Fanfic / Demon In Fodlan

Goetia, surviving his failure at the Temple of Time, finds himself in a new world. Despite the rather unusual nature of it, he finds himself disappointed that he sees much of the same human nature that he saw on Earth. Determined to discover what it was that made human life worth the struggle, he decides to use his second chance to find the meaning of his own life.

Demon In Fodlan is a Fate/Grand Order/Fire Emblem: Three Houses crossover fanfic by Mudatorem. It can be found here and here.

All spoilers for Fate/Grand Order and Fire Emblem: Three Houses are left unmarked. You Have Been Warned!

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This fanfiction contains examples of:

A-D

• Actually Pretty Funny: While waiting with the Golden Deer for the Demonic Beasts to take the bait, Goetia learns of Byleth's moniker as the "Ashen Demon". To the surprise to the Golden Deer class, Goetia ends up laughing about it, even appearing amused to the reason for this title. To a demon, a human being called a demon just for never showing emotions during battle would be ridiculous.
• Adaptation Origin Connection: Sothis is a Machine God like the Olympians in the Nasuvese.
• Adaptational Early Appearance: Byleth meets Aelfric for the first time in Jeralt's office when she was looking for her father. Aelfric is introduced in the original DLC after the group enters the Abyss and meets the Ashen Wolves.
• Adaptational Explanation: In the original Cindered Shadows DLC, Jeralt is mysteriously absent during the events despite how much the plot ties into his late wife. Here, the arc takes place while a majority of the knights, including Jeralt, are dispatched to deal with the Western Church, explaining his absences during the events.
• Adapted Out:
  • Due to differing circumstances, the Umbral Beast in the Cindered Shadows arc does not appear in this story. Instead, the Climax Boss of the arc is the Demon God, Sitri.
  • Miklan never turns into the Black Beast like in canon because of the Evlogia that he was given by Lemegeton that allows him to wield the Lance of Ruin without any ill effects.
• After the End: Goetia learns that the current Fodlan was formed after a senseless and bloody war between the Agarthans and their gods against Sothis back when she was a Machine God and the Nabateans that devastated the continent, with the war only ending after Sothis decides to wipe out everything and start Fodlan anew, exhausting herself when healing the world.
• Alas, Poor Villain:
  • Downplayed. Lonato was a grieving father whose son was executed by the Church without being given a trial but was willing to go to extremes to avenge him. From allowing his people to wield enhanced weapons that drives them insane to almost beating Ashe to death himself when his adoptive son tried to stop him, which even shocks Catherine. Nonetheless, Catherine and those present express some pity for Lonato after he suffered a gruesome demise at the hands of a vengeful Goetia.
  • Sitri. The aftermath at the Timeless Temple left the Demon Pillar with a burning hatred towards humanity for their rejection, seeking the destruction of humanity as revenge for the death of their brethren. Even after Sitri attempted to kill Goetia for siding with the people of Fodlan, Goetia is left shocked when he finally kills Sitri, mortified at what he has done.
• Alien Non-Interference Clause: Part of Goetia's desire to not get involved with Fodlan's conflicts as he believes his interference would negatively impact human development. He especially feels this way in regard to Fodlan's magic system, remarking that its study is underwhelmingly shallow compared to the magecraft of the Moonlit world (i.e. Nasuverse). And despite taking a few students, he doesn't actually try to make his findings known.
• All the Other Reindeer: Because the Church doctrine is used to justify widespread xenophobia against foreigners, Fodlan natives have reservations towards them, though no thanks to other factors contributing to the hostility, such as Duscurians being framed for regicide, the Almyra solders are constantly attacking Fodlan's borders and the Abyssians consists of criminals and ostracized individuals. Naturally because of his foreigner status, Goetia is often treated with suspicion and animosity by some of the officers and clerics within the Church of Seiros. Goetia even mentions that during the first few weeks in Fodlan prior to meeting Byleth, the locals would stay away from him or often accuse him of being a Duscurian or an Almyrian.
• Always Someone Better: Despite his hatred towards his creator, Goetia begrudgingly admits that he would be no match against Solomon even at the height of his power.
• And Then What?: Goetia asks this about Constance, asking just what she plans to do if she were to succeed in restoring her house's status as she's most likely just another noble or if she actually has any other ambitions to strive towards after regaining her title. She has no response.
  • When Goetia visits a despairing Rhea in Chapter 87, already having put together that Seiros and Rhea are the same person, he asks on why would she dedicate herself to guiding Humanity despite the atrocities from the Agarthans and Nemesis along with not being given a command from Sothis to do so before her death. Rhea doesn't have an answer.
• Ape Shall Never Kill Ape: As the Demon God Pillars were essentially a Hive Mind with Goetia in the center of control, the idea of a Demon Pillar to attack their own kin, much less their own King, would be akin to a person severing their own arm off. So, it greatly shocks Goetia when Sitri attacked him, with the intent to kill him after he refused to join in its genocidal cause.
• Armor-Piercing Question:
  • When Goetia is conflicted over interfering in the battle against Lonato despite his insistence about not getting involved, Sothis gives him one. She points out that despite how much Goetia kept hating Solomon for never interfering, he's now doing the same even when Goetia hated this task himself. Even though Goetia kept his cool, the question shakes him quite a bit more than he would admit.
    Sothis: Do you want to be an observer?
    Goetia: I beg your pardon?
    Sothis: You keep speaking of observing people but then you point towards this Solomon as an individual you hate. It seems as though you do not agree with this Solomon's way of life, yet you attempted to emulate it, why?
  • Surprisingly Lorenz manages to give one to Claude in regard to the aftermath of Lonato's failed rebellion.
    Claude: He thought he was getting justice for his son. I might not have agreed with the way he went about it all, but he was still a grieving father.
    Lorenz: And how many grieving families have his actions left behind?
    Claude: ... You're actually more perspective than I give you credit for.
  • While camping with the Black Eagles in Chapter 89, Goetia brings up the topic about people surprising others regardless of their status and skills, warning the students about the cost of underestimating such people, which soon leads to Caspar to ask a personal question that causes Goetia to recall a certain Master, much to his irritation.
    Caspar: Is that how you lost your arm?
• Armor-Piercing Response: Sothis and Goetia get into another argument again after the former discovers her true identity and realizes that the latter kept his suspicion about it from her. When Goetia claims that he's better than humans even in his current state, Sothis' response to his boast manages to get him to pause for a moment.
  Sothis: And for all that power you can't even understand people!
• Asshole Victim: In Chapter 63, Lemegeton delivers a brutal No-Holds-Barred Beatdown on Thales for neglecting to mention Goetia to him while delivering a blistering "The Reason You Suck" Speech towards him before rounding at Kronya and Myson, insulting them when they try to talk back. Considering his targets were all some degree of a Smug Snake, Jerkass and Hate Sink, it's more satisfying to watch than anything else.
• Awakening the Sleeping Giant: Throughout the Lonato arc, Goetia makes it clear he's neutral towards the Church of Seiros and the lord's rebellion, having no intent in helping the Church subdue Lonato's army even though his powers could prevent countless deaths. Even when Sothis and Rhea asks for his help, the former bringing up the fact that Lysithea could be at risk, Goetia still doesn't budge since he knows that Byleth can use Divine Pulse to reverse any harm done to the students. It isn't until Lysithea is fatally stabbed by Lonato and Byleth is hurt and pushed to her limits that Goetia joins the battle. And makes it clear that he's VERY pissed at Lysithea being harmed and breaking his promise that he annihilates Lonato's army in seconds.
• Badass Bookworm: Goetia is a knowledgeable, intelligent mage who gets a job as an Assistant Librarian and becomes a mage tutor to several students on the side. He's also a massive Person of Mass Destruction who subverts the Squishy Mage archetypes, being able to go toe-to-toe with close-combatants.
• Bait-and-Switch: Chapter 60 has Edelgard receive a message from Hubert that someone will be see her soon in regard to the recent events. Edelgard assumes the sender was her Uncle Arundel/Thales and expects he will meet with her shortly. It's only when she returns to her room that she learns that the person who wants to meet her is Lemegeton, who decides to take matter into their own hands after several revelations, namely learning about Goetia's existence in Fodlan.
• Be Careful What You Wish For: Rhea spent millenia trying to bring her Mother Sothis Back from the Dead. She finally succeeded, unfortunately Sothis is reborn as a total amnesiac with no recollection of her or her knowledge and powers as a Goddess, makes it clear she wasn't interested in taking control of Fodlan again as she hoped, and having seen Seiros' more unsavory actions while part of Byleth means Sothis shows a less than favourable opinion of her to the point of not even acknowledging her as her daughter.
• Berserk Button:
  • Even the normally impassive Goetia has a few things that can trigger a reaction from him:
    • Solomon. Just the mere mention or bringing up the topic about him irritates Goetia to the point he tries to avoid talking about him as much as possible.
    • He does not take it kindly when people accuse him of taking joy in watching humans struggle and die. Goetia gave Sothis an earful when she did just that.
    • To Goetia's confusion, he apparently gained a new one during his time at the Monastery: Hurting Lysithea. Lord Lonato and his army learned this the hard way when an enraged Goetia quickly make work of the Lonato's rebels and beat the Lord to death after Lonato fatally wounded Lysithea.
  • Goetia explaining Necromancy to the others while in the Abyss, and how the Chalice's defenses most likely bind the souls of the dead who approach it into undead guardians enraged Dimitri and such desecration in denying the dead their eternal rest.
• The Berserker: The reason why Lonato's army was able to advance faster than in the games; his army were armed with specially-made swords with Madness Enhancement created by Lemegeton that turned the normally weak and untrained peasants to ferocious and deranged killing machines that can cut down armored knights in a row.
• Big Damn Heroes:
  • Goetia saves Claude from being stabbed by a bandit during the fight in Remire Village at the start of the story, which results in the former demon getting involved with the Church.
  • After Lysithea is fatally stabbed, Byleth pushed to her limit and Ashe being beaten to death by Lonato, Goetia finally decides to step in, saving Ashe and proceeds to wipe out Lonato's army.
  • Flayn of all people manages to stop Sitri from unleashing a barrage of Eye Beams on Goetia and the others with the repeated use of Excalibur.
• Birds of a Feather: Goetia and Byleth. Both are stoic, quiet individuals who keep to themselves unless approached by others. They are also lacking in social skills, are rather blunt and at times literal-minded.
• Boring Religious Service: Because the Rite of Rebirth is a mandatory event for all staff, including assistants, Goetia is forced to participate in the sermon. Throughout the sermon, Goetia finds himself getting increasingly bored to the point that after roughly two hours in, he already wants to leave the place. He tries to distract himself by thinking about the missions Claude and Byleth were assigned instead.
• Both Sides Have a Point:
  • This was the conflict in regards of proving the innocence of the peasants who are put to death for the failed 'assassination attempt' on Rhea's life. Goetia is hesitant in helping Byleth and Sothis prove their innocence on the account that no one will likely believe their claims that the peasants were hypnotized by the real perpetrator and should they even convince Rhea and Setheth about their case, he will be the prime suspect because only he knows how to hypnotize someone. Sothis argues it's still wrong to leave the peasants to be wrongfully executed when they know they are innocent, making Goetia no different from the thing he accuses Solomon of being—a cruel, indifferent observer.
  • Goetia's Blue-and-Orange Morality views soon put him at odds with Byleth. Byleth gets increasingly fed up with Goetia's tendencies to keep certain information from others simply because it didn't concern him at the time. But the thing that affected their relationship was Byleth figuring out that Goetia knew Lysithea was dying but chose not to help his student, calling him 'a self-centered bastard'—believing he never has the well-being of those who cared for him in mind. Goetia's reasoning for not helping to cure Lysithea is because he fears the rejection that Mash did when he offers his help and even if he did help, it doesn't change the fact that he merely extended their lifespan by a couple of years and they will soon die eventually. While Goetia doesn't have a rebuttal for Byleth's accusation, it's Sothis that does. Although she agrees that the moment Goetia learned about Lysithea's condition, he had a duty as Lysitha's teacher to offer help, however, Sothis does add that they are expecting too much from Goetia in quickly adapting to human morality when he has been living with his alien philosophy for about three-thousand years—that he had to watch humans die repeatedly in his long life. Sothis advices Byleth that they should at least take in consideration that Goetia is conflicted with his newfound humanity and they should give him some time to come to a conclusion.
• Bread, Eggs, Milk, Squick: While fighting Demon Pillar Sitri, Goetia ends up crashing into the side of the greenhouse, landing on a bed of flowers, several vegetable patches and a corpse.
• Breather Episode:
  • While a few chapters could qualify, Chapter 34 stands out in that (aside from a meeting between Edelgard and Hubert discussing how they might be able to get information from Goetia or learn more about him) the primary focus is Flayn convincing Goetia to attend a fishing competition despite the threat of Rhea's assassination hanging over everyone's heads.
  • Chapter 60 primarily focuses on the Officer students volunteering to help out the knights and the Monastery in the aftermath of Sitri's rampage. The last bits of the chapter though have Edelgard meeting with Lemegeton in place of Arundel and Goetia finally waking up after recovering from the fatal wound Sitri dealt to him.
  • Chapter 81 focuses on Byleth teaching her class, after the previous chapters dealt with Byleth, Jeralt and Goetia learning the full truth of her birth from Rhea.
  • Chapter 89 focuses on Goetia as he is camping with the Black Eagles, which is before Byleth and the Blue Lions storm Conard Tower in the following chapter.
  • Chapter 92 focuses on Goetia's side and his discussions on fashion and Dorothea convincing him to get new clothes, which happens after the Conard Tower arc takes place during Chapter 90-91.
  • Chapter 94 is entirely a conversation between Goetia and Dorothea as she takes him sightseeing across Enbarr before discussing him resuming classes and first crushes.
  • After several revelations about Sothis' nature as a Machine God and an interlude from Lemegeton's perspective, Chapter 105 primarily focuses Goetia teaching his Magecraft class about Bounded Fields, followed by learning about the upcoming Battle of the Eagle and Lion and requesting to participate in the battle as an aide to the Black Eagles.
• Brick Joke:
  • Chapter 32 has Claude bring up a book that he's recently read titled 'Tale of the Lone Swordsman', with Hilda recalling that it was the character often slewed birds. Come Chapter 44, one of the books The Gatekeeper/Harold reads in Abyss Library is called 'The Daring Adventures of Kasaki Sojirou, the Pigeon Slayer'.
  • Goetia spots an erotic romance novel on Flayn's bed in Chapter 68, prompting Flayn to quickly hide the erotica in embarrassment. Come Chapter 86, that same erotica makes a reappearance again when Goetia decides to read it while waiting for Flayn in her room, much to her horror and embarrassment.
• Bullying a Dragon:
  • The zealous cleric who stops Goetia from healing Ashe's heavy injuries out of disgust for the 'heathen foreigner', to the point of insulting Goetia right to his face. Also crosses with Mugging the Monster as the clerk is unaware what Goetia's capable of, namely single-handily wiping out Lonato's army. It takes Catherine, the most zealous of all the Knights and who was given a front-row seat in seeing Goetia let loose to scare away said cleric.
  • Despite Lemegeton being the Agarthan's newest and most valuable ally, Kronya gleefully looks down on him even when it's clear Lemegeton is far more powerful than her. Lemegeton makes it clear he has no patience for her behavior and will deal with her if she continues to push his buttons.
  • Subverted. Yuri's not above using Blackmail or other underhanded tactics get the upper hand, but he knows full well its suicidal to try and blackmail both Goetia and Rhea after learning about their true nature during the Cindered Shadows arc.
• Bystander Syndrome: Resuming his original mission as an 'observer', Goetia has no intentions of getting involve in Fodlan's political and social issues. This causes several problems since not only Goetia's power and knowledge can help benefit Fodlan, but he is made aware of several plots happening in the background such as Solon disguised as Tomas and Edelgard's dual Crest. The only reason he doesn't derail them is because Fodlan's problems don't concern him, and he feels interfering too much in this other world would take away any progress that the humans of Fodlan would gain themselves. Naturally, several characters, such as Sothis and Leonie, question his position as an 'observer' since he tends to choose whether to be involve or not.
  • At the end of the Cindered Shadows arc, after recovering from the trauma of killing Sitri, Goetia starts to overcome this by resolving to improve the living conditions of the Abyss and to elevate its status from being a Wretched Hive underneath the Church.
• Call-Back:
  • In Chapter 9-10, Claude and Flayn suggest to Goetia that he should find a hobby that he enjoys, which he dismissed. Come Chapter 54, Goetia starts to consider that suggestion after coming to the full realization that he lost everything that he once was.
  • During Chapter 68, before Goetia and Flayn begin their talk in her room, she quickly hides an erotic romance novel on her bed which Goetia notices. On Chapter 86, after a brief discussion with Seteth, she returns to her room to find an interested Goetia reading said novel, much to her horror and embarrassment. Doubles as a Brick Joke.
  • In Chapter 57, Sothis briefly mused if Goetia's true form is anything like Demon God Sitri. Fast-forward to Chapter 98, Sothis is the first to see Goetia in his Beast form when he enters Byleth's mind to find clues in regards to Conrad Tower within her memories of the fight with Miklan.
• Chekhov's Classroom: Chapter 35 has Goetia teaching his class about hypnotism. In the aftermath of the Rite of Rebirth, the peasants who attempted to assassinate Rhea at the Goddess Tower still profess to their innocence, having no recollection of making the attempt nor how they ended up like this. This leads to Sothis and Byleth to suspect the possibility that they were hypnotized by the mastermind and seek Goetia's help to prove their innocence.
• Chekhov's Gun:
  • After encountering the enhanced Demonic Beast with the Golden Deer, Goetia kept the Crest Stone of the creature in order to study it. He noted that the enhancements on it gave it the ability to absorb magic to a degree. This comes to play when Goetia needs to increase his magical reserves to have a chance to stop Sitri's rampage, choosing to shove the Crest Stone into his body to gain a temporary boost.
  • After defeating the golems when searching for the Chalice of Beginnings, Goetia and the others notice that golems are fueled by a mysterious silver liquid that is only activated through a Crest stone. According to Lemegeton, the silver liquid is 'the blood of the Goddess', which he offers to Miklan in order to cure his lack of a Crest.
    • Thanks to Lemegeton's offer from many chapters back, during the Conand Tower arc, Miklan takes to the field to confront the Blue Lions with the stolen Lance that he can use to its full potential without suffering from the deadly consequences of using a Relic without a Crest.
• Clark Kent Outfit: Goetia usually wears a simple brown robe that hides his figure and on top of being a mage, no one expects him to get physical unless provoked. Underneath those robes, Goetia's Shirtless Scene reveals he's hiding a six-pack... albeit covered in horrific burned scars from his defeat against Ritsuka as both Byleth and Sothis discovered.
• Cliffhanger:
  • Chapter 38 leaves with an already conflicted Goetia giving his answer to Byleth and Sothis —whether he will help in proving the peasants' innocence in the assassination attempt.
  • Chapter 46 ends with Sothis and Byleth confronting Goetia about the fact he knew who Sothis really was but didn't tell them.
  • Chapter 51 ends with Goetia and the group discussing what to do with the Chalice of Beginnings, only to learn that Aelfric has been kidnapped during their excursion.
  • Chapter 55 ends with Demon Pillar Sitri finally revealing itself, having been possessing Aelfric from the start and proceeds to take the Chalice and kidnap Byleth and the Ashen Wolves, leaving the remaining students in shock to what just happened.
  • Chapter 56 ends with Goetia and Rhea confronting Demon Pillar Sitri in the deepest part of Abyss, the former wanting to talk to his fellow Demon Pillar.
  • Chapter 57 ends with Demon Pillar Sitri absorbing the Chalice and Sitri Eisner's corpse to obtain a new form and resurfaces back up to the Monastery, beginning its rampage.
  • Chapter 58 ends with Goetia passing out after applying healing magecraft from what little magical energy he had left, being fatally wounded by Sitri when the two stabbed each other through the chest at the same time.
  • Chapter 90 ends with Byleth and the Blue Lions finally having their confrontation with Miklan whom was recently empowered by Lemegeton in order to wield the Lance of Ruin to its full power.
  • Chapter 91 ends with Miklan finally killed through the combined efforts of Byleth, Dimitri and Sylvain, Sylvain being the one to deal the final blow, and Byleth passing out after the strenuous battle.
  • Chapter 97 ends with Goetia about to enter Byleth's mind to view her memories on what happened on Conrad Tower in hopes of learning what happened to Miklan in light that his corpse was eaten by Demonic Beasts.
• Cloud Cuckoolander: Byleth in the "Matchmaker" omakes has some...strange ideas on who would look great together with who.
  • When she says Ashe should date Catherine, both Sothis and Goetia stare at her in disbelief as the latter reminds Byleth that A) Catherine is a zealot, and B) she played a part in both his older brother and adopted father's deaths. When asked for her reasoning, Byleth hesitantly offers how Ashe likes knights and Catherine is part of the Knights of Seiros, an order of knights.
  • Another baffling pairing Byleth proposes is Dorothea and Hanneman. Sothis is aghast and Goetia points out Dorothea would likely be seen as a Gold Digger in such a relationship, nevermind that Hanneman would be dating a girl young enough to be his daughter or granddaughter.
• Continuity Nod:
  • When Goetia introduces himself to Anna, the latter remembers a certain Dark Magic Tome that shares Goetia's name.
  • Goetia references the Fuyuki Fire when discussing the potential misuse of the Chalice of Beginnings or what he believes to be a Holy Grail.
  • When Caspar thinks that one should push beyond their limit even when exhausted, Goetia warns him and the Black Eagles at the dinner table against that folly, casually bringing up how King Gilgamesh died from overwork during the Seventh Singularity.
• The Comically Serious: Goetia, a powerful mage and former demon, always has an impassive expression and stoic attitude even when around the antics of the students of the Academy. This includes saying or doing the most absurd things himself with complete seriousness and sincerity and his poor social skills leaves him oblivious to social cues.
• Cross-Referenced Titles: The titles of Chapter 83 and the following chapter after it form together the phrase "The calm before the storm".
• Cruel Mercy: This is Goetia's opinion in Chapter 29 after he saves Lysithea from a fatal injury, only to learn of her shortened lifespan afterward.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: Goetia delivers a number of them whenever he gets involve with battles:
  • He casually destroys an enhanced Demonic Beast in two attacks.
  • For a training session, Byleth asks Goetia to be the opponent for the Blue Lions so they can learn how to fight against a mage. Even though he was told to hold back against them, Goetia still manages to effortlessly trounce the Blue Lions by himself, even engaging in physical combat against Dimitri and winning with only one arm.
  • He pulps Lord Lonato's head in and cuts a bloody swathe through the rebel forces after he decides to intervene after Lonato had fatally wounded Lysithea.
  • When the group encounters the Golems that were tasked to guard the Chalice of Beginnings, Goetia waste little to no effort in destroying them by manipulating their gravitational weight.
• A Day in the Limelight:
  • Chapter 59 focuses mostly on Jeralt's perspective as he and the knights have just returned from subduing the Western Church, only to be bombarded with the discovery that the Monastery was attacked by some mysterious creature during their absences. What's more, Jeralt also gets some revelations from a guilt-ridden Rhea that leaves him understandable furious at her.
  • Chapter 81 centers around Byleth, two days after learning the truth of her birth from Rhea and how she is dealing with it, on top of preparing her class for the upcoming retrieval mission for the Lance of Ruin.
  • Chapter 89 focuses on Goetia and Rhea accompanying the Black Eagles on their way to Enbarr and stopping for the evening.
  • The Conard Tower arc is essentially one for Sylvain, due to it being a personal mission that involves his older half-brother stealing Lance of Ruin. Chapter 81 focuses on Byleth asking Sylvain if he had any issues with the mission while Chapter 91 focuses on the full battle itself ending with Sylvain being the one to kill Miklan and Byleth continuing to see Dimitri's darker side.
• Dead Guy Junior: Goetia finally decides to name the baby finch he adopted after Flauros, though it's not out of respect for the late Demon God, but rather to spite him for his incompetence and failure by replacing him with a finch.
• Death by Irony:
  • Lonato starts an insurrection against the Church in retaliation for his son's death, even willing to beat Ashe, his adopted son, to death when the latter stood against him. Lonato ends up being beaten to death himself by a furious Goetia in retaliation for Lysithea being fatally stabbed.
  • Miklan always dreamed of wielding the Lance of Ruin and usurp Sylvain, his younger half-brother, for his perceived role in stealing his birthright. Sylvain ends up being the one who kills him in the end, with the Lance of Ruin that Miklan stole in the first place.
• Deathbringer the Adorable: Goetia's baby finch is named Flauros, who unlike the original Flauros, is currently a harmless baby bird.
• Demonic Possession: By the end of Chapter 55, it's revealed that the Demon Pillar Sitri was possessing Aelfric, having found its way to Fodlan after being killed at the Temple of Time. Chapter 56 expands on this by revealing that Aelfric's desire to resurrect Sitri was strong enough to draw in the Demon Pillar who shares her name, forcing itself to possess the Cardinal, bidding its time in regaining some of its power and waiting for the chance to use the Chalice to restore itself fully.
• Detect Evil:
  • Sothis is able to sense Goetia's inhuman nature when she first saw him yet can't describe what exactly he is. Later on, Rhea is shown to also have this ability after confirming that Goetia was the cause of the eerie feeling she felt when he and Byleth first entered the monastery.
  • Although the golems that guard the Chalice of Beginnings were already hostile towards the group for trespassing on sacred grounds, they become even more antagonistic after one golem focused its attention on Goetia, sensing his demonic nature.
• Did Not Think This Through:
  • Sothis convinces Goetia to prove hypnosis is real to have the peasants who attempted to assassinate Rhea and desecrate the monastery acquitted from the death penalty. But in doing so it results in Goetia being put under house arrest and denied being around his students which was the one outlet that made his time at Garreg Mach bearable. Sothis has the sense to be ashamed and admits that she had been expecting Rhea to show gratitude to him rather than the punishment he received.
  • When Dimitri and Edelgard find out that Claude sent Lindhart to secretly fetch Goetia, they point out that while the Abyssians probably won't take an issue with him and Goetia can still find a way around his probation, how would Claude explain this to Byleth; who specifically told them not to bring Goetia so that he wouldn't be in further trouble. Needless to say, the two lords leave Claude to Byleth's mercy when the professor finds out.
  • Although Goetia has thought thoroughly on his reasonings to become the new overseer of Abyss, which appear well-thought out to Byleth and Sothis at first, both soon question Goetia if he even asked the Ashen Wolves or the denizens about their opinions to this idea. Not to mention it is too soon after the events of the Cindered Shadows and the people are still reeling in with what happened to Aelfric, Goetia suddenly overtaking Abyss without notice will surely be met with opposition for a variety of reasons despite his actions benefiting them. Goetia agrees to at least talk with the Ashen Wolves and ask for their opinions first.
• Didn't See That Coming:
  • After betting on who will win the fishing competition in Chapter 34, Flayn, Claude, Dorothea and Goetia are all bewildered when it turns out Alois beat everyone despite all odds. Goetia is especially taken back by this outcome since earlier he dismissed Alois due to the many disadvantages the knight had and won only by sheer luck, causing the former demon to laugh at the irony.
  • Yuri already prepared a plan to catch Aelfric when he initiates his plan to commence the Rite of Rising, even coming up with a backup plan when he met Byleth and the others. What he didn't expect was a Demon Pillar coming out of nowhere and possessing Aelfric without anyone noticing for several months, hijacking Aelfric's plans for itself.
  • During Byleth's debriefing after the Conand Tower mission, Goetia is very surprised to find out the crestless Miklan being able to wield the Holy Relic, along with resisting Divine Pulse which puzzles him further.
• Disposing of a Body: Lemegeton sent a couple of Demonic Beasts to ambush the Blue Lions after the events of Conard Tower, but the true purpose was to have the Demonic Beasts take Miklan's corpse and eat it, preventing them from discovering the Evlogia in Miklan's body should an autopsy be performed. This does not work as Goetia discovers the Evlogia from the golems in the Abyss.
• Divine Conflict: During the war between the Nabateans and the Agarthans, the original Gods of the world become involved in the conflict in an attempt to wrestle back control from Sothis, whom they view as an outsider and usurper. Considering Sothis was a Machine God that might have been on par with Zeus, the war ended with the old gods completely wiped out from the world.
• Double-Meaning Title:
  • The story's title obviously refers to Goetia being the eponymous demon in Fodlan. The other reference comes with The Reveal that a few Demon God Pillars managed to survive and somehow ended up in Fodlan as well, concocting their own schemes.
  • Chapter 53, "Story Time", refers to the group recounting the events that transpired in Abyss to Rhea and Seteth. It can also refer to Goetia angrily ranting to Claude about why he's in Fodlan in the first place after the latter brings up the sensitive topic of Solomon.
  • Chapter 70, "Getting back on track", can refer to Goetia slowly recovering from his depression stemming his lack of purpose and Sitri's death, starting with his attempts to become the new overseer of Abyss. The other thing it can refer to is the story continuing the plot from Three House game: the chapter's ending foreshadowing the theft of the Lance of Ruin.
  • Chapter 81, "The woes in our hearts", refers to Byleth making attempts to have Sylvain confide to her or anyone about any trouble he has over fighting his half-brother in the upcoming Lance of Ruin retrieval mission. It also refers to Byleth's own troubles about the truth of her origins, particularly that the was even troubled by it is because her father was affected by it the most.
  • Chapter 104, "Balance of Terror", could refer to Kronya forced to become Goetia's spy under the threat of death and the fear should her fellow Agarthans discover her betrayal. It could also refer both Sothis and Goetia's aim to prevent the former from returning to her roots as a Machine God, out of fear that it will spell disaster for everyone in Fodlan should it happen.
  • Interlude, "Beast Hunting", could refer to Lemegeton hunting down the Demonic Beast that ingested the Evlogia from Miklan's corpse. It could also refer to hunting down the progenitor of the Crest of the Beast, Maurice.
• Dramatic Irony:
  • Goetia and Lemegeton, presumably a surviving Demon Pillar, are unaware of the other's existence in Fodlan, much less the fact that both are working in Garreg Mach Monastery and with the Agarthans respectively. Adding to this irony is that Lemegeton is motivated to have their King's great work to be realized, unware that said King is alive.
  • Rhea's thinly veiled hostility towards Goetia during the earlier parts of the story was partially the belief that the foreigner has an ulterior motive for getting close to Byleth, believing that he will input ideas in Byleth's head in order to turn her against the Church. Readers will know from Goetia's POV never planned anything of the sort to Byleth.
  • While waiting for the horde of mercenaries in Chapter 45, Claude and the others were curious to how Aelfric found the underground ruins that would be Abyss and surprising considering the Church's intolerance towards heretics and sinners. Hapi remarks that Aelfric is different from the other clergies — he genuinely cares for the people and is not using them to appeal to the masses. People who played the Cindered Shadows DLC would know that Aelfric plans to sacrifice the Ashen Wolves in an attempt to resurrect Sitri with the Rite of Rising.
  • Near the end of Chapter 47, Goetia comes across a book in Abyss Library titled 'Romance of the World's Perdition'. His interest in the book lies with the name of the author: Epimenides of Thinis. People familiar with Cindered Shadows would know how important this book is regards to the lore and those who played Three Hopes would recognize Epimenides as the ancient leader of the Agarthans who waged war against Sothis' children.
  • Goetia has nothing but contempt for Rhea, especially after she sentenced him to his house-arrest in fear of his power after he proven the innocence of the assassins. On the other hand, he starts to begrudgingly respect Seiros if only because her work has shown to have a level of competence in magic that he's seen so far in Fodlan. What Goetia doesn't know is that Rhea IS Seiros.
  • After learning that Goetia may be the last of his breathrens, Byleth asks Sothis on what it is like to lose someone, not knowing the experience of loss before. Readers familiar with Three Houses and Three Hopes will know that whenever Jeralt dies, Byleth will not handle his death well and will go on a rampage against his killer.
  • When Rhea's true nature as a dragon is casually revealed by Demon Pillar Sitri, she suspects that might have spoken with the Agarthans, to which they deny. What she or Goetia doesn't know of yet that there is currently a Demon Pillar who is indeed working with the Agarthans.
  • From what they gathered, both Goetia and Seteth come to the conclusion that Sitri was the one who supplied Lonato with the weapons that made him a threat, the former believing that is the only logical explanation considering the likelihood of another Demon Pillar in Fodlan is very low while the latter believes that the threat of the mysterious benefactor is over. Readers would know how wrong both characters are considering it was Lemegeton who was behind the fiasco and is planning something sinister for the future.
  • Chapter 83 has Goetia seeking out Claude as a potential asset to Abyss due to the latter's status as the future leader of the Leicester Alliance. The reasons Goetia gave is because the Holy Kingdom of Faerghus barely tolerates heretics and outcasts while the Adrestian Empire is with corruption in the aftermath of the Insurrection of the Seven, leaving the Alliance as the only viable option for Abyss. Goetia also unknowingly dodged a bullet since the Leicester Alliance is the only kingdom that doesn't have an Agarthan agent within their ranks, thus preventing them from getting access to Abyss for now.
  • When the Blue Lions are finally going to commence the Lance of Ruin retrieval mission, Byleth comments that dealing with Miklan wouldn't be too hard since he can't wield the Lance of Ruin to its full power because he lacks a Crest. Besides what happens in canon, readers already know the Lemegeton gave Miklan the means to wield the Lance of Ruin properly.
  • Thanks to Goetia's prodding, Rhea's first act after recovering from her despondency is to check on the state of affairs on Enbarr while accompanied by the Black Eagles and Goetia. Readers who are familiar with the lore in Three Houses and Three Hopes are aware that Enbarr's decadent court is already infiltrated by many undercover Agarthans, not to mention their leader masquerading as Edelgard's uncle.
  • Goetia's talk with Edelgard about ambition and the future include him talking about how a Japanese warlord named Oda Nobunaga who rose to power and lead a successful but bloody campaign to unify Japan under their vision. Little does Goetia know that Edelgard is planning to do the same thing that Nobunaga did— destroy the Church and the Crest system and unite all of Fodlan under her vision of the future, with the backing of the Agarthans and Lemegeton no less.
  • While tracking down the Evlogia-enhanced Demonic Beast, Lemegeton believes that he has taken all the measures to prevent their king from discovering the source of Evlogia and their connection to a Machine God. Unfortunately for him, his king already figured out the source by this point.
• Dull Surprise: Goetia barely acts surprised about anything because he has Seen It All, other than opening his eyes wide whenever caught off guard.

E-M

• Entertainingly Wrong:
  • Several people who meet Goetia come to make such conclusions about his backgrounds due to how vague he is. His explanation of his origins to Seteth has the advisor wondering if he was a disowned and unwanted son of a foreign king. It gets to the point that the knights start a rumor that Goetia is actually an illegitimate son of the Faerghus Royal Family, which even Goetia is dumbfounded by the notion.
  • Sitri comes to the conclusion that Goetia is actually a disguised Solomon as Goetia's previous disdain for humans made it nigh unthinkable to it that Goetia would dare deign to commune with humans to such a degree. Though it was finally convinced that Goetia is indeed its King.
  • Rhea thinks Demon Pillar Sitri learned about her draconic heritage from the Agarthans. That speculation gets shot down by the Demon Pillar immediately, claiming they already knew about her true nature from the start.
  • Goetia of all people thinks that the late Sitri was the one who gave Lonato the enhanced weapons for his army in their plan to exact vengeances on humans. Little does he know that it was another Demon Pillar that was responsible for that event and they are planning something for Fodlan.
  • Rhea's sudden decision to accompany the Black Eagles on the trip to Enbarr has Edelgard being concerned, who suspects her motivation to be out of political or religious power-play reasons. She is unaware that Rhea's motivation is out of willingness to fix her mistakes thanks to Goetia's prodding, not to mention her falling out from her kin and close allies in the aftermath of Sitri's attack.
• Equivalent Exchange: This is the basis of Magecraft, making it different from True Magic. Goetia explains to Claude and Linhardt that because the Chalice is similar to Heaven's Feel —sacrificing a number of people to create the magical energy needed to resurrect someone. Suddenly both Claude and Linhardt can see why the prospect of Chalice is too good to be true.
• Escort Mission: Chapter 87 has Goetia joining the Black Eagles in escorting Anna safely to Enbarr to restock on her supplies. The mission soon escalates when a rejuvenated Rhea, motivated by Goetia's talk with her, decides to travel to Enbarr as well, the Black Eagles, Goetia and Shamir now task in guarding both Anna and Rhea during the trip.
• Esoteric Happy Ending: Discussed In-Universe. Goetia ends up reading one of Flayn's erotic romance novels while waiting for her in Chapter 86 and while Flayn views the ending as a happy one with the main lead throwing his title and prestige away for the sake for love, Goetia has a very different take on the ending. He picks apart the fact while the lead and his lover are now able to live their life together, the fact remains that he threw away his title, chose a disgraced maid over his own people and is now exiled from his lands, the fate of the citizens in his territory left uncertain.
• Everybody Knew Already: Although Flayn accidentally revealed that Seteth is her father in a moment of desperation, Manuela points out to him that almost no one would be surprised by this reveal considering several people have already guessed that Flayn was his daughter with the way he was overprotective towards her.
• Exact Words:
  • When Sothis confronts Goetia for knowing all along that the Sword of the Creator is in fact her spinal cord, Goetia remarks back that the clue should've been obvious with the title that the Church gave to the weapon alone.
  Sothis: That implies it belongs to the creator! Belongs. Not that they pilfered my corpse and turned my body into some barbaric hatchet!
  • Aelfric was promised that his wish would be fulfilled and Sitri would be restored. The Demon Pillar bearing the same name noted that which Sitri that was referring to was never specified.
• Explain, Explain... Oh, Crap!: Goetia and Sothis both do this when they realize that the enemy might have something that can reactivate Sothis' original mechanical body.
  Goetia: The caveat to the situation we find ourselves in. A double-edged blade, while it is true that the technology of the Olympians is advanced, it requires massive amounts of magical energy to operate. That single Holy Grail wouldn't even be close to enough… and if Sothis discarded her body, then it is a husk at best. None of which would truly matter, if they have been around for the last thousand years and have only managed to create Nemesis as their ultimate weapon, then that speaks volumes for their capabilities. More to the point, Sothis discarded her Machine body, which implies that it would be without a heart.
  Byleth: Heart?
  Goetia: Yes, the crest stone. Though without something like that, the corpse would… remain … inert …
  [[Sothis eyes widen in realization]]
  Sothis: ... The Crest Stone from the Vault …
  Goetia: ...The one that was stolen …
• Fantastic Racism: Given Fodlan's stances towards outsiders, Goetia had experience some unsavory behavior from the locals due to his appearance. Before meeting Byleth, he would often be accused of being a Duscurian or an Alymarian during his travels. Even when he was hired as an assistant librarian by Rhea herself, it still doesn't stop the clerics from talking behind his back for his vague stance towards their religion and his 'heathen' magic. For his part, Goetia isn't bothered by this, as if the people of Fodlan knew what he really was, they would accuse him for far worse.
• Fate Worse than Death: The Bounded Field that surrounds the area that the Chalice of Beginnings is held has a curse place upon those who died within the area, their souls bound to guard the Chalice as lingering spirits for all eternity —unable to pass on in peace. Both Edelgard and Dimitri considers this a horrible fate for anyone, even for the worst criminals.
  Dimitri: Those thieves were criminals and they deserved to face justice. This... is not justice. This is torture.
• Five-Second Foreshadowing: After Byleth's group successfully rescues Aelfric, the Cardinal is suspiciously calm while they were fleeing from the bandits and the Demonic Beasts that Hapi summoned and makes this remark about the group's plan that sends warning signs to the readers before the characters realize that something has replaced Aelfric.
  Aelfric: Demonic Beasts as a distraction… I cannot help but be surprised at this reckless nature of yours… all over one man as well and willing to lose such a rare trinket... You humans truly are incorrigible.
• Flashback Episode: Most of Chapter 76 is this, with Rhea recounting the circumstances behind Sitri's death and Byleth's birth, as well as the complications said birth caused for Sitri.
• From Bad to Worse: Initially, Goetia assumes that someone got their hands on the "Blood of the Goddess" and gave it to Miklan just to test the potency and now the Demonic Beast that ate Miklan's corpse probably inherited that and now they have to find that creature. Then Goetia discovers that Sothis was a Machine God and the Evolgia is actually nanomachines, the situation becomes more dire because someone is distributing the "Blood of the Goddess", the Demonic Beast is jacked up on nanomachines and worst of all Sothis' original mechanical body is somewhere in Fodlan.
• Genius Bruiser: Lemegeton is a well-spoken and skilled mage and the reason why the Agarthans were able to advance in their plans. They are also noted to be huge and muscular, easily able to punch through a soldier's head or tear through a steel door with nothing but natural strength alone.
• Gilded Cage: Goetia effectively becomes a prisoner in all but name within Monastery grounds after using magic on the guards to break into the cells in order to prove the prisoners' innocence. Although he's not imprisoned in the dungeons and is allowed to continue his job as assistant librarian, he's being monitored and watch by the knights 24/7 and forbidden from interacting with the students outside of his job— putting his private tutoring on hold. After a week since his imprisonment, Goetia has already grown bored from the monotony of doing his work with all these constraints that he was willing to heed Claude's request for his aid in Abyss.
• Golem:
  • While searching for the Chalice of Beginnings, Goetia and the others encounter giant automatons who are guarding the holy site from intruders, capable of reversing any damage inflicted upon so long as they are connected to their core. It is this similar ability that they share with Miklan that allows Goetia to discover the Evlogia and Sothis' nature as a Machine God.
  • Goetia created several rock golems to serve as opponents for the Black Eagles as a way to test their abilities and team working skills.
• Great Offscreen War: As in canon, the Agarthan rebellion against the Nabateans and Sothis. Though, the war is fleshed out a bit more than in the original...
  • It turns out that Fodlan actually did have normal Gods inherent to the planet’s civilization who the Agarthans followed. They were weaker than Sothis on account of being normal Divine Spirits from the planet compared to Sothis’ status as a Zeus-class Olympian Machine God from space. In the rebellion against Sothis and the Nabateans’ rule over the native humans of the planet, every single one sided with the people that worshipped them against Sothis. They seemingly all died to the last against Sothis for the Agarthans.
  • The result of the war with the Agarthans, their allies, and their Gods all facing off against the Nabateans meant that Sothis had to expend most of her power in a final blow to defeat humanity, decimating the original humans’ numbers and forcing them into hiding. However, as a result of Sothis using so much of her power against the Agarthans’ forces, she was forced to discard her Machine Body with the vast majority of her Authorities within, and revert to the AI-Terminal form within her Core with only her Authority over Time as a Chief Goddess remaining.
  • Instead of the black-white war of canon, it’s more gray in this. The Agarthans had much more morally justified reasons to want Sothis and the Nabateans gone in this fic, and Sothis wasn’t exactly a good person before meeting Byleth.
    • Sothis isn’t even from Fodlan originally like the Agarthans and the Gods they worshiped, she’s a Machine God from outer space who came to the planet and imposed rule over the humans there using her power and her Nabatean “children”, on people who knew nothing and not interacted beforehand with her.
    • In addition, it’s shown that like many Divine Spirits and Machine Gods, Sothis in her higher power state looked at the Agarthans, as with all humans, as nothing more than *thinking reeds*. She was nothing more than an inhuman tyrant before she gained humanity through joining with Byleth through her core’s AI personality, so the humans had a justified reason to not want to be under her rule, since she didn’t even consider her subjects *people*.
    • Plus, the Agarthan Gods seemingly were much more on humanity’s side than Sothis was, as they fought with the Agarthans against her rule in the rebellion, and died to the last for mankind. Understandably, the Agarthans see Sothis as a false Goddess who doesn’t understand mankind in comparison to apparently heroic Gods like the ones they worshipped, and not one deserving of mankind’s faith.
    • Finally, Sothis, it turns out, with the last of her power after decimating the original humans, created a new race of humans to worship her and follow her people.
• Handicapped Badass: Goetia is lacking the arm he lost in his fight with Chaldea, but he remains a frighteningly powerful combatant. He effortlessly takes care of an enhanced Demonic Beast that could have torn through the Golden Deer class with barely an inconvenience and was able to take on Dimitri in hand to hand with his only arm.
• Hidden Villain: Sitri, a Demon God Pillar, is revealed to the Big Bad of the Cindered Shadows arc. Having possessed Aelfric for several months before the arc, it sought to use Aelfric's plan to use the Chalice to resurrect Byleth's mother to instead restore itself. Readers were given small hints to its existence prior to The Reveal, but which Demon Pillar it was remained a mystery before Chapter 56.
• History Repeats Itself:
  • Goetia was the first spell Solomon created in response to the decay of the Age of Gods and True Magic, becoming the foundation of later Magecraft. After accepting the position of a lecturer in Magecraft, Goetia strives to teach the locals Magecraft in order for them to learn and better themselves, becoming the foundation of the entire branch of Magecraft within the continent of Fodlan.
  • In the distant past, Maurice, the long forgotten member of the Ten Elites, swore to follow Nemesis after being beaten in combat by him. He would do so again, albeit reluctantly, after being bested by Lemegeton, who is using Nemesis as his host.
• How the Mighty Have Fallen: Goetia invokes this to a despondent Rhea in Chapter 86 at the end of his talk in her quarters after she thanks him for being the one to visit her in her current state, following her falling out from Seteth and Flayn in light of her plans being revealed.
  Rhea: Goetia.
  Goetia: Hmmm?
  Rhea: Thank you for visiting me.
  Goetia: Your relationship with your kin must truly be awful if you consider this a meeting worthy of gratitude.
• Humanity Ensues: After the events at the Temple of Time, Goetia, for the most part, became human. He decides to use this as an opportunity to walk among the people of Fodlan and learn why humanity rejected his plans to grant them immortality. He also starts to experience different emotions, which troubles him due to them conflicting with his ideals. Even though Goetia is human now, few people such as Sothis and Rhea can sense that something is off with Goetia.
• Humanity Is Infectious: Subtle at first. Not only does the former Beast get turned into a human, but Goetia soon starts to slowly develop emotions and empathy during his journey to understand humanity. Since they clash with his worldview, Goetia is naturally confused by this development and unable to cope with these newfound feelings, choosing to distract himself from confronting them. It gets more difficult for him to ignore these issues as time goes on, however, especially when someone confronts him about something that brings said issues to the forefront, such as Byleth asking him to help prove a bunch of hypnotized civilian's innocence.
• In-Series Nickname:
  • Goetia gains a few nicknames from the other characters:
    • Claude came with a variety of nicknames for Goetia, such as Goldilocks, Glitter before settling for Sparkles.
    • Dorothea calls him Gotie.
  • In lieu of Goetia's nickname, Lysithea gets called Sprinkles by Claude, to her annoyance.
• In Spite of a Nail:
  • Because of the shortage of knights thanks to Lonato's rebellion, Jeralt has to join with the Knights to deal with the Western Church, meaning he won't be in the Monastery during the Cindered Shadows arc.
  • Sitri Eisner's corpse still gets absorbed by the Chalice, only as a power source for Demon Pillar Sitri to transform into a more powerful form.
• Ironic Echo: In Chapter 48, Goetia explains to Flayn how the 'official' version of history is based on biased, filtered perspective instead of the more accurate version of events, calling them "An endless cycle of stories that are tales of fear and separation"— the exact opposite of Solomon's final parting words at the Temple of Time.
• Irony:
  • Solomon's wish was to be reborn as a human, which he achieved. The aftermath from the Temple of Time resulted in Goetia unwittingly turned into a human and put in the same position as his creator was in.
  • Garreg Mach Monastery and by extension The Church of Seiros, hires Goetia as an Assistant Librarian, who unbeknownst to them is the King of Demon Gods and a former Beast.
  • In Chapter 50, Goetia, the former King of Demon Gods, is able to exorcise the lingering spirits who were cursed to guard the Chalice of Beginnings.
  • Sitri Eisner, Byleth's mother and the last homunculus before her daughter's birth, was very frail and passed at the age of twenty. To Goetia, a homunculus who managed to live a natural lifespan of twenty years with an illness is still a standout considering homunculus last for a few years or have physical and mental deficiencies. For extra irony, Goetia guessed that Sitri's illness might have been anemia-related given her symptoms, while not curable, could be stabilized with proper medication that Fodlan unfortunately hasn't developed yet because of Rhea suppressing natural progression out of fear.
• Internal Reveal:
  • Chapters 46 and 47 sees Sothis finally learn she is the Goddess of Fodlan everyone and their mother worships and that the Sword of the Creator was made from her remains from Aelfric and Goetia respectively. Anyone who's played the game will have already known all of this.
  • Chapter 57 has Sitri revealing Goetia's identity and nature to Byleth, Sothis, Rhea and the Ashen Wolves. Likewise, they also casually reveal Rhea's draconic nature in the same chapter.
  • Chapter 58 has Rhea find out that Sothis is awake and has been interacting with both Byleth and Goetia for some time. Also, a moment of desparation caused Flayn to accidentally reveal that Seteth is her father.
  • Chapter 59 follows Jeralt and the knights returning from subduing the Western Church and witness the aftermath of Demon Pillar Sitri's attack on the Monastery. It's also here that Jeralt learns that Sothis is still in control of Byleth's body and unable to return control to Byleth and being told by a guilt-ridden Rhea that a demon possessed Aelfric and caused the destruction in the Monastery. Needless to say, Jeralt was understandable not happy at all when he learns of this.
  • Chapter 60 reveals that Lemegeton finally learned about Goetia's existence and Sitri's rampage, though he chooses not to meet with his King just yet. Likewise, Edelgard gets confirmation that Lemegeton is a Demon Pillar, or rather, several Demon Pillars in a body.
  • Chapter 61 has Goetia learning that Rhea is Sothis' daughter.
  • Chapter 65 sees Lysithea and Flayn learning Goetia's true nature as a Demon like Sitri during his breakdown.
  • Chapter 70 has Seteth finally being in loop in knowing Goetia's not entirely human and learning that the former demon knew all along that he, Rhea and Flayn are dragons.
  • Chapter 75 has Goetia learning that Rhea and Seiros are one and the same, chastising himself for overlooking a small detail.
  • The following Chapter has Rhea revealing to Byleth, Sothis, Jeralt and Goetia the truth about the Ten Elites and their hand in the massacre of her people.
  • Chapter 93 has Lemegeton reveal to Edelgard Byleth's Divine Pulse abilities and the fact he and Goetia are immune to time manipulation.
  • Chapter 103 has Goetia finally figuring out that Tomas/Solon and Kronya are the Agarthans that he has heard of a couple of times.
• It Has Been an Honor: After the group learns of Aelfric's kidnapping in Chapter 52, they are aware that the Church will soon be involved since one of their Cardinals was not only kidnapped, but they also have retrieved the Chalice of Beginnings from an off-limits sacred ground. In the event that they might be executed for this, Yuri tells the other house leaders that it was nice meeting them. Of course, the Church probably won't go that far considering the situation.
• "It" Is Dehumanizing:
  • Sothis refers to Goetia as "that thing" early in story, likely stemming from being wary of his demonic nature that she sensed from him. She drops it entirely as she continues interacting with him.
  • Kronya calls Lemegeton "that thing" as well, since their race views anyone not of their own as beasts, whether human or inhuman.
  • Goetia refers to Sitri Eisner as 'the homunculus' instead of her name and appears to be intentionally avoiding things that associates her as an individual. This is due to the fact he finds it uncomfortable that someone shares the name of a Demon God whom he was recently forced to kill.
• I Was Just Passing Through: Resuming his role as an observer, Goetia has no interest in getting involved in the happenings within Fodlan because he's a foreigner in every sense. Whenever he does get involved, he would use the excuse that he was just sating his own curiosity, such as saving Claude's life in Remire Village or accompanying the Golden Deer class during their assignment to hunt down Demonic Beasts and even accompanying Byleth to the Abyss despite his house arrest.
• Jedi Mind Trick: In Chapter 35, Goetia introduces his class to hypnotism, teaching them how to hypnotize themselves for better focus. After Byleth and Sothis sought his help to prove the attackers' innocence, he easily demonstrates this ability on the guards, breaking into the dungeons with ease. It's because of this that they were able to prove the peasants' innocence, but Goetia showing how deadly effective hypnotism can be is one of the reasons he's place under probation. Considering that this was how Lemegeton got several random people off the streets attempt an assassination, there is some justification on that fear.
• Jerkass Has a Point:
  • Lorenz may act like your typical pompous noble, but he points out that Lonato's rebellion only led to more pointless deaths and chaos in the Gaspard region and even if he was a father avenging his son, his actions still left behind grieving families.
  • Another point Lorenz brings up is that due to Goetia's status as a foreigner, he has little understanding of Fodlan's social structure and any help he might offer may not be entirely well thought out. While it comes off as condescending and insensitive, especially to Claude, Lorenz is actually correct in a way. Goetia attempted to intervene on humanity's behalf through the Incineration of Humanity, but because he wasn't human himself at the time, didn't understand that this wasn't the salvation that humanity wanted. Not that Goetia actually wants to get involved in Fodlan's politics or social structure as he's simply content with his current accommodations.
  • Goetia is hesitant to assist Byleth and Sothis in proving the innocence of the attackers with his knowledge of hypnotism, stating that even if he proves that they were hypnotized, the consequences of doing so will only lead to rampant paranoia in the Monastery along with him becoming the main suspect in the fiasco.
• Kick the Dog: Rhea placing Goetia under house-arrest within the Monastery is understandable as it's to dispel any suspicion Goetia has since he's the only mage they know that can use hypnotism and used it on the guards to break-in the prison cells in order to prove the attackers' innocence not too long ago. But forbidding him from interacting with the students outside his work and teaching his students during his house-arrest is just petty, especially since it's the only outlet Goetia has that he actually likes.
• Lighter and Softer: The Omakes, with the exception of the Back Home Again series, are non-canon side stories that are more comedic compare to the main story. Each focus on the Goetia's daily life in the monastery and the bizarre incidents that he directly or indirectly causes.
• Loophole Abuse:
  • After the events of the Rite of Rebirth, Seteth holds a staff meeting with a select few to inform them of what happened during the Rite. Seteth tells those in the meeting to not reveal to the students of what they have been informed, but Byleth and Sothis find some suspicion in regards to the assassination attempt. They decide to inform Goetia on what happened and ask for his help, since telling him does not violate Seteth's orders as Goetia's a staff member, not a student.
  • After Goetia revealed that the would-be thieves and assassins that attacked during the Rite of Rebirth were hypnotized, he is put on probation and forbidden from going anywhere or doing anything without a knight accompanying him. So when Claude seeks his help to go into the Abyss, Harold decides to tag along because he fulfills the requirement of keeping Goetia under supervision.
    • In the same chapter, Dimitri chews out on Claude for getting Goetia involve while knowing full well that the assistant librarian is unable to leave the Monastery during his probation. Claude points out that the Abyss is technically underneath the Monastery, so Goetia will still be within Monastery grounds.
      Claude: Loopholes are funny like that. Especially when you get to exploit them.
• Magi Babble: Whether in his Magecraft classes or giving an explanation, Goetia will go on a lengthy exposition about the subject. While the magically inclined students can quickly grasp his explanations, others have a hard time understanding on what he's saying, which Claude lampshades.
• Meaningful Echo: After Goetia gave Flayn the above mentioned Ironic Echo in Chapter 48, Flayn agrees that he may have a point with his statement, but she believes that thinking all human stories as tales of fear and separation is dour. She repeats Solomon's words of human stories being tales of love and hope, which surprises Goetia.
• Meaningful Name: The Agarthan's mysterious new ally is named Lemegeton, which makes his connection to Goetia and suspicion that he's potentially one of the remaining 72 Demonic Pillars all the greater as "Lemegeton" is also known as the Lesser Key of Solomon, an anonymous grimoire on demonology.
• The Mentor: Goetia finds himself becoming Lysithea's magic teacher. Sometime after, Byleth, Leonie and Mercedes join in. Soon after, Dorothea and Linhardt join the class on Edelgard's recommendation.
• Minor Injury Overreaction: In Omake 27, Lysithea's getting a paper cut gets an extreme response from all the students, who barricade themselves in a room, dedicate three healers to that minor injury and offer the offending book up as a sacrifice to Goetia for injuring his precious student. When he does arrive, he incinerates said book and tells the children to carry on. For her part, Lysithea thinks that everyone's going silly over nothing.
• Missed Him by That Much: During Lonato's rebellion, Goetia and Lemegeton stood on the same battlefield within a mere hundred meters, unaware of the presence of the other. This gets lampshaded by Lemegeton when he learns of Goetia's presence in Fodlan and the sheer irony that they were so close in discovering each other.
• Mistaken for Romance:
  • Despite some of the Ship Tease between them, one of the story's Running Gag is people mistaking Byleth and Goetia's interactions to be romantic in nature. Either from misunderstanding a situation between the two or from the duos own cluelessness in social cues.
  • In the events after Sitri's attack, a humbled and mellowed-out Rhea's interactions with Goetia in front of the Black Eagles borders on this, which is noticed first by Dorothea when Rhea follows after Goetia out of concern when he walks off after being accidentally reminded of his defeat from Fujimaru.
• Mood Whiplash: Several chapters that are either emotionally intense or have important plot development often end with a light-hearted and humorous Omake that contrasts the main chapters' serious tone.
• Morality Pet: Byleth and Lysithea for Goetia. He is upfront about the fact that he has a personal connection to them, the latter moreso due to her similarities to Mash. When Lysithea is mortally wounded and Byleth is pushed into a corner, Goetia finds himself getting involved when he otherwise resolved to stay out of the church's affairs.
  • He develops a liking to the Gatekeeper/Harold later on, after he is assigned as Goetia's guard.
• Mundane Utility: Goetia is an incredibly powerful mage who uses levitation, telekinesis and teleportation to make his work as a library assistant easier.
• Must Make Him Laugh: Claude and Flayn make it their mission to make Goetia smile or laugh. Flayn succeeds in Chapter 34 when Goetia cannot help but laugh at Alois somehow winning the fishing competition.

N-R

• Named by the Adaptation: The Gatekeeper is given the name Harold. Ironically, the only one to actually call the Gatekeeper by his name is Goetia.
• Nobody Poops: Being an immortal Beast and the spirit of the Progenitor Goddess, Goetia and Sothis were not burdened with human needs, including using the toilet. With Goetia now human and Sothis stuck while in control of Byleth's body for days, they share the same feeling of disgust towards the need to consume and digest, the latter looking forward to relinquish control of Byleth's body so that she won't experience this cycle for a while.
• No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: When Byleth and Sothis ask for Goetia's help to prove that the peasants were just innocent bystanders hypnotized to assassinate Rhea, he discusses this trope. Even if he was able to convince the Church that the men are innocent and save them from being wrongfully executed, suspicion naturally would shift to him instead since he's so far the only one they know that is capable of hypnotizing a person. Sadly, Goetia's right. Although they were able to convince Rhea and Seteth of the attackers' innocence and they were able to think of a plausible explanation that will not spread panic and paranoia in the Monastery, the fact remains that Goetia is the only one they know to have this ability, not helping that he easily broke-in the cells by hypnotizing the guards just moments before. As a result, Goetia is placed effectively under house-arrest within the Monastery, being watched while on-duty and is limited from interacting with the students.
• No-Sell: Due to Goetia's Independent Manifestation granting him immunity to time manipulation, he's unaffected by Byleth's Divine Pulse ability.
• Offscreen Moment of Awesome: Chapter 42 ends with Byleth, the three lords, Lindhart, Ashe and Hilda preparing to fight the Ashen Wolves and the Abyssians who ambushed them. They end up winning the fight despite the sudden appearance of monstrous worms that Hapi summoned and cleared up the misunderstanding by the time Chapter 43 starts.
• Not a Date: Goetia invites Dorothea for breakfast when he needed her for advice and Dorothea took him clothing shopping when the Black Eagles were in Enbarr for a mission. Both times have Dorothea teasing Goetia by remarking that this looks like a date, only for Goetia to deny both times.
• Only Sane Man:
  • Jeralt is one of the few knights who isn't overzealous in their devotion to the Church, which was why Goetia went to him to learn more about the Church.
  • Seteth is this and a Reasonable Authority Figure, being the one who keeps the Monastery running and tries to have the Church staff to get along.
  • The Gatekeeper/Harold is the only Church knight who is friendly to Goetia.
  • Sothis seems to be this, having more common sense than Byleth and Goetia.
• Other Me Annoys Me: In the "Back Home Again" sidestory, Human Goetia surmises that, once his Beast counterpart learns of his existence, he'll be none too pleased. His summation is eventually correct in that once Demon King Goetia meets him face-to-face for the first time, he's overcome with rage; an emotion he never experienced, much less meet someone he genuinely wanted to kill until that moment.
• Outside-Context Problem:
  • Goetia is this to the continent of Fodlan and the people. Fodlan hasn't advanced in their technology, caste system or magic system for the past thousand years. Then Goetia shows up out of the blue and people are taken aback by this powerful mage of unknown origins. Combined by the fact that Goetia's magic is completely different from theirs and has a wide range of variety, it's no wonder the clerics refer to Magecraft as 'heathen magic'. Then there's the fact that unbeknownst to them, Goetia was also a former Beast; a being capable of bringing the end to mankind.
  • The Demon God Pillars who ended up in Fodlan become this for the same reason as Goetia. Lemegeton, who is a composition of several Pillars into a body, provided Lonato with enchanted swords that turned his army peasants into ferocious Berserkers capable of slaughtering a horde of knights and showed how simple Magecraft can used to deadly effect. Next comes Sitri, who managed to possess Aelfric for several months without anyone, not even the Ashen Wolves, noticing any changes. When it finally makes it appearance, people are taken back by this monstrous, intelligent being that is shown to be immune to all attacks thrown at it during its rampage at the Monastery that it took the combination of Goetia, Sothis in Byleth's body, Rhea and Flayn to kill Sitri for good.
• Papa Wolf:
  • Jeralt is close with Byleth. When Goetia voices his interest in Byleth because of her Divine Core, Jeralt mistaken this as Goetia trying to court his daughter, warning the former Beast from doing anything funny to her.
  • Seteth is very protective of Flayn despite being her brother, though he can be overbearing. His overprotectiveness over Flayn is widely known throughout the Monastery, which even Goetia lampshades about it. It even plays this straight when he's actually her father. In the "Matchmaker" omakes, several characters consider pairing Flayn with anyone to be a death sentence as the unlucky boy in question would have to deal with Seteth. The only person the lords consider a reasonable match for Flayn and unlikely to die at his hands is Dedue.
  • Goetia is this Lysithea even though he denies it. He only decides to intervene in Lonato's rebellion after Lysithea was critically wounded and effortlessly trounces the army. Hilariously lampshaded in the omake "Matchmaker" where Goetia bluntly states he would kill Sylvain if he tried to flirt with her, so he wouldn't disturb her studies.
• Passive-Aggressive Kombat: In contrast with Goetia and Sothis' banter, Goetia and Rhea's interactions would drip with obvious subtext, backhanded compliments and critiques at the other, largely because of Goetia's indifference towards the Scripture of Seiros and that both know that the other is hiding their real appearance from the other but refuse to confront them about it. After the events of the Cindered Shadows, the banter between them lessens in hostility, though they still take jabs at each other given the chance.
• Perpetual Frowner: Goetia is this, rarely showing any expressions besides bored frowns or annoyed scowls. Several characters take note of this with Claude and Flayn making it a personal mission to make him laugh and Hapi starts referring to him as Scowler.
• Pet the Dog: In the aftermath of the attack during the Rite of Rebirth, Rhea, who is still pissed from the successful theft, lets the hypnotized attackers scot-free after Goetia testifies their innocence. Her response to Goetia on the other hand...
• Plot-Mandated Friendship Failure: In Chapter 84, Byleth and Goetia get into an argument over the latter's tendencies of withholding important information and Byleth figuring out that Goetia knew about Lysithea's illness but hasn't done anything to help her, results in Byleth calling Goetia a "self-centered bastard" and storm off, giving him the cold shoulders for a while. It is after the two have a talk with Sothis on separate occasions and having time to think about it that they eventually talk things out and apologize to one another.
• Point of Divergence: Goetia's prescences in Fodlan, along with the machinations of Lemegeton, have certainly change some of the events of the story that differ from the game:
  • Instead of Magdred Way, the battle against Lord Lonato take place in Oghma Mountains due to his forces advancing quicker than in the main game thanks to the weapons their mysterious benefactor provided for them. Furthermore, all three houses partake in the battle to quell the rebellion, with Jeralt and Seteth joining the fray.
  • In the original game, raiding the Holy Mauseoleum was the true objective for the Western Church during the Rite of Rebirth. Not only is the Holy Tomb raided, but the Golden Deer discover during their patrol that someone broke into the Vault and another is attempting to assassinate the Archbishop in the Goddess Tower despite the threat of the assassination initially being a misdirection to the plan to raid the Holy Tomb. What's more, it's revealed that the assassination attempt was really a distraction caused by Lemegeton, who used it to buy more time in order to successfully breach the Vault.
  • As a result of breaking into the cells to prove the attackers' innocence and showing a willingness to use magic on the guards, Goetia is placed under house-arrest within the Monastery by Rhea for an indefinite time. Because of this, Byleth becomes fully aware of the Archbishop's favoritism towards her since she didn't receive any form of punishment for aiding in Goetia's break-in, thus she and Sothis seek answers for this. With Goetia's advice, both Byleth and Sothis learn that Sothis is the Goddess of Fodlan and that the Sword of the Creator is made from Sothis' bones much earlier than in the game.
  • The events of Cindered Shadows have shaken up the status quo at the end, specifically Demon God Pillar Sitri's appearance. The hunt for the Chalice was initially a private matter before Sitri revealed itself and hijacked Aelfric's plan to resurrect Sitri Eisner to instead restore itself. The minute it restored some semblance of its power, Sitri started going on a rampage throughout the Monastery, killing any humans it can find. Even though it was eventually killed, Sitri still managed to destroy half of Garreg Mach Monastery in its rampage.
  • When Sothis accidentally possesses Byleth during Sitri's rampage, which Rhea witnesses along with finding out the awful truth regarding Sothis' state and opinion of her.
  • The crisis at Garreg Mach and learning of Goetia's existence has Kronya disguised as a clergy sent by Lord Arundel to help the Church on Lemegeton's orders instead of assuming Monica's appearance like in the games. Lemegeton points out that people would find it suspicious that a student who has been missing for a year would miraculously be found well and alive and Sitri's slaughter of the Church's knights and clergies provides the opportunity to send a mole under the pretense of a Lord sending an extra helping hand without suspicion. Unfortunately it didn't prevent the real Monica's death, having been killed by Kronya prior to the change of plans.
  • In Chapter 87, After Goetia's encouraging pep-talk, the humbled Rhea accompanies the Black Eagles and Goetia to visit Enbarr or the capital of Adrestia to check on the current state of affairs there which never happens in the game proper.
• The Power of Friendship: Goetia deduces that the reason that Ritsuka's Servants remain loyal to him and continue to fight in spite of the hopelessness of the fight is because of the strong bonds they share with Chaldea's Master. It is his curiosity about this subject that Goetia decides to bond with the Black Eagles and help with their team-building skills before the mock battle.
• Power of Trust: Because of her line of work as a mercenary, Byleth greatly place the importance of trust— both in herself and her allies— to ensure they will survive the mission to live another day. It is the same for the students under her care, looking out for them as they would for her and each other. This is one of the reasons for Byleth's fall out with Goetia upon learning that he knew about Lysithea's illness but has done nothing to help her — he cannot be trusted to have her best interest at heart because he seemingly cannot be trusted to save those who extend the same courtesy to him.
• Pronouncing My Name for You: When Byleth introduces herself to Aelfric in their first meeting, he pronounces it as 'Beleth' instead before Byleth corrects him. This is a hint that he's possessed by a Demon God, which is brought up again in Chapter 56 when Sitri remarks with disgust that she can't even plagiarize the name of their fellow Demon God correctly.
• Properly Paranoid:
  • Sothis doesn't hide the fact that she finds Goetia suspicious, since she sensed that he wasn't human to begin with. To top it off, not only is he immune to Divine Pulse's effects, but he's also the other person besides Byleth who can see and hear Sothis. Since she doesn't know what Goetia is, Sothis advises Byleth to keep a close eye on him.
  • When Bernadetta was assigned to assist Goetia in the library with Ferdinand, she finds herself terrified of Goetia to the point of thinking that he's a villain from a storybook given with his sinister-sounding name and the way he appears. While Goetia is no longer a Beast nor a demon, Bernadetta is not far of from the truth.
• Pyrrhic Victory:
  • The battle against Lord Lonato's rebellion ends with the his defeat and death, the majority of his army wiped out by a vengeful Goetia. While Goetia's interference saved Byleth and the students, the Church still suffer a fair loss of knights against Lonato's berserker army and Lemegeton and the fact they were forced to put down peasants who were essentially driven mad soured any sense of victory. Even Goetia points out that while he did saved the students, he had to slaughter others in order to do so and the entire Gaspard region is in chaos in the wake of their Lord's death and loss of the majority of the people residing there.
  • During the Rite of Rebirth, Byleth and the Blue Lions managed to thwart the Western Church's attempted theft of the Holy Mausoleum and the attempted assassination of the Archbishop has been easily foiled thanks to the Boundary Field Goetia placed around the Goddess Tower. Unfortunately, the Vault has been successfully breached by Lemegeton, who made a clean get-away with the item the Vault was holding. What's more, while Goetia was able to prove that the assassins were indeed innocent people who were hypnotized to perform the attempt, he's place under house-arrest until suspicion around him has lifted due to being the only individual they know who can hypnotize people.
  • The conclusion of the Cindered Shadows arc, Demon God Pillar Sitri was finally defeated by the combined efforts of Goetia, Sothis in Byleth's body, Rhea and Flayn, but its rampage has left many knights and clerics dead and the Monastery in shambles, further crippling the Church in the wake of Lonato's rebellion. Not to mention Goetia was fatally wounded by Sitri in its last-ditch attack and even though he'll survive the attack, has the weight of killing his kin hanging over him.
• Really 700 Years Old: Although Goetia's human form has the appearance of a 26-year-old male, he's actually over 3000-years old. He's one of the few characters who can still claim that he's older than Flayn.
• Reasonable Authority Figure:
  • Rhea allows Goetia to be employed in the Monastery despite his status as a foreigner and lets him does as he please since Goetia has no interest in interfering with Fodlan's caste system or the Officer's Academy unless someone specifically goes to him for instruction. Though it is implied the real reason she employed him was because she sensed his inhuman nature and his unknown origins warrants her to keep a close eye on a possible threat.
  • Seteth was understandable suspicious of Byleth and Goetia when the two were hired by Rhea out of nowhere but decides to give them a chance to prove themselves trustworthy.
  • The Gatekeeper/Harold allows and assists Goetia in going down the Abyss to help the House leaders and Byleth.
• Reformed, but Not Tamed: Goetia goes from Beast who plotted the Incineration of Humanity to an Assistant Libarian in Garreg Mach Monastery that helps out the students... but is still arrogant and dismissive with his ideologies clashing with other characters. Part of his Character Development is understanding humanity through the eyes of a human and walking among of them as one instead of pitying them.
• Religious and Mythological Theme Naming: Rhea reveals in Chapter 75 that the first twelve failed homunculus she created were named Bael, Agares, Vassago, Samigina, Marbas, Valefor, Amon, Barbatos, Paimon, Buer, Guison and finally, Sitri, Byleth's mother. With the addition of Byleth, Goetia comes to the shocking realization that they have been unintentionally named after the first thirteen Demon Pillars of his race.
• Ret-Gone: In the "Back Home Again" omake, Human Goetia defeats his Beast counterpart using Solomon's Ars Nova. By his own admission, he can't use Ars Nova to its fullest extent, but he instead decides to emulate one of its functions for his own purposes. Said function being Solomon's entire history in the Throne of Heroes to be erased. In Goetia's case, he uses Ars Nova to erase the events that led to him understanding humanity. This results in him being erased from the Throne of Heroes, and severely weakens Beast I in the process.
• Retired Monster: Goetia was once a Beast that embodies Pity and instigated the Incineration of Humanity. After being defeated by Chaldea, he's now human, missing an arm and trapped in another world. Although he accepts his loss and has no interest in restarting his plans in Fodlan, he's not remorseful for his past actions and can be ruthless if pushed as his actions against Lord Lonato and his army shows. Still, Goetia uses this opportunity to learn more of humanity and understand why they rejected his wishes.
• Rule of Three: Claude brings up the topic of Solomon to Goetia three times. The first time is shortly after their meeting and Claude attempts to get to know Goetia, indirectly bringing Solomon into the conversation. The second time is when Claude is curious about Solomon's abilities that he asks Goetia about them, despite knowing from their first conversation about him that Goetia easily gets irritated when Solomon is brought up. The third time is when Claude starts to enquire about Goetia's relation to Solomon after Rhea reveals Goetia's 'royalty' heritage. This time however, Goetia blows up on Claude's face for his incessant questions about Solomon.
• Running Gag:
  • People asking how Goetia gets his hair to look so sparkly.
  • Goetia insists that people refer to the gatekeeper by his proper name, Harold.
    • On a related note, the Gatekeeper getting interrupted by others from introducing his name or other people, except for Goetia, forgetting his name.
  • People mistaking Goetia and Byleth to be in a relationship.
  • Goetia's tendencies to enter a female's room without warning or inappropriate times due to urgent matters.

S-Z

• Secret-Keeper: After the events of Lonato's rebellion, Byleth and Sothis get confirmation from Goetia himself that he isn't human. He still keeps what he is from them though, letting them find out by themselves.
• Secret Secret-Keeper: Goetia quickly learns some of the secrets of several characters or Fodlan's history due to his powers, unbeknownst to others. The only reason he doesn't confront the issue is that it doesn't concern him.
  • Goetia sensed that both Edelgard and Lysithea have two Crests, but decides to observe them in order to learn of their origins. He also learns that the two Crests have drastically shorten Lysithea's lifespan.
  • He is well aware that Rhea, Flayn, and Seteth are actually dragons, but says nothing. This is less out of respect for their privacy and more that he can't be bothered.
  • Upon learning Sothis' existence and seeing her for the first time, he's able to deduce that she's the Goddess the Church, and the dragons worship, but keeps it from Sothis to see how things play out.
  • He also discovers that 'Tomas' is actually a disguised Solon when he first meets the librarian, but doesn't confront the Agarthan as it doesn't concern him if the Church can't root out spies within their own staff.
  • When Goetia sees Thunderbrand for the first time, he finds himself surprise to see that the Hero's Relics are actually constructed from Dragon bones.
  • Like the above mentioned, from the moment Goetia sees the Sword of the Creator, he realizes that it's crafted from Sothis' spine and hip bones.
• Seen It All:
  • Goetia's nonchalant reaction to the dogmatic Church of Seiros and the blatant zealotry of some of the members due to having seen many similar formats of various religions before which unnerves Edelgard during their discussion because of her imagining many organizations similar to the Church of Seiros that may exist outside of the isolated Fodlan.
  • By the time of the Cindered Shadows arc, the students are unfazed by Goetia's magic — treating it like another part of their normal lives. This is hilariously pointed out as while the Ashen Wolves are surprised by what Goetia's magic can do, the other students are used to it that they act nonchalant about it. Claude comments they have seen him burn up a Demonic Beast and took down a rebellion all on his own, that other magic he does are pretty small in comparison.
• Side Bet: After learning that Aelfric is a cardinal, Gatekeeper/Harold reveals that there is a betting game amongst the knight on guessing who the cardinals are since no one except for Rhea and high-ranking church members know who they are.
  Gatekeeper/Harold: It's just that some of the Knights had a little bit of a… erm… guessing game as to who the Cardinals were.
  Claude: A betting ring… did anyone you know win?
  Gatekeeper/Harold: (slumps despondently) I owe Fergus five silver.
• Simultaneous Arcs: The Lance of Ruin arc occurs at the same time Goetia joins the Black Eagles in an escort mission, guarding both Anna and Rhea during the trip to Enbarr.
• Shipper on Deck:
  • Plenty of the characters are incredibly invested in the idea of Goetia and Byleth being a couple, particularly Claude, Alois, Flayn, Sylvain, Manuela and Dorothea enjoy teasing the oblivious pair. Though Dimitri suspects Claude has some ulterior motive in pairing them together; namely making it easier for him to poach the two to join the Alliance after he graduates. Omake 67 even has Sitri Eisner, conversing with Romani/Solomon in the afterlife, shipping Goetia with her daughter.
  • The aptly named "Matchmaker" omakes revolve around Byleth creating what Claude dubs a "dating chart", with both Sothis and Goetia exasperated by the antic. Not that it stops the two from giving their own take on which character should be paired up. After walking in on one of Byleth and Goetia's shipping discussions, Claude ropes in Edelgard and Dimitri to create their on "dating chart" for their fellow classmates.
    • In relation to this, the lords, Byleth, and Sothis believe Ashe and Petra would make a great couple whereas Goetia can't see a reason why the princess of Brigid would deign to marry a commoner, adopted by nobility or no, when it offers no political advantage. That, and he thinks Ashe would be better with Ingrid due to their shared passion and dreams of knighthood.
• Ship Tease:
  • Though they don't see it that way, a lot of Goetia and Byleth's interactions look rather romantic to outsiders.
  • Ashe is noted to have been interacting with Petra, especially after Lonato's rebellion. Several omakes has a few people shipping those two together.
  • The Gatekeeper (Harold) appears to be smitten with Constance, even trying to reassure her when she undergoes her Sunlight personality.
  • In lieu of their teachers, there seems to be something going on between Dimitri and Lysithea, with some omakes depicting them as an Official Couple. Dorothea even notices the two studying together in the library a week before the Eagles depart on their mission.
• Shout-Out:
  • Demon King Goetia's reaction to his human self in the "Back Home Again" sidestory is nearly identical to Menma's reaction to Naruto.
  • During Lonato's rebellion, Lemegeton kills a knight by breaking his back over his knee.
  • In the fight against Sitri, Sothis in Byleth's body, utilizes Divine Pulse to freeze time for a few seconds. Thanks to his immunity against time manipulation, this gives Goetia an opening to repeatedly punch his opponent while they are frozen in time. This combo is a dead ringer to Dio Brando's Stand 'The World'.
  • In order to compare which of them is the best summoner, Omake 65 has Goetia and Draco playing Yu-Gi-Oh! against each other.
  • The title of Chapter 94 is called Libarian's new groove.
• Silly Rabbit, Idealism Is for Kids!: Goetia's millenia of seeing humanity's flaws and crimes have left him with a rather cynical outlook on people in general, which puts him at odds with certain more idealistic characters such as Flayn who he brushes off as naive.
• Snark-to-Snark Combat: Goetia's interaction with Sothis consists of them throwing snide remarks at the other from time to time. While Goetia is able to best Sothis in out-snarking, there are times when he cannot respond back to Sothis without other people thinking he's talking to himself, which she takes advantage of to get back at him.
• Spared by the Adaptation: The sidestory "Back Home Again" ends with Human Goetia using Solomon's first Noble Phantasm Ars Nova in Romani's place. While this spares Solomon himself from being erased from the Throne of Heroes entirely, Human Goetia's place in the Throne of Heroes is erased instead due to him emulating the Noble Phantasm's effects and erasing his experiences and journey as a mortal.
• Spotting the Thread:
  • Seteth correctly assumes that Lemegeton is associated with Goetia or at the very least hails from the same place as him as Lemegeton refers to Seteth as a Phantasmal, a term that has only ever been used by Goetia.
  • After putting down Lonato's rebellion and witnessing Goetia obliterating his army, Sothis confirms with confidence that Goetia isn't human. Although Byleth was skeptical of this, she realizes that Sothis may be right when the latter points that Goetia always refers to other people as Humans, making it sound as if he's not one himself.
  • Claude becomes suspicious of Aelfric when the Cardinal starts calling the Chalice as the Holy Grail since he only knows Goetia's the only one who keeps referring to the Chalice with that title. It's a sign that the Demon Pillar possessing Aelfric is done with the facade.
  • While Goetia is theorizing how Sitri, or so he thinks, could have planned for the downfall of the Church and the methods they would use, Byleth notices from Goetia's expression and brief silence that he's not saying this on the spot, but possibly from his own experience.
• Stalker without a Crush: During Goetia's first week in the Monastery, he noticed that Hubert has been watching him for a while, likely to keep eye on potential threats to Edelgard. When both officially meet face to face, Goetia doesn't hide the fact he knows of the boy's observation of him.
  Linhardt: You seem unusually calm at the prospect of meeting your stalker.
• Strange Minds Think Alike: In Chapter 54, a moody Goetia has to force himself to eat something because being human means needing daily substance for the human body when he rather shut himself in his room to cool off. Among the things he has to do now that he's human, he finds the process of eating strange and expresses a disgust towards the need to digest afterwards. After still possessing Byleth for three days and no way to switch back yet, Sothis finds having a real body to be more trouble than it's worth in Chapter 62. She especially finds the need to eat and digest to be disgusting.
• Strong, but Unskilled:
  • Goetia is by no means a close combat expert but enhancing his strength and speed with Magecraft allows him to fight on par with the likes of Dimitri.
  • As Seteth notices during the battle, Lemegeton is not a skilled fighter, but makes up for it with his pure, inhuman strength alone.
• Synchronous Episodes: The first half of Chapter 78 focuses on Edelgard's point of view when she has an abrupt meeting with Lemegeton. This occurs roughly at the same time Goetia approaches Dorothea to ask her out for breakfast in order to get some advice from her in Chapter 73.
• Take That!: In Omake 46, the three classes are putting on a play based on Goetia's stories about the Seven Singularities. Ingrid, dressed as Saber Alter (Altria), comments that some of those Singularities are boring and predictable.
• Tempting Fate: In Chapter 87, Goetia learns that Anna is making a trip to Enbarr to restock, with the Black Eagles acting as her escort. He decides to join, seeing this as nothing more than a routine trip to the Imperial capital with nothing the Black Eagles should be too concern about. Then a rejuvenated Rhea decides to join them on the trip as well in order to pass her blessings to the clergy and the current Emperor, significantly increasing the weight of the escort mission, not to mention the presence of the undercover Agarthans in the Empire's higher-ups along with the corruption of the nobility.
• Too Dumb to Live: The cleric in charge of healing the wounded students refuses to allow Goetia to help when the latter brings Mercedes so she can receive an impromptu lesson. The man's stubborn refusal and overall prejudice nearly gets him killed by Goetia, who is still mildly infuriated after the events of Lonato's rebellion. It's only thanks to Catherine that the cleric wasn't reduced to bloody paste.
• Trapped in Another World: The premise of the story; Goetia finds himself stranded in Fodlan after his loss against Chaldea, but rather than find a way back or resume his original plans, he decides to explore Fodlan as a human in hopes of getting answers he now seeks about humanity. Whenever asked about his origins, Goetia would claim that he's from across the sea over the west of Fodlan. And it seems Goetia isn't the only one who's trapped in a new world. As the story progresses, it's revealed that a few Demon God Pillars managed to find their way to Fodlan and initiating their own goals. Lemegeton, a composition of several surviving Demon Pillars, is working with the Agarthans as part of its goal in completing Goetia's work. Sitri is revealed to have been possessing Aelfric for several months and plans to use the Chalice to restore itself to its full power.
• Underestimating Badassery: When Byleth and Goetia are first employed by the Church, the Agarthans dismiss them as just a mercenary and a vagrant foreign mage respectively. Even after Goetia easily dispatched the enhanced Demonic Beast that the Agarthans sent to kill the Golden Deer class, they still view him as an insect that can be dealt with later. When Lemegeton learns of this, he wastes no time in beating Thales to a pulp for his arrogance and stupidity.
• Ungrateful Bastard: Sitri views humanity as this. In its eyes, Goetia and its fellow Demon Pillars offered to help humanity by granting them immortality through the Human Incineration Order, ending all suffering. Humanity's response? To defy Goetia and reclaim their history, destroying Goetia and the Demon Pillars in the end. This leads to Sitri believing that humanity is unworthy of any betterment because they rejected Goetia's help and killed its kin in retaliation.
• Unstoppable Rage: Chapter 29 sees Goetia finally understanding what hate feels like and decides to "thank" Lonato for helping him understand by beating him to death and proceeds to destroy Lonato's rebellion by himself in retaliation for nearly killing Lysithea and hurting Byleth.
• Villain Episode:
  • At the end of Chapter 68, instead of an omake, it is an interlude that focuses on Lemegeton. It is during the interlude that they learn about Epimenides and Zahras, gathering more information about them in order to further their own plans.
  • Chapter 74 has another interlude near the end, titled 'Inheritance of Birthright'. It focuses on Miklan after he stole the Lance of Ruin from his family home and is soon approached by Lemegeton, who offers him a deal that will enable him to wield the Lance of Ruin to its full power.
  • "Beast Hunting" is an Interlude chapter that is feature as the main chapter and taken from Lemegeton's perspective as they track down the Demonic Beast that ate Miklan and inherited the Evlogia, following it to the borders of Alymra. It ends with him gaining a new ally after besting the Demonic Beast in combat—Maurice.
• Wham Episode:
  • Chapter 12, "Recognition": Up until this point, the story seems to follow Goetia as he adjusts to his new life at the Monastery and his new position as an assistant librarian and part time magic tutor to a few students. Then the end of the chapter reveals the Agarthans have allied themselves with a being that is implied to be a Demon God, who has an agenda of his own.
  • Chapter 55, "The Time of Remembrance": Near the end of the chapter, the group successfully rescued Aelfric from the bandits with the Chalice still at hand, only for it to be revealed that Aelfric has been possessed by a Demon Pillar, who takes the Chalice and abducts the Ashen Wolves and Byleth to complete the Rite of Rising in order to fulfill Aelfric's wish.
  • Chapter 57, "The Time of Extinction": Goetia reveals his true idenity to Demon Pillar Sitri in order to convince it to stand down, with those in the room (Byleth, Sothis, Rhea and the Ashen Wolves) finding out about it as well. Sitri reveals its plan to eradicate humanity for the death of its breathren and for 'rejecting' their salvation, which leads to Goetia refusing to aid it. This culminates into Sitri using the Chalice to absorb the corpse of Sitri Eisner, transforming into something similar to Goetia's Beast form and proceeds to attack the Monastery out in the open.
  • Chapter 58, "Grand Battle": The status quo has completely change. Sothis accidently discovers her ability to possess Byleth, with Rhea learning that Sothis has awakened and of her interactions with Goetia. Goetia used the Crest Stone he got from that enhanced Demonic Beast to empower himself, gaining a new form that is close to his Beast form with a new arm. While Goetia and the others managed to kill Sitri, its rampage resulted in the deaths of countless soldiers and clerics as well as destroying the Monastery, crippling the Chruch even more. And Goetia was fatally wounded by Sitri, with the death of a fellow Demon Pillar now staining his hands.
  • Chapter 90, "Elevator out of order, take the stairs": The Blue Lions' assault on Conand Tower goes smoothly, until Miklan finally takes to the field, armed with the stolen Lance of Ruin which he is able to use even without a Crest thanks to Lemegeton's machinations.
  • Chapter 103, "Slight Miscalculations": Goetia finally gets confirmations that Sothis, in this setting, was a Machine God prior to choosing a humanoid avatar, and the Evolgia are really nanomachines. What's more, Sothis' original mechanical body is somewhere in Fodlan, Goetia now determined to find it, so it won't land in the wrong hands.
  • Interlude, "Beast Hunting": Lemegeton tracks down the Demonic Beast that ate Miklan's corpse to Alymra, who is revealed to be none other than Maurice, the Wandering Beast— having gained a humanoid form as a result of the Evlogia. Maurice also reveals that Lemegeton is using Nemesis' corpse as his host and takes up on Lemegeton's offer to join him after being bested in combat by the Demon God.
• Wham Line:
  • Lemegeton tracks down the Demonic Beast that ingested the Evlogia from Miklan's corpse to Alymra and when he finally encounters it, he reveals the identity of the Demonic Beast by uttering a single name.
  Lemegeton: ... Maurice.
  • Likewise, the above-mentioned Demonic Beasts is shocked on who Lemegeton's host is.
  Wandering Beast: You-!? Nemesis…you… no, this is some manner of trick!
• What If?: There are two sidestories or omakes that involve Goetia interacting with Chaldea post-Timeless Temple, with differing premises.
  • "Visitors from Home" sees Chaldea sending Ritsuka and Mash to Fodlan, believing it to be an aberrant timeline. This leads to their meeting with Flayn, and later Goetia, with both parties surprised to see each other. It humorously ends with Goetia asking why Mash "rejected him"^note In reference to Mash's refusal to go along with his plans which would see her live a long life compared to her shortened, near-dead lifespan. Lysithea arrives, and lacking context believes Mash rejected his courting proposal and accosts her.
  • "Back Home Again" involves Goetia and his closest associates being summoned by Chaldea, with Goetia himself being summoned as a Caster-class Servant. It mainly explores the irony of his situation and amusement, as well as his attempts to interact with Romani. It is also the longest-running sidestory, lasting ten chapters.
• What Is This Feeling?:
  • As he finds the answers he seeks about humanity and no longer bound by Pity, Goetia begins to experience different types of emotions. He struggles to understand and express them clearly as they clash with his ideals and don't run on any logical justification. When Lysithea is fatally stabbed by Lonato, Goetia finally understands what pure, unadulterated rage feels like. He "thanks" Lonato for this experience by wiping out his army and pummeling the Lord to death.
  • In the sidestory "Back Home Again", Demon King Goetia initially fails to understand what exactly he feels towards Human Goetia. He finally understands what it is when he confronts his human counterpart properly and can only laugh when he realizes what he's feeling: pure, unbridled rage.
• What the Hell, Hero?: A few of the characters are unhappy that Goetia was able to destroy Lord Lonato's rebellion so easily but did not intervene until after Lysithea and Byleth were hurt. Goetia, for his part, doesn't care for matters that don't concern him personally and says as much, even turning the matter back around to Leonie and asks her why he should fight for a church that triggered the rebellion by executing Lord Lonato's son as a traitor with no evidence or trial.
  • Flayn is not pleased with Seteth when she finds out that Goetia has been punished for helping prove the hypnotized attacker's innocent.
  • While Goetia may be the furthest thing from heroic and even flat out states as much, Byleth still considers him a friend. That said, she still calls him out for not divulging information that may or may not have been important, such as the fact that the Sword of the Creator was actually made from Sothis' corpse. She's especially not happy when she learns Goetia knows about Lysithea's condition, but has done absolutely nothing to help her, capping off their argument by calling him a self-centered bastard.
• What You Are in the Dark: Goetia is presented this on that fateful encounter with the three Lords in Remire Village. He simply went to observe the battle after sensing Edelgard's dual Crests, with none of the combatants noticing that a spectator was watching. When one of the bandits was about to kill Claude, Goetia could have chosen to have done nothing and let him die because he was merely an observer to this battle and has no personal attachment to the young Lord. He chooses to save Claude, though under the pretense that he'd lose a specimen in his research on Crests.
• Wide-Eyed Idealist: Goetia sees Flayn as this, openly wondering how someone so old and related to Seteth can be so naive as to be shocked by the uglier parts of humanity
• Will Not Tell a Lie: Goetia will not tell a lie, in fact he's rather tactless and straight-forward. But he has no qualms of omitting important details, phrasing things in misleading ways and half-truths if the situation requires it. After all, telling people the truth of his origins and nature would be detrimental to his quest in understanding humanity.
• The Worf Effect: The Demonic Beasts that Hapi summoned in Chapter 55 were easily able to deal with the mercenaries that took Aelfric hostage as a good distraction. Against a Demon Pillar? The Demon Pillar Sitri killed a dozen of them with just a single blast when it finally revealed itself, showing that even in its weakened state, a Demon Pillar is still a force to be reckoned with.
• Worf Had the Flu: The golems that were guarding the Chalice were impressive in their mechanism, but as Goetia noticed, they were held back by their metal body. Had they've been constructed by Sothis herself, not Seiros, Goetia admits he wouldn't be able to destroy them in his current state.
• Wrestler in All of Us: Chapter 58 has Goetia, Rhea and Sothis in Byleth's body bust out suplexes, dropkicks and lariats when engaging the awakened Demon Pillar Sitri in close combat.
• Wrong Context Magic: Since Goetia is from another world, his magic is seen as strange to the locals of Fodlan, to the point several overzealous clerics call it 'heathen magic'. Compared to the magic system in Fodlan, Goetia's magic has a wider range of use and variety. For his part, Goetia is interested to see if the people of this world can use his home world's magic for the mages in Fodlan are close to the mages from the Age of Gods.
• Yaoi Fangirl: In the "Matchmaker" omakes where the lords get together to create a 'dating chart' (after being convinced by Claude), when discussing who would make a good pair with Hubert, Edelgard immediately says Ferdinand and offers no other explanation as to why.
• You Can See Me?: Sothis has this reaction when Goetia sees her for the first time, not helped that she voiced her suspicion of him early on.
• You Didn't Ask: Goetia gives this as a response when Sotis demands to know why he didn't tell her about his findings that pointed to her being the Goddess worshipped by the Church of Seiros or that the Sword of the Creator being made from her corpse.
• You Remind Me of X:
  • Part of the reason for Goetia's growing fondness for Lysithea is because the young girl reminds him of Mash Kyrielight, despite both girls being complete opposites. The reminder becomes painful when Goetia discovers the full extent of Lysithea's condition.
  • Other than Anna having the items he needs, Goetia's other reason for visiting the merchant is because her methods remind him of the Queen of Sheba.

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