Wow, first actual blog post and it is still Fire Emblem related? Where are the different games and media? Well you know what they say, you should use something familiar to introduce something new. In this case the something new is this blog. And while I could go off on how Ace Attorney Investigations 2 is peak Ace Attorney or how Zero Time Dilemma has a very good overall core story that is held back by various circumstances, most of my audience will probably be more familiar with Fire Emblem, so that’s where we’ll start.

Specifically, I wanted to write about The Future Past DLC of Fire Emblem Awakening. Should be something quick and easy to talk about, right? The Future Past DLC is my favorite singular story in all of Fire Emblem. There are individual scenes that I like more than any scene in The Future Past, and obviously The Future Past is not a full game, but I still consider it a complete story that is separate from the main narrative of Awakening and one that is my favorite.

For me, The Future Past is the perfect encapsulation of everything that I love about Awakening consolidated into a concise and focused package. Specifically, I think Awakening’s themes, which I very much love, are even more compelling and more effective in The Future Past. The setting it takes place in, the doomed future, makes those themes feel more real and relevant, which in turn also makes the characters (the second generation in this case) more compelling. I personally like this story more than the base game and it is a big part of why I still consider Awakening as my favorite game in Fire Emblem.

Awakening’s Themes

So, what are Awakening’s Themes? We need to know what these are before we can examine how The Future Past is able to make them more effective. Obviously this can be subjective, but in my mind the themes of Awakening can be best summarized by the following crit quotes of Lucina’s various appearances:

“Hope will never die!”

“Our bonds give me strength!”

“The future can be changed.”

To me, the story of Awakening is all about facing against a doomed and dark destiny, never losing hope that it can be overcome, and being able to fight against it through the bonds we share. This theme is fundamental to Awakening’s main story. Grima has already succeeded and represents the inevitable darkness that the characters are destined to, and it is through Robin bonding with Chrom and the rest of the cast that this inevitability starts to change. They still believe in each other, and still have hope that things can change despite the seemingly overwhelming odds and despair. And with that, together, they are able to change the future to one that is more hopeful and defeat the doomed future. This theme is one that I find very compelling and when I played Awakening for the first time, it really resonated with me.

The Future Past’s Setting Enhances Those Themes

The Future Past still has those same themes, but in my opinion, those themes are a lot more effective. I would say a large reason for that is that unlike in the main story, in The Future Past the doomed future is here, now. In the main story, the doomed future hasn’t happened yet and while there are conflicts like the Plegian conflict and Walhart, for the most part the status quo seems fine and in general the characters are trying to prevent the status quo from being doomed. Because of that, the threat of this doomed future is less pronounced and is more abstract. There are flashbacks of the doomed future provided by Lucina and we get glimpses of it through the second generation, but by and large the doomed future doesn’t feel as “real” or as menacing. There are aspects that I like about that in that it parallels some real world issues that some folks dismiss due to it mainly affecting things in the future, but I won’t get into that, and it doesn’t change my opinion that story wise, the doomed future being more abstract makes the theme of never losing hope and fighting against overwhelming odds not as effective as it could have been.

Contrast this with The Future Past where it is set in the doomed future, and we can see firsthand how awful it is and the impact it has on the characters as they struggle to fight against it. We see and experience the immense hardships the second generation faces. We see and experience the suffering that they face because of this doomed future. And we see how overwhelming it all is, how there is so much despair and how monumentous fighting against it actually is. All of that feels more real and present. Thus, for example, when we see Cynthia, Noire, Nah and her team trapped by the Risen, disarmed, and no way out, we feel more acutely the hopelessness they experience, and when Cynthia exclaims that even as everyone else has given up, she still has hope, the theme of keeping hope resonates more. It makes it clear that it isn’t easy to maintain hope. It isn’t easy to continue to believe that the future can change. It isn’t easy to have the strength to continue fighting. By being set in the doomed future, it lays bare how dark and hopeless it really is, which in turn when the characters do continue to have hope and do continue to fight and succeed, it makes it all the more rewarding and compelling.

In The Future Past, Hope is Not Easy

I want to circle back to the main story for a bit. I do really like the main story of Awakening and in particular I do really like its themes. That being said, I feel like those themes are more taken for granted in a sense. Because the status quo is mostly fine and the conflict is on preventing the status quo from becoming a doomed future, it is lot more easy to have hope that the future can change. This is because the future they are fighting for is what is currently at the present. It’s a lot easier to have hope that things will be fine if things are already fine. And it is a lot easier to believe that the future can change if the future hasn’t happened yet. Obviously, that is an oversimplification, but I think the point still stands. This means that in the main story, Chrom never really loses faith. I think the only time he really does is in Chapter 10 after Emmeryn’s death. That is the one moment when his faith is truly tested. Robin might have troubles when his parentage and connection to Grima is revealed and Lucina obviously has experienced the doomed future, but for the most part, the cast is able to maintain this hope without it feeling like a huge accomplishment or a character strength to the audience.

Meanwhile, in The Future Past, because of what I mentioned in the previous section, characters being able to maintain hope feel like a much bigger deal and a testament to their resolve. Going back to that example with Cynthia, the group is trying to bring back a gemstone to help defeat Grima and are trapped. They have no weapons and are surrounded. As the scene goes to each character, everyone begins to lose faith, and one by one they start to say goodbye and prepare for the end. But not Cynthia. Even with everything going against them, even with the rest of the group giving up, even while recognizing how hopeless the situation is for them, she still refuses to give up, still believing in a miracle. This is such a huge character moment because of the overwhelming despair, and it makes Cynthia being able to maintain hope more compelling and meaningful. In those scenarios, it is for sure not easy to maintain hope, so when a character like Cynthia is still able to, it is more resonant and impactful and shines a light on how strong Cynthia is.

Cynthia: Kjelle… …… I guess you’re right… Without weapons, we have no hope of fighting through this… It kills me to say it, but…I don’t think I’m gonna be able to save us after all… But that doesn’t mean I’m giving up. We can’t die here, not like this! We HAVE to take the Gemstones back. We HAVE to defeat Grima! We have to fulfill our dream of bringing peace back to the world… We…we have to! I want to believe there’s still some way out of this… I want to believe there’s still some way to get home… Maybe Nah’s right, and there’s no such thing as miracles… Heck, maybe the gods don’t even exist at all… But I’m praying all the same. So please, gods, if you’re out there… Please…send us a miracle!

In another example, in the second part of The Future Past, we see Brady, Yarne, Inigo, and Owain trying to retrieve another gemstone. Brady and Yarne cross a bridge and Owain tells Inigo to cross it so he can cut the line. Inigo refuses and cuts the line himself, leaving the two to try to buy time so that Brady and Yarne can have a chance at succeeding. This sort of scenario is only possible in the setting of the doomed future. And because of this, we clearly see the strength of their bonds. We clearly see that Owain and Inigo have hope and faith that their sacrifice will bring the world one step closer to ending the darkness. It is not easy to have faith that your sacrifice won’t be in vain. It is not easy to have hope for a better world that you would not see. And it is because it is not easy that them having this hope and being willing to die fighting for a better future is all the more compelling.

None of the second generation have the comfort of knowing that they will succeed. None of them, even if they succeed, have the comfort of knowing that they will see it. All they have is the hope that what they are doing will at least allow the world to be one step closer of being free of this doomed future. All they have is the hope that after what they do, it will enable someone else to take one more step forward. They are not guaranteed anything, they are driven by hope. And that hope is not easy. It is hard. And that is why when they do succeed, it is all the more beautiful.

The Second Generation Shines

One thing that I think is evident from what I’ve discussed above is that in The Future Past, the second generation really shines. I really love the second generation, and I find their story and struggle in growing up in that doomed future, taking on the mantle of the first generation, and leading the fight, I find that very compelling. And this is definitely exemplified in The Future Past.

In the DLC, if you have their parents stand next to them, you are given dialogue between the parent and the child. And while the parent isn’t “truly” their real parent, the conversation between them very often pulls on your heartstrings. It drives home how much they have lost and the cost that this doomed future has extolled from them. And on the dad side, it is unique to every potential father, which is actually pretty huge. I really love that the developers went the extra mile there and customized those conversations. It makes it feel a lot more personal and emotionally resonant.

In the main game, the tragedy of the second generation had less focus. Due to the fact that the developers can’t be certain that the player played the respective paralogue to get a member of the second generation, by that nature they couldn’t really be that involved in the story. It is mainly Lucina that drives the tragedy of the doomed future, not the group as a whole. I feel this lessens the tragedy and by extension the themes, because we don’t really get to see the bonds that Lucina and the second generation have towards each other as they struggle together against the doomed future.

In The Future Past, that group dynamic is able to play out. We see interactions between them, we see them supporting each other, counting on each other, supporting each other. It is through this that the second generation doesn’t become something extra, but rather something real and something compelling. They become a lot more fleshed out in The Future Past, and through that, their huge story potential in the doomed future, the tragedy and struggle, them fighting overwhelming odds in the hope for a better future, that story potential is actually realized. And that is where the themes of Awakening is at its best.

Miscellaneous Stuff I Love About The Future Past

Alright all that above is the main point, but there are other little aspects of The Future Past unrelated to what was talked about above that I do really like. Specifically, the Morgans. I love the implication of them serving Grima, them loving Robin so much they are willing to follow Grima. I love the angst of the conversation they have with their respective Robin. And I really like how it is implied that the Morgan that we know and appears in the main game are these exact Morgans from The Future Past with their conversations with either Cynthia or Inigo in Hot-Spring Scramble. There are a lot of compelling things there.

I really like how in the Bad End, there’s this moment where Robin is able to temporarily break through and speak with Lucina, and we see a very emotional moment of how they were Grima the moment they were born, how they aren’t human, and how they ask Lucina to finish them off. It adds a lot of depth to the dynamic between Robin and Grima in a really compelling way.

I really love how Lucina is portrayed here. Unlike the other members of the second generation, Lucina is pretty present in the main story. Here though, we see her take on a leadership role and see her struggle to keep the fight. We see the losses she endures and how despite everything she continues to work for a better future. And that ending CG of her is just amazing. Honestly, I think this DLC solidified Lucina as my favorite character in Fire Emblem for me.

The Future Past is Awakening at its Best

So yeah, that is a huge post of me raving about The Future Past DLC. It has everything I love about Awakening but even more effective, and all consolidated into a concise package. I could write more on other miscellaneous things about it, but for a first post I don’t want it to be too long. And I think I fully covered the main points. That being the setting The Future Past takes place in, the doomed future, makes Awakening’s themes feel more real and relevant, which in turn also makes the second generation more compelling.

Hopefully you all enjoyed it! I wasn’t expecting to make this post this soon after publishing the blog, but I guess I couldn’t wait to at least fill it up with something. I don’t know when the next one will be or what it will cover, but I hope you’ll look forward to it! Thank you for reading!

Lucina Future Past CG