The cast of A Chance for a New Dawn. Beware of spoilers.
See the Fire Emblem: Three Houses character sheets for more tropes.
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Bernadetta von Varley
Bernadetta
Faction: Black Eagles (Former), Golden Deer
Unwitting time traveller and protagonist of the story.
- Adaptational Badass: Bernadetta has access to Divine Pulse in this timeline, Chapter 5 reveals that she bears the Crest of Flames, most likely due to Sothis' merge with her, and Chapter 13 reveals that she can wield the Sword of the Creator.
- All of the Other Reindeer: It's revealed the villagers of her home constantly subjected her to scorn and slander because of the actions of her father. It's honestly no wonder why she became such a recluse in the first place.
- Berserk Button: She actually has an angry outburst when Monica refers to House Varley as Bernie's "home".
- Blood-Splattered Innocents: Chapter 20 reveals that she brutally killed a marriage candidate her father had arranged for her in self-defense.
- Bows Versus Crossbows: Uses a bow from being an archer, however she's not as proficient due to her skill and form (a trait noticed by Jeritza) not matching up to her strength. As of Chapter 6, she wields a crossbow with a retractile blade given by Monica.
- Calling Parents by Their Name: She often stops herself from calling Allocer Von Varley "father", instead referring to him by title. Considering how he's treated her, it's not exactly surprising.
- Calling the Old Man Out: She does this to both her parents when she reluctantly returns home, her father for treating her horribly and her mother for doing nothing about his behavior. In the case with her mother, however, she immediately regrets it after it leads her mother to suffer a particularly bad coughing fit. Not so much after finding out that her mother resented her for being the opposite of her deceased half-sister Lucy, which leads her to deliver a much more thorough call-out.
- Comical Overreacting: During her tea party with Byleth and Monica, Bernadetta quickly assumes that Monica poisoned her tea and embarrasses herself to switch the cups around. She then believes that Monica poisoned both of their cups and proudly gets proven "correct" when Monica chokes on her tea. Sothis gets fed up and orders Bernadetta to drink it anyway as they have the Divine Pulse to undo their poisoning.
- Covert Pervert: It's revealed that she has written at least one smut fic about her and Byleth. She ends up kicking Sylvain in the nuts when he stumbles across one of them.
- Disappointed by the Motive: She's less than pleased to find out that her mother was complicit in, and even encouraged her father's abusive treatment of her simply because of how radically different she was from her lost daughter Lucy.
- Eye Colour Change: Bernadetta's eyes were originally blue, but it turned grey when she was given an artificial crest. Although to Cornelia's view, she's glad that Bernie has finally sported Sahrius' eye color.
- Good Is Not Soft: Despite her generally shy and awkward disposition, she can be downright cold and efficient on the battlefield, having taken back with her years of warfare experience. Though she doesn't take any pleasure in it, she has made peace with the fact that she must kill her opponent in order for her and her allies to survive.
- Grew a Spine: In regards to her father. Prior to the Time Skip in the game, his abuse had made her incredibly self-depreciating to the extent she believed she wasn't worth caring about and was terrified of potentially displeasing anyone. Having already gone through Character Development the first time around, she lays it into him just how much of a terrible parent and all around person he is within around five minutes of meeting him again, albeit after Allocer provokes her by flagrantly insulting the other students and Byleth.
- Hard Head: Apparently, getting thrown headfirst so hard to a wall that it makes a sizable dent is the least worrying part of her father's punishments.
- Has a Type: She's noted to have been a fangirl of the stories of Adol Christin, and as such developed a crush on the famous adventurer in her childhood. Seeing as how she later married Byleth in her adult life...
- Hypocrite:
- Bernadetta gets annoyed when Jeritza suddenly leaves in the middle of their conversation, which Sothis quickly mocks:Sothis: Oh my, doesn't that remind you of someone?
Bernadetta: I'm still working on that, okay?! - On a more serious note, Caspar calls out on Bernadetta for charging ahead and almost getting herself killed during the fight in the Holy Mausoleum when she told him not to in the beginning.
- Bernadetta gets annoyed when Jeritza suddenly leaves in the middle of their conversation, which Sothis quickly mocks:
- Mental Time Travel: Bernadetta ends up in her younger self's body when she gets sent back. This causes problems, as her physical body isn't acclimated to her future self's level of skill.
- Mundane Utility: Bernadetta uses the Time Master power of Divine Pulse to redo embarrassing conversations. Sothis calls her out on it.Sothis: What did I tell you about abusing my power for petty reasons?!
- Peggy Sue: Becomes this trope after Byleth sacrifices his life to save her which results in Sothis somehow transferring over to Bernadetta and sending both of them back to the beginning of the game.
- Rage Breaking Point: Bernadetta lets a lot of her suppressed anger out when her mother asks her to try to understand her father's abuse. She immediately regrets it when it seemingly causes her mother's condition to worsen.
- Replacement Goldfish:
- Although she has since grown to regret it, Bernadetta's mother initially viewed her as this to her first daughter Lucy, who was tragically killed while the two attempted to flee their homeland. This mentality only caused her mother to view her with resentment when she turned out to be the complete opposite of her original daughter in nearly every regard.
- Bernadetta's father goes in the other direction by making her into her deceased twin sister Victoria as he found the latter the better of the two. His increased resentment comes from his failures of restoring his former daughter.
- Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right!: Rhea has ordered the deaths of anyone of Agarthan descent regardless of their membership in Ouroborus. Bernie helps hide some of the civilian Agarthan survivors of Ashe's village right under her nose.
- Seers: Chapter 20 reveals that the nightmares she's had throughout the story are actually her traveling into the past into different bodies. It's speculated that she obtained this ability from her distant ancestor Sahrius, who Lilith also seems to have a connection to.
- Shell-Shocked Veteran: Being from a dark future has left her as this despite her shy attitude. Both Byleth and Monica noted how during battle she has a certain cold look that would normally be on a battle-hardened killer.
- Sins of Our Fathers: Prior to arriving at the academy, Bernadetta spent her entire life being blamed by the people of Varley for her father's actions. Sothis nearly recites the trope name verbatim when Bernadetta recalls just a fraction of the slander the villagers hurled at her.
- Survivor Guilt: Big time.
- Tomato in the Mirror: Bernadetta's mother is a runaway Agarthan, making Bernadetta herself half-Agarthan.
- Trauma Button:
- Bernadetta does not take being checked on by Edelgard immediately after she wakes up from her Mental Time Travel well. Getting away from her ends up being one of the main reasons she tries to transfer to the Golden Deer as soon as possible.
- In Chapter 13, Byleth sacrifices himself to save Bernadetta from a fatal blow from the Death Knight in the exact same way he died saving her in the first timeline, before rolling back time to save her without dying. This causes her to curl up into a ball and go into shock - because she saw him fail to save her without dying over and over in the original timeline.
- Seeing her home in Varley instantly brings terrible memories to her.
- You Should Have Died Instead: A variation. When Ashe falls into internal conflict over having to possibly kill his adoptive father Lord Lonato, Bernadetta wishes under her breath it was her father they were fighting instead.
Sothis
Sothis
Faction: None
Exasperated, time-travelling ally.
- Bold Inflation: Her lines are in bold.
- Disappointed in You: Sothis is very disappointed by her church now that she is more aware of her identity, not that she can show it due to being Invisible to Normals. She's especially angry at her daughter Rhea's extremism.
- Little Miss Snarker: She's still as sharp-tongued as ever.
- My Future Self and Me: An unintended side effect of her traveling back 5 years inside Bernadetta's body.
- What the Hell, Hero?: Played for Laughs. She really doesn't like the fact that Bernadetta wastes her precious ability to control time on avoiding embarrassing moments.
Monica von Ochs
Monica/Kronya
Faction: Black Eagles/Ouroboros
The cheery sociopathic friend to Bernadetta, much to her chagrin.
- Adaptational Badass: Monica/Kronya was not even slightly impressive in canon. Here she's keeping up with Bernadetta and her extra seven years of experience and Byleth the Ashen Demon while not showing off any Agarthan capabilities.
- Adaptational Early Appearance:
- Monica shows up much earlier than in canon note , as a result of Bernadetta changing to the Golden Deer early in the school year before the mock battle. In addition, the excuse for her disappearance is changed from being kidnapped to having been away dealing with family business.
- Likewise, her true self appears around the same time as Miklan's chapter (Chapter 5) instead at the Sealed Forest (Chapter 10).
- Adaptational Heroism: Monica/Kronya shows a much more empathetic side when Agarthan civilians come into play. Somewhat justified by her greater presence in the story giving more opportunities to explore her character and even lampshaded by Bernadetta, who never expected the girl she knew as a psychopath to be capable of empathy.
- Affably Evil: Morbid sense of humor aside, Monica is generally pretty cheerful.
- Becoming the Mask: Appears to be catching a case of this if her conversation with Arundel in chapter 16 is indicative.
- Berserk Button: Jeralt's very presence seems to enrage her, which contextualizes her canon murder of him as something deeply personal for her.
- Brutal Honesty:
- She has no qualms about criticizing the church even in front of devoted members such as Catherine.
- She is also the only person to talk back to Count Varley without him making a retort.
- Commonality Connection: The reason Monica hangs around Bernadetta so much is because both of them are half-Agarthan.
- Defeat Means Friendship: After their deadly skirmish at the mock battle, Monica tries to make amends with Bernadetta. Bernie immediately refuses at first but slowly befriends her throughout the story. As Sothis puts it, it's either Monica or dealing with Tomas a.k.a. Solon.
- Even Evil Has Standards:
- Goes absolutely berserk on seeing the slaughtered civilian Agarthans in the aftermath of the Lonato mission and joins Dimitri in butchering the unknown assailants.
- People not thinking for themselves seems to disgust her.
- She isn't exactly happy to hear about Count Varley's parenting, either, and doubles down once she sees him in action.
- Fantastic Racism: Describes Flayn as "not half bad for one of her kind" after Flayn decides to rush headlong into a plague outbreak to help people in defiance of Seteth's wishes.
- The Friend Nobody Likes: At most, characters tend to be uncomfortable anytime Monica happily blabs about murdering evildoers. It takes weeks for Bernadetta to end up on barely civil terms with Monica. On the other hand, Dorothea outright loathes her.
- Hidden Heart of Gold: For being a crazy serial killer, Monica softens up towards people who don't rely on the Goddess as an excuse for their actions. She's nice enough to drug Bernadetta's father so that at least everyone would do their mission without his constant outbursts.
- Mistaken Identity: Not her but she mistakes Bernadetta for another disguised Agarthan. Although...
- Right for the Wrong Reasons: As revealed in Chapter 19, Bernadetta is half-Agarthan on her mother's side, though Bernadetta herself didn't know when Kronya made her assumption.
- Psycho Knife Nut: She loves stabbing people with her knives and daggers to the point that she'll complain if there's no action for a while.We've been on this dumb trail for hours on end; can you blame me for getting bored? I'm just dying to sink my knife into something's flesh at this point...
- Sixth Ranger: Despite being a Black Eagle, she often joins the Golden Deer on their missions.
- Token Good Teammate: She's this to Ouroboros. Unlike Thales and Solon she has actual working empathy and is not willing to write off her own people.
- Token Evil Teammate: Monica, as both an occasional helper in the Golden Deer's missions and to the Black Eagles. Even before she revealed herself as Kronya, she still is a very underhanded fighter and has an extremely morbid sense of humor.
- Troll: Mostly to Bernadetta.
- Wild Card: It's entirely unclear what her agenda beyond protecting her people is. She started off trying to kill Bernadetta but at some point found out she was a fellow Agarthan and started helping her instead. She hates the Church, but that's entirely normal given that Rhea's out to kill her entire race. She's not making any moves to isolate Edelgard as seemed to be her mission in canon.
Byleth Eisner
Byleth
Faction: Golden Deer
Professor of the Golden Deers.
- Does Not Like Spam: It turns out he can't stand raw tomatoes. Sothis outright calls him a child for discarding them from a meal. Bernadetta thinks it's endearing.
- If You Ever Do Anything to Hurt Her...: Monica reassures Bernadetta that Count Varley will feel the Archbishop's wrath should he put a hand on Lady Rhea's favorite teacher.
- Karma Houdini: Putting responsibility for himself over the Holy Mausoleum simply resulted in scoldings from Seteth and Jeralt unlike the potential expulsion if it were Bernadetta and the Black Eagle students taking the blame.
- Mundane Utility: At one point, he uses a Divine Pulse to give Bernadetta another night's worth of rest after she suffers from a particularly severe night terror.
- Ripple-Effect-Proof Memory: Byleth remembers everything prior to Bernadetta's Divine Pulses.
- Spock Speak: His manner of speaking is comparatively stiff and formal even when in casual conversation. It highlights his intellectual age despite him not being too much older than his students.
- Synchronization: Both him and Bernadetta can Divine Pulse resulting in one to retrace their steps but knowing what happened beforehand. While Bernadetta realizes this in Chapter 6, Byleth takes until Chapter 14 by Divine Pulsing to bring back Bernadetta into the group conversation and confusing her.
- You Remind Me of X: Byleth gets nagging visions that often contain a distinct image of a woman. His crude drawing of her greatly resembles Bernadetta post-timeskip.
Claude von Riegan
Claude
Faction: Golden Deer
House leader of the Golden Deer and heir to the Leicester Alliance.
- Have We Met?: Claude can't shake the feeling he's known Rowan from somewhere.
- Let Me Tell You a Story: Claude comforts Berdadetta by telling a story about a boy who is part of two rival bloodlines, had a hard time living, and was told the other country is evil. He fled to the other bloodline's country and noticed that both countries aren't that much different from each other, and they are not as bad as he thought. As Bernie had heard bits and pieces of this story from Byleth in the original timeline, the boy in the story is Claude himself.
- Out of Focus: Downplayed compared to the other Golden Deer members who get lines every now and then. His role so far is being Bernadetta's sidekick.
- Secret Secret-Keeper: Bernadetta has a suspicion that he knows about her linage but is not speaking about it to anyone.
- Shipper on Deck: Is aware of Bernadetta's crush with Byleth and often teases her about it in front of the professor.
Allocer Von Varley
Allocer
Faction: Adrestian Empire
Bernadetta's father. Absolutely terrible.
- 0% Approval Rating: With the exception of his wife and maybe his deceased brother, no one likes the guy. Unfortunately, Bernadetta had to endure the Count's subjects projecting their hatred of the man onto her.
- Abusive Parents: Manages to one-up his canon terribleness by blaming Bernadetta for her mother falling ill when Bernie's halfway across the continent. He also feels no remorse from brutally slapping Bernie in front of her peers and the knights.
- Ascended Extra: He was only spoken about secondhand in the game. Here, he appears in person and has spoken lines.
- Cain and Abel: It's revealed that he murdered his twin brother, fittingly named after Abel, in Chapter 20. What's more, he is implied to have held a deep-seated grudge against his twin's greater successes in life, who in turn looked down upon Allocer's poor treatment of his own daughter.
- The Caligula: As revealed in Chapter 18, he's a really poor ruler. Killing a commoner just for trying to be friends with his daughter is the least of the people's grievances with him.
- Deadpan Snarker: Part of his jerkassness is him bluntly speaking his ire towards others, nobility or not. Lorenz is baffled by this.
- Even Evil Has Loved Ones: He's a thoroughly cruel parent all around, but he seems to legitimately care about Bernadetta's mother at the very least, which was why he bothered to summon Bernadetta back home at her request. Bernadetta also never recalled him ever extending his cruelty to her mother.
- Evil Is Petty: He overtly refuses to shake Lorenz's hand simply because he dislikes his hairstyle.
- Evil Twin: A massive Jerkass compared to the more benevolent twin Lord Abelard.
- Exiled to the Couch: Most of the team are skeptical to Bernadetta that Count Varley would be dickish enough to make them sleep outside in the cold rain. Turns out that he would if the circumstances weren't so dire.
- Freudian Excuse: Assuming Theresa's accounts aren't completely unreliable, he indeed used to be a kind and noble man who was completely accepting of Theresa despite her being Agarthan. Unfortunately, the trauma of losing his first wife and daughter followed by Bernadetta's twin being stillborn coupled with an unspecified worsening political situation warped him into the deeply unpleasant man he is now.
- Freudian Excuse Is No Excuse: According to Theresa, he lived a hard life that shaped him into bastard he is now. Bernadetta refuses to believe this justifies his abuse. She's even less accepting once she discovers his entire backstory.
- Hate Sink: He's just as unpleasant in person as you'd expect from how Bernadetta talks about him.Monica: I dunno about you, but I'm feeling awfully tempted to slit his throat on the spot.
Claude: That's not exactly helping, Monica...
Byleth: [Hand hovering close to his sword] You'll have to get in line first. - Hair-Trigger Temper: The two people that don't get on his nerves is his wife and his butler, Rowan.
- I Have No Son!: Tends to refer Bernadetta as "not his daughter", "hellspawn", and "impostor".
- Inadequate Inheritor: For a myriad of justified reasons, he's compared unfavorably to the previous head of the Varley household, his deceased twin brother Lord Abelard.
- Jerkass: If you couldn't tell by the other tropes, he really isn't a nice man.
- Kick the Dog: He openly insults Lysithea's family over the destitute situation they were left in following their brief conflict with the Empire, and calls her an unsophisticated child as he leaves her in stunned silence.
- The Lost Lenore: He's revealed to have had a previous wife and daughter before meeting Theresa, both of whom lost their lives in another plague that took place over 20 years prior. The further addition of a stillborn twin sister within Theresa apparently served as the impetus for his unbridled hatred of Bernadetta.
- Named by the Adaptation: He wasn't named in the game.
- Noodle Incident: Bernadetta does not want to speak about what he's done in that one room with the broken door. It turns out the room was used as a meeting place for Bernadetta's various marriage candidates. Windows were nailed shut so that she wouldn't escape. One meeting resulted in Bernie brutally killing a noble in self-defense.
- The Mole: As seen in a dream sequence in Chapter 20, Allocer has been engaging in illicit dealings with the Agarthans, who pulled the strings to allow him to rule over Varley territory in exchange for large masses of unwitting test subjects for their experiments.
- Parental Favoritism: For Bernadetta being an only child, Allocer favors her stillborn twin sister Victoria, particularly because she held a crest and Bernie didn't. He later injects a crest into Bernadetta in order to restore Victoria's legacy only to be disappointed when he hears that Bernie threw herself off a four-story window.
Theresa Von Varley
Theresa/Eleanor
Faction: Adrestian Empire/Ouroboros
Bernadetta's mother, who has fallen ill.
- Ascended Extra: She didn't even have a name in the game.
- Abusive Parents: Although not to the extreme of her husband, Theresa does not meet with Bernadetta as much to create a lasting relationship. She also worries more about her husband's anger issues rather than his actions towards Bernadetta. There's also the fact that she was treating Bernadetta as a Replacement Goldfish for her first deceased daughter Lucy and resented that Bernadetta was the complete opposite of Lucy in every way.
- Boomerang Bigot: She's unapologetically open about her distaste of Agarthans, despite being one herself, believing that both her and Bernadetta have tainted blood running through their veins.
- Disease Bleach: Her illness changed her hair color from violet to white.
- Extreme Doormat: She never intervened when Allocer abused their daughter. Bernadetta has a lot of bottled-up resentment over that, which she lets explode out when they finally talk.
- Glamour Failure: Her paling skin is revealed to be a result of this, as she is actually an Agarthan.
- Incurable Cough of Death: Her illness is indicated by her coughing fits.
- Loving a Shadow: Maternal rather than romantic love in this case. Theresa really only viewed Bernadetta as a Replacement Goldfish for her deceased first daughter Lucy, and her inaction towards her husband's abuse towards Bernadetta was a result of her frustrations that Bernadetta was Lucy's complete opposite in every way.
- Morality Pet: Not enough to keep Allocer from being a horribly abusive parent, but apparently her falling incredibly ill caused him to become even worse. Bernadetta also never recalled her father ever abusing her.
- Named by the Adaptation: Like her husband, she was never named in the game.
- The Lost Lenore: Prior to meeting Allocer, she had a previous husband and daughter in her original homeland of Crossbell, the latter of whom was tragically killed when her Agarthan heritage was accidentally revealed to the public. In addition, she apparently bore a twin sister alongside Bernadetta who died in the womb before she could even see the light of day.
- Secret Secret-Keeper: Theresa knows about Bernadetta's Agarthan powers and intentionally put her room next to the one with the broken door so that she could put a barrier that prevents Bernie's powers from leaking out and be seen by her marriage candidates.
- What Does She See in Him?: Part of Bernadetta's issues with her mother is that she seems to think there's a good man buried deep within Allocer, despite him showing not even a hint of the sort. The fact that he didn't care about her true ancestry and helped her escape her former life as an Agarthan probably has to do with it, but he has long since changed from that man.
Lady Lilith
A mysterious witch responsible for spreading a lethal plague throughout the territory of Varley. She seems to know Bernadetta personally, and as such has taken an uncanny interest in mentally torturing the unwitting time traveler while she furthers her own enigmatic agenda.
- Deadpan Snarker: Wastes no time mercilessly mocking Bernadetta whenever she speaks with her.
- Evil Counterpart: She appears to be one for Sothis as she too seems to reside in Bernadetta's mind and is seemingly the source of her new seer abilities.
- Grand Theft Me: During their initial encounter, Lilith was able to induce a trance-like state onto Bernadetta, effectively severing her connection from Sothis so she could lure her away for a private conversation. The trance was ultimately dispelled when Bernadetta attempted to fire an arrow at her tormenter, causing her to awaken in the middle of a secluded alleyway.
- If I Wanted You Dead...: Bernadetta fearfully notes that Lilith could have easily killed her during their initial encounter in Weiler, yet the latter willingly chose not to capitalize on the opportunity.
- In the Hood: She's introduced wearing a thick black cloak that conveniently conceals her face from view.
- Plaguemaster: She's explicitly responsible for the current pandemic sweeping across the lands of Varley, which involves abducting unsuspecting victims from their homes to subject them to forced Crest experimentation.
- Red Baron: The people of Varley widely regard her as the Pestilence Witch for her role in spreading the plague across their territory.
- Telepathy: She's capable of mentally communicating with Bernadetta without others' knowledge, which seems to cause the latter extreme mental pain in the process. Through unknown means, her voice goes unheard even by the likes of Sothis.
- White Hair, Black Heart: She is specifically noted to have two long strands of snow-white hair hanging down alongside her obscured face.
Sahrius
An unknown figure originating from Sothis's era who was reportedly revered by the Agarthans as a deity for his unparalleled foresight of the future.
- God of Evil: While beloved by his people, the modern-day Church seems to regard him as this, portraying him as a calamitous figure that brought misery and disaster in his wake.
- Posthumous Character: He was supposedly murdered by Sothis in cold blood long before the events of the story. Interestingly, Sothis herself is not pleased to learn of this when she discovers it in the present.
- Red Baron: He has been labeled as the Shadowseer by the members of the Church of Seiros, who consider it a sin to mention his name directly.
- Seers: As his title may suggest, he was renowned by the Agarthans for his unique ability to see into the future.
- Un-person: The Church of Seiros apparently went to great lengths to conceal his existence from the world, even going as far as to forbid people from speaking his name in public.
