Jeralt's death, particularly due to a slight alternation in how it happens - rather than being taken out by a cheap shot via Kronya, he instead shields Byleth and an injured Atra from Thales's dark magic, protecting his daughter to his last breath. Later that day, Byleth completely breaks down and has to be sedated by Manuela. One by one students from all three classes that she's befriended since arriving come into her room with mattresses and blankets to join her in her mourning. Leonie in particular climbs onto the bed with her and curls up next to her, sharing the pain of Jeralt's loss rather than lashing out at her as in her canon B support.
Atra's side story in Knights of Fódlan. Kronya is revealed to have once been a playful child and a caring sister to Atra, only for their mother's arrest and Thales's indoctrination of her upon entrance into the army to twist her into the Ax-Crazy murderer we meet in game canon. At the end, Atra breaks down crying in Yuri's arms because despite the terrible things she did as an Agarthan assassin, Kronya is still her sister and her death causes her great pain.
Dimitri's reaction to being told the whole truth about the Tragedy of Duscur by Atra. He breaks down, scars her with a thrown dagger, then flees into the chapel where Sothis follows him. Teetering on the edge of a mental breakdown, Dimitri ashamedly says that he failed his father by not killing Atra; to which Sothis gently comforts him and hugs him as he collapses into incoherent sobbing.
Lian/Indech's retelling of what happened before and after the Cataclysm. He comes close to breaking down multiple times, especially when mentioning his mother's death and the brutal murder of his preteen nephew Lian whose blood was used to create the first Crest - the Crest of the Beast, the very crest that has caused Marianne a lifetime of pain. In the end, he can't even bring himself to say what the Agarthans did to his siblings - he can only make a leading remark that allows the students to make the connection. Hearing the story makes Dimitri and Felix throw up, Dedue pass out, and Byleth break down in silent tears.
Michael Blaiddyd's interlude. Michael reveals via flashback that he met one of Sothis's children, Vishnu, prior to the Red Canyon massacre and fell in love with him... only to later unwittingly take his blood and bones to become one of the First Crest Bearers, because he'd been completely unaware that Vishnu was a dragon.
His death is both that and heartwarming as he gets to die forgiven by Indech and clearly at peace. It really drives home how much of a tragedy the Elites are in this continuity, more victims than the monsters the game seems to depict them as.
Surprisingly, given how she was portrayed throughout the story, Edelgard's death is surprisingly depressing for how...unceremonious it is. Unlike the game, where she either dies requesting Byleth execute her or after having chosen to become the Hegemon Husk in one last attempt to salvage her war, here Edelgard is completely stripped of her agency by Thales, forcibly transformed into the Hegemon Husk and placed under a Geas before being thrown out onto the field as a means of merely slowing the army down. She doesn't get to speak to Dimitri or anyone else, she doesn't get to make one last attempt at defiance—Maurice tackles her through the floor and she's impaled on the Viskam power spire. For an added punch, Byleth—who in game is always near her when she goes—prioritizes Maurice first so that Sothis can comfort him as he finally passes on.
The author explained in many replies to comments that this was intentional—like the victims of the demonic beast experiments that she was complicit in, Edelgard doesn't get a big grandiose moment befitting the Adrestian Emperor; she dies violently and alone, her will stripped from her and her body brutalized. It's another reminder that yes, in canon, there were real people who were subjected to this transformation, through no choice of their own, and that Edelgard is responsible for it.
