I made a reply not too long ago about how there’s two distinct versions of Great Knights, and how the only localized appearance of their very different original version, in FE10, was called “Axe Paladin.” Localization changes in FE have always been a controversial topic, but that’s usually talking about story or gameplay fidelity. But I’ve noticed an interesting pattern for a while that I can’t stop thinking about, and with the release of Engage, there’s more evidence, (even if circumstantial, and there is not in fact an effort to make “Wyvern Knight” a thing, I appreciate such a distinction).
So, in original Japanese, only FE’s Wyvern Knight is actually called “Wyvern Knight,” while a dizzying array of units are referred to as “Dragon Knight” or “Dracoknight,” it’s quite a mess IMO. Then there is the “Dragon Master,” which is a promoted Dragon Knight and “Dragon Rider,” which only appears in Jugdral, along with the “Pegasus Rider.” In case you don’t know, that’s three tiers of classes! (I suppose you could count Radiant Dawn’s ultimate version as tier 4 then?)
I know this is off topic, but a tangent about how I think tier 3 promotions were once planned for FE4:
Three Tiers Theory
In case you don’t know, FE4 was originally planned to have a third generation in between Sigurd and Seliph. Three generations for three tiers? There are a number of scrapped classes: on the lower end, the Pegasus Rider, Soldier and its weapon variants. On the higher end, a super powerful “Great Ballista” class. There are also many classes that are enemy only, such as Barons and Dragon Riders. I can’t help but wonder if Gaiden’s class system was meant to be brought back. Soldiers originally become armor Knights and then Barons. FE4’s scrapped soldiers could have promoted into the various armor Knights specializing in the same weapon. However, the smoking gun is the fliers, with the next game giving Eda and Karin, Dragon and Pegasus riders, who promote into the knight classes FE4’s playable fliers start in! Arion and Travant appear as Dragon Masters in cutscenes. This illustrates how “out of his league” Leif’s oppressors are, and how he ultimately has to wait for Seliph’s army. It seems like even though the Pegasus Rider was cut and the Dragon Rider was enemy only, they ultimately made it into the next game. There is also a suspicious theme of trinities in FE4’s story and gameplay: The Weapon and Anima triangles, three main weapon ranks and tiers of weapons, Sigurd, Quan, and Eldigan, Seliph, Julia and Julius, etc…
In English, the term “Wyvern Rider” is used with “Wyvern Lord” as its promotion in various games where there are unpromoted as well as promoted Wyvern classes. “Wyvern Knight” is a promotion for Pegasus Knights. This distinction holds true visually as well, despite the Japanese names being the same. The design of FE8’s Wyvern Knight was definitely a callback.
What in Japan was merely a one-off name appears to have been expanded in localization to better classify units.
Wyvern Rider: Unpromoted wyvern class, appears in GBA, Tellius, Fateswakening, and promotes to…
Wyvern Lord (FE10 uses literal translation of “Dragonmaster”): promotion in the same games
Wyvern Knight (FE11 uses literal translation of “Dracoknight”): Pegasus Knight promotion, appears in Archanea, FE8, and Engage.
3H is weird with its fliers. It uses the Rider and Lord names, but Pegasus Knights often want to become Wyverns anyway, as Wyvern Rider is the lone advanced flier class, then either Falcoknight or Wyvern Lord as an endgame masterclass. Funnily enough there is a (visually identical I believe) advanced Pegasus Knight class for enemies only. 3H’s class system is weird like that. Thus, I don’t count this evidence against my theory.
In a hypothetical Jugdral remake, I would localize Dragonmaster as “Wyvern Lord,” as per tradition, and make Dragon Riders “Wyvern Riders.” The middle tier of Dragon Knight would thus be “Wyvern Knight.” This would perfectly synergize with Pegasus Rider and Pegasus Knight.
Pet Peeves About the Wikis - Yes, the .org one too!
If I could have things my way, I’d not be strict about organizing everything according to the original Japanese names. Why are armor Knights that can wield different weapons, exclusive to FE1 and 3H, counted as the same class as the more common lance locked ones? Those should be Armored Lance/Lance Armor. Great Knights I would split into Axe Paladins. And of course, the FE8 Wyvern Knight would no longer be alone. An English wiki should generally focus on the English version of something, not confuse the average person using it instead of Serenes Forest. And why does Marth have that stupid, callous “Imma prince before I’m a son or a brother! 
” quote at the top of his page? Who does he think he is, Michalis? IS has done everything to retcon SD!Marth after Japanese outrage over how they rewrote the main protagonist of the series to appeal to edgy, emo 2008 American teenagers. Those guys who are like “waah they made Marth a sissy in New Mystery!” need to “touch grass.” He always has been, he’s not a macho, determined dude.
