#edolas arc

[amethystsoda]

one of the funniest parts of the Edolas/Extalia storyline was that Gajeel found his alternate universe self and was immediately like HI BESTIE

[honkurogane]

gajeel was looking so damn fine during edolas arc

[honkurogane]

this moment was so peak

[darkpoisonouslove]

30 Days of Fairy Tail

Day 14 - Least Favorite Arc

gif by fairytail-maniac

The Edolas arc is paced badly and has way too many subplots going on, not to mention too many new characters, which ends up with the Edolas Fairy Tail being extremely underdeveloped and poorly characterized and they are the main draw of this arc (for me at least). We don't get to actually explore how having almost no magic affected them personally, how it changes who they are considering how deeply magic is intertwined into the stories of so many of the Earth Land Fairy Tail wizards. And we leave Edolas before we can even see the consequences of completely erasing magic from that world, which then leaves the Tartaros arc to ring hollow when the impact of the threat of losing their magic could have been that much more chilling had we explored more of a magicless Edolas. Overall, that arc just adds nothing to the narrative aside from Lisanna's return, Lily joining the guild and discovering the truth about Mystogan. Even Happy and Carla's existential crisis amounts to nothing once the arc concludes.

[darkpoisonouslove]

"In a world without magic, what are we?"

Hey, yeah, you know what would have been nice? If the Edolas arc had actually cared to answer that question instead of wasting so much time on the exceeds and having only the main team and Gajeel interact with that whole world.

[darkpoisonouslove]

Man, any version of Jellal will do his fucking damnedest to die, huh?

[darkpoisonouslove]

I get why Lily was mad at Extalia and the exceeds but since he was the one who saved Jellal's life (and he knew Jellal was the prince), why would he work for the king, who clearly abandoned his son?

[darkpoisonouslove]

Seeing another version of Fairy Tail is nice but where the Edolas arc fails for me is that Edolas Fairy Tail are just opposites of Earth Land Fairy Tail with no rhyme or reason. It would have been much more interesting if we could see the way that the world they live in informed their characters.

For example, Edolas Natsu, Wendy and Gajeel are obviously not dragon slayers but one of their Earth Land counterparts' main drives is finding their dragon parents. So how are the Edolas versions different because they don't have this challenge to overcome? Not to mention that considering everything we learn about Natsu later on, Edolas Natsu would be extremely different on a "DNA" level. And yet, none of that seems to matter.

We don't have enough time with Edolas Fairy Tail in order to truly explore how their reality shapes them as individuals rather than just as a guild. And Lucy mentions that Erza Nightwalker has killed members of Fairy Tail before but that is never really given as much gravitas as it should.

I think that this arc's biggest problem is that it has too many moving parts and thus, doesn't have time to properly look into a lot of its components. The fact that only the dragon slayers and Erza, Gray and Lucy get to do anything doesn't actually allow for more time to be devoted to their Edolas counterparts. Edolas Gray barely even has a moment and what he gets is just a superficial difference from Earth Land Gray. What about all of Gray's baggage? What about his type of magic? How is that different for Edolas Gray?

All of the Edolas guild members would have a much more different relationship to magic than the characters we're used to seeing but that's not really taken into consideration beyond it being a vehicle for the arc's plot. And it makes sense that the main focus should be on the confrontation with the people that are facilitating the destruction of Earth Land just to get as much magic as they can but the Earth Land Fairy Tail members become the main characters in what should be the story of Edolas' Fairy Tail. The fact is that they save the day because they have magic (yes, Edolas FT helped but without the dragon slayers and their magic, they wouldn't have beaten the dragon armor) and then we leave Edolas before it has begun to address the transition to a completely magic-less existence. It makes this idea of being robbed of your magical power more of a plot setup rather than something that our main characters have to actually confront.

A better way to do this arc would have been to have all of Earth Land Fairy Tail join Edolas Fairy Tail and struggle to help them when they only have a limited amount of magic at their disposal. Instead, we spend too much time on the exceeds, who immediately lose all importance to the story as soon as the arc ends. Carla and Happy's identity crisis also doesn't amount to much more than taking up screen time in the end due to this. It would have been more interesting if they had been sent to lure the dragon slayers into a trap but the two of them had overcome their "programming" thanks to the power of friendship that is at the core of every victory for the Fairy Tail members. It could have taught the exceeds and everyone else in Edolas a little something about love and found family.

I would have kept the dragon armor that is the reason why this world is running out of magic. It makes an interesting point about greed and resource hoarding and could have ended up with the monarchy's right to exist or at least operate without any oversight being challenged. And the characters truly experiencing an existence without readily available magic would have set up the threat of the face devices better later on.