Ancardia, or: Marietta through the ages (spoilers for alllll the games), plot holes everywhere Options

[Raijinili]

A topic which has kept us busy on IRC these days (as it has before, without resolution) is that of the story of Marietta and Ancardia.

First, a summary of what we know:

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Marietta was originally the archangel of Yggdra Union's world, guarding that world's Heaven's Gate, equipped with Ancardia. After the Fantasinian Royal Army had slain Aries/Nessiah, they found themselves at Heaven's Gate, where Marietta awaited them. She claimed that ‘the Gods’ (I presume the servants of Asgard keep up the pretence that the gods are still alive so as to not disturb the surface worlds' dwellers' faith in them) had ordered her to take back the Gran Centurio from Yggdra. Yggdra complied, and sealed the Gran Centurio in the Great Temple—which was to submerge, forever, in the depths of the ocean.

The queen renounced the limitless power the sword had granted her and her lineage, and swore instead to rule by wisdom, and to maintain peace. In recognition of this, Marietta (on the orders of the Gods, she claimed) bestowed upon her Ancardia, the Sceptre of Wisdom.


An unknown amount of time later, Marietta had been sent on a mission to destroy the second Tower of Mehse. It was being built by the Westkin to appeal to the Gods, to beg pity for their treatment at the hands of the Knight Kingdom. Just like the first attempt, it backfired, and Marietta—wielding Ancardia—destroyed the tower with Angelic Thunder.
Here she felt, however, that she was imperfect, unfit to worthily serve the Gods/Magi.

Wanting power, she sealed a pact with Zolgonark: Hades, king of the underworld. He split her into two—Maria and Melissa—and hid Ancardia. As it is the source of their power, both Maria and Melissa began a frantic search for the sceptre, though it was Maria who found it first. Together with the soul of King Wilmgard, and thus the powers of the Arbitrator, she defeated both Zolgonark and Melissa/Melad Magus. She reunited Marietta's two halves; Ancardia in hand, she bode farewell to the king, and returned to Asgard, pessimistic about being forgiven her crimes.


Her worries were proven correct. The Magi stripped her of her powers (though strangely she retained Ancardia), and exiled her, as a fallen angel, from Asgard. She met with Zolgonark again, whom she swore allegiance to. Thus, he turned her into the Accursed Archangel, who thenceforth resideed at Flaybell Cathedral in Tetyth, Riviera (or was summoned there eventually). She meets her final demise at the hands of Ein and his harem, Ancardia becoming the victors' spoil.

The transition from Kitten to Riviera, though untold, is no great mystery. She messed up big time in Kitten, throwing an entire surface world into chaos, not to mention she dealt with the ruler of the underworld himself to gain power. As she points out herself, it was unlikely that Asgard would have overlooked or forgiven such grave mistakes; she was thus turned into a fallen angel, and banished from Asgard. As she already knew Zolgonark, it can be presumed that she went back to him somehow, and vowed to serve him in exchange for power. Why the Magi allowed her to keep Ancardia is a mystery, though perhaps she just fled with it before they could take it from her.


Less clear is what happened between Yggdra Union and Kitten, however. The most glaring plot hole being Ancardia: in the canon ending, Marietta awards it to Yggdra. And yet, in Kitten, it is back in her hands.

The simple solution that she retrieved it after Yggdra died of old age is hindered by the second plot hole: Marietta was originally the archangel of Yggdra Union's world, guarding its Heaven's Gate. In Kitten, she seems to have been relieved of that task however, and is instead sent to destroy the Tower of Mehse in an entirely different surface world. A possible explanation would be that Yggdra and her descendants, with the blessing of the Gods Magi ruled so wisely that Asgard no longer expected any threat to arise from that world, and thus its Heaven's Gate no longer needed a guardian. However, while the Sceptre of Wisdom might ensure such everlasting peace, if Marietta takes it back… there would be no guarantee for Fantasinia to remain peaceful.

If Marietta had taken back Ancardia by force, she would surely have been harshly punished (i.e. exiled) for it. The only other explanation I can think of is that Kitten's world is the distant future of Yggdra Union's, and thus Marietta could have taken back Ancardia at some point (before it fell into the wrong hands, perhaps), and remained within her own jurisdiction. On the other hand, Kitten's world seems to have a Hades Gate, while Yggdra Union's world does not, and there is no talk in Yggdra Union of any arbitrator things. This scenario is therefore very unlikely.

Which leaves us… at a loss. We should gather what we know in this thread, and add any new discoveries made in any translations or game dialogues to it where we come across them.

[Raijinili]

This is assuming we didn't mess up, and the Scepter of Wisdom really is Ancardia, despite looking nothing like it. YUworld is definitely not Avenheim. Guardian Angels/Archangels/whatever they're called are supposed to protect Heaven's Gate, but they probably don't need to sit on the other side of them forever. Asgard seems to be able to tell when things are amiss in the surface worlds in Kitten, so they probably noticed shit going down in YU, and made Marietta peak out the door to tell those hoodlums to stop breaking all their lawn gnomes.

[Raijinili]

I don't know any way you can translate that blurb to mean it's not the exact same staff, unless my entire life with koto has been a lie.

Why was I saying Yggdra is "apparently" immortal again? It wasn't because of Gloria Union, but one of the translations or something... That might matter.

Also, I think it's probably likely that Guardian Angels are understaffed. So there probably isn't one for every single world's gate (which would explain why we haven't seen any others, unless Elise is one or something). That could explain why she went from YUland to Kittenland (especially since Kitten's wasn't just a guardingjob, but an assassination attempt on a tower).

She had Ancardia in the flashbacks, right? So she lost it from trusting mysterious voices and it somehow ended up in Castle Aventheim. Um... Maybe Zolgonark took it away from her, because it's scary to him, and he tossed it in the treasure room before summoning Scoppio to sit there. Apparently that worked pretty well for guarding it, what with all those random swords and arrows sticking out of him.

BUT WHY WOULD SHE TAKE ANCARDIA BACK FROM YGGDRA. Or maybe she did it when she was asked to destroy the Tower of Mehse. "yo, Yggdrar, i gots an important job, can i get that back?" But that almost seems too normal.

Clearly Yggdra herself has the blood of some crazy demon thing (totally Mulminams) and went crazy, so Marietta was sent in to kill her off and took her staff back while she was there.

[Raijinili]

The Guardian Angels are definitely understaffed, since they can only be created by the Gods themselves… who are dead. Though hardy, and only Grim Angels or high-ranking demons have enough power to kill them, I'm sure that over the course of the many centuries since Ragnarok, some of them did die. One by one, falling victim to the twists of fate like Marietta—seldom, but it would accumulate. Ragnarok itself likely costed many their lives as well, especially since they were the elite force of Asgard prior to the creation of the Grim Angels, and thus bore the brunt of the fighting.
(This is why I believe that Asgard's narrow upper hand at the end of Ragnarok was a pyrrhic victory par excellence—with the Gods dead, the angels are left to die out, ever so slowly, with no hope for recovery of their numbers.)

Either way; I was about to argue that if Yggdra had truly gone mad, causing Marietta to intervene, the Magi would have left her stationed at the Heaven's Gate of a world populated with revenge-seeking fallen angels, demonic dragons and their human descendants, and genociding phoenix-queens. However, as it lacks a Hades Gate, they might not have considered it as serious a threat as other worlds; especially with Aries/Nessiah vanquished, and all the crazy monarchs dead (and the lands presumably devoured by internal chaos and anarchy).

Or, perhaps, Yggdra herself did rule wisely and died a peaceful death, but it was her descendants who started abusing the sceptre's powers. Marietta was forced to intervene and took it back. Actually, this might be the most plausible explanation…