mark_asphodel (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
mark_asphodel) wrote2013-02-05 05:37 pm
mark_asphodel) wrote2013-02-05 05:37 pm
On the reclamation of the soul and the dilemma of the Einherjar
My word, I've some catching up to do reading everyone's posts.
So, where does the soul, or the essential Aegir that makes a person who they are, go when someone dies in Fire Emblem? We know a bit about what various characters believe (often revealed in death quotes), but aside from Seliph's oddball encounter with his parents in Chapter 10 of FE4 we don't have a lot of direct evidence for what becomes of humans. If anything we know more about the well-nigh-indestructible souls of dragonkin, which can persist for millennia and reincarnate even when the physical body is thoroughly trashed. FE13 may tell us even more, but we ain't got there yet.
For 2011's Meta Month I did a post on the issues surrounding bodily resurrection in Fire Emblem. Today I want to address the other half of the equation-- how does the spiritual side of resurrection work? Basically, where do our heroes go when they die, and how do we get them back? For this, I'm mainly going to be looking at the good, Naga-approved resurrection as featured in Archanea, Barensia, and Jugdral, rather than the sketchy Bramimond kind or the outright unclean grotesqueries of Magvel-- though Elibean resurrection a la Bramimond is certainly relevant.
So, where does the soul, or the essential Aegir that makes a person who they are, go when someone dies in Fire Emblem? We know a bit about what various characters believe (often revealed in death quotes), but aside from Seliph's oddball encounter with his parents in Chapter 10 of FE4 we don't have a lot of direct evidence for what becomes of humans. If anything we know more about the well-nigh-indestructible souls of dragonkin, which can persist for millennia and reincarnate even when the physical body is thoroughly trashed. FE13 may tell us even more, but we ain't got there yet.
Here's what I'm pretty sure is not true, based on the workings of the Aum Staff, the Valkyrie Staff, and the shrines in FE2.
1) Aegir is not promptly recycled in some sort of reincarnation process. The Aum and Valkyrie staves can work months or even years after death-- though not indefinitely so.
2) A person's Aegir does not dissipate into some kind of universal Oneness-- again, we can get them back pretty easily.
2a) But we don't seem to be able to bring back sick people, or old people, or maybe people who don't die in battle, for reasons we don't learn because Tiltyu's a moron.
3) Wherever people go, it doesn't seem to be so good of a place that it's considered a terrible unjust thing to bring them back. Elice's conversation to Marth in FE11 indicates it's a fine thing indeed to be able to restore a comrade to life.
Working off these, it's possible to develop a picture of the heroic afterlife not unlike the Greek Hades or the Shinto realm of yomi (I think Shinto belief may be VERY relevant here), shadowlands in which people carry on as they were, but it's not really paradise even for the virtuous dead and returning to the living world would indeed be considered a positive thing. Maybe a super-super special person (think Marth or Micaiah) would ascend to some sort of godhood status, as we see in both Greek and Shinto myths, but otherwise people just... hang out and look kind of gray and transparent, like Sigurd and Deirdre in Chapter 10.
Then again, as much as Greek myth has influenced the games, and as much as Shinto culture likely serves as an underpinning the way Christian belief remains a default frame of reference in Western media, there's a shit-ton of Norse influence in the games and the latest spate of localizations is ramming that home. And the Norse had their own version of heaven for heroes that seems more significant by the day. In Norse myth (x-ref the Prose Edda and Poetic Edda), those who died in battle were taken by the valkyries to Valhalla, where they hung out enjoying great mead, feasting on the best roast pork ever, and waging daily battles to serve as preparation for Ragnarok. These individuals were dubbed "lone fighters," or the einherjar.
Which happens to be the localization name chose for the legacy characters fighting their weird pointless battles in the FE13 DLC, and that's a choice that doesn't seem random at all despite the WTF nature of this DLC. Assemblies of past heroes (and notable villains!) duking it out again and again... no, I think this concept hits pretty close to the mark, and oddly enough it's perfectly consistent with the picture of the Archanea/Barensia/Jugdral afterlife we can build from what those games offer us. You die in battle, you hang out being yourself and fighting... stuff... and then maybe someone pops you back into meatlife and you carry on. And if they don't, you carry on being a spirit warrior until strange meddling people show up centuries down the line and things get truly weird... but since you're dead, you probably don't know how much time has passed anyway.
Note I keep harping on death in battle. That's how and why the Norse einherjar got to Valhalla and it's the only class of people we can definitely resurrect the good way (not the Vigarde & Monica way) in Fire Emblem. Again, it's not looking so arbitrary a distinction. Now, that does lead to the troubling implication that all the legacy characters we encounter in the DLC came to a violent end on the battlefield. In a handful of cases we knew that to be canon, but overall it's pretty depressing[*]... and in a few cases it don't make no sense. But hey, people are claiming FE13 is really, really dark, aren't they?
So if your favorite character didn't make it to DLC, take heart-- maybe they had a full life and a peaceful death in their own bed. Nobody's claiming being one of the Einherjar is entirely a good thing.
* Not as depressing as the DarkWarlord Deadlord business, though.
1) Aegir is not promptly recycled in some sort of reincarnation process. The Aum and Valkyrie staves can work months or even years after death-- though not indefinitely so.
2) A person's Aegir does not dissipate into some kind of universal Oneness-- again, we can get them back pretty easily.
2a) But we don't seem to be able to bring back sick people, or old people, or maybe people who don't die in battle, for reasons we don't learn because Tiltyu's a moron.
3) Wherever people go, it doesn't seem to be so good of a place that it's considered a terrible unjust thing to bring them back. Elice's conversation to Marth in FE11 indicates it's a fine thing indeed to be able to restore a comrade to life.
Working off these, it's possible to develop a picture of the heroic afterlife not unlike the Greek Hades or the Shinto realm of yomi (I think Shinto belief may be VERY relevant here), shadowlands in which people carry on as they were, but it's not really paradise even for the virtuous dead and returning to the living world would indeed be considered a positive thing. Maybe a super-super special person (think Marth or Micaiah) would ascend to some sort of godhood status, as we see in both Greek and Shinto myths, but otherwise people just... hang out and look kind of gray and transparent, like Sigurd and Deirdre in Chapter 10.
Then again, as much as Greek myth has influenced the games, and as much as Shinto culture likely serves as an underpinning the way Christian belief remains a default frame of reference in Western media, there's a shit-ton of Norse influence in the games and the latest spate of localizations is ramming that home. And the Norse had their own version of heaven for heroes that seems more significant by the day. In Norse myth (x-ref the Prose Edda and Poetic Edda), those who died in battle were taken by the valkyries to Valhalla, where they hung out enjoying great mead, feasting on the best roast pork ever, and waging daily battles to serve as preparation for Ragnarok. These individuals were dubbed "lone fighters," or the einherjar.
Which happens to be the localization name chose for the legacy characters fighting their weird pointless battles in the FE13 DLC, and that's a choice that doesn't seem random at all despite the WTF nature of this DLC. Assemblies of past heroes (and notable villains!) duking it out again and again... no, I think this concept hits pretty close to the mark, and oddly enough it's perfectly consistent with the picture of the Archanea/Barensia/Jugdral afterlife we can build from what those games offer us. You die in battle, you hang out being yourself and fighting... stuff... and then maybe someone pops you back into meatlife and you carry on. And if they don't, you carry on being a spirit warrior until strange meddling people show up centuries down the line and things get truly weird... but since you're dead, you probably don't know how much time has passed anyway.
Note I keep harping on death in battle. That's how and why the Norse einherjar got to Valhalla and it's the only class of people we can definitely resurrect the good way (not the Vigarde & Monica way) in Fire Emblem. Again, it's not looking so arbitrary a distinction. Now, that does lead to the troubling implication that all the legacy characters we encounter in the DLC came to a violent end on the battlefield. In a handful of cases we knew that to be canon, but overall it's pretty depressing[*]... and in a few cases it don't make no sense. But hey, people are claiming FE13 is really, really dark, aren't they?
So if your favorite character didn't make it to DLC, take heart-- maybe they had a full life and a peaceful death in their own bed. Nobody's claiming being one of the Einherjar is entirely a good thing.
* Not as depressing as the Dark