by a Federation ship 100 years ago, and the rituals and chanting just happen to include the activation code.  In that case, sure, it's stimulating unnatural cell growth.

...but that's not the case.  Magic IS real.  So magic is just creating the new cells, fixing the damage, creating new blood, etc.  That's assuming "cells" are even real in-setting at all - nobody has microscopes until the 1600s, so it's not a concept that is necessarily known to be true given Renaissance levels of knowledge.

Put things another way, there's various naturalistic "explanations" of magical ancient stories.  Unusual winds parted the Sea of Reeds which becomes God parting the Red Sea, a woman with 14 kids tragically has most/all of them all die of disease which becomes Apollo and Artemis handing down a twisted punishment, the war between the Aesir and the Vanir was really just two Germanic tribes with slightly different sets of gods ceasing their warring and agreeing to revere a unified pantheon, Achilles was just really badass / lucky, etc.  But...  the Fire Emblem world isn't one of naturalistic post-hoc explanations.  God Really Did part the Red Sea by divine miracle, Niobe's kids were shot by Apollo & Artemis's arrows rather than sickened by some contagious disease, the Aesir and Vanir themselves really did have a war and then a peace treaty, Achilles avoided death despite bravery in battle because he was literally (mostly) invincible thanks to his mom dipping him in the river Styx.  So...  a healing staff isn't doing something naturalistic, it's actually just channeling magic powers.

The bigger issue is just that magic is inconsistent.  Magic can heal wounds, and sufficiently badass magic can even do things like resurrect the dead (e.g. the Echoes explanation of Awakening Risen as being a twisted science experiment using insects and divine dragon blood), but magic can't cure old age?  Except when it can, like with Athos / Brammimond?  And if you're invoking divine power directly, then for FE settings with "interventionist" gods, you get smacked with the "Problem of Evil" pretty hard where you start asking why Naga is such a jerk.  Ah well.