Fridge / Fairy Tail

Fridge Brilliance

• During the Phantom Lord arc, it is finally revealed that Mirajane is an S-Class Wizard. But in the Galuna Island arc a few chapters before, Mirajane can be seen descending from the second floor—which is restricted to anyone but S-Class mages.
• Also during the Galuna Island arc, during episode 15, Gray has a prolongued flashback to his time with Ur. Leon is frozen by their mentor because he wanted to cast Ice Shell, and guess what he's frozen in. (Here's a hint, it's distinctly flower and foreshadow shaped)
• Since ridiculously early foreshadowing is the name of the game here, how about this line from episode 16 of the dub: (Acnologia anyone?)

  Ultear: If you must know, I practice one of the lost magics, magic with power and side effects so strong it was erased from history as we know it.

  Natsu: Seriously?

  Ultear: That dragon slayer magic of yours is no different.

• Gajeel is probably the first antagonist to truly hurt the guild, and shows a general disdain for the "Fairies" throughout the Phantom Lord arc. At first it just seems like something to remind us he's a Jerkass... Then we see he uses iron, and what are fairies traditionally harmed by again?
• After Etherion strikes the Tower of Heaven, Jellal and Erza are bombarded by howling wind. But when Siegrain comes to join them, the wind doesn't touch him and he remains immaculate. Being nothing more than a thought projection of Jellal's the entire time, he never had a tangible body to begin with, so why would it?
• Cobra's poisonous snakes seem pretty silly next to the rest of the Oración Seis' powers, or just about anyone's in the series for that matter—but he probably chose to raise them in the first place more for the sake of always having an external fuel source for his Dragon Slayer magic than in hopes that they would do any good in a fight.
• Edolas!Mirajane acts exactly the same way are Earthland!Mirajane, it seems to be for comedic effect until you realize the reason Earthland!Mira had a 180 personality change was because Lisanna died. Guess who's still alive in Edolas? Earthland!Lisanna.
• Subversion from the Edolas arc. It makes perfect sense for the two Erzas to have different surnames, because Erza Scarlet got her name when she couldn't remember it and Jellal just named the color of her hair. But she's the only one who should have a different surname, and they all do for some unexplained reason.
  • Actually different surnames makes sense for everyone. Surnames often started off as nicknames derived from various sources, common origins include: the location the ancestors who received the name came, the ancestor's personality, the ancestor's job, the ancestor's ancestor (for any name ending in -son or the language's equivalent), or a title earned through accomplishment. The ancestors of the Edolas counterparts would likely have been as flipped around as the modern ones are leading to vastly different surnames being given in the first place!
  • The Edolas people are for all intents and purposes different people anyway. They all had different pasts and histories, and although many of them still ended up in Fairy Tail anyway, it wasn't the same. Erza was never part of it for example, Gajeel is just an ally rather than a member and Lucy and Juvia despite being recent recruits in Earthland, have been there far longer as they're already shown to have been members 2 years prior to the start of the story when Lisanna ends up there.
• In the Edolas arc, it actually foreshadows that the whole plot to capture the Dragon Slayers was a sham, the whole time. Gajeel doesn't have a cat, which means that Wendy and Natsu really did stumble over the eggs by accident. If the Exceed really wanted to get all the Dragon Slayers, then Gajeel would have been forced one instead of having to look for one.
• In-universe example. Laxus' whole takeover attempt was just a teenage temper tantrum fueled by fear that he was seen as nothing more than the master's grandson. Makarov throwing him out was publicly forcing him to take his own unique path.
• One of Gajeel's Dragon Slayer's secret techniques is called Karma Demon: Iron God Sword.
• Juvia's third person speech nowadays seems to be an attempt to sound cute, but once you look at her back story and how she acted before she met Gray. Her third person speech is because of her lack of social interaction and her awkward way to socialize after joining Fairy Tail and obsession over Gray is hard to be taken as comedy relief when you think why she acted like that.
• Everyone's wondering how non-S-Class wizards (Natsu, Gray, Elfman) all managed to score victories against the Element 4. In general it seems like Fairy Tail has a lot of mages who would make S-Class somewhere else, but for some reason aren't here. Remember that being S-Class means that they can go on far more dangerous missions, and the last thing Makarov wants is to see his guild members get injured or die, so his standards for S-Class qualification are probably much higher than other guild masters.
  • Is also because being an S-Class wizard means much more than being strong: Natsu, Gray, and Elfman may be very strong, but they lack the maturity and wisdom required for the job.
  • Elfman is also significantly weaker than Mirajane - who is going to be hard on him to make sure he isn't assigned s-class early - and Ezra can out-strategise Natsu and take down Gray on sheer power.
• Also when Gildarts returns to the guild, Cana, his daughter is nowhere to be found.
• Massive example from the Fighting Festival arc: Not one Fairy Tail member makes any significant victory against Laxus while acting alone.
  • Freed curbstomps Alzack, who was essentially a renegade at the time, but loses to Mirajane when she's fighting to save Elfman.
  • Bickslow takes out Gray and a number of other wizards. It takes Loke summoning himself to win, and he wouldn't have been able to do it without Lucy's help.
  • Evergreen takes out Elfman, but loses to Erza. Yes, she lost in a one-on-one fight, but Erza was specifically gunning for Evergreen because she knew from what Makarov had said that the stone spell would be reversed.
  • Bisca tries shooting one of the thunder lacrima and nearly gets killed. Even Erza couldn't do it alone. It took the whole damn guild to bring down the Thunder Palace.
  • Mystogan runs off when Laxus destroys his mask. When Natsu steps up to fight, it's obvious his life is in peril. He'd have died on two separate occasions if not for Gajeel's help.
• In the Tenrou Island arc, why was Gildarts placed in Route E for the first test? To make sure no one accidentally stumbles upon Mavis' grave before the second exam!
• Second Origin - it sounds simple and seems just like an excuse to give everyone a power-up without the training, and it's a bit odd that so much trouble and specialty is needed to get it. But the way it works means that in the future any training anyone does with an activated Second Origin is going to provide 'an extra increase in magic power and stamina in return than they would otherwise.
  • Plus the Second Origin actually explains how many of the upgrades everyone had at the time besides Erza; Erza locked in the Second Origin power until Minerva pissed her off enough to activate the powerful Nakagami Armor. Combining Second Origin with Natsu's Demonic DNA gave him the edge against Sting and Rogue, Lucy's inherient high magic allows her to use the spell that Hibiki gave her against Angel, and Wendy's upgrade against Chelia and her new magic. Really, if Levy had joined in, she could have showed off what the Second Origin did to her. We only got a small hint of how powerful Juvia got with her fight against Aquarius since she was able to get even with her.
  • It also works in a sort of RPG-style setting as a bit of a buff to one's Mana's reserve. Basically increasing the amount of magical power and stamina they have. But if one can't handle the pain, it implies that the increase in magic has a negative consequence if you can't handle it. Thus showing why it's so hard to get this kind of magic.
• When it was revealed that Fairy Tail brought in another team in the Grand Magic Games, Lucy was confused as to why Laxus was with them (among other things). Makes sense since she wasn't there when he was reinstated back by Gildarts.
• Rogue and Sting are clearly shocked, moreso than Rufus and Orga, when they see Natsu curbstomping their guild. But remember that they haven't actually seen Natsu fight and they based their opinion of his strength on his failure to kill Acnologia, even though neither of them have seen the dragon in action. They underestimated him and they realized it. Sabertooth's "strongest five mages" probably aren't as powerful compared to Fairy Tail's mages as they thought they were.
  • To add more: The fact Natsu got defeated by Acnologia easily also counts. If someone like him could kick most of Sabertooth's ass but get totaled by Acnologia, then Rogue and Sting feel they aren't up for the task as they expected.
• A lot of people complained how much of a Curb-Stomp Battle Laxus vs. Raven Tail (including his father) was. But if you remember Gajeel was a Double Agent for Fairy Tail, then it makes perfect sense. Raven Tail boasted that they were specialized as the "Anti-Fairy Tail" Guild, meaning their members had strengths that exploits Fairy Tail's weaknesses when in fact, it's the absolute opposite. All this time, Gajeel had been giving Ivan false information on Fairy Tail's members (including Laxus). Thus, leading Ivan to choose the wrong members.
  • Although that didn't stop Nullpuding from making Gray look like a chump.
    • Context, my boy, Context: Nullpuding and Gray weren't directly fighting, they were participating in a game with certain rules. Probably in a one on one battle, Gray could have done better. Just look at Lucy vs. Flare: If it wasn't for Obra's cheating, Lucy would have won.
    • Not to mention the group had not known what kind of training Laxus had prior to returning to Tenrou Island. No one knew how much more powerful Laxus became even after Gajeel returned. So a lot of their information is outdated in hindsight. Yeah Nullpudding could take on Gray, but that was only because Rufus was blasting everyone. It was taking advantage of a situation, same with Flare; she essentically had to cheat since she had no idea how more powerful Lucy had gotten since Tenrou.
• Why were Wendy and Chelia, two of the youngest competitors paired up against each-other? Because the organizers wanted it to be a fair fight for both of them. Not knowing how strong both girls really were, they put them in the same match so that people wouldn't have to watch a young girl get curb-stomped by an adult. It worked out better than they planned since they put out one of the best matches of the competition. Since we already know that the higher ups can control who fights who when they see fit (the attempt to put Bacchus and Erza in the same match, which only failed due to a miscommunication), so it makes a lot of sense.
• When you look at the names of Wendy's attacks, you'll realize that they're the same as those of Natsu (Wing Slash, Crushing Fang and so on). Basically, she's learning from Natsu, an older Dragon Slayer fellow and friend, just like a child would learn from an adult. She's also more close to Natsu than Gajeel or Laxus to boot.
  • Wendy actually lampshaded this herself. During the final attack on Hades in the Tenrou Island arc, Wendy actually shouted out she learnt how to attack from watching Natsu, before hitting Hades with a Sky Dragon Wing Slash!
• The Balam Alliance. At first, it sounds like a random, gibberish name. Then, if you do some research, turns out that according to Ars Goetia, Balam is a three-headed Demon King. Furthermore, all the members of the Alliance have a demonic motif in their Japanese names (Oración Seis = The Six Demon Generals, Tartaros = Gates of Hell and Grimoire Heart = Devil's Heart).
  • Fitting with this theme, it could also be a subtle reference to The Divine Comedy. The Oracion Seis, or "Six Prayers" (and one of its members literally being codenamed "Angel"), represent Paradiso. Grimoire Heart, with its Seven Kin of Purgatory, represent Purgatorio. And Tartarus, made up solely of demons, is Inferno. Added to that, Natsu, one of the series main characters is actually a Fire Demon who the members of Tartarus looked up to as their master, and was frozen in ice, just as both Satan and the fourth round of the ninth circle of Hell were in Inferno. And Atlas Flame, the self-proclaimed hellfire dragon, was also frozen in ice, right before the start of the Tartarus arc.
• In flashbacks and even in the present day Ur is often described as someone who is approximately as powerful as one of the Ten Wizard Saints. However, we never see her display that level of power onscreen. Though it could simply be Famed In-Story or Conservation of Detail, another plausible reason for Ur's seeming lack of power can be found in the story. Traumatic experiences can drastically affect a mage's power such as seen in Mirajane and Elfman. What is more traumatic than learning that your beloved daughter died without her mother at her side and neither had a chance to even say goodbye?
• Way back in the Fighting Festival arc, Laxus wants to transform Fairy Tail into a guild that values strength above all else, a guild feared by all and one that nobody would disrespect. Seven years later, someone has actually created a guild like that, called Sabertooth.
• Mystogan/Jellal uses magic staves instead of using magic himself because as a resident of Edolas, he has no magical power within his own body unlike the Earthland residents.
• In Sorcerer Magazine's interview with Elfman and Mirajane, they both give no comment when asked what their most difficult mission was. It's probably not too unreasonable to think that their most difficult mission would be the one where they thought Lisanna died.
• After the timeskip, when asked by Makarov how she's doing Kinana says she can't remember her past but she can hear a voice asking to hear her thoughts. Of course, Kinana was previously Cuberos, Cobra's snake. Cobra's wish was to be able to talk to his only friend, his pet snake.
• I initially thought it was weird Acnologia had humanesque body. Then we learn that he used to be a human being—specifically a Dragon Slayer. He can convert to a human being at will.
• At the end of the S-Class Trial arc, when Acnologia showed up at Tenrou Island for apparently no other reason than to be a dick, I'm sure people had to wonder why. The given explanation was, he shows up where dark thoughts gather. Ok, that makes sense, friggin' Grimoire Heart was on the scene. Dark thoughts if there ever were any. But, the real reason why Acnologia showed up is because Zeref was there. Zeref, the Black Mage who turned Acnologia from a raging insane Dragon Slayer to a raging insane...Dragon. Not much of a difference, honestly.
• Why wasn't Mystogan sucked into the anima with the rest of Magnolia? Of course, the most obvious answer would be because he's from Edolas. And to an extent, you'd be right. Anima extracts all magic energy from an area. Mystogan was from Edolas, and thus didn't have any magic, so there was nothing to suck up in the first place!
• During the Fighting Festival arc, Erza was released from petrification because her artificial eye cut the effect of Evergreen's Stone Eyes in half. When did she get out? Around one and a half hours later. In other words the spell would release the girls at the end of three hours; either Laxus really was bluffing all along or Evergreen is not quite sociopathic enough to murder her guildmates even on Laxus' orders.
• It was mentioned that Fairy Tail didn't join the Sharpshooting competition of the Grand Magic Games in the past. Other than just simply giving up, the reason that they didn't participate was probably because that competition took place in the year Alzack and Bisca got married, or when Bisca was pregnant/just gave birth to Asuka.
  • Actually Jet mentions the time he didn't participate and one of the challenges was a race; it seems that the tournament was deliberately manipulated so that Fairy Tail would do badly...
• At first, Edolas!Natsu's immunity to motion sickness seems like just another quirk to separate the two Natsus. But recently, it turns out the cause of Earthland!Natsu's motion sickness is due to being a Dragon Slayer, and Edolas!Natsu isn't!
• So, it turns out that the Grand Magic Games started on July 1st, which according to an old splash page, is Lucy's birthday. Yet why wasn't there any mention of it during their party that night? Either Lucy really never told anyone when her birthday was, or her sense of time was still wonky from the two Timeskips she was subjected to.
  • Actually her birthday was added by the editor of the translation. Hiro Mashima has never revealed when her birthday is.
• With her reputation as the "Fairy Tactician," it's no wonder Mavis was really upset about her choosing Purehito as the Second Master.
  • And it also explains her reaction to Kagura showing up to fight Erza. Look at what happens when her predictions are wrong.
• Also, Laxus' victory over Jura makes sense if you remember what happened prior to him fighting anyone; Rufus' Stary Heaven attack (Which is an lightning element) hit him and he absorbe the hit. Meaning at this time, he's got more stockpiled neergy inside of him. So really, he was able to get stronger even if it meant taking some energy from Olga before he was defeated. Since Natsu was able to eat a Fire God Slayer's Magic, why can't laxus eat the lightning of a Lightning God Killer if his power got low enough? He doesn't need to physically injest it, he just needs it to touch his skin (Which happened during the initial clash before Jura arrived).
• Juvia Lockser vs. Chelia Blendy? Not a bad choice, but why not one of the stronger fighters? Because they were needed to take on the more powerful members of the other guilds. Juvia however, can keep Chelia occupied indefinitely (and vice versa if Chapter 312 is any indication).
• It may seem like an ass pull that Natsu and Gajeel can eat other elements besides their own and power up. But it fits with the Dragon Slayer magic. A Dragon Slayer can eat their own element and get stronger, but if you go by that logic the Dragon Slayer magic is really only efficient against the Dragons that taught the Dragon Slayers. Which means that the humans would be killing their parents/masters. But it is possible that is only for low level Dragon Slayers. And the more advanced one gets at their magic, the Dragon Slayers can eat other elements. Which makes more sense, if a Dragon Slayer was to fight a random Dragon, and could only eat their only element, their magic is only efficient at regaining their strength. But if the Slayers could eat other elements, they could eat the Dragons attacks and only get stronger, giving them a huge advantage. It is possible as although we have no idea what Natsu and Gajeel's ages are, they looked like children when their respective Dragons left. So it is possible that their Dragons only taught them the basics, and only now are Natsu and Gajeel reaching the more advanced levels.
  • Then there's a little hint in the very beginning of series, when Natsu successfully ate other element, used it and had no usual drawback—the chapter where he melted the Taurus' axe and got a power-up from it. He couldn't eat fire—it was his own, but metal, on the other hand... So yes, it wasn't asspull at all.
  • Look closer; he's not eating the metal, he's melting it and spitting it at Taurus.
  • That explains why Acnologia can eat magic in general, He ate every kind of magic thus becoming omnivore.
• Speaking of Sabretooth, there is a reason why they were almost defeated by the other guilds such as Kagura or the others before Sting's revelation; they stagnated. Think about it; they're at the level Fairy Tail was before Tenro Island. A lot of them are on equal terms with many of Fairy Tail, but unlike them, they stagnate because they NEVER improve beyond just what the master believes is the 'perfect level' and anyone who loses is automatically kicked out no matter how powerful they actually are. So unlike Fairy Tail and the other guilds, who kept on improving, the Sabretooth Guild just stayed at the same power level for over 7 years. They were plenty powerful, so it didn't effect them until Natsu and the others came back. Really, it was only a matter a time before the stagnation caught up with the Master's dogmatic views.
• The King of Fiore is actually Mato, the Pumpkin Referee. The fridge brilliance here was that the king's name is Toma E. Fiore. If you spell it backwards in Japanese, you'd get MA-TO.
• Why do the audience boo Fairy Tail so much at the beginning of the Grand Magic Games? Their current standing aside, three other guilds founded by Fairy Tail alumni are contestants in the games: Raven Tail, Quatro Cerebus and Blue Pegasus. Raven Tail aside, by X791 Fairy Tail has been surpassed in status and quality as a guild by its own offshoots!
  • Compounding this is the fact that in X784, Fairy Tail had only recently come into prominence. Until then Phantom Lord was established to be the strongest guild in Fiore. This is borne out in an interview with Hiro Mashima. In the last 6 years there have only been 4 S-Class Wizards minted in their annual exam. Fairy Tail in X784 only has 5 S-Class wizards so that means for a long time Gildarts was Fairy Tail's only S-class Wizard and each S-class exam failed to produce any for quite a while. People with longer memories might be forgiven in thinking that Fairy Tail was a flash in the pan, a guild that was built on the backs of an elite few that fell apart once they went missing.
• The timeline Mashima drew for Chapter 333 establishes something very interesting: Future!Lucy's timeline came first, with Future!Rogue's timeline being created by Future!Lucy going back in time and closing the gate un-interfered. In other words, Future!Lucy was killed by a man from the timeline her actions created.
  • That means... that the original Eclipse project was just as doomed to failure as the Eclipse 'Cannon' project invented by Rogue; either it succeeded in killing Zeref, but the timing was off so he'd already aided in Acnologia's creation... or Zeref launched Acnologia back at Fiore in retaliation for the attempted strike (whether back through the Eclipse Gate Zeref originally invented or via The Slow Path doesn't much matter.)
  • No no no, the "Eclipse Cannon" was a lie made up by future!Rogue. First, the Eclipse Gate opened and let dragons through. Then, future!Lucy went back in time through it to close the Gate and stop that from happening. That apparently created the timeline where future!Rogue came back through the Gate with a plan to let the dragons through and use them to fight Acnologia. In the present timeline, he tricks Princess Hisui into using the Gate with the "Eclipse Cannon" bit in order to make sure the dragons come through.
  • And even if they managed to kill Zeref via Eclipse, chapter 436 reveals that the time paradox would undo all their actions since Zeref is the one who created the concept of the Eclipse gate in the first place. Considering that the only time they could kill Zeref was before he became The Ageless, they could only kill him when he was a child. As a child, he couldn't create the concept of Eclipse, ensuring the gate won't exist in the future, saving Zeref and so on and so forth. Time would be stuck in an endless loop.
    • how did the Universe not fold in on itself is a miracle in hindsight.
• When Mystogan is criticized for not doing enough in the war with Phantom, a convenient wind blows up and scatters the flags he took from the subdivisions he defeated. Later, it's established that one of Mystogan's staves can do wind magic. Bit passive-aggressive there, mate.
  • Also, it would have been overkill. Mystogan can put large groups of people to sleep with his Sleep magic. Outside of Jose, no one would have been able to fight him.
• For a while some of the color for the characters' guild insignias seemed a bit random. However, if you look at the female characters' insignias, you'll notice they match the hair color of the person they most commonly are paired with or someone who is important to them! Lucy's is pink like Natsu's hair, Erza's is blue like Jellal's hair, Wendy's is blue because of Mystogan, Juvia's is a darker shade of blue like Gray's hair, Mirajane's is white like her brother and sister's hair! Quite the sneaky tactic!
  • It may be true for the male characters, as well. Natsu's is red like Igneel's scales, and Gray's is black like Ur's hair. Loke's is green like Karen's hair, and Romeo's is red like Natsu's. But since it's in the exact same position as Natsu's mark this was probably on purpose.
  • It also seems to go with teams as well; Levy's team shares similar colored marks and even the same spot.
  • A bit more brilliance with Lisanna's insignia: When she first joined Fairy Tail, her insignia was red, symbolizing Natsu. After she returned from Edolas and had to get her mark restamped, it was white. In essence, Lisanna has moved on from Natsu and is focusing on the most important people to her, her siblings.
• In Chapter 364, a bunch of mooks were sent to attack Mira and Erza at the traitor Crawford's house. Whether you think a sleep spell was used or prefer the drugged tea theory, it served a purpose. With the spell theory, it distracted them from seeing Crawford cast the spell until it took effect. If you choose the drugged tea theory, it stopped them from noticing the effects and countering them. After all, Erza has that nurse outfit and some may thinks she knows a few basic healing spells, as a precaution for when she's on solo missions. And Mirajane spent years playing bartender/maid. It's entirely possible that she learned healing magic to tend to injured guildmates. Yes, I know that we haven't seen anything that shows that may be the case but given how determined the Demons are to succeed, I don't that they would ignore that possibility that a healer would be there and so they prepared for that outcome, just in case. So it's not that Erza and Mirajane know that magic, it's that the demons took that possibility into account.
  • Chapter 365 confirms that was, in fact, drugged tea.
• Way back in Chapter 282, Erza asks Gray if he's noticed Juvia's feelings and suggests that he should make everything clear. Why is Erza the one to bring this up to him? Why not Lucy, Mirajane or Wendy? Because Erza saw how Juvia reacted when Meredy threatened to kill Gray back in Tenroujima, she saw that Juvia was serious and wants Gray to be the same.
  • It could also be because Erza is the only other woman who has experience with pining. After all, she's been hot for Jellal for quite a while.
• Why did Gajeel become the Iron-Shadow Dragon Slayer? Simple. Because he is the guild's shadow. Handling missions that are of questionable nature, like spying, infiltration, and recon.
• Natsu getting Lightning-Fire Dragon Mode and Gajeel getting Iron-Shadow Dragon Mode make sense when you look at the powers. Lightning can create fire or cause it and all of Gajeel's attacks create a shadow when he uses them. So instead of an Ass Pull, you have a clever amount of logic basing their power-ups.
  • Not to mention it fits with their characters in a way; Natsu has a fiery personality, but he's also energetic like electricity. And Gajeel may be hard as stone, but he started out as evil (As part of a guild that is made around Darkness with the master involved). So really, it's more of an extension of their personalities as a whole as well. Not to mention that it was hinted that they can eat other elements as long as it's from a fellow Dragon Slayer. They can't just eat magic from random people if it's not their element, they need to take power from either a Dragon or a Dragon Slayer.
• Natsu and other Dragon Slayers getting motion sickness seems to be Rule of Funny. However, motion sickness occurs when the sense of balance and vision give contrary information. Though Dragon Slayers' sense of smell is most noted as better than regular humans, there is the implication that all their senses are better. This could make them more likely to get motion sick. Furthermore, strong smells often make motion sickness worse.
  • This actually makes a whole lot of sense. Wendy is the least developed of the Dragon Slayers, and she even admits her sense of smell isn't as good as Natsu's yet, so of course she wouldn't have her motion sickness kick in just yet.
  • It seems to be linked to their power as well, as Natsu, Gajeel, Sting, Rogue, Laxus and Cobra are all strong Dragon Slayers and have motion sickness, but Wendy doesn't. It's likely the more powerful Dragon Slayer magic gets, the more motion sickness they get because their senses get better.
  • Or Wendy "traded" motion sickness for clumsiness.
  • This idea makes even more sense, considering that after the one year Time Skip during which her powers improved Wendy also suffers from motion sickness.
• In Chapter 340, when Mavis approaches Zeref, he states that he can neither hear, nor see her (due to the fact that he's not a member of Fairy Tail), but could still feel her presence. Despite this, the two of them seemingly hold an entire conversation with one another, as if he could hear what she was saying. He couldn't. He just knows her that well.
  • It also explains why he was on Sirius Island in the first place. Mavis couldn't have possibly not known he was there, meaning she had to have been okay with it, especially considering this is Zeref we're talking about, here. And how does someone like Zeref hide a magical presence like his? On an island only certain people can go to in the first place, while hiding behind the presence of another obscenely powerful mage.
  • Fairy Tail Zero seems to back this up. One of the very first magics Mavis learned were illusions. So it's not completely unthinkable that considering how powerful Mavis was, creating an illusion barrier to envelop an entire island and simultaneously hide Zeref's presence would be a cakewalk to her.
• The end of the fight between Jellal and Oración Seis. Many fans thought that Zero killing Jellal being an illusion was an Ass Pull, however, quite a few hints were thrown that need to be considered: 1.) Zero only surfaced when ALL the other members were defeated. Even if Jellal defeated the 4 that were fighting him (which he later did), Zero would never surface because Hoteye wasn't even in the fight. 2.) Jellal had already taken a Dark Cappricio before, when he was severely weakened, and the spell only damaged him a little. So why now, when he was fighting at his best (and with even more power than 7 years ago), he would be killed by the same spell? 3.) While Racer, Cobra and Angel were fighting Jellal, Midnight was mostly in the background, which hinted that he was actually preparing an illusion. All in all, the Ass Pull claims sound more as if the Jellal haters were angry because he wasn't killed, even if he survived worse things before.
• The understanding that Dragon Slayer magic turns one more into a Dragon as you get stronger, makes Dragon Force more understandable. Dragon Force is a power up unlike any other in Shonen manga. I mean, unlike any of the Super Saiyan transformations, even after Natsu unlocks it in the Tower of Heaven arc he can't activate it freely. Nor does it come to him in rage or danger like Naruto's Nine-Tails transformations or Ichigo's Hollow transformations. It only happens if Natsu and now Wendy get a huge power up from the magic around them. So Dragon Force is really what would naturally happen if any Dragon Slayer got to that level of power naturally, they simply turn more draconic. That explains why the Third Generation can achieve Dragon Force more easily than the First Generation; they can use the Lacrima inside their bodies to power themselves up.
• The reason Atlas Flame broke out of Future Rogue's magic smells of Ass Pull, but there is a logical explanation. We have no idea how effective Future Rogue's magic to control Dragons is. Rogue created the magic in a time when Acnologia was the lone dragon, and he admits it didn't work on it. So Future Rogue had no real way of testing the magic, and I doubt making a spell to control Dragons is easy. So it could be it didn't have that much control over the dragons, and thus Atlas Flame could break out of it so easily.
  • Perhaps a better way of thinking about it would be that it doesn't control dragons, but influences them. Think about it this way: if you're going to do something anyway and someone says, "Hey, there's a good place to start," you'll probably start there. They didn't really have a reason to say no, until Natsu came along.
    • Zirconis and Levia pretty much confirm this, saying that even though they are being influenced, they highly appreciate the chance to terrorize humans. They're so coherent and sure of themselves that they might as well not be controlled at all, and Atlas Flame breaks out of the influencing with no trouble simply because he starts to see Natsu as his nephew. Zirconis and Hisui getting along at the end of the arc mirrors Natsu and Atlas Flame, and pushes this idea even further. This could also explain why Motherglare was the only one actively doing whatever Future Rogue commanded her to do—she was the one he kept closest to him and never parted from her until Atlas Flame threw her into the Eclipse gate, so his influence over her would be stronger from sheer proximity.
• During the second half of the Grand Magic Games arc, when attacked by Kamika, Mirajane reveals that she doesn't want to use her Satan Soul magic in front of others, but will gladly do so when nobody but the enemy is there. Fast-forward to the Tartaros arc, while Mirajane is enduring a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown at the hands of Seilah, we see in a flashback how Mirajane was ousted from her home village along with her siblings after she's used her Satan Soul for the first time. And her hot-headed, slightly misanthropic personality from when she was a kid? Probably Mira was angry with the world because of what they had done to her and her siblings. Only by being part of Fairy Tail's True Companions, combined with her sister's death, did her kindhearted personality take over.
• Why does Seilah of Tartarus constantly make references to 'stories' and use book motifs in her dialogue? As a demon from the Books of Zeref, the reason she even exists is because Zeref wrote a book detailing how to summon her. In other words, books, and the individual parts of books, represent life itself to her, something that was lampshaded in an exchange between Kyouka and Erza.
• When we first see Lamy, her tie has 1/16 printed on it. Now when we see the mass-produced models, notice that there are 15 and one has 7/16 on her tie.
• The Reveal that the dragons were inside the Dragon Slayers all along was hinted at way back during the Fighting Festival arc. The reason Natsu (and possibly Gajeel) couldn't get past the barrier in the guild hall that blocks anyone seventy or older from passing through was because they had centuries-old dragons inside them.
• Angel's trap for Natsu back in the Nirvana arc could be attributed to either A) it being common knowledge (Fukuro said he was aware of it from studying up on him) or B) because as a fellow Dragon Slayer, Cobra has the same weakness.
  • She likely learned it when she used Gemini to copy Gray and Lucy to learn the weaknesses of her enemies.
  • Chapter 486 confirms that Cobra does indeed suffer from motion sickness, lending credence to Angel already knowing about it.
• Chapter 7 of Fairy Tail Zero. Remember how Walrot Seeken was using his magic to go around turning deserts and wastelands into forests? He learned that magic from Zeref, whose curse routinely destroys entire ecosystems in seconds.
• Erza defeating Azuma may not actually be an Ass Pull. Azuma was controlling Tenroujima's magic and thus, Fairy Tail's and in the end of the arc, Makarov comments that 'magic is alive'. The magic that Azuma was using to kill Erza ended up defending and empowering Erza instead because it's her friends' magic! The only reason why it managed to hurt her in the very beginning is because Azuma had control over it. By the time Erza defeated him, he was already weakened and ended up losing control of it.
• During Natsu's initial encounter with Silver Fullbuster, he is instantly beaten frozen solid. This is may seem like a plot triggered initial curb stomp when a new villain shows up. It is actually brilliant because it is later revealed that Natsu is E.N.D. Silver's devil slayer magic is likely super-effective against Natsu.
• After the second time skip Carla has learned how to take a humanoid form, and has learned some fighting techniques. To contrast Happy has seemingly not improved at all. When you think about it though Carla was almost Eaten by Ezel! That had to be a traumatic experience; one that caused her to train more. Whereas Happy did Get blown up by Jackal but it ended up getting played off as a gag. So he never had any real motivation to train.
• Mavis' eyes have no pupils after her body ceases to age. Zeref also has no pupils... most of the time. This is because they both have Ankhseram's Curse. Coincidentally, when Mavis' curse is active, she also gains "Uh-Oh" Eyes. Talk about Foreshadowing.
• Ever since the Tower of Heaven arc when Jellal's body was seemingly vaporized at the end, it was thought that he made an Unexplained Recovery. But think about where he was in the first place - the Tower of Heaven, otherwise known as the R-System, which was built specifically to revive people (particularly Zeref, though he was never dead in the first place). The R-System works after all!
• Why does Mavis put so much faith into the 'power of bonds? It's because she knows first hand that having strong feelings such as love can make magic much, much stronger. It is, after all, how Zeref accidentally killed her, despite her being immortal.
• At first glance, the Dragons putting antibodies to prevent their children from turning into dragons despite the fact that it actually can be reversed whenever the Dragon Slayers want at will and not a one-way trip as they had thought may be the biggest waste of power and time or a plot hole. Then you realise, they have an example of what would happen if they let things be:ACNOLOGIA!!! It would cut the Dragon Slayers off their potential next stage of Dragon Force, but they are not taking any chances as last thing they want is for their kids to grow up unaware and end up just like him.
  • Later chapters establish that Acnologia is hunting down the Dragon Slayers. Even if by some miracle that the dragon slayers can retain their inner humanity, it will be moot as their dragonification might as well be a giant magic beacon to Acnologia as the huge amount of Dragon Slayer Magic used for that will give away their location and will no doubt be killed when found. God Serena's little lightshow of using his 8 lacrimas made him learn that the hard way.
• Zoldeo's anger when he saw Lucy, was born of his love of Layla that prompted his Start of Darkness. He likely wanted to collect her to keep her safe in a twisted way, even if in a creepy way.
• Zeref's indifference to Tartaros and care for the Albareth Empire makes sense in light of the fact that while the demons themselves are his creation, he had no involvement with the guild itself. Meanwhile, he spent hundreds of years building and organizing the empire. Tartaros might be his creations, but they're just tools compared to the group of people he actually helped prosper.
• Acnologia's appearance in Chapter 470 explains his past appearances. He sensed the Dragon Slayers and wanted to try and kill them.
  • Alternatively, he may have been after Lucy as well. She's the last living Heartfilia, whose fates have been locked to the Eclipse Gate for the past 400 years, and is a descendant of the woman who helped kickstart the plan to kill Acnologia, to boot. Plus, her mother is the woman who opened the Gate to further that plan.
• To go with the above, this may also be why Layla was working in a random merchant's guild instead of a magical one in her youth, despite being an extremely skilled Celestial wizard. It's entirely possible that she was hiding from Acnologia, or from anyone else who might try to stop her from fulfilling Anna's plan, while simultaneously biding her time until the fated day arrived.
• How did Jude know the royal family? Simple: the Eclipse Gate was located at the palace, and his wife's duty in life was to open it up. He may have gone with her when she did it, though it doesn't seem he knew much of anything about her magic life or Anna's plan. The royal family probably reached out to him after she did so, especially to offer condolences for her death.
• Zeref had many valid reasons to hate Hades, but it went beyond Hades simply dragging him kicking and screaming back into world events. Zeref delivered Mavis's body back to Fairy Tail, after his Curse "killed" her. Precht's attempts to revive her turned her body into Fairy Heart, and according to the timeline, shortly after, Precht started becoming obsessed with dark magic, eventually believing that the One Magic and Zeref were one and the same, and that Zeref was the key to his utopian 'Ultimate Magic World'. Given that the leading theory In-Universe is that the One Magic is love, and it was Zeref's love that killed Mavis, Hades' twisted interpretation of the One Magic and desire to use Zeref in such a way, it's not at all hard to see why Zeref wanted to kill him. 'Rubbing salt in old wounds' doesn't even begin to describe it.
• Ultear's return. It initially seemed like a case of Deus ex Machina since, even though she died, she came back when DiMaria used her Time Stands Still magic. Now, Ultear only exists outside of time and part of time magic, just like her mother is part of the sea and watching over her children.
  • And we have precedence for this too! Aside from the Ur case, anyway. When Gray was fighting Doriate, and struggling to win, Ultear appeared to him and encouraged him to keep fighting. While it initially seemed like he was thinking about her or recalling a memory, it's likely that she was magically appearing to him just like she did with Wendy and Sherria... because Doriate was using a form of time magic by reverting Gray into a child form at the time!
• Natsu is the Fire Dragon-Slaying student of a great red dragon that is king of all fire dragons. END is a demon king associated with fire what race of angel and form is Satan described as having?
• Silver asking Juvia if she was Gray's girlfriend/woman (depending on your translation) and asking her to look after him wasn't just Mashima pandering to/trolling the Gray/Juvia shippers. Silver was watching the Grand Magic Games, including the final day. That's how he learned that Gray had actually survived Deliora's attack. He saw how Gray and Juvia were interacting, including their Unison Raid.
• Dimaria's magic is possibly the closest magic in the series yet to a true Story-Breaker Power. It took a God Slayer using a Dangerous Forbidden Technique to defeat her, albeit at great cost, the first time. The second time, however, E.N.D. leaves her traumatized, badly wounded, and left muttering the word 'monster' over and over again. Dimaria's magic comes from Chronos, the God of Time, who more or less has Dimaria as its living vessel. Zeref created E.N.D. more or less as the Satan to Ankhseram's God, with the sole intent of his creation to be to defy Ankhseram's will and break the Curse of Contradictions. If E.N.D. can defy the will of Ankhseram, it's not hard to imagine he can also defy the will of Chronos, which was why Dimaria's Age Seal didn't work on him. Zeref's logic: What better way to fight a god than with the devil?
• When Deliora destroyed Gray's home village, Gray was buried in rubble for several days before Ur and Lyon found him. We later find out that Keyes gathered the corpses of the people from the village and used them for his experiments, turning most of them including Gray's father into zombies. The most likely reason Gray wasn't finished off and/or experimented on was because Keyes couldn't find him, since he was trapped under rubble.
• In Alvarez, Imperial citizens pray and fast during the month of August, a month associated with calamity and bad luck in Alvarez culture. It's also the name of the captain and The Ace of the Spriggan Twelve. Zeref himself named August that, after the month he and Mavis spent together; which also happens to be the month August was conceived, which resulted in Mavis' "death". The month of calamity in Alvarez is the month the Emperor lost the love of his life.
• Larcade died while looking up towards his father, August died while looking down towards his mother.
• Now why would Zeref, the immortal man who can kill the strongest mages by accident, need anything but his own presence to defeat Acnologia? The dragon eats magic, period. He'll just eat whatever he throws at him. It also explains why END is a threat to Acnologia— END uses curses, which work differently than magic, most importantly that Acnologia likely hasn't seen enough curse magic to eat.
  • Doubtful, Natsu could eat Jackal's curse back in the Tartaros Arc, there is nothing holding back Acnologia from eating Curses with that argument. It is more like, Dragon Scales are immune to the Curse of Ankhseram, back in Tenrou, Natsu's scarf (made of Igneel's scales) absorbed the death wave, that's why Zeref would need Fairy Heart, not even his Curse can kill the Dragon.
    • Doesn't the fact that Natsu is END complete excuse why he was able to eat Jackal explosion?
    • Natsu only [[spoiler awakened the demonic part of his powers]] during Alvarez. Also, Acnologia pretty much confirmed that he never feared E.N.D when Igneel questioned him back in Tartaros.
• One for August if you know Greek mythology. Zeus was left in a cave to survive his father and eventually went on to lead and rule the 12 Olypians. Who else do we know who was left in a cave and would go on to lead a powerful 12 person group?
• The Curse Escape Clause for Zeref and Mavis makes a lot of sense given the nature of their curse. It would require either someone with a tremendous heart or another being with the same curse as them to be capable of falling in love with a person who kills everything around them, especially while they act homicidal to keep the curse at bay.
• Zeref's death at the end with Mavis should have killed Natsu as well, since his life is connected to Zeref. How did he stay alive? Because Lucy rewrote parts of his E.N.D. book, it makes her the newest contractor to Natsu. Therefore, Natsu's life is now linked to Lucy's.
• Aquarius mentions early on in the Alvarez arc that not having a Celestial Spirit wizard on both sides of the Eclipse Gate leads to what happened during the Grand Magic Games. However, just a few chapters before, Zeref mentions that Lucy's ancestor, Anna, was behind opening the gate 400 years ago to send the Dragon Slayers through. Yet if the dragons during the Games were also from 400 years ago, wouldn't Anna have been around to stop it? Which ultimately hints that she left the time period of 400 years ago to travel to the current age.
• During the Alvarez arc, we learn of two new characters: Ajeel the Sand King and his grandfather, Yajeel. Both characters are from a small country in Alvarez, and they obviously share the same ending on their name, -ajeel. The only other character who has the same ending is Gajeel; additionally, and of the Dragon Slayers, Gajeel is the one whose past we know the least about. Since all we know about Alvarez's origin is that it was created by Zeref before the year X781, it's entirely possible that Gajeel came from the same part of Alvarez as Ajeel and Yajeel a hundred years ago, only somehow immagrating to Ishgar as a child and being found by his dragon.
• If you think about it, it makes sense that Edolus’s Fairy Tail counterparts are as different from the Earthland characters as they are: Since Edolus’s magic can’t be depended on to the level of Earthland’s magic, the characters’ lives weren’t affected the same way.
  • Natsu, of course, was never raised by a dragon, and might not even be the same Natsu since without magical interference, Earthland!Natsu would have stayed dead after dying four hundred years before. Based on this logic, it’s also possible that the other Dragonslayers aren’t the same versions, and instead descendants of the original versions.
  • Earthland!Lucy’s father became a successful businessman by being involved in magical dealings, which Edolas!Lucy’s father never had access to, meaning that Edo!Lucy had an upbringing much different than Earth!Lucy’s “neglected rich kid” background.
  • Presumably, Zeref never created Deliora in Edolas, which means Gray’s entire tragic backstory involving his parents, Ur, and Lyon never happened.
  • Whatever Erza Nightwalker’s backstory is, it must be radically different than Erza’s: Edolas has no dragons, meaning Irene never went through the horrible things inflicted on her that caused her to abandon her daughter Erza in the first place; there was also no Tower of Heaven, which thrived on an insane amount of magical power and would have been instantly detected by authorities even if someone in Edolas were crazy enough to try it.
  • Earthland!Juvia is a Rain Woman, which is likely a magic-based condition that doesn’t exist in Edolas. Without that to drive away her friends and crush her self-confidence, it’s no wonder Juvia’s intense, powerful side took over and became her personality.
  • The Edolas versions of the Strauss siblings were never forced out of their town because Edolas!Mira never had a Satan’s Soul to scare the villager’s with. The banishment was also what made Earthland!Mira gain a punkish personality, which is why Edo!Mira is the cheerful counterpart to Earth!Mira — Edo!Mira never had that push. Additionally, Earthland! Lisanna’s death during a guild job is what pushed Earth! Elfmen out of his wimpy ways and become more “manly,” which Edo! Elfmen never had.
  • The Tenrou Island time skip never happened in Edolas, meaning that everyone’s Edolas counterpart is seven years older than them, which explains why Edolas! Wendy is an adult rather than a small child.
    • Aditionally, Edolas!Wendy obviously never met Mystogan (AKA Edolas!Jellal), and didn't spend her early childhood at Cait Shelter—the level of magic that was needed to keep up the illusion of an entire guild just wasn't possible in Edolas. Thus, Edo!Wendy is more cynical and experienced because she was thrust into the real world at an early age rather than live a sheltered life with Cait Shelter.
  • Cana’s father, Guildarts, was never a wizard, so he probably never met her mother on a job; in fact, he might not have been a wanderer at all, and settled down to have a respectable life, which could explain why Edo!Cana is so high-class.
  • It’s no wonder Markarov and Faust are so different — knowing what we do about Markarov’s past, his entire history was rewritten. Yuri never learned magic, never became a Fairy Tail wizard, and possibly never met his wife Rita. That meant Markarov’s life never centered around Fairy Tail, leaving him free to discover a different purpose…which could very well be ruling a kingdom.
• You ever wonder why Aquarius was always mad at Lucy for summoning her? 1 day in the Spirit World is at least 90 days in real time. You'd be annoyed too if some snot-nosed brat interrupted the same date with your boyfriend multiple times just to throw water at someone.
  • Aditionally, remember that Aquarius originally belonged to Layla, Lucy's mother. Imagine that a girl who looks like a younger version of your former master, whom you respected, keeps summoning you while in tears seemingly a dozen times a day. You probably wouldn't be too sympathetic to them. (Of course Aquarius didn't know that Lucy's father was emotionally abusing her, hence the crying...which almost makes it Fridge Horror that Aquarius was unknowingly yelling at an abused little girl.)
• Ever wonder why Dragon Slayers get motion sickness when travelling on sea or on vehicles but not while flying or walking? Judging from Irene Belserion's past, first generation Dragon Slayer Magic is bestowed from dragon to human. In a way, this enhances the senses of said human to that of a dragon, especially the inner ear balance. It poses a problem for traveling methods that require a constant jittering motion (boats, trains, carriages, etc.). Flying and walking on the other hand is a smoother experience and is actually a dragon's natural means of movement, so it makes sense that these methods would not induce squick.
• During the Eclipse Spirit Arc, it seems that each of the wizards face off against the Zodiac sign that best describes their personality in terms of traditional astrology:
  • Aries is a sign that denotes optimism, courage and impulsiveness - this is Juvia to the core, especially when it comes to Gray
  • Taurus is said to be patient and dependable sign; with most of the people born under here having a big, muscular build. Pretty sure that's Elfman.
  • Geminis are extremely witty, restless and can sometimes be devious - show me Gajeel!
  • Cancerians are extremely protective of their home and family and very sensitive when it comes to mother issues - you'll make Ur very proud, Gray.
  • Leo is a sign for leaders, with their ambition, confidence but can fall prey to their vanity - all hail King Natsu!
  • Virgos are highly analytical, very helpful and tend to be a bit fussy at times - this is Lucy through and through.
  • Libra is a sign of peace, diplomacy and grace - no wonder Yukino has the key of Divine Balance
  • Scorpios are unapologetically passionate, far edgier than the rest of the Zodiac and are most prone to alcoholism and gambling - Cana, it's like this was made for you!
  • Sagittarius likes adventure and is very athletic to a fault - it's little wonder Erza did battle against the Centaur.
  • Capricorns like tradition, learning and are very wise - who better to face the Sea-Goat than Levy?
  • Aquarians are defined by their kindness and desire to make the world a better place - seems Wendy would be perfect for facing the Water Bearer.
  • Pisces are highly sensitive beings who devote their entire selves to their loved ones - Mirajane fought against the Twin Fish.
• No wonder Natsu immediately latched on to Lucy—she strongly reminded him of Anna, the woman who was more or less a mother surrogate to him when he was a child. Even if he didn’t remember Anna herself, his subconscious responded positively to Lucy, her similar-looking descendant.
  • To add to this, maybe the reason why eleven-year-old Natsu immediately bonded with the youngest Strauss is because her name, Lisanna, sounded similar to Anna.
• Even before working as Magic Council co-captains with them during the Second Time Skip, Levy seemed to be tagging along with Gajeel and Pantherlily quite a bit, barely being seen with Shadow Gear. While it might seem like lazy writing for the sake of shipping to have Levi hanging out with her love interest more than her own team, there’s actually a reason behind it. During the first [1] with everyone on Tenrou Island disappearing for seven years, Jet and Droy had to move on without Levy, which naturally meant they found new interests, improved their magic skills, and built their lives around other things. Once Levy came back in X791, still the same person she always was, her friends were not only older, they’d become very different people. On top of that, Jet and Droy are now almost a decade older than Levy. Levy was only seventeen when she disappeared, so Jet and Droy were already in their mid-twenties by the time she returned. That can be quite a big gap for people so young, even among old friends. They simply can’t relate to each as well as they could pre-Tenrou Island.. All of this considered, it makes sense that Levy began spending more time with Gajeel and Lily—they’re familiar people her own age who haven’t changed a bit.
• Why is there supposedly more Ethernano 400 years in the future than there was in the X300s? Because at that point in time, magic is still a new thing. The world had only begun harnessing it fairly recently, so not only was there not a lot of people using it, but the few wizards who existed weren’t widespread enough to continuously replenish the magic; in other words, the Ethernano supply hadn’t had time to build and grow, meaning there wasn’t a whole lot of it for the dragons to absorb. After 400 years, however, Ethernano now exists by the truckload due to thousands of wizards replenishing it constantly for hundreds of years, meaning the dragons could suck it up all they wanted without running out or damaging the supply.
  • The fact that the Ethernano supply is so rich would likely also explain how the dragons, who’d been left weak and feeble from having their souls ripped from their bodies, became strong enough to fight Acnologia in the relatively short timespan of 8 years.
  • Confirmed in the anime, at least.
• If you do the math, it turns out that while the other Dragon Slayers were between the ages of 8-12 when their dragons disappeared, Wendy was only 4 years old. So maybe the reason Wendy is so much weaker than her fellow Dragon Slayers isn’t just because of age or ability type, but also because she hasn’t had the same amount of training as they did. While the other Dragon Slayers had something stronger to build on, Wendy was stuck with the basic magic that Grandeeney started her out with because her four-year-old body couldn’t have dealt with anything stronger. It would explain why Wendy’s strongest attacks are blatant copies of Natsu’s.
• Not so much Fridge Brilliance as Fridge Heartwarming: Lucy's last name isn't just a Bilingual Bonus. Heartfilia is a combination of the English heart and Latin filia (meaning "daughter"). Lucy hasn't always had the best relationship with her parents, particularly her father, but we know from his gesture during the First Time Skip (buying her a present on her birthday until the day he died) that he loves her fiercely. In other words, he hearts his daughter.
• Why does Wendy's hair color change from blue to pink when going into Dragon Force when every other Dragon Slayer keeps their original hair color? Well, it's to match the person she looks up to and admires the most, Natsu, whose hair is also pink.

Fridge Horror

• While chapter 1 is often overlooked, it's worth noting that there are some seriously horrific implications there. Bora may be the Starter Villain of the series, but he and his crew are slavers. They even comment about how they got a good haul (of girls) "this time." Just how long has he been doing this and how many girls have been sold into slavery? And given they only seem to target females, it's almost certainly a Sex Slave trade...
• In Episode 9 of the Fairy Tail anime, we have a filler episode. They come upon a bunch of monsters at about the halfway point, and proceed to eat them. Later on, they break a spell and turn the monsters back into people. Yes. The monsters, that they ate, were people. In a comedy episode.
  • The characters have a moment of horror about this in the actual episode.
    • Even worse, the very first fish they catch is shown to be fully aware of its imminent death right before they cook it alive (at least in the English dub of the anime)
  • That's not the only filler episode with Fridge Horror in it. In Episode 19, Natsu switches bodies with Loke. Everything's fine by the next episode, but if it hadn't been, it's quite possible that Natsu would have died.
• At the end of Nirvana arc, Wendy & Carla's entire guild, Cait Shelter turns out to be an illusion. Basically all the people they had known and lived with for the last 7 years are practically dead. And then they have no choice but to leave with people they had known for a couple of days or so.
• During the Edolas arc, the vast majority of the guild as well as the population of Magnolia Town are fused into a giant mass of lacrima crystal, so that the Edolas Kingdom can harvest all their magic for their own needs.
  • Remember Faust showing off that crystal? He broke off pieces and threw it into the crowd, and boasting of his deeds while Lucy, Happy, and Natsu had to look on helplessly. How many people of Magnolia do you suppose he killed just to sate his own ego and hedonism? One thing's for sure, he got off easy.
  • Also during this arc, Edolas!Lucy makes it known that several of their Fairy Tail members have been killed by the Kingdom, specifically by Erza's hands. Erza is known as "The Fairy Killer." Bad enough on its own, but then you realize that we're never shown an Edolas counterpart of Gildarts, Laxus, or the Thunder Tribe. There's only one logical conclusion.
• Right after the Fighting Festival arc, we see Ivan turning a crow into a shikigami doll paper with his magic. Earlier he's seen talking to Gajeel with a human-shaped puppet. Do the math...
• Aries says the word "sumimasen" (I'm sorry) whenever she does pretty much anything. It can be seen as a Verbal Tic at first, but then if you remember that the last two masters she's had were both abusive to Celestial Spirits, her repeated apologizing might simply be an ingrained response to prevent herself from being abused even more harshly.
• Alzack being disappointed for not qualifying for the S-Class Exam. Considering what happened: Acnologia nuking Tenrou Island, it was a good thing.
• The fact that Flare was able to take Asuka hostage during her match should tell you how safe the rest of the audience in the Grand Magic Games actually are.
• Mavis' spirit form is cute and all... but just look at how young she appears, meaning that she died at that age, looking barely older than a child.
  • To be fair, she could simply be Really 700 Years Old and just vain (keeping a child's body) or unaging. Since she was supposedly an extremely powerful mage (she created the three Fairy Spells) being unaging seems more probable than being a master strategist at age 10.
  • Her latest speech even hints that she is a lot older than what she looks like (she always repeats "the young ones"). So, or she was unaging while alive, or her appearance has a ghost matches her personality.
  • Her talk with Zeref in Chapter 340 has both of them referring to humans as if neither of them are human. It makes sense in Zeref's case, since he no longer sees himself as human (and for good reason), but in Mavis's case, she may really not be. Either way, Mavis is almost certainly Older Than She Looks.
    • Fairy Tail Zero chapter 11 reveal that she was Not Allowed to Grow Up due to using Law.
• That egg Happy came out of was large enough to hold him as an adult, and his mom isn't any larger. Exceed pregnancy/egg laying must be the single worst experience in the multiverse.
  • That, or Exceed eggs somehow grow in size after being laid.
• The Fairy Tail guild is known for causing massive amounts of property damage and destruction. It is really hard to believe that in spite of all the damage and destruction that guild caused over the years that not a single innocent civilian has even gotten hurt or killed because of it!
  • To be fair, that reputation is 1.) Largely overstated and 2.) Almost entirely Natsu.
    • Actually no, it is not almost entirely Natsu. In Episode 2 of the anime as well as Chapter 2 of the manga, the guild received many complaints about many of the other members of the guild, not just Natsu.
    • None of the other complaints were about the wide scale property damage that inspired the Fridge Horror, only Natsu's. Elfman punching his client, Gray walking around naked, and Cana drinking someone's booze stockpile were some of the other complaints.
    • In the same chapter, Lucy stated that most of the destructive events told in the newspapers is Natsu's doing. Even if Makarov lectures several people, he attributes a lot more things to Natsu (I didn't count, but I'm pretty sure he has as much complaints as the rest of the guild).
  • Fairy Tail is famous for being True Companions. Disbanding them works better as a threat than in actuality. Best case scenario Fairy Tail becomes a relatively benign Dark Guild, acting like they always do but outside of council supervision. Worst case scenario? The mages of Fairy Tail tend to be pretty powerful on average despite their quirks, skilled enough to be accepted into many legal Guilds. Now those troublemakers from Fairy Tail are everywhere instead of being concentrated in one Guild. Can a guild master aside from Makarov control people like Laxus, Gildarts, Erza, Natsu, and Gajeel?
    • That's irrelevant. The point is that the Fairy Tail guild is bound to kill or hurt people in their careless acts of destruction.
• Chapter 281: Jiemma berates the hell out of the entire guild for a mere setback and expels Yukino. Based on the behavior of the guild members, it seems it wasn't the first time they experienced witnessing someone being psychologically torn down by Jiemma for even the slightest disappointment. Picture how short-lived the membership is even for talented wizards in that guild and how tense things are on a daily basis knowing one screw up can wreck their career.
  • Which just makes you wonder how they recruit people if the guild master is so nasty and everyone knows it.
    • For the name. Sabertooth is the strongest guild at the time, after all. Just like how Lucy wanted to be part of Fairy Tail initially because it was the biggest and strongest guild, people may have joined for the sake of status.
• The Dragon Slayers' noses. Say you go stab someone. They'll smell blood on you. Broke down and started pigging out on food you swore off of for a diet? They smell it. Some girl is trying to keep a pregnancy secret? They can smell that. You have an affair while your wife is out of town? Better wash up real good or they'll smell what you just did.
  • How could they figure out when someone is pregnant from a sense of smell?
    • Changes in body chemicals. It would alter their natural odor.
    • This is, of course, assuming that they know the smell. Smelling something and knowing what it means are two different things.
    • True. But if they already witnessed a similar situation, they could remember it. And so/or do the math with this change of smell plus other changes often attributed to pregnancy (behavior, mood, skin color, weight, etc...).
• Kagura wants to kill Jellal. Assuming that Kagura is around 19-20 or even early twenties, she was at least 12 years old when the Tenrou Team disappeared. Imagine what could have happened in that time.
  • If she has the same reason as everyone else (having been enslaved) then that means she would have been 4 or 5 at the tower, and Erza implies that they were all kept there for some time before the revolt as well.
    • The reason is finally revealed. Simon was her brother.
• Erza. Her bizarre character quirks and weird habits become a lot Harsher in Hindsight after we learn about her backstory. Her obsession with fashion and armor? She was forced to wear nothing but rags. A Big Eater who tends to fly into an Unstoppable Rage when interrupted? Growing up on the edge of starvation will do that to you. No Social Skills, Innocent Fanservice Girl, and The Stoic? Well, I think you get the idea. Every time she reacts in a completely deadpan manner to the antics of the guild, remember that it's because she doesn't know how to react normally. It's a lot harder to find it funny.
• The way Natsu, Evergreen, and Elfman treat Zeref when they first meet him. They have no way of knowing who he is, and even if his magic is dangerous, he repeatedly warns them to keep a safe distance and even promises to go away as long as they don't get too close. When he also acts happy to see Natsu, Natsu responds by punching him, and everyone agrees that he's a freak when he starts crying afterward. Way to be the nice, friendly guild.
  • To be fair, multiple times throughout the series we've seen characters deduce the negative nature of another character simply by being near them and feeling the energy they exude. Considering this is Zeref we're talking about, Natsu, Evergreen, and Elfman could probably sense he was really, really bad news.
    • Also, recall that the reason Zeref was so happy to see Natsu was because he thought Natsu was about to kill him.
    • As to Natsu punching him? We find out that Zeref hard-wired the intent to kill him into each and every Etherious he created, and it's an impulse the Etherious can not resist.
• You know Dobengal? That guy that Jiemma, the guild master of Sabertooth, was absolutely certain could beat Natsu but couldn't? We haven't seen him in a while, no? Remember what Jiemma did in Chapter 300 and why? Makes you wonder: Have we not seen him in a while because he's just not doing anything important or because there's nothing left to see?
  • He's fine, he's with the rest of Sabertooth when they're informed about the dragon situation.
• Some of Natsu's break in scenes, such as the time Lucy found him in her bed, or the clip of him walking into her bathroom and greeting her while she's bathing, just seem like funny stupid things Natsu would do. Except as of the time skip it turns out he actually has a libido. He demonstrates this by trying to spy on Lucy in a hot spring, trying to go see her while she's showering, and, in the filler arc, imagining her in skimpy paper clothing. The difference between Natsu then and now is, at best, a few months, and there was never a big scene where he was shown suddenly realizing that women were a thing that he now cares about. Suddenly his earlier moments don't seem as stupid and innocent.
  • Debatable. It seems to take him a minute or two to realize things like this, so it may be that he only has a libido when he's in a certain mood. In a recent episode, he says that Lucy is taking a shower, and asks if he should check on her again. Elfman tells him that's a bad idea, which leads to a confused "Why?" from Natsu. After thinking for a minute, he tries to run off and peek on her, but luckily Erza stops him.
  • There's also his reaction when Edolas!Lucy runs out of the bath weearing just a Modesty Towel in front of him and drags Earthland!Lucy along in a similar state of undress. He was bored out of his skull. It's possible that he just does it to troll Lucy.
• While Shagotte had good intentions sending the 100 eggs to Earthland, it takes closer to 500 unique members of a species for it to repopulate. Otherwise inbreeding will result in enough defects that the species will eventually fail to thrive.
  • Remember, these are a race of magic, flying, multi-color talking cat people. Trying to apply real-world genetics is a tricky thing. It's entirely possible that there are enough genetic distinctions in individual members of the species to lower the threshold of unique individuals necessary to maintain them. For all we know, 100 might be that number.
• Chapter 328 makes Acnologia even scarier in hindsight. If seven dragons are apparently enough to wipe out humanity, how powerful must Acnologia be to have killed so many of them that he became a dragon?
  • Made worse when Mavis notes her concern at how the Dragon Slayers now are incapable of doing a damn thing to the things they were supposed to kill, who were implied to not be in the high tiers. Mind you that it is still likely Acnologia is going to appear and cause humanity's downfall, meaning they have to get their act together soon.
  • We don't know that seven dragons are enough to wipe out humanity; we only know that Future!Rogue thinks that seven would be enough to defeat Acnologia (and, admittedly, by extension, destroy humanity as Acnologia did in Rogue's timeline.)
• The Levy from Future!Lucy's timeline is still alive in the middle of a dragon apocalypse and still has no idea what happened to her friend.
  • Furthermore, when Future Lucy comes to the "Golden Plains", basically every known mage from Fairy Tail (Natsu, Happy, Erza, Gray, Wendy, Carla, Pantherlily, Gajeel, Juvia, Makarov, Mirajane, the Raijinshuu, Cana, Elfman and more can be discerned from the silhouettes) are there, waiting for her. While this is meant to be heartwarming, it also means that Lucy and Levy probably are the only surviving mages in their timeline. And now only Levy is back...
  • Fridge Horror indeed. But considering the way this chapter ended. It is possible this timeline doesn't even exist anymore. So Future Lucy, neither Future Levy, from this timeline had to suffer this much.
  • Future Levy looks to be in the silouettes too (and you can clearly see her in anime ending 16 which is all about this scene). Either she died while Lucy was gone, the whole thing is just some kind of dream thing, or (considering Future Levy only came up like once and was never mentioned again) that plot point was forgotten about or otherwise aborted, and thus retconned out.
• Zeref's boast in Chapter 340 is already pretty unnerving, but it gets worse when you remember that he witnessed the Grand Magic Games through his imp Obra. He saw the best and brightest the mages of the present have to offer...and he's still confident that wiping out humanity will be more like pest control than a fight. And considering how easily he absolutely annihilated Hades, who tossed around the best Fairy Tail had to offer like rag dolls, that's not to be taken lightly.
  • Made worse by examining some of the other top wizards in the series. Hades and Makarov are old, but were and are two of the most powerful wizards in the story. Makes sense, they've spent decades refining their magical abilities. Makarov at least was slowed down by his frequent heart issues, making him occasionally less reliable than say, Gildarts. Gildarts being a guy who has a couple decades on most of the cast but is also a few decades younger than Makarov, so he has a great combination of youthful physical conditioning and magical power. Zeref, however, is around 400 years old and he's still young. Zeref's sheer power should be unbelievable.
  • Zeref, a.k.a. Emperor Spriggan's, Praetorian Guard are all stated to be on the level of the Four Gods of Ishgar. He's the only one they fear and respect enough to serve and obey. And the clincher? One of their members is God Serena, the former number one of the Four Gods, and the Ten Wizard Saints. Yes, Ishgar's strongest officially-recognized mage decided that if he can't beat him, it's time to join him. Let that sink in a moment.
• It's clear Mavis and Zeref have a history together, given what we learned in Chapter 340. At one point, Mavis was also close enough with Hades/Precht to co-found her guild with him, whom Zeref himself killed. Meaning, she was talking with someone who had flat-out killed her former friend without knowing it. Made so much worse in chapter 7 of Fairy Tail Zero. Zeref taught the founders of Fairy Tail magic, including Mavis and Precht. Zeref ruthlessly killed a former student of his with absolutely no hesitation.
  • Her reaction to his Humans Are Bastards speech and subsequent threat to wipe out humanity now makes even more sense. This was a guy she genuinely felt sorry for, liked, and even went out of her way to Throw the Dog a Bone, to the point where he was moved to Tears of Joy. She was watching someone she thought she had helped, and even cared about, finally snap. That would make anyone have an O.O.C. Is Serious Business moment.
  • Made Harsher in Hindsight after Chapter 450. Guess how Mavis died? After Mavis received Ankhseram's Curse, suffered a Despair Event Horizon after it claimed its first victim, and when she and Zeref were finally reunited, Mavis promised Zeref they'd find a way to break the curse together. Zeref confessed his love for her, thinking he finally found somebody he could safely bring himself to care about without worrying if he's going to kill them, and they finally had The Big Damn Kiss... and it was a Kiss of Death that killed Mavis even though she was immortal. Nobody, and I mean nobody can walk away from something like that without a few screws loose. It's only amazing that it took another century for him to finally reach the "That's it, everyone dies" breaking point.
• Monsieur Sol in the anime. His ultimate attack is transforming a person into a shapeless rock and forcing them to relive their worst memories for all of eternity. Now that by itself is pretty dark, but then you wonder... how many people has he used this power on before Elfman? How many rocks in the world are this man's victims? We'll never know.
• In the anime during the Grand Magic Games, both Chapati and Labian wished Wendy had taken place in Naval Battle instead of Lucy, but considering what happened to Lucy at the end of this, it's a good thing Wendy hadn't been in that round.
• Seilah of Tartarus uses Elfman's hand to choke Lisanna. It's enough to get a mention on the Nightmare Fuel page, but remember when the series started? Lisanna was assumed dead, because she had supposedly been killed... when Elfman lost control of his take over. He spent years believe he murdered his baby sister and is now being forced to strangle her and he can't stop himself!
• Erza's torture at hands of Tartarus is horrific enough already but then you remember why Erza wears armour. She feels scared and insecure without it, it protects her from the outside world. And now she is completely naked, restrained and horrifically tortured. This is pretty much Tower of Paradise for her all over again, if not worse.
  • Chapter 416 confirms that it was the Tower of Heaven for her all over again.
• Tempesta gassing an entire city is horribly reminiscent of a chemical weapons attack in real life. But it gets even more horrible than that when just a few weeks prior to the chapter being released, this actually happened in REAL LIFE in Syria where Bashar Assad allegedly gassed innocent civilians during the Syrian Civil War.
  • In that same vein... the chapter that depicted a young Minerva being horribly abused by her Abusive Dad (and thus served as a Freudian Excuse for her behavior all throughout the series) came out two days before Father's Day.
• Gildarts mentions thirteen women when he is trying to find out who Cana's mother is. Cana may have A LOT of half siblings...
• Marde Geer's use of "Alegria" firmly cements Cube as an Eldritch Location. But it gets so much worse when you realize it is assimilating all of Tartarus' mooks as well as Fairy Tail's mages into it, and then you notice how many skulls and skeletons make up Tartarus' HQ's architecture. Cube could be a giant necropolis, made up of literally thousands of dead humans.
• Both of Lucy's parents ended up dying relatively young (Layla at 29, Jude at 45) of illness. It starts to make one fear for Lucy, especially if the illness is possibly genetic.
  • It may only be from her dad's side due to the reveal she died from using her life force as a substitute for Aquarius' key to open up Eclipse to let the Dragon Slayers come into the future, giving her magic magic deficiency disease on top of her already frail body.
  • It's also possible Jude died simply because of the stress he had been dealing with for most of his life after Layla's death, and then Lucy's disappearance despite his faith she was OK. Taking this into account, it shows what could have happened to Lucy if she didn't have her family in Fairy Tail to help her through the hard times in her life.
• Though it's not life-threatening by any means, Lucy mentions that her rent due to her landlady was 5 880 000 Jewel upon her return from Tenrou Island, which basically amounts to 70 000 Jewel per month. She also mentions that the other Tenrou girls staying in Fairy Hills had seven years of back payment as well - now, considering that they pay 100 000 Jewel of rent per month, this grand total comes to 8 400 000 Jewel for poor Evergreen, Juvia, Levy, Wendy and Carla EACH. Now consider that Erza rents FIVE conjoined rooms here - she's got to pay 42 000 000 Jewel! What a nice return present from the clutches of time! They're damn lucky that inflation wasn't applied.
• You know how Bickslow has five dolls with which he uses to fight? Well his power is to take control of the souls of any living thing he makes eye contact with. It makes you wonder, where did those dolls' souls come from?
• The reveal that Zeref created the demons of the Books of Zeref solely because he hoped they would be able to kill him. It's likely that all of the other dark magic he left behind was created for a similar reason. Just how many of the world's problems are due to a nigh invincible immortal mage's death wish? Not to mention the fact that, in the last four hundred years, none of it worked.
  • Even worse when you think about the repercussions. Even if the demon did manage to kill him, Zeref has been living the last 400 years (give or take the last 7) as a pacifist, even though he has the power to kill anyone he wants just by BEING NEAR THEM. By creating a demon capable of killing him, he's now set a monstrous demon on the world stronger than anything we've seen before, programmed for the sole purpose of destruction and death, and it just killed the one guy who might be able to fight it on even ground.
  • This however is defied once Zeref states that, as beings created by him, the demons will die if he is killed.
• While some readers may have complained that Natsu wins too often due to the power of his feelings like Unstoppable Rage, The Reveal in chapter 416 gives a dark justification for it: Natsu was/is an Etherious, a demon of Zeref who uses a brand of magic that is fueled by feelings of anger and hatred.
• The Reveal in Fairy Tail Zero that Zeref is the one who taught Mavis the "Law" spell has some unsettling implications. If Zeref truly thought of all of humanity as his enemies, and assuming there are no other conditions needed he really could wipe out humanity at any moment of his choosing just by using "Law". The fact that he hasn't done this already means either a) the spell does have certain limitations that even he can't overcome, or b) he's biding his time for some reason. This does justify his boasting that it wouldn't even be a fight.
• In order to stop Dragon Slayers from becoming dragons themselves, their dragon mentor must hide in their bodies until it's no longer a problem. Which means Laxus and Cobra, who gained their magic via lacrima, are pretty much screwed. Though it's not yet confirmed whether this will happen to them since they aren't "true" Dragon Slayers.
  • However, it was then revealed Acnologia can actually change back into a human freely, so his dragon form may simply be an advanced level of the Dragon Force. Meaning unless the Dragon Force is what caused Acnologia to go on a murderous rampage, the other Dragon Slayers' parents have made it that much harder for Acnologia to be defeated.
  • It's recently been revealed that another ancient first-gen Dragon Slayer became a dragon: Irene Belserion, and she wasn't able to resume her human form until Zeref came along and helped her. Even then, it turns out her new "human" body is just a construct, and that she can no longer eat or even sleep the way a human should be able to. This caused her mind to snap and drove her firmly into pits of madness. She was, however, from then on able to switch between her dragon body and her human construct body at will. Whether or not this was what Acnologia also went through after his own dragonification has not yet been revealed, but it probably is.
• Compare the damage from Fairy Law and Zeref's Curse. They look almost the same. Maybe Fairy Law is a watered down version of what Zeref does. It is, Mavis gained the same curse just for using an incomplete version of it.
• The extent of immortality brought about by Ankhseram's Curse, as explained in chapter 450. Mavis tried starving herself to death. It didn't work. She begged Zeref to kill her. He informed her that he had no way of doing so, and not even decapitation could kill the cursed. One has to wonder just how he arrived at that conclusion. As a prodigiously gifted dark mage that lived for hundreds of years, he had the time and resources to try any physical and magical means he could think of. His conclusion? Nothing within human capability had any effect.
• In hindsight it's a really good thing that Zeref took the Book of E.N.D. before Gray had a chance to destroy it. If he hadn't, Gray would have ended up killing one of his closest friends.
• Going by what little we know of how dragon lacrima are implanted in the body, it's fair to say that it might involve surgery of some kind, which is likely to be pretty invasive. Hell, we don't even know where the lacrima is kept once it's in, or even how big each one is. God Serena has eight dragon lacrimas inside his body. Either he had eight separate surgeries, or they were all implanted at the same time. One also has to wonder what all that extra magic might have done to his mental stability...
• Just look at the most recent chapters; oh god lord are they full of fridge horror and possible nightmare fuel! The Alverez War arc is heading to a very dark place extremely fast; in just around fifteen or sixteen chapters, we've gone from having a large amount of Saber Tooth and Blue Pegasus Red Shirt deaths, to having the minor character Beth Vanderwood of Mermaid Heel blown up (it hasn't exactly been confirmed, but a missile went off right next to her and her guild mates were heard screaming; she hasn't been seen in any of the scenes her guild is in since), to having GAJEEL, who is a main character, dying a horrible death... at this point, almost any of the characters could die now.
  • If that wasn't bad enough, just think of the implications of what has happened so far; Laxus,the Raijin Tribe, Erza, and Ichiya have all been horribly injured or incapacitated to varying degrees; Sherria, a prodigious god slayer, has permanently lost her ability to use magic; Mavis, one of the very few people capable of formulating great war tactics successfully ,thinks that her actual death is the only thing that can end the war; and the Guild Hall (which is acting as the jail, hospital, and base) has been badly damaged. And ,just when it appears that Brandish might be able to appeal to Augusts' better side and stop the war, Mest horrifically mind-controls the poor woman and makes her attempt to stab the old man to death against her will. August declares that all members of Fairy Tail are truly consumed by darkness and evil and must be eliminated; Mest just made things worse on an far grander scale for Fairy Tail and has reduced the chances of the Fiore kingdom's guilds winning to near zero, not to mention possibly turning Brandish against them. Not a good thing to do when your side's ability to fight is rapidly decreasing.
  • Even if Fairy Tail and their allies somehow manage to beat the Spriggan Twelve and all the Mages and soldiers allied with Alverez, they will still have to beat Zeref and Acnologia. Given how the Series has been going lately, it would most likely be a death sentence for everyone. While it will most likely fall to Natsu to eliminate Zeref, he will still need back up; Many of the powerful, useful characters are in the hospital; while still able to continue on fighting, many of the others will most likely end up being killed or put out of commission, and many of the other guilds (such as Sabertooth and Blue Pegasus) have been horrifically brutalized physically and mentally, and may not be much help. Having to fight Acnologia might be even more disastrous; the seven dragon slayers were intended to stop him, but couldn't even touch seven ordinary dragons, and worse, Gajeel is dead now, so they will be one short. If that wasn't bad enough, Laxus was absolutely BRUTALIZED before he ended up unconscious in the hospital so, even if a major streak of luck allows him to recover enough to fight, he may end up being fairly useless or get killed. Things are not looking very good for Fairy Tail right now.
  • Oh, it gets worse. August is every bit as terrifyingly powerful as the hype made him out to be, and it's made clear right off the bat that Natsu, Lucy, and Mest stand no chance against him. And to make matters worse? Think, for a moment, about the only thing in the series that made Zeref have an Oh, Crap! moment; it was all the way back in the Tenroujima Arc when Acnologia first made his debut. Well, he he just had another. Irene Belserion, the only member of the Spriggan Twelve on par with, if not surpassing August, is a full-blown Reality Warper that makes Rusty Rose look like child's play. She just cast a spell that began rewriting all of Fiore's reality, effectively terraforming the entire country, and she does this while accusing Zeref of Just Toying with Them instead of taking the war seriously, meaning she's going for the kill. Zeref shits bricks as he realizes what she's doing. And the kicker? So does Acnologia. He has never seen this kind of magic before, and he's left genuinely speechless, only asking Who Are You? once she does it. And that's not even getting into the Million Mook March coming from the west that hasn't even entered the fray yet. So as bad as things have been for Fairy Tail? Alvarez is just getting warmed up.
• Gajeel's death has more or less been confirmed, but there is a major debate raging among fans over what actually happened to him, and both possibilitys are horrible
  • First: he was dragged through a portal into hell.This means that he is actually dead and trapped in the most horrible place imaginable with no way to escape, alongside the guy who put him there. Even if he was able to reverse what happened somehow, he would either still be dead and trapped in hell, or be dead and able move on to a better place in the afterlifeEither way, he is dead meat, but the other theory is much worse...
  • He was actually turned into Magic Barrier Particles and has dissolved into nothing. This is even worse than being sent to the underworld; it means he has ceased to exist. If he was in the underworld there would at least be a tiny chance of rescuing him. But, most heartbreaking of all, being completely erased would rob him of the possibility of ever reuniting Levy in the afterlife when she eventually dies. even though he has made mistakes and was once an enemy of Fairy Tail, he doesn't deserve such a horrible, unjust fate.
    • And then it turns out, he survived, thanks to Irene Belserion's magic.
• Bradman's defeat is made less awesome once you recall that reviving an Etherious isn't impossible with the proper facilities. Unless Zeref decides not to revive Bradman, this might not be the end of him.
• Eileen's universe one spell is downright horrifying when you get into everything it did and all the possibilities it opens up. Oh yeah, the woman CREATED AND PERFECTED IT ON HER OWN. The spell flat out REMADE THE FRIGGIN' UNIVERSE!
  • Fairy Tail; which, while it wasn't perfect, had a strategy planned out-it is now useless as everyone has been teleported out of the guild and right into the path of the now collected Alverez forces. They are now split up, and have lost their territorial advantage; Even Warren's high-tech scanners and analysis devices are now totally useless.
  • Natsu, Lucy, and Happy have ended up on the other side of the new country and can't find Mest. Brandish and an injured August have been flung into the mountains. Eileen has randomly showed up in the royal palace on the king's throne. Worse, the royal palace and it's inhabitant's are now next to the now-undamaged Cardia cathedral- on the front lines; unprepared warriors and noncombatants have just been hurled into the midst of the war. Fairy Tail evacuated the town purposely to avoid the problem this could cause.
  • It gets worse when you think about who ISN'T there; what happened to Fairy Tail's allies? And The Rajin tribe, Laxus, Erza, and Ichiya, who were all horribly injured and/or unconscious in the infirmary? And all the Sprigan members who were captured or taken out of battle, but not killed?
  • Perhaps most horrifying is the fact that Gajeel and Zera (Who has been dead for over 130 years!)are now alive. That's right, EILEEN CAN BRING BACK THE DEAD! While Gajeel and Zera coming back is obviously a very good thing, just remember; Bradman, God Serena, and a few other Sprigan members and lackeys were also killed...this ,and the fact that a 130 year old dead child came back, leads to the disturbing fact that this could possibly mean the rebirth of long dead enemies.(although, it could also potentially bring back dead allies and family members of the guild members)
• Bradman entire existence is a pretty terrifying display of just how powerful Zeref is. As a Etherous he has all the power of the former guild which consisted of his kind and even wealds all their powers. Bradman is arguably The Most versatile fighter ever introduced in the series. he was also the first to ever kill a major members of fairy tail even if by his own death and only temperoraly and Zeref could potentially have more like him up his sleeve considering he is a etherous But most horrying is the fact that there is no telling what else Zeref may have at his disposal considering Bradman was made only in the last year and the longer etheorus take to create the stronger they are so there is no telling what kind of abilities other older and more powerful versions of Bradman's kind Zeref may have created.
  • to the compound the horror of right above the Spriggan twelve are referred to as the shields of Spriggans, just shields not swords. Does that name just mean they are the emperors body guard or does that name imply that Zeref may have even more lethal warriors up his sleeve?
• Way back in the Tower of Heaven arc, Erza had a vision of her own funeral. This would have happened if Natsu had not arrived in time to save her. Consider how often Erza has been instrumental to victory for Fairy Tail and the series could have been much shorter if Erza had kicked the bucket at that point in time.
• We know that Zeref and Mavis’ first kiss resulted in a Kiss of Death for Mavis. We also know that August is their biological child that lived on in Mavis’ body despite her death. So how was he conceived if Mavis was neither alive nor conscious after her and Zeref’s first kiss? Makes you wonder what Zeref did before returning her body to Fairy Tail…

Fridge Logic

• In the Tartarus arc, Kyouka comments on Silver showing up in his 'human form' during the prologue. While this is actually some rather major foreshadowing, it almost seems strange in hindsight, considering he most likely doesn't even have one, considering he's not a demon, but is actually closer to a zombie. You'd think Kyouka, of all people, would know that.
  • There is no reason he can't have one. Doriate had one despite having originally been human. We just never got to see his, if he did have one.
• Igneel being inside of Natsu suddenly raises all kinds of questions. Seeing as how it took freaking Acnologia to show up to finally get Igneel to get up off his dragon butt to go save Natsu (and by extension, probably himself) is bad enough as it is, and granted, we'll probably get more explanation later. What makes this really egregious, however, is that this is hardly the first time Natsu's life has been in danger. For one thing, there was Acnologia showing up once before and nearly killing Natsu, but there was also Zero, Hades, Zancrow, Future Rogue, Franmalth, take your pick, all of which came dangerously close to killing Natsu. Where was he during all of that if he could have come out at any time?
  • No clue about the other examples, but he did speak to Natsu during his battle with Zero.
  • He was most likely hedging his bets on Mavis.
  • Hardly fridge when Natsu is furiously demanding answers in-universe.
  • Explained in Chapter 414 where he states that he and the other dragons were making magical antibodies to prevent the Dragonslayers from turning into dragons like Acnologia.
  • Then Chapter 415 revealed all 5 Dragons were living on borrowed time, and if they left their children they'd be unable to go back to keep themselves alive longer.
• Why is Zeref afraid of Acnologia if he actually wants to die? Shouldn't he be glad that Acnologia is hunting him down?
  • Because Acnologia doesn't want to kill Zeref. Maybe he just wants to capture Zeref and keep him alive for, like, eternity. Also, that might be the reason Acnologia wants to destroy the E.N.D Book, as E.N.D is one of the few things that can kill Zeref...
  • My theory is that Acnologia, when he was human, was/is the Dragon Slayer of death/destruction, hence the reason it kills everything around it; by feeding off of death, itbecomes more powerful. Since Zeref can literally kill anything without even thinking about it, maybe Acnologia doesn't want to kill him... it wants to EAT HIM. By eating an almost literal personification of death, it could become strong enough to kill anything, which Zeref most likely wouldn't want to happen.
  • In the Albareth Empire arc, it's shown that it could be more simple than that. Zeref doesn't want to leave behind the one thing in the world he sees as being worse than himself, and seems to want to kill Acnologia before he dies, seeing as how Zeref is probably the one person left in all of Earth Land who could fight Acnologia on even grounds.
  • Definitively answered in Chapter 532. Zeref doesn't fear Acnologia because he thinks Acnologia can kill him. He fears Acnologia because he knows Acnologia can't kill him, or Mavis for that matter, but nor can they defeat him. What keeps Zeref up at night is the thought of him and Mavis spending an eternity as Acnologia's immortal chew toys after Acnologia destroys everything else.
• A lot of people wonder how was Natsu was able to defeat Sting and Rouge all by himself, even though they were both using Dragon Force. If you look it logically, using Dragon Force essentially turns the user into a humanoid dragon. While this may seem like a good idea when fighting pretty much anyone else, fighting DRAGON SLAYERS in this form might have not been the best idea those two came up with.
• Zeref was cursed by Ankhseram as punishment for trying to bring his brother Natsu back from the dead. Chapter 451 reveals that Precht/Master Hades spent thirty years trying to restore Mavis back to life, yet Precht/Master Hades somehow did not incur Ankhseram's wrath and managed to remain uncursed for his attempts.
  • Maybe Ankhseram is omniscient, and knew Precht would ultimately fail in his attempts, and thus didn't even bother to punish him?
    • Or maybe, due to the curse, Mavis was Only Mostly Dead, so restoring her life wouldn't be a true resurrection like what Zeref aiming for. It is called the Curse of Contradiction and being both dead and alive would be a contradiction and fit the Curse's nature.
• What would happen to Eileen if she decided to enchant herself into baby Erza? Babies are developmentally unable to move bipedal, their digestive system can't process anything but milk for the first 4-6 months ... Even if she managed to overcome these things, how would she get food without contacting humans, who would surely freak out at a sight of a walking newborn baby? Unless she did that in front of the orphanage to pretend the mother (her body) died carrying the child, I guess she would just starve to death in the arms of her old rotting body...
• The Edolas counterparts for the Dragon Slayers make no sense. The Dragon Slayers in Earthland were born four hundred years in the past and were only brought to present day by magic, yet their counterparts are still around in Edolas's present day when they should be long dead. It's shown in the sequel series that the same amount of time passes in Earthland as it does in Edolas, so there's no magical timeline trickery going on. What gives?
  • Considering Edolas isn't exactly 1:1 for equivalents and that Dragons and thus Dragon Slayers don't exist there, they're likely identical descendants of the Natsu, Gajeel and Wendy of 400 years ago. That or the Edolas counterparts were born in the present.
• The simple fact that Wendy was four when Grandeeney went missing makes her backstory as Grandeeney’s ward sound pretty implausible. It seems really, really unlikely that Grandeeney was able to teach Wendy any serious type of Dragon Slayer magic before she disappeared, as four-year-old bodies are small and can’t withstand the power of dragon-destroying magic. There’s also the fact that Grandeeney was only training her for two years at most, as it’s doubtful a dragon could take care of an infant. Unless she engraved it all on Wendy’s bones or something, the most Wendy should be able to do is basic healing spells, not the sweeping magical array that she currently displays.
  • Not only that, but four-year-olds aren’t exactly known for their photographic memories. There are plenty of people who have zero memory of friends and family they saw often when they were that age, so it seems unlikely that Wendy not only remembers Grandeeney but actually considers her her surrogate mother. She spent more time with Cait Shelter than she did with Grandeeney (she was with Cait Shelter eight years, while she was with Grandeeney three or less), yet it’s Grandeeney who seems to take more precedence in her life.
    • Technically, this also applies to Sting and Rogue, as they were the same age as Wendy when their dragons disappeared (the only reason they're adults when she's not is the seven-year Time Skip that kept Wendy and the rest of the Tenrou Island group from aging. Although it's not as much of a stretch that they enhanced the abilities they had with their Dragon Force lacrimas.