Quintessence (Japanese:エーギルÆgir) is the life force of all living things, which can be used for a variety of goals. Quintessence serves a central narrative role inFire Emblem: The Blazing Blade, though references to this concept exist as early asFire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War.

Overview

Characteristics

Quintessence is a fairly simple concept: it is the energy behind all living things. All living things possess quintessence.^[1][2][3] The amount of quintessence a living being possesses seems to vary by a large margin, withNils mentioning that strong-willed people have more,^[4] though whether quintessence makes someone strong-willed, or being strong-willed makes someone produce a lot of quintessence is unspecified. Quintessence can be used for a variety of purposes; it can be used to fuel powerful magic likeEreshkigal, it can be used to create creatures likemorphs, and—at least withValkyrie—it is involved in properly reviving the dead.^[1]

According toShouzou Kaga, quintessence – at least inGenealogy of the Holy War – represents a "force of fate" which is tied to the pre-ordained destiny of individuals. The Valkyrie Staff can only be used to resurrect people who were not actually destined to die yet and thus presumably still possess their quintessence, or force of fate. Accordingly, the staff cannot save people who actually have met their pre-ordained death, such as the first-generation cast after theBattle of Belhalla, presumably because they no longer have a force of fate.^[5]

In both games that it appears and is mentioned in,dragons appear to be the first ones to utilize quintessence. InElibe, the dragon research inArcadia mentions how to harness quintessence, and inJugdral, the dragon-created Valkyrie Staff utilizes quintessence in some manner.

History

Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War

UnlikeThe Blazing Blade, quintessence serves more as a background world-building element than something of central plot importance. WhenClaud was traveling toTower of Bragi withTailtiu he started explaining it to her, but she interrupted him. He states that the Valkyrie staff uses quintessence in some way or another, and it is involved with the ritual to revive someone from death, though he fails to elaborate as he is interrupted by Tailtiu.

Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade

InThe Blazing Blade quintessence takes a far more central role in the game's plot. The main antagonist,Nergal, had been experimenting with quintessence for roughly half a millennium to recoverhis wife since theScouring. Along the way, his dabbling in the dark arts slowly erased his memories of his original goal, though he did not realize this until shortly before his death. Nergal's primary source of power was quintessence, which he took mostly from humans; he had plans for using dragon quintessence to further his goals, though he was unsuccessful. Nergal also used quintessence to create his army of morphs and to speak to, and control, dragons beyond theDragon's Gate.^[6]

In gameplay

Outside of the fact that Valkyrie uses quintessence in some way as well as quintessence being used to craft morphs, which the player has to fight, quintessence has no gameplay functions, and is purely a concept pertaining to living things in Elibe and Jugdral.

Trivia

• Aegir is also the name of a location and a family name of a line of nobility inFire Emblem: Three Houses.

Etymology and other languages

Gallery

References