#ft 514

Here’s my review of chapter 514 dragon seed. So we begin with a cover page...

Okay first off I love this cover page. Not because of Irene but because after weeks of cover pages that look like shots from glamour magazines

It’s about time to have one that’s a change of pace. Also “Forbidden Past” well it’s less forbidden and more it was lost to history. Nothing in the flash back indicates this is a tale that will reveal some taboo

So we start the chapter off taking place 400 years ago in the country of Dragnov where the dragon of virtue, Belserion has arrived. He comes with news that dragons in the western continent are eating humans.

Now as you may recall the Alverez empire hails from the west and Fairy Tail the series has been taking place here in the eastern continent.

So the dragon wants to speak with the queen

Okay so later in the chapter it’s brought up that Belserion (the dragon) owes his life to Irene’s predecessor. Which could possibly be mother or prehaps other dragon ruler seeing as how she has the last name Belserion, it could me she was orphaned and see took the name in homage to Belserion. I mean there was once a time people thought “Dragneel” was just a name Natsu made up in honor of Igneel (Dragon and Igneel) but then that raises a question if it wasn’t someone related to Irene then why is Irene so important to him? I guess you could argue it was the previous ruler of Dragons but then how does the monarchy work if a human is a dragon king/queen?

So dragon’s in the east were able to advance this far because coexistence, while the east are just a bunch of wild beasts. Now that actually makes sense as we saw with dragon’s like Zirconis and how he saw humans s nothing more than food. So there being dragon’s who wanted to live with humans has obviously been talked about and was the big driving force of the Dragon King Festival.

Oh hey look the dragon king festival.

Okay so Irene for being 400 years old looks totally young, More on this later. So Erza last chapter said she didn’t care if Irene was her mom, so why isn’t she just running up and stabbing her while she’s monologuing. Also what does this have to do with Wendy? Wendy may be a dragon slayer but she didn’t become one because of the festival but because Acnologia.

Also now I’m really confused. She said previously that she was queen of dragons but if there were many countries that had dragon and humans living together then how does she rule all over them? Is Dragnov just some capital? It would’ve made more sense is if Irene said last chapter “My name is Irene Belserion and I was once the queen of Dragnov, the lost country of dragons” but then I guess it wouldn’t be as dramatic as Queen of Dragons.

So we see Irene develop the Enchantment magic she’s shown off till now. But even with it the East dragons are no match for the west as well there are dragons in the east who were against coexisting and fighting their own kind. This is probably the fear tat Belserion had if the influence of the west made it over to the east, then the dragons ay start gain more a foothold and usurp the humans.

Belserion Knows the fight isn’t going their way but Irene now wishes to get involved but Belserion states a human army couldn’t stand up to even one dragon.

Hey guess what we now have an answer for how does a human teach learn dragon slaying magic. While not stated, It seems Irene came up with the idea of using the enchantment power they found a way for humans to gain dragon magic.

Umm not really Irene. Yes, you’re the mother of dragon slaying magic but it’s not like you personally used your power and gave everyone this power. Also Cobra and Laxus are artificial dragon slayers. I guess we now finally have an answer for dragon slayer lacrima, that you could enchant on to it.

Also what an amazing revelation I’m so glad Natsu and Gajeel were not hear about the woman responsible for your powers. Yeah if I could go on a tangent talk about missed opportunity. Why did team Natsu have to split up? Because Gray and Natsu were injured. Well Wendy’s a healer hell she has more direct healing abilities than Porylusica who uses treatments while Wendy is just plain healing force. The dynamic with team Natsu should be how they change as a team from the start to the finish and Natsu and Erza have known each other for a really long time both before this story and in it, and they really don’t get to develop bonds above Erza sees Natsu has more strength and potential in him than what he sees in himself and now we have both Erza’s mom and dragons which, while Wendy and Erza have a sisterly relationship and that this could effect it, could really put a spin on the Natsu and Erza’s relationship. I mean, why?  Why did Natsu have to leave the field when we could’ve just had him stay here and learn all about this along side someone he’s know since volume 3?

Oh of course. This was totally more important. Natsu and Lucy, not interacting while he’s conscious and taking the opportunity to talk about things like how he almost killed Dimaria because of how he was afraid of Lucy getting hurt or how he was willing to kill Gray for her, stuff that would develop their relationship but rather we have unconscious in plot convenience land while Lucy gets naked for the 4TH time this arc. Though, props to Hiro for actually for having it be logical with the hay and having a blanket as insulators and not just having a naked Lucy on top of him.

Yeah I wasn’t lying about this being plot convenience land. As for Anna, my guess is she didn’t know Irene personally and more heard about her since as Anna and Zeref in the west it makes sense they only get second hand knowledge. But this whole thing is stupid. This spirit guide who was once Zeref could’ve implied that Anna told Zeref but from the dialogue this spirit guide is just Natsu’s sub conscious trying to jog his memories that have fade away due o the dragon soul and time travel thing. So does that mean Natsu was told by Anna about this? We know that if she made the Scarf they had some relationship. But Isn’t this such a totally much better way of Natsu learning the origin’s of dragon slayers by having it be off hand remarks by a confusing guide that makes no sense, instead of being present by the side of two of team mates one of whom a dragon slayer who’s also learning all this.

Also it’s brought up that all this is happening is so Natsu knows why he’ll die. We all know the cause it’s cause he’s END, and remember Zeref damaged the book of END meaning a demon can’t live without it’s book.

So Back to Irene where she’s talking about how with Dragon slaying magic it was looking up for the East but things had draw backs.

Yep this scene just answered two questions.The first being why dragon slayers have motion sickness. And the other, dragon transformation and how it occurs naturally. Now, we’ve heard from Igneel and even seen with Acnologia the whole point of the magic ‘Dragon Soul’ was to create antibodies to stop them from becoming dragons. This also is why Irene looks so young.

Post Chapter follow up and it’s gonna be a long one: Never has my opinion of a chapter changed this much in one day. This chapter was one I wanted to love mainly because we’re getting development on a spriggan and it isn’t totally useless like Brandish’s. Ever since the timeskip the quality of FT has declined with the only chapter of 10/10 worth being ‘Memoirs’ a flash back and development chapter for Zeref. Why that was a 10/10 was because it not only developed a character, progressed the plot, left off suspense, but also answered a lot of questions. This chapter tries to do the same. While it does move the plot forward more than the pace it was currently at, it still raises more questions than answers.The biggest and most glaring is Acnologia. Acnologia is a character that we saw interact with Irene and also has the motivation of wants to kill all dragon slayers. Acnologia fought on the human side, on the East side. learning dragon slaying magic then at the end going rogue and killing a bunch of dragon’s. So if Irene was the one who was queen of dragon’s in the East then how come Acnologia didn’t recognize her? Well holding this against the chapter isn’t really fair as both, this backstory isn’t over and we don’t know Acnologia’s backstory in full either. This chapter is a glaring flaw with a series that’s week to week, we can’t get a full explanation in 1 chapter, we need more time, but that means we put faith in an author who may execute it poorly. That’s why retrospects of series work much more, you have hindsight if this’ll all work out or not.

There are other questions raised like the hierarchy of dragon’s, but that is just pointless semantics at this point. If Hiro does turn out to have an explanation then that be great. As for Irene and living for 400 years well when i first heard this 400 years thing I assume she crossed the eclipse gate but nope she lived through it. I said I’d touch on the fact she looks the same and yeah It’s pretty much because she’s a dragon slayer. That’s all well and good but she was pregnant with Erza. So why is Erza only 20 while Irene is 400? It could be because Erza actually died as Irene thought she did and prehaps this whole “I am you, you are me” thing may mean Erza isn’t the same. That’s once again stretching as with this week to week series I have to trust Hiro can write an explanation. As for Acnologia not noticing the scent of Irene as a dragon slayer well I don’t think it’s out of Irene’s capability to enchant her scent, I mean, we see August has magic specifically to affect moving on a GPS. As for Erza A lot of people say their going to be pissed that Erza’s “Half dragon” but honestly the retcon is annoying but would all the FT fandom really want to have the explanation “she’s Erza” for the rest of the series.

As for Natsu, yeah I already expressed what a let down his situation is both story and character wise. This “heart” is totally confusing and trying to untangle it is a chore and ultimately pointless because We all know that the reason he may die is because he’s a demon connected to the book of END he’s dying because Zeref shot a whole in it. If this turns out this possible death is dragon seed nonsense then that shits on everything Igneel did. I wouldn’t be surprised if Dragon force comes from that seed as if it is the humanized way of having all that potential energy without becoming a dragon.

This chapter is one I think will be reevaluated after 5 chapters, like Natsu punching out the war god. It raises questions it hopefully will answer and by the end of the series it my be seen as a great moment for plot.

Final Verdict: 6.5/10

For the questions it raises it still manages to have some answers and actually progress the plot forward more than in the last 10 chapters of this arc

The world building is nice however, it’s sad when world building is in a nation that only exist in flash back

The explanations on Irene being the Queen of the dragons and being the inventor of dragon slayer magic are acceptable to me. I know it’s still a twist not many fans will like to accept. But yeah it’s fine by me.