I was taking a look at the Richmond Investigations from Suikoden II to see if I can find anything new (there's always something interesting to learn). Well, guess what, I dicovered something that changes things completely regarding our favorite swordsman, Georg Prime.

Most Suikoden fans in the English-speaking world learn a lot of their facts from either Suikosource or SARS. Most people got their info about Georg Prime from either site as well. The entry at both sites basically goes like this--

          Georg was once a Queen's Knight in the kingdom                                          
          of Falena, but was blamed to have murdered the 
          queen and became a fugitive. Since then, he 
          became the leader of the Ebony Moon Knight in 
          the Grasslands, and then was recruited by 
          Barbarossa Rugner as one of his Six Great 
          Generals during the Succession War. After the 
          Succession War was over, he left because he has 
          "fulfilled his promise." He then fought against 
          Highland during teh Dunan Unification Wars. He 
          is one of the best swordsman known in the lands.

That's pretty much what most Suikoden fans would know about Georg Prime--that he was born in Falena, became some young, dashing knight who somehow (probably due to a horrible tragedy) ended up killing the queen, and then became a wandering swordsman, lending his sword to Grasslanders, and then to Barbarossa during the Succession War, because his name would have already been known by then. This has led to a number of people writing fanfics about Georg, making art, banners, etc based on this information.

Well guys, listen up, all this info was WRONG!

Upon looking at the Richmond Investigation for the Japanese version, I have noticed an oddity. The Richmond Investigation sais this: "Georg has had an interesting history. First he has served as one of the Six Great Generals in the Scarlet Moon Empire, then he was a Black Moon Warrior in Grassland, and then a Queen's Knight in Falena..." which means the article posted above had it's order of events backwards!

This changes a lot of our understanding about Georg, and would possibly shock some fans. So here I apologize for this long-standing factual error. Georg is not from Falena, his official birthplace is "unknown." His first fame was with the Succession War, not with the Queen's Knights in Falena. Please forgive me.

The offending article from the character list which decieved many Suikoden fans over the span of four years (click on image to enlarge).

Although this new information changes the historiography of Georg Prime's life, it also changes our understanding of how some other events took place. For one thing, we now know that Georg Prime would have killed the Queen of Falena relatively "recently" at the time you recruit him in Suikoden 2. This is because there is roughly 13 years between the Succession War and the Dunan Unification War. If Georg went to Grassland after the Succession War and then went to Falena after that, it's likely that he killed the queen between the year 454 and 460.

Another fact to take into consideration is that Killey was imprisoned in the Queendom of Falena for 3 years "until recently," (according to Richmond) due to Lorelei tricking him into getting caught. It is also known that Killey was involved somehow with Georg killing the Queen of Falena. This probably means that Killey and Georg escaped Falena around the same time after the Queen was killed. Another fact that supports this theory is that Lorelei is already in Toran during the year 455 (when you see her in Kouan during the Gate Rune Wars), which means Killey would have had to have been imprisoned by the year 455. This means the murder of the Queen of Falena likely took place in the year 458.

The map below should illustrate Georg's movement along with Killey's movement.

The new information sheds some light onto the previously unknown timeline for the murder of the Queen of Falena.

On the map above, you can also see that I have Mathiu's movement written. It is known that Mathiu spent some time in Grassland for an unknown amount of time, and returned to Seika two years before the breakout of the Gate Rune Wars. This means he was in Grassland during the year 453. That is likely around the time when Georg was in Grassland. Although nothing is listed to have happened around that time in Grassland, something probably did happen that required the involvement of Mathiu and Georg Prime. Otherwise, there wouldn't have been any need for Georg to be a "Black Moon Warrior," nor would Mathiu have had the need to be there. Furthermore, Mathiu likely had previous contact with Georg Prime, as Mathiu served under Kasim Hazil during the Succession War. Kasim and Georg were in charge of fighting in the western front during the Succession War, which means Mathiu would have most likely met Georg during that time. This connection may have resulted in the chance that Georg and Mathiu could have joined forces elsewhere at another time. However, this hypothesis is quite far fetched, based on two possibly unrelated settings.

Regardless, this "new" revelation certainly clarifies how Killey could have possibly been involved in the murder of the Queen of Falena because he would have been too young otherwise. Now things make perfect sense. Hopefully I wouldn't find any more huge misinterpretations of plot elements. It's white amazing how this misinformation has remained undiscovered for all these years when the information was plainly available in the game. I suppose you can never assume that every fact from the game has already been explored.

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