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natsubeatsrock · 5 years

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The Rewrite of Fairy Tail: Part 7 (History of Magic)

What is the story behind the magic of Fairy Tail?

Remember how I said the magic system is fairly solid? Well, the lore behind it and the lore of Fairy Tail in general, outside of the Dragon King Festival, isn’t very much explored. We don’t have much on an idea as to why magic is treated the way it is.

To be honest, I’m not entirely sure that magic itself needs a definite origin per se. And, all things considered, I can imagine this kind of thing not being very important in Mashima’s mind while working on the series, when compared to the “current” events of the series. Still, there are things that need to be squared away involving how and why magic worked the way it does that involve understanding how the continent got to where it was during the series.

So, we’re actually going to be doing the opposite of what I did in the last part. Instead of describing what, for the most part, is part of the canon series, I’ll be working with things which already are in canon to see how to best interpret them and figure out how they can be made to make sense. In doing so, I’ll start to give a rough outline of the timeline of events before the series starts.

Keep in mind that this does intersect with a few different ideas I want to get to in future posts. Even doing this singular part has taken a lot of thought and going back through the series to check through ideas and I’m afraid that I’m forgetting something. These issues are important and many deserve separate devoted attention to them as they affect the entire series.

What do we know that can be used?

Let’s start with two big dates: the aforementioned Dragon King Festival and the establishment of the first guild.

Yes, even as this moment is from the sequel, it matters. Remember, any part of the Fairy Tail universe is fair game for this, especially the canon sequel to the original manga. Thanks to the sequel, we know that Magia Dragon, the first guild in the world started at x633. I’ve gone back and forth about if that should mean anything more specific. For now, I feel as though it should stay as is.

As for the Dragon King Festival, we don’t know when it exactly ended. According to FT Wiki, the war started at x391, but the end date was not given. A good argument could be made that it never really ended until x792 when Acnologia was beaten. That being said, it makes sense to cap the actual fighting before Acnologia starts his killing spree and technically ends the war would have to be somewhere between 150-200 years before the first guild forms.

In addition, Precht mentions that his research in magic led to the realization that magic was found in the dark arts. Of course, this led to the founding of Grimoire Heart. However, it’s not quite accurate. The One True Magic is actually Love. While Mavis and Zeref know this and that makes (some) sense, we hear this first as a possibility from Lucy. And this isn’t necessarily her own idea. It’s something that she remembers from her mother.

So how do I explain the history of magic from these points? Again, keep in mind that this is mostly me making things in order to connect dots left by canon. I’m not describing stuff that I believe Mashima absolutely to be considered as the lore of the series. Also, some points will need a bit more explanation than I can give in this one post. That being said, here are some of the issues that I want to address, in no particular order:

Where would Precht get his idea from the origin of magic?

How does lost magic fit Precht’s study of magic?

Where do Zeref’s study and research on life, death, and resurrection lead him to the concept of the origin of magic?

How would Layla know about this origin?

What is the reason only 10 percent of people on the continent are able to use magic?

What does the Magic Council do?

Why would they set up Etherion and Face?

And how does the Dragon King Festival affect the history of magic worldwide and specifically on the continent of Ishgar?

Here’s what I got.

Again, I don’t think we need to know exactly when the discovery of magic started. All that matters is that by the time the Dragneels get attacked, it has been known about for a while and people have started to try and understand it. People have started to get together in magic academies and universities both to teach and research the concept of magic. The only one that really matters is Mildian Academy in Ishgar, or as it was known Dragnof, where Zeref studied. This is where the origin of the One Magic as Love is originated and taught.

The entire Zeref incident involves that I haven’t entirely squared away just yet. However, an important change that I’m making is that his research leads to him getting expelled right before he would have been cursed. Which means that the Academy is allowed to exist for a while longer. Before it gets closed down, the school has two special teachers whose names would have to come in the history of magic eventually: Anna Heartfilia and Irene Belserion.

Anna’s place in the school isn’t that big of a deal. But Irene is royalty, right? Well, her status as nobility may not necessarily disqualify her from work in the school. All that really needs to happen in her case if for her to work at the school for long enough to deal with the Dragon King Festival. After she gets married, she can take up the mantle of Queen of Dragnof. The fact that she is nobility can work both as a reason for the school to want her and a source of tension for a family that marries her off to royalty. That being said, I don’t know that Irene and Anna will spend too much time as teachers together. They just have to spend a few years together so that they both know of each other.

Once the Dragon King Festival starts, the school gets roped into helping find ways to help win the war. Irene comes up with the idea Dragon Slayers just before she gets married off. The fact that she came up with it while she was a teacher, in addition to putting her in trouble, gets the school shut down. If the Zeref stuff could be brushed aside as only affecting a few, Dragon Seeds resulting in Acnologia can’t be ignored.

But before the school is shut down and Acnologia “ends” the Dragon King Festival, Anna pulls some people together to get the Eclipse Project off the ground. Of course, Anna has to get in touch with Zeref for help to make the plan work. He helps them with Eclipse, gives them Natsu and we all know the rest. Anna starts a notebook which gets passed down the Heartfilia line. One of her most important notes is that of the Origin of Magic as Love.

With the war over, the noble bloodline killed (Irene not killing people, even accidentally, while a dragon is too much of a stretch for me), and the Dragnof kingdom in ruins after the war, various different nations break off to form their own kingdoms. However, they all decide to completely ban and outlaw all forms of magic on their kingdoms as a safeguard against a similar event happening in the future. Sometime before guilds form, the continent goes by its new name, Ishgar.

As a result of the bans, magic users leave the continent. Some end up going to the northern continent Giltena, but most go to the western continent Alakitasia, explaining their high count of mages. Of course, not all magic users leave the continent. Less than 1 percent stay. Many simply don’t use magic and do their best to remain hidden. However, some mages who stay end up trying to continue the tradition of Zeref and, by extension, the Mildian Academy. Of course, I’m referring to the followers of Zeref and, as you can imagine, they’re not welcome by the governments of Ishgar.

By virtue of being researchers, they become responsible for the creation of magic forms. While some are simply better versions of pre-existing forms of magic, others become the Lost Magic. While they still come with terrifying side effects, this origin gives two additional reasons for being lost: their existence before magic becomes legal and their connection to Zeref. The governments of Ishgar definitely wouldn’t want these abilities widely available, especially after magic becomes legal.

Speaking of which, what causes the change of tone on Ishgar? In the decades before the first guild, there start to become arguments for the legalization of magic. The arguments against boil down to a matter of precaution - not wanting another magical crisis like the Dragon King Festival. The arguments against it boil down to a matter of practicality - recognizing that banning magic hasn’t entirely stopped its use on the continent.

Obviously, the latter side wins out, due to the existence of guilds. While there have clearly been groups of wizards in the past and guilds aren’t mage-exclusive, the idea that a group of wizards would formalize themselves as a guild provides a great model to prevent future magical mistakes. If the government has regulation over the guilds and guilds keep track of their members, they can stop crazy things happening.

As an aside, if you need a reason for why Fairy Tail is specifically a large threat to the Magic Council - no doubt a necessary factor/sign as to the success of this argument - here it is. It isn’t a good sign that the top guild of Fiore doesn’t pay attention to the restrictions set up by the council. Worse still, getting into fights with other guilds, legal or otherwise, is a great way to start another magical crisis.

Obviously, this debate plays itself out on an individual country-to-country scale. But, while different countries do what they do at different speeds, they ultimately reach the same conclusion. (Grant me this as I work with a fictional series.) In addition to the existence of Magic Councils which (theoretically, in some cases) keep the guilds in check, some governments make secret extra efforts to prevent something worse. For Fiore, those things happen to be Face and Etherion.

One thing that everyone absolutely does is bury as much of the history and magic connected to the Dragon King Festival as possible. This feels like an obvious next step for them. They keep the secrets of the Festival as a close secret known only to special circles within the nobility of the government. Considering the government structure of choice seems to be a monarchy, where rulership is passed down by royal line, this kind of thing is feasible.

Well, that’s definitely a lot of information. Even painting with a broad brush, it’s clear that this affects much of the series. This took months to get together in a way that made sense and worked with the canon of the series. In some spots, I had to make some rather interesting changes to canon.

Thankfully, how this will be learned throughout the series is an easier issue to deal with. Obviously, I can’t just include a version of this post as an addendum to the series as required reading before I start getting to certain points. However, we learn about much of these aspects during arcs like the Grand Magic Games and Alvarez. Some of the aspects behind the history of magic are hinted as early as the Tower of Heaven or Lullaby. Heck, the manga starts with a discussion of Fairy Tail’s antics in a magic council meeting. A meeting which, as I mentioned in part 1, gets adapted into the anime’s second episode.

Will I need to tease at some of these issues? Not too much more than is already presented. I do think some attention can be given to the gap in the history and magic that would be filled by the Dragon King Festival. But, I don’t think that there is too much that needs to be hinted at within the series in regards to magic.

#magic #fairy tail #hiro mashima #the rewrite of fairy tail #part 7 #well i did that #for perspective #this took around 3 months #as per usual #edits up to time of posting #can't wait to see how the sequel messes this up #or the other part #heck #the anime may add in more stuff #fun fact about mest #i was going to fix it by having him be a double agent #but he never wiped his memory #their way is much cleaner

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