Literature / Trapped in a Dating Sim: Otome Games Are Tough For Us, Too!

The younger sister now has her own route!

Trapped in a Dating Sim: Otome Games Are Tough For Us, Too! (also known as Anoseka for convenience) is a Shounen Isekai Light Novel series (and Manga adaptation) and Spin-Off of Trapped in a Dating Sim: The World of Otome Games is Tough for Mobs. It was originally a selection of bonus stories known as the "Marie Route" given out to Japanese readers who answered a survey, before it was decided to be expanded upon and made into its own series of novels. The first volume came out on December 28, 2022 in Japan, while Seven Seas Entertainment will release the first volume physically on April 2, 2024.

In the main series of novels, Leon, a Japanese salaryman who got reincarnated into his sister's otome game, finds himself to trying to fix things when another reincarnator, Marie, tries to take the main protagonist role from the actual heroine Olivia. Here in Otome Games Are Tough For Us, Too!, Leon manages to catch Marie before she seduces any of the love interests of the protagonist, leading to an entirely new chain of events, where leaving Olivia and her love interests alone has consequences beyond what is stated in the game's background lore.

Spoilers for the first three Light Novels in the mainline series will be unmarked below.

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This series provides examples of:

Tropes A-F

• 0% Approval Rating: The Offrey floating island’s population, heavily tyrannized and overtaxed, are glad to see their masters replaced.
• Ace Custom: Nicks flies a specially marked mech into battle in the second volume.
• Action Dad: In addition to Balcus having a Papa Wolf moment on the battlefield, Angelica’s father also gets in on the action launching a Boarding Party during a Big Badass Battle Sequence. Duke Redgrave did earn renown as an adventurer in his youth.
• Adaptational Early Appearance: In the Manga adaptation, Stephanie Offrey is introduced bossing around students as Marie first enters the academy, fitting her overall role as Starter Villain.
• Adaptational Expansion: The Light Novel release of the Marie route adds a significant amount of content within what was originally Part 1 of the Web novel, showcasing more perspectives.
  • The Light Novel shows what are the final moments and thoughts of Leon and Marie in their past life, and him being asked to play the game.
  • It also showed the hardships of Marie before she was found by Leon and its revealed that she was still severely traumatized by the abuse that caused her death. This includes fighting a bear, which was originally a Noodle Incident.
  • Olivia's point of view is also shown here especially about her suffering and helplessness under the 5 Capture Targets.
  • What was originally a one-off line from Leon to Jenna, Marie buying a dress for the dance, is expanded into a full sub-plot, including an argument over her sizes.
• Aerith and Bob: Conversed Trope. Leon and Marie are surprised to find that the Saintess that Olivia is descended from, has the simple name of Anne.
• Agent Provocateur: This story provides an excellent example: The Saintess, after possessing Olivia, does everything she can to manipulate the dateable cast into angering every noble in the Kingdom against the Holfort Dynasty and destroy the faction supporting Julius. Meanwhile, she puts Glory Seeker noble teens into an Uriah Gambit meat grinder, which Julius also takes responsibility for. This has the ultimate goal of the Kingdom being completely torn apart by Civil War.
• Airstrike Impossible: Justified in the sixth part. It’s actually Leon, Arroganz’ A.I., and a crew of smaller A.I.s that work together to make it possible. Arroganz even got a Lock-and-Load Montage to prepare for it. It’s Leon breaching, and destroying the heart of the corrupted World Tree that destroyed Alzer, while surviving The Swarm.
• Alas, Poor Villain:
  • The death of The Black Knight at the hands of Leon is mourned by Fanoss Dynasty loyalists, and Hertrude hates Leon over it.
  • Leon feels sympathy for the unfortunate situation of his Bastard Bastard "brother" Rutart, who's a laughing stock and beholden to his mother Zola.
• Alpha Bitch: The noblewoman who shuts up the crying Yulia, which gets her pulverized by Marie. She has multiple followers and was proposed to by multiple men, not that she cares about them.
• Altar Diplomacy:
  • Leon forms an alliance with House Roseblade by setting up his older brother Nicks with the BDSM themed Dorothea, in order to both take down House Lafan and House Offrey, and to help Nicks manage the former Offrey territory, which he hasn't been educated properly to rule. It winds up being one of Leon's best decisions, although Nicks might disagree.
  • In the sixth part, Marquess Frampton tries to set up Princess Hertrude with a member of his faction to end the war with the Principality and make her his puppet ruler. But The Saintess has Frampton and Hertrude killed before that could happen.
• Amazon Brigade: There are few female Knights in the kingdom, but they are gathered together to serve as Olivia’s guard after she is declared saint. They’re noted to be of substandard quality, but noblemen in the Kingdom Had to Be Sharp while the women didn't.
• An Aesop: The first two parts have both Leon and Marie learning that, partners shouldn't be chosen based on looks.
• And Now You Must Marry Me: The Offrey’s plot in the second part/volume, albeit cooked up by the grooms sister.
• Annoying Younger Sibling: Leon’s sarcasm and tormenting of Nicks for his own amusement, which is a Running Gag.
• Anger Born of Worry: In the sixth part, both Marie and Balcus show some of this for Leon, due to his recent reckless actions.
• Anger Montage:
  • Angelica wrecks her cabin in anger at Leon Throwing the Fight for her duel challenge.
  • Julius does this in frustration about The Saintess' sudden coldness towards him and obsession with Leon.
• Apocalypse How: The Alzer Republic gets destroyed in a Type 0, bombarded by Ideal and then savaged by The Swarm from the corrupted World Tree. There are too few refugees to rebuild, and Leon takes them home with him.
• Appearance Angst: Marie suffers from this a lot thanks to Leon, even asking Luxion to give her plastic surgery, which he refuses. She was confident in her past-life body.
• Appropriated Appellation: Leon gets labeled The Upstart by bullies, but adopts it in pride.
• Ascended Extra:
  • Happens to Leon’s older brother Nicks who was originally mostly just Mr. Exposition. Elements of his treatment here got adapted into the main story in the eighth volume.
  • Zola’s Bastard Bastard son Rutart, went from only appearing in one scene in volume 3, to having First-Person Perspective scenes here, revolving around his Sibling Rivalry with Nicks.
  • The Light Novel adaptation gives Earl Offrey's daughter and Carla significantly more screen-time, and officially canonizes the name used for the former in the anime of the mainline series (Stephanie Offrey).
• Aura Vision: Due to having this this, Kyle is able to see that something about Olivia changed, after she was possessed by the First Saintess' spirit. However, she placates him. After she absorbs the Scepter’s spirit he realizes, but she’s prepared and holds his mother hostage.
• Aw, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other: Despite Leon’s older brother Nicks being constantly angry at him for arranging his marriage to the dominatrix-themed Dorothea, he’ll still help Leon when the chips are down.
• The Baby of the Bunch: Luxion uplifts Leon’s mech Arroganz into an A.I., who is introduced playing with crates like toy blocks, and bumping into things, prompting Marie to train and raise him. Arroganz is Literal-Minded, and Leon grimaces more than once from accidentally teaching him things he shouldn't.
• Badass Boast: Leon's appeals to Deirdre Roseblade include a few of these, that her followers have mixed reactions to. While Deirdre loves them, as her followers anticipated.
• The Bait: Nicks and the Bartfort Household troops serve as bait for Leon's decapitation strike on the Wing Shark Sky Pirates. Though, they ultimately perform better than Leon anticipated.
• Bathos: Some major cases appear in the second volume, such as Leon being Jerkass during a tearful farewell, and Marie disheartening her foes by proceeding as a Big Eater despite everything she's being put through.
• Battle Discretion Shot: The conquest of house Lafan and house Offrey's territories by Leon's ragtag coalition. There was enough action for Julius to desire Partner as his flagship. This is un-done, and the war is shown in multiple phases, for the Light Novels.
• Belligerent Sexual Tension: This is bread and butter between Leon and Marie. They both enjoy teasing one-another, and a Relationship Upgrade doesn’t get in the way of it.
• Benevolent Conspiracy: Both Master and Duke Redgrave seem to be running these against Julius and The Saintess, although it’s not yet clear if the two’s plans align.
• Big Badass Battle Sequence: The Principality of Fanoss’ invasion of the Kingdom plays as a huge Epic Ship-on-Ship Action, which in a case of The Call Knows Where You Live, Leon and Marie participate in to keep Leon's family, who’ve been levied for the battle, safe.
• Big Brother Attraction: Justified Trope and Played With: Marie gradually falls for Leon after reincarnating, not realizing he was her previous life brother. During a Heroic BSoD, she realizes that her brother was the only person among her family and partners that truly cared for her in her past life. Marie then realizes that Leon could be said past life brother, and after a mishmash of biased recounting of their past lives, they both agree they weren't previously related.
• Big Good: Instead of Mylene and Duke Redgrave serving as this, in Marie Route, it’s Leon’s tea ceremony teacher, Master. He has his ways, and his Mysterious Past.
• Blasting It Out of Their Hands: This is done by Leon and allies, to a group of private soldiers assigned to silence a framed up Clarice permanently, in hopes of taking them alive. They had other plans.
• Bling of War:
  • The Offrey family airship and mechs are decorated in tacky gold that's hard on the eyes.
  • The Beudon family airship looks more like a cruise liner than a warship.
  • Leon’s Bastard Bastard fake brother Rutart wears these because he’s compensating for being overshadowed by both of his younger "brothers". His peers and subordinates just snicker at him.
• Bring It: Leon’s approach to breaking the Offrey lines is to insult them over a fountain he can dump enemy pilots into, and dismember their units one by one via massive halberd.
• C-List Fodder: Subverted in part six: Every single named character from the Alzer Republic in the main story except Lelia dies. No matter how major. And that’s not the end of it.
• Calling the Old Man Out: In the second part, Marie tries to confront her father and family like this for supporting Sky Pirates, starting by planning to punch her father, who’d used her as a bargaining chip, but her bridegroom to be interrupts before she can by taking her hostage.
• The Call Knows Where You Live: Leon and Marie stay out of the game plot as much as possible, focusing on improving their own and each-other's lives. Despite their best efforts, their presence has cascading effects on the world. The fact that they're both nobles, subject to things like Arranged Marriage, and their families being called to war by the Kingdom, can't be avoided.
• Cassandra Truth:
  • Leon's first move against the Offreys is to dump evidence about their crimes anonymously at the Royal Court. The result is them just being suspicious of the sender.
  • Subverted with Hertrauda’s pleading to Hertrude. They’re only pretending to argue, to keep their puppet masters out of the loop.
  • No one believes Angelica when she says something is wrong with The Saintess.
• Cerebus Retcon: Olivia retains her in-game role as the main heroine but she hates it. She only wants to focus on her studies, but the attention she receives from the Love Interests takes up all her time and leads more bullying on top of the prejudice she already faces as a commoner. And as it turns out, many of her questionable decisions in the game were done on purpose by the vengeful Saintess possessing her.
• Chekhov's Gunman: Britt and the other girls threatened by Stephanie come back to serve as key witnesses against her. Besides joining Marie’s coterie of friends.
• The Chew Toy: Leon's elder brother Nicks is made into this as an Ascended Extra, constantly complaining about, and being teased over, his BDSM themed marriage to Dorothea Roseblade.
• Cliffhanger: The sixth part ends in one: Leon going into an inferno to calm a rampaging Angelica alongside the Spirit Advisor version of Anne, while Marie has a bad feeling like those she and Leon felt during horrible events in the past.
• Change the Uncomfortable Subject: Marie demonstrates a mastery of smoothly doing this, with Leon. She might look like a Clingy Jealous Girl otherwise.
• Child Soldiers: Discussed Trope. Leon remembers from his past life education why it's such a bad idea, but ignorance, arrogance, and hunger for status drive many of their classmates to join the volunteer army. They end up being Cannon Fodder.
• Chekhov's Gun: In Volume 10 of the main story, Angelica stumbled a diary on an ancient ship with the name already faded, written on the page is the owner's joy of obtaining the items needed to make someone hers. It foreshadows the eventual appearance of Saintess Mary, the sister of Saintess Anne who happens to be crazily in love with Lea too.
• Civil War: Both Holfort Kingdom and the Principality of Fanoss break into civil war. Holfort breaks into one after Leon rescuing Princess Hertrude lights the kindling The Saintess set up, starting with Julius sending Rutart to destroy Leon's home island, and Leon's allies retaliating. The Principality breaks into war due to the War Hawk faction trying to scapegoat their lost war with the kingdom on the Fanoss Dynasty, selling it as a revolution.
• Cock Fight: Due to Marie dragging various shut-in girls out of their dorm, to help Leon's fellow poor nobles, due to their desirability compared to the typical Rich Bitch Royal Brat girls of the academy. Said young nobles, often get into scuffles and duels over merely getting the chance to talk to these girls. That is because, in their female-dominated society, leaving the Academy without a wife would leave them in dire straits.
• Culture Clash: Holfort’s Martyrdom Culture eventually infuriates Marie past her Rage Breaking Point.
• Curb-Stomp Battle:
  • After Julius arranges for Leon to throw their duel that timeline for Angelica, Julius goes back on his word, leading to Leon doing this after officially losing. Leon crushes Brad's mech using Greg's, stomps Chris' mech to pieces, drags Jilk along the arena wall at high velocity, and gives a terrified Julius a Metronomic Man Mashing.
  • The sixth part has multiple:
    • Ideal's assault on the Alzer Republic was an apocalyptic one-sided massacre.
    • Leon crushing Garrett’s War Hawk faction in the Principality’s Civil War with a Macross Missile Massacre.
    • Rutart's attempt to burn down Leon's father's island into a sea of flame ends up as this, when his task force arranged by Julius, is ambushed by Nicks and Gilbert with their forces.
• Cyanide Pill: Used by Frampton's private soldiers to avoid interrogation, after failing to silence Clarice, and having their guns blasted out of their hands.
• Damsel out of Distress: A Sky Pirate should know better than to leave their eyes off Cute Bruiser Marie in the Light Novel.
• Darker and Edgier: Very much so compared to the main timeline. Doubles as a Bad Future.
• Death by Irony: Marquess Frampton, in the main timeline, conspired with Duke Redgrave’s vassals to pin the planned execution of 1/3 of the academy’s children during the field trip on him, by making sure Angelica was the only survivor. In Marie Route, Frampton’s own vassals conspire against him and cause his death.
• Declaration of Protection: Leon, at the Last Request of Hertrude, swears to protect her little sister Princess Hertrauda, which Marie can’t believe.
• Defied Trope: The Point of Divergence is caused by Leon defying Marie’s attempts at pulling a Hijacked Destiny and Hostile Show Takeover against Olivia. Via A Match Made in Stockholm.
• Demonic Possession: It turns out each of the Holy Relics houses a part of the First Saintess' soul. She can only possess a descendant of her original body, but has been messing with people's minds for centuries, leading to the items being scattered. She fails to possess Marie from the necklace, because of Marie's closed heart. Then, from the bracelet, succeeds in possessing Olivia, who was more open-hearted and had built up resentment against the five princes who wouldn't leave her alone, who happen to be the descendants of the adventurers the Saint wants revenge against. The Saint proceeds to become the Big Bad, manipulating everyone against each-other to destroy the Kingdom.
• Designated Parents: Leon and especially Marie, for their combined group of friends, but especially for the uplifted Arroganz, who Leon worries about teaching the wrong things, and whom Marie teaches and is protective of, outright calling him her child.
• Desolation Shot: In the sixth part, we’re shown the burnt and ravaged remains of the Alzer Republic.
• Determinator: Clarice’s followers, who ignored injuries while fighting due to their Undying Loyalty. Then of course, there’s still The Black Knight.
• Did You Just Flip Off Cthulhu?: Marie to the Vengeful Ghost who tried to possess her, who is a soul fragment of the most powerful magician in the Kingdom’s history. She continues the insults after that unconscious conversation.
• Disproportionate Retribution: The five idiots expelling anyone no matter their level of involvement in Olivia’s bullying, after the Saintess possessed Olivia pushes them to compete with one another for her affection doing this. Being expelled from the nation’s only education institution means their life as nobles is over.
• Dramatic Irony:
  • This happens when the perspective shifts from Leon and Marie to Olivia, which first happens after Leon suspects that she’s been living it up all the while he’s struggling. Olivia’s actual circumstances resemble a horror film.
  • The enthusiasm Julius and his volunteer army have, completely unaware that they’re fighting all for nothing.
• The Dreaded:
  • The Black Knight makes his presence felt here even harsher than in the main story, stabbing Leon in the eye.
  • This also applies to Leon after his Roaring Rampage of Rescue and increased by his dueling accomplishments. Particularly shown during the sixth part’s Mook Horror Show.
• Dynamic Entry: How the Black Knight enters the battlefield, smashing straight through a kingdom airship.
• Embarrassing Nickname: After seeing her envy of Olivia being dubbed The Goddess of Victory by the Propaganda Machine, Leon dubs Marie The Goddess of Material Transport.
• Empire with a Dark Secret: It's revealed that the five adventurers who founded the Kingdom with The Saintess were actually six. The sixth was Lea Bartfort, the Saintess' love, who got betrayed by the other five, and withdrew to a small countryside island. The Saintess left fragments of her soul as Vengeful Ghost inside the Holy Relics, waiting to possess her descendants and take revenge.
• Everybody's Dead, Dave: In the sixth part, of all the Alzer Republic characters, everyone dies except for Lelia.
• Everyone Can See It: The reaction Leon gets from his friends and family to his interactions with Marie. This causes Leon to repeatedly state She Is Not My Girlfriend. Until their Relationship Upgrade.
• Everyone Has Standards: Despite all of their quirky antics, The Shut-In girls Marie befriended all pull Marie down to keep her from going on a rampage through the arena audience when Leon and Arroganz are called ugly.
• Evil Counterpart: The Big Bad is this for Marie in the main story. Both pretend to be The Cutie Olivia while manipulating the capture targets. Marie just wanted wealth and comfort, while Saintess Anne is a Misanthrope Supreme who wants to kill everyone but the target of her Villainous Crush, Leon.
• Evil Laugh: Julius and especially the Saintess do this.
• Evil Power Vacuum: Downplayed. The death of Vandel allows Earl Garrett to seize control of the War Hawk faction within the Principality of Fanoss. Since Garrett doesn't share Vandel's affection for the Princesses, Garrett decides Hertrauda has outlived her usefulness and uses her as a scapegoat, starting a Civil War.
• Exact Words: Leon notes that Angelica's fate after losing her duel with the protagonist's Reverse Harem in the Otome Game, was to be forced to marry an ugly noble from the countryside. In the Marie Route timeline, that nobleman turns out to be none other than Leon himself, who's considered ugly after his face is scarred. He manages to talk it down to just keeping her safe while pretending to be in talks.
• False Flag Operation:
  • Frampton sends a black ops team, using tactics and weapons to disguise themselves as bandits, to make sure Clarice can never prove her innocence.
  • It turns out that in the original Otome Game plot, Marquess Frampton hires a bunch of Sky Pirates and other forces to launch a large number of uprisings across the Kingdom, as an excuse to tie down his own factions forces, leaving Duke Redgrave and Frampton's other political opponents to be crushed by the Principality's attack.
• Famed In-Story: Leon’s fame, while beginning the same before the Point of Divergence, is different here. Due to his public Tranquil Fury, he’s known as a feared and dangerous warlord and Wild Card, as well as leader of his own political faction.
• Fantastically Indifferent: Marie's first reaction to seeing a ghost is to laugh scornfully at, and mock it.
  Marie: "There are things even scarier than ghosts in this world. Reality is far more scary."
• Fixing the Game: A group of three bully girls cheat playing cards against Olivia, having their Exclusive Servants block off her escape and threatening her family, to bankrupt her and drive her out of the Academy. Leon steps in and gives them A Taste of Their Own Medicine.
• Fix Fic:
  • In a way, the Marie Route serves as this for what if Marie didn’t seduce the dateable cast, and what if she knew that her knowledge of the first dating sim was woefully insufficient.
  • One could also say this for how the Fanoss Princesses are handled; Word of God has said he disliked their fate in the main timeline.
• Forced to Watch: The Black Knight brags that he'll force Leon to watch his father die, stabbing Balcus in front of him. Fortunately, Balcus barely holds on but is left in intensive care.
• Founder of the Kingdom: It's revealed that the truth is that there was a sixth adventurer who helped found the Kingdom: Lea Bartfort, the love of The Saintess, who was betrayed by the five, and left to live a quiet life on a remote island. And the original saint remains, as a vengeful spirit, trapped in the holy artifacts, waiting to possess one of her descendants, and begin her revenge.
• Foreshadowing: Leon's duel in the main story turns out to be this in regards to the fates of Greg, Brad, Chris and Jilk.
  • Greg's reason that he choses to use a mass production armor is that he finds Ace Custom mechs too bothersome to maintain and he believed that he can make it up by his skill. He met his death at the hands of Gilbert who happens to be similarly skilled but with a better armor. Gilbert even notes that if Greg had better armor they would have been evenly matched.
  • Chris's Crippling Overspecialization of having no ranged weaponry also caused his end when he faced Nicks who happens to be also a Combat Pragmatist. It doesn't help that he declares himself that he is the sword saint also made Nicks to be wary of him. He was shot to death by the Rosenblade Army since Nicks isn't "stupid enough to face him head-on".
  • Brad's Boisterous Weakling, flair of dramatics and trying to one up his fellow targets gave him undignified death when he tried to secure a passage way for Olivia to escape from, It only earned him mortal wounds as he exposed himself open in the battlefield.
  • Jilk's M.O of being underhanded mirrors his death when betrayed by the Saintess by blasting him inside his Armor when tried to save her, killing him instantly
• Frame-Up: Frampton tricks Clarice' followers into ambushing Julius without Clarice' knowledge, at the behest of The Saintess. Then, Frampton tries to have her and the followers silenced, but Leon saves them with the help of Master, hiding them on his island. Only for them to be discovered by Zola's son Rutart.
• Freudian Slip: Leon has one of these, in his Inner Monologue no less, about giving his brother over to the Roseblades, or as Leon would put it, playing cupid.
• Freak Out: It turns out that the original version of Angelica Throwing Down the Gauntlet was part of one of these.
• Friends Are Chosen, Family Aren't: This is a major part of Marie’s character arc. Since her second-life family are neglectful at best, she carves out a place to belong by helping others and creating a pseudo family to take their place.

Tropes G-P

• Gambit Pileup: The Marie Route turns into this more and more as the parts go on. There is the Saintess, Julius and Jilk going behind The Saintess' back, Marquess Frampton and his faction, the Fanoss Dynasty and their loyalists, the Principality’s War Party, and finally Leon’s close allies.
• Gameplay and Story Integration: One of the more interesting aspects of the Marie Route, is how it sheds light on differences between the game and the main story:
  • Why did the main character of the game, Olivia, need to dungeon crawl? She needs to fund her extra expenditure in the form of Kyle who was forcibly gifted by Julius to her without considering how she will take care of him.
  • Why does Olivia get more powerful as she gets the Holy Relics? The first Saintess takes greater control of her body the more relics she gets.
  • Kyle acts stoic and a bit cold in the game, while in the main story, Leon and Marie were taken aback with his rude and snarky way of talking? He discovered that Olivia was not the same person and was blackmailed into serving her, forcing him to act like that, in contrast to his coming to trust Marie.
  • Why the game is said to be Nintendo Hard while in the main story Leon was able to win battles himself with minimal losses? The units that were deployed in the game were nothing more than young cocky nobles who thought that War Is Glorious and did not consider the consequences of the war itself; they only exist to be Cannon Fodder for Julius.
  • It seems odd why in the original game, Luxion can be used by Olivia despite the former's Fantastic Racism towards the New Humans. The reason Luxion was willing to serve a New Human was because Olivia was possessed by a Vengeful Ghost Misanthrope Supreme Saintess Anne, who shared Luxion’s goal of annihilating the country.
  • In the final battle in the capital, the white ship that was supposed to be used in the capital wasn't activated against the forces of the Bartford and Redgraves. Olivia or rather Saintess Anne didn't develop her relationship values with any of the targets because she was focused on Leon so she didn't even bother to even use it.
  • In the main story, Leon is disgusted with Olivia's manipulative scheming in the dating section that when meeting her personally, he was surprised how sincere she was: He wasn't playing as Olivia; he was playing as the Saintess Anne who sought to avenge her beloved Liia after he was betrayed. Due to Marie stealing Olivia's role, it turned out to be a Life Saving Misfortune for Olivia and the Holfort Kingdom as a whole.
• Gendercide: Downplayed: Julius' volunteer army of Child Soldiers being Cannon Fodder, results in Holfort Academy looking like an all-girls-school except for the boys Leon kept safe, and the princes.
• Gender Rarity Value: A mild type 1 situation occurs balancing out the marriage situation in the Kingdom after most of the male noble students die in Julius’ volunteer army, leaving the girls competing to get men to call out to them, and expecting invitations to Daniel and Raymond’s tea parties despite them already being engaged.
• Gilded Cage:
  • Marie's house arrest in the Offrey Estate.
  • Princess Hertrude is kept in a mansion like this after Duke Redgrave takes her captive, due to being royalty.
• Girl in the Tower: Angelica is imprisoned like this due to doubts about her sanity. Doesn’t hold her for long.
• A Glass of Chianti: The Saintess often holds a glass in her hand during her plotting scenes.
• Glory Seeker: The Beaudon brothers Alan and Allen. The former dies as Cannon Fodder in Julius's volunteer army, and the latter dies as a Leeroy Jenkins at the beginning of the fleet battle against The Principality.
• Glowing Eyes of Doom: Angelica gets these as part of her Freak Out Traumatic Superpower Awakening. It also symbolizes her becoming Not So Different from the Vengeful Ghost that tormented her in the first place, feeling betrayed by everyone around her. Said ghost has them as well.
• Gondor Calls for Aid: Leon petitioning Deirdre for her house's help, due to Luxion's suggestion. They come in handy as allies repeatedly after.
• Go Out with a Smile: Louise, thinking that she’s been reunited with her dead brother and that he kept his promise to protect Alzer.
• Got Volunteered: A lot of the boys in Julius' "Volunteer" Army were bullied into joining by Jilk.
• Grievous Harm with a Body: Leon does this using Arroganz when dueling on behalf of Angelica, after he finishes throwing their official match, defeating Brad by hitting him with Greg as part of a wider Curb-Stomp Battle in revenge for Julius breaking their agreement.
• Grew a Spine: Thanks to Leon and Marie's help, the poor male nobles stop being afraid of the noble girls, in part because the two's actions gained many of them fiancees.
• Has a Type: Marie not fitting Leon’s type is a recurring element. While Leon develops past caring too much what his partner looks like, his continued attraction to Olivia furthers Marie’s Appearance Angst and causes some arguments.
• Heads or Tails?: The Light Novel adds a scene of Leon deciding whether or not to interrupt Marie’s seduction by flipping a coin. This suggests that in the main timeline, the coin landed differently.
• He Knows Too Much:
  • The Sky Pirates captured in the first volume are disposed of via fake suicide by Frampton, so they couldn't testify.
  • Frampton's attempts to silence Clarice.
• Hen Pecked Husband: Leon's brother Nicks' relationship with Dorothea Roseblade. Since her character is very overtly into BDSM, there is clearly more going on behind closed doors.
• Heroic Resolve: The thought of The Black Knight killing Marie by sinking Partner, helps Leon’s resolve in killing him.
• Hero-Worshipper: Leon’s poor noble allies reaction to Marie’s aid, which includes prostrating to her and calling her a goddess in the Light Novels. Angelica also has a great deal of respect for Leon's accomplishments (as she did in the main timeline.)
• History Repeats: Leon collecting a Ragtag Bunch of Misfits alliance is just like what his ancestor Lea did to found the Kingdom. Both were helped by a girl of the same lineage (Anne and Marie), with White Magic, who they bickered with.
• Holding Hands: It’s a repeated occurrence for Leon and Marie to do this after their arguments.
• Honest Advisor:
  • Like in the main story, despite her abrasiveness, Jenna provides pivotal advice to Leon. This time, about the obstacles to Leon marrying Marie.
  • Master gets upgraded to being Leon’s full political advisor in this timeline, helping Leon manage his faction. Of course, due to Master being styled like a Quintessential British Gentleman, he’s polite in his forthright advice.
• Hope Spot: Leon Throwing the Fight in his duel for Angelica, only to mop the floor with the princes 1 on 5, serves to crush the last remaining hope in Angelica, after her hopes were raised just before he revealed the sham.
• Humanoid Abomination: During Marie’s Battle in the Center of the Mind, her hair turns into tentacles and her eyes shine. Even despite all of that, she still summons a representation of Leon, to handle the intruder. Some things never change.
• Hypercompetent Sidekick: The feared and BDSM themed House Roseblade, are this for the protagonists.
• Identical Stranger: It's revealed that Angelica is this for the first saintess, Anne. As well as, more logically, Leon is this for said saintess' love, Liia Bartfort. In both cases, they're described as similar personalities more so than in appearance.
• I Didn't Mean to Turn You On: Nick’s Insult Backfire against Dorothea Roseblade, which makes her fall for him.
• Impossibly Tacky Clothes:
  • Luxion’s suggestion for what Marie should wear in the second part.
  • Jilk’s copy of The Masked Knight’s mask. Julius thinks it’s cool, probably because his dad designed it, him being the original Masked Knight.
• Informed Attribute: Dorothea Roseblade is called cold and sadistic by Leon, in what may be a bit of Unreliable Narrator. In contrast, later Dorothea is shown crying and sympathetic, when hearing about Marie's rough childhood.
• In Love with Your Carnage: The Saintess possessed Olivia cannot contain her joy when Leon stops Throwing the Fight in his duel with the five princes for Angie, and gives them a Curb-Stomp Battle, due to Julius breaking his word.
• Instantly Proven Wrong:
  • Leon thinking that the Roseblade sisters are angry from Nicks aggressiveness, is proven to actually be arousal.
  • Leon saying nobody would launch a family feud over the Bartfort estate to Clarice, right before Zola and Rutart show up to do just that.
• Insult Backfire:
  • A girl bullying Olivia calls Leon an upstart, but he makes it into an Appropriated Appellation.
  • Nicks tries to foil his marriage interview with Dorothea Roseblade and her sister, by insulting her enough to make her cancel it. Unfortunately for Nicks, both sisters greatly enjoy this.
• Intangibility: Ghosts can freely fly through walls, which only makes Leon more uncomfortable.
• Internal Deconstruction: The Marie Route deconstructs the series’ take on Lady Land, in showing that many of the noble boys in the kingdom are just as bad a Royal Brat as the girls, introducing several as minor antagonists, while introducing several decent noble girls such as Yulia as Marie’s friends.
• Internal Homage: The scene where Leon and Marie escape the party, is a homage to the main series’ elven ruins scene where Marie also injured her foot in the dark. The scene also has echoes in the form of their romantic scenes involving night or the dark.
• Interrupted Suicide: Olivia tries to strangle herself to end her suffering from Demonic Possession, but fails to keep control long enough.
• In the Blood: Noted for certain characters who share personalities with their ancestors:
  • Leon, being Identical Grandson to his ancestor Liia Bartfort, has almost the same personality. His interactions with Marie, remind Anne's Vengeful Ghost of her own arguments with Liia, and Marie is Anne's descendant.
  • Angelica has similar appearance and personality to Anne, and she’s descended from Anne’s sister.
• Item Get!: Marie reacts like this when looting The Principality’s second monster summoning flute.
• It's All About Me: The five capture targets pushing themselves onto Olivia, and being more interested in the affection they can get from her, rather than her own wellbeing, makes them each an example. But Julius and Jilk take the cake. Jilk with his treatment of Clarice and stated willingness to throw Julius under the bus to have Olivia for himself, and Julius with his not caring about anyone else whatsoever.
• Lampshade Hanging:
  • Leon and Marie being unable to remember enough details about their past life to confirm the other was their sibling is lampshaded as "seeming somehow deliberate".
  • During the Wedding Smashers scene, events are explicitly compared to a TV drama.
  • The Light Novel adds the scene of Marie making Leon play the Otome Game, which lampshades all the ways the world is atypical of such games.
• Large-Ham Announcer: One is employed for this timeline's version of Angelica's duel event.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall: Leon’s suggestion to make Marie the Team Mascot, and sell merchandise of her. Marie is the character who ships the most tie-in merchandise.
• Leeroy Jenkins: Allen Beaudon does this, by breaking formation and charging the Principality fleet, dying a senseless death in front of everyone. The main impact of this, besides lowering Kingdom morale, seems to be to undermine Duke Redgrave's authority, and reputation, as he was the commander of the fleet.
• Like a Son to Me: Marie sees the uplifted Arroganz like her child, him being The Baby of the Bunch, and her the Team Mom. This leads to Marie causing embarrassment cheering for him in front of the whole academy during a duel. Marie had to give up her daughter to her parents custody in her past-life.
• Like Father, Unlike Son: Arroganz’ A.I. is Literal-Minded, honorable, and reckless, unlike his creator Luxion, who’s a Servile Snarker, Robotic Psychopath, and overprotective of his creations.
• Lock-and-Load Montage: Arroganz gets one preparing for an Airstrike Impossible that Leon marvels at as Technology Porn, while Marie is less impressed by what’s happening to her good child.
• Lonely at the Top: Stephanie is secretly jealous of Marie having so many friends, since the rutheless way she became a noble left her with no friends.
• Love Ruins the Realm: To a much greater extent than it did in the main story, with the dateable cast. The key differences being, the cast aren't disinherited, so have their full political power, and the woman they love being possessed by a Misanthrope Supreme Agent Provocateur manipulating them to make the kingdom destroy itself.
• Loving Bully: Leon shows shades of this with his teasing of Marie.
• Low Culture, High Tech: The Marie Route goes into more depth with the clash between feudal values and high lethality of war in the setting, with Holfort Kingdom’s Martyrdom Culture, and the prevalence of a War Is Glorious mindset among the nobility. The governing system also makes the Kingdom uniquely vulnerable to the Big Bad’s manipulations.
• Magic Pants: Averted in the sixth part. When Angelica goes on a super powered Roaring Rampage of Revenge covered in flame, all of her clothing burns off.
• Mass "Oh, Crap!": The Dreaded Black Knight appearing, causes Kingdom airships to crash into one another trying to get away from him.
• Martyrdom Culture: This kind of sentiment is one of the biggest differences in values between Holfort Kingdom and reincarnators. Many girls in the Academy happily celebrate While Rome Burns unconcerned about all the dead and wounded from the ongoing war, eventually crossing Marie's Rage Breaking Point.
• A Match Made in Stockholm: This is the form of Leon and Marie’s Meet Cute. Leon only kidnaps her long enough to stop Marie from stealing Olivia’s event, before comforting her and buying her dinner.
• The Matchmaker: Marie’s handling of The Shut-In girls from the Academy is a large-scale example. At least she gets paid for it (she only charges a token fee, when she could get away with charging an arm and a leg due to the boys desperation). She has to put in a lot of work dealing with these girls quirks.
• In Medias Res: Part 2/Volume 2 starts with the first part of the wedding scene before building up to it. The manga adaptation previews it at the very beginning.
• The Medic: This version of Marie seems on her way to becoming a doctor, skipping classes to heal kids wounded in war, and getting covered in blood helping refugees. Despite this, she still keeps all of her traits that separate her from healer stereotypes.
• Metronomic Man Mashing: Leon does this using Arroganz, to a terrified Julius, after Julius dishonored their arrangement for Leon to throw their duel.
• Misfit Mobilization Moment: Leon gathers all the poor nobles who Marie has been helping find wives, the eccentric House Roseblade (at the cost of wedding off Nicks), and other allies. The goal being, to stop Marie from being sold off, conquering involved Houses Lafan and Offrey in the process, crashing Marie's wedding. This confrontation is what cements Leon's political faction, which later forms most of his personal Volunteer Army.
• Mook Horror Show: In the sixth part, Leon defeating Earl Garrett and the Principality’s War Hawk faction on behalf of Hertrauda, is presented like this.
• More Dakka: The uplifted Arroganz equips himself with several chainguns to fight The Swarm of monsters, and sheds them as he runs low on ammo. Handling so many guns at once pushed his processing power to its limit.
• Murder by Suicide: The Saintess forces Princess Hertrude to drink poison in order to continue the war between Holfort and the Principality. Leon arrives too late, and the poison was magic so Luxion can’t cure it.
• Murder the Hypotenuse: Justified Trope. After Leon publicly beats the princes in a Curb-Stomp Battle dueling them for Angie, Leon was discovered to have embraced Olivia, who hushed it up, and they think that Leon is harboring someone who attacked them and Olivia. Thus, Julius and Jilk decide to murder Leon and crush his Household.
• My Significance Sense Is Tingling: Usually called a "bad premonition". Experienced by Leon and Marie several times when something is going on with Olivia.
• Mysterious Protector: The Masked Knight played this role, in a game scene that’s shown in the third part. The saintess worries that he’s a Wild Card. Of course, he’s just King Roland, and Julius has to save his dad’s bacon from being arrested.
• Named In The Adaptation: Stephanie Offrey’s brother Ricky, as well as the girls Marie herds around, get named in the Light Novels.
• Neck Lift: Daniel does this to Raymond, after hearing about Raymond's success courting a noble girl, Daniel being the last of the three friends still single. Daniel later gets engaged too.
• Nobility Marries Money: Played for Drama. Between Marie's gambling addicted Impoverished Patrician family who want to erase their debts, and the Offrey House, who are rich merchants who usurped their titles, and are in desperate need of noble blood to help their legitimacy. Marie being forced into it, gives her a Heroic BSoD, then launching Leon into a Tranquil Fury, and Misfit Mobilization Moment to conquer both Houses, crashing the wedding.
• Not What It Looks Like: When Leon visits Olivia's house, Olivia snaps out of her Demonic Possession to grab him and beg him to free her from it, only to collapse in Leon's arms just as the guards show up. The Saintess possessing Olivia tries to hush it up, making it look even worse, and contributing to Leon earning a death sentence from Jilk and Julius.
• Official Couple: As the route’s name indicates, it's Leon and Marie.
• Offscreen Moment of Awesome: A lot of these happen, due to the route’s tighter focus and faster pacing than the main story. For instance, Leon rallying his fellow poor nobles behind him to save Marie, or Duke Redgrave capturing Princess Hertrude.
• Off with His Head!:
  • Leon mentions in the fourth part, that there are some Holfort nobles who collect heads, comparing them to ancient samurai.
  • Julius beheading Marquess Frampton at The Saintess’ order, for trying to pull a You Have Outlived Your Usefullness on her.
• Oh, Crap!: Leon, when the Black Knight tears through Partner's Deflector Shield.
  Leon: Official cheats are the worst, aren't they?
• Old Soldier: The Bartfort Knights are a bunch of Mildly Military retirees, but make a good accounting of themselves. Leon’s poor noble allies offer some of these as well.
• One-Hit Polykill: The chaingun Arroganz uses kills multiple monsters from The Swarm per hit, but since there are tens of thousands of them, Arroganz decides he needs More Dakka via more chainguns.
• Paper Destruction of Anger: The Saintess likes doing this. Kyle always has to pick it up and sort it.
• Passing the Torch: Leon’s father Balcus abdicates, and makes Leon dynastic head of the Bartfort Household.
• Passive-Aggressive Kombat: After this is mostly one-way from Leon against Nicks, as part of their Sibling Rivalry, the message Nicks has Deirdre give Leon shows that Nicks can hit back just the same. On Leon's part, he's even passive-aggressive in his Inner Monologue.
• Peer-Pressured Bully: Jilk instigates this on a large scale, to force students into Julius' Volunteer Army. It ends up driving Leon to create his own, for his faction of poor nobles to escape both the bullying and the battlefield, by doing logistics missions.
• Pimped-Out Car: The Beaudon brothers Alan and Allen have a luxury cruise airship equivalent to this they think can handle anything. Jilk turns down their offer to make it Julius’ flagship, and it’s blown to smithereens when Allen goes Leeroy Jenkins using it.
• Playing Both Sides:
  • We see that in the game's original plot, Frampton, with the aid of The Saintess possessed Olivia, was to put all of his political rivals, mainly Duke Redgrave and other supporters of Julius' succession, into one fleet with the most incompetent ships, and have them massacred by the Principality. Despite Leon and Marie twice foiling this, by stealing the Summon Magic flutes, and by singlehandedly turning the battle around with Partner and Arroganz, the plotters still manage to weaken Duke Redgrave and get him incapacitated, allowing the annulment of Julius' engagement to Angie.
  • An example that's technically playing three sides, is The Saintess possessing Olivia. She tricks Julius and the other princes into conflict against Julius' allies to weaken them, cooperates with Julius' rival Frampton, and through him, the Principality. All in the hopes of destroying the Holfort Kingdom in revenge for the betrayal of her love by the five's ancestors.
• Point of Divergence. The Marie Route is built on this. Leon choosing to watch the first game event, stops Marie's seduction of the cast. But it also leads to new problems that make this story truly Darker and Edgier than the original.
  • The Marie Route shows another part of the game's story that was prevented by Marie and Leon's actions in the main timeline: The Redgraves would lead a group of the Kingdom's forces against the Principality, only to suffer a major loss. However, in the Marie Route, Leon gets involved because his father and brother were among the nobles called up to assist the Redgraves, resulting in the battle being a hard earned victory for the Kingdom.
  • Marie and Leon's non-interference with the plot not only brought tragedy to the Holfort Kingdom but also brought disaster on the Alzer Republic. As it turns out their interference with the plot of the second game is also beneficial as Lelia's and Ideal's schemes brought destruction on the place and killed every main cast of the Alzer Republic except for Lelia herself.
• The Power of Hate: A running theme, the other side of the coin to The Power of Love.
  • This is what we’re often reminded sustains The Big Bad.
  • The Black Knight mentions it’s what makes him so powerful, stemming from his Family Extermination.
  • Angelica’s Traumatic Superpower Awakening is fueled by it.
• Pre-Mortem One-Liner: In Marie Route 4, Leon gives one to the Black Knight, that's an almost verbatim Shout-Out to Avengers: Infinity War.
• Pretender Diss: Echoing Marie’s original instances of it in the main timeline version of the duel, The Saintess does this for Leon, for resembling someone she knows from the distant past, instead of from a past-life, before she's later impressed by him.
• Promoted to Love Interest: Marie, which technically makes her an unusual Little Sister Heroine.
• Propaganda Machine: The news articles Leon reads in the fourth part, tell huge lies about how well the war is going.
• Property of Love: It’s a Running Gag that Leon forced his brother Nicks into an Arranged Marriage with Deirdre’s dominatrix-like older sister Dorothea. She insists on both of them putting on Slave Collar instead of rings at their wedding, says chilling wedding vows invoking this, and is into bondage play. The humor comes from Nick’s bickering with Leon over it, and being a Hen Pecked Husband.
• Protagonist-Centered Morality: Since here, Marie doesn't interfere with Olivia's romances, Olivia is still a genuinely kind girl, and only ends up with the capture targets against her will due to a mixture of bad luck, coercion by their superior status, and Demonic Possession by the Saintess.
• Public Execution: In the sixth part, Julius publicly executes Marquess Frampton on the Saintess’ order, thanks to her exposing his treason after he double-crosses her. Julius chops off Frampton’s head with his sword before giving an Evil Laugh. The audience celebrates except for Master.

Tropes R-Z

• Rage Breaking Point: Seeing many girls of the Academy happily celebrating While Rome Burns in the middle of a bloody war infuriates Marie. This builds up until a girl telling Yulia she should be happy her lover died, and calling Leon ugly, makes Marie snap into an Unstoppable Rage.
• Ragtag Bunch of Misfits: Leon collects a very strange group of allies. It starts off with Marie, most of the poor noblemen, Marie's collection of dysfunctional shut-in girls, and the Bunny-Ears Lawyer House Roseblade. It then expands to a fugitive Clarice and her Badass Biker followers, a ghost of a long-dead saintess, and a disgraced and bent-on-revenge Angelica.
• Rashomon Plot: Both characters being an Unreliable Narrator is what causes Leon and Marie to believe that they weren't past-life brother and sister, despite the fact that they actually were. This results in them each unknowingly badmouthing themselves.
• Really Royalty Reveal: It's revealed that the leader of the party who famously founded the Kingdom, was Leon's ancestor Liia, before he was betrayed and his accomplishments covered up, making the Holfort Dynasty usurpers.
• Red Baron: The Saintess becomes known in Kingdom propaganda as The Goddess of Victory. We also hear that another of The Black Knight’s monikers is The Tyrant of the Battlefield.
• Red Shirt Army: Julius' 'Volunteer Army'.
• Relationship Upgrade: Leon proposing after violently crashing Marie’s forced Arranged Marriage ceremony.
• Roaring Rampage of Rescue: Leon uses every connection, skill, and weapon in his arsenal to save Marie from being sold off against her will to Offrey House by her greedy family, conquering both houses, and crashing Marie's wedding in the process.
• Role Swap AU: Although it's a bit of an oversimplification, the route swaps the roles of Olivia and Marie, and builds on that.
• Royal Brat: The Marie Route shows that there are plenty of boys in Holfort Kingdom to match the brat girls of the main story, most notably, Ricky Offrey, Zola's son Rutart, and the Beaudon brothers Alan and Allen.
• Running Gag:
  • Marie being a Big Eater, which is a bit unladylike.
  • The Hypocritical Humor of Leon and Marie both unknowingly insulting their past life selves, due to the "Rashomon"-Style nature of how they stay in the dark regarding their past-lives as siblings.
  • Leon’s sarcasm and selfishness toward Nicks, after forcing him into an Arranged Marriage with Dorothea, and pushing fame and hassle onto him.
• Safe Under Blankets: After Leon sees a ghost, his Inner Monologue says he wants to go home and do this, and then Marie teases him with the idea.
• Scenery Dissonance: Leon being told devastating news by Marie while audiences are cheering for the air bike race. Soon after, people saying tearful goodbyes, contrasted by Leon being Jerkass.
• Self-Serving Memory: Why Leon and Marie never realize they were brother and sister, rationalizing that they couldn't possibly be that mean older/younger sibling in each other's backstories.
• Sequence Breaking: Invoked Trope. Instead of waiting for the otome game's Final Boss to appear, and deal with it how it was there, Leon and Marie decide to just steal the Ancient Artifact that summons it. That hardly makes things a cakewalk, however.
• Set Right What Once Went Wrong: Subverted. The beginning scene is presented as this. But what’s really going on is Disaster Dominoes.
• Shared Family Quirks: The Roseblade sisters both being masochistic.
• Shoot the Hostage Taker: Luxion using a laser on the bridegroom’s arm at Marie’s forced wedding, after he took her hostage to save himself from Leon, resulting in him whimpering pathetically after she runs into Leon’s arms.
• Shout-Out: The fourth part references Avengers: Infinity War:
  Leon: You should have gone for the cockpit!
• The Shut-In: Marie finds a number of women like this, to drag out of their dorms and take care of, in exchange for cash or sweets from Leon's fellow poor noblemen. Having quirks like reading all day, laziness, social phobia, and obsession with hobbies, actually make these girls extremely desirable compared to the Rich Bitch and Royal Brat types of women common in the academy. Multiple duels ensue.
• Sibling Rivalry:
  • The Offrey siblings hate each other, in part due to having different mothers. And being equally unpleasant.
  • There is a three-way one of these, within the Bartfort family. First, Nicks holds a grudge against his teasing younger brother Leon, for setting up his Arranged Marriage, mostly Played for Laughs. Nicks partly forgives Leon, after learning about what Marie's parents, who that the marriage alliance was formed to crush, put her through. The second rivalry, is between both Leon and Nicks on one side, and their older half-brother via Zola, Rutart, over who should control Nicks' territory. Nicks planned to end the rivalry with some Unfriendly Fire on the battlefield, but Rutart didn't show up. Then Rutart tries to take advantage of Balcus being severely injured to take over control of the Household, only to be stopped by Roseblade House, thanks to Nicks' marriage. It ends with Rutart gaining backing from Julius to raze Balcus' floating island, and Rutart’s task force being ambushed and killed by Nicks, with the help of Gilbert Redgrave.
• Sins of Our Fathers: It turns out, the First Saintess, who's soul dwelt inside the Holy Relics until it could possess her descendant, wants to destroy the Holfort Kingdom and the descendants of its founders, the five dateable cast. This is revenge for their adventurer anscestors betraying The Saintess' unrequited love, Liia, who was the sixth adventurer.
• Sixth Ranger Traitor: Inverted Trope with Liia Bartfort, the unknown sixth adventurer and founder of Holfort Kingdom until he was betrayed and exiled by the other five.
• Slave Collar: Mundane collars are used by Nicks and the BDSM themed Dothea Roseblade, in place of rings for their private wedding, before a more traditional one.
• Spirit Advisor: The part of Saintess Anne's soul trapped within the Saintess' Necklace, after failing to possess Marie and recognizing Leon as a surprisingly similar descendant of her lost love, becomes this, playing a similar role to Luxion who is away.
• Starter Villain: Especially in the Light Novels, Stephanie Offrey serves as the antagonist, until the introduction of the Big Bad.
• Start My Own:
  • Here, instead of Leon piggybacking on Duke Redgrave like in the main story, Leon and Marie assemble their own political faction from scratch, with most of the poor noblemen, the shut-in marriage candidates Marie finds for them, and House Roseblade as a base.
  • In another case, when the Kingdom goes to war, and Prince Julius starts a volunteer army, Jilk creates a campaign of harassment to force people to join. Not wanting to interfere directly with the Otome plot by joining, and to keep their friends safe from both the harassment and the battlefield, Leon and Marie decide to make their own volunteer army and have it do logistics missions. This results in the boys of Leon's faction making up most of the surviving boys in the Academy, due to Julius' army being Cannon Fodder.
• Straight for the Commander:
  • Leon's strategy when facing Sky Pirates at the Offrey border, is to have the Bartfort forces under Nicks serve as The Bait, for Leon to launch a decapitation strike at the Sky Pirate leader.
  • Duke Redgrave’s strategy during the Big Badass Battle Sequence against the invading Principality fleet, had him boarding Princess Hertrude’s flagship in an Offscreen Moment of Awesome.
• Strictly Formula: Some of the changes to Marie Route Part 1 for the Light Novel adaptation go in this direction, inserting a Roaring Rampage of Rescue scene to fit the formula of the main books, though if you read the original parts 1 and 2 together, it would have fit that template anyway.
• Stronger Than They Look: According to Luxion, despite her appearance, Marie’s bones and muscles are denser than average for a human.
• Succession Crisis: House Bartfort goes through one, when Balcus is critically injured, and Zola and her son Rutart march in, only to be kicked out by the Roseblades.
• Super Powerful Genetics: Multiple characters seem to have super powers carried in the blood here, compared to originally just Olivia.
  • Marie having it makes quite a lot of sense, considering she shares a power set with Olivia.
  • Angelica being descended from Anne’s sister, and thus having access to a similar amount of power.
• Surprisingly Realistic Outcome:
  • Gather a group of inexperienced students and send them off to war under the promise that they'll gain accolades and be remembered fondly? Don't be surprised when the majority end up dead.
  • Receiving a servant that was given to you in a whim and not considering your finances? You will need to work harder for both of your upkeep as you need to provide for another mouth to feed. Olivia was forced to dive in the dungeons even though it would affect her studies as she doesn't have any money to provide for Kyle with her allowance alone. In the main story, Marie solved this issue by having Julius and Jilk provide the costs for him too.
  • Due to Greg's distate of Ace Custom mechs and his preference on using only mass-production due to practicality, this bit him in the most critical time when Gilbert and the Redgraves routed them. Since his armor is mediocre, it's performance immediately dragged down its pilot causing him to be defeated by a similarly skilled but better equipped Gilbert who also mocked him for having a Weak, but Skilled mindset.
  • Having a fancy title maybe a good reputation but it also advertises their strength's, Chris was shot to death by ranged weapons of the Rosenblade family lead by Nicks. Since Nicks is also a Combat Pragmatist, the first thing he did was to order his troops to fire at Chris who kept saying he is the "Sword Saint".
• A Taste of Their Own Medicine: Three bully girls cheat Olivia at gambling into owing more than she could possibly pay, using threats to her family to keep her from running away. Leon does the same back. This actually backfires spectacularly, as the girls react like a Cornered Rattlesnake, and try to kill Olivia.
• Team Mascot: While mocking her envy of Olivia, Leon suggests making Marie into this, and selling merchandise of her. Marie is not amused.
• Tears of Fear: Three girls bullying Olivia get these when Leon gives them A Taste of Their Own Medicine.
• And There Was Much Rejoicing:
  • This is the reaction of the Kingdom's troops, when Leon kills the Black Knight during the fleet battle with the Principality.
  • Frampton's execution by Julius after The Saintess exposes him for betraying her.
• Tender Tears: Nicks, Dorothea and their servants after listening to Marie's backstory.
• Throw-Away Guns: Arroganz, after being uplifted into an A.I., likes to apply and shed modular armor and weapons components from his form. This differs a lot from how Luxion would manage the Arroganz, as Luxion is over-protective of his creations.
• Throwing the Fight: Leon goes to the princes to offer to throw the fight before signing up to be Angelica’s champion in this timeline’s version of the duel event. After Leon does so, Julius double-crosses and insults Leon and Angie, which puts Leon into a Tranquil Fury, challenging the five to an unofficial match, and crushing them each much more excessively than in the main timeline.
• Tired of Running: Specifically, Leon gets tired of running from the spotlight, declaring to Marie that he's done letting problems fester by doing that any longer.
• Took a Level in Jerkass: The five dateable cast, who are at each-other’s throats, contrasting with their behavior in the main story. Julius has turned into an outright Yandere for Olivia.
• Trademark Favorite Food: Marie really loves steak and sweets.
• Trauma Button: In the Light Novel, Marie becomes a Deer in the Headlights when seeing one of the Sky Pirates resembles the ex-boyfriend who killed her.
• True Beauty Is on the Inside: A moral discussed. Marie realizes that despite at first liking them for their good looks, the five capture target's personalities aren't to her liking, with Leon having similar feelings about Dorothea Roseblade.
• True Companions:
  • Averted with the dateable cast in this timeline. Without a common threat to unite against, they come close to fighting each other over Olivia.
  • Leon’s faction of poor nobles and the matches Marie finds for them bond like this, with an element of Fire-Forged Friends. Along with Leon and the uplifted Arroganz, this makes Marie the Team Mom of a Family of Choice in her second life.
• Unfinished Business: Noelle’s ghost stays around to see the corrupted Sacred Tree destroyed, and pass on a message to her sister to live on without her.
• Unknown Rival: Marie is this for Olivia, in multiple ways, resenting Olivia’s success, as well as the attention that Leon sometimes pays to her.
• Unstoppable Rage:
  • Leon goes into one, after seeing the Black Knight stab his father, and taunt him about it. Leon kills the Black Knight with the help of Nicks' distraction.
  • A noble girl telling Yulia that she should be happy her lover died, and calling Leon ugly, drives Marie berserk.
• Unwanted Harem: Olivia just wants to study, but due to the five dateable cast being high nobles and her a commoner, she can't refuse their constant date requests, and she starts to resent them.
• Unwitting Pawn: Who isn’t one? For The Saintess' Vengeful Ghost possessing Olivia.
  • The dateable cast are being manipulated into angering as many nobles as possible, as well as getting as many noble children as possible killed, to weaken the ruling dynasty and make sure there’s a large Civil War.
  • Big Bad Wannabe Frampton is used as a proxy for the manipulation of other parties but ultimately a disposable pawn.
  • Everybody on the Kingdom’s side of the Big Badass Battle Sequence against the Principality was a pawn meant to be thrown away to make Frampton’s faction stronger as an Uriah Gambit.
  • The Principality of Fanoss as a whole is being manipulated into war to see both it and the Kingdom’s armies slaughtered to make it easier to destroy both nations. They’re further manipulated to keep them at war after losing.
  • Julius and Jilk plot behind The Saintess’ back to get rid of Leon out of jealousy, but she can see right through them and their plans just drive the Kingdom closer to Civil War as she wants.
  • Rutart’s attempt at annihilating the Bartfort Household was devised by Jilk to make Rutart a martyr, to help rally against Leon politically.
• Uriah Gambit: It turns out that originally in the game, Marquess Frampton's Evil Plan, was to put Duke Redgrave and other political opponents into the Kingdom's defense fleet to go up against foreign invasion, while his own forces are fighting a False Flag Attack organized by himself. Despite Leon and Marie stealing the Final Boss summoning flutes, Leon killing the Black Knight, and Partner turning the tide of the fleet battle, Duke Redgrave is severely injured, and Frampton's influences increases.
• Wall Pin of Love: Leon uses a double-pin when stopping Marie’s attempt at stealing Olivia’s introduction event with Julius.
• War Hawk:
  • In this timeline, the two Princesses of Fanoss are exposed to The Conspiracy within the Principality, and take counter-measures.
  • The overall attitude of the Royal Academy becomes like this when war breaks out, spearheaded by the five idiots.
• War Is Hell: The Kingdom is filled with characters with a War Is Glorious mindset, and that has graphic consequences.
• War Refugees: Leon ends up taking a number of these home to his territory, after rescuing them. Marie gets covered in blood healing the ones she can. They’re led by a middle aged Knight named Oliver.
• Weakness Turns Her On: Leon’s phobia of ghosts seems to get this reaction, from Marie and Anne’s spirit from the Holy Necklace.
• Wedding Smashers: After Marie is sold off to House Offrey against her will to get her family out of gambling debts, Leon breaks into the temple and puts a stop to it, conquering both Households while he's at it. The groom tries to take Marie hostage to save himself, but Luxion snipes him non-lethally.
• Wham Episode:
  • The sixth part of Marie Route can only be described as this, with its several deaths and allegiance shifts.
  • The eighth part tops it, as several named characters get killed and a twist is thrown in at the end.
• Wham Line: In the sixth part:
  Leon:"That was Master’s second request. To join hands with the Principality."
• What the Hell Are You?: Leon’s reaction to The Black Knight’s incredible power.
• While Rome Burns: Seeing many girls at Royal Academy happy and excited about an upcoming party while the Kingdom is in the middle of a bloody war drives Marie to the edge of her Rage Breaking Point. Then, a girl tells Marie’s grieving friend to Quit Your Whining, explains The Social Darwinist philosophy she uses to pick lovers, and calls Leon ugly, snapping Marie into an Unstoppable Rage, followed by Marie deciding to skip classes to volunteer at hospitals.
• Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: Leon has a phobia of ghosts that he epically fails to hide.
• Wild Card:
  • This is how Leon is seen after his Roaring Rampage of Rescue, as directly stated by Julius.
  • The Saintess worries about The Masked Knight being this.
• Wolf in Sheep's Clothing: It turns out, Leon's impression of Olivia was entirely accurate, based on the fact that she'd been possessed by the First Saintess living in the Holy Artifacts, early in the game's timeline, manipulating the five with the goal of weakening and destroying the Kingdom for revenge.
• Written by the Winners: At the Kingdom of Holdfort's founding, Liia Bartfort, after being betrayed by the ancestors of the five dateable cast. He escaped to a rural island to live a simple life, while his Love Interest, The Saintess, swore revenge on his behalf, living on as grudge spirit, inside the Holy Relics.
• Xanatos Speed Chess: The Woman Behind the Man creates and survives a Gambit Pileup despite being a target of plots herself. When Marquess Frampton double-crosses The Saintess to make peace with the Principality of Fanoss, she was prepared to have him killed for treason, and ensured war would continue by killing the captive Princess Hertrude. As well, Julius and Jilk going behind her back just plays into her earlier plans as an Agent Provocateur to start a Civil War.
• Yandere: In the main story, the prevalence of Polygamy seemed to act as an antidote towards this kind of obsession in the kingdom. Not so in Marie Route. There gradually develops a chain of Yandere: Angelica for Julius, Julius for Olivia, and The Saintess (possessing Olivia) for Leon. The Saintess is perhaps the best example in the franchise, and it was her being this in the game that caused Leon to suspect Olivia in the main story.
• You Are Too Late:
  • Leon and Marie only arriving in Alzer after it’s been annihilated.
  • Leon rescuing Hertrude from her execution by The Saintess only happens after she’s been forced to take poison.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness:
  • Light Novel Stephanie Offrey orders her Sky Pirate allies to murder the three girls she orders to harass Marie, partly in revenge for badmouthing her, partly as The Scapegoat, partly because They Know Too Much.
  • The Saintess executing Frampton.
• You Kill It, You Bought It: The Dreaded Black Knight, swore to protect the two Fanoss princesses, before Leon killed him. Leon himself, ends up swearing to one of the princesses to protect the other, and while being known by his own Red Baron title (The Masked Knight), he perpetrates a Mook Horror Show on Principality rebels reflecting the Mass "Oh, Crap!" moment the Black Knight gave to Kingdom forces.
• And Your Little Dog, Too!:
  • In the second part, three bully noble girls make sure that Olivia stays and continues to get cheated at cards after she has nothing left to wager, by threatening her hometown. This blows up in their faces, when Leon intervenes, and cheats them into owing more than they can pay, and threatens their noble Households, driving them to tears.
  • In the fourth part, when the Black Knight Vandel encounters Leon's father Balcus on the deck of Partner during the Principality's fleet battle, he gladly tells Balcus that he'll make him watch both of his sons die, crippling his mech before attacking them. After that, Vandel stabs Balcus, and asks Leon how it feels to watch his father die. This drives Leon into an Unstoppable Rage, killing Vandel with the help of Nicks, while Balcus barely survives.
• You Said You Would Let Them Go: Julius said he would let the Redgrave household go if Leon threw the fight in their duel, before going back on his word after Leon does so. Cue Tranquil Fury one-on-five Curb-Stomp Battle.

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