The Javelins of Light really aren’t as powerful as people think
One of the most common criticisms of the Agarthans is that they could have easily won the war just by firing Javelins of Light at wherever their enemies were at a given moment.
Now first, they try that… it results in Shambhala being found and destroyed in Verdant Wind and Silver Snow, and firing them at Arianhrod probably plays a large role in Shambhala being destroyed in Crimson Flower as well. Now notably, in Azure Moon, the one route where the Agarthans never fire a Javelin, Shambhala is left unscathed in the end!
It’s almost like Thales shouldn’t have fired them for petty and vengeful reasons…
So, nuclear weapons are the most common point of comparison for the Javelins. They… don’t remotely live up to those heights.
The first time we see them, at Merceus, Byleth and their army were on the fortress’s outer walls when the Javelins hit. They haven’t even begun to flee til after the first falls. You could argue that they survived because the Death Knight lured them toward the outer walls in the first place, but that’s still a very poor showing for a superweapon. You can’t just evacuate an entire army from a fortress in under a minute, and yet there’s no word after the event in either SS or VW about the army being ruined (the desperate situation in SS is more due to the loss of Merceus itself).
Then there’s the fact that the javelins only create craters, and the range of their destructive power doesn’t extend far beyond the actual blast radius. The buildings aren’t on fire, for instance, and the blast shockwaves doesn’t seem to have done as much damage as you might think.
This is consistent with their performance against Arianhrod in CF as well:
The Agarthans shot multiple (note the plural) Javelins at Arianrhod and only destroyed the northern wall and the fortress main hall. They also killed only a third of the Imperial garrison, rather than all of them as you might expect if the Javelins lived up to their real-world hype. As you can tell from looking at the map while in battle, Arianrhod is massive.
But if you thought their performance at Arianrhod and Merceus didn’t live up to the hype… hoo boy, wait ‘til Shambhala.
Edelgard’s detractors would have you believe the Black Eagles could never take Shambhala without Rhea’s aid, since Thales would certainly just fire all the Javelins he has at Shambhala, as he does in SS and VW.
So how do they do in those routes?
Well the first one is spent cracking open Shambhala’s roof.
A second follows it shortly after:
(That barely-visible twinkle is the second javelin lol)
As Rhea flies off to intercept the second one, we see the result of the first:
It struck a forest without starting a fire. Additionally, the damage circumference barely extends a single tree-width past the actual impact site. This is the weapon that some people would have you believe would grant Thales a world record LTC clear of Three Houses: a missile that can’t even take down a forest with a direct shot.
Rhea shoots down one javelin, and misses a third:
Now notice that the first impact isn’t even on-camera. So on top of not being very destructive, their accuracy is pretty damn bad.
Rhea hits a fourth, but the explosion of the fourth one catches the fifth, detonating that one as well, both of which blow up right in Rhea’s face.
She survives two point-blank explosions from these missiles. If they were so destructive as to completely devastate the environment, as some would claim, and yet she survived the impact of two of them, she shouldn’t be falling to people waving swords at her.
And by the way, two more get past while she’s reeling from the explosion:
The liberation army hasn’t even begun to retreat before Rhea falls (again):
Byleth’s army are 2/2 on surviving Javelin strikes by doing absolutely nothing.
And again, in the final panning shot, there’s no sign of the environment being devastated as a result of this fire:
Like yeah, Thales killed a lot of trees and opened holes in the ground, but there’s no reason to suspect this area won’t be fine now that the danger is over.
So that’s 7 Javelins total, 3 of which Rhea stops, 1 of which needed to actually expose Shambhala, and at least 1 of which just deadass misses entirely. Because Thales was continuing to summon them even after the first landed:
It can safely be assumed that he fired all or at least the majority of however many he had (because there’s absolutely no reason to hold back at this point, he’s just trying to take Byleth down with him now).
So, best case scenario, he had 8 or 9 available at this point, on top of the 2 or so he fired at Merceus. Now Thales can certainly do some damage with that many, but I sincerely doubt he has the capacity to make any more, so he’s gotta make his shots count, so to speak, especially since firing one runs the risk of exposing Shambhala.
I’ve seen it argued that the Agarthans don’t fire any Javelins in AM because Thales is the only one who had the “firing codes”, but there’s no evidence of this. It’s equally possible that whoever his successor was on their hierarchy simply viewed the Javelins as not worth the risk. They’re weapons of last resort, after all: The Agarthans want to take over the surface, not destroy it. This is why their usual style is infiltration and subterfuge.
Now, what about Ailell you might ask? That happened in ancient times but the land is still a volcanic hellscape!
Well, for starters, it seems that Ailell wasn’t hit by the javelins all that long ago:
They fell within this old dude’s living memory!
Secondly, the effects of the Javelins hitting Ailell seems wildly different from the other regions struck, so why is Ailell different? Well, Fates, of all games, suggests a possible answer:
Yes. It is a strange phenomenon, but I can explain how it came to be. There is a massive reservoir of oil nearby that has mixed with the water. At some point, hundreds of years ago, the river was set aflame. It may have been a lightning strike, or an accident, but regardless… It has burned ever since.
Of course, totally different games and scenarios, but it a hypothetical reason for the Javelins behaving so wildly different in one spot from two others.
This brings us to a final point: the devastation of Fodlan in the distant backstory. One clear first-hand account of Fodlan’s destruction comes from Rhea herself:
This seems pretty clear-cut, and it’s been generally held as evident that the ancient Agarthans fired off volleys of their Javelins and destroyed the surface. However, as I’ve already demonstrated, the Javelins don’t appear to have that sort of power.
Interestingly, in Hopes, Epimenides blames Sothis for this:
Of course, it’s very possible that he’s lying, but he’s actually pretty direct and forthright with the party - aside from sending illusions of their loved ones after them, anyways.
Who’s telling the truth here? Who can say. It’s totally possible that both him and Rhea are telling half-truths at best, but it’s not terribly important either way.
The important part is that the Javelins of Light just aren’t the end-all be-all weapons some treat them as. They’re incredibly dangerous, of course, but that’s as much because of what an absurd outside context problem they are for the cast of a Fire Emblem game. They’re dangerous, but they’re also risky to use, and not something to be used carelessly. Thales does use them carelessly because he’s a petty and vindictive man, as he demonstrates multiple times in both games.
