Headscratchers / Fire Emblem

These games have their own subpages:

• Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon & the Blade of Light
• Fire Emblem Gaiden
• Fire Emblem: Mystery of the Emblem
• Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War
• Fire Emblem: Thracia 776
• Fire Emblem: The Binding Blade
• Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade
• Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones
• Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance
• Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn
• Fire Emblem: Awakening
• Fire Emblem Fates
• Fire Emblem Heroes
• Fire Emblem: Three Houses
• Fire Emblem Warriors
• Fire Emblem Engage

Series-wide

So long and thanks for all the loyalty!

• A pegasus knight can branch upgrade into either a Falcoknight or a Dragon Knight (the Pierce guy). Then if you choose the Wyvern option, does the character ditch her trusty pegasus that has been travelling with her forever, just in favor of a stronger pet?
  • You might as well ask why the characters replace their iron swords with steel and silver ones when the chance arises. A mount is a tool of war, not a pet.
  • There's also this question: when Pegasus Knights promote to Falcoknights, they suddenly get a horn. Where does that come from? Also, even if they become Wyvern Knights, their riders still refer to their steeds as pegasi, as do anyone else. Which brings up two theories: either they don't actually become wyverns and the title is simply a reference to their general new set of skills, or, for a much wilder guess, Pegasi can evolve, Pokemon-style.
    • The horn is very, VERY simple. You'll notice that the horn is simply sticking out from the armor the pegasi is mounted with. That could bring us to the conclusion that the horn is decorative, and is mounted on the armor. As far as the Wyvern issue is concerned, that's just Gameplay and Story Segregation. And, considering that this is Fire Emblem, the Ruleof Fun comes into play.
  • The odd part about this is that pegasus—>wyvern knights knights still act as if they have a pegasus in their support conversations. Vanessa will still talk about her Pegasus with Lute for example, even though she's clearly riding a Wyvern. Gameplay and Story Segregation indeed...
  • It's even more confusing in Awakening, as some of the mounts actually have names, meaning that they never change to a new mount. So Chercha will still refer to her beloved wyvern Minerva... Even though she could be riding a griffin.
    • It is possible that Cherche simply raises a Griffon for purposes of battle but still keeps Minerva around, both as a pet and comrade and in the event that she decides to re-class back to a Wyvern-riding class.
  • In New Mystery (FE12), Minerva explains to Catria in a support conversation that she once rode a pegasus, and released it in the wild when she switched to a wyvern. No surprise if the other peg knights did the same thing.
  • They still keep them around, they just don't get them involved in combat anymore.

Staves; not for the selfish at heart

• Stave wielders can't cast spells on themselves. Why not? Is it some weird law of the church "no casting of spells upon the self for easy EXP"? It makes no sense, especially when stave-wielders would benefit the most from casting spells on themselves, because their injuries are often more serious than others.
  • It'd be kind of hard to wave a magical staff at yourself in the proper fashion.
  • Odds are, they can, but it makes them go blind.
  • They technically can do that in Radiant Dawn.
  • Some fans' headcanon is that trying this causes a feedback loop that blows your arm off.
  • Interestingly, Engage does allow this as a skill exclusive to the High Priest class, heavily suggesting that targeting yourself with the staff is something that requires specialised mastery.

Good is not good?

• Why is it that clearly evil characters, such as Riev and Lekain, can use light magic? It specifically says in the item description that it can only be wielded by someone dedicated to serve good.
  • It's probably just an oath they took when they entered the clergy...and then broke. A magic tome doesn't know the difference.
    • Maybe it worked for Lekain because he THOUGHT he was a divine force.
    • Riev could probably use Light magic because he was maintaining his faith by worshiping the Demon King.
    • When thinking about this problem, you should remember that Lekain seemed to believe himself to be near divine, as already stated. He's working with a goddess, remember, and he believes he is doing ultimate good, so Light magic makes sense. Also, the Begnion government seems to be deeply rooted in religion, so that may have something to do with it.
    • Or it was simply a case of Light Is Not Good.
  • Also consider the fact that one character, Valtome, uses corrupted light magic.
  • In part 4, it might be explainable (having one half of Ashunera working with you might be good enough), but presumably they were using light magic before that point.
  • Kenneth (Blazing Sword) is called out on this. He doesn't really answer the question, outside of saying that the Gods are a lie. In The Sacred Stones, Knoll mentions that Dark Magic users don't get along with Light Magic users because Dark is all about understanding and knowing, while Light Magic users gain their power from faith in the unknown. It is probable that all you need is the strength of will to use Light Magic, which seems to come the easiest from faith in a higher power. Also explains all those monks and bishops you kill in the enemy armies. They probably believe they're doing right.
  • Lekain is easy enough to explain—while people in-universe view Ashera as a good deity in practice she's the Goddess of Order, not morality. Lekain is Lawful Evil personified. He should have no issues getting her to let his magic work.

Tactical Counter Intuitive Non-Action

• Speaking of the support system being dumb. The game is supposed to be about "tactics", defined (per FE7 player rankings) as "finishing maps in the fewest possible turns (without screwing yourself over for later maps, of course)". Yet practically every cool extra thing you can get in the game - e.g. extra music, supports (and the corresponding bonuses) - effectively requires you to do the exact opposite. Sure, some of the gaidens require you to finish a map in a certain number of turns - but then others requires you to waste several dozen turns in Lyn's story just so Nils can level up.
  • It is very annoying that you are rewarded with in-game content (supports and extra chapters), bonuses (from supports and items found in gaiden chapters), levels, and so on if you disregard dramatic necessity and do nothing but stand around with your units next to each other for dozens of turns, while maybe sending a few guys to abuse the arena and having your bard/dancer/whatever give extra movement one per turn. The game makers should probably lower the turn requirements for supports, put some limit on the arena (I dunno, have the receptionist say "You killed all of our dudes so the Arena isn't open anymore" or something after the first 5 victories), remove retarded requirements that take forever to unlock the gaiden chapters, and implement a reasonable turn limit you have to finish the chapter before or else you lose.

What, you wanted XP for that?

• Why is it that Thieves don't have any way to gain experience outside of battle? Battle isn't what they're built for; picking pockets and opening locks is. You'd think they'd get some XP for emptying chests or stealing from enemies, but...
  • They did get XP for stealing (it was only 1 game though). It would be nice if they got some from locks though.
  • They do get experience from stealing (most if not all games). They probably don't get EXP from unlocking chests or doors because it doesn't require their skills or stats at all, whereas stealing requires the thief to be faster than the target, and, for some games, strong enough to filch the item in question.

There isn't that much!

• What's up with saying Fire Emblem is obsessed with incest? The only ones that give very strong vibes are Raven/Priscilla and Eirika/Ephraim. All other FE sibs (Marth/Elice, Minerva/Michalis, Tethys/Ewan, Tana/Innes, Ike/Mist, Reyson/Leanne, Makalov/Marcia, etc.) have pretty normal sibling relationships. Okay, maybe Klein/Clarice skirted a bit close to it, but not enough to turn too many heads.
  • While it's true that Fire Emblem has its share of platonic sibling relationships (all of the ones listed there, except, of course, the exceptions), the majority of them are probably forgotten at large because of the...uh...more questionable brother-sister relationships in the franchise. Even without the already mentioned suspect pairs, that's not even going into Genealogy of the Holy War, which has incestuous relationships/overtones in spades. Let's see... Claude and Sylvia are not only strongly hinted at being siblings in the game, but are a predestined pair and can have children in the next generation; Lachesis and her brother Eltshan basically have a magnified version of Klein and Clarine's relationship, and then there's half-siblings Diadora and Alvis, or Celice and Julia. Siblings aside, this is barely even bringing up the other couples that can occur in the game... Anyway, Fire Emblem is pretty good at giving incest options to the player, whether intentionally or not. (Roy and Lilina, anyone? It was amusing to find that you could, in fact, make 'em cousins in the prequel.)
  • How would Roy and Lilina be cousins? Eliwood and Hector don't become brothers just because you get them to A support. They become close friends.
    • They become cousins if you pair Eliwood with Fiora and Hector with Florina or Farina.
    • Um, no, that makes them in-laws, not cousins.
    • No, it makes them cousins. Remember? Fiora, Florina, and Farina are all sisters.
    • Still one would get the impression that Intelligent Systems isn't even capable of writing a non-incestuous relationship with some of the things people say about the series. Even on this very Wiki there's an entry that suggested Mist had these kinds of feelings for Ike. Seriously? Seisen aside (for being a game where the big bad HAD to use amnesia and marry half-siblings for the plot) it's really just Priscilla and Raven, Ephraim and Erika.
    • Some people think that this is why combinations like Ike/Mist can't have normal supports in PoR, so IS could minimize the incest implications for once.
    • You have to have some respect for IS after they managed to make two of the potential pairings in the second half of FE4 simultaneously half-sibling marriages and cousin marriages. This was done by making the mothers identical twins. They're even predestined.
    • Wait, Ephraim and Eirika? What the hell? There's no support for that in the game. That one's down to players with perverted, twisted, and wrong imaginations...
    • It's not explicitly spelled out, but if you read their supports there seems to be a lot of Sub Text. And then there is that Eirika/Innes conversation that mentions Ephraim... "With a man like him around, I can see why you show no interest in suitors." How much more implied can it be?
    • Seriously, dude.
      Ephraim: Eirika...
      Eirika: Wait, don't... What are you—?
      Ephraim: You looked a little upset... I thought I would stroke your face like I used to...
      Eirika: Please stop it. You're treating me like a child...
      Ephraim: Oh, I'm sorry. It's just an old habit... Besides, you were always the one who pestered me to do it when we were little. Don't you remember?
      Eirika: N-no, I don't remember! That was such a long time ago... Ahh... Dear brother, please try to remember where we are right now. What would our companions say if they saw us in such a personal moment?
      Ephraim: Yes, that would be embarrassing... Forgive me, I did not mean to do anything you would find unpleasant.
      Eirika: N-no... I didn't mean that... It's just—
      Ephraim: So, you really do want me to stroke your face?
    • And there are many, many more. The creepiness level is off the charts.
    • In addition to the previous examples, which are the most blatant, there's Sothe and Micaiah (not related, but the siblinghood was hammered into the player for a reason) in Radiant Dawn. FE6 seems to be more or less clean, although there's an odd exchange where Narshen says to Clarine "I will play with you instead of your brother..." when clearly about to rape her, and Clarine laughs at the idea not of being raped, but of Narshen being able to stand up to her brother's handsomeness.
  • Culture has become so oversexed that most people are incapable of telling the difference between genuine sexual subtext and something totally innocent. Look at the way people reacted to Frodo and Sam's relationship in the Peter Jackson LotR movies. Everyone was running around declaring them secret gay lovers based solely on the fact that A) they hugged, B) they cried, and C) they *gasp* had the temerity to openly display their emotions. In JRR Tolkien's day this would've been seen as nothing more than an expression of the childlike innocence that Hobbits naturally possess. But today it's "frodo n sam r havin TEH BUTTSECKS OMGLOLROFLMAO!!1!" Or just look at some of the comments above. "And then there is that Eirika/Innes conversation that mentions Ephraim... 'With a man like him around, I can see why you show no interest in suitors.' How much more implied can it be?" A lot more, actually. You could very easily explain that sentence by positing that Ephraim is very protective of his sister and scares off men who try to court her, just like many real-life brothers do. But because our culture has sex constantly on the brain, people immediately jump to the conclusion that Eirika and Ephraim must be doinking each other.
    • That same logic could probably also apply to the Raven/Lucius and Ike/Soren interactions.
    • It's true that people are obsessed with sexual tension to the point of it getting annoying when they try to insert it into everything ("ZOMG THEY STOOD NEXT TO EACH OTHER AND SHE SAID HIS NAME THEY'RE GONNA DO IT!!!"). But just because some people are fanatic about it doesn't mean it simply cannot exist anywhere and that seeing it at all makes people "sickos". In the Japanese Ephraim and Eirika double ending, it's stated that the former never marries, so naturally it's going to raise suspicion among the fans.
    • Except that only serves to illustrate the point. "Eirika remains unmarried? Well golly-gee-willickers! She MUST be doin' it with her brother! There's no other possible explanation!" Seriously, not every little thing qualifies as sexual subtext.
    • Former. Ephraim. The prince/king of Renais. What would be more suspicious, the prince not getting married or the princess?
    • Just because one person doesn't see it or find it disgusting doesn't mean it's 100% completely impossible and anyone who sees it is a pervert with shipping goggles perma-glued to their face.
    • It does when they're making assumptions based on no evidence. The intent was simply to answer the OP's question: Why do people see sexual subtext in every brother-sister pairing in the FE series? Because that's what modern culture has conditioned people to do. We've become so oversexed that we interpret every expression of affection as Perverse Sexual Lust. There's no denying that genuine subtext can be present in a work of fiction. Nor was this meant to suggest that every single claim of sexual subtext is conjured from nothing by nasty perverts. It's just that people jump to ridiculous conclusions based on completely innocent scenes. As said above, the simple fact that Eirika didn't get married in one of the many possible endings somehow makes people "suspicious" that she's having sex with her brother. That is not a rational assumption based on logical reasoning. That is a ridiculous assumption based on "nonsensical'' reasoning. The only person who would see sexual subtext there is someone who, in your words, "is a pervert with shipping goggles perma-glued to their face".
    • Fine, so maybe some people are perverts whose shipping goggles are on too tight. But answer this: What gives another person the authority to say "that's wrong" and try to shame people for it? Because that's kinda what it sounds like you're doing. It's not anyone's job to play the Morals Police in the Fire Emblem fandom.
    • The intention wasn't to play Morals Police on anyone. I mean, I'm not gonna lie and say I approve of incest fetishism, but I'm not trying to flagellate people who are incest fetishists (although those people do squick me out). For that matter, I'm not even really saying incest shippers are categorically wrong. All I am saying is that, 9 times out of 10, FE incest shippers are jumping to unsupported conclusions. Ephraim and Eirika may or may not have an incestuous relationship. But incest shippers are constantly seeing sexual innuendos in dialogue that, when viewed objectively, is perfectly innocent. I will admit the possibility that Eirika and Ephraim might have or have had in the past an incestuous relationship. What I have a problem with is when people declare that they MUST be having incestuous sex based purely on the fact that Ephraim once stroked Eirika's cheek and Eirika canonically never got married. The former is indicative only of the fact that FE draws heavily on Medieval European culture, which did NOT consider such displays of affection between siblings suggestive in any way. And the latter is indicative of nothing at all. If an incest shipper produces some official game art of two sibling characters making out with each other, a Word of God statement from Intelligent Systems confirming the existence of Brother–Sister Incest, an explicitly sexual and/or romantic exchange of dialogue between two sibling characters, or some other form of proof to back up their Brother–Sister Incest theories, I am more than willing to acknowledge that proof and say "Well, I guess you were right all along. Good eye." But so far all I've seen (and I admit I have not played every FE game so there may be some brother-sister dialogue that is more explicit that I haven't seen) is a bunch of people jumping to wild, unsubstantiated conclusions and seeing innuendoes where they don't exist.
      And, returning to my original point, I submit that the reason for this phenomenon is because our culture has become so radically oversexed. Things that would have been considered perfectly innocent to previous generations are considered sexually suggestive today because modern culture has sex on the brain. And for the record, I'm not saying this is automatically a bad thing. It CAN be a bad thing when it causes people to see sexual subtext where it doesn't exist. But it also allows us to see certain subtleties in works of fiction that would have otherwise gone unnoticed. (Although as a culture we could probably stand to be a little less obsessed with sex.) Hell, I myself am not immune. More than once I've found myself raising an eyebrow at some of the dialogue exchanged between certain FE siblings and instinctually jumped to some rather squicky conclusions. And when I watched Return of the King even I couldn't help but "see" the same homoerotic undertones in the relationship between Frodo and Sam that everyone else "saw". The difference, however, is that I am capable of looking past those cultural biases when necessary and seeing things objectively, which is something that too many shippers seem incapable of doing.
    • Going by that logic means that no pairing in most the games is plausible to you because they are all open. FE 6 has many pairings that aren't necessarily canon, you just know that they could have ended up either or, and it works. This is Fire Emblem, the reason they leave so many not stated is because they want you to interpret it. You are just pushing your own dogma on everyone. Acting like just because people are creating a pairing that you don't see makes them a pervert just means that you are being shallow and close minded, something you can't expect to be on a site like this. Even subtext such as the Sieglinde and Siegmund thing can be a big point for most people. You yourself are trying to play Word of God to everyone with a different opinion than you.
    • Woah, calm down you two. I can see valid point in both of the statements you are making (I think there is a tendency in modern culture to create unintended subtext, but at the same time that doesn't mean subtext wasn't necessarily there), but I would like to point something out that neither one of you seemed to mention. In my opinion, subtext of Brother–Sister Incest doesn't always mean that there is an actual physical relationship. Perhaps the two are in love with each other (note: by this I mean romantic love, not sibling love), but never acted on it because of the taboos associated with it. If you look at it this way, Eirika never getting married could provide evidence that they were in love with each other. That said, it doesn't mean that this is the case either. It's just evidence that could be seen that way if looked at from a certain perspective. Please don't hit me...
    • As a (presumably very late) newcomer to this particular discussion, there are a couple things I'd like to point out:
    1. While individual lines don't prove anything in and of themselves, a sufficient number of lines can be enough to make people suspicious. Enough circumstantial evidence can paint a very telling picture, after all, even if it can't actually confirm what it seems to imply. This seems to be the case for the Ephraim/Eirika one in particular, where the reputation is mainly based on having a suspicious number of probably-innocent scenes that come off to players as being deeper than they appear.
    2. At this point, it's something of a meme, and is said in jest as often as it's claimed seriously.
  • On the main topic: While people exaggerate saying the series is chokefull of incest, it still has certainly more than most JRPGs. That + Never Live It Down = This.
    • Specifically, FE4. In addition to the previously mentioned stuff that can be done with the lovers system, the plot literally centered around a shadowy conspiracy to have the Lopto blooded siblings have a kid.

Because what does defense do anyway?

• The goddamned Arena and how it deals with high Defense units. When a character fights in the Arena, if their Def is above a certain level, the game starts giving your opponents silver weapons to compensate. This sounds reasonable...until you realise that units with a high defense paradoxically end up taking more damage than units with low defense simply because silver weapons are so much more powerful than iron ones. This effectively defeats the entire purpose of having a high Defense and turns it into a disadvantage, meaning that characters who rely on their Def, such as knights, are nigh-impossible to train.
  • Also, the enemies have iron or silver weapons, but never steel. Oh, and they can have HP above the cap of 60 that's otherwise honoured by everyone except really special bosses. Even above the display limit of 80.

What's a JRPG?

• Why do people continually put Fire Emblem examples under JRPG? Last time I checked, the series is strategy.
  • "RPG" is an extremely vague term and nobody has any idea what it really means, so pretty much any game in which stuff "levels up" is classified as an RPG. Except sometimes.
  • JRPG have certain gameplay mechanics and story conventions which members of the genera share; things like having a fantasy setting and using statistics for combat combined with a leveling system which fills up as you earn experience. Fire Emblem is a tactics/JRPG hybrid, using a relatively simple combat system without a lot of customization which makes up for it in the complexity department by allowing your "party" members to move around during combat and make use of terrain. In regular strategy/tactical games, your units are usually interchangeable (except the leader), but in Fire Emblem each unit is unique both statistically and plot-wise.
    • And it's linear, which tends to mean "Eastern", while "Western RPGs" are more sandbox-style.

Pegasi and Dragons are the same, right?

• Similar classes (Thieves and Assassins, Pegasus Knights and Dracoknights) being compared to each other - and being linked by promotion - in ways that's not really fair.
  • Shadow Dragon having the default promotion for Pegasus Knights be Dracoknights doesn't really make sense, as the classes were made to do separate things - the former are less powerful and more fragile but faster and more magically inclined with their high Res (perfect for removing enemy mages), but the latter are made more for strength and physical defense. Even their weapon choices reflect this, with Falcoknights gaining swords and Dracoknights (usually) getting axes.
    • They mainly did that in Shadow Dragon because that's how it was done in the first and third games. Many classes didn't really start getting their standard roles until later in the series.
  • Thieves have been becoming Assassins for a while now, but it doesn't make any more sense. Thieves are meant to steal things, with just enough combat ability to avoid dying. Assassins exist to kill people. Not seeing enough connection.
    • It's a D&D thing, based on the rather flimsy logic that since assassins use knives and thieves use knives, and since both require a certain amount of dexterity to do their jobs, they must be related. That said, it is a pretty silly class tree, but it's there to give thieves an oomph in combat—otherwise they'd just be wasting a valuable party slot while you glared at them and wished that you'd saved more door and chest keys. How useful were the thieves by the end of FE6?
    • Well, both assassins and thieves are the fast, sneaky types who hide in the shadows waiting for an opportunity to get to their target (loot in the latter case, people in the later one). Plus, an assassin who had been a thief could use their skills to unlock doors and so on to infiltrate the house of their target... yeah, it's weak, but it's something.
    • In the Jugdral games, Thieves promoted to "Thief Fighters". Who knows why they forgot about that and went with Assassins (Maybe they thought "Thief Fighter" sounded silly?)
    • In Radiant Dawn, thieves become rogues, which implies an all around trouble maker (thievery and violence) and rogues to whispers, which implies, uh, being quiet? Thief to rogue is better at least.
    • Thieves can become Rogues in Sacred Stones too.
    • Whisper was an invention of the localization. And a pretty bizarre one at that given it's more commonly a verb. In the original Japanese the third tier thief class was the French word for spy. And spy really is the perfect name for a promoted thief, as that is the ultimate evolution of what a thief is meant to be in a military context. Stealing intelligence is much more valuable than loot.

Bendy metal

• HOW CAN A BOW MADE OUT OF METAL POSSIBLY BE FUNCTIONAL. IT CAN'T, INTELLIGENT SYSTEMS. IT CAN'T.
  • Yes they can. You need a crank to pull them, though.
  • Metal arrows.
    • For a bow to work, it has to snap back to its original shape. Most metal either couldn't bend at all or wouldn't snap back.
    • Yes they would. Their draw weight would be insane, though, which is why Arbalests are the only bow that's actually made out of metal.
    • Definitely metal arrows. Why they are associated with a particular bow is a bit more of a mystery. Can anyone think of an explanation that doesn't involve Gameplay and Story Segregation? Maybe the arrows are of different weights and shapes depending on their metal of construction and therefore require different bows to be able to shoot them well. For bows their number of uses might be related to the number of arrows they have left... they are probably just calling a pack of 45 iron arrows an "iron bow," although why they do that is a mystery.
  • Here's one line of reasoning: the colors of the weapons during battle aside, the name refers to how advanced the weapon is. Bronze age, iron age, steel age, silver age; it indicates the level of sophistication required to create the weapon, which is why the damage increases and durability decreases.
  • Okay, here's another idea. Maybe the weapon classes aren't meant as literal descriptions, but rather are meant to represent the "rank" of the weapon. So a shitty sword gets called an "iron sword" while a much more refined and precise but also more delicate sword gets called a "silver sword." They get those names because the metals associated with them increase in value; silver is more expensive than steel, which is more expensive than iron. So the most expensive one gets called the silver weapon and the cheapest one gets called the iron weapon, regardless of the material they are made of.
  • Well, in a world where swordmasters can defy gravity, why is it so unbelievable that you can actually make bows out of silver? Maybe the thing they call silver isn't even the same silver as in our world.
    • Maybe the bows are magic.
    • Maybe the metal part is referring to what the arrows are tipped with, and the durability has to do with expense. Iron is cheap, so they can give you a parcel of 45, but silver's expensive so they have to divide those arrows into smaller parcels, so they can sell the same amount of them as iron-tipped arrows.
    • It may also be worth noting that metal can have some "memory" and act as a spring, and that the bows may be reinforced with a metal flat spring that after however many uses, depending on the metal, of course, can no longer snap back enough to use adequately and may well be in no shape to simply have parts fixed by then. This would (probably) also explain why bows cost as much as they do. It also explains why the long bows in games that don't have "[insert metal here] longbows" are less powerful as the metal spring would provide a much higher draw, but also make it too hard to hold the string back long enough to reasonably use at the ranges the longbow is.

Wyverns or Dragons?

• The existence of wyvern bugs me. Are they somehow related to dragons? I mean, I could accept wyvern being just some kind of giant winged reptile that can be found and tamed in the wilderness and no relation with dragons whatsoever, but there's the fact that wyvern knights are sometimes called Dracoknights...
  • Don't anti-dragon weapons also cleave the shit out of wyverns? Assuming the weapons get their power from magic as opposed to being physically designed to fight tough scaly large lizard things, that probably implies they are related. I've also read the name of wyvern riders and wyvern lords translated as "dragon knight" and "dragon lord"... it's probably more of a nickname than a literal description of their mounts. I mean, real life mounted infantry got the name dragoon/dragon because of their weapons, after all.
  • The Artifact and translation issues. Akaneia "wyvern" riders rode fire dragons that degenerated when they didn't seal their powers in the dragon stones. Dragon Riders are called Wyvern Riders in the English version to avoid confusion with the dragons of The Scouring.
    • It's a bit complicated, so this is going to be a bit ramble-y. OK, so in Dark Dragon we have Dragon Knights. However, if you pay attention, you'll notice that they are not flying the same type of dragons as the Manaketes turn into. Mystery of the Emblem specified this subrace of dragons as "Flying Dragons", which New Mystery (years later, after the rest of this) renamed Wyverns. Which is correct, because they matched mythical wyverns, appearance wise. However, when Genealogy of the Holy War came by, Dragon Knights now flew more "generic" dragon mounts, while the "wyverns" (still called dragons at this point) were only used by the weak, enemy only (until Thracia 776) Dragon Rider class. When Blazing Sword came around, the translators decided to translate the "dragon mounts" into "wyvern mounts", as mentioned above. Then The Sacred Stones introduced Wyvern Knights, which flew actual wyverns, something that probably flew over most people's heads, since Dragon Knight/Dragon Master was still translated as Wyvern Rider/Wyvern Lord. Then Shadow Dragon/New Mystery came around, and had the Dragon Knight class fly the generic dragon mounts instead of the wyverns. But they kept the Flying Dragons/Wyverns looking the same in New Mystery anyway...

Horseriderslayer doesn't sound as cool

• Just a little thing on weapons. Horseslayer spears, Exactly What It Says on the Tin, are designed (presumably) to slay horses. How does the person riding the horse die? It makes a bit more sense with Pegasi or Wyverns, as most of the time, they're in the air, and killing it would be fatal for the rider, but yeah, I'm bugged.
  • The rider is impaled along with the horse on the Horseslayer when he charges full force at the lancer? Have you seen how those look in the 3D-Games? They're friggin' huge. Or maybe the spear just kills the horse and the rider in the process breaks his neck when falling off the mount or something.
    • Speaking of how weapons look, what the hell is up with the supposed "stiletto?"
  • Horseslayers aren't Exactly What It Says on the Tin. They're called that because they've been specialized for use against cavalry units, hence the length.
• Awakening's Beastslayers outright state that they are effective against mounts and their riders.
• Apparently Intelligent Systems and/or Nintendo of America took note of this, as more recent Fire Emblem games refer to the anti-cavalry spear as the "Ridersbane" instead.
• It's not that hard to imagine the "horseslayer" applying to both the horse AND the rider. Anti-cavalry weapons are a thing in real life. Horse-riding is already risky (check out all the hospital visits for "injuries from falling off a horse"), and mounted combat was notoriously dangerous. As noted above, a spear designed to kill a cavalry horse will make you, as the rider, fall off your horse, most likely at speed. Alternately, your dying horse might fall ON YOU and end up breaking one of your legs. In a war-zone. The horseslayer wouldn't always kill a rider directly, but after getting unhorsed and suffering a concussion or a broken limb, in a warzone? The rider will die REALLY SOON without a rescuer and a lot of healing magic.

Wait, that's not how it goes

• The class progression of the axe-wielding classes bugs me a lot. So you start off with a Pirate, which for some reason wields dual axes. Now I suppose that this could reference the boarding axe, never mind that two of them makes it pretty hard to actually board any ship, but after promotion the pirate becomes a Berserker, a specialty warrior whose purpose was to kill the enemy before him, and which would have been worthless in actually looting treasure. So naturally the brigand, a pirate of the land, can also promote into this class that lacks the mental stability to do proper raiding. Now meanwhile you have the Fighter, which promotes into the Warrior. No problem there, except that when a warrior grows strong enough he becomes... a Reaver, which implies a more professional bandit which specializes in pillaging quickly. What kind of bizarre logic is being followed, here?
  • The Japanese name of Reavers is "Axe-Brave", which is a rather engrishy way to refer to an "Axe Hero" (As in, the Hero class), probably as a Continuity Nod to Thracia 776 having Axe Fighters promoting to Heroes. Speaking of, the Japanese version called Micaiah's final class "Shaman" (a nod to the Genealogy of Holy War light magic using class being called that) and Trueblade was "Sword Saint" (a nod to Sword of Seals and The Blazing Blade calling Karel the "Sword Saint".) Now, I can see why they changed Micaiah's class name (confusion with the Shamans from the GBA games and their Dark Magic), but there's no reason to remove a nod to a game that was released outside Japan. Fine, so they only call him that on the Epilogue, but still.
  • Well, technically, everyone is a soldier, Halberdiers don't actually use halberds, Knights aren't necessarily nobles, everyone you're using on any given map would be the Vanguard, Generals typically don't have any position of authority in your army, Snipers and Marksmen are really just archers, myrmidons have nothing to do with Greek mythology, Falcoknights don't ride falcons, Seraph Knights don't ride Seraphim, Dracolords aren't nobles either, and Micaiah was never a member of the clergy. Class names are just names, not a beat-all, end-all statement of profession.
    • The modern use of "myrmidons" (An unquestioning zealous follower) does, however, describe a good chunk of the characters that belong to the class.
  • Another thing is that none of these class trees are even remotely consistent. All three classes were once unable to promote in any capacity, then when they became playable, Brigands became Warriors instead of Berserkers, Fighters flip flopped between Warriors and Heroes, and a grand total of one game in the whole series had Warriors becoming Reavers, and in that game there are no Brigands, Pirates, or Berserkers.

You broke my book!

• How do Tomes and Staves break? It's understable how Lances, Axes, and Swords break. Bows could be worn down from firing so many arrows and the string breaks. But what about Tomes and Staves? Could they have just said "ran out of magical power" instead of broke?
  • Possibile explanations:
    • The attacks require the book to exude energy, causing them to become worn and breakable over time (alternatively, rapid page-turning causes them to wear out)
    • The staves' magical circuit-breakers get blown out and they shatter
    • After they run out of power, they break the items out of frustration
    • The items are run on a quantum battery whose likelihood of decaying rises after each use
    • They're in too much of a rush to turn the pages and accidentally rip them out, voiding the warranty
  • As for the magic tomes, see also the WMG page, it's quite possible that they unleash the magic within by literally ripping out a page.
  • It's a runic system based on bound meaning and concepts intrinsically linked to the style of calligraphy used. The power of words, bound by the elements and linked to the page. The Mage acts as a catalyst, invoking with the power of the tongue their own energy, and drawing from about them the power needed to activate the runes, and so complete the spell.
    Unfortunately, that requires controlling the energy and guiding it directly onto its source — the pages, and while the runes are quite efficient, and the paper meticulously designed to harness that power, slight fluctuations and variations not only from the environment but also from the mage herself will inevitably cause the decay of the bonds linking the runes to the page.
    That's why the books can only be used for so many times. It becomes unstable, and so extremely dangerous to wield properly when the bonds become loose. In order to guarantee their own safety, many mages also inscribe a failsafe rune to shunt the power from a dangerous fluctuation back in a circuit, which generally results in the destruction of the book, though the released energy is trapped by the same essence harnessing paper that it was released from, creating a complete circuit, but also rendering it worthless.
  • Brawl in the Family explains it

The first all-in-one-book encyclopaedia

• How can a book possibly so heavy that it slows the user down? Even if the tomes in these games are Door Stoppers, there is no way they could possibly be heavier than ordinary weapons, and yet in some games the heaviest weapons are tomes; somehow, an axe that's bigger than the user is lighter than a book with a dark magic spell. This is especially problematic in Genealogy, where the weight of a weapon slows you down no matter what your other stats are (as opposed to other games, where it only slows you down if its weight exceeds either strength or constitution, depending on the game), which means that Fire (and to a lesser extent, Thunder) magic are totally useless because Wind magic weighs less than they do, but all three have the same damage output.
  • Considering that the books are magic, it's entirely possible that a good percentage of the "weight" is not physical but a magical burden of some sort. In Path of Radiance, Ena (or maybe Nasir, can't remember) said that the tiny medallion was pretty heavy, so it would make sense; especially if the dark magic was the heaviest and everyone thought the medallion contained a dark god. Maybe magic has the power to change gravitational pull.
    • Maybe Fire Emblem is ripping from Lord Of The Rings?
• It's heavy with knowledge.
• Maybe it's a combination of mages typically not being in the best of physical shape (and thus books aren't so much heavy period, as they are heavy relative to their users), and a metaphorical weight that represents how awkward it is to look up specific spells, find the right page, and read the incantations out loud while in the middle of a fight? Reading and walking at the same time can be pretty hard, after all, so imagine how much more careful you'd have to be to read & walk in the middle of a battlefield.

I can't walk through here, but I can sure as hell dodge!

• How do certain terrain types allow someone to dodge while also making them move slower? The logic's understandable for, say, forests, like maybe the trees make it harder for enemies to hit you, but how does standing on rocky ground, in desert sands, or in water have the same effect?
  • Simple: Realism. The fluctuating nature of the surroundings serve for an explanation in the latter two cases (Sands have bad footholds, making it harder on both attacker and defender; water has tides and the ability to dive under such), while mountains not only give a geographically advantaged height, but also have outcroppings and such to hide behind. This also gives a good explanation for the class traversement differentiation: While the relatively calm water of rivers are easy to swim through for those experienced in swimming (such as how Swordmasters and Thieves can go through them; keep in mind that, like literacy, the ability to swim effectively was much rarer in medieval times), seas and lakes tended to have rougher and more random currents. Only those trained extensively in both swimming and endurance could both wade through the water as well as fight in it (presumably, though the former may be true for some people, the latter is most likely untrue, so they avoid going through water to avoid being vulnerable), and they would have to use much stamina to keep themselves from drowning, impairing their movement speed. As for hills/mountains: most warhorses are unable to get stable footing with their four legs, and it riles them up, either impairing the rider's ability to fight well or ending up bucked. Only better trained warhorses, such as those used by Paladins or Nomads, can do so better. As for mountain ranges/peaks, only those with a great amount of endurance and skill in climbing mountains can do so along with fight effectively, and it still takes a lot out of them nonetheless, since the ever-changing angles can either make them fall back or fall down, greatly injuring themselves in the process. So basically, it all comes down to experience and surroundings.
  • In short, "Dodging" covers a variety of defensive maneuvers, from outright sidestepping or ducking opponents to blocking with a shield to taking cover behind a tree or rock.
  • In Genealogy, some terrains make it harder to dodge on. Why would it be harder to dodge on a road? Water makes it harder to dodge there, but that also might be because the people who CAN attack the people in the water (flying units, archers, mages) wouldn't be bothered by the water. The people swimming can't really swim fast enough away from arrows, fireballs, or a lance dropped or thrust by someone on a stable surface. Ducking under water can only do so much.
    • Roads tend not to have many obstructions or cover you can duck behind, on average.

The lifespan of magical creatures

• So we know that laguz and dragons/manaketes live way longer than humans. Does the same rule apply to pegasi and wyverns? Because Elincia's pegasus is alive and well and battle-ready despite having once been her great-grandmother's. This isn't too bothersome since, obviously, fantasy doesn't follow standard rules, but it does raise questions.
  • Presumably, yes. Especially Wyvern, given that at least in some continuities, they are related to dragons. For a random guess, perhaps two centuries or so, but that's just a random number that seems fitting.

How much magic can be used without a tome or staff?

• In the games that require tomes and staffs for the equivalent spells, do any of them clarify just how much, if any, magic a character can do without them? While in gameplay they tend to not be able to use any magic once the tome or staff breaks, the books and staffs have to get the magic in them to begin with after all, so whoever puts them in must presumably be able to use that form of magic on their own. Further, several magical classes seem to come with innate magic that can be used regardless of the tome, such as the small amount of levitation many of the higher rank magical classes get shown doing. Is this something the character can do on their own? Is it simply that those capable with magic can release magic on their own, but need things like tomes in order to organize and control it to a degree that makes it useful as a specific spell as opposed to just a random burst of energy?
  • Tomes probably help mages channel, concentrate and direct magic for combat applications. This can be seen in some GBA animations - the sage crit animation, for example, has them do the triangle-points-of-light thing before they actually hit with whatever tome they're using. Regarding things like levitation, the druid dodge in the GBA games where they flash-move a little backwards, et cetera, if the character has enough magic talent to use tomes it's not a stretch to think they could use it in more passive ways on promotion. As for "who puts the magic in the tomes", that's a harder question, unless all the random shopkeepers are secretly magic. It might be the user's magic + tome-specific words or incantations, which are made magic by the fact that a magically talented person is reading them (as opposed to, say, the local non-magic axe fighter). Or see the "You broke my book!" folder if you like that theory better.

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