#Magic existed before Saint Macuil but maybe he made magic available to random peons and not only to humans who knew/interacted with a lizard

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Thinking about magic in FE16, thanks to a SF post :

The TC in that post went by the basis that Archanea/Jugdral/Valentia mechanics about magic applied to Fodlan, which I personally don’t believe.

In the Naga verse, magic is tied to spirits/faeries living in the land.

However, in FE16, I think it is tied to Sothis and Nabateans.

Macuil’s bio hails him as a pioneering figure for and master of the magical arts. Does it mean that before Macuil, no one knew how to use magic in Fodlan ? Or they might have known some stuff, but Macuil theorised it.

Still, Morfis is known around as being that “metropolis of magic”. Did they learn their own way to perform magic, using another source? And yet, the Morfis squad we can recruit wears the traditional agarthian get-up (iirc?) so Agarthians went there to build their city or, the devs forgot about coding a specific get up for some battalions (kuddos for the mittelfrank one though i love it). 

Or maybe their knowledge of magic predates the Nemesis era, and one random Nabatean, just like Aubin who went in Dagda, decided to form a colony in Morfis and teach humans about magic. Maybe that random who went in Morfis was Macuil, idk.

Bar Morfis, we do not know if any other places outside of Fodlan developped magical arts, and if they developped it on their own or were helped, at the foundation, by a Nabatean.

Back to magic, the SF topic went on a recurrent take, saying that people who sucked in the Faith branch of magic didn’t have any attachment to the Church or didn’t believe in Sothis.

However, while I don’t know and can’t say why this branch of magic is called “Faith”, Linhardt, in his Flayn support, actually calls is “white magic” (idk how it is called in the jp script though!)

Linhardt: You are quite skilled in white magic, yes? My understanding is that you have a very high affinity for the art. Flayn: Yes, I do. I am confident in my abilities. I am glad of my abilities, for it is a way in which I am able to help others.

White magic is, per Flayn, a magic able to help others, or to support them. I know we have offensive white magic spells, but they kind of suck compared to “reason/black magic” ones. Maybe because the basis of white magic is to support, so using it to attack is a sort of failed hybridization of white and black magic.

It is also interesting because Linhardt, nerd as he is, knows that “Faith magic” is the same thing as “White Magic” and calls it by its name “white magic”.

So while “white magic” was turned into “faith magic”, someone’s proficiency to “white magic” isn’t really based on “Faith” or if you really love the Church and believe in the Goddess - else you’d have to make a case that Seteth doesn’t really believe in his mom because he doesn’t have “Faith” proficiency while Flayn does.

In Annette and Sylvain’s support chain, we see how Annette learns magic through formulas, and when someone uses magic (white and dark), we can see a weird vertical (?) circle, with I suppose, those formulas, being cast. When someone uses dark magic, the circle appears too, but on the ground, circling the caster, not in the air. 

Dark Magic being associated with Agarthians, it might be a remnant of the good’ol days where Nabateans and humans worked together, they taught Agarthians how to use magic, and those guys customized it (to use the more powerful dark magic).

(Funny how one can suppose that if FE16 mages don’t use tomes, maybe in the other verses the formulas are inscribed on tomes?)

Agartha uses of magi-tech (some sort of magic + technology) is also shown in the Titanus who, despite attacking on physical defense unlike their Nabatean counterparts, also have an Aegis shield to reduce ranged damages (a more practical version of the anti-magic armor the Nabateans equipped their golems with). With magical basic teachings provided by Nabateans, humans managed to develop their own brand of magic.

Following this, it means that without Nabateans/Sothis and her lizards, there’d be no magic in FE16 (or in the Fodlan world)?

As I pointed out above, Morfis is a big question mark, and given how Nabateans scattered around the world per the devs, I cannot affirm that humans managed to discover/find/use magic on their own or not.

Still, we have two instances where it is suggered that Nabateans have a special relation to magic and/or are pure magical being.

First, in CF’s last chapter, again with one of Linhardt’s comments:

Linhardt: What? Her howl as unadulterated magic. I didn't know such a display of power was possible.

Rhea’s roar is “unadultered magic” meaning 1) Linhardt thinks magic exist in both forms, adultered and unadultered, the adultered version is the one humans use? He thought it was impossible to “display” this power, unadultered magic + 2) if a roar can covey “pure” magic to golems, either Nabateans can master magic very well and this was the only way Rhea found to power up far away golems, or, most plausible, a Nabatean is a magical being, its roars are pure magic and its blood is a catalyst to enable people to use magic?

Which brings me to the second point, Hanneman (Linhardt’s teacher!) and Alois’ support convo:

Hanneman: Well, if I'm completely honest, you're less of a student and more of an experiment. You have no Crest, but you might be able to learn magic... despite our early results. And the potential magical ability of those who lack a Crest is precisely what I hope to research. Alois: That's a surprise. A Crest scholar researching people without Crests? Hanneman: When studying Crests, it is also important to understand the effects of their absence. After all, the very reason for all of my research is to grant the power of a Crest to anyone who desires it. If it is in fact possible to increase the magical potential of people lacking a Crest, then I find myself one step closer to my goal. Hence my experiments with you are quite valuable to my research. Alois: Ah, that's wonderful! What a great man you are, Professor Hanneman. Truly, a man among men! Why, if I could prove it's possible to use magic without a Crest, what an honor that would be! Please, use me as you see fit! I won't let you down, I promise!

Crestless people have more difficulties to learn magic to the point where Alois claims that he’d be honoured to demonstrate that it’s possible to use magic without a crest.

It’d go with Macuil and the Nabateans’ motto of helping humans to use magic - for every humans, not for the few ones they blood-bonded with (I don’t think they were expectig a Nemesis and his Dudes to happen). 

And yet, after the Nemesis incident, people with crests became a common-ish occurence in the world, so the paradigm shifted - magic wasn’t thought as something everyone could use, but something only crested people could use because it’s easier for them to do so because they have Nabatean DNA/blood. 

Meaning that being part Nabatean, Full-blooded Nabatean or even having a drop of their blood impacts one’s ability to use magic - it’s usage isn’t exclusively granted to crested people, but damn if it isn’t easier to use it with lizard genes. I can only hope Morfis’ people were badass normals who mastered magic without using some kind of shortcut like the people of Fodlan did.

Do we know what is the source of magic in Fodlan? Nope. I can only suppose it is tied with Nabateans, and Sothis herself.

We don’t have any clues or evidences of magic existing in Fodlan before Sothis’ fall, but we don’t know a thing about that time. Magic is used in “foreign” countries, Morfis is an exemple, but it might have been influenced by a Nabatean.

Still, given how Nabateans are “magical” beings of blood and flesh, having been created from Sothis’ own blood, Sothis herself might have been “full” of magic and magic is implicitely tied, in the continent of Fodlan, to Nabateans.

Tl;Dr : In FE16, magic comes from space.