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mark_asphodelThis is pretty sweet. I'm sequestered here for a conference, and believe me there are worse places to be than a fairly grand former Catholic seminary. The gardens are especially nice-- they have a bit of a Japanese feel, with a koi pond and waterfall plus some rock garden displays. Food's not too shabby either. I didn't even know this place existed before now, and it's a something of a treat to be here.
-x-
Thracia, why do you cause me so many headaches when I'm not even playing you? Seriously, this timeline makes no sense.
1) Leaf & Co. spend three years in Fiana-- 773 through 776. I'm certain of that much.
2) Game script has Leaf claiming he and his posse spent five years in Tahra. Tahra is implied to be the last stop in Leaf's journeys before Fiana, so that makes it 768-773. Leaf is stated to be fifteen at the outset of Thracia 776, so he'd be approximately seven years old when he showed up in Tahra.
3) But the Illustrated Works timeline places the Tahra years as 779-771. This creates a two-year gap between the flight from Tahra and the arrival in Fiana, which doesn't gel with Leaf's conversations with Asvel. Asvel left Tahra right after Leaf's departure and has been seeking him for three years. A brief two-year stay in Tahra also undercuts how fond Leaf is of the city, which he considers to be a second home and the home of many friends; a five-year residence there makes much more sense in this context.
4) Oh, yeah, Lachesis. The Illustrated Works timeline also has her parting ways with Leaf & Co. in Tahra. But everything in the Thracia script actually appears to mesh with Nanna's statement in FE4 that Lachesis left when Nanna was three. Nanna would've turned three during the final year of the Alster period (762-765). Leaf & Co. haven't seen Selphina since the Alster period, and Leaf in fact believed Selphina to be dead until their reunion during Thracia, but Selphina seems to know both where Lachesis was going and something of the murky circumstances surrounding her leave-taking. I find it a little improbable that the gossip mill connected goings-on in Tahra circa 770 to wherever Selphina was hiding out at the time. Also, Selphina doesn't know Lachesis never came back, which rules out that she's plugged into Levin's informational network.
5) If the Alster years are truly 762-765, and the Tahra years began in 768, then I guess Leaf & Co. were in Frest from 765 through the beginning of 768. This matches up well enough to the Illustrated Works dates of 766-768. Apparently there was a fair amount of running and hiding going on in the transition from Alster to Frest.
I'm starting to think the stated timeline is just whacked and Lachesis really did head out for Isaac when Nanna was three. Which is sad; Lachesis is awesome and I liked to think the kids had more time with her. With Lachesis and Leaf both being Master Knights in FE4, I was starting to toy with the idea that Leaf got the idea of becoming a Master Knight from his foster-mother. It also kind of made sense to have Lachesis decide to collect Delmud during a period of relative quiet (the years in Tahra), but after being kicked out of Lenster, Alster, and Frest in succession Lachesis had to have known the peace wouldn't last. As with Nino and her kids over on Elibe, sooner or later, those bounty hunters would be at the door...
So maybe it worked like this: circa 765, Lachesis and Finn have some kind of falling out (per Selphina). Lachesis hands over Nanna to him anyway (?) and and then sets off for Isaac alone, and then shit comes down re: the assassination attempt on Blume. Leaf & Co. have to get the hell out of Alster. Except, in that case, it would be kind of silly to expect Lachesis to ever come back-- how would she even know that they'd survived the fall of Alster, or where they'd ended up? Better to stay in Isaac with Delmud and the other refugees than go tromping through Northern Thracia looking for people who don't want to be found. The Tahra scenario makes a lot more sense in that regard-- the "family" settled in, things looked cozy, she went off to collect Delmud, and then... nothing.
I kind of feel that the Kaga-era FE crew was a bit like J.K. Rowling in the sense that they're all somewhat "impressionistic" about dates and numbers and ages. Things feel OK until you start to do the math.
-x-
Thracia, why do you cause me so many headaches when I'm not even playing you? Seriously, this timeline makes no sense.
1) Leaf & Co. spend three years in Fiana-- 773 through 776. I'm certain of that much.
2) Game script has Leaf claiming he and his posse spent five years in Tahra. Tahra is implied to be the last stop in Leaf's journeys before Fiana, so that makes it 768-773. Leaf is stated to be fifteen at the outset of Thracia 776, so he'd be approximately seven years old when he showed up in Tahra.
3) But the Illustrated Works timeline places the Tahra years as 779-771. This creates a two-year gap between the flight from Tahra and the arrival in Fiana, which doesn't gel with Leaf's conversations with Asvel. Asvel left Tahra right after Leaf's departure and has been seeking him for three years. A brief two-year stay in Tahra also undercuts how fond Leaf is of the city, which he considers to be a second home and the home of many friends; a five-year residence there makes much more sense in this context.
4) Oh, yeah, Lachesis. The Illustrated Works timeline also has her parting ways with Leaf & Co. in Tahra. But everything in the Thracia script actually appears to mesh with Nanna's statement in FE4 that Lachesis left when Nanna was three. Nanna would've turned three during the final year of the Alster period (762-765). Leaf & Co. haven't seen Selphina since the Alster period, and Leaf in fact believed Selphina to be dead until their reunion during Thracia, but Selphina seems to know both where Lachesis was going and something of the murky circumstances surrounding her leave-taking. I find it a little improbable that the gossip mill connected goings-on in Tahra circa 770 to wherever Selphina was hiding out at the time. Also, Selphina doesn't know Lachesis never came back, which rules out that she's plugged into Levin's informational network.
5) If the Alster years are truly 762-765, and the Tahra years began in 768, then I guess Leaf & Co. were in Frest from 765 through the beginning of 768. This matches up well enough to the Illustrated Works dates of 766-768. Apparently there was a fair amount of running and hiding going on in the transition from Alster to Frest.
I'm starting to think the stated timeline is just whacked and Lachesis really did head out for Isaac when Nanna was three. Which is sad; Lachesis is awesome and I liked to think the kids had more time with her. With Lachesis and Leaf both being Master Knights in FE4, I was starting to toy with the idea that Leaf got the idea of becoming a Master Knight from his foster-mother. It also kind of made sense to have Lachesis decide to collect Delmud during a period of relative quiet (the years in Tahra), but after being kicked out of Lenster, Alster, and Frest in succession Lachesis had to have known the peace wouldn't last. As with Nino and her kids over on Elibe, sooner or later, those bounty hunters would be at the door...
So maybe it worked like this: circa 765, Lachesis and Finn have some kind of falling out (per Selphina). Lachesis hands over Nanna to him anyway (?) and and then sets off for Isaac alone, and then shit comes down re: the assassination attempt on Blume. Leaf & Co. have to get the hell out of Alster. Except, in that case, it would be kind of silly to expect Lachesis to ever come back-- how would she even know that they'd survived the fall of Alster, or where they'd ended up? Better to stay in Isaac with Delmud and the other refugees than go tromping through Northern Thracia looking for people who don't want to be found. The Tahra scenario makes a lot more sense in that regard-- the "family" settled in, things looked cozy, she went off to collect Delmud, and then... nothing.
I kind of feel that the Kaga-era FE crew was a bit like J.K. Rowling in the sense that they're all somewhat "impressionistic" about dates and numbers and ages. Things feel OK until you start to do the math.
no subject
Date: 2012-02-29 12:57 pm (UTC)Which, if Nanna is only three, seems like an intentional echo of Ethlin NOT having the sense to not take a three-year-old across the desert.
I don't know if Lachesis need necessarily hate Finn's guts, though I can imagine she'd be frustrated as hell with him, and I think the game script gives a good indication as to why-- he deflects every single conversation of emotional import except for the one with Glade (which is why Selphina goes off on him to start with). That gets old real fast.
Also makes a little more sense of the total avoid going on there between Finn and Delmud. Not wanting to see the kid whose mom you were with for a couple of years and then dumped is a bit different from not wanting to see the kid of the woman you were "married" to for nearly a decade and still loved.
no subject
Date: 2012-03-01 01:07 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-03-01 01:17 am (UTC)His emotional landscape is one of the weirder things I've seen in a sympathetic FE character. And, given he's the one FE major character (to my knowledge) for whom we have a semi-canonical prose piece detailing his actual thoughts, it's clear he's intentionally... odd.