Tear Jerker / Triangle Strategy

Per wiki policy, Spoilers Off applies here and all spoilers are unmarked. You Have Been Warned.

With a story focused on wars both past and present, it's little surprise that this game has no shortage of tragedy.

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• Dragan's death, which provides the impetus for the main plot. While he was too ambitious for his own good, Dragan was an upstanding man in pretty much every other way, unlike most of his family, caring for both Frederica and the workers under his supervision. The main heroes aren't even able to give him a burial due to Gustadolph's opportunistic actions. When his father Svarog finds his body, he's practically in tears, only able to swear revenge for his murder.
• The early story puts Roland through the wringer: the Aesfrost attack costs him his brother, father, and mentor Ser Maxwell, and puts a big target on his back as he escapes to house Wolffort. He's either surrendered and used to force the rest of Wolffort to do Aesfrost's bidding, or if Wolffort defends him instead he feels the weight of all the lives lost in the proceeding battles until he can fake his death.
• For all of Frani's flaws, his last action is to step in front of Avlora in an attempt to save Cordelia and Roland. It suggests that he really did care about his siblings beneath it all, but now it's too late for him to show it any more than that.
• The character story for recruiting Jens has him find the body of a Glenbrook soldier laying on the ground with a broken sword. The man was a friend of Jens, and the sword was one he'd forged for the man, making Jens blame himself for the man's death and subsequently join the battlefield himself.
• Hossabara's past was not rosy: the father of her child, who she very much was head over heels for, left her for a "special-er someone." She raised their son alone, until he died sometime during the war. How the woman still carries on and has a kind heart is something.
• The entire history of the Roselle. The salt crystal was a gift from the Roselle in Centralia, but Hyzante stole the crystal and changed history, making it seem like the salt crystal was a blessing from the Goddess that the Roselle tried to steal. Not only did it plunge the continent in a war, the Roselle are treated as sinners, forced to live a life of slavery in the Source to repent.
• If you choose to take on Patriatte and the Royalists, you see a scene where he violently puts down some Glenbrook civilians who refuse to be extorted by him. They're seemingly saved by your intervention, but later their children reveal that they ultimately died.
• Similarly, going back to Castle Wolffort in Chapter 15. Lord Symon is stabbed, but he's still capable of helping in the fight, so a first-time player may think he'll survive... But then Symon dies anyway, in Serenoa's arms, even if you healed him up during the fight. Serenoa choosing to keep calling him "Father," even after he learns the truth, is both heartwarming and tear jerking.
• Quahaug's first side story after being recruited features him breaking down due to being abandoned by his mother and spending his life wondering where she even is. It's no wonder that Anna hugs him in an attempt to cheer the poor kid up.
• The three regular endings are all bittersweet as while they accomplish their end goals, a party member winds up ostracizing themselves due to their disagreeing philosophies with whichever path is chosen through the Scales of Conviction. There is also the matter of selected populaces that wind up suffering as a result of the outcomes of each route end.
  • The Moral Freedom ending has Serenoa sacrifice himself to stop Idore's suicide attack from hurting his friends and the Rosellans escaping with him. Worse still, this is just after he and Frederica affirm their love for each other and the Rosellans from the village give her the finished wedding gown they made for her. Prior to this, Benedict leaves the party, unable to stomach the decision to abandon House Wolffort and Norzelia all together. However, he is seen again in the epilogue, in which during the "Era of Salt and Blood" where many wars were waged to obtain possession of the salt crystals, having become Gustadolph's new tactician in exchange for the protection of the remnants of the Wolffort demesne. That is a bit of relief for what is left of House Wolffort, considering that their last lord perished and all other key members fled the country, leaving the people to enduring the constant fighting for salt and Benedict alone striving to keep them together. They might not have even learned that Serenoa sacrificed his life and think he's living a carefree life in Centralia, so it is difficult to say which mindset would be worse.
    • If one has learned of the events from Benedict's endgame, then they would see how stuck to his own past oaths Benedict is and how unfulfilled they become when Serenoa chooses to leave with Frederica. It's admirable as is sad. In one interpretation, Benedict has become like another father figure to Serenoa, especially with Symon dying prior and thus Benedict would then take over to help guide his young ward, and had stated to have nothing but his best interests on mind, making him quite relatable to parents and parental figures regarding their children making reckless choices.
  • The Liberated Utility ending creates a huge gap between the rich and the poor due to King Serenoa not upholding his social obligations, to the point that a potential rebellion would be sparked by Roland, Serenoa's best friend and the one who leaves the party during the route due to his vehement refusal to cooperate with Aesfrost. Roland is seen as nothing more than a monk helping feed the impoverished and is indicated to be working with Idore, who escaped capture following the fall of Hyzante. The idea that a former best friend would be driven to insurrect because of the way things are running is a bitter pill to swallow.
    • In addition to learning that Serenoa is his half-brother on top of being his best friend and chose to duel him, Roland has lost many things prior during the regular playthrough. The loss of his kingdom, his father and brother, and the trust of his people added on top of his own self-esteem issues broke him prior to these crossroads, which then justify his willingness after to give up his own crown and country to Hyzante and their Goddess of Salt for peace. He is well aware of his powerlessness, not helped by his burning hate for Gustadolph and Aesfrost because of them starting the disasters that greatly changed his life. But the fact that he would break off and go separate ways from Serenoa because of his disagreement with the Scales of Conviction outcome really shows how much he changed over the course of the story.
  • The Utilized Morality ending not only has the Roselle still suffer by Hyzante's laws, but anyone who tries to negate the Goddess teachings will also be condemned to work at the Source and the mines in an attempt to maintain the peace. While there is indeed peace with all of Norzelia united under Hyzante's teachings of the Goddess of Salt, players will know from various cues and previous playthroughs of what these teachings really are. As for Frederica, the party member that leaves in this route due to sacrificing the freedom of the Roselle, she is not even shown in the epilogue, compared to Roland and Benedict in the other endings. Instead, a segment shows Geela, her former attendant, overhearing a couple of citizens about a nun having established an "odd sect" to counter the teachings of the Goddess of Salt, preaching about the true history of Norzelia and the abundance of salt from the region of Centralia before being chased away by thrown rocks. The only clues that indicate that this nun is Frederica include her Leitmotif playing and the description of her beauty despite having no hair. Her having no hair unfortunately indicates her having to hide her Rosellan heritage to survive under the new rule of Norzelia in order to overthrow Hyzante's teachings and free her people, which is getting a bit of traction due to the mention of ardent followers.
    • Prior to leaving the party, the voice actress does a magnificent job of making the player feel Frederica's heartbreak and anguish as she begs Serenoa to reconsider, then challenges her betrothed to a duel in tones that make it clear she is in real pain as her love is about to throw her people under the bus. She even states that her acceptance into House Wolffort, despite initially being set up by nobility for their own schemes, made her feel that she finally belonged somewhere. And given what players learn of her Dark and Troubled Past, from receiving harsh racial treatment as a Roselle to her own half-siblings tormenting her growing up, it's no wonder she was more than happy to express being part of House Wolffort previously. And Frederica stating to have developed genuine feelings for Serenoa with him also reciprocating during their duel, prior to his decision to follow Roland's plan to sacrifice the Roselle's freedom makes their inevitable separation in this route all the more painful.
    • In the final battle of the route you face not the mighty Archduke Gustadolph, but Svarog, an old man, grieving and broken at the death of his son. Svarog throws utterly bitter words at Serenoa and Roland, stating that whatever their intentions were, all those who had dreams for the future are dead, and as he hasn't the time or the strength to fulfill those dreams, he's decided that it's Better to Die than Be Killed for the entire country of Aesfrost.
    • The reveal at the end of the final battle that the Aesfrosti archives have been destroyed as a result of Svarog's madness, and that even if that hadn't happened, Exharme was going to burn them down anyway to keep the people ignorant "for their own good". The greatest collection of accumulated knowledge on the entire continent. A national landmark. Perhaps the physical manifestation of a flawed and human society's every redeeming quality. All of it, reduced to ashes and casually dismissed.