mark_asphodel (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
mark_asphodel) wrote2011-09-09 04:11 pm
mark_asphodel) wrote2011-09-09 04:11 pm
Entry tags:
- elice,
- fe1,
- fe11,
- fe12,
- fe3,
- fe4,
- fire emblem,
- meta,
- september is meta month
Meta Month, Day Nine: On bodily resurrection
In some Fire Emblem worlds, permadeath really is, well, permanent. Trying to bring back the dead has ghastly consquences in Magvel. Ninian's resurrection in Elibe is both exceptional and more than a little... sketchy.
Not so in Archanea. Though the Aum staff is long-lost and legendary by the time of the War of Darkness (FE1/11), the fact that the thing is housed in a temple known as the Resurrectory suggests that, at some point, it was both well-known and functional. (Worth noting here that, IIRC, the staff could only be used in said temple in FE1. Not the case in FE11).
So, how does it function? No, really. Because bodily resurrection of the dead is one of those metaphysical conundrums that distresses, say, professional theologians. How's that work? If we accept that the half-explanation Claude gives for the Valkyrie Staff in FE4 applies to the Aum (damn you, Tiltyu!), then everyone is born with a life force/essence, and this is the key to resurrection. As the life force thing is a staple of FE games, it seems fair to assume this holds true for Archanea as well as Jugdral.
So, what do we know?
1) Magic was bestowed on the humans of Archanea by the divine dragons. (Canon)
2) The life essence of both earth dragons and divine dragons is so strong that they're extremely hard to kill in the "permanent" sense (Canon-- Medeus, Nagi, and Tiki if you don't recruit her in FE11 all are evidence here).
3) So, resurrecting a human being would seem to be a small-scale, deliberate equivalent of what dragons seem to do naturally-- rejoining the "essence" of the individual to the corporeal body... or a corporeal body, anyway. (Assumption)
4) Even for dragons, this isn't easy... after a dirt nap lasting about a century, Medeus isn't really himself and would seem to need a "boost" from the Aum staff to have the full powers of his physical body back (Canon from FE11). After being dead AGAIN for a couple of years, he would need the life forces of four (4) priestesses to get back into form (Canon, FE3)... and the ritual in that case would make him a Dark Dragon instead of his normal Earth Dragon self. (So here we have a case of a bad, icky, things-go-wrong resurrection, even in Archanea).
But again, what about people?
First off, "life essence" and souls. From what we can piece together, it appears Archanea has a heaven (death quotes for Linde and Lena, FE11) and a hell (death quote from Gharnef, FE11). The belief seems to be that people remain "themselves"-- the individual souls retain the sense of the self, and don't merge into some kind of hive or get recycled. (So, no, Marth is not a reincarnation of Anri.) Soul-merging or recycling would make this resurrection dealie very, very strange.
Elice tells Marth in FE11 that the Aum can be used to resurrect a "fallen comrade." What could we infer from this? Here are a few possibilities:
A) Just as healing magic doesn't seem to work on illnesses, resurrection magic doesn't work on deaths from natural causes. Perhaps the "life essence" of someone who dies a natural death is depleted through illness/infirmity. Then again, what about someone who dies from an accident-- a child who falls out of a tree, a fisherman who drowns?
B) There's some kind of "justice" principle at work-- people who die in a holy cause in which they are actively participating rate better than people who just get crushed by falling masonry or killed for lulz. (Justice? Bleh.)
C) Life essence depletes after death, so someone killed three or four years ago (like Marth's father) can't be resurrected, but someone killed three or four months ago can be. (I used to think the inability to resurrect the "canon sacrifice" from FE11 was a evidence for this, but in light of FE12, it's not.)
D) Some people are just more special than others. People Marth happens to like are especially special, I guess.
OK. So those are just some of the questions affecting the spiritual side of resurrection. Now, what about the body?
Well, what becomes of bodies in Archanea? Per FE2, the custom among some of the people, under some circumstances, is to wrap the dead in a sheet, toss them in the ocean, and let the current bear them away. So, unless you're lucky enough to get washed up on a foreign shore and revived by a hot priestess, you're fish food. I doubt that's the custom on the mainland, though. Cremation, earth burial, mummification, something else entirely... we don't know. If the legend of resurrection was passed down in some form via religion, people might take care to keep bodies intact, disposing of them in the earth or the water without any mutilation or evisceration. And, in some cases, without even a decent post-mortem examination.
Wartime dead might not be that fortunate, though. Shot, stabbed, cleaved in two, decapitated, fried, frozen, incinerated, devoured by swarms of insects, crushed by projectiles, flattened in fall from a pegasus, mauled and/or eaten by a manakete... there's a lot of ways to die that would leave the body in terrible shape, even if a resurrection could be performed immediately after the battle. To say nothing of resurrecting someone who's been worm food or fish food since, say, Galder Harbor. Yet, this is entirely possible, which raises a new question. A really... interesting one.
Resurrection in Magvel (a Bad Thing) definitely involves reanimating the original body of the deceased, which leads to things like zombie!Monica. In this case, the soul of the deceased may not even be present-- their mind/personality certainly is not. Then again, if the zombie brain is basically mush, how would the mind make its presence known? Yech.
But we honestly can't tell from what's given us in Archanea if the resurrection involves reanimation of the deceased or the materialization of a healthy new body. If the former, how does the healing mechanic work? If the latter, when Elice does her thing in the middle of battle, do we end up with two bodies-- the still-warm dead one, and the new living one? Does the new body age at the same rate? Is it fully-functional (not sterile)?
2) The life essence of both earth dragons and divine dragons is so strong that they're extremely hard to kill in the "permanent" sense (Canon-- Medeus, Nagi, and Tiki if you don't recruit her in FE11 all are evidence here).
3) So, resurrecting a human being would seem to be a small-scale, deliberate equivalent of what dragons seem to do naturally-- rejoining the "essence" of the individual to the corporeal body... or a corporeal body, anyway. (Assumption)
4) Even for dragons, this isn't easy... after a dirt nap lasting about a century, Medeus isn't really himself and would seem to need a "boost" from the Aum staff to have the full powers of his physical body back (Canon from FE11). After being dead AGAIN for a couple of years, he would need the life forces of four (4) priestesses to get back into form (Canon, FE3)... and the ritual in that case would make him a Dark Dragon instead of his normal Earth Dragon self. (So here we have a case of a bad, icky, things-go-wrong resurrection, even in Archanea).
But again, what about people?
First off, "life essence" and souls. From what we can piece together, it appears Archanea has a heaven (death quotes for Linde and Lena, FE11) and a hell (death quote from Gharnef, FE11). The belief seems to be that people remain "themselves"-- the individual souls retain the sense of the self, and don't merge into some kind of hive or get recycled. (So, no, Marth is not a reincarnation of Anri.) Soul-merging or recycling would make this resurrection dealie very, very strange.
Elice tells Marth in FE11 that the Aum can be used to resurrect a "fallen comrade." What could we infer from this? Here are a few possibilities:
A) Just as healing magic doesn't seem to work on illnesses, resurrection magic doesn't work on deaths from natural causes. Perhaps the "life essence" of someone who dies a natural death is depleted through illness/infirmity. Then again, what about someone who dies from an accident-- a child who falls out of a tree, a fisherman who drowns?
B) There's some kind of "justice" principle at work-- people who die in a holy cause in which they are actively participating rate better than people who just get crushed by falling masonry or killed for lulz. (Justice? Bleh.)
C) Life essence depletes after death, so someone killed three or four years ago (like Marth's father) can't be resurrected, but someone killed three or four months ago can be. (I used to think the inability to resurrect the "canon sacrifice" from FE11 was a evidence for this, but in light of FE12, it's not.)
D) Some people are just more special than others. People Marth happens to like are especially special, I guess.
So... if he'd really wanted to, could he have asked for Elice to bring back their mother? Liza, after all, while apparently a non-combatant, died a very unnatural death at the hands of the bad guys, and presumably being the mother of the Chosen One would give her a spiritual edge over random nobodies. I realize you can't do that for game mechanic reasons, but still-- would it have been possible? Also, would it have been possible for Marth to pull a Lyon and bring Cornelius back so that Dad could deal with that dragon problem? What would have happened if they'd tried it?
OK. So those are just some of the questions affecting the spiritual side of resurrection. Now, what about the body?
Well, what becomes of bodies in Archanea? Per FE2, the custom among some of the people, under some circumstances, is to wrap the dead in a sheet, toss them in the ocean, and let the current bear them away. So, unless you're lucky enough to get washed up on a foreign shore and revived by a hot priestess, you're fish food. I doubt that's the custom on the mainland, though. Cremation, earth burial, mummification, something else entirely... we don't know. If the legend of resurrection was passed down in some form via religion, people might take care to keep bodies intact, disposing of them in the earth or the water without any mutilation or evisceration. And, in some cases, without even a decent post-mortem examination.
Wartime dead might not be that fortunate, though. Shot, stabbed, cleaved in two, decapitated, fried, frozen, incinerated, devoured by swarms of insects, crushed by projectiles, flattened in fall from a pegasus, mauled and/or eaten by a manakete... there's a lot of ways to die that would leave the body in terrible shape, even if a resurrection could be performed immediately after the battle. To say nothing of resurrecting someone who's been worm food or fish food since, say, Galder Harbor. Yet, this is entirely possible, which raises a new question. A really... interesting one.
Is the body the same physical form the soul once inhabited? Does the Aum spell create a new, intact, uncorrupted body for the life essence to be joined with? In other words... are we treading into morph territory?
Resurrection in Magvel (a Bad Thing) definitely involves reanimating the original body of the deceased, which leads to things like zombie!Monica. In this case, the soul of the deceased may not even be present-- their mind/personality certainly is not. Then again, if the zombie brain is basically mush, how would the mind make its presence known? Yech.
But we honestly can't tell from what's given us in Archanea if the resurrection involves reanimation of the deceased or the materialization of a healthy new body. If the former, how does the healing mechanic work? If the latter, when Elice does her thing in the middle of battle, do we end up with two bodies-- the still-warm dead one, and the new living one? Does the new body age at the same rate? Is it fully-functional (not sterile)?
This whole thing raises so many questions that it might be a good thing that the Aum is not standard-issue FE equipment. The holiest magic looks awfully unholy if you think too long over it.
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But it's really interesting to think about, how these sorts of magicks and the like work. And when you think of the Archanea/Magvel connections and things, it gets a lot dark and more twisted, but it can't help but make you wonder even more, you know?
Sorry I can't say much more on this. :P
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Also, that's an argument for looking for the script.
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The holiest magic looks awfully unholy if you think too long over it.
Indeed.
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This is a really interesting - albeit more than a little disturbing - possibility.
I guess the same could be asked in Elibe, too - do they just cart Ninian's body along with them back to the Dread Isle? That really can't. . .keep well. . . . >__>
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Well, just the idea (which sparked a few 'fics about a year or so ago) that Eliwood's experiences re: girlfriend, father, etc left him deeply messed up and either a basket case if Ninian leaves him again or a pretty wounded individual if she stays as a daily reminder of the killing and such.
Taken in the overall context of Elibe, I don't think that's the case, but it made for some interesting 'fic. I think Lyn's more messed-up than Eliwood, honestly.
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I think I can see the basis for that argument, yeah, but I don't think I could subscribe to it fully--Eliwood's definitely one of the most level-headed and saner lords presented in the game. (Though now that I think on it, all his experiences would definitely take their toll on him.)
There's a lot of things about Lyn that are messed up, but I don't know if I would go so far to say that she's more messed up than Eliwood.
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I can't see FE11!Marth even entertaining the thought-- he accepts the idea that dead is dead pretty readily. Actually, I don't think there's a hint of his own personal beliefs anywhere in the games that've been translated.
Anime!Marth... hah. Who knows.
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(I used to think the inability to resurrect the "canon sacrifice" from FE11 was a evidence for this, but in light of FE12, it's not.)
What evidence is this? *curious*
Galder Harbor
I read this as Galdr, haha.
Given all the complications of reuniting soul with fragmented body, I'm inclined to think that Aum does make a new body. Perhaps in the eyes of the creators this makes it different from Magvel's necromancy. And as it brings back a soul, it is unlike Nergal's schtick, which tries to create new life forms altogether.
As for who can't come back -- in the webcomic Order of the Stick, it's said that only people who want to be revived can be revived. Some people are pretty content with their awesome happily ever after in heaven. Others are too young to know how to cooperate with a resurrection. I thought that was a pretty nifty system.
I mean if there's a Heaven, and resurrection is voluntary, what are the chances that daddy Cornelius wants to come back to take care of this dragon shit when his son could do that for him?
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I was going to bring that up, but I think there are two things that scotch that. I've been trying to remember and x-ref the Archanea "smoking gun," but the Jugdral one (and, really-- same universe, same gods, generally the same rules) is where Celice has a chat with the ghosts of his parents, which IIRC is played straight and seems to mean exactly what it appears to be.
OTOH, when Gotoh congratulates Marth at the end of FE11, he does say (in translation, anyway) "Your family would be proud" and not "Your family is proud" or anything else to indicate continued being. So... I'm not 100% certain of how we're meant to take the afterlife thing. But, souls do appear to hang out somewhere from which they can be recalled intact. Maybe they just kind of go dormant.
What evidence is this? *curious*
Well, if you couldn't resurrect the canon sacrifice, either 1) the game was just evil, 2) dissipating life force meant you couldn't recall someone who'd been dead that long or 3) they weren't dead. Little bit of column 1, lot of column 3.
what are the chances that daddy Cornelius wants to come back to take care of this dragon shit when his son could do that for him?
Hah. Still, you can recall every playable character who is actually dead, regardless of motivation, personality, or likely, er, status after death.
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I'd easily buy souls existing in Archanea, though. There seems to be a positive suggestion of that in every FE.
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With regards to evidence, I was wondering more about how FE3 (12?) went against that.
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You know, this is true, but in lieu of a "it's just mechanics" explanation I think the only way you could accomplish this is throwing a bunch of reasons why it miiiiight be the case, and then pick and choose these factors in a vague way to substantiate any particular quirk at the time.
So, like pseudoscience.no subject
Oh, I think the continued adventures of Gharnef are the clincher on that one: "His body was destroyed, but his vile spirit lives on in the Dark Orb." As far as the specifics on afterlife, though, I think there's something conclusive re: Gharnef and his post-death adventures in FE12, but I can't recall whose partial translation had it, and I'm not up to wading through pages and pages of LJs and SerenesForest right now.
With regards to evidence, I was wondering more about how FE3 (12?) went against that.
Oh, well, the canon sacrifice can't be resurrected because they never died. I didn't really care for that answer.
So, like pseudoscience.
Yep!
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There's also the lion statues in FE2 that allow for free resurrections. They run out of uses (iirc after about 5) but there are at least 2 statues with this power (the others give stat bonuses or promotions) -- but more effective than Aum at any rate. This ties into a bit of what I was thinking at one point re: Valencia and "wild magic"...
I've been wanting to discuss this but man. No time! D:
*pops back out*
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Man, I'd love to see your rundown on "wild magic."
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Resurrection in Magvel (a Bad Thing) definitely involves reanimating the original body of the deceased, which leads to things like zombie!Monica.
Funny how once again, Magvel turns out to be quite straightforward. Even resurrected dragons end up as zombies if you recall the last couple of maps. Not pleasant.
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Dracozombies are, though, borrowed straight from FE2. Sometimes the head spins...
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