A quick note before we begin

While Shadow Dragon grants the player agency in deciding who sacrifices themselves near the end of the prologue, New Mystery of the Emblem does not allow you to transfer your save data and instead makes it so Frey is the one who 'died'. This piece explores why he might've made that choice, which means that this piece is indirectly about why he is, in a way, suicidal. Please don't read this if that is not something you are prepared for.

 

---

 

Frey had been to the Holy Kingdom of Archanea's capital exactly once and, though he appreciated the stories such a historic city told, he wished to never return. Palace was, as one might expect, grand in a way that inspired awe, but it was equally sprawling in ways that inspired terror. The roads and buildings had spread out as each successive generation of Archaneans tried to make use of every unclaimed bit of the city, twisting and folding and looping around in ways guaranteed to disorient even the most seasoned of wayfarers, creating an experience that Frey would gladly go without ever experiencing again.

Though Altea may fall short compared to Archanea in terms of the breadth of tales it was host to, its relative youth had given it the chance to learn from Archanea's mistakes and it could at least stand proud knowing that it had successfully implemented the revolutionary idea of 'planning ahead before you begin to build'.

Despite his grievances with Palace, a small part of Frey wished Altea had perhaps learned just a little bit less.

He suspected that Anri, the capital, would eventually also grow into an unbearably confusing monstrosity if given enough time, but at the moment it was decently open, decently organized, and severely lacking in places where one could hide away for an afternoon and be certain they wouldn't be found.

Enough time had passed since the end of the festivities celebrating Altea's centennial for daily life to return to a normal, mundane rhythm, which meant Frey's days were filled with guard shifts where nothing unusual happened, city patrols where nothing unusual happened, and training where nothing unusual happened—at least until today, his first day off this month. It was always for the best that nothing extraordinary happened, of course, but the lack of something to focus on had let his mind wander to places that he had wished to avoid and he was now wandering the city trying to find a place where he could brood over these bothersome thoughts without interruption. He'd greatly prefer being alone, of course, but... if he stayed in the castle grounds he'd risk being seen by someone who he might interact with on a regular basis, so being like this around a total stranger he was reasonably certain he could avoid until they both forgot about each other was the next best option.

Next time he'd be sure to pay more attention to the deadline for submitting a request to leave the city, but for now he was stuck looking for a place to be nearly alone, though he had been walking for over an hour and he hadn't had much luck. He had at least made it out of the parts of the city that he frequented, but that also meant that he wasn't as familiar with the area and didn't know where a place that would suit his needs might be, so the overall amount of effort his search required of him hadn't actually changed.

Growing tired of this stage of his quest, he resolved to pop into the next store that looked like it might have no other customers and looked like the owner might be amenable to him loitering around after buying something. If they weren't going to tolerate his presence, he'd just have to keep going until he found one.

 

---

 

The sun was nearing the horizon and Frey, having accomplished nothing he had set out to do today, finally conceded defeat and returned to the castle.

"Rough day, Frey?" the knight guarding the gate this evening—Gottlieb, an eternally energetic knight from his cohort—asked Frey as he passed through.

"A bit," Frey said, absently wondering if his mood was that obvious.

"Ouch... I'm sorry to hear that," Gottlieb winced, "...Come to think of it, it's good we ran into each other now! Whenever I'm feeling down, I like watching as the sun sets on the training grounds. Maybe that'll lift your spirits?"

Frey thought for a moment about what that would entail.

"It would be locked at this time of day, would it not?"

"Yes, but..." Gottlieb leaned closer to Frey and began to whisper, as if he was afraid he was going to get caught saying something he shouldn't, "Stern never does the chain right. Lift the lock up a little, then rotate it..."

Gottlieb trailed off and took a step back. He closed his eyes and brought his hands up, pantomiming a motion that looked like what he had been trying to communicate to Frey.

"Clockwise! Rotate it clockwise, shimmy it in between the gates a bit, and let it lower back down and it'll create just enough slack on the chain for someone to slip through."

"Shouldn't you have reported this?"

"Yes, but... unfortunately," Gottlieb said in a tone of voice that forewarned Frey that he was about to launch into some heretofore unheard of nonsense, "My undying loyalty to Altea means that I just simply cannot move from this spot until I am relieved by the changing of the guard around midnight, which is far too late into the evening for me to inform the appropriate parties. I guess I will be forced to wait until tomorrow to bring it up with Zaccaria, and if, for some reason, someone were to take advantage of my inability to act and use this information to sneak in to an area that's normally inaccessible before she has the time to rectify this horrible, terrible situation," Gottlieb paused to perform the least subtle wink Frey had seen in quite some time, "there would be absolutely nothing that I could do about it."

"..."

"..."

"..."

"..."

Gottlieb raised his eyebrows expectantly and Frey sighed.

"I'll think about it. Thank you for the... 'advice', Gottlieb."

"Any time, Frey! Hope tomorrow treats you better."

 

---

 

The fading daylight clung desperately to the few places it could still reach as the sun began to fall beyond the horizon, casting unfamiliar shadows across the eerily empty training grounds. Frey couldn't see the sunset from the gate—the storeroom where equipment was kept while not in use was directly to the west and shielded half the grounds from the light—but he wasn't sure if the sunset was going to live up to the expectations Gottlieb had created or if he'd have to adjust how much he thought their sensibilities overlapped.

A dozen steps forward brought Frey back into the dwindling daylight, though he flinched at the immense shift in brightness and hastily took a few more steps forward to retreat into the shadow of the other major fixture of the west end of the training grounds: a statue of Altea's founder and the namesake of their capital, Anri.

His eyes slowly adjusted from the intermittent gloom of the nearly-nighttime castle and, though shielded from the centerpiece of the sky, Frey had to admit that Gottlieb was... while Gottlieb had only indirectly claimed that the sunset would be pretty, he was at least right about that. The sky's subtle shade of saffron was much easier to look at with Anri blocking the sun, though, much like the statue, it wasn't anything he hadn't seen before.

The statue was apparently placed there some fifty-odd years ago, as part of the rampant escalation of a petty dispute between the vice-captains of Altea and Gra's knight orders. They had been rivals well before Gra had split off from Altea, and the ability to claim that they were the true inheritors of Anri's legacy only served to intensify their feud. Altea's knight captain at the time quickly became fed up with his second-in-command's spiraling immaturity and kicked him out of their order, but he liked the statue—and especially liked that the vice commander had paid for it out-of-pocket—and decided that it would be better to leave it where it was so Anri could watch over the knights and inspire them to do their best every day. Opinions were mixed on how competent it was at boosting morale, but for Frey the effect had worn off and it had long since been something that blended into the background.

It wasn't as if he didn't believe in the ideals that it stood for—if anything, he had grown to believe in them more—but he didn't feel inspired when he looked at this statue anymore. As a recruit it was effective, but this late into his career as an actual knight?

"What am I even doing here..." he muttered to himself derisively, his voice too quiet to echo through the emptiness of the training grounds as his focus shifted more and more towards the statue.

Was he living up to what Anri asked of him, as a knight? He had been serving as one for over a decade, and... what did he have to show for it? What had he actually done for Altea? What value did he have as a knight?

He wanted to be able to serve Altea, but could he do that if he stayed as a knight? Was he even needed as a knight? Was Altea better off with him in some other role? But what else could he be? He didn't have the education or intuition to be a tactician, tutor, or advisor. He didn't have the charisma or conviction to be a leader, the connections or affability to be a merchant, or even the build to be a laborer. At 31, could he handle switching to another job? Would he actually be any better somewhere else, or would it only make things worse?

The halo behind Anri was rapidly losing its glow as the sky darkened.

But this had been going on for much longer than that. Six years ago when he realized it had been a full decade since he had been knighted, and the year after that when he turned thirty, and every year since then he had been having these doubts about his place in Altea, plagued with this same nagging sense that this wasn't what he was meant to be doing, that this wasn't where he was supposed to be.

He had been able to keep up with his peers as a trainee, and didn't fall too far behind in the first few years as a knight, but as everyone else had started to either find their niche or look for employment in other sectors, it became apparent to him that in addition to having nothing he could use to differentiate himself, he had hit a plateau that seemed to stretch on with no end in sight. Gottlieb, Jennings, Inder, and Keeney—the only knights left from his platoon as a trainee—kept climbing higher and Frey could only watch them grow further and further out of his reach.

Everyone in the order was supportive. Nobody faulted Frey for his inadequacies, or how he had stopped improving, or how the batch of knights that came in after him had already caught up and in many cases surpassed him, or how the only things he had going for him was the fact that he was alright with a lance and knew how to stay on a horse. He'd still receive a 'satisfactory' in every category in the bi-yearly evaluations, and he'd be included in the occasional training expedition and mock battle, and the other knights still treated him as if he were a colleague, and he just didn't deserve any of that. He wasn't being pitied—he knew that King Cornelius and Sir Jagen wouldn't keep him around out of mere pity—but... what other reason could there have been to let him fester here?

He had been drowning for years now, it taking every ounce of effort he had to only just barely keep afloat, and it had felt like he was long since past due to make the error that finally had him slip beneath the waves of mediocrity for good. Just one mistake away from everyone finally understanding that they were wrong, that he shouldn't be here, that they were better off without dead weight like him. Just a moment away from this farce finally falling apart.

But he was desperate to belong here, to continue to at least pretend that he'd ever be of use to Altea. That was the only reason why he kept up this lie. That's why, despite it only making things worse, despite it being a betrayal of his oath to protect Altea, despite it being a betrayal of everything he claimed to stand for, he couldn't bear to tear himself away from this foolish hope that he'd suddenly one day have a justification for being here.

He didn't need to be like Anri. He didn't need to be a hero, or a general, or a commander. He didn't need to be in the running for some high-ranking position, or be the best in his cohort, or even be someone that would be remembered after he retired! He just wanted his work to be meaningful. He'd do anything at this point, even if it meant being relegated to the most menial, most undignified, most degrading tasks. Even if it meant—

"Frey...?" A voice hesitantly called out from by the gate and it was only then that Frey realized how much time had passed.

He had been here for hours, standing in total darkness, not even realizing that the sun had disappeared or that it was probably well past the time he should've returned to the barracks. It took him a moment to place that it was Gottlieb who had called his name and... Gottlieb's shift ended at midnight. He had been here, stewing with these feelings for... five hours? Maybe even six?

The sound of someone messing with the lock cut through the silence.

"You still in here?" Gottlieb called out again.

"Y–"'

Frey caught himself as he choked on a sob and stopped, not wanting to immediately give away why he was still in here. He took a deep breath and cleared his throat, trying to quell the desperate sounds of distress his body had been making unnoticed and unbidden, and tried once again.

"Yeah. I'm here."

Gottlieb continued to fiddle with the gate and, with a grunt, it sounded like he had finally managed to squeeze through.

"...You alright?"

Gottlieb sounded worried—even more so than he had been at the gate that evening—and Frey... he could guess why, but he didn't want to risk putting the idea in his head.

"You hadn't returned to your room so Inder was asking if anyone had seen you, and I..." Gottlieb paused, and after a moment Frey could hear him start to walk towards him, "I didn't tell them you might be here since it'd be nice if neither of us got yelled at, but I figured I'd at least go check myself, just in case?"

Gottlieb's pace was slow and the sound of his footfalls somehow carried the same tepid trepidation as his tone.

"Yeah. Just... thinking. About things."

It was a moonless night and the sky was overcast, but even though they were both in near-complete darkness, Frey thought he could see Gottlieb's shadow emerge from the darkness and draw closer, only stopping when it had passed beyond the storehouse, a handful of paces away from him.

"...What kinds of things?"

He sounded much closer than he looked.

"..."

"..."

"About how I'm another year older," Frey lied, though it wasn't entirely untrue, "Time's passing by so fast, isn't it?"

That was plausible enough, wasn't it?

"..."

"...?"

But he had taken a while to respond, so Gottlieb might've noticed something...

They stood there in the darkness for a few minutes, each feeling like an eternity.

"You know you can talk to me, Frey, right?"

"...Yes?"

Frey wasn't sure what Gottlieb meant.

"You said the exact same thing last year. I'm just..."

Had he?

"I know it's your birthday and all, and it's a normal thing for people our age to start worrying about..." Gottlieb sighed loudly, "I just can't shake the feeling that there's something else going on. Something that I should be concerned about."

"I'm just not getting any younger," Frey tried to play it off, "It's as you said: a completely normal worry."

"..."

There was an uncomfortable silence where Frey could feel Gottlieb wanted to say something but was weighing the costs of actually putting that idea into words.

"Hopefully next year will be a bit better," Gottlieb finally said, his expression unreadable in the darkness but his tone betraying that he was unconvinced by Frey's excuses yet unwilling to push any further, "Maybe... maybe next year we can throw a party. Get everyone from the fourth platoon to line up our leave so we can all go somewhere nice and stay out late without worrying about work in the morning."

"That..."

That sounded exhausting.

"That sounds nice."

He didn't belong alongside them, he didn't deserve to share in their merriment, and they didn't deserve having to suffer his presence, but... maybe that would change by then.

Maybe next year he'd have found a way to serve Altea.

With any luck, maybe next year he'd finally have some worth.

 

---

 

Afterword

 

There's a theme behind the name for each character that I made up. I'll say the answer in a few paragraphs to give you some time to think about it.

I replayed Shadow Dragon late last year and it feels like each time I come back to it I like it even more. Five years ago I'd've put it around "a decent baseline to expect any FE game to be able to reach" and it's now definitely in my top three, so I think we can expect it to reach "the most important experience created by humans" by ...2035?

Frey has clear self-worth issues. He says it pretty clearly in New Mystery ("I felt it'd be a pity if any of the others had to be sacrificed. So, I figured I could do that much..."), but even just from the fact that he's doesn't appear if you skip the prologue and the way that a unit who sacrifices themself does so voluntarily and against Marth's wishes you should be able to intuit some parts of this part of him.

Frey openly compares himself to Cain and Abel and seems to think of himself as less if a knight than the two of them as well as Draug and Gordin; when explaining why he became an instructor, he positions himself at the end of the list of people worth considering (and he likely doesn't even mention Jagen and Arran because they outrank him). This, however, doesn't really align with our point of view since, as a unit, Frey is roughly equivalent to Cain and Abel. His growths are a bit better and his bases a bit worse, but by the end of the game you aren't really be able to reliably identify them solely by their stats. There's not much of a meaningful difference between the three cavaliers, and Draug and Gordin do other things so it'd be like comparing apples and oranges.

But even if they are roughly equal, Frey is what? A decade older than Cain and Abel? I had him as 35 here but honestly he could be a bit older than that and Cain and Abel easily could be younger than 25; they're all clearly adults, but while Cain and Abel are really only just barely starting their career, Frey has probably hit his peak already.

Or at least he thinks he has, and that's what really matters here, right? It's the perceived inadequacy that has Frey digging himself deeper and deeper into this hole that he can't escape from, an insidious trap that isolates him further and further and prevents him from accepting the help that he needs.

You may have guessed this by now, but I like Frey quite a bit, which meant that I didn't sacrifice him when I last played FE11. That ended up with him in a nearly opposite position (he, Norne, Marth, and Elice were the only surviving Alteans), and it might be interesting to explore what he's like when he survives when he believes he shouldn't've.

(If you guessed "everyone is named after defunct pinball manufacturers" you guessed correctly! I realized the 'defunct' part and its commonality with the fate of these characters well after the fact, which once again proves that Carl Jung's thoughts on the unconscious's relationship to creativity were headed in the right direction.)