Fairy Tail: 100 Years Quest's Shocking Reveals About Dragons, Explained (2024)

The original Fairy Tail anime spent plenty of time building up the lore of its colorful fantasy world, such as the pseudo-isekai world of Edolas and the existence of not just magic and flying cats, but also Western-style dragons. Although dragons only played a peripheral role in Fairy Tail's story, fans did learn a few things about those scaly lizards of the sky, especially through Igneel and the villainous Acnologia. By the story's end, it seemed that dragons no longer had a role to play in the world, only for the sequel anime to change all that.

Dragons returned in a big way in the Fairy Tail: 100 Years Quest anime series, and not just for lore fluff. Dragons are now the central focus of the plot as Team Natsu undertakes the 100 Years Quest to seal away the five Dragon Gods, which has ushered in plenty of surprises about dragonkind. In the span of just nine episodes and counting, the 100 Years Quest anime has expanded dragon lore in intriguing and fresh new directions, and for Natsu Dragneel, it can be shockingly personal.

Dragons Can Be Eaten to Boost a Wizard's Power

The Entire Diabolos Guild is Centered Around This Fact

The original Fairy Tail anime series suggested that humanity had two main relationships with dragons: fighting them, and being friends with them. Natsu Dragneel, Wendy Marvell, and Gajeel Redfox were all Dragon Slayer wizards from the past who had strong bonds with their mentor dragons, and for Natsu in particular, his mentor dragon Igneel was his foster father. That proved that dragons can form a found family with people, and that was the emotional core of Natsu's character arc. Natsu felt he owed much of his growth and happiness to his scaly foster father, and he remembered more of that dragon than he did his own family. The anime also showed the inverse, with the Fairy Tail guild and its allies fighting Acnologia to the bitter end, with neither side willing to cooperate with or show mercy to the other.

Now the 100 Years Quest has shown a third option: wizards eating dragons to gain their powers. This has introduced a new and potentially overpowered magic type, since dragons are packed with power, and eating them is bound to make a human wizard incerdibly effective in battle. The anime hasn't gone too in-depth about this new generation of Dragon Slayers just yet, but Natsu and his friends understand the basics, at least. Dragon Eaters like Kiria, Madmole, Skullion, and their guild leader Georg can actually eat dragon flesh to augment their powers, and the members of Team Natsu can't accept that fact. What is more, the existence of a Dragon Eater guild like Diabolos proves that there are plenty more dragons around for them to eat, since a guild based on eating dragons wouldn't get very far if such creatures were incredibly rare or extinct.

This expands the lore of dragons in a bizarre and somewhat gruesome way, and it's the most exploitative way human wizards have interacted with dragons. As a true shonen anime, Fairy Tail inspires viewers by showing Igneel loving, protecting, and training Natsu, with Natsu benefitting from dragonkind in the most wholesome ways possible. Meanwhile, as sinister and powerful villains, the members of Diabolos exploit dragons and kill them to get stronger, a predatory attitude that no one in Team Natsu can accept. Even worse is the fact that the Dragon Eaters are trying to consume the Dragon Gods that Natsu and his friends have already vowed to seal away, making Diabolos more of an obstacle than ever.

Dragons Can Have Biological Children With Human Forms

Natsu Didn't Expect to Meet Igneel's Own Son, Ignia

Only lightly did the original Fairy Tail anime touch on the topic of dragons having their own families, such as Irene Belserion gaining a human form and having a daughter Erza. For the most part, the anime focused on the dragon family of Igneel and Natsu being foster father and son, thus being family at heart. That was clearly meant to reflect the power of friendship in the Fairy Tail guild, with each member being like family. Now, the Fairy Tail: 100 Years Quest anime has given Igneel a biological son, a fiendish man named Ignia.

Ignia made his on-screen debut halfway during Team Natsu's battle against the Water Dragon God, Mercphobia, in the coastal town of Ermina. Natsu lacked the firepower to defeat Mercphobia even when the latter wasn't at full strength, so Ignia arrived to give Natsu some extra power, including flames that can burn water, of all things. Ignia wasn't too polite about it, since he openly scorned Natsu's comparatively weak power, but he did make it clear that he was the strongest son of Igneel, a dragon with a human form. Unlike Igneel's foster son, Ignia favored power above all else, and cared nothing for sentimentality. Also, Ignia started a shonen-style rivalry with his brother, giving Natsu another personal angle for the sudden arrival of Igneel's previously unknown son. It's unclear whether Ignia was around while Natsu trained with Igneel, but either way, this is a total shock that changes everything for Natsu's draconic family unit.

The Proliferation of Dragons on Guiltina May Shift the Balance of Power

Fairy Tail Fans are More Used to the Balance of Power Between Humans

Shonen action universes need to make it clear how the balance of power works in their worlds, since there will always be more than one faction of powerful fighters or monsters, and stronger factions may often get chances to hurt or destroy weaker ones. This may also lead to webs of alliances, rivalries, and feuds that help give the plot some shape and determine which characters fight whom, and why. The original Fairy Tail anime showed humanity mainly concerning itself with the balance of power between various wizard guilds in Fiore, with some of the strongest wizard guilds getting the best contracts and missions while weaker guilds were barely even mention. Dragons, however, didn't play a role in this balance of power.

Now dragons are in the picture once again, and that shifts the balance of power, mostly on the continent of Guiltina. It has been both stated and showed that dragons are a regular occurrence in Guiltina, including the five Dragon Gods, so it may take some adjustment for the characters and viewers to handle a human vs dragon power balance. This is made even more complex by the fact that some dragons are friendly to humanity and some are not, and the fact that the members of Diabolos hunt and eat them. Team Natsu might even team up with dragons against Diabolos, their mutual enemy, and Ignia might be involved, too. Nothing like that happened in the original Fairy Tail anime.

Humanity and Dragons Now Show Symbiotic Relationships in the Main Series

Aldoron Even Forms the Bedrock For Five Cities in Guiltina

While the original Fairy Tail anime suggested that humans and dragons could get along, it took until the 100 Years Quest for any serious human-dragon partnerships to appear, which covered fresh new ground for the series. Before, Fairy Tail fans saw dragons as beasts of the wild who sometimes attacked humans or formed found families with them, while the new anime aggressively pushes things in a new direction. Now, of all things, dragons are the protectors of towns on Guiltina, almost like local heroes. Nothing like this has been seen before, giving dragons a surprising new role to play in the world that would normally be handled by a local wizard guild or security force. In fact, this shocking twist has made the 100 Years Quest much trickier for Team Natsu, rather than serving as window dressing for the world building.

For the first time, the members of the Fairy Tail guild must take the wishes of local settlements into consideration when fighting dragons, a challenge that even the strongest members of the Fairy Tail guild are not used to. That calls for some tactical thinking and careful diplomacy, and fans know that Natsu and Gray aren't too skilled with such things, though the smart, empathetic Lucy Heartfilia may be up to the task. The first example was Ermina, with Mercphobia being both that town's protector and the source of its unnatural flooding, with the locals defending Mercphobia with vigor. The second and current example is Aldoron, the titanic Wood Dragon God who is the actual foundation for five cities whose inhabitants adore Aldoron. It may say much about Team Natsu as they try to solve this bizarre problem and find a solution that satisfies both the 100 Years Quest and the civilians who happen to be in the way.

Fairy Tail

TV-14

Action

Adventure

Animation

Lucy, an aspiring Celestial Wizard, becomes a friend and ally to powerful wizards Natsu, Gray, and Erza, who are part of the (in)famous wizard guild, Fairy Tail.

Release Date

October 12, 2009

Creator(s)

Hiro Mashima , Masashi Sogo

Cast

Cherami Leigh , Todd Haberkorn , Tia Lynn Ballard , Colleen Clinkenbeard , Newton Pittman , Brittney Karbowski , Monical Rial , Brina Palencia

Main Genre

Action

Seasons

9

Writers

Hiro Mashima , Masashi Sogo

Streaming Service(s)

Hulu

Franchise(s)

Fairy Tail

Directors

Shinji Ishihira