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There is a way around it without simply declaring FE5 a weirdo "what if?" scenario to FE4's canon.
It's especially plausible given the role played by bards in Jugdral society.
Just don't assume that either of the games conveys What Actually Happened. They're myths. Legends. Representations of the actual, obscured-by-time, events.
Think of FE4 as the Celice Narrative (C-Narrative). Its goal, of course, is to proclaim Celice as the savior of the continent. The wafer-thin archetypical supporting cast, simplistic eeeeevil minor villains, and overall depiction of events isn't the truth, it's propaganda for the new Grandbell Empire and its founder. Meanwhile, we have an extant competing narrative starring Leaf (L-narrative) and the treatment of the Holy War in the L-narrative throws up a whole slew of flags as to what the C-narrative is doing to actual history.
Familiar characters are presented in a different light. Sometimes the changes are subtle, sometimes the changes are pretty sharp. The way the characters are deployed matters even more than the characterization, though. The C-narrative simplifies and collapses the events on the Thracian peninsula; Trabant loses his tragic grandeur and is caricatured as a snarling villain in his final scene in the C-narrative. The "good" Thracians are represented by more easily digestible archetypes in the form of Hannibal and his innocent little son, while the "bad" Thracians just get killed. Arion's existence appears to be kind of a loose narrative thread-- too important to yank out of the C-narrative entirely, too problematic to resolve. Linoan, representing a rival strain of Narga blood, just gets excised from the C-narrative, as does the existence of Manfroy's granddaughter Sara. The C-narrative doesn't want these things cluttering its legend. At the same time, the many characters from Northern Thracia who do the heavy lifting for Prince Leaf, like Dorias and Glade (who plays a MAJOR role in reconstruction), just all get telescoped into the more "legendary" figure of Finn. Oh, and of course Leaf's limited successes in Northern Thracia become a catastrophic failure in the C-narrative. And the Freege angle gets all mucked up in the telling, too.
None of which makes the L-narrative absolute truth, either. We have a pretty good idea who wrote that one (Homeros) and he would have had his own agenda (pleasing Queen Nanna, perhaps?). The L-narrative has its own blind spots. One could go out on a limb and assume that, perhaps, the character of Janne was deemed too troublesome for the telling and was promptly erased. Maybe there's even a second L-narrative out there with Janne in a supporting role. ;)
[And none of this helps one decide on which version of events is "right" for the purpose of fanfic or meta. It just casts the problem in a different light.]
It makes one wonder what the alternate myth cycles of Agustria and Silesia would be. An A-narrative (for Aless) or S-narrative (for Sety) would be absolutely fascinating. To say nothing of Isaacian legends, or an I-narrative centering on Ishtar...
It's especially plausible given the role played by bards in Jugdral society.
Just don't assume that either of the games conveys What Actually Happened. They're myths. Legends. Representations of the actual, obscured-by-time, events.
Think of FE4 as the Celice Narrative (C-Narrative). Its goal, of course, is to proclaim Celice as the savior of the continent. The wafer-thin archetypical supporting cast, simplistic eeeeevil minor villains, and overall depiction of events isn't the truth, it's propaganda for the new Grandbell Empire and its founder. Meanwhile, we have an extant competing narrative starring Leaf (L-narrative) and the treatment of the Holy War in the L-narrative throws up a whole slew of flags as to what the C-narrative is doing to actual history.
Familiar characters are presented in a different light. Sometimes the changes are subtle, sometimes the changes are pretty sharp. The way the characters are deployed matters even more than the characterization, though. The C-narrative simplifies and collapses the events on the Thracian peninsula; Trabant loses his tragic grandeur and is caricatured as a snarling villain in his final scene in the C-narrative. The "good" Thracians are represented by more easily digestible archetypes in the form of Hannibal and his innocent little son, while the "bad" Thracians just get killed. Arion's existence appears to be kind of a loose narrative thread-- too important to yank out of the C-narrative entirely, too problematic to resolve. Linoan, representing a rival strain of Narga blood, just gets excised from the C-narrative, as does the existence of Manfroy's granddaughter Sara. The C-narrative doesn't want these things cluttering its legend. At the same time, the many characters from Northern Thracia who do the heavy lifting for Prince Leaf, like Dorias and Glade (who plays a MAJOR role in reconstruction), just all get telescoped into the more "legendary" figure of Finn. Oh, and of course Leaf's limited successes in Northern Thracia become a catastrophic failure in the C-narrative. And the Freege angle gets all mucked up in the telling, too.
None of which makes the L-narrative absolute truth, either. We have a pretty good idea who wrote that one (Homeros) and he would have had his own agenda (pleasing Queen Nanna, perhaps?). The L-narrative has its own blind spots. One could go out on a limb and assume that, perhaps, the character of Janne was deemed too troublesome for the telling and was promptly erased. Maybe there's even a second L-narrative out there with Janne in a supporting role. ;)
[And none of this helps one decide on which version of events is "right" for the purpose of fanfic or meta. It just casts the problem in a different light.]
It makes one wonder what the alternate myth cycles of Agustria and Silesia would be. An A-narrative (for Aless) or S-narrative (for Sety) would be absolutely fascinating. To say nothing of Isaacian legends, or an I-narrative centering on Ishtar...
