Fire Emblem/Headscratchers

Ashera the lazy

 * In FE9, how come Ashera wasn't awakened? Ashnard is attacking Crimea, and Crimea fights back. Both are losing large numbers of men, and both sides were conquering and taking large amounts of land. Does it not count as a war if most of the important battles were won by a group of mercenaries?
 * It's simply not a big enough conflict. Two countries fighting each other? It's happened quite a few times before FE9. FE10 has all but one nation in a world war. Big difference.
 * It's also implied throughout the game that if Kurthnaga hadn't gotten involved with the war, Yune and Ashera wouldn't have woken up (because ALL the countries needed to take a side in the war). I believe Dheginsea even mentions something along those lines at one point to explain why Goldoa never gets involved.
 * Even though the final battle in FE 9 is nominally between two countries, representatives are there from all the (known at the time) countries: Crimea, Daein, Begnion, Gallia, Phoenicis, Kilvas, Serenes and Goldoa (Ena/Nasir & Rajaion may or may not count). The only difference is the involvement of Hatari (which may prove that Hatari counts as a separate country for the purposes of the medallion). Or, it may be as the first responder said and the fact that the war was much broader and longer, and so the total amount of chaos energy in the second game reached a far higher level than the first game.
 * I don't remember there being any rule about whether or not every country needed to be involved in a conflict. There needs to be a ton of chaos going around, though. In Radiant Dawn, there were more wars, they went on for longer periods of time, and Begnion's entire army was fighting, as opposed to just part of it. Then you have the fact that Begnion treated Daein much worse than Daein treated Crimea, the Crimean rebels trying to overthrow the current government, the attempted genocide of the laguz, and Daein prolonging the war (for reasons unknown to all but a select few) by constantly getting in the way... People had a lot more to be stressed out about and enraged over in this game than in Po R.

So long and thanks for all the loyalty!

 * There was one thing that always bugged this Troper when playing FE8. A pegasus knight can branch upgrade into either a Falkoknight 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 Rule of 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...

All the women escaped!

 * Also, if the Barhara Massacre happens pretty much immediately after the events of chapter 5, how is it that a pairing that only reached lover status during that chapter still gets to have two children?
 * I'd been thinking on that a lot myself and here's what I figure: One, the maps are huge and you'd have to take Real Time into account. The player can go from Zaxon to Lubeck in half an hour or 20 turns or whatever, but to the soldiers marching it takes WAY longer so there was most likely time for the couples to marry and have their first kid. Two, only Sigurd was confirmed to have died at Bahara, everyone else except Edain either died or went missing. Third, Nanna and Tinny are confirmed to have been born after Bahara and it's commonly assumed Corple was as well.
 * I also recall that Sylvia, Tityu, Lachesis, Briggid, Adean, and Fury all survived Bahara, which would mean that any husband they had could have possibly gotten them pregnant before that battle. This does make one wonder about Ira, though, since nothing about her survival was ever confirmed...

No love for prissy Priscilla

 * This troper hasn't read much into this yet, but noticed something about Priscilla. She has seven different support options: all of them with men, all of them occur faster than normal (most have one extremely slow option), and all of them are with early (read: good) characters. Is it just me, or is she...yeah.
 * Only four of those supports are romantic. The other three are there for backstory purposes.
 * Probably. We're still not sure about Raven.
 * Aren't we? I mean, this IS Fire Emblem...
 * This troper has always seen Priscilla as being clingy dependent on strong male figures, probably because she harbored a creepy obsession for her brother her whole life.

Think of the children!

 * Cuan and Ethlin's deaths. Not that they happened, but that they'd brought Altenna with them when they happened. If you're going to catch the Distress Ball, catch it for yourself, not your three-year-old daughter.
 * And miss out on having a Long Lost Sibling raised by the Enemy? Anyway Ethlin was only bringing Altenna to the country's border (she had planned join up with Sigurd too, but Cuan convinced her to go back for both of their sakes).

Those damn paladins!

 * Those damn paladins in chapter 2 of Seisen no Keifu. You'd think three fully promoted Augustrian knights could do a little better out there, especially considering they most likely trained under Eltosian himself.

Staves; not for the selfish at heart

 * It's always bugged me that 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.
 * I imagine 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. I'm sorry; I just had to say that.

Shoulda got that in writing

 * The Blood Pact in Radiant Dawn. On Chapter 3-13, it said that . So why doesn't pact-maker Which I knew from a mile away wouldn't work, as.
 * Going further in the game might clear that up. However, the possibility you suggest, while interesting, is made extremely impractical by geographical realities of Tellius. Daein and Goldoa are very, very distant.
 * So? It's not like there aren't other Pelleas is a king, I'm pretty sure he has the resources to pull this off
 * No no.
 * Except even if Pelleas learned of Volke through Sothe or whoever, Volke was already busy at the time.

What happened to the Axe General?

 * In Radiant Dawn, after Part 2, what happened to anyway? Last time we saw him, he was in prison, then nothing.
 * It's probable that he was tried for  and then killed.
 * Along that note, Elincia informs Ike that she is going to have the entire eradicated, so it stands to reason their leader would be part of that group.

Really shoulda got it in writing

 * Again in RD, what was up with
 * Same as the other pact, only one of the signers need to be killed, and that boss battle seems to have killed the other.
 * That pact was made between Naesala and Lekain. A third party (i.e. your Endgame party) killed one of the signers (Lekain), and the paper was presumably destroyed, so Naesala's free.
 * The pact was actually between Lekain and the former king of Kilvas, whom Naesala succeeded. (So Naesala inherited the old king's blood pact mark, just as Micaiah did.) The rest of the above point still stands, though.
 * Which begs the question...what would happen if you used  to kill Lekain in 4-E-1 in a second playthrough?
 * Probably the same if you use Naesala: Nothing.

Blood Pacts; endless sources of head scratching

 * This is much, much closer to Fridge Logic than a Headscratcher, but I'm trying to wrap my head around exactly who would be magically bound by a Blood Pact (i.e. the citizens, not the actual pactmakers) and how they would be bound. It would absolutely have to involve a person's genetics and heritage to avoid an extremely cheap copout such as "Okay, today we're changing the country's name so that we are all not citizens of X anymore." or "Today, I'm officially dissolving the country of X. Call yourselves whatever you want, go to other countries, etc." I would also imagine that it would not simply involve killing everyone who happened to be within that country's boundaries in order to avoid killing innocent foreigners and/or the king/queen from merely evacuating everyone to safety. So, wouldn't the blood pact then affect everyone on the continent that was born of Daein blood? Which would naturally include people like Ike and Mist (full-blooded Daein) and Soren (half)?
 * The spell probably determines the whole thing on a variety of factors, like how long someone has lived in a country, whether they and others consider them citizens of that country, where they are born, from who and so on. And even if they called the country into nonexistance or something, that wouldn't work. Either the curse was launched already anyway and won't go away with just that, or the spell simply uses subconscious truths instead. Even if people dissolve the country, they would still be of that nationality by their history, culture and "in their hearts", so the spell wouldn't be deceived by such a cheap trick. As for Ike and the rest, heritage or not, they probably either count as Crimeans or have no official nationality because they're travelling mercenaries.

Maybe he's a distant relative of Samus?

 * In FE 10 why did NoA change Brad to Aran, aside from the fact that it creates a few issues because an Aran already existed in the seris (one that would appear in the next english released game no less) but Brad is a name that is common in English!
 * English names are chosen for Japanese game characters to make them sound foreign, exotic or mysterious - compare Terra from Final Fantasy VI, whose Japanese character name was Tina. Thus, when translating the game, often-times English-origin names are swapped out for names that are more foreign to the English audience, to maintain the intended effect.
 * Because a minor character with less than 2 dozen lines is named as such to be exotic (not to mention Brad isn't any more or less exotic than Aran) another question, why not take the simpler route and call FE11's Arran Alan after they fubared
 * What is this mysterious Fire Emblem 11 people keep talking about? A remake is not enough to justify a new number, people. Otherwise Final Fantasy would be on FF 1 Million by now.
 * Do you really want to hold up FF versioning as the standard? Can you imagine FE7 as FE6-2 or FE6 Ante?
 * Well, A) This series has eleven entries with no spinoffs, so it's not really a big deal, and B) under that logic, the first half of FE3 doesn't count as it's own game, so only half the game gets a number.
 * Also, Fire Emblem games, unlike Final Fantasy, don't have numbers, they have subtitles (except the first North American release, but I digress). Calling a game "FE 11" or "FE 7" is just fan shorthand. It's not official in any capacity.
 * As to the original JBM: While Fire Emblem usually abides by One Steve Limit within each individual game, and there isn't a lot of crossover of names between games, it is not out of the question for characters who inhabit two different universes (probably) to have similar names. Anyway, despite their similar names, there is a difference between them, so people won't mistake which game you're talking about unless you're an awful typist.

Ena's tiny baby

 * The dragon tribe ages slower than normal. But in Ena's ending for FE 10 she apparently gives birth to her fiance's child, a several year long pregnancy with no outward signs.
 * Also, when Dheginsea in one of the couples parents, how is premarital sex allowed?
 * Honestly, does that ever stop people?
 * Also, do human social customs apply to dragons in a fictional world?
 * Probably because Humanoid Alternate Form does not necessarily equal human biology, too. Just because they can look like us, does not mean things are the same as us.
 * In other words, she laid eggs.
 * The Bird Tribe Laguz don't lay eggs, and Almedha didn't lay an egg (though that may have had more to do with the fact that it was a human who got her pregnant. Nevertheless, if the birds don't lay eggs, the lizards probably don't either.)
 * It's even longer than it sounds. If you take the fact that Rajaion went to save his nephew when he was very young (because that's Almedha saw him last), and he's around 18 at the end of Radiant Dawn, and Ena didn't have any chance for conception in those 18 years (after around 13-14 Rajaion dies as Ashnard's mount, and assume there aren't any other real chances otherwise, as he's being confined), she would have been pregnant for around 18 years without showing, as far as we can tell, any outward sign whatsoever.
 * Not necessarily. Rajaion didn't die as Ashnard's mount; the Heron siblings cured him first. And given what their cure did for Serenes Forest (i.e. heal all the trees and make them spill a whole bunch of pollen), it may well have made Rajaion spill HIS pollen too. For Ena to get pregnant, all she needed was a handful of that stuff... but she'd still be pregnant for at least three years without showing...
 * And another thing: Rajaion left Goldoa to look for his nephew "some nineteen years ago" according to Ena at the end of Path of Radiance, so Rajaion's nephew must have been 19 in POR and 22 in RD.
 * In my humble opinion, Kurth just knocked up his brother's fiance after the tower of guidance battle and named the kid after his brother to ease his own guilt.

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.
 * I figure it's 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.
 * I had the feeling that Riev could 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, 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.

Hey, that shield is hard to use!

 * The dodging animation of the Generals and Sentinels (particularly Nephenee) in Pod/RD is shown to be a simple raise of the shield as they block the incoming attack. If the shield works, why don't they use it all the time?
 * I always thought the enemy was too quick for them to raise their shield in time.
 * What I'm wondering about is how they can use said shield to block things like fire spells (which surround the target) and lightning spells (which come from above.)
 * Well, in that case, you might just as well ask yourself how any class can dodge a tornado, a sea of flame or similar by simply doing a little step aside.
 * Same reason sword-users don't always raise their sword in the air before attacking (which always leads to a critical), I guess.

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.
 * I agree. 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.

Holy shit, a ghost!

 * If you let Bartre die in Blazing Blade, the epilogue says that he survived--which makes sense as he appears again in Sword of Seals. However, the same is not true of Karel, who also appears in Sword of Seals, nor of Rebecca or Nino, both of whom are canonically the mothers of characters in Sword of Seals and neither of which had been remotely sexually active beforehand.
 * That we know of.
 * Ewwwww.
 * What? And before you start with the accusations, that can easily be a case of Values Dissonance mixed in with a degree of Truth in Television and/or Shown Their Work. Back in the day - the time of William Shakespeare is a great example - people had a MUCH lower life expectancy than is enjoyed today, since we get the benefit of all those neat medicines, Crazy Prepared hospitals, etc. So, in order to perpetuate the species, it was normal for women to bear children at earlier ages. In the original Romeo and Juliet, IIRC, Juliet was... what, fourteen - sometimes, even thirteen or TWELVE - according to most sources? Considering that the setting and general level of society/technology appears to be that timeframe Like Reality Unless Noted, this makes a great deal more sense. In a matter of fact, in some Third World countries today, that (relative) social norm is still in effect.
 * Lugh and Ray were 14 in FE 6, and Nino was 14 in FE 7. FE 6 took place 20 years after FE 7. Therefore, Nino was 20 years old when she gave birth to Lugh and Ray. She HAD to survive at least six years past FE 7.

Elfire is delicious

 * Nino's supports with Canas have her learning to read from Canas' "tomes". This is despite the fact that she can already cast Elfire when you recruit her. In a world where spells are cast from spellbooks. Referred to as "tomes" in-game. What, does spellcasting normally work by ripping out a magical page and eating it or something? (I suppose that would explain the finite durability...) Also, while Nino has already learned from Sonia at this point that she's not her actual mother, in the support conversations she inexplicably possesses a pendant with pictures of her real family. Which she was ripped away from as an infant. Er? I guess that must be Uncle Jan's doing...
 * Nino's support with Erk answers the first question: she auditorily memorized the chants Sonia used to cast spells. Yeah, she's just that good.

Screw you, honey!

 * Sain and Rebecca's support conversations consist entirely of Sain doing what he does and Rebecca rejecting him hard. Why, then, does their A-support ending have them get married?
 * Slap Slap Kiss? They didn't get married immediately after the game ended and things changed? Because she has to shack up with any dude she can to be Wolt's mother even though he looks exactly like Wil? Or maybe they just did it for the heck of it?

"Yer a wizard, Lilina"

 * What's the explanation for Lilina in FE6 being a mage? Her father is Hector, an axe-wielding badass ,and her mother is Lyn, ActionGirl from Sacae and the game's three wife choices for him are also physical weapon users. There is no mention of magic in their bloodlines and isn't Ostia famous for Armor Knights anyway? How is Lilina a proficient spellcaster? Do they ever mention anything about how that came to be in Sword of Seals (I didn't dabble much in FE6's support conversations since they weren't as interesting as the ones in 7-9. Plus, no support library! WAT!)? I think FE7 should have included a female mage character (other than Nino for obvious reasons) that could've been a potential love interest for Hector to partly explain (or gave Hector an ending with Serra) to give some explanation for why Lilina wanted to take up magic instead of the axe or the sword.
 * This isn't Genealogy of the Holy War. Maybe it's recessive genes. Maybe she just had a talent for it, nothing genetic. With Florina as her mother, there could be a bit of inherited magicalness, if that's even necessary in this setting. A better question would be why is Wolt such a terrible archer when his parents are Rebecca and Wil Sain  Lowen ?
 * That's a bit harsh, don't you think? Wolt's more or less Dorothy's equal, albeit a bit weaker physically (just like Rebecca was to Wil).
 * Genetics determines potential and talent, but they still need to be worked on in order to yield results. Maybe he had a shitty archery teacher or maybe he slacked off.
 * You're assuming that Hector's wife was an actual character in the game. For all we know he could have met someone completely unrelated to the game and married her. Granted most of the Fire Emblem games hint at pairings that produce offspring (Eliwood/Ninian, Rebecca/Wil etc) that isn't always the case for the lords.
 * At the risk of starting some lame shipping war, all evidence points to Lyn being Hector's canonical love interest. They have plenty of non-support scenes together (even moreso in Hector Mode), they are totally rockin' the Slap Slap Kiss thing that is oh-so-popular in Japanese productions, and if you get them to A support, they have a special conversation in CH 29xEliwood/CH31xHector complete with slow music, something neither Hector nor Lyn gets with their other romantic options. So Hector/Lyn is right up there Eliwood/Ninian, Wil/Rebecca, Nino/Jaffar etc. in most likely being canon.
 * Except for the part where Lyn so obviously can't get comfortable with the idea of being a Noble Girl and longs to return to the plains. If Hector/Lyn is "totally canon" she can't do that. It's not canon just because it's your favorite. (Also how did Wil/Rebecca make it onto the oh-so-obvious list? They don't have special talks or non-support scenes, and Wolt having Wil-hair could just be a coincidence)
 * This is Fire Emblem. There are no coincidences.
 * Why is this conversation even being had? Hector has more than one canonical love interest, because he can marry more than one person in canon. There is no need for any pairing to be "most likely canon", and you don't need it to be canon for it to be your favorite.
 * Then again... this is Fire Emblem. Women don't use axes in Fire Emblem (except Paladins, but they're special, and even then, Isadora is kind of a standout for being a female paladin). It's like a law or something.
 * I'd berate you for forgetting about Echidna, but I usually forget about her too.
 * I'll have you know that my Amelia is a veritable goddess with an axe.
 * Going back to the original question, Cecilia's support with Lilina suggests that, at some level or another, anyone can learn magic. Some people just happen to be more talented at it than others, and as such those people become mages.
 * Fridge Brilliance: Remember Hector's support with Eliwood (I think it's the B support), where he has a vision of an older version of himself and Lilina? Also, if you play Hector's mode, he can sense Raven's hostility despite having no possible way of doing so... unless Hector has magical potential that he never used.
 * Keep in mind that Soren's parents weren't mages either, and that didn't stop Soren from becoming a mage.
 * But Almedha was still a dragon. Their seid magic surpasses even the herons.

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...
 * I thought they did get XP for stealing (I think 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, I believe). 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!
"Ephraim: Eirika...
 * What's up with saying Fire Emblem is obsessed with incest? Cuz I'm not seeing it. 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 which you listed there, except, of course, the exceptions), I'm guessing the majority of them are 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... Siblings aside, this is barely even bringing up the other couples that can occur in the game... Anyway, I'd say Fire Emblem is pretty good at giving incest options to the player, whether intentionally or not. (Roy and Lilina, anyone? I was amused 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. I've even seen on this very Wiki 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 Po R, so IS could minimize the incest implications for once.
 * This troper can't help but have some respect for IS after they managed to make two of the potential pairings in the second half of FE4 simultaniosly 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. I'm going to put that one down to players with perverted, twisted, and wrong imaginations...
 * It's not explicitly spelled out, but if you read their supports there seems to have a lot of Subtext. 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." I mean, how much more implied can it be?
 * Seriously, dude.

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, 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.
 * And there are many, many more. The creepiness goes Up to Eleven.
 * 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 handsomness.
 * Our 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 tropers who have commented 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." I mean, 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.
 * This troper won't argue 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 my point. "Eirika remains unmarried? Well golly-gee-willickers! She MUST be doin' it with her brother! There's no other possible explanation!" Seriously people, 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.
 * And you only serve to illustrate my point. Just because you don'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. All I did was 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 us to do. We've become so oversexed that we interpret every expression of affection as Perverse Sexual Lust. I'm not denying that genuine subtext can be present in a work of fiction. Nor am I claiming that every single claim of sexual subtext is conjured from nothing by nasty perverts. All I'm saying is that people jump to ridiculous conclusions based on completely innocent scenes. You said it yourself. 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 let me ask you this: What gives you 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. Last time I checked, it wasn't anyone's job to play the Morals Police in the Fire Emblem fandom.
 * I'm not trying 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.
 * 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...
 * On the main topic: While people exaggerate saying the series is chokefull of incest, it still has certainly more than most JRP Gs. That + Never Live It Down = This.

Down with the Apostle!

 * In Radiant Dawn, why the HELL did Micaiah order the Apostle's Pegasus to be shot down? Yeah, great idea, kill the only hope you might have for a free world. Hope you have a plan to deal with the hordes of Begnion tropes that the Senate will send even if you do succeed! Furthermore, why did Ike just let Micaiah go anyway? She ordered her tropes to kill the apostle! I think that would be a good reason to capture her and hold her hostage! So what if Sanaki said "No more bloodshed", she's a massive danger! Finally, what was the point of Sephiran's rebellion in the capital? How did that fit into his plan of
 * It is how he gets out of jail to carry on his plans. Hard to in a jail cell.
 * But then why start the rebellion?
 * Rebellions bring fighting and death. Fighting and death produces chaos energy. Sephiran thought that, leaving no one capable of , leaving a spike in Tellius' chaos energy the only way to.
 * On the Shooting down the Apostle note: The senate want nothing less than the eradication of the Apostle's army and have forced Daein and therefore Micaiah into doing just that . As for why Micaiah was left to go free, the scenario at 3-12 actually turns into a Mexican Standoff of sorts. If Ike doesn't back down he risks Micaiah actually shouting "Fire!" and killing the apostle whereas if Micaiah doesn't back down she risks her own life as well as Sothe's. Sanakai's cease fire defused what was a lose/lose situation for both sides.

Killing everyone =/= destruction?

 * In Radiant Dawn, one of the weapons twins comes up to Micaiah and says "At least Ashnard never tried to destroy Crimea as a country!" Except he did!  Twice!  Both by invading them and killing everyone (the townspeople whose houses you enter in Path of Radiance praise you for saving them from extinction) and  Even if the convoy workers didn't know the second, they should at least know the first!
 * Perhaps they value putting every able bodied man in a work camp as further over the Moral Event Horizon then just killing everyone.
 * While this point is agreed with, it just struck this troper as being a lame way to try to get the player to stop thinking "Why am I helping these people? I spent the entirety of the last game trying to stop them from destroying the world!" Silly game; it didn't work. I still felt no regret wiping the floor with them later in the game, no matter how often they say Ashnard wasn't that bad, because he was that bad.
 * Pelleas tries his best to completley seperate himself from Ashnard's legacy, Ashnard was a Complete Monster. Also as for the merchant convoy, they first get found in jail with Kurthanga with very little reason why, tending to cloud thier opinions on what is the lesser of two evils.

Just E10?

 * Why in the world was Radiant Dawn not rated T? It was arguably the darkest FE to date, the opening cinema has Sothe stab a guy in the neck, it's the first Western FE translation to favor "damn it!" instead of the series' traditional use of "blast!", it had premarital sex (Ena giving birth to Raijaion's babies despite him only being her "fiancÃ©", Almedha admitting there as no love between her and Ashnard, only lust which resulted in a child) And the usual death and murder themes that are common in the series. And it got a E10 rating. While a game about a pink puffball fighting Pikachu gets a T rating instead.
 * Because it's told with mostly static sprites on a background with characters talking. Since there's no blood, actually sexually charged scenes etc. The ESRB isn't as offended. It's the same reason books get away with a crapload more then TV.
 * What bugs me more about this is the fact that Radiant Dawn wasn't rated T but Path of Radiance WAS. Path of Radiance said ONE swear word in a hard to find place and made an ambiguous reference to alcoholism. Radiant Dawn said SEVERAL in CUTSCENES and made an explicit reference to alcoholism, plus all the premarital sex and the sex jokes.
 * The ESRB started the E10 rating in 2005, Po R was also released in 2005... maybe it was released before the rating existed. Also, Smash Bros lets you hit kids with a baseball bat, so while the themes aren't a serious, there's a good dose of violence.
 * This is sort of interesting. In PAL regions, Path of Radiance had a 7+ rating while Radiant Dawn was rated 12+.
 * What the hell Radiant Dawn gets an A rating in japan anyway?
 * The Japanese probably don't care about that kind of stuff too much.

But do you spell it with an S?

 * The fact that people can't seem to agree on the names of FE4 characters bugs me. Aideen/Adean/Edin? Ira/Aira/Ayra? Midir/Midayle? Eltshan/Eltosian? Deirdre/Diadora/Didir? And what is up with some the names of the 2nd Gen. characters like Lackche, Skasaha, Delmud, etc.? These names has made me appreciate No A's name changes for English Fire Emblems so much more...
 * They can't agree on FE6 character names either. Cass/Cath? Ray/Rei? This seems to be an accidental difficulty in translation. I mean, how are you really going to find out which one IS actually intended?
 * I wish those were as bad as it got. Purists insist on spelling Ray's name as Lleu due to some technicality about how Japanese characters are romanized, despite the fact that the appropriate pronunciation for those characters is "Ray" anyway!
 * Where "some technicality", as far as I can tell (after a bunch of Googling), is a (fairly reasonable) guess that they meant for the character to be named after the Welsh Lleu (to match the Celtic Lugh). Which actually is pronounced Rei - as far as the Japanese would be able to render it, anyway. Actually, about as far as most English speakers would be able to render it. Welsh has weird vowels. Considering that FE has come up with names like "Bartre" that are complete tongue-twisters for the Japanese, I think this gets a pass. But make no mistake: "Lleu" definitely does not come from any romanization scheme. You'd have to be smoking something pretty awesome to use a double-ell for romanizing Japanese.
 * Relax! It's to be expected with the ambiguous nature of translating names. Go for literal? Go for something with a more natural look and sound? Or maybe figure out which obscure Greek/Celtic/Finnish/Belgian figure they were named for. Of course a broad and diverse fan base can't come to a unified consensus. Heck, people still disagree even when NOA gives us something concrete (as I am guilty of sometimes, but I don't hold my name choices against others).

Seriously, this thing is really confusing

 * Why is it that, if you use Naesala to kill Lekain in the Endgame of Radiant Dawn, his Blood Pact is still destroyed? I didn't think descendants counted as third parties.
 * Naesala is the King of Kilvas. The Blood Pact was signed by a former King of Kilvas. I suspect that as far as Blood Pact magic is concerned, it basically makes them the same person. It fits in with the themes of 'rightful king' of RD.
 * But if they essentially counted as the same, then he definately shouldn't have counted as a third party, and his killing Lekain shouldn't have allowed him to destroy the pact.
 * Gameplay and Story Segregation
 * Phoenicis and Kilvas are republics under the guise of monarchal names. In Path of Radiance, it is said that they choose kings "based on strength", which means that Naesala probably had no relation to the King who signed the blood pact, and was only taking responsibility for it because he was ruling the country.

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.

Tellius is just full of these, isn't it?

 * The Branded. Begnion tells the people that Laguz and Beorc are not supposed to interbreed by Ashera's Rules, which is why the Branded have their marks and the Laguz parent loses her transformation ability. However, Yune tells Ashera "something that she does not yet know" before the final battle, which is that the two species can indeed crossbreed. If Ashera didn't know that and it is not by her will that the Branded are branded, then why are they? Or, moreso, why are the Laguz unable to transform after having a child with a Beorc? Without divine intervention, the Branded-and-Special-Ability-Thing can still be explaind by the Laguz blood being magical and such, but why would the Laguz parent lose abilities in that process?
 * Ashera was asleep before the first Beroc and Laguz couple mated so she wouldn't know about them, as for them losing thier powers it may be a sort of thing so the parents could raise the child on equal terms. Or the Goddess didn't run a debug script when creating the two.
 * Well it is made clear that even Ashunera is not a perfect being. It's also clearly stated by Yune that the beorc and laguz were not created. The Zunanma evolved on their own out of a desire to be like their goddess and then they continued to evolve from there into beorc and laguz. Aside from being the reason why the branded were a complete unknown to the goddesses, it's also the reason why there were beorc and laguz that weren't affected by Ashera's judgment in spite of being no where near Yune.

Ishtar's secret class

 * In FE 4: Why does Ishtar, a Sage, have a Mage Fighter battle sprite?
 * Simple. The Mage Fighter battle sprite has a ponytail.

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 never made sense to This Troper, 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. Palla was the only Pegasus Knight This Troper felt okay with turning Dracoknight.
 * 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.
 * This Troper knows that 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 ammount 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 all I got.
 * In the Jugdral gam,es, 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.

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 it's original shape. Most metal either couldn't bend at all or wouldn't snap back.
 * 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. I guess 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 my 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, I just thought of something. 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.

Is he hiding something?

 * Someone keeps referencing Hector using an axe and potholing it to Not Compensating for Anything. What's up with that? Is the logic that he must be compensating because he uses a different weapon? Is it because his axe is huge after his class change? Because if it's the latter I'd really like to know how you can compulsively call that compensation while not batting an eye at Durandal.
 * Heroes Prefer Swords used to be called Not Compensating for Anything.

Fear me, vegetables!

 * What's up with the Herons? They're these fragile, gentle, vegetarian creatures with magic songs... but real herons are large, predatory birds.
 * But they LOOK fragile and gentle. Aside from that, nothing else matters when making a fictional world.
 * In Japanese tradition, the heron represents life, tactfulness, and delicacy. In addition, a heron and a raven together is a common symbol of the taijitu. Would you pass up that sort of symbolism? Besides, if you really want to get technical about it members of the hawk and falcon family are faster than members of the crow family, and lions, being pack hunters, have much less raw power on their lonesome than tigers.
 * Also size. Tigers are bigger than Lions, and the common raven is larger in size than any hawk in the world. Despite this, Tiger Laguz aren't that much bigger than actual tigers when the transform- the wolf laguz are similar in size, while Lion Laguz are somewhere around the size of a grizzly.

Time travellers

 * The kids' ages in the second generation of FE 4. Celice is born in the timespan between the end of chapter 2 and the beginning of chapter 3, he spends a year in Silesia and then seventeen years later he and the other kids take up arms against the Empire. He and probably Lakche, Skasaha and Lester ought to be about 18 by now, but they give the impression of being several years younger. Were they just really sheltered, or did they just not do the math correctly when they made up the timeline?

Adean X Lex 4EVER!

 * In Genealogy of the Holy War, why is it that Lester resembles Lex so strongly? I mean, it can't just be a coincidence...they look practically identical! Is IS trying to suggest that Lex and Adean had an affair at some point (Ã la Fin and Lachesis) or is Lex the "canon" lover? All of the other children at least resemble their mothers partially, but Lester is quite the anomaly. (This might actually be a good WMG theory now that I think about it.)

Snidely Knightlash

 * When you first meet the Black Knight in PoR, not only does he sneer at you like some mustache-twirling villain, but he threatens to do "horrors" to Greil's daughter to his face. What happened to honor and not raising your sword against those who are unwilling to defend themselves, ?
 * Easy. was never very honorable, he was always ready to do anything to get the job done. He was just pretending to be knightly to cultivate a good reputation as to not make Sephiran look bad in public, and to make Micaiah trust him, respectively. His only aspect where he's remotely knightly is in his Blood Knight tendencies towards Ike later on.
 * His AI certainly isn't too honorable. For someone who's practically invincible, he certainly has a coward's tendency togo after weaker characters with his long-range attacks.

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, and I'm going to ramble for a bit. 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, with 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 (I assume) to slay horses. How does the person riding the horse die? I can understand a it better 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 of 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.

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 's Axe Fighters promoting to Heroes. Speaking of, the Japanese version called Micaiah's final class "Shaman" (A nod to Genealogy of Holy War's 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 describes 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.

Well, we haven't known each other that long

 * Why wasn't there a bond support between Aran and Laura or Edward and Leonardo?
 * All four are rather young, and have only experience with skirmishes; Bond supports seem to imply long-lasting comradeship, familial ties, or deep love. Although I certainly wouldn't have minded some extra critical bonuses on the Dawn Brigade...

You broke my book!
Unfortunately, that requires controlling the energy and guiding it directly onto it's 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.
 * How do Tomes and Staves break? I understand 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.

Who needs a holy weapon, anyway?

 * Why doesn't Lord Ring have Ichival with him? Instead, Aideen is apparently carrying it around.
 * Aideen explicitly says that she has it on her for when she finds Briggid. Considering that Lord Ring has absolutely no idea that Grandbell is about to see a coup, I doubt that he thought it was important for him to have Ichival with him.

Ok, maybe brainwashing her wasn't such a good idea...

 * Why did Manfloy brainwash Julia instead of just killing her?
 * The thought of having Yuria and Celice kill each other was probably just hilarious to him. Yurius does ask the same thing, and even later curses Manfroy's lack of foresight if you use Yuria against him.

Women and axes

 * Why does a female My Unit only have access to one class with use of axe, and only after promotion?
 * Same reason the male can't be a pegasus knight.
 * Fire Emblem games are rather scarce with female axe users, and moreso older games (Which were scarce in Axe Users in general. Gaiden and Mystery of the Emblem Book 2 had NO Axe users, period!), so that's to be expected.

stupid dress...

 * How is Ninian able to run while wearing that dress? You'd think it would be a bit hard to stay away from a group like the Black Fang while wearing this.
 * Nils played his flute for her and she danced for him, thus cheesing their way to safety.
 * There's also the fact that they got caught. Twice.

Cheating is way worse than murder

 * How come everyone here is always complaining about Beowolf cheating on Lachesis but have no problem with him being willing to betray and kill his friend to join the good guys after the player gives him enough money? Isn't murdering your own friend for money much worse then possibly cheating on one person?
 * Money or not, switching sides and murdering the people whom you were fighting for just a minute ago is something dozens of other characters do as well. Whether you do it out of greed or out of belief, the result is the same.

Lived by continuity errors

 * Renault possibly being centuries old was an interesting twist, if only it didn't completely screw with the Fire Emblem timeline. As Renault was a soldier when Wallace was a youth (who despite being old, is not centuries old), and he only chose to aid Nergal and leave Caelin after his friend had died. Thus it is likely that Canas believed Nergal started creating the morphs assisted by Renault several centuries ago, when in fact it may have just been a few decades. Another possibility that after leaving Nergal, he returned to Caelin and became a knight for a while before becoming a Bishop, though it is unlikely as he is said to have killed Lucius's parents when Lucius was a child during his blood-crazed state after his friend's death.

Sexist lance knights

 * I don't know if this was something present only in the English version. But all the official material for path of radiance went out of their way to explain that Lance Knights were "male only" such as the official guide (the one that confuses characters that are class changed and those that are not in the character section i.e/ Nephenee is labeled as an already class changed unit in Po R) and the official site (yeah the one that claims Ashnard is a lord, Greil is a ranger, and Black Knight is a paladin). And now in Radiant Dawn, we are given a female lance knight. Seriously what was the point of repeatedly bashing the fact that lance knights are all male into our skulls whenever you had the chance only to change in the sequel? Is it a mistranslation thing? Like how they claimed the white dragon's breath is ice?

As it turns out, charging into an empire with only three other people is a poor tactical decision

 * In The Sacred Stones, both Eirika and Ephraim make some less than stellar choices, but only Eirika is criticized or discussed. How she was so stupid to give Lyon the stone, how naive she is, etc. Yet Ephraim attempts to take on the Grado empire with only what, three men at his side, and answers the challenge of a madman who could skewer him in seconds, and only a few people acknowledge that it was a bad idea while everyone else cheers at what a Badass he was. Why is taking on an empire while dangerously unprepared = awesome genius while believing the MacGuffin can save your friend from ruin and attempting to do so = big honking dumbass? (Don't get me wrong, it was awesome that Ephraim managed to survive, but he was extremely lucky he did.)
 * I think its because Ephraim has much more personality as a character so people are more forgiving, while the only thing that really makes Eirika stand out from other generic lords is her clingyness to her brother. Don't get me wrong, I consider Ephraim's decision very reckless (though in character), but I'm just giving a possible explanation. Personally I'm somewhat willing to forgive Eirika because of her naivety and her friendship with Lyon, though it was a pretty stupid choice.
 * True, Ephraim has a very dynamic personality. But Eirika hardly seemed "generic" to me. (Then again, I've grown to despise "generic" as a term because it implies that not having a bombastic kickass standout personality = boring and flat)
 * It's less about Ephraim's personality than it is about how Ephraim's plan was much more successful. Like, seriously, he attacks the world's most powerful military with, yes, three other people, one of whom is The Mole, yet still manages to capture Renvall castle, one of the most secure castles in Grado. He is captured shortly afterward by the aforementioned Mole, but he's still in the middle of a breakout himself when Eirika rescues him (and she seems to have taken much more time and effort to get to that point than he did). The reason there are no cries of Too Dumb to Live on Ephraim's plan is because it's shown that Ephraim, Kyle and Forde are competent enough to actually get it done, while Eirika has been told repeatedly that Lyon's soul has been devoured, that he's a puppet of the Demon King, etc., and then gives him their only hope of salvation anyway.
 * Another reason is what was at stake. Ephraim was hounding the Grado Military, but Renais was already lost. Ephraim was risking the three men under his command, and that's about it. (Not knowing about the bracelets at the time.) When Eirika handed over the stone, she was putting the entirety of Magvel in danger.

Hey, where'd my sword go?

 * A minor thing, but...Sigurd was named after the mythological dragon-slaying hero, who is also known as Siegfried. So...why is his legendary weapon the Tyrfing? I mean, Siegfried's actual sword, the Balmung, does exist in this universe...
 * Who knows? Maybe they just thought those two names both sounded cool. I doubt they were really going for mythical accuracy, after all.

Because no one likes someone for leaving someone else who cheated on them

 * On the subject of Beowulf, I don't understand why he's The Scrappy. At all. Could anyone please clear this up?
 * I'm not completely sure on the topic myself, but most of it seems to stem from the translation of Beowulf and Lachesis' last conversation:

"Beowulf: "Lachesis, I've got a confession to make."

Lachesis: "Hm?"

Beowulf: "I've known your true feelings all along."

Lachesis: "What...!?"

Beowulf: "Take good care of yourself. It was mighty nice while it lasted."

Lachesis: "Wait! Beowulf!""


 * It's completely canon that Lachesis had children with both Finn and Beowulf, but the text is too ambiguous to figure out. A lot of people think Beowulf was completely unjustified in leaving his lover (and baby son) and giving her no chance to explain herself, even if she had been cheating on him. Some think Lachesis wasn't even cheating on him at this point in the game, but became pregnant with Nanna between Seisen no Keifu and Thracia 776. Of course there are also others who think Lachesis was a cheating whore who had a creepy crush on her brother. The hate stretches both ways.
 * Fin seems to be the only one involved who's not hated

He really gets around

 * I'm not sure I understand why Roy is continually classified as a Kidanova on this wiki. Yes, he has a larger pool of possible brides than most other FE lords, but they are just that: possibilities. He's not like Sain or Saul, who actively flirt with every woman they come across-- in fact, he acts very uncomfortable when Lalum tries to make a move on him and seems totally oblivious to Lilina's obvious infatuation with him.
 * Probably because he's the only unit in that game to actually have a paired ending, but Kidanova seems to be used for any young person with a lot of suitors.
 * That, and it's probably supposed to be a joke.

Wait, how'd I become a General?

 * Why do some of the reclass sets in Shadow Dragon and New Mystery of the Emblem allow units to become the promoted form of a class whose unpromoted form they couldn't actually use? For instance, characters in both games with the Male A reclass set can become Dracoknights, but not Pegasus Knights, and characters in New Mystery with the Female reclass set can become Generals, but not Knights. While I know why they gave females access to the General class (because Sheema was a General in the original and they didn't want to change her class), I fail to see why women couldn't become Knights beforehand, and I also don't understand why men were given the Dracoknight class at all.
 * Answer: Having characters from the original games that are classes that would be otherwise "one gender only". plus laziness in not making different gendered version of the earlier class. As you mentioned, Sheema is a General, the promotion of the male only knight. Thus, girls can be generals, but not knights. This next one applies more to Shadow Dragon than New Mystery, but girls could only be Paladins because Midia was a Paladin. There is no Girl Cavalier options until New Mystery. Male Dragon Knights? Micalis is a male (sure, he is enemy only in Shadow Dragon, but they have to code that male Dragon Knight class for him, so they might as well put it to use!)

Fire Emblem 7's subtitle

 * Why is the most common fan translation for Fire Emblem 7's subtitle "Blazing Sword" instead of "Blazing Blade"? I can understand, with the lack of an official translation, how people might end up translating the same word differently, but "Blazing Blade" is actually used several times in English version of the game when referring to Durandal. It's the closest thing to an official translation of the subtitle, so why does everyone ignore it?

Micaiah's hair

 * Micaiah's white/silver hair. Yes,
 * Well, she isn't related to Soan,  But the rest of it... you have a point. We only see   in a picture and she also has black hair. And   So, maybe calling her "The Black-Haired Maiden" just isn't as special sounding?
 * She is so many generations removed from Lehran and Altina that it would be highly unusual if she DID look just like either of them. Maybe the gene for silver hair was introduced through an ancestor not related to Lehran or Altina?
 * Maybe it was a mutation? Maybe it turned that way after living a stressful life(though it would be more likely to fall out)

Spare the mothers

 * What exactly happens to the female characters from Part 1 of Genealogy if they didn't marry? We never actually hear anything about whether or not they survive unless they marry, so are we supposed to assume they died at Bahara with the rest of the army? This is especially noticeable with Tailto, whose abuse at Hilda's hands is replicated with her sister, Ethnia, with Tailto nowhere to be seen.
 * I assume with Ethnia and Tailto, they were both abused by Hilda and died, it's just that one isn't really relevant to the other's kids. Although actually, now that I think about it, Ethnia's kids (Amid and Linda) do reference that Tailto also died due to Hilda's abuse. It's Arthur and Teeny who ignore their aunt.
 * I didn't actually know that. I'd only played the game once, and I'd already married Tailto off, so when I read about the Ethnia thing I'd just assumed that she wasn't involved in that subplot. Thanks for clearing that up.
 * Correction: Amid and Linda don't reference that Tailto died due to Hilda's abuse, but that Ethnia joined Siglud because Tailto died in battle. (Of course, this becomes strange if Tailto lived to the end, but just wasn't married, which would mean that she died at Barhara...)

Micaiah and Sephiran

 * This is full of spoilers and my thoughts, so humor me please: I'm playing the game again, and short of "because if Micaiah is alone in 1-9 she will definitely die and the game will end," I can't understand why Sephiran would send the Black Knight to save her sauce. He admits in the Tower that he had no idea she was alive (or else, I gather, he would have had her sing the Galdr of Release and end the world without the war), so how did he know to send the Black Knight to her? If he had no idea who she is, which he claimed, then he must've sent the Black Knight to liberate Daein, not protect her specifically (although the two causes are one in the same); why does he care if Daein is free or not, considering his plans end up with world extermination? If his goal was to make sure Daein participated in the world war, he would have been better off leaving them under the control of the Senate, who inevitably would have used the captured Daein soldiers to fight. At least by the second time, 4-3, it seems that Sephiran knows she's alive, considering the Black Knight tries to get her to go to the Tower by herself; but even then, what's the point of that, considering Ashera's going to Judgment the world again (which is what Sephiran wants) unless Yune intervenes, so why would he want to bring Yune there? My only guess is that he wants to either say goodbye to Yune or possibly have her stop him because he's secretly a nice guy, but maybe I missed something.

So, did they want us to hate him?
This is another spoiler for the Radiance/Radiant Titles so close the folder now if that bugs you. Concerning Radiant Dawn's ending, breaking up the Greil Mercenaries was odd but done logically and wanting to close Ike's story forever is understandable, if questionable because he's popular. What does not make sense is how Ike's story closed. He left alone for lands unknown and was never seen again? He decided not stick with his promise to protect sister, the promise to uphold the peace or(the big one) the promise to run the company he inherited? Where exactly could he go with only one continent left on the planet? He couldn't cross the desert, someone did that already. A more satisfying end would have been "Like Zihark, Ike remained a mercenary and continued to lend aid where it was needed until old age immobilized him. He died at 97 and a bunch of people attended his funeral." Okay, maybe that wouldn't be more satisfying but it wouldn't contradict anything.

They probably have a great pension plan.

 * How and why does the Black Fang, a league of assassins, have enough soldiers to field an entire army? Cog of Destiny alone had hordes and hordes of heavily armed and armoured soldiers, and it seems to be the case that most of Nergal's non-Morph henchmen you fight are Black Fang members. Wouldn't an assassin's guild only have a handful of actual assassins, and maybe a few guards and soldiers for support other duties? Having hundreds of soldiers doesn't strike me as good sense for what's supposed to be a secret guild.
 * They don't appear to me as the purely stealthy type of assassin. More like the "rush into the evil noble's house through the front door, beat down his guards and then put an axe in his head" type. They'd need more people for that and they also would be able to recruit from a wider scale without having to train them all in the arts of stealth. It's also plausible that they started recruiting whatver thugs, mercenaries, rogues and who-knows-who as soon as Sonia became involved to fill out their ranks for just such an occasion. After all, the more death, the more Quintessence.

Darin and Hausen's titles

 * Darin, Helman and Hausen are titled Marquess, but Laus and Santaruz are in the dead center of Lycia and Caleian is sorounded by other Lycian teritories. They should be Counts (Ostia and Pherae are on the borders, so Hector/Uther and Eliwood/Elbert are correctly titled).

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 it's 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, I don't really 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?