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kinogane · 3 years

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On Ninian’s Paired Ending

Theoretically, because of what is established about Eliwood in The Binding Blade, it stands to reason that pairing anyone up with Eliwood in the prequel, The Blazing Blade, can be construed as knowingly setting them up for tragedy. There’s a small wrinkle, however, in that The Binding Blade was never released outside of Japan, while The Blazing Blade was (under the annoying title Fire Emblem), which means that in practice, non-Japanese players can’t reasonably be expected to know about Eliwood’s partner’s fate.

With one major exception: Ninian.

If you raise Eliwood and Ninian’s support level to A, the modified ending to the final chapter, “Light”, has Nils talk to Ninian and explicitly spell out, primarily to the audience, that neither of them will live long if they stay in Elibe. Despite this, sensing his sister’s wish to stay with Eliwood, Nils entrusts Ninian’s shorter life and happiness to Eliwood and says goodbye as he heads through the gate to live a long life, never to be seen again.

Now, granted, what exactly Nils means by “short” and “long” isn’t necessarily clear just in the context of this scene. Since it’s established that dragons live for millennia, you could reasonably interpet “short” as “short by dragon standards”, which could be still be very long by human standards. This read doesn’t hold up particularly well given further context, but just in the scope of what is presented in The Blazing Blade, it’s not patently ridiculous.

But that interpretation only deflects from the real tension at play. From Ninian’s perspective, she is trading away a long, happy life in another world with her brother for a significantly shorter, but potentially happier(?) life in Elibe with Eliwood. Whatever “short” might mean by human standards (including the player), it’s definitely short by Ninian’s standards.

From an in-universe perspective, there’s no actual tension from this decision. Nothing in the text suggests that Ninian is making this choice out of anything but her own free will. In fact, Ninian was fully ready to leave alongside Nils and was saying goodbye to Eliwood, only stopping when Nils chimes in and essentially give her and Eliwood his blessing to stay.

The tension arises when viewing all of this from a meta perspective; namely, that the writers saw fit to make this Ninian’s fate. Even as someone who likes the pairing and likes the way it plays out, because it’s effectively setting an angst time bomb, I’d be lying if I said this narrative beat felt... questionable. Like, Ninian is a character developed enough to have an identity outside of being one of Eliwood’s love interests (see also: her relationship with Nils, her other supports with Hawkeye and Florina), but making her final major act of agency be consigning herself to a brief life with Eliwood doesn’t exactly instill confidence that she actually is more than Eliwood’s love interest.

None of this, on its own, is all that noteworthy. What is noteworthy, however, is that everything I just mentioned is contingent entirely on raising Eliwood and Ninian’s support level to A. Since Ninian is only available for deployment (and, by extension, for developing supports) for seven or eight out of over thirty chapters, and Eliwood must not have more than two support conversations with other characters, this is actually quite difficult to do intentionally, let alone accidentally. If Eliwood and Ninian do not have an A-Support, then Ninian leaves with Nils as she intended to, and quite likely lives a long and happy life with her brother.

As such, knowledge of this ending imposes a special dilemma on players who do like Eliwood and Ninian together. Do you manifest their pairing in your game, etching their union into the personal canon of your save while also ostensibly dooming Ninian to a simultaneously canonical early death? Or do you instead leave them unpaired, saving Ninian in the personal canon of your save while avoiding leaving any canonical trace that the two could even be happy together and settling for other, external ways to express your preference?

I’d wager some people don’t actually see this as a dilemma, since it’s contingent on placing what they would see as undue focus on canon, and all that matters is what is expressed to the outside world, to others, which most commonly takes the form of fanwork. Whether or not the ending is actually achieved, the shackles of canon can only weigh down those that respect it, and it’s trivially easily to pick and choose as needed. What’s the issue?

And while I am ultimately of that mindset, I also think it is useful to at least sometimes take canon as it is and properly think through the implications, however inconvenient or unpleasant they might be. Canon, after all, is only what is assumed to be the common ground for all participants, so it’s at least worth thinking about how things would have to play out canonically, if discussing works of fiction with other people is something to be valued.

I bring this up as someone who’s been sitting on an Eliwood/Ninian fic that tries to explore how Ninian (and to a lesser extent, Eliwood) would go about living in the time between The Blazing Blade and The Binding Blade, with the knowledge that she’s not long for the world perpetually lingering over the two. It’s something I’ve been thinking about ever since I learned about the way the pairing plays out in The Blazing Blade for the reasons highlighted above. Doomed relationships are nothing new in video games, but this specific kind of doomed relationship, where actualizing it necessarily brings about an otherwise avoidable death, is considerably rarer.

It’s not all that surprising that I personally would take to it, since it’s an obvious wellspring of angst, but it’s one that requires some legwork to really hit. It’s one thing to die, mourning for a potential that was never realized; it’s another (and in my opinion, more gutwrenching) thing to actually realize that potential then fade away, believing wholeheartedly that it was all worth it in the end.

Canonically speaking, if Eliwood and Ninian were to be together, it could only ever be for a few years. And through her actions, we, as an audience, are to believe that spending a few years with her beloved Eliwood would make Ninian happier than spending many years amongst her kind in another land would.

And as someone who on some level wants the two to be together, I feel at least some obligation to try to imagine a life where that holds true, in my own small way, even if such a life is bound to end in tears.

#ninian #eliwood #fe7 #blazing blade #the blazing blade #fire emblem the blazing blade #elinini #angst #fanfiction #fanfic #canon

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crystalelemental · 4 years

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Antagonists of Elibe

When I was writing up the Limstella character piece, there was a point I wanted to fit in but couldn’t find a good way to introduce without breaking the flow. My wife insisted I should make a separate post about it, so here it is. The main point is that, across both Elibe games, a big emphasis seems to be placed on empathy and understanding the other side of things, and how that ties in to the antagonists, how they’re presented, and why each outcome is so impactful to me, personally.

Empathy in Elibe Starting with the main prospect, I think empathy is kind of a central theme for Elibe. Not in a specific sense, but in the broad sense of having empathy and compassion for all life, not just your own. Our protagonists, Eliwood and Roy, are almost entirely defined by their kindness, understanding, and acceptance of others.

Eliwood’s supports with Ninian are entirely around this. Ninian is hesitant with him at first, and with others, given her history. Her mother was killed in a war with humans, the remainder of her people were driven into exile beyond the dragon’s gate, and as a high-profile oracle in their world, she deals endlessly with the dragons who seek revenge upon humans to reclaim their world. Dragons and humans have always seemed to have bad blood for one another. Yet here’s Eliwood, who can honestly tell her that her background doesn’t matter.

Ninian: “It’s strange. All of you treat my brother and me so...normally. Doesn’t it bother you? Our powers, our looks. We’re different from...people...” Eliwood: “Has that been bothering you? What’s wrong with being a bit different from other people? When I look at you, I don’t see other people. I see Ninian. A normal, kindhearted girl.”

The entire basis of their relationship is because they can look past the differences, and find commonalities. They’re able to see the good in the other, and that in turn paves the way for Roy.

Roy is similarly able to see the good in everything. He comes to the aid of others, and seeks to protect all life, not just his own. This culminates in his battle with Zephiel, his proclamation of faith in the good in humans, and finally his decision to protect and save Idunn. The entire focus of these games is about a family starting to correct the ills of the past, and reaching out to the other side in friendship. Sound familiar?

I feel like Fire Emblem, as a series, really likes to play with this. It’s the entire basis for the Tellius games, and is the central theme of Fodlan, which is why I believe Claude’s route is the true route. But that’s something for another day. The main reason I bring this up is to shift into the antagonists, and how their actions and histories play with the central theme.

Zephiel I’m gonna start with Zephiel, since I have the least to talk about with him. Zephiel’s history is that, as a child, he excelled as a leader, a soldier, at pretty much everything. Yet his father only hated him for it. He believed that Zephiel could not possibly be his legitimate heir, and felt jealousy toward Zephiel’s accomplishments. So much so that he tried to have Zephiel assassinated. Twice, if Binding Blade’s explanation if different from the event in Blazing Blade. Zephiel has grown up surrounded by hate, even within his own race. Humans from different countries can’t even get along, and everything with them is about seizing power and siding with those who are strong. The entire progression of Biding Blade is to accentuate Zephiel’s point: every minor antagonist sides with Bern for selfish motivations. Humans can’t be trusted, so we should turn leadership over to dragons, who will do a better job.

Roy disagrees, and because we’ve lived the adventure with him, we can see Zephiel’s point, but we also see Roy’s. Whenever something has gone off course, humans corrected the problem. Turning leadership over to dragons to rule is just keeping the same problem, but changing which hand is holding it. Dragon leadership alone would be no better, and the true ending route confirms this belief. We learn about the earthly dragons, how they chose to lead and respond to the Scouring, and the lengths they went to. They’re no better than humans. They were willing to torture a child into becoming a living weapon for them, claiming survival. But we know from Blazing Blade, if survival were all they sought, they could have fled beyond the Dragon’s Gate. This was an act of domination against humans, and Zephiel’s aim was to facilitate that dominance.

Zephiel serves as a villain because he fails to empathize with the full picture. He’s simply lashing out at humanity, which has done awful things to him, in fairness. But he’s willing to deny any wrongdoing on the part of dragons, and willingly uses Idunn as a tool of war, just as the dragons did before. That’s the villain path. Even if Zephiel truly believed that humans are better off living under dragon control. Even if Zephiel believes that dragons were less cruel than humans. The fact that he’s willing to sacrifice and use the lives of others to achieve an ambition is where he’s gone wrong. Life cannot be sacrificed for a greater good, and that alone is what sets Zephiel up as the villain.

Nergal Nergal is very similar to Zephiel, but in a different direction. For those not familiar with his history, Nergal was alive at the time of the Scouring. He was a practitioner of the dark arts, who had married a dragon, and even had two children with said dragon. However, when the Scouring was picking up, his wife was captured by humans. Nergal set out to get her back, but left his children on the Dread Isle near the Dragon’s Gate, and told them to pass through it if he hadn’t returned in ten days’ time. Though he sought to keep them safe if he failed, the end result was that Nergal was too late to save his wife, and then too late to return to his children. His family was gone. For hundreds of years, he wandered the world, until he met Athos, a hero of the Scouring. They traveled together for a time, and eventually found Arcadia, a hidden oasis in the desert where humans and dragons lived in harmony. It was here that Nergal found the secret art of manipulating quintessence, known only to dragons, and likely divine dragons. Using this art, Nergal would kill living creatures, and began to create Morphs, entities with human likeness, but allegedly no emotion or drive beyond serving their creator. I talked a lot about whether this is true in the Limstella analysis, so please refer to that for the rebuttal.

The point is, given the history, Nergal is set to be a sympathetic villain, much like Zephiel. He lost his entire family to a meaningless war, found a way to possibly revive his wife, then loses his reason for this and seeks only power. It’s a tragedy, right? Well, yes, but honestly I think there was no other outcome.

When you dig into Nergal, there’s one thing that’s clear: Nergal steadily lost himself. It wasn’t all at once. When Athos confronts him, it’s unlikely he’s lost himself completely by this. And even if he had, starting out, Nergal knew what he was doing. He weighed the choice, and determined that sacrificing other life to bring back his wife was a good trade. There’s no empathy for other life, only its use for his own purposes. He doesn’t see past his trauma.

What’s more, Morphs clearly have souls. They think and feel. Limstella’s dialogue makes this clear, Kishuna’s existence makes this clear, Canas and Renault’s supports make this clear. Yet it’s very directly stated that Nergal creates his Morphs, then abandons them. Unless they’re part of his ultimate goal, he has no use for them. And he makes a lot. When Kishuna was created, he was, I believe, #252. This was when Nergal still had care for his successful creations, as opposed to the later flashback where he’s telling Kishuna to rot as a worthless creation. Even before Nergal devolved to the point of only seeking power, he was creating life and casting it aside, as if it were nothing. He even tells Kishuna that “it won’t do to refer to you as a number,” implying that most of his creations are just numbers. He thinks very little of other life, even from the start. There was never enough care for others, and thus this path to villainy was almost guaranteed.

The Limits of Empathy The previous two antagonists bring up a compelling thought: what are the limits of empathy? When has a person gone too far to give consideration to the past and circumstances that led them here? I think Eliwood’s confrontation with Nergal sums it up nicely:

Nergal: “It confirmed some things for me. That trust brings betrayal. That friends bring weakness!” Eliwood: “If that’s what you learned from your encounter, then you are a fool. Do you believe for a moment, than when Athos struck down his dearest friend, he felt nothing?! His heart was torn in two, and yet you refused to understand that! Nergal! I will defeat you! Here! Today! But, even now there is no hatred in my heart. You, who were born human. You, who lost the heart that defines your humanity... For you, I have nothing but pity.”

There are two answers. One is “never.” Even at the end of their conflict, Eliwood never holds hate for Nergal. After everything, there’s still a level of human connection that triumphs over hatred. The second is, when they become dismissive of other life. Nergal was always dismissive, and when Athos fought against him, all he learned was that friends betray you, rather than that his actions were wrong.

I’ve only played Binding Blade once (as opposed to the like 50 times I’ve played Blazing Blade), but I don’t recall Roy holding any hatred for Zephiel, or anyone else, either. Rather, he recognizes that what they’re doing brings harm to people, and seeks to stop them because he must.

That’s the limit these games suggest. When someone is actively endangering life, using life as a tool for their own gains. That’s when you can’t let understanding of their circumstances stay your hand. But it’s equally important to never lose that empathy, that heart that defines humanity.

Idunn Idunn is the odd antagonist out, and my personal favorite of the three. Idunn’s history is...honestly the opposite of the other two. She embodies the first answer but neglects the second. Idunn is a divine dragon. During the Scouring, the earthly dragons sought aid from the divine dragons, requesting the creation of War Dragons. They were losing the war because dragon reproduction is significantly longer than human reproduction, and so they were essentially outnumbered. War Dragons could be spawned by divine dragons, likely in a similar fashion to the creation of Morphs, and could turn the tide of the war. The divine dragons refused the request, and left Elibe entirely. Except one.

Idunn was the only one to hesitate. As it’s explained in the endgame of Binding Blade, she felt empathy for the earthly dragons, and worried about their circumstances. This allowed them to catch her, and subsequently destroy her soul, creating the Demon Dragon that would obey their commands to flood the world in War Dragons. When the dragons lost the war anyway, Idunn was sealed away for 1000 years, until Zephiel awakened her. Zephiel then used her to again bring War Dragons into the world, in an effort to turn the world over to dragons.

Idunn is such a unique case to me, because the only defining personality trait we get from her is her empathy. She couldn’t just abandon the earthly dragons without attacks of conscience. Yet because of that, she was captured and betrayed. The divine dragons were right to leave the earthly dragons behind, knowing what they would do. Perhaps it’s because Idunn was young, or perhaps it’s because she was a divine dragon and had never associated with the earthly dragons or humans, but she didn’t understand that some people could be cruel. She didn’t realize that, despite feeling that empathy for the dragons, there was a good reason to turn them down.

It also established another important point. Jahn, the last dragon standing with Idunn, expresses that dragons don’t have emotions, and that dragons and humans could not possibly live together because of these differences. He calls Brunnya incomprehensible, and seems to look down on emotion as a weakness exclusive to humans. Yet we see that empathy from Idunn, we’ve seen Arcadia where humans and dragons do coexist, and in Blazing Blade we see Ninian and Nils, who are definitely expressive. Jahn seems to have internalized this sense of hatred toward humanity, such that he rejects any possible similarities to connect with. Jahn is a symbol of the hatred the dragons had toward humans, and likely that humans felt toward dragons. Idunn and Jahn together paint the picture that dragons and humans are more alike than they seem, and that the earthly dragons made a choice to continue the fighting, and to continue hating humans.

This isn’t lost on Roy, either, whose final act is one of compassion. In absolute threat level, Idunn is a bigger risk to keep around than Zephiel ever was. Zephiel started a war, but Idunn had the potential to endlessly flood the world with war dragons, and end humanity entirely. Yet in applied threat...Idunn was never a threat at all. She was a victim of the war, someone who never sought to hurt anyone, and never had a choice in her role. Comparatively, Zephiel and Jahn both cast aside consideration for her and others, and sought to use her as a weapon for their own ends. Roy’s final act is stopping Idunn from carrying out her orders, but then saves her life, bringing her to Arcadia to restore her soul. Chronologically, this is when the mistakes of Elibe’s past are finally righted, and relations between humans and dragons can begin on a grander scale. In any other circumstance, had someone cast aside empathy when doing what needed to be done, Idunn would be killed and a threat removed. It is specifically because Roy maintains empathy toward others, even his enemies, that old wounds can finally heal.

Conclusions Elibe is still my favorite. Blazing Blade may have been my first game, but I really feel it holds up, even now. While there are people who say the stories aren’t that strong, or that the casts aren’t that strong, I feel like what stands out with Elibe is how it integrates its themes and the understandable nature of their villains. A lot of games in the series either don’t go for sympathetic villain, or try in a way that doesn’t quite hit home. The Blades games manage to present villains with a compelling and sympathetic history, while simultaneously expressing that some people are beyond redemption. And I think that’s a good balance to strike. It’s important to always consider what impacts another, and what their lives were like. But there have to be limits in what’s tolerated based on a sympathetic past, and sometimes you do have to stand against someone who’s wrong, no matter what they’ve been through. But at the end of the day, the one thing you can’t abandon is that empathy for others. Even when taking a stand against evil, hate can’t be the reason you do so.

#fire emblem #fire emblem binding blade #fire emblem blazing blade #idunn #nergal #zephiel #the nergal section is what I wanted to work into the limstella analysis #but I couldn't find a way to do it without breaking the flow

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astraseason · 4 years

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after the time loop -- as suggested by @obsidiantias!

hoo boy.

araceli has no idea what she wants to do with her life once she finally has a choice. honestly, she didn’t think she’d get this far to begin with.

going under a cut for length! warnings for mentions of suicidal ideation, i guess?

araceli simply tells him that it’s okay. that he doesn’t need to be afraid. that he can rest now. that he doesn’t need to hate anyone or curse the world anymore. he is not alone. she is here with him. it’s okay. he’ll get to be with mother again soon, and all will be well.

to those beyond the barrier who can hear her, it sounds like the princess is being incredibly kind to the deranged dragon in his final moments; that she’s attempting to soothe him so that his final moments are ones of peace. they’re right, but what they don’t know is that araceli has every intention of dying with the dragon. she is his daughter, after all. someday, the madness that ripped his formidable mind to shreds will grip her, and all will be lost. it cannot be allowed to happen. ( and to the young woman’s tortured mind, this is what she deserves for all the blood on her hands. )

when anankos’ heart falls he throws everything he has into one desperate final attack and manages to cut araceli deeply, drawing blood. she staggers her way to a rather large bit of debris and collapses behind it, content to let herself pass away unnoticed as the group celebrates their victory. the cycle is broken. the bond between nohr and hoshido can grow, and their enmity is a thing of the past. aqua is still alive and well, and free to pursue whatever life she wants without fear of her song stealing her life away.

araceli is happy with this, she thinks. this is a good note to go out on. they’ll forget her. they’ll heal. it’ll be for the better.

unfortunately for araceli, life doesn’t work like that. someone eventually notices she is missing from the crowd after the barrier dissipates, and goes searching. she is found and brought back to camp and nursed back to health. araceli is confused by this, but lets them assume she was simply hurt in the battle.

what comes next depends on many factors, honestly.

depending on whom i’m writing with, aqua will ascend the throne of valla as it is her birthright; the two women are cousins, but it was aqua’s mother arete that was the queen. araceli spends her days lost and listless now that the sole thing that has defined her life for the past three hundred years has been stripped away from her. she doesn’t know how to approach either family, her frustration and outbursts having placed a lot of distance between them for the most part. i mean, she’s all but cut xander off entirely at this point, and to turn around and try to patch things up is... intimidating, especially when she’d declared that she doesn’t care if any of them hate her anymore.

she wants to leave, honestly. she wants to vanish through the dragon’s gate and venture into parts unknown to be eventually forgotten by all in fateslandia who know her. the sole thing that keeps her from leaving is aqua and a burning desire to both make her happy and to atone for all the suffering she has needlessly been put through.

if aqua is not approached, the role of queen goes to araceli. she does not want to be queen of a dead land, thinking it better to let valla die since there is so little left, but she knows the alternative is that aqua must do it. aqua, who suffered far worse that she had. aqua, who didn’t complain once through every hardship, every death she suffered because of araceli’s mistakes and eventual apathy. aqua who is finally free to live whatever life she pleases.

aqua must have that freedom, she decides, and reluctantly agrees to take the throne. it’s what’s expected of her, and if she’s to live, she must do what will keep the peace. she will bend to the two kingdom’s whims, as she has for the past three hundred years. what she wants does not matter. all that matters is that peace is maintained between xander and ryouma, and if she must be the eternal mediator, so be it.

( if araceli is in a relationship with laslow, odin, or selena, they will convince her to return to ylisse with them rather than stay in fateslandia and be miserable. after some hesitation she will accept the invitation and leave fateslandia altogether. while it is a difficult and long process, araceli will begin to heal. it will take time, but she will live a very happy and fulfilling life in ylisse. )

in the days approaching one of the vallite princesses’ coronation, one of many strange occurrences may happen.

in the case of araceli’s elibe verse, she hears stories of strange activity at the dragon’s gate and offers to investigate. she winds up dragged into the dread isle in place of the fire dragon nergal pulls through elibe’s gate and rescued by the lord trio’s army. wanting to thank them for their help, she will help them stop nergal. having fallen utterly in love with elibe, she decides to stay and begin a new life-- returning home only to apologize and explain the situation. depending on the partner, she will either settle in arcadia or marry eliwood, becoming roy’s mother. depending on the path in life taken, she will either join roy’s army alongside igrene twenty years later or be busy covering for eliwood while he is ill. as with the awakening trio, it is a difficult path, but the new faces and the new surroundings allow her to finally heal from her experiences.

in the case of a heroes verse, araceli is either summoned by askr’s summoner or forced into an emblian contract. ( and if the latter, she will pull a xander and decide to stay in embla even when it is broken, for veronica’s sake. ) as with most ‘new land’ endings, the change of scenery and meeting new people is good for her! honestly this could go so many different ways depending on who she meets, but she may ultimately elect to stay in zenith and start over there.

depending on if a certain knight decides he wants to travel again and leave fateslandia behind now that the conflict is over and done with, she may also be talked into joining him. ;)

...so as you can see, leaving the land that inflicted so much trauma upon her behind is ultimately the best case scenario for araceli. while she’s perfectly capable of healing and leading a fulfilling life in fateslandia, it takes much longer for her to recover as she has so many expectations placed upon her -- including ones by herself -- and duties and an almost obsessive need to atone for her ‘sins’ somehow and make aqua happy. what she needs is to do something selfish, but she doesn’t believe she deserves it; the people around her do, of course, but not her.

this poem from higurashi no naku koro ni’s matsuribayashi-hen sums it up best:

everyone has a right to pursue a happy life.

the difficult part is to be given that right.

everyone has a right to pursue a happy life.

the difficult part is to fulfill that right.

i too have a right to pursue a happy life.

the difficult part is to work out a compromise for that right.

. -- frederica bernkastel

regardless of path chosen, be it queen or newlywed newcomer or wandering swordswoman, araceli will at one point cut her hair to about a bob’s length. she decides this on a whim one day, deciding to let her hair being cut end this chapter of her life. she will grow it out again over time, but this decision, this very permanent decision, is very important to her. it’s making a statement that she really, truly is putting the past behind her, no matter where she may be in her life.

#✽ ― 𝐬𝐢𝐥𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐩𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐜𝐞𝐬𝐬. ﹙araceli | headcanon.﹚#✽ ― 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐚𝐝𝐝 𝐬𝐨𝐦𝐞 𝐩𝐞𝐩𝐩𝐞𝐫﹐𝐩𝐞𝐩𝐩𝐞𝐫﹐𝐩𝐞𝐩𝐩𝐞𝐫. ﹙ooc.﹚#long post //#absolute unit hc #suicidal ideation //#uhhh #ask to tag #???#tldr celi has no idea what she wants out of life but the best option for her is to leave fateslandia forever #she's a bit of a hypocrite in that she's everyone's number one cheerleader but when it comes to herself................ well #she's very much.......... not

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reegahearth · 7 years

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So Lemme Tell Y'all The Epic of Ninian (Spoilers for Fe7)

Now that Ninian’s won the gauntlet I really feel like it would be appropriate to tell her story to the many people who haven’t played FE7 and don’t have intentions to, because Ninian’s character is pretty important to FE7’s plot, I really suggest that you don’t read unless you don’t mind spoilers

980 years before the events of FE7 the war between dragons and man was fought, this war was called the Scouring. Slightly before this war a man named Nergal and an ice dragon named Aenir fell in love, and from this love came Ninian and her brother Nils. Born in Ilia they lived in peace for a short time before the Scouring, during which Aenir mysteriously disappeared. Before going out to look for her Nergal told Ninian and Nils to flee with the other dragons through the Dragons Gate, a dragon made portal that would take them to a paradise. Promising that he would one day call them back home.

Fast forward a couple hundred years and Nergal has found Arcadia, a land where dragons and man coexist peacefully for the most part. Armed with the knowledge of the dark arts and the magics of dragons he studied a way to open the Dragons Gate to call back Ninian and Nils. Soon after he succumbed to the madness of dark magic and Ninian and Nils return not to their father, but to a mad man.

Weak and fragile Ninian and Nils are forced to pretend to be humans as they flee from Nergal, who has plans to use the two to open the way for more dragons to come through the gate and cause the apocalypse. During the twos flight they encounter Lyn, who is fighting to return to her homeland. Offering their services as entertainers in exchange for protection they fight for Lyndis’s Legion for a short time, until they flee once again, fearing that someone will find out their secret. Eventually they are captured by Nergals forces and are held captive with a man named Elbert, who assists with the escape of Ninian.

During Eliwoods search for his father they come across a small boat harbouring Ninian, it turns out that the stress of the event caused Ninian to pass out and become an amnesiac. Eliwood, concerned for her safety asks her to come with him and his team, unknowingly returning her to Nergals clutches. At the Dragons Gate Ninian and Nils are freed from Nergal at the cost of Lord Elbert, Eliwood’s father’s life.

After which Ninian fights in Eliwoods army, and although she cannot fight in the usual sense, using her ring Nini’s Grace, a family heirloom, allows her to power up her allies. Later on she can use other similar rings such as Set’s Litany, Thor’s Ire, and Filla’s Might to further assist the army.

As time goes on Ninian slowly begins to fall in love with Eliwood, revealing her feelings to Nils. He warns her against it, as there are complications with staying in this world. However, depending on your choices in the game, these feelings may solidify into a determination to stay. No matter what however, Ninian’s goal changes from escaping back home into protect Eliwood from Nergal. Later on Ninian is captured by Nergal, and in her desperation to escape violently shifts into her dragon form, losing many memories and focusing on the one thing that stays solid in her mind, Eliwood. Disregarding all consequences she flies toward him.

Eliwood has just received his promotion and sacred weapon Durandal, and upon exiting the trial is beset by a monstrously huge dragon. Guided by the blade he fells the beast in one blow. In the confusion following Nergal appears and informs them that the ‘mighty dragon’ he had slain was indeed just a confused and frightened Ninian, and that she had refused to attack Eliwood in her befuddled state. Eliwood is left to despair as Ninian manages to transform back into her human form for one last goodbye, asking as her final wish that Eliwood protect the land of her birth.

In the final act all seems lost. Nergal with his last few moments informs them that it is to late, and that he has already opened the Dragon’s Gate. Out comes three full sized fire dragons, and more to come if they don’t close it. Just as Eliwood and crew are about to fight it, Brammimond(dontaskwhoheisntallthatimportant) uses the power of the sealed weapons to resurrect Ninian at full power. Ninian transforms and fights the fire dragons while crying out for them to forgive her, slaying two of them, and severely weakening the third before she is forced to withdraw. Eliwood and co rush in to finish it off, and Ninian mourns the loss of life, stating that the fire dragons were just children, who wanted to go home.

Depending on whether Ninian and Eliwood have A rank support Ninian will either go through the Dragon’s Gate with Nils or stay and live a human life span with Eliwood

Different extra things I found weird when going through FE7 Lore:

Ninian has the power to commune with Nini using her mothers ring, Nini nor any of the other of the ring spirits are explained in game other than the dances Ninian uses them for are meant to honour life.

Brammimond refers to Ninian as the “girl with the exalted blood of dragons” and then tells her to use that power to 'appease’ (absolutely destroy) the fire dragons. I’m not sure about whether or not it means Aenir was an important dragon or if Brammimond just felt like being dramatic.

Ninian was a prophet and or oracle in the dragon paradise and that is never explained either.

Personal headcanon being that Ninian and Aenir is similar to how Nah and Tiki work. Nini is just a similar spirit to Naga

Ninian and Florina have a really cute support together where they bond over their love of Ilia and ease of which they can talk to each other. Florina mentions the legend of Ice dragon mountain which is implied to Ninian and her family. Ninian mentions that she had lived with her family in Ilia for "ages and ages" to Eliwood at the end of the game, landing her to be well over a 1000 years old

#fire emblem ninian #fire emblem heroes #fire emblem 7 #spoilers

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julystorms · 7 years

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I've had a bad day today can I have some fe7 headcanons

I have lots but I feel like everyone knows them already because they’ve remained so static over the years!! I’ll list a few for ya though. ;)

UNDer a CUT cause it’s long lol and this fandom is tired of me after all of these years.

Hector bullied Erik. Look, Erik’s a scumbag supreme but I LIKE HIM…as a character, anyway. He has so much potential as a villain because he’s just…believable? And I like that it’s hinted at that Hector wasn’t very good to him when they were growing up. Consider peaceful times where these kids had to go visit each other and stay for a couple of months… You know Erik’s father tried to force him to befriend Hector and Eliwood: his age bracket, super important members of the Lycian Alliance… And then it doesn’t work and it’s just a giant mess–which probably weakened Erik’s relationship to his father (though LBR Darin’s straight up evil). Not that Hector being nice to Erik would have made him into a good person, but like…it could have? The part that’s really awful, though, is that Eliwood never put a stop to it. Passive Eliwood just kinda…let it happen. That’s not nice Hector… You shouldn’t do that Hector… :/ The Neutral Face of Displeasure doesn’t remedy the situation. It makes you wonder if having goodhearted kind allies in Lycia would have done something really positive for Erik who was obviously not raised by the best people or in the best circumstances.

But speaking along these lines, I like to think that Eliwood considers his actions from before and as an adult wouldn’t allow that kind of behavior anymore. Too bad he’s too busy to get together with the whole gang for a very long time and by then it’s too late. :’)

Unrelated but I LOVE LYNDIS and I stand by my age-old headcanon that her only happy ending is one where she returns to the plains, though I have altered my stance on it slightly in the last few years. Place is important to her, and tradition, and all that. I think she could adjust to a regular life in town, living with someone who wasn’t royalty, but I feel that she’d be unhappy if she didn’t try to go home and try to reconnect to her roots. She’s young, and I feel confident she’d resent not taking the chance when she was capable of it.

Everyone knows my longest running FE OTP is KentLyn and that’s still true. Hector/Lyn would be a second place good one though, for me, but I still don’t view their relationship as anything short of borderline volatile when in close contact for long periods of time. I see the attraction, especially from Hector, but I think they’re both a bit emotionally immature and don’t balance each other out very well. That said, I feel like if Lyn married him in the moment because she loved him and things felt good, she’d just end up resenting him. He doesn’t seem to really “get” her (he makes more of an effort to “get” Farina and Florina which IMO is saying something) and unfortunately their communication is shit.

Don’t get me wrong, I think Lyn could certainly love someone who won’t take her back to Sacae, but I also think she will resent them if they keep her from the place she still feels is her home. She’s the kind of person who needs to work that out for herself–who needs to go back there and see if that place is still home for her. And maybe it won’t be. Maybe even with Kent or Rath or alone it won’t be. But I think a truly happy Lyn/not going back to the plains pairing still needs to give her the chance to go back and see it so that she knows. (Knowing makes it easier.)

(And I do realize that people…don’t really get this sentiment but I’m a person who attaches to place really easily and it was sooo hard for me to move away from the place I lived for almost 30 years. I was homesick until I went back after about a year…and then I thought: this place isn’t my home anymore. It’s just not the same as it was. And I do feel that Lyndis would feel that way if she went back, especially alone or with Rath, because things would be lonely alone and with Rath they’d be just different enough from what she remembers to hurt and be jarring at once. But I feel like until she goes back and experiences that for herself she’ll be dreadfully homesick.)

(So like, the ultimate HectorLyn fic would probably have her going back just to see and still choosing him, at least in my opinion. Not that all pairings have to be ~super healthy~ but I want to write that kind of stuff and I think a Lyndis who knows herself better will have a much healthier, smoother relationship with Hector!)

(KentLyn is still by far #1 but I dig the main lords and their relationships to one another because they’re just so great.)

Eliwood and Ninian. Oh man. Okay so I love how the game shoves it down your throat and 85% of us just ATE IT UP. My favorite part about it is how awful it makes his other romantic supports by comparison. Lyn feels like a really dull… “welp nothing better is on the horizon” kind of a settling and Fiora is just… Well, I wrote a ‘fic once about what I thought that was. (Fools Rush In if anybody remembers that one. Someday I’ll rewrite it.) But I like the idea a lot of Ninian as like, this infallible first love! She’s perfect because she dies before she can be anything else. The Worst Situation tbh? The idea that he could lose himself in someone else, if only for a short while (namely Fiora in my biased opinion) is human and believable and I think helps keep him from seeming like this tragic closed-off person.

(Note: I actually view Hector as that kind of a person; he puts his wife’s things away when she dies because he can’t cope and Eliwood leaves them out and keeps living his life. But y’all remember that from a fanfic, too, haha!)

Anyway it’s hella interesting to think about Eliwood moving on in the interim before Ninian is, uh, resurrected, because the outcome of her resurrection is tragic no matter what it is, if so. If she stays with Eliwood the person he turned to while he grieved and latched onto? Left out in the uhh…cold. So to speak. (Ice dragony cold…brrrr!) And if Ninian leaves, Eliwood gets to struggle with what he did to her and how he moved on and that he could have had her back yet didn’t–on and on. It’s good stuff. So much fun to play with in ‘fic and, of course, as @arthoure knows, RP too. ;) (Honestly I thought I’d be bored RPing as Eliwood but it was a lot of fun. 10/10 highly recommend.)

And I know you like Nino but I just don’t have much to say about her that the rest of fandom wouldn’t be way more invested in talking about. She was never a favorite of mine, though I found her situation pitiable and I was always sympathetic to it. She’s a great character–charming and young, smart, gifted, a hard worker, observant. But I think I never let myself get attached to her because her life is overall pretty tragic–even her better endings. :/

#fire emblem #hector #eliwood #erik #lyndis #kent #nino #ninian #fiora #i hope that was at least interesting #i'm exhausted but i wanted to get this posted today <3 #i hope today was better for u!!!!#queen-historia-reiss #replies to friends #queenhistoriareiss

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astraseason · 4 years

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upon learning that the order of heroes had no equivalent of a human resources department, coralin took it upon herself to start one-- after chewing out alfonse, sharena, and anna over not having such an obvious service available to begin with.

she discovered the lack of hr in book i, when the order began really bustling with heroes and she found herself asked a question she didn’t know the answer to. coralin promised to find out and report back to them, and sought out alfonse to ask who was on hr so she knew who to talk to about things like this in the future. as one might guess, he responded with confusion. in turn, coralin responded with incredulity-- they were disrupting people’s lives to bring them to zenith to begin with, and if they chose to stay and help fight in the war, they were expected to chase down alfonse, anna, or sharena every single time they needed something-- and hope that they weren’t currently busy. even if the order of heroes was small at the time, the lack of resources available in an easily accessible place was appalling to her. had they really not thought of this before starting up the order of heroes? were the people they brought in -- their heroes -- really that expendable?

coralin was furious at the thought, and demanded to sit down with anna and determine everything she could possibly think of in regards to what it meant to be in service to the order: whether the heroes were paid, how to manage sick days and time off, appropriate scheduling, benefits, room and board, amenities and training facilities, the weapon refinery orders, therapy and medical services, termination of a contract, the best way to settle disputes, how to submit feedback, complaints, or concerns-- and wrote everything they settled on down.

soren, uther, eliwood, and narcian (...oh no) are on the team with her, and she has extended any authority she has to them. in turn, they’re expected to know the human resources policies and if they can’t help with a problem or answer the question themselves, they’re to take it to her-- or at the very least, point the person in need of help her way.

every sunday is coralin’s dedicated office day. she works on training schedules, chore distribution, and coordinates teams or updates on that day-- and anyone is free to walk in whenever they’d like to talk to her if they need to. on weekdays, she spends either the morning or the afternoon in her office depending on when she has meetings or other duties to attend to; she closes up shop early on friday and takes saturday as a personal day, assuming there is no immediate crisis that requires her attention like a tempest. if she cannot be in her office at any given time she ought to be, she will post a notice on her door apologizing for the inconvenience.

perodically -- at least every couple of months -- coralin and her team will divvy up the roster and personally survey all the heroes on the state of affairs in the order. she takes this job very seriously, and will be very angry with those on her team who do not.

#✽ ― 𝐝𝐚𝐲𝐛𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐤 𝐦𝐚𝐠𝐞. ﹙coralin | headcanon.﹚#worldbuilding tag.#long post //#hoo boy have an absolute unit

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