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mark_asphodel) wrote2011-09-15 05:30 pm
mark_asphodel) wrote2011-09-15 05:30 pm
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Meta Month, Day 15: Anri
So. I was eating marshmallow candy today, and it got me thinking about the history of Altea (long story).
Anri. Dragon-slayer, founding hero. One corner of a love triangle with lasting and disastrous consequences.
Other than that, he's pretty much a question mark. There's not a sense of him as a real person, IMO-- he's noble and brave and apparently a "suffer in silence" kind of guy, but he doesn't come across as especially sympathetic or human. Which is funny, given he's humanity's lone champion and all that. What do we know?
A century before the events of the Marth Games, Medeus and the Dolhr Empire have pretty much conquered humanity... on Archanea, anyway. Medeus and his peeps take action against human scum in the year 490. By 493, the dragons capture the human capital of Pales and kill the royal family, except for the Princess Artemis. Five years later, a peasant lad by the name of Anri, hailing from the "developing" town of Altea in a remote region of the archipelago, shows up brandishing the divine Falchion sword and makes Medeus go take a dirt nap. Literally, in this case. Two years after that (year 500), Anri declares himself the king of a couple of islands, and names his new domain "Altea" after his hometown. After reigning thirty-seven years, Anri kicks the bucket and his squabbling younger brothers carve up the kingdom-- Marcellus takes the western island, which retains the name Altea, and the brother who grabs the eastern island founds Gra. This status quo holds until family relations get even worse come 602, leading to murder and revenge and all that fun stuff.
Somewhere between 493 and 499, Anri worked in a doomed love affair with Princess Artemis, before she got married off to blue-blooded Duke Cartas.
The beginning of Chapter 11 of FE3, Book II tells the most complete version we have of the story. It almost sounds as though Artemis was hiding in Altea before Pales was taken; once her hiding spot was revealed, the citizens of Altea rallied to protect her. The revelation that Artemis survived spurred Cartas and his liberation army to fight the dragons on the mainland-- that Cartas had the royal family's shield, aka the Fire Emblem, at this stage suggests Artemis designated him her champion before she went into hiding. Whoops. Anyway, the mainland resistance and the Altean resistance are both on borrowed time until a mysterious sage (!) pops in and let the Alteans know that hey, up in the Ice Temple in the frozen north there's this magical sword, see? And Anri, who by this point has fallen hard for Artemis, decides he's going to get that sword.
Apparently he went alone; Gotoh states in Ch 10 of FE3 Book II that Anri was the only human to ever reach the Ice Temple. So either Anri flies solo... or his companions didn't survive. I'm guessing Anri was an adult of at least 17-18 years old here; while a 15-16 year old might be impulsive enough to set off alone to find a magic sword hidden at the other end of the continent, I can't quite see things playing out the way they do if he's exceptionally young. Anri was definitely alone by the time he reached the Marmotord desert by Thabes; his exploits are chronicled in the Anri Saga, which seems to be an epic poem written in the first person, presumably penned by Anri himself after the fact. Jagen quotes from it in Ch 11.
Anyway, he gets the sword, kills the dragon, and doesn't get to marry the girl. Anri never marries, which sets things up for the succession battle that rips his kingdom in half once he's gone. Apparently he consoles himself by writing epic poetry, which seems a good enough thing to do with his remaining four decades.
Here's what we don't know:
1) Age gap between Anri and his brothers. Name of the youngest brother. What, if anything, he did to mediate between them (nothing?), assuming tensions were apparent prior to the succession battle.
2) How long Artemis was hiding in the town of Altea. This might not have been a whirlwind romance-- they might have known one another for two or three years.
3) If anyone knew her identity before her cover was blown and the citizens swore to protect her. Maybe Artemis was just posing as another mainland asylum-seeker.
4) If he set out with any companions.
5) How long his quest took-- six months? A year? I'm betting that, once he had the sword, Gotoh warped him right in to deal with Medeus... why waste a perfectly good hero with a lengthy return journey?
6) That mysterious sage. Gotoh, perhaps? Or... something else?
7) How many people knew about the Artemis thing while the participants were alive. I'm guessing not many. Duke-then-King Cartas was a baaaaad guy to cross.
8) Where Anri got mad fighting skillz to handle Medeus. Maybe the element of surprise was all it took, or maybe he was very active in the Altean resistance before going solo.
9) If Falchion ever affected his will the way the designers' notes indicate that dragon-derived weapons can.
Anyway, that's it. I don't have a lot of headcanon on this guy, because I just don't have the warm fuzzies about him. Anri just strikes me as a pretty closed-off individual; he walks alone, fights alone, and (in the romantic sense) dies alone. All in all, a very different sort from his great-great-nephew, who is all about team-building and unity and "we're all in this together."
And that, perhaps, is the core of the problem with Anri. Long-haired lone heroes might be romantic figures, but in the end, there's something... lacking.
PS: From the Akaneia Chronicle pic of Artemis, she was a dark-haired lass who didn't look much like Nyna. FYI.
Anri. Dragon-slayer, founding hero. One corner of a love triangle with lasting and disastrous consequences.
Other than that, he's pretty much a question mark. There's not a sense of him as a real person, IMO-- he's noble and brave and apparently a "suffer in silence" kind of guy, but he doesn't come across as especially sympathetic or human. Which is funny, given he's humanity's lone champion and all that. What do we know?
A century before the events of the Marth Games, Medeus and the Dolhr Empire have pretty much conquered humanity... on Archanea, anyway. Medeus and his peeps take action against human scum in the year 490. By 493, the dragons capture the human capital of Pales and kill the royal family, except for the Princess Artemis. Five years later, a peasant lad by the name of Anri, hailing from the "developing" town of Altea in a remote region of the archipelago, shows up brandishing the divine Falchion sword and makes Medeus go take a dirt nap. Literally, in this case. Two years after that (year 500), Anri declares himself the king of a couple of islands, and names his new domain "Altea" after his hometown. After reigning thirty-seven years, Anri kicks the bucket and his squabbling younger brothers carve up the kingdom-- Marcellus takes the western island, which retains the name Altea, and the brother who grabs the eastern island founds Gra. This status quo holds until family relations get even worse come 602, leading to murder and revenge and all that fun stuff.
Somewhere between 493 and 499, Anri worked in a doomed love affair with Princess Artemis, before she got married off to blue-blooded Duke Cartas.
The beginning of Chapter 11 of FE3, Book II tells the most complete version we have of the story. It almost sounds as though Artemis was hiding in Altea before Pales was taken; once her hiding spot was revealed, the citizens of Altea rallied to protect her. The revelation that Artemis survived spurred Cartas and his liberation army to fight the dragons on the mainland-- that Cartas had the royal family's shield, aka the Fire Emblem, at this stage suggests Artemis designated him her champion before she went into hiding. Whoops. Anyway, the mainland resistance and the Altean resistance are both on borrowed time until a mysterious sage (!) pops in and let the Alteans know that hey, up in the Ice Temple in the frozen north there's this magical sword, see? And Anri, who by this point has fallen hard for Artemis, decides he's going to get that sword.
Apparently he went alone; Gotoh states in Ch 10 of FE3 Book II that Anri was the only human to ever reach the Ice Temple. So either Anri flies solo... or his companions didn't survive. I'm guessing Anri was an adult of at least 17-18 years old here; while a 15-16 year old might be impulsive enough to set off alone to find a magic sword hidden at the other end of the continent, I can't quite see things playing out the way they do if he's exceptionally young. Anri was definitely alone by the time he reached the Marmotord desert by Thabes; his exploits are chronicled in the Anri Saga, which seems to be an epic poem written in the first person, presumably penned by Anri himself after the fact. Jagen quotes from it in Ch 11.
Anyway, he gets the sword, kills the dragon, and doesn't get to marry the girl. Anri never marries, which sets things up for the succession battle that rips his kingdom in half once he's gone. Apparently he consoles himself by writing epic poetry, which seems a good enough thing to do with his remaining four decades.
Here's what we don't know:
1) Age gap between Anri and his brothers. Name of the youngest brother. What, if anything, he did to mediate between them (nothing?), assuming tensions were apparent prior to the succession battle.
2) How long Artemis was hiding in the town of Altea. This might not have been a whirlwind romance-- they might have known one another for two or three years.
3) If anyone knew her identity before her cover was blown and the citizens swore to protect her. Maybe Artemis was just posing as another mainland asylum-seeker.
4) If he set out with any companions.
5) How long his quest took-- six months? A year? I'm betting that, once he had the sword, Gotoh warped him right in to deal with Medeus... why waste a perfectly good hero with a lengthy return journey?
6) That mysterious sage. Gotoh, perhaps? Or... something else?
7) How many people knew about the Artemis thing while the participants were alive. I'm guessing not many. Duke-then-King Cartas was a baaaaad guy to cross.
8) Where Anri got mad fighting skillz to handle Medeus. Maybe the element of surprise was all it took, or maybe he was very active in the Altean resistance before going solo.
9) If Falchion ever affected his will the way the designers' notes indicate that dragon-derived weapons can.
Anyway, that's it. I don't have a lot of headcanon on this guy, because I just don't have the warm fuzzies about him. Anri just strikes me as a pretty closed-off individual; he walks alone, fights alone, and (in the romantic sense) dies alone. All in all, a very different sort from his great-great-nephew, who is all about team-building and unity and "we're all in this together."
And that, perhaps, is the core of the problem with Anri. Long-haired lone heroes might be romantic figures, but in the end, there's something... lacking.
PS: From the Akaneia Chronicle pic of Artemis, she was a dark-haired lass who didn't look much like Nyna. FYI.
no subject
Number three has me making parallels to Marth and Caeda now since, well, Artemis seeking asylum in Altea, Marth seeking asylum in Talys... Except Marth got the girl, whereas Anri didn't.
Also I don't believe I've read those designer notes, or maybe I just don't remember, but what does it say about Falchion affecting the will? I find that rather intriguing.
Aaaand now I want to write some fic about Anri and Artemis. Ha.
no subject
Dammit, Jayden. I'd come to the same conclusion and was planning to use that in 'fic. It makes the desire to literally split the nation in half make a little more sense-- the difference between then is minutes instead of years, which of them came out first is an accident of birth, so why does Marcellus get it all? He wasn't the hero.
Artemis seeking asylum in Altea, Marth seeking asylum in Talys
That occurred to me as I was typing it out. Though there's also an element of the princess/bodyguard thing to it all-- see Samson and Sheema. In a sense, maybe THAT was the "happy ending" version of Anri and Artemis for the new century!
but what does it say about Falchion affecting the will?
http://www.serenesforest.net/general/designer4_2.html
Fourth question down, re: Holy Weapons. Makes Falchion and Aura and the FE4 weapons sound potentially as dangerous as the Darksphere.
no subject
And Sheema has dark hair too, like Artemis... Hmm. I can see that working out.
So maybe Marth can be corrupted by Falchion then? ...And just like that, a million fic ideas. Including one for "My Sins Won't Leave Me". Looks like I have a productive day ahead.
no subject
Not corrupted, exactly-- not in the Darksphere sense-- but altered. I mean, if it can take away the will of the user, what's left? The will of the weapon itself? The will of the being who created that weapon?
That sure might explain an apparent personality change. Same goes for Linde and any of the FE4 Holy Blood gang, as far as future!fics go.
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no subject
I think it well could have. Forty years of solitude is likely easier to bear when your own will is subjugated by some higher power. Hell, Anri night not have even HAD "worldly" concerns like "Oh crap, the succession!" and "Are my brothers going to kill one another once I'm gone?"
As for Marth-- he seems like himself in the FE11 epilogue, and I doubt he was using Falchion much in between the wars (he seems to have understood not to treat it like just any kewl sword), so it's an interesting thing to ponder but I just don't know. For future!fic, I think it's something that ought to be taken into account, though.
I will say that the "fade to white" ending of the Medeus battle in FE11 has made me wonder what happened in between the killing strike and the Epilogue, seeing as the Epilogue might've been days or even weeks later. If actually using Falchion against Medeus short-circuited Marth in some fashion, he had some time to pull himself together before attempting to break up with Caeda.
Hell, maybe the "breakup" wasn't 100% his idea...
[Heh. I'm assuming the FE11 crew knew and cared about Kaga's personal vision for things, when the answer appears to be NO on the second count at the least.]
no subject
I mean who knows, Falchion could have overwhelmed Marth for a while afterwords because, as you said, we don't know exactly when the epilogue takes place. For all we know, he could've been comatose for a while or something.
no subject
My headcanon says he was, because you know what? Going in there and killing the king of the Earth Dragons when you're seventeen(ish) years old is a big deal. Not a cakewalk. (Yeah, it is in terms of gameplay, but eh.)
Also, note the constrast between the FE11 endgame and the FE3 "grab throne, get glomped by Tiki, have a heart-to-heart with Caeda" ending. Well, he's an adult by then. And the dragon-killing thing is old hat by then, too.
no subject
As for the questions, I have no doubt that Gotoh – apparently showing little or no regard for the feelings of his charge – is the "mysterious sage" in question.
no subject
Re: Gotoh-- law of economy of characters says it's gotta be him. Just doesn't seem like the kind of thing he'd do.
no subject
In which case, who'd he bang?
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no subject
EDIT: Or maybe they were throwing themselves at his feet and he just an iron will (read: epic fantasyland heartbreak).
no subject
Then again, canon only said he "never got married." Maybe he had a special friend or three. But I doubt it. Though, before we found out about this nameless third brother, I figured maybe Anri had an illegitimate kid, likely a daughter, that Marcellus jumped over to get to the throne. It made another neat parallel with Sheema, the order-restoring neglected daughter.