On the reclamation of the soul and the dilemma of the Einherjar

[mark_asphodel]

My word, I've some catching up to do reading everyone's posts.

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 Dark Warlord Deadlord business, though.

Comments

[kyusil]

Hmm, very interesting. It does sound like a lot to assume that everyone in the DLC died in battle-- maybe "was in battle and then died" is enough of a qualifier? Then again, while it gives a good idea of what the afterlife might have always been imagined as, it's pretty much AU... right?

[mark_asphodel]

It does sound like a lot to assume that everyone in the DLC died in battle-- maybe "was in battle and then died" is enough of a qualifier?

Maybe. You have cases like Deirdre, who was basically murdered by her son... but her son was the Dark Lord and she was the current incarnation of the Great Dragon or whatever so maybe that counted as battle. And then other characters pretty clearly lived in canon beyond the age at which they're depicted as Einherjar. Are these the AU fruits of poor player/tacticians waging crappy battles in-game and losing units? We have Fourth Wall breaking in FE13, so who knows...

[kyusil]

Yeah, I think you can argue alternate continuity for a lot of it. Or just "devs needed an excuse for an All-Stars title." And yeah, the sheer volume of meta jokes makes FE13 ripe for being interpreted as, well... official fanfiction. That's how I'm gonna look at it, anyway, to keep my brain from hurting....

[mark_asphodel]

Or just "devs needed an excuse for an All-Stars title."

I'd take it a lot less seriously if "Einherjar" weren't so alarmingly appropriate. If they called them Wackyworld Bonus Characters I don't think I'd be wasting brain cells on it.

[kyusil]

It's a brilliant translation, and it makes a hell of a lot of sense-- I'm just not going to take it as a retcon of every existing character's fate.

[mark_asphodel]

Right. For one thing, what's young!Eliwood doing there?

[kyusil]

Oh, apparently you can get duplicate DLC/SpotPass characters, so there's a point in favor of alternate continuities.

[raphiael]

Hm, what about Ninian? A non-combatant killed basically by accident? Maybe the whole "because of the manipulations of an enemy" counts, but still, that one alone doesn't quite mesh for me.

[mark_asphodel]

She died by violence, though (and on a blessed weapon, no less), whereas Vigarde and Monica died of illness.

I'm inclined to treat resurrection via Bramimond as a separate thing from Archanea/Barensia/Jugdral resurrection, but it's closer to A/B/J resurrection than it is to Magvel resurrection, which flat-out doesn't work unless that little girl Lyon allegedly saved counts. Does Magvel resurrection fail because they're Doing It Wrong, because a dark force is behind it, or because Lyon picked inappropriate targets?

[raphiael]

IIRC, the girl Lyon saved was really badly off, but not actually dead. Though there is then the question of how long, exactly, that lasted. (I'm not inclined to think he was lying at that point.) But that's an interesting question. Thematically FE8 seems to be about moving on and accepting things like death (and unrequited love), so I guess there's no way to determine it. But since 1-5 and 13 are all in the same 'verse, it does make Magvel the only place without a single case of good resurrection to look at. Not even friendly parent-ghosties!
(Unless those phantom things. . . ? I don't even know what those are.)

[mark_asphodel]

Not even friendly parent-ghosties!

So where do the Lagdou Ruins and the Tower of Valni fit into this picture? 'Cause I can dismiss the FE6 trial maps as bonus funsies outside the Fourth Wall, but Lagdou and Valni seem like a precursor to the Einherjar stuff we're getting now.

[raphiael]

I can't make any sense of the Tower/Ruins in terms of storyline. It doesn't help that the characters just silently sort of... show up. And Hayden, WTF is Hayden doing there being all silent-creepy-zombie? That alone makes me wonder if they're not just somehow illusionary themselves, rather than reanimated dead. But even if they were re-animated, I think the dead silence of them keeps them away from being a really good thing. Even if that is a silent Lyon-looking thing, it's still not quite Lyon.

I had a fic going on this on the anon meme. I should maybe pick it up again, IDK.

[amielleon]

Fascinating. And I like it.

I bet Knoll's room looks like yomi though.

[mark_asphodel]

Hah!

Knoll probably thinks yomi sounds great compared with what he's currently got.

[samuraiter]

Yomi is terrifying. (See: Persona 4 and Corpse Party, especially the latter.) I wouldn't wish it on anybody in Fire Emblem continuity. And yet clear answers are not forthcoming.