User blog:SDPanthera/Fairy Tail Chapter 415 Review & Other Thoughts

Hiya all. I'm SDPanthera and a long time fan of the Fairy Tail series. I have been around the wiki, as well other wikis for a long time, but never posted anything substantial, atleast not on this particular wiki. That will change now. Like many of you, I have been following, reading and watching the series of Fairy Tail, and like many, this chapter really stood out, so it deserved another mention.

With that out of the way, here's my review plus some interesting thoughts regarding the Black Dragon that's Acnologia.

Review:

Got to say, this was a heartbreaking chapter for those who follow Fairy Tail, but on the other side, it was also a beautiful chapter and ended well. I liked the explaination about the disappearance regarding the dragons, especially because more story elements regarding that plot device were revealed and meshed well with the established tale that was already put in place a good time ago. As such, it made all perfect sense. More about this later.

Further ahead, the chapter showcased a way better look on the dragon's overall designs, with my personal fave being the Dragon known as Skiadrum who reminded me a lot about Marvel's Venom, only in a dragon shaped form made of shadows. Grandeeney's bird-like design was also pretty beautiful and comes in second place, mainly because her other depictions shown in the respective manga/anime were pretty poor, especially when talking about the anime versions, so I'm glad this chapter redeemed that part before she departed for the heavens.

I must also say I really liked the brief interaction between Gajeel, and his parent Metalicana. That was just downright hilarious to me. But the best part of the chapter, was undoubtably Natsu on the end. He might not be very well liked by the audience in general, but even this chapter shows that Natsu is capable of being a good character when he needs to be. He was beyond sad and grieved about his foster parent's death, yes, but at the last moment, Igneel's spirit encouraged him to set forth on life once more, giving him his final words before properly passing on to the afterlife.

"And that is the will to live"

Just beautiful.

As such, this chapter gets a 10/10 of me.

On to other thoughts regarding this chapter:

Starting off, the first notable part was about Grandeeney explaining the reasons of dissppearing of them dragons. While this worked well with the established story already, and we know WHY they did it, not exactly everything has been revealed - such as WHEN did the Dragon Parents seal themselves into their respective foster children? Grandeeney mentions it was a "long, long time ago". That mention, along with the canon fact of having disappeared on X777, makes me think of the following theory of speculation:

"These same dragons were fully alive in that time, but Acnologia appeared and used his unique Dragon Slaying Magic on them to remove/reap their souls."

The above speculative theory goes well with Grandeeney's statement of "needing to prolong their own lives". Basically they were borrowing some of the spiritual energies of their children's respective souls, since the Dragons lost their own, making them dead on arrival.

The second notable part, however, of this chapter, goes straight to Acnologia himself. Having read the chapter a few times, first I believe now that we have a hint to what Acnologia's Dragon Slayer is, or was at the time he was human. This goes back to Grandeeney's statement of saying that Acnologia's Dragon Slayer magic removed/reaped their souls. This is the part that stood out the most...why? Well, thinking back, Acnologia confirmed he's all about destruction and ending all life, no? Combined with Grandeeney's statement of "their souls being removed" leads me to one possibility:

In accordance with a dear friend of mine, I'm speculating that Acnologia was the former Death Dragon Slayer, capable of using his magic to reap the souls of dragons. This in turn, might also explain why he, of all dragon slayers in particular, went mad in the Dragon Civil War. He went drunk and mad with power, and thus with his powers began to slay dragons on both sides of the war. This, in turn, seeing it has to do with souls, I'm further speculating that Acnologia consumed these very souls and with each feast he made, the stronger he got, hence the name "the Dragon King's Feast". He was pretty much literally feasting on the souls of dragons, and as by canon, "was bathing in their blood"

In turn, seeing as excessive use of Dragon Slayer magic turns you into a dragon eventually, that process only got greatly accelerated, until Acnologia turned into the one thing he madly hunted down.

Now, of course, seeing this is speculation front and back, the last question remains:

"What type of Dragon did Acnologia become and what is his primary element?"

Well, according to the wiki page on Acnologia's profile, its implied he doesn't have access anymore to his particular unique, but OP type of Dragon Slayer Magic. If this bastard had this power still, he'd be truly invincible. So, if Acnologia truely had "Death" as his "element" in the past, he doesn't now anymore. Still that begs the question of "what is Acnologia's current state?"

Easy. I believe we were already hinted to this way eariler in the series, way back in the Tower of Heaven arc, where the mighty weapon known as "Etherion" was fired. Particularly, it was stated that Etherion is a combination of many elements.

Yes, that is right, I'm giving a guess that Acnologia doesn't have a particular element anymore, but rather, due to consuming so many dragon souls (and thus a piece of their respective element), Acnologia is now a Etherion based Dragon in the current timeline, possessing a destructive power that is said to be a unstable combination of many elements, including Fire, Sky, Iron, Holiless/Light and Shadow/Darkness, the same elements used by the five Dragon Slayers seen in action in this arc.

Now, of course, take this with a grain of salt, for as I said, this is all speculation, but I think I'm on to something interesting. Whether its true or not, that remains to be seen.

What do you all personally think?